[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 14, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S589-S592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, we rise today to talk about the budget 
that was submitted by the President of the United States, actually 
within the last 24 hours. Despite a 2009 promise to literally cut the 
deficit in half by the end of his first term, President Obama released 
a budget that, for the fourth year in a row, calls for a deficit in 
excess of $1 trillion. Unfortunately, this proposal is one more year of 
the same old story: more taxes, more spending, more borrowing, and yet 
another punt on the tough issues we as a Nation must face.
  As a former Governor, I understand what it takes to balance a budget. 
Difficult choices do have to be made, even with programs that are 
popular. In 2001, when I was Governor of Nebraska, I closed a $220 
million budget shortfall and didn't raise taxes. But $220 million is 
merely a drop in the bucket for the Federal budget that amounted to 
more than 7 percent in Nebraska. By comparison, if the President had 
submitted a budget that cut spending by 7 percent, he would be cutting 
more than $260 billion this year. That wasn't the last thing we had to 
do. With the post-9/11 economy, we called special session after special 
session to cut spending.
  But instead of that, the President is projected to increase spending. 
Leadership is necessary and, sadly, this budget does not display it. 
Instead, America's balance sheet continues to drown in a sea of red ink 
for yet another year, driving our 2012 deficit to nearly $1.4 trillion. 
Instead of making tough choices about priorities, the President appears 
to be doubling down on more stimulus spending.
  Let me give a few examples, and then I will invite my colleagues to 
join me: $2 billion in new tax credits for the production of advanced 
technology vehicles; $4 billion to extend and modify ``certain energy 
incentives which could include clean renewable energy bonds;'' $3 
billion to encourage investments in advanced energy manufacturing 
projects; $4.7 billion for new spending to strengthen the teaching 
profession despite GAO finding 82 duplicative and wasteful teacher 
quality programs. When we add it all, we are presented with yet another 
budget that contains the largest tax increase in U.S. history. It 
raises taxes by more than $1.8 trillion. I could go on and on. This is 
simply a situation where we have seen this budget before, and it 
doesn't improve.
  I will turn to my colleague Senator Blunt, from the State of 
Missouri, who has worked on these budgets before, and I will ask him to 
offer some insights of what he sees in this budget and where it is 
leading our country, in his opinion.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for putting this discussion together 
this morning. I think it is a serious discussion, unlike this budget, 
which is clearly not a serious budget. The President doesn't expect it 
to be voted on. The majority leader in the Senate said it wouldn't be 
voted on. When the White House spokesman was asked if they had a 
position on the fact that the Senate wasn't going to produce a budget--
this budget could be voted on but it won't be debated and there won't 
be a companion Senate budget apparently that goes along with it--the 
White House spokesman said no, they didn't have a position on the fact 
that the majority leader said there would be no Senate budget this 
year. Remember, this is the budget that is required by law to be passed 
by April 15 of every year, and I guess this will be the fourth straight 
time that April 15 will be missed without having passed a budget.
  What we have here, unlike a budget document that does what the 
Senator from Nebraska did as Governor or what my son Matt did as 
Governor of Missouri--he had a $1 billion deficit, and they had to make 
up for that, and they did. The Senator from Nebraska made up for the 
deficit in his State. Governor and now Senator Risch was responsible to 
see that the numbers added up. These numbers don't add up. This is a 
budget that spends too much and taxes too much and it borrows too much. 
Spending goes up in this budget. In this budget year we are spending 
$3.8 trillion, fiscal year 2013, the budget year we are talking about 
now. Seven years from now, fiscal year 2022--9 years from now--we are 
spending almost $6 trillion, from $3.8 trillion to $5.8 trillion.
  Clearly, the spending problem isn't solved by this budget. This 
budget makes the spending problem worse. This budget adds almost $2 
trillion in new taxes. So it spends too much, it taxes too much, and 
then it borrows too much. We are going to increase the debt again. We 
have a deficit of almost $1 trillion in each of the Obama years of 
responsibility during this first term. It cannot be allowed to 
continue. But when we look at this budget document--the 10-year 
projections--there is no indication that we change any of these trends.
  We all understand these trends are unacceptable. The Federal 
Government's total debt has now surpassed the size of the economy. The 
potential of our economy to produce goods and services, the so-called 
GDP number, is now exceeded by our debt. We know what happened in 
Greece when their debt exceeded the capacity of their economy to 
produce goods and services. We know what happened in Italy. We know 
what happened in Ireland. We know what happened in Portugal. Why don't 
we think that is going to happen to us? Because it will, and we have to 
make these numbers add up.
  The Senator from Nebraska as a Governor had to produce a budget. 
Governor Risch produced a budget. I will turn to him in a second to 
talk about the responsibility of the Executive to lead and then, 
frankly, the responsibility of the Senate to do its job.
  I am continually surprised that we can miss this absolute deadline in 
the law year after year after year and there is not a press outcry. 
There is more of a public outcry than a press outcry. My sense is that 
if when I was in the House of Representatives we had missed this 
deadline once as opposed to over and over and over, there would have 
been a marshaling of people around the country to come and stand on the 
steps of the Capitol to say, Why isn't the majority in the House doing 
its job? This is something the current majority in the Senate has 
walked away from in ways I can't understand.
  When we talk to Americans, getting people back to work and getting 
control of Federal spending are the No. 1 and No. 2 domestic 
priorities, but I don't see those priorities in this budget.
  I turn to my friend from Idaho to see what he has thought of, as we 
have now had a few hours to look at the specifics of the President's 
budget.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Missouri. Like 
everyone, I have been perusing the numbers to try to figure out whether 
this gets us somewhere and whether it will actually come to fruition.

  A quick look at history. As the Senator points out, this will be the 
fourth year, if we don't adopt a budget, where we haven't had one. 
There isn't an entity in the world that operates without a budget. We 
have to have a budget if we are going to do anything responsibly. 
Budgeting is not that difficult; it

[[Page S590]]

is merely a way of taking the money we have coming in and allocating it 
on a priority basis for what we think money should be spent for. There 
is never enough money. There isn't an enterprise in the world that has 
enough money. Everyone has to make decisions as to what are the 
priorities and do the best they can with the money they have.
  As I said, over 1,000 days have passed since the Senate has adopted a 
budget. Last year, a similar budget the President produced was actually 
put on the floor here of the Senate for a vote. It failed, with zero 
``yea'' votes to 97 ``no'' votes. That is not a party-line vote.
  This budget, one can only conclude, just like the budget produced by 
the President last year, spends too much, taxes too much, and it 
borrows too much.
  The budgeting process is something that is extremely important. The 
American people demand it. Common sense demands it. Anyone who has ever 
operated a government or a business enterprise knows we must budget. 
Every Governor in the United States does it--all 50 States. Every 
legislature does it. As was pointed out by Senator Johanns, when he was 
Governor he had to cut 7 percent.
  Let me tell my colleagues about the state of play in Idaho. When I 
was Governor, the budget was $3.5 billion when I left. The current 
Governor is operating with a $2.5 billion budget. He cut $1 billion out 
of a $3.5 billion budget. If it can be done at the State level, it can 
be done at the national level, and, indeed, it has to be done at the 
national level. We are going to have to cut.
  The proposed budget spends about $10.4 billion every day, and I put 
it on a daily basis because when we start talking about trillions, 
people's eyes glaze over. There is no possible way--there is no human 
being on the face of this planet who can determine what $1 trillion is, 
let alone the $3.8 trillion this budget spends. But if we put it on a 
daily basis, it is $10.4 billion every day. Remember, in the State of 
Idaho, for a year, the State spends $2.5 billion. This government 
spends $10.4 billion every day. That comes down to about $7.2 million 
every minute.
  One wouldn't have a whole lot of argument about that if indeed the 
government had $10.4 billion to spend every day or $7.2 million to 
spend every minute. But, indeed, every day, under this budget, the 
Federal Government will borrow $2.4 billion--every single day. The 
borrowing comes down to about $1.7 million every minute.
  When we put it in terms of how much it is a day and how much it is a 
minute, it becomes staggering. Right now, because we have been dealing 
with this, every time I see nationally a business engaged in a huge 
deal at $5 billion or something such as that, we can put it in 
perspective of how the Federal Government is doing its business. This 
borrowing that is being done every day by the Federal Government has 
yielded us now a $15 trillion debt. Again, I don't know what that is; 
nobody knows what that is. But what I do know is we will never pay it 
off in our lifetime. It will be our kids and our grandkids who are 
saddled with that particular amount. That is the real deal.
  I wish everybody could have the experience I had, and a number of 
Senators have done this. Every day, the Federal Government has to pay 
its bills at the end of the day. They are not like businesses; they 
don't pay every month. They pay at the end of the day. How do they do 
this? When I first got here, I thought: This is staggering, and what 
have you. But I went and watched them do it. The Treasury has a 
checkbook, like everyone else does, and at the end of the day it has a 
balance, like everybody else. How does it balance it? It balances it by 
going out and borrowing the money. I watched them borrow. This is 
indeed borrowing. About a fourth of it comes from China, about a fourth 
comes from other countries, and about half comes from wealthy 
institutions including banks and trusts and individuals around the 
world. But it is real borrowing and it has to be paid back. Indeed, 
they not only borrow the amount of money they need every day for the 
daily deficit, but they borrow enough money to pay back the people 
whose debts are coming due that day.
  After you walk out of there and watch them actually do that, you 
can't help but walk away from it feeling sick. Because when we look at 
these kinds of numbers, the government can't pay its bills at the end 
of the day. The only way it can pay its bills is if it borrows.
  We need systemic change. Everything has to be reformed. If I were in 
charge of everything, the first thing I would reform is this ridiculous 
idea that we budget on a 10-year basis. That is outrageous.

  Mr. President, 10-year budgeting allows smoke and mirrors and allows 
gimmicks and games so you can stand up and say: Why, this budget saves 
$4 trillion. It does not save a dime next year. All this alleged 
savings is 10 years out, and, indeed, on this 10-year cycle they use to 
budget, the second year never comes.
  We need an annual budget. We need to look in the mirror and talk 
about how much we are spending next year versus how much is coming in. 
Forget this 10-year basis. It is absolute nonsense.
  Senator Blunt talked about Greece. Greece is going through what we 
are going to have to go through at some time; that is, cutting back. 
They lived happy for decades. Well, they spent their children's and 
their grandchildren's money, and all of a sudden what happened to them? 
Nobody would loan them money anymore. If that happens to us, we are out 
of business. If nobody will loan us any money on a daily basis, we are 
out of business.
  So what do we need? We need compromise. It is compromise that got us 
into the position we are in. Compromise every year caused us to take 
each budget item, where the Democrats wanted to spend more, the 
Republicans wanted to spend less, so they compromised somewhere in the 
middle. Now we are operating, even under this budget, at a trillion-
dollar deficit for the year.
  It is time to compromise again. But we need to go in the other 
direction. We need to compromise on: How much are we going to cut this 
year? The Republicans are going to want to cut more. The Democrats, I 
hope, will agree that we need to do some cutting and we need to wind up 
somewhere in the middle. That is the only way we are going to get this 
back on track. This budget does not cut it. This budget does not even 
come close to it. We are going to bankrupt America if we do not start 
doing things differently.
  I see Senator Isakson has joined us on the floor.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for laying out what 
this budget is all about and the problems we are seeing.
  Senator Isakson has been a leader in trying to reform the budget 
process.
  I say to Senator Isakson, I would like you to offer thoughts on what 
you see in this budget and some ideas on how we can improve this 
situation we find ourselves in with the President's budget wanting more 
taxing, more borrowing, more spending.
  Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for the opportunity.
  I commend Senator Risch for his remarks. I want to make a little 
addition to those remarks in a second. But specifically, in answer to 
Senator Johanns' question, the only thing you can do with this budget 
is start over.
  Senator Risch has very importantly recognized the 10-year fiasco we 
look at every year by pushing savings out into years 8, 9, and 10, when 
this President will not be here and another Congress will be here.
  In talking about compromise, one of the things Senator Shaheen from 
New Hampshire and I have pushed for 2 years is a process 40 States 
operate under, including the Senator's, if I am not mistaken, I say to 
Mr. Johanns, and that is a biennial budget process. So instead of 
talking about 10 years, you are talking about 2 years. Instead of 
talking about appropriating every year, you appropriate in 1 year for 2 
years, and in the second year--which happens to be the election year, 
or the even unnumbered year--your total obligation is to look for 
savings, efficiencies, and the fine functioning of the government.
  We do not ever do in this Congress what our families do and our 
children do every year at home. We do not ever sit around our kitchen 
table, reprioritize our expenditures based on our needs, and find out 
how to live within our means. The American people do not get the luxury 
of printing

[[Page S591]]

money. Japan does not come in and buy notes to fund their money. They 
have to figure out how they themselves can manage their budget in such 
a way as to live within the income they have and not go into big debt. 
The United States of America ought to do the same.
  One of the things Senator Risch hit on that I want to hammer on for a 
second--because there is a big part of our problem that is solvable; 
and it is solvable if good people would be willing to talk about it 
rather than politic about it--is known as entitlements.
  Entitlements are Social Security, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, 
retirement disabilities, et cetera. But two of them are not 
entitlements. Two of them are obligations of the United States of 
America. That is not an entitlement. That is something somebody has 
paid for. America's people pay 6.2 percent of their payroll normally--
except for the recent holiday we have had--to go into a Social Security 
trust fund to pay them a benefit. They pay 1.35 percent of their income 
every month--from day one, since 1968--to pay for Medicare. Those are 
not entitlements they are entitled to. Those are obligations we have 
committed them to from moneys they have paid.
  This document we are looking at in this budget does not portend a 
single change in benefits or in obligations for Medicare and Medicaid 
and Social Security, which simply means the day they go broke comes 
that much faster. We are defaulting on the obligation we have to the 
American people. Whereas, if we sat down honestly, put those programs 
on the table, looked at the outyears, when my grandchildren and 
children may be beneficiaries, and modify the obligation, pushing out 
the eligibility, we can save the obligation we owe the American people 
for Social Security and Medicare. But if we do not do it, it will be 
gone. That is something they paid for that we took out of the trust 
fund and used for something else--not the least of which was the $500 
billion the President took out of the trust fund for Medicare to help 
pay for the affordable health care bill, which has not even gone into 
effect yet.
  I think it is time we ask of ourselves what the American people have 
to ask of themselves: Sit around our kitchen table, decide what our 
priorities are, live within our means, and budget for the future. Do 
not budget for failure. This is budgeting for failure.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I appreciate the comments made by Senator 
Isakson. I wish to take a moment to follow up on his comments relative 
to Medicare and Social Security. Then I would ask Senator Blunt to 
offer a few words on where we go from here, what do we anticipate we 
have to do to set the ship of state on the right course, if you will.
  But let me speak to the issue of Medicare and Social Security. 
Senator Isakson could not be more right. When you get paid, you can 
literally go to your paycheck stub and you can see the amount of money 
that is being withheld out of your paycheck--throughout your life--for 
Social Security benefits and for Medicare benefits.

  When these programs were set up, thereabouts, a group was put 
together--they were referred to as trustees--and they basically did a 
fair analysis of where these programs were and where they were headed. 
Every year, they put out a report, and we will be getting another 
annual report in the not too distant future. But I think we all know 
what the report is going to say. The report is going to say that in the 
vicinity of about 2024, if not a bit sooner, Social Security literally 
is going to be insolvent. It is also going to say Medicare is literally 
in a position where it will be upside down financially sooner than 
that. The greatest challenge between the two, obviously, is Medicare.
  What does that mean to people who are currently beneficiaries or 
about to retire and planning on these items being there for them? Well, 
what it means is, that plan could be in serious jeopardy.
  It is not because Mike Johanns woke up last night and said that or 
dreamt it or thought about it. It is because people who are empowered 
to look at Social Security and Medicare have studied it very closely, 
have looked at the financial pieces of this, and have come to this 
conclusion.
  Now let's examine the President's budget. What plan does he have to 
protect Medicare or Social Security? Well, he does not have a plan. 
These are not easy issues. I am not arguing here today this is easy to 
take on. But what I am saying to the American people is, if you study 
this budget or any other budget submitted by this President, he is 
doing nothing to arrest literally our progress toward these very 
important programs becoming insolvent. If there was ever an area in 
this budget where we need Presidential leadership, it is right here.
  I would ask Senator Blunt for his thoughts. The Senator has studied 
these issues over the years and has offered great insight. Where do we 
go from here? What are the Senator's thoughts in terms of this budget 
and how we get back on track?
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. President, I say to the Senator, I think my first 
thought is, the insight is not that difficult; it is just that we need 
to do our job. We cannot expect to solve these problems if the Senate 
does not do the job it is supposed to do. And we cannot expect to solve 
these problems if we keep letting the size of our government get out of 
proportion to the capacity of our economy.
  In 2008--the year before the administration started--the deficit was 
higher than I thought it should be by a lot. It was $459 billion. That 
was 3 percent of GDP, and I thought that was unacceptable. The very 
next year--the first year of this administration--it went to 10 percent 
of GDP, $1.4 trillion. Then after that, it has been a trillion, a 
trillion, a trillion--$1.4 trillion, $1.3 trillion, $1.3 trillion--$1.3 
trillion in the year we are in now. This does not change that 
trajectory at all. And in the budget the President submitted, for the 
first time any President has said this, the President says the Social 
Security trust fund, during this 10-year window, will run out of 
money--that the money coming in, for the first time ever, will not 
equal the money going out--but proposes nothing to do anything about 
that.
  This is a commitment the Federal Government has made to Americans. 
Social Security can continue to work if you periodically look at the 
facts, the demographics, and adjust it.
  We have about worn out the Tip O'Neill-Ronald Reagan example on 
Social Security. But I say to the Senators, that was in 1983. On the 
supposed third rail of politics that a President will not touch, in the 
very next year, Ronald Reagan carried 49 States. This would have been a 
great year in divided government to solve this problem because one side 
could not spend the rest of the time blaming the other.
  I do not think the changes in Social Security, made in 1983, to my 
knowledge, have ever been an issue in any political campaign anywhere. 
Because they were made in a way that anticipated people's needs to 
adjust, we are just now, 30 years later, getting to the final phase-in 
of the new retirement age--30 years later. But if you do not get that 
started, you will never get there, whether it is Social Security or the 
Social Security insurance fund, which gets into trouble even quicker, 
according to the President, in 2018, and there is no proposal to do 
anything about that.
  For people who are absolutely dependent on that safety net--family 
members, dependent children--if something happens to the worker who is 
paying into Social Security, 5 years from now the President says that 
is in big trouble. But you go through all of these papers, and you see 
no indication anywhere of what we should do about that.
  These are issues that have to be dealt with, and I suggest the most 
fundamental way to deal with them is for the Senate to do its job, for 
the Senate to produce a budget, for the Senate to get focused--as 
Senator Risch suggested we need to focus--not on some phony pay-for 10 
years out that never materializes, but what are we going to do this 
year to change the course of the country, to change the trajectory.
  One thing you learn in artillery is, you do not have to change the 
trajectory, you do not have to change the level of the artillery piece 
very much to make a big difference out there in the distance. But if 
you do not change it at all, you keep landing at exactly the same 
place. And this is a budget that actually lands in even a worse

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place because it spends more money, it spends too much, it taxes too 
much, it borrows too much, and the American people know we cannot 
continue to do that, as was the case made very well by Senator Risch.
  I ask the Senator, does he have any other thoughts on what we need to 
be doing and how we need to be doing it?
  Mr. RISCH. First of all, one of the things people have to accept--and 
it does not happen around here--is we do not have an income problem. We 
have a spending problem. All the money in the world would not get us to 
where you are able to solve every problem that comes down the pike and 
people want to resolve.
  The President is urging that somebody is not paying their fair share. 
I wish he would hang more details on that. I wish some media person 
would ask him: Identify these groups for us, please. I think he is 
trying to create a national dialog as to who is or who is not paying 
their fair share. I think that might be appropriate.
  I think when the American people started on this, they took the 
numbers and said: OK, if you take the first half of income earners from 
the lowest to the median, they are paying zero percent in taxes; the 
top 10 percent is paying 70 percent of all the money the government 
takes in, so let's have a dialog as to which of those two groups is 
paying their fair share.
  There are some very good sociological reasons why the upper income 
pays more than the lower income, and I do not think anyone is going to 
argue with that.
  But there is only so much we can do. I am not here defending the 
rich. The rich take care of themselves. They can move their capital 
wherever they want to move it. Indeed, we all know a good deal of it is 
moved offshore. There is $2 trillion offshore right now that 
Americans--American businesses--want to bring back, but they will not 
bring it back because there is a war on capital in this country with 
the government trying to take the capital. We need to have a national 
dialogue about that. We need to land in the middle someplace.
  Again, no one is going to defend the rich. They do not have to; the 
rich can take care of themselves. But the fact is, we have to come to 
the conclusion at some point that the resources of the American people 
are finite. Be it the rich, be it the poor, be it the middle class, 
their ability to pay for government is finite. There is a point at 
which we have to say wait instead of saying we are going to bring in 
more. We have to say we are going to have to prioritize the money we 
have and how we are going to spend it.
  I think that is the way we get out of this situation, having an 
acceptance that there is a finite amount of money. It is too easy for 
us to borrow money. We have seen that in our own lives. We have seen 
friends of ours who have gone down to the bank and borrowed money. If 
the money is too easy to borrow, they get into trouble, and they get 
into trouble relatively quickly.
  Well, we have gotten into trouble because it is so easy for us to 
borrow. People still want to loan us money. People are still loaning us 
money every day. They lend us billions and billions. Indeed, if they 
did not, we would be out of business. So it is time for this national 
dialogue on where we are going to go.
  As I said, the only way this is going to be resolved is if we 
compromise. Instead of talking about how much more we are going to 
spend, we need to do something we have not done since World War II; 
that is, compromise on how much we are going to cut.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Manchin). The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I anticipate Senator Heller will probably 
seek the floor. But this concludes our colloquy.
  I yield the floor.

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