[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 114 (Wednesday, July 27, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Page S4945]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            The Debt Ceiling

  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I would like to express my support for the 
majority leader's plan to raise the debt ceiling and reduce the 
deficit. Our Nation, as we all know, faces a looming crisis.
  The markets have already warned us. Businesses are already postponing 
investments. We know the consequences of inaction. They are 
predictable. Borrowing costs for businesses and individuals will 
escalate. Interest payments on the debt will grow. Already anemic job 
growth will decline. Our Nation will run the risk of another financial 
catastrophe and possibly a return to recession. As Chairman Bernanke 
recently stated, the outcome would be ``calamitous.''
  Many Americans are struggling. Far too many remain out of work. They 
cannot be asked to absorb the shock waves of yet another failure to 
act. It is time, as the Senator from Texas just pointed out--and others 
have--for both sides and both Chambers to find common ground.
  Reasonable and responsible editorials from across the country have 
endorsed the majority leader's proposal. Well-meaning people on all 
sides have a genuine concern and have shown genuine concerns. We all--
most all of us--share those concerns about the implications of not 
acting.
  There are in the other party some individuals who view themselves as 
revolutionaries in the best sense of the word. They appear less 
concerned with the here and now than with where they want to take the 
country in the future. We all understand the two are connected and that 
looking to the future is vital to the country. The question, though, is 
the harm that might be caused by precipitous action.
  Columnist George Will wrote a column a few days ago likening the tea 
party movement of today to the beginning of the Goldwater-Reagan 
conservative era; that the Goldwater movement of 1964, even though it 
did not bring Senator Goldwater to the Presidency, was the first step 
toward the conservative revolution that culminated in Ronald Reagan's 
election in 1980.
  I am going to quote a couple of sentences Mr. Will wrote:

       The tea party, [which in his view is] the most welcome . . 
     . development since the Goldwater insurgency in 1964, lacks 
     only the patience necessary when America lacks the consensus 
     required to propel fundamental change. . . .

  Mr. Will goes on to say:

       If Washington's trajectory could be turned as quickly as 
     tea partyers wish . . . their movement would not be as 
     necessary as it is.

  Those are Mr. Will's words. That is Mr. Will's considered opinion. 
That may be so, and it may not be so. But the first rule of good 
governance is to do no harm. That does not mean we should not make 
cuts. That does not mean we should not look toward some of the 
directions this debate has taken us. But it means be careful when you 
are dealing with a fragility of national policy at a time like this.
  Some things sound better in a speech to a room full of activists than 
they actually are in the reality of how to govern and the practicality 
of how to actually bring about change, where change is needed.
  Senator Goldwater did not attempt to torpedo the economy in order to 
get his way. Ronald Reagan, in whose administration I proudly served, 
by the way, raised the national debt 18 times--more than any other 
President.
  I fought in Vietnam as an infantry marine. I am very proud of that. 
Those of us who did fight in Vietnam all remember the regretful quote 
of one infantry officer who lamented that during one battle he had to 
call in heavy artillery and airstrikes on a populated village; that he 
had to destroy a village in order to save it.
  I do not think the Republicans who are using this issue as a lever to 
bring about their view of radical change want to look back at a 
fractured economic recovery, a downgraded credit rating for the world's 
No. 1 economy, a citizenry that has become more angry and less capable 
of predicting its own financial future, and then say, as if all of this 
were not predictable, that they destroyed the American economy in order 
to save it.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I know my distinguished colleague, the 
senior Senator from West Virginia, is going to be seeking recognition, 
and perhaps others. I certainly have no objection to that. I realize we 
are on the Mueller nomination.
  I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding any interruption for 
other business, the Mueller vote still be at the time we originally 
planned, which is around 4 p.m.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.