[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 131 (Wednesday, September 7, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5352-S5353]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              DEBT CRISIS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the debt crisis has become a jobs 
crisis. There is no doubt in my mind that the debt we have now incurred 
is already weakening our economy. The gross Federal debt has increased 
by almost $5 trillion since President Obama took office, surging past 
100 percent of our gross domestic product--100 percent of the size of 
the economy.
  Academic research shows this level of debt is already costing us 1 
million jobs a year. Our debt is destroying growth and confidence in 
the economy. More borrowing--more borrowing--will only make matters 
worse. But according to the Associated Press in an article today, the 
President's job plan will add another $300 billion to the debt.
  This is the article by David Espo:

       The economy weak and the public seething, President Obama 
     is expected to propose $300 billion in tax cuts and Federal 
     spending Thursday night to get Americans working again.

  I would say that is what he says will get the American people working 
again. But we have already borrowed all we can borrow without damaging 
the economy. It has come to a point where we can't keep borrowing in a 
futile attempt to stimulate the economy when the increased debt itself 
is weakening the economy.
  The article goes on to say this:

       According to people familiar with White House 
     deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the proposal 
     for 2012--

that begins October 1 of this year, fiscal year 2012--

     are expected to be a one-year extension of the payroll tax 
     for workers and an extension of expiring jobless benefits. 
     Together those two would total about $170 billion.

  It goes on:

       The White House is also considering a tax credit for 
     businesses that hire the unemployed. That could cost about 
     $30 billion. Obama has also called for public works projects, 
     such as school construction. Advocates of that plan have 
     called for spending of $50 billion . . .

on school construction. I don't think school buildings are the problem 
with our education right now, and when we don't have any money, we have 
to be careful about borrowing more to spend.
  It goes on to say--and this is significant:

       Though Obama has said he intends to propose long-term 
     deficit reduction measures to cover the up-front costs of his 
     jobs plan, White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would 
     not lay out a wholesale deficit reduction plan in his speech.

  In other words, he won't lay out a plan that would pay for it.
  So this is where we are heading, it seems to me.
  Remember the big debate we had over the debt ceiling that ended just 
before our August recess at the eleventh hour and the 59th minute. We 
remember how much spending reductions it would call for in the next 
fiscal year: $7 billion. That is how much we would actually cut 
spending next fiscal year: $7 billion. And this plan has called for 
over $300 billion in spending anew, not paid for. We are already in 
debt. We are already borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and 
we are going to add another $300 billion in spending, not paid for, 
borrowed, every penny of it. At some point, this country gets to a 
position where we cannot continue to borrow without damaging the 
economy. It is that simple. Americans understand it. As one man told me 
in Evergreen, AL: you can't borrow your way out of debt. You cannot 
borrow your way out of debt. We have reached and gone past that limit, 
in my opinion.
  In order to have the kind of robust growth we desperately need, we 
must remove the looming threat of a Greek-like debt crisis. We must do 
so. This debt has a chilling effect throughout our economy. Indeed, a 
European banker just a few days ago said this feels like 2008, and that 
gained quite a bit of traction because people were feeling that, but 
nobody was saying it, and he was quoted all over the business channels 
about 2008 and the crisis we might be facing.
  But the President has refused to do anything to actually reduce the 
surge in spending that he has engineered, nor have our Senate 
Democratic colleagues here in the Senate. The House proposed a sound 
budget plan that would reduce spending over the next 10 years and 
change the debt trajectory of America, but we spent almost $8 trillion 
here in the Congress since the Senate Democratic majority has passed a 
budget--861 days. In fact, the Lewis and Clark expedition lasted 860 
days. We have passed that now, without having a budget. That is a do-
nothing record. It just is.
  At a time of national crisis, we have a failure of leadership in the 
Senate and in the Presidency, in my opinion. President Obama has never 
once looked the American people in the eye and told them the bitter 
truth about the economic dangers we are facing and how much work must 
be done to get us back on a sound, secure path. It is hard to ask a 
people to sacrifice. It is hard to ask the American public to make 
tough choices if the President, our

[[Page S5353]]

leader, will not affirm that we need to make these choices because it 
is a serious threat to America. Admiral Mullen, who is the Chairman of 
the Joint Chiefs, has stated that the greatest threat to our security 
is the national debt. Every expert tells us that the greatest threat to 
our country is the debt. In my opinion, it dwarfs any other threat this 
Nation faces. Yet according to the Associated Press, the President's 
speech is going to talk about spending and nothing about how to deal 
with the debt, or nothing significant about that.
  So the rhetoric needs to confront reality. The President has given a 
number of speeches about creating jobs and reducing the deficit. But a 
speech is no substitute for a budget or for a detailed plan. The only 
plan the President has ever put on paper--the only plan that can be 
reviewed by the press, the public, and Congress--is his February 
budget. He reaffirmed that plan last week, sending Congress a 
midsession review that made no policy changes in his budget he 
submitted earlier. He had the 500-person Office of Management and 
Budget staff working for him. Is it too much to ask for a real plan? 
Whatever he may say on Thursday night, on paper--officially--he remains 
committed to this budget plan that grows the debt by about $12 trillion 
and raises taxes by about $2 trillion. What it does is it increases 
spending and increases taxes significantly, but the increase in 
spending is greater than the increase in taxes. So the net result is 
that the President's plan makes the budget projections we have from the 
Congressional Budget Office worse than they would be if we didn't have 
this budget plan.
  America needs the confidence that only a concrete plan can provide. 
The constant threat of more Federal taxing, borrowing, and regulating 
undermines confidence, certainty, and predictability in our economy, 
that which our economy so desperately needs.
  This isn't a question simply of ideology; it is a question of 
leadership. We need and have to grow the economy, not the government. 
We need to grow the economy. America needs a budget plan that 
recognizes a core truth. Our Nation's strength does not lie in the size 
of our government, but in the scope of our freedoms and in the 
creativity of our people. We need to focus on policies that unleash the 
enormous productive potential of the private sector. We need to focus 
on policies that remove instability fostered by the President's refusal 
to put forward a coherent economic plan that will actually reduce debt, 
not make it worse, and that would end the threat of high taxes and 
improve conditions for our job creators. Instead of the failed tax-and-
spend approach the voters rejected in the last election, we need to 
focus on policies that create jobs--not more bureaucracy--helping to 
steady the economy in these difficult, uncertain times. That would 
include such things as energy production. We have definitely damaged 
and delayed significantly the production of energy in the gulf far 
beyond what was necessary. Only now is it beginning to come back. We 
are having incredibly increased regulations of every kind on our 
economy, and we have failed to undertake the kind of serious tax reform 
that could help create growth and productivity. So these are very 
dangerous things.
  I wish to remind our colleagues that the debt problem can't all be 
blamed on President Bush. I was a critic of some of his spending 
programs. But, for example, in the last 3 years of President Bush's 
plans compared to the first 3 years of President Obama's, he has 
increased spending for education 67 percent. His budget for the next 
fiscal year beginning October 1, which was defended a few weeks ago in 
the Appropriations Committee, calls for a 13.5-percent increase in the 
Education Department. His budget plan calls for a 10.5-percent increase 
in the Energy Department. I affectionately call them the Department of 
Anti-Energy, the Anti-Energy Department. The State Department is 
looking at a 10.5-percent increase. At a time when we are borrowing 40 
cents of every dollar we spend, how can this be reality? Now we are 
talking about $300 billion which will be thrown in on top of this to 
stimulate the economy again. I hope and trust there are some things the 
government can do to improve the economy, but I am afraid we are at a 
point where borrowing more money is not one of them.
  Look what the Europeans have done. They are facing a similar crisis. 
Do they think they should borrow more and spend more? Is that what they 
are doing? No. They are taking their medicine. Italy is attempting to 
pass a $65 billion austerity plan that would balance their budget by 
2013. The budget the President submitted to us does not even come close 
to balancing in 10 years. In fact, the projected annual 1-year deficit 
under the President's plan for the tenth year of his 10-year budget is 
$1 trillion plus. The highest budget deficit President Bush ever had 
was $450 billion. He will average almost $1 trillion a year--$1,000 
billion average--over 10 years. The interest payment last year was $240 
billion. The CBO projects in the tenth year after President Obama has 
doubled the deficit based on his budget, interest in 1 year will be 
$840 billion, crowding out things such as aid to education, which is 
$100 billion, Federal aid to highways, $40 billion.
  We cannot continue on this path. Italy is making a change. What about 
Spain? These are three of the so-called ``PIGS'' in Europe, the ones 
that are in financial trouble. Spain is planning a constitutional 
amendment and complementary law that will require close to balanced 
budgets at the Federal and State levels and to limit Federal debt to 60 
percent of their economy. The enacted austerity plan reduces salaries 
of public sector workers and cuts public sector spending.
  Portugal has a 4-year consolidation plan that will reduce Federal 
spending by 7 percent of GDP and would balance the budget by 2015. We 
have no plan to balance the budget, nothing close to it. Indeed, the 
plan the President has submitted to us--and I am not exaggerating. This 
is in the record books. We have the two-volume budget he sent to us, 
and it has been analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office. It will 
average $1 trillion a year in deficits, which I suppose is why, when I 
brought it up, the Senate voted 97 to 0 to reject the budget. We do not 
have one. That is the only one that is pending.
  Our Democratic colleagues cancelled the budget markup in the Budget 
Committee in which I am the ranking Republican--we never even pretended 
to produce a budget this year. Senator Reid, the majority leader, said 
it would be ``foolish'' to do so.
  So we are now looking at a crisis that involves millions of 
Americans, the jobs they, hopefully, have now and hope to continue, and 
those who have lost their jobs. Unemployment has almost doubled. So we 
are facing a difficult time. I know the pressure is on to just do 
something so we can politically say we did something. But that is not 
sufficient now. We need mature, strong, detailed leadership, a detailed 
plan that will put us on a path to a sound economy.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. SESSIONS. We need a plan. I hope the President will do more than 
the article in the newspaper says and provide the kind of specific 
leadership that can help us move forward from the economic difficulties 
we face.
  I yield the floor.

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