[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 192 (Wednesday, December 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8565-S8567]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION RELATIVE TO REQUIRING A
BALANCED BUDGET--S.J. RES. 24
______
PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
RELATIVE TO BALANCING THE BUDGET--S.J. RES. 10--Resumed
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume the en bloc consideration of S.J. Res. 10 and S.J.
Res. 24, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 24) proposing an amendment to
the Constitution relative to requiring a balanced budget.
A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 10) proposing an amendment to
the Constitution of the United States relative to balancing
the budget.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there is
5 minutes of debate equally divided prior to votes on passage of the
measures.
The Republican leader is recognized.
Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday and today my Republican
colleagues here in the Senate have been coming to the floor one after
another to deliver a simple, urgent message, one that I hear every time
I am home in Kentucky: Washington simply must change course. The
spending spree must end. We must put our Nation's fiscal house in order
before it is too late.
This is not a partisan message. Everyone recognizes that both parties
played a role in getting us to this point. But let's be clear,
Republicans are the only ones in Congress right now who are attempting
to do something meaningful about fiscal restraint. The only way we will
actually achieve it is by acting together on serious legislation such
as the balanced budget amendment Republicans are voting on today--not
through thinly veiled cover votes such as the one Democrats plan to
hold alongside this morning.
For nearly 3 years now, Republicans have stood up to the fiscal
recklessness of this administration and pleaded with the President and
Democrats in Congress to stop the spending spree--stop it--and work
with us on a serious plan to put our Nation's fiscal house in order.
For nearly 3 years we have met nothing but resistance. I even read
this week that some Democrats in Congress actually view our insistence
on fiscal responsibility as a good political issue for them. They say
Americans have moved on, that they do not want to hear about fiscal
restraint anymore. Apparently these Democrats are content to let this
crisis continue to build and build until it pops up in the polls again.
What Republicans have been saying this week is that we do not have
that luxury. We cannot wait for a European-style calamity to happen
right here to finally do something about our fiscal problems, nor
should we want to. After all, we were not elected to get reelected. We
were elected to recognize the Nation's problems and to face up to them
with foresight and with courage.
That is why Republicans have kept up our call for a serious and
effective balanced budget amendment. We have seen all the statistics--
that Congress now borrows more than 40 cents for every dollar it
spends; that interest payments on the debt alone will soon crowd out
spending on things such as education and defense; that annual deficits
under this President routinely double and triple the previous record.
We know where it has gotten us. Under this President, the national
debt has rocketed from $10.1 trillion all the way up to 15.1 trillion,
more than a 40-percent increase in the national debt under this
President in a record time of less than 3 years, a run of fiscal
mismanagement only matched in its recklessness by total unwillingness
to correct it.
The President's most recent budget was so irresponsible that not a
single Member of the Senate voted for it, not one. The President's
budget was voted down unanimously here in the Senate.
What about the first ever downgrade of U.S. debt, did that prompt
action? Not in this White House. It prompted a round of ``shoot the
messenger'' instead. This President's entire approach to our Nation's
fiscal problems has been to sit back and blame somebody else, even as
he continues to make all of these problems worse.
There was a time when President Obama claimed to believe in the
importance of paying our debts. As a Senator he stood on this very
floor and chastised his predecessor for even asking the Congress to
raise the Nation's debt limit. He called it a failure of leadership.
Yet earlier this year, as President
[[Page S8566]]
he demanded that Congress approve the single largest debt limit
increase ever requested by a U.S. President--without any plan at all to
cover the cost. It was this kind of fiscal recklessness that roused
Republicans to recommit ourselves to the idea that, if we are going to
preserve the American dream for our children, Congress has to stop
spending more than it takes in, and it was the Democrats' resistance to
that idea that convinced us the only way to make sure it happens is
through a constitutional amendment that actually requires it.
For too long, the politics of the moment or of the next election have
been put ahead of Congress's responsibility to balance the books. Too
many promises have been made that cannot possibly ever be kept, and now
the time for serious action has come; we must prevent what is happening
in Europe from happening here.
That is what our balanced budget amendment would do. By permanently
limiting Congressional spending to the historical norm of 18 percent of
gross national product, and through a new three-fifths supermajority of
both Houses of Congress to raise the debt limit, the balanced budget
amendment Republicans are proposing today would go a long way in
preventing that day of reckoning from happening right here in America.
Every single Senator should support it.
Democrats here in Washington know the American people want Congress
to get its fiscal house in order. That is why they proposed a balanced
budget amendment of their own. Unfortunately, they have no real
intention of passing it. If they did, they would join us in supporting
a bill that we know would lead to the kind of fiscal restraint the
American people are asking for.
I ask my friends on the other side to join us. It is not too late. We
are only going to solve this problem together. Republicans are doing
our part. We need them to do theirs. The American people are asking us
to act. Let's do it. If this President will not take America's fiscal
problems seriously, Congress should do it for him.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. President, as I rise to ask for the yeas
and nays on the amendment, I point out my amendment is not a cover
amendment. It includes many of the principles and provisions the House
considered in a balanced budget amendment they voted on recently, and
it also contains many of the provisions and principles that this body
in the 1990s considered when Paul Simon and Senator Hatch and many
others led on a balanced budget amendment proposal.
With that, I ask for the yeas and nays on S.J. Res. 24.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 21, nays 79, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 228 Leg.]
YEAS--21
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Blumenthal
Brown (OH)
Carper
Casey
Feinstein
Gillibrand
Hagan
Heller
Klobuchar
Kohl
Manchin
McCaskill
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Wyden
NAYS--79
Akaka
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Bingaman
Blunt
Boozman
Boxer
Brown (MA)
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Conrad
Coons
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Durbin
Enzi
Franken
Graham
Grassley
Harkin
Hatch
Hoeven
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (SD)
Johnson (WI)
Kerry
Kirk
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Lee
Levin
Lieberman
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Moran
Murkowski
Murray
Paul
Portman
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Risch
Roberts
Rockefeller
Rubio
Sanders
Schumer
Sessions
Shaheen
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Toomey
Udall (NM)
Vitter
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wicker
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 21, the
nays are 79. Two-thirds of the Senate duly chosen and sworn not having
voted in the affirmative, the joint resolution is rejected.
S.J. Res. 10
Under the previous order, there will now be 2 minutes of debate,
equally divided, prior to a vote on S.J. Res. 10.
Who yields time? The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Madam President, this is the last chance to vote for a
constitutional amendment that will truly do something, that will tie
the hands of Congress so they have to live within fiscal constraints.
We are taxing and spending this country into bankruptcy. We have a $15
trillion-plus national debt, growing to $20 trillion to $30 trillion.
We don't have any restraint around here.
People say: If we just live up to the Constitution and restrain
ourselves, we can do that. They have been saying that for 35 years. The
only time we have come to a balanced budget around here is when we had
the first Republican Congress in over 40 years and we had a President
who was willing to support it.
This is our chance to try to do something for our country that will
stop the outrageous, out-of-control spending. We need to do it. This
amendment is the only one that can do it.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I have actually voted for a balanced
budget. Democrats in this Chamber and in the other Chamber voted for
one and it passed. Not a single Republican voted for it. During the
Clinton administration, we were able to balance the budget and start
paying down the debt. A huge surplus was left to his successor and it
was squandered by that administration.
We should not enshrine the extreme provisions in the current proposal
in our Constitution. We should not make it more difficult for Congress
to respond to economic and natural disasters. Proponents of this
amendment say: Let's let the courts make these decisions. Let us not
transform our courts into budget-cutting bodies. They are not equipped
to perform that role. Even Justice Scalia, testifying before our
committee, laughed at the idea that they could do that.
The Hatch-McConnell proposal will do nothing to spur economic growth
or ease the partisan gridlock in the Congress. It will do the opposite.
It will enshrine bad fiscal policy in the Constitution. A vote for this
proposal is a vote for dramatic cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and
veterans' benefits.
Partisan efforts like this may be good bumper-sticker politics, but
they are bad solutions. I wish those who say they revere the
Constitution would show it the respect it deserves rather than treating
it like a blog entry.
I urge Senators to oppose this radical and ill-considered proposal to
amend our Constitution.
Mr. VITTER. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second? There
appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is, Shall the joint resolution pass?
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
The result was announced--yeas 47, nays 53, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 229 Leg.]
YEAS--47
Alexander
Ayotte
Barrasso
Blunt
Boozman
Brown (MA)
Burr
Chambliss
Coats
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Enzi
Graham
Grassley
Hatch
Heller
Hoeven
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Johnson (WI)
Kirk
Kyl
Lee
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Paul
Portman
Risch
Roberts
Rubio
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Toomey
Vitter
Wicker
NAYS--53
Akaka
Baucus
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Blumenthal
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Coons
Durbin
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson (SD)
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Manchin
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
[[Page S8567]]
Nelson (NE)
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 47, the
nays are 53. Two-thirds of the Senators voting not having voted in the
affirmative, the joint resolution is rejected.
The Senator from Illinois.
____________________