[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 10 (Tuesday, January 24, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S57-S59]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SENATOR MARK KIRK

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I wish to, similar to all my colleagues, 
express our sympathy and support and prayers for our colleague, Senator 
Kirk.
  Senator Kirk is someone who is new to the Senate but served for a 
good number of years in the House of Representatives and has already 
made a tremendous impact in coming to the Senate--incredibly smart, 
hard-working, thoughtful, knowledgeable on so many different subjects. 
So obviously we will miss his presence in the near term but hope and 
pray for a full, quick, complete recovery and hope to have him back 
with us soon. I know I speak for many of my colleagues, but I certainly 
wish to express my and my family's prayers and support for Senator Kirk 
and for his family as he tries to get back on his feet. We wish him all 
the best as he does that and hope he will return soon and be able to 
get involved in many of the issues he was involved with and has been 
involved with since he has come to the Senate.


                               The Budget

  If he were here, I think he would be very involved in the debates we 
are going to be having in the coming days about the budget. Today marks 
the 1,000th day since we have actually acted on a budget in the United 
States. That is something many people here who are interested in fiscal 
policy are very concerned about. Senator Kirk is one of those. I 
consider myself to be one of those. We have a lot of people in the 
Senate who are very concerned about where we are as a nation, about the 
amount of spending, the amount of debt we have racked up and continue 
to pile up on an annual basis. It all starts with a budget.
  We spend $3.6 trillion of the American people's money on an annual 
basis. Yet we have not had a budget in the Senate for 1,000 days, 
literally now for 3 years, essentially, since the Senate last passed a 
budget.
  We cannot continue with a straight face to go to the American people 
and say we are being good stewards of their tax dollars when, in fact, 
we don't even go through the exercise annually of determining and 
prioritizing how we are going to spend their hard-earned tax dollars. 
This is something that cries out for reform.
  My colleague Senator Isakson, who just spoke, has some proposals for 
budget reform that I think we ought to take up and we ought to vote on 
in the Senate. I have some ideas about budget reform. There is so much 
we need to do to change the budget process in the Congress because we 
have failed to pass a budget resolution, not just for the past 1,000 
days but also for 5 of the last 7 election years, and we have only 
completed all the annual appropriations bills on time in 4 of the last 
34 years. We clearly have a problem. I don't think there is anybody 
here who can't say this system is broken and needs to be fixed.
  It strikes me, at least, that as we went through the 2012 budget 
process, we failed again to complete the appropriations work on time, 
and so we had to go through this annual exercise of doing a nearly $1 
trillion omnibus spending bill at the eleventh hour yet again. During 
the past 3 years, we have consistently had record deficits of $1.3 
trillion or more.
  Clearly, what we have in place is not working, and the American 
people are the ones who are paying the price for that because the debt 
per person is now over $48,700. That is an increase of nearly $14,000 
on an individual basis since President Obama took office.
  If we think about it on a per household basis, it represents $126,000 
per American family, per household that is their share of our Federal 
debt. That is a massive amount of money we pile onto people in this 
country.
  If we add in the unfunded liabilities for Social Security and 
Medicare, which exceed $40 trillion, then we start talking about over 
$\1/2\ million in liability for every family in this country.

  The national debt is now more than $15 trillion, which is literally 
over 100 percent of our gross domestic product. To put that into 
perspective, 1 year ago, Greece was at 143 percent. We are not far 
behind. We are now 1 to 1, 100 percent debt to GDP. We are seeing the 
effect of high levels of sovereign debt on the economies of European 
countries such as Greece, and if we fail to get spending in our country 
on a sustainable path, we are going to face a similar crisis in the 
not-too-distant future. If we continue to see an economy that is 
struggling and growing at a very slow rate, we cannot grow that economy 
by making the Federal Government larger. If that is the case, the $1 
trillion stimulus bill that passed in 2009 would have brought 
unemployment down. But, as we know, the unemployment rate in this 
country is still at 8.5 percent.
  So we have to unleash the economy. We need to cut spending in 
Washington, DC. We have to make the Federal Government smaller, not 
larger, and get Federal spending as a percentage of our gross domestic 
product, as a percentage of our entire economy, back to more of a 
historical average.
  Today, the spending as a percentage of our GDP is about 25 percent. 
If we go over the last 40 years of American history, the average has 
been 20 to 21 percent. Ironically, there have only been five times 
since 1969 where the budget has actually been balanced. In those cases 
where the budget was balanced, spending as a percentage of GDP was 18.7 
percent, on average.
  So it can be done. But we have to get spending back to a more 
historic and reasonable level relative to our entire economy.
  The debt to GDP, as I mentioned earlier, is also historic because we 
haven't seen debt-to-GDP levels such as this literally since the end of 
World War II. We would have to go back over half a century to find a 
time when we were carrying debt to GDP that was literally 1 to 1, where 
the amount of debt we have in this country is 100 percent of our entire 
economic output in a given year. That is a staggering number and one 
that should make us all very concerned about our future if we don't 
take steps to correct it.
  I think that point was driven home by the former Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, who has said in testifying 
before congressional committees that the greatest threat to America's 
national security is our national debt.
  Think about that. He didn't say the Iranian nuclear program. He 
didn't say China. He didn't say North Korea. He didn't say al-Qaida. He 
said the greatest threat to America's national security is our national 
debt--that coming from the person who used to be the highest ranking 
military official in this country.
  I think that speaks volumes about what we need to be focused on and 
why it is so important we start getting our budgetary, our fiscal house 
in order and why it is so important, frankly, that we pass a budget. 
One thousand days without a budget, and we spend $3.6 trillion every 
single year of the American people's money.
  I think, again, in order to get our fiscal house in order, in order 
to get our economy back on track, we have to cut spending. We have to 
reduce the amount we spend. That means we have to take on some of the 
big challenges before us, such as entitlement reform.
  We all know about three-fifths of all Federal spending is what we 
call mandatory spending, and that represents programs such as Social 
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that are not annually appropriated for 
by Congress but are a function of the law. If a person is eligible for 
a particular program they are going to get a benefit under that 
program. That type of spending in our budget represents about three-
fifths of all Federal spending. If we add interest on the debt, which 
is also mandatory spending, we get up to about 65

[[Page S58]]

cents out of every dollar spent right now is mandatory spending.
  If we have programs such as Medicaid growing at three times the rate 
of inflation, and Medicare growing at two times the rate of inflation, 
it is pretty clear that is not sustainable over time. We have to figure 
out a way to get these programs where they are not growing at 12 
percent a year or 8 percent a year--closer to the rate of inflation. 
That means we have to reform these programs if they are going to be 
sustainable and if they are going to be there for future generations of 
Americans. That can be done without impacting the benefits that people 
who are on those programs today receive and those who are nearing 
retirement age receive.
  There is a real concern, there is a lot of hot political rhetoric 
about Republicans just want to cut benefits for seniors across this 
country. I think most of my colleagues know there have been several 
proposals put forward that would address the long-term challenges we 
face with regard to Medicare and Medicaid and for that matter Social 
Security, all of which would not impact people who are retired today 
nor those who are nearing retirement age but simply put in place some 
reforms that would impact younger Americans who, today, are working 
hard, putting money into these programs, but if we do not take steps to 
fix these programs they are not going to be around when those people 
retire.
  Entitlement reform is so important in terms of getting Federal 
spending under control. That is why, notwithstanding the fact it is an 
election year, I hope there will be the political will in the Congress 
and with the President. Frankly, it is going to take Presidential 
leadership to do these types of things. We cannot do big things, we 
cannot conquer big challenges and big problems in this country absent 
Presidential leadership. There are 535 Members of Congress and there is 
only one President, one person who can sign a bill into law, one person 
who can engage the Congress and work toward a solution to some of these 
big problems.
  So far this President has demonstrated no willingness to take on the 
challenges we face with regard to our budget. It was demonstrated last 
year when he submitted his budget. It was ultimately voted on in the 
Senate, voted down by a vote of 97 to 0. I think that tells us they 
have not been serious about taking on the major drivers of Federal 
spending in this country.
  With regard to the other part of the budget, the discretionary part, 
we saw spending increase in that part of our budget by about 24 percent 
between 2008 and 2010. It literally grew at about 8 to 10 times the 
rate of inflation. So we need to get that side of our spending under 
control as well. Many of us supported legislative efforts that would 
roll back discretionary spending to 2008 levels to get us back into a 
place where we can defend the things we are doing to the American 
people at a time when they are seeing their family budgets shrink, that 
they are seeing their personal assets shrink, and many of them are 
having a very hard time finding work. Cutting spending, reducing 
spending, reforming entitlement programs, getting our fiscal house in 
order, is just essential, absolutely essential if we want to put our 
country on a path and a track that will prevent us from heading for the 
train wreck that many of our allies, many of the countries in Europe, 
are facing right now simply because they made promises to their people 
they just could not keep.
  We have to get our spending under control in this country and rein it 
in or that is our future. I hope for the sake of our children and 
grandchildren in this country we are willing to make the hard political 
decisions that will enable that to happen.
  The second thing we have to do if we are going to get out of this 
sort of morass we are in right now, in addition to reducing spending, 
is we have to get the economy growing again. We have to expand this 
economy, grow this economy. It has been said the rising tide lifts all 
the boats. We need to get a tide that starts lifting all Americans. 
Instead of talking about how we are going to redistribute the pie, we 
need to make the pie bigger. The way we do that is to grow and expand 
the economy. If we start growing and expanding the economy we will get 
more Americans back to work, more people making money, more people 
investing. When more people are working, there are more people paying 
taxes and that gets revenue going up and that makes these other issues 
manageable. But we have to have economic growth and we have to have 
policies in place that promote economic growth.
  Regrettably, the policies of the current administration have had the 
opposite effect. They have made it more difficult, more expensive to 
create jobs in this country. We need to put policies in place that will 
make it less expensive, less difficult to create jobs, and that will 
encourage people and provide the kind of economic certainty that gets 
people to invest their money, to put their capital to work, and to get 
Americans back to work in this country.
  I think there are several things, obviously, that need to be done. 
No. 1, of course, is to reform the Tax Code. In my view, right now that 
is a roadblock, if you will, an obstacle, an impediment to economic 
growth. We are not competitive in the world marketplace because of our 
tax policies. What we need today is a clear, fair, simple tax code that 
does away with a lot of the special interest loopholes that exist 
today, one that broadens the tax base in this country but at the same 
time one that lowers rates so that businesses want to invest in America 
as opposed to moving their headquarters and taking their jobs overseas. 
We want to encourage investment. That means we have to reform our Tax 
Code and, as I said, we have to do away with a lot of the Tax Code that 
is riddled with loopholes. We have to do away with those loopholes and 
get our tax rates down to where they are competitive with countries 
around the world that are stealing business from us and taking jobs 
overseas.
  Tax reform is, in my view, an essential element of an economic growth 
strategy that will get us on a path where the economy is growing and 
expanding and we are creating jobs in this country. That is going to 
take Presidential leadership just as entitlement reform is going to 
take Presidential leadership. We cannot do big things in this country 
absent Presidential leadership. This is another area where we have not 
seen that from this President.
  I hope he will engage the Congress--again, notwithstanding the fact 
that this is an election year--in a debate and perhaps more than a 
debate, a solution to the problems in the Tax Code in this country that 
will get us on a competitive footing and make us more competitive in 
the world marketplace. The President is going to have to be involved in 
that debate or it is not going to happen, particularly in a political 
year.
  We also have to get our arms around these overreaching, excessive 
regulations that are strangling small businesses in this country. I 
cannot tell you how many times, when I travel my State of South Dakota 
or anyplace else for that matter, that I hear from small businesses 
that the No. 1 obstacle right now to us creating jobs is this massive 
amount of regulation coming out of Washington, DC. In fact, there have 
literally been thousands and thousands of pages of new regulations that 
have been promulgated and issued since this President took office. They 
affect every sector of our economy.
  The one we hear about the most probably is the EPA, but we have the 
Department of Labor, we have other agencies of government that are 
constantly putting forward new regulations which make it more 
difficult, more complicated to get people in this country back to work.
  Just as a point of fact, regarding a recent set of regulations 
proposed by the Department of Labor--by the way, there was no complaint 
about this that there was no consultation with the people who would be 
impacted by this--there was really no reason we can come up with for 
why these regulations were put forward. But the Department of Labor, in 
their infinite wisdom, decided they knew better about how to run a 
farming operation or a ranching operation in this country, better than 
the people who are involved in those endeavors, and they have basically 
put forward some regulations that would put all kinds of new 
restrictions on young people working in family farming or ranching 
operations--incredibly prescriptive regulations, I might add,

[[Page S59]]

detailed regulations that are going to change the culture and the 
economic fabric of ranching and farming in this country more than 
anything we have seen before.
  Anybody who has been around a farming operation or enterprise in my 
part of the country realizes they are inherently family operations. 
Young people are involved in those operations. When the Department of 
Labor comes out and says young people cannot operate certain types of 
equipment or young people cannot work with farm animals that are older 
than 6 months or cannot be at an elevation that is any more than 6 
feet, it is a complete contradiction to the way that work gets done in 
rural parts of this country. But that is what we have. We have a 
massive amount of new regulation coming out of the Department of Labor 
that will forever change the way farming operations are carried out and 
the way work gets done on a family farm.
  That is the kind of thing I am talking about. It is overreaching. It 
is excessive. It goes beyond the pale in terms of what we need by way 
of regulation in this country. We need smart regulation. There are 
public health and safety reasons why we need that. But this kind of 
overreaching and excessive regulation is making it that much more 
difficult for people to get jobs in this country.
  The final thing I will mention in regard to an economic agenda that I 
think will create jobs is the issue of energy security. We need an 
energy policy in this country that promotes domestic production, that 
recognizes that we have enormous amounts of resources at home, that we 
should not have to continue to import a lot of our energy from outside 
the United States. The Keystone Pipeline, which was just recently 
vetoed by the administration--turned down--is an example of that. It 
was studied 3 years extensively by many agencies of the government. At 
the EPA there were serious environmental impact statements done. They 
all cleared, they all teed this up to be done, and just this last week 
the President said: No, it is not in the national interest.
  I, and I think a lot of people on both sides in the Senate, would 
argue this is in the national interest. It is a lot better for us to 
get 700,000 barrels of oil a day from a friendly neighbor such as 
Canada as opposed to a country such as Venezuela. We can continue to 
buy oil from Hugo Chavez or we can get the same, the equivalent amount 
of oil from a friendly neighbor such as Canada, bring it into this 
country where it is refined and creates jobs, puts people back to work, 
puts capital to work in this country, and gets investment in the United 
States. Instead, we are going to see that energy source go in the other 
direction. It is going to Asia, it is going to go to China, if we are 
not able to get projects like this approved.
  Interestingly enough, there was a pipeline just like this that was 
built a few years ago, and it goes right through the eastern part of my 
State and other States. This pipeline would go through the western part 
of my State of South Dakota as well as other States, but it would bring 
much of that energy resource into this country, create jobs, and help 
create economic growth in America as opposed to sending that energy 
overseas and making us even more dependent upon foreign sources of 
energy at home. It makes absolutely no sense.
  If the President of the United States is serious in his rhetoric 
about focusing every morning on creating jobs, one would think the 
first thing he would want to do is support projects that create shovel-
ready jobs, in this case 20,000 shovel-ready jobs and an investment of 
$7 billion, and bring energy into this country that will make us more 
energy independent. That is absolutely right in the wheelhouse of what 
we ought to be looking for in terms of getting this country's economy 
back on track. Yet last week the President turned thumbs down on this 
proposal.
  I would say again, in closing, in my view, if we are going to get our 
country back on track, we have to get our fiscal house in order, which 
means we have to reduce spending, get our spending as a percentage of 
our entire economy back into a form of historical norm of revenues. As 
I said, for the past 40 years that has been 18 percent of our economy. 
Today we are spending 25 percent, and we are on a trajectory such that 
not too far from now we are spending our entire economy on the Federal 
Government, not to mention State and local control. We have to get 
policies in place that will promote long-term economic growth and 
reverse the decline we have seen, the massive amount of debt we racked 
up over the past 3 years, and the huge job losses we have seen at the 
same time. If we can do that, we will at least be doing the people's 
work in terms of trying to address the major problems I think face most 
Americans and the things they are most concerned about every single 
day.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator from Vermont.

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