[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 115 (Thursday, July 28, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5001-S5002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE DEBT CEILING
Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, I follow my colleague who mentioned
our need to prevent default. The need we have--the reason we are here
and why there will be a vote in the House and the Senate tonight--has
to do with the need of our Nation to prevent default, and also, of
course, the need to cut spending. Our problem is that we spend too
much. Americans all around the country are calling in to Members of the
House and Senate and saying: Hey, let's get things under control and
let's cut the spending.
My friends on the other side of the aisle, I am happy to see with the
proposals being brought forth, are beginning to understand what my
constituents in Wyoming have known from the very beginning: Americans
are not taxed too little, Washington spends too much. But the President
seems to be more concerned about the next election than about the next
generation of Americans.
I was astonished last week when the President was addressing the
Nation and he talked about what his bottom line was in this whole
debate. He said:
The only bottom line I have is that we have to extend this
debt ceiling through the next election, into 2013.
This was the President of the United States saying this:
The only bottom line I have is that we have to extend this
debt ceiling through the next election, into 2013.
Since 1962, the debt ceiling has been raised 74 times. On average,
the debt ceiling is usually for about 8 months. But now the folks on
the other side, and the President, are calling for the largest debt
ceiling increase in history and it is designed to last a lot longer
than 8 months--almost for a year and a half, as the President wants it
to go into 2013; and specifically, as he said, through the next
election.
The President's Treasury Secretary has essentially said the same
thing. He said:
We have to lift this threat of default from the economy
for, you know, for the next 18 months. We have to take that
threat off the table through the election.
Well, if the President and the Treasury Secretary get their way, they
will be able to ignore the single biggest threat to our national
security until after the next election. As the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff has said: The greatest threat to our national security
is the debt.
The President could have gotten what he wanted last week--which is an
increase in the debt ceiling beyond the election--when the House passed
its cut, cap, and balance legislation. I was one of the original
cosponsors of that in the Senate. I was in favor of it, supported it,
and continue to support that. Instead, the President issued a veto
threat. He told Democrats in the Senate to kill it. After all, they are
still the majority party.
The Senate Democrats, I believe tonight, will have the power to save
our country's finances once again. They can do that by passing the
Boehner plan--pass it through this body and send it to the President's
desk for him to sign. Instead, the majority leader has said no
Democrat--not one--will support this plan. It has what the President
wants. It raises the debt ceiling. It lets us, as a nation, avoid
default. But it doesn't take us beyond the election.
It is interesting. It would seem support by the Democrats for this
plan would clearly signal their desire to continue working to rein in
Washington's wasteful spending, to get our fiscal house in order. But
that doesn't seem to be the signal the President wants to send. The
Boehner plan is the only plan currently on the table that can get
through the House of Representatives and protect us from default.
Republicans have put forward plan after plan. Democrats and the White
House have done nothing but criticize from the sidelines. The White
House Press Secretary has even said:
Leadership is not proposing a plan for the sake of having
it voted up or down and likely voted down.
That is what he said. He said the Democrats have even sent a letter
asking for a long-term debt increase. But how can we have a long-term
debt increase if they have no plan to get there? The White House
Secretary claimed recently the President's plan is well-known. He said:
There is no plan that has been offered, certainly in the
last several months, about which more detail is known.
I say: Where are the details? I want to know how I could get this
well-known plan and share it with my constituents back home in Wyoming.
How
[[Page S5002]]
did the CBO score this plan that, according to the President's Press
Secretary, is a plan about which so much detail is known? Where is it?
What is the CBO score? Where is the text of it? How can we read it and
bring it here and discuss or debate it?
These things don't exist--neither a CBO score nor a text--because the
White House has continually refused to release a plan, even with pleas
coming from Congress and from the media. I can understand why the
President might be reluctant, since the time he last brought a budget
to this body it was defeated 97 to 0. Not one Democrat voted in support
of what the President had proposed--not one. No one supported the
President's budget plan.
There is a Reid plan being proposed. According to the Congressional
Budget Office, the Reid plan cuts about $2.2 trillion from our budget
over the next 10 years. But if you dig a little deeper, you find these
so-called cuts are accounting gimmicks. The House Budget Committee
looked at the Reid plan and their assessment was not very flattering.
Let me quote from that assessment:
Reid's plan relies on the inaccurate assumption that surge-
level spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is scheduled to
continue over the next decade.
No one in America, and I would hope no one in the White House,
believes that surge level spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is scheduled
to continue over the next decade. But the plan endorsed by the
President relies on such an inaccurate assumption. Why is he trying to
mislead the American people? The Democrats are claiming to save money
by cutting spending that was never, ever going to be spent in the first
place. This is the strongest possible proof the White House is not
realistically dealing with the situation and is not, in my opinion,
serious about realistically and reliably cutting the debt.
In fact, even if you assume the Reid plan would work, it wouldn't cut
spending fast enough to keep up with the spending the President is
doing. The President wants to borrow at least $2.4 trillion to get him
through the election--to get him into 2013. But the last draft of the
floor plan we are going to be asked to discuss cuts $2.2 trillion over
10 years while raising the debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion. It would take
over a decade to pay back what this President wants to borrow over the
next year and a half. So we would still be borrowing at a much higher
rate than we are cutting. That is not responsible leadership.
Responsible leadership would be to recognize the solution to our
country's financial woes, and that solution is to avoid default, while
consistently cutting spending and balancing our books the way that
families do. That solution would require us to keep working until we
get it right. That is the theory at the heart of Speaker Boehner's
plan.
The President talks about wanting a balanced approach. That means
different things to different people. When the President is talking
about wanting more taxes, I think what Americans want is actually a
balanced budget. Speaker Boehner will bring us one step closer to that
balance by forcing a vote on the balanced budget amendment to the
Constitution. I look forward to voting for a balanced budget amendment
to the Constitution.
We live under a constitution in the State of Wyoming, and from the
very beginning we have balanced our budget. As a result, we have excess
money and scholarships available to all students to study at our
universities and community colleges, because year after year we live
within our means.
The President talked a bit about public opinion being important in
this debate. Yet he is opposed to a balanced budget constitutional
amendment. In a recent Sachs/Mason-Dixon poll, 65 percent of Americans
say they support a balanced budget constitutional amendment. So where
is the respect for that public opinion? The Boehner plan works because
its authors have listened to the American people.
The White House refuses to seriously confront the problems facing our
Nation, and Democrats are trying to shut down the only plan that can
pass the House and save us from default. I am alarmed at their denial
about how to solve these problems. The President must not veto America
into default. It is time we pass a real plan that cuts spending and
avoids default. We don't need to wait until midnight on August 1 or
August 2. We can do it, and we should do it today.
Madam President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
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