[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 115 (Thursday, July 28, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4995-S4996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DEBT CEILING

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, there are currently two bills headed for 
a vote to raise the debt ceiling and to reduce spending. One of those 
two bills from the House, Speaker Boehner's, cuts about $1 trillion in 
spending and raises the debt ceiling by $1 trillion until the end of 
the year, approximately. That is about how long it would take to run up 
another $1 trillion in debt. The other bill from Senate Majority Leader 
Reid cuts about $1 trillion and raises the debt ceiling about $3 
trillion--or past the 2012 election. This is because the President said 
emphatically just a few days ago at a press conference:

       The only bottom line I have is that we have to extend this 
     debt ceiling through the next election, into 2013.

  So it is really quite simple. Speaker Boehner's bill lives up to the 
principle that I thought we had all agreed to: that every $1 in debt 
ceiling increase should be tied to a $1 reduction in spending. The 
spenders get an advantage since the spending reductions occur over 10 
years, whereas the debt ceiling would increase immediately. But that is 
the principle on which we have been operating.
  Senator Reid's bill is a hoax. It uses Washington gimmicks designed 
to make it look three times as large as it is. In reality, it hikes the 
debt ceiling $3 for every $1 in spending cuts over 10 years. The House 
bill is 1 to 1, the Senate bill is 3 to 1. We have demonstrated this 
exhaustively in a Budget Committee analysis that I don't think people 
would dispute. And the House approach--one of the primary ways this is 
accomplished is to count the reduction in spending over the war in Iraq 
and Afghanistan that is projected to occur and has already been 
projected to occur and count that as a spending cut. Speaker Boehner 
didn't do that. His would look $1 trillion better also if he used those 
numbers.
  The House approach is honest, it is straightforward, and it achieves 
$1 in cuts for every $1 in debt ceiling increase. It allows us to 
return to the table in a few months to assess our progress, see what is 
happening in the economy, and begin working toward the greater cuts 
that are needed.
  Senator Reid's bill relies on accounting tricks, takes the debt limit 
off the table until after the election, and exchanges a record $3 
trillion in debt hike for only one-third as much in debt cuts.
  My colleagues on the other side of the aisle signed a letter vowing 
to defeat the Boehner plan. I find this a little shocking, frankly, and 
surprising. Is it the position of the Senate Democratic majority that 
$1 trillion in cuts over 10 years is all we need to achieve between now 
and 2013? Is it their view that $1 in cuts for every $1 in debt limit 
increase is too steep or is it a political effort to protect the 
President by pushing the debt limit ceiling past the next election, 
creating the highest increase in debt ceiling, I think, in history, 
except for perhaps the one that the super Democratic majority in the 
Senate slipped through during the passage of the health care bill? Is 
it this election issue that Democrats would turn down an agreement on 
and put us at risk of financial disruption of our economy?
  So let's step back for a moment and look at the wider context. 
Washington is often consumed by political fights and blame games. It 
can be hard to differentiate between facts and talking points. But I 
would like to provide as honest an assessment as I can as to why we 
find ourselves in this unfortunate situation at the eleventh hour.
  We have a process, a statutory and legal process to arrive at a 
budget deal every single year. It is written into the law of the United 
States. The President is required to submit a budget, by law, each 
year, and each Chamber is required to pass one separately and then 
agree on one together.
  If the year had begun with a serious budget proposal from the 
President, we wouldn't be in this mess today. But he submitted a budget 
that would double our debt in 10 years, while he claimed it would not 
add to the debt and he claimed it would cause us to live within our 
means. Indeed, he had a substantial tax increase, very real tax 
increases of significant amounts, but his spending increased even more 
than that. So the net total of the President's budget was to make the 
debt trajectory we are on not better but worse, even with the tax 
increase. Indeed, his budget next year that he submitted proposed 
increases for the Education Department, the Energy Department, the 
State Department, and the

[[Page S4996]]

Transportation Department--those double-digit increases at a time when 
we are running the biggest deficit the Nation has ever sustained.
  Senate Democrats have refused to pass, meanwhile, in this body--pass 
or bring up a budget for 820 days, 2 years. The majority leader said it 
would be foolish to pass a budget. Foolish to not pass a budget?
  So these are facts. Our colleagues who run the Senate here have 
defied the law and sound policy all year long, and now we are paying 
the price--a last-minute, take-it-or-leave-it, panic vote. Nobody yet 
knows what is going to be in the legislation finally because of the 
rejection of any bill that seems to be out there at this time.
  If the White House or Senate Democrats had taken the budget process 
seriously last year and if they had presented a single credible plan to 
cut spending, we wouldn't be here at this eleventh hour. Indeed, our 
Democratic colleagues have insisted on secret meetings that shielded 
them from making any of their budget plans public, that shielded them 
from any real votes on spending and debt, and it appears those meetings 
have failed.
  Democrats have campaigned and sought control and a majority in the 
Senate, and they chose, in this time of fiscal crisis, not to engage in 
the budget process in a serious way. In fact, they are apparently so 
determined to avoid the public budget process that the Reid bill even 
includes language designed to circumvent the process for 2 more years.
  So you will forgive me if I am a little concerned by all these 
attacks on the tea party. They didn't start this fire; they sounded the 
alarm. Before the last election, when Democrats controlled both 
Chambers of Congress by substantial majorities, every conversation was 
about increasing spending, more, more, more. Congress passed a stimulus 
bill--the largest single onetime expenditure ever passed by any 
Congress or any nation in history, every penny of that borrowed. We 
were already hugely in debt. We are now borrowing 40 cents of every 
dollar. It passed. The Congress also passed the President's massive new 
health care entitlement. It passed the President's request for 
extraordinary increases in discretionary spending. Nondefense 
discretionary spending has gone up 24 percent at a time of record 
deficits in the last 2 years. We have added $4 trillion to our gross 
debt since the President took office. Just in the time since the Senate 
Democrats last passed a budget, we have spent more than $7 trillion 
without a budget. These are the facts.
  But after the 2010 election and the emergence of the tea party and 
commonsense American people who knew better about what is going on in 
Washington, we have finally begun to look at Washington's spending 
problems. Now, instead of just raising the debt ceiling with no 
spending cuts, as the White House initially and repeatedly demanded, we 
are talking about how to cut some spending.
  People in the tea party and those who share their concerns should not 
be the ones vilified. They are good, decent, patriotic Americans whose 
only crime is rightly fearing for the future of their Nation. Are they 
wrong to be concerned when this Congress spends money willy-nilly every 
day, 40 cents of it borrowed? They know this is not right, and that is 
the kind of message they have sent to us. We need to listen to the 
heart of America speaking.
  The last point I would like to make is about the issue of compromise. 
There have been suggestions that the Republicans have simply been 
unwilling to budge from their position. But the Boehner proposal 
represents only a small portion of the cuts the Republicans have 
advocated and that they believe should be achieved. This is truly a 
critical point and one the White House will not acknowledge. The House 
budget that they passed, a long-term 10-year budget that would change 
the debt trajectory of America and put us on a sound financial course 
in a responsible way, cuts $6 trillion in comparison to the President's 
request. The Toomey budget the Senate voted on cuts about $8 trillion. 
The House passed a plan, which I cosponsored, that not only cuts and 
caps spending but that requires the passage of a constitutional 
balanced budget amendment. In fact, all 47 Republican Senators have 
cosponsored a constitutional amendment to balance the budget.

  The $1 trillion in cuts Speaker Boehner is asking for would be, 
indeed, a modest first step, an effort to compromise and reach a number 
that had a realistic chance of passing this body. But under his plan we 
will return to the table after that $1 trillion increase in the debt 
ceiling has been used. This is far from the level of savings I wish to 
see, or the Republican House wishes to see. One trillion dollars is a 
bitter pill for a lot of those Members who know it is not enough. The 
economists and others and bondholders are telling us we need at least 
$4 trillion. That just reduces the crisis nature we are in. That would 
not come close to putting us on a path to a balanced budget over 10 
years. Reducing deficits by $4 trillion over 10 years when our deficits 
are going to increase by $9 trillion to $13 trillion over 10 years 
obviously does not solve our debt crisis. But $1 trillion is even much 
smaller. That was a figure that was believed that this Senate might 
accept, so the House Members, in order to avoid a debt crisis and a 
financial crisis over the debt ceiling, are apparently working hard and 
maybe they will send it over here, I don't know. They are working hard 
to try to do that. I think that is a reasonable compromise and a fair 
approach to this Congress.
  We are going to spend around $45 trillion over the next 10 years. 
That will add as much as $13 trillion to the gross debt. It is clear we 
have a lot more work to do. We are going to be fighting for cuts in 
spending bills, omnibus bills, continuing resolutions, and in every 
other place we can to impose fiscal discipline on this country. We must 
control spending. We must control and conquer the debt.
  The President said he wants a balanced approach to the deficit--a 
balanced approach. But a balance is not a tax hike that bails out the 
big spenders who surged our spending with stimulus bills and surging 
24-percent increases in discretionary spending. He is going to bail 
them out by raising taxes. We should never have run up that kind of 
spending. But balance is not a tax hike of that kind. Creating real 
balance, the right balance, means shifting power away from Washington, 
placing it in the safe hands of the American people. That is what the 
voters said last year when they gave a shellacking to the big spenders 
and that is what we should do now, and that is what I will be working 
for and I believe a lot of other people in the Congress on both sides 
of the aisle will be working for.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. McCaskill). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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