[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 117 (Saturday, July 30, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5090-S5092]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there is nobody in the Senate I respect
and admire more than my counterpart, the Democratic leader. But we have
been subjected, last night and again just a few moments ago, I would
say to my colleagues from Wyoming and Idaho, to some Orwellian
discussion about what is a filibuster. Most Americans, when asked the
question ``What is a filibuster?'' would believe it was delaying
something--delaying something.
So we have the astonishing development here that my good friend the
majority leader is delaying a vote on something he wants to pass. We
were prepared to have this vote last night. We are prepared to have
this vote momentarily. We are prepared to have this vote at any point.
I want to disabuse my good friend of the notion that somehow it is
going to pass. We just--he has not seen it yet, but we just delivered a
letter to his office with 43 of my colleagues on it saying they are not
going to vote for it. The House of Representatives is going to speak at
2:30 on this issue. They are not going to vote for it.
With regard to the 60-vote threshold, let me quote my good friend the
majority leader:
March 5, 2007: ``In the Senate, it has always been the case, you need
60 votes.''
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January 30, the same year: ``60 votes are required for just about
everything.''
Now, look, we know that on controversial matters in the Senate, it
has for quite some time required 60 votes. So I would say again to my
friend, it is pretty hard to make a credible case that denying a vote
on your own proposal is anything other than a filibuster.
We know that August 2 is Tuesday. The American people are frustrated
with us. They want us to come together and reach an agreement. The
measure my good friend is offering is not acceptable to the Senate, is
not acceptable to the House, will not pass. I think the American people
would appreciate it if we go on and get that out of the way and get
serious about talking.
With regard to talking, let me say who ought to be in the talks. The
majority leader, myself, the Speaker, and the minority leader of the
House spent most of last weekend talking to each other. In fact, we
were called down to the White House for a meeting around 11 o'clock on
that Saturday, and I suggested the President give us a chance to go up
to the Hill and see what we could work out together. We came close
enough together to where my good friend, the majority leader--while I
understand he believes he didn't fully endorse it but at least went
down there to advocate what we thought we could agree to on that Sunday
afternoon. The President said no.
I became convinced that even though my friend, the majority leader,
and I would love to work this out, we can't do it by ourselves. It has
to have the only person who can sign something into law. There are 307
million Americans, but only 1 can sign something into law.
My suggestion to my good friend, the majority leader, is let's vote
on his proposal. It is not going to pass. Let's get to talking to the
administration again in the hopes that we can come together behind
something that can pass both the Senate and the House and be signed
into law before Tuesday.
I don't blame anybody for being confused about what has been going on
in Congress this week. I will take a moment to explain what is going on
right now.
Last night, the Democrats, who control the Senate, proposed a bill
that would lead to the largest debt ceiling increase in the history of
the United States and which completely ignores the roots of this
crisis. This bill has one goal: to get the President through his next
election without having to have another national debate about the
consequences of his policies. The President wants to make sure this
kind of debate doesn't happen again, even as he gets Democrats in
Congress to give him permission to add trillions more to the debt. That
is what the Reid bill does. It is not going anywhere, as I described.
It will not pass the Senate. It will not pass the House. It is simply a
nonstarter.
Senate Republicans refuse to go along with this transparently
political and deeply irresponsible ploy to give the President cover to
make our debt crisis even worse than it already is. Forty-three of us,
as I indicated, have now signed a letter to the majority leader
pledging that we will not vote for his $2.4 trillion debt limit
amendment, which, if enacted, would result in the single largest debt
ceiling increase in the history of the United States.
Moreover, as I indicated earlier, we will soon know with certainty
that this bill can't pass the House of Representatives, as they will be
voting on it shortly.
Since there is no possibility this bill will be enacted into law, I
say again to my friend that he can hold the vote on his proposal here
and now. We are ready at any point to go on and have that vote and not
waste another minute of the Nation's time on this reckless piece of
legislation we know will not pass.
Earlier this week, the majority leader told the Speaker of the House
he was wasting the Nation's time by proceeding with a bill Senate
Democrats pledged to block, which the majority leader himself helped
put together but which he decided to oppose, as I indicated, after the
President said he didn't like it.
The question now is this: Why would my friend, the majority leader,
waste the Nation's time by refusing to vote on his own bill--his own
bill--which we also know will fail? Why would he not take his own
advice and get it over with? The answer seems to be obvious. The
Democrats are running out the clock. They want to delay the hard work
of negotiation until the August 2 deadline they have been warning us
about all summer.
The Democrats' entire strategy this particular week, since last
Sunday, has been to run out the clock so the Nation focuses more on the
August 2 deadline than their own failure to do something about the
underlying problem.
Republicans have now passed two pieces of legislation that would put
us on a path to fiscal sanity--not one but two have passed the House of
Representatives. Democrats spent the last few weeks figuring out how to
avoid that particular bill.
Democrats have spent their time talking about the tea party instead
of talking about a solution. They have done absolutely nothing but
stand in the way of a meaningful solution to this crisis and criticize
Republicans for having the audacity to suggest we might try to balance
the books.
Now we are reduced to this. They would not even allow a vote on their
own bill. They are delaying the inevitable so they can avoid doing
anything responsible. It is simply indefensible.
Once again, I ask my good friend the majority leader to let us vote
on his legislation. Let's get this irresponsible bill that we know will
fail up for a vote so we can get down to the real work of negotiating a
solution to the crisis with, as I indicated, the only person in America
who can sign something into law, the President of the United States.
The lesson from last weekend is, anything two parties agree to here
doesn't mean a thing if the President decides he doesn't like it and
that the Democrats will abandon their own agreements if the President
doesn't support them. Look, I don't blame them. I have been leader in
the party when we had a Republican President. It is a tough spot. One
is not a free agent. But we don't have time to go through that again.
We have a couple days to work this out, and we cannot do it without the
President.
Republicans have proposed solution after solution to this crisis. It
is time for our friends on the other side, including the President of
the United States, to figure out how we are going to come together and
solve this problem.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I believe my distinguished Republican friend
must be a little bit confused because he is usually totally logical. He
tells the American people this morning he was called to the White House
last week and said: Mr. President, let us do the deal, and now he is
telling the President he wants the President to do the deal. That is
somewhat illogical.
I wish to make sure everybody in the Senate understands clearly that
when negotiations took place last Sunday, in a meeting between Leader
Pelosi, me, the Speaker, and Senator McConnell, we tried very hard to
work something out. But everyone should understand, when we left that
meeting, we did not have anything worked out. We had nothing worked
out. They were focusing on a 6-month extension, trying to come up with
a trigger for the joint committee, which we have never been able to
accomplish.
It is OK they keep talking about an agreement the President
overruled, but the President cannot overrule an agreement we don't
have.
Mr. McCONNELL. Will my friend yield on that?
Mr. REID. Yes, I am happy to.
Mr. McCONNELL. Then it proves my case, if that is the case. We cannot
reach an agreement without the President. We tried to. I will concede
the point. My friend says he didn't actually agree to that. I take his
word for it. But it makes my point that there simply is no way, under
our constitutional system, for my friend and I to work this out. We
have to have the President at the table. I think the approach we tried
last weekend--we both agree it did not lead to an agreement.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the President of the United States, in the
presence of Senator McConnell, Senator
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Durbin, Senator Kyl, and the House leaders, said to all of us: No
President in history has spent as much time as I have on a compliant
basis--meaning with leaders--trying to come up with some effort on this
budget problem we are having today. The President has spent hours,
days, and weeks of his time working on this. As we know, he believed he
had--as I understand it--two tentative agreements with the Speaker. The
Speaker backed out of both of those.
The President--and I have not spoken to him this morning, but I did
several times yesterday--is willing to work with anybody who can give
him a proposal. That is my point today. As I said earlier--a letter is
coming, terrific--I have not received it yet, but I am sure it is
coming. The Republicans say they will not vote for my legislation. What
will they vote for? Do they have any ideas? Let me know. I will be
happy to work it in. We have gone so far as to even accept the
Republican bill we got from the House as a shell. Nobody has to worry
about it being my bill. If we work something out, it will be the
Boehner bill, if that makes everyone happy.
Mr. McCONNELL. If my friend will yield, I think the answer is a bill
the President agrees to sign. That is what we were trying to achieve
last weekend. We don't have time to ping-pong stuff across the Hill
anymore.
I think the majority leader and I are probably in basic agreement
that, with 2 days left, the only legislation Congress has time to deal
with, and should deal with, is something the President says he is
willing to sign. I am certainly not critical of the President for not
spending time on this. He has spent enormous time on it. But we have
not gotten a result yet.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, we are here dealing with reality, not a
world of fantasy. We are dealing with reality. The reality is, the debt
ceiling is fast approaching, and we have to raise it or default on our
debt. We have a matter before this body that would increase the debt
ceiling until March of 2013. It would reduce the debt by $2.4 trillion
on basically issues that the Republicans voted on. They talk about, I
don't think we need to do the overseas contingency fund because the
wars that were started--and still going on--by President Bush cost a
lot of money, trillions of dollars. The Congressional Budget Office and
the Office of Management and Budget have said those wars are winding
down. As a result of that, we will save $1 trillion. They have scored
it. That is a reduction in our debt.
I also think that if the Republicans have some way they want to
improve my legislation, please let somebody know. If they don't want to
call me, call the President of the United States. But we have to work
forward. Mine is the only proposal we have. If mine passes, we will
continue to push this because it should pass because it is the only
proposal we have left.
My friend says let us vote. We say the same thing. Let us vote. We
want to vote. Why in the world, on something as important as this,
can't we have an up-or-down vote as they had in the House? To underline
my point, my friend, the assistant Democratic leader, the whip, served
in the House longer than I did. They are taking up over there today, as
I understand it, what we call a consent calendar, which are issues that
are of minor importance, no controversy whatsoever. They are taking up
extending the debt ceiling on that calendar. I think that is unheard
of.
We are willing to vote right now, but 60 votes we are not willing to
take because this should not be filibustered. We are not going to agree
to the 6-month proposal because, as I indicated in my prepared remarks,
that would mean we would be back in this mess in a matter of weeks. We
want to be fully engaged.
I repeat to the people who are supposedly sending me this letter,
what do you want? What do I say to my caucus because my Republican
colleagues haven't come up with any alternative. It is easy to do. We
can amend my legislation. In the meantime, that will not happen, and we
are going to proceed forward and do the best we can to overcome this
filibuster.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I will wrap up my comments by pointing
out again the comments from my good friend, the majority leader, about
the nature of the Senate. He said it has always been the case that we
need 60 votes. We all know that. It is widely known in the country as
well. Most people believe a filibuster means we are trying to delay
something.
I wish to make clear to the American people Senate Republicans are
ready to vote on cloture on the Reid proposal in 30 minutes, in an
hour, as soon as we can get our colleagues over to the floor. We are
ready to vote. By requiring 60 votes, particularly on a matter of this
enormous importance, is not at all unusual. It is the way the Senate
operates.
I will not belabor it any further. We are happy to vote at any time
the majority leader thinks it would be appropriate to vote on his
proposal.
I yield the floor.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, a filibuster is known all over America as a
way to stall, prevent votes. That is all this is about. If my
Republican colleagues are so anxious to vote, let us have a vote. We
would move this matter down the field very quickly.
Finally, the matter that is now known as the Reid amendment, is that
the President's first choice? No. He wanted to do what he called the
grand deal. He thought he had that worked out with the Speaker. But the
President knows what I have put forward is good for the country. It
extends the debt ceiling and reduces the debt.
I say to my friend the Republican leader the President will sign my
legislation. My friend says he wants something the President will sign.
He will sign this. We can pass it tonight and get it through the House
and he would sign it tomorrow.
So, Mr. President, I would hope the world understands, our country
understands--because all Senators understand--this is another
filibuster being conducted in an effort to prevent our moving forward
to handle the debt situation we have in our country.
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