[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 27 (Friday, February 17, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. COATS. This is the third anniversary of the President's nearly $1 
trillion stimulus bill. But it is not an anniversary worth celebrating.
  Back then, the Obama administration promised the American people that 
the stimulus bill, if passed, would keep unemployment below 8 percent 
and create 3.5 million jobs. So let's look at where we are today.
  The unemployment rate has remained above 8 percent for a record 36 
months, and our economy has lost nearly one-half million jobs since the 
stimulus was passed.
  We can't conclude anything else other than the fact that the stimulus 
has failed--and failed badly. It was a misuse of hard-earned taxpayer 
dollars, and it proves that when government tries to pick winners, many 
of their choices such as Solyndra, turn out to be losers and all that 
at the expense of the American taxpayer.
  By looking at the President's budget proposal that we are going to be 
dealing with this year for the next fiscal year, it appears the 
administration has not learned from its past mistakes.
  Despite some glimmers of hope for improvement in our economy, today 
millions of Americans awoke across the country without a job.
  This morning, millions of Americans are wondering how to make their 
next mortgage payment, how to pay for their medical bills, and how to 
fill up their gas tanks without breaking the bank. But little is being 
done here in Washington to address this. While it is obvious that there 
are no silver bullets or short-term fixes to this problem, we have not 
taken the necessary steps to get ahold of our larger fiscal issue and 
problem--the growing red ink and debt our economy is being burdened 
with through the policies that are enacted and not enacted here in 
Washington.
  The Obama budget is out of touch with the reality of our fiscal 
situation. The President's fiscal year 2013 budget increases spending 
every year, proposes the largest tax increase in history, burdens the 
country with more debt, and never balances the budget. As we have seen 
before, the administration's budget principles cannot be anything but 
spend more, borrow more, and tax more. This is a failed approach, it is 
dropping us deeper and deeper into debt, and making our solutions more 
difficult every day that we spend more than we take in.
  One of the major things we have not addressed this year because we 
have not exhibited the will to do so is failure to address 
entitlements. Entitlements and mandatory spending plus the interest we 
pay on borrowed debt continue to eat up ever more of our budget, a 
larger and ever growing percentage which will continue over the next 
years at a staggering number. It simply is not sustainable. While we 
must work to save our safety net programs that we have promised the 
American people, we need to understand that doing nothing makes the 
situation worse and does not do anything to help retirees. We have to 
be honest--with those retirees and those nearing retirement and those 
who are looking to the future--about the solvency of the Social 
Security trust fund and the solvency of the Medicare trust fund.
  Medicare is projected to go broke by 2024. Over the next decade, 
Social Security spending will grow by 6 percent annually, and by 2026, 
benefits for all retirees will have to be cut by a minimum of 23 
percent if we are to keep the trust fund solvent. The gravest threat to 
Medicare and Social Security is doing nothing. We in fact are doing 
nothing.
  We will have legislation to vote on here today that further 
exacerbates the problem of the Social Security trust fund. This is 
couched as a tax break for American people to be extended as a result 
of a payroll tax cut on their Social Security contributions. So instead 
of putting today's requirement of a percentage of your income into the 
Social Security trust fund for the benefit of retirees and our own 
retirement when we finish our careers, and the American people's 
retirement, we are deducting from that trust fund money that is going 
to have to be paid back. It is a shell game. We are telling the 
American people they are going to continue for the next year to get a 
payroll tax cut but the tax cut is taken out of the contribution to the 
Social Security trust fund. I am amazed that AARP or Save Social 
Security or all the entities that put ads on the air and send mailers 
to people around the country that say don't let Congress cut our 
Medicare funds, don't let cut Congress cut our Social Security--where 
are they today, saying Congress is robbing our Social Security trust 
fund and then they call this a tax cut?
  Be honest with the American people. We are simply taking money from 
the trust fund for retiree benefits, making Social Security come closer 
and closer to bankruptcy and insolvency, at the same time not telling 
the American people that this so-called tax cut is robbing that fund.
  We will be presented with a vote today to be honest with the American 
people, saying you have a shell game going on here that will have to be 
repaired, probably with borrowed dollars, that is going to make our 
situation worse, yet we go home and say we have extended a tax cut for 
you. Let's at least be honest with the American people and straight out 
and tell them we are taking the money out of your Social Security trust 
fund to extend the program here to give you a so-called tax break. It 
is a shell game. It is going to have to be repaid.
  I think it is clear that we simply have not addressed the fundamental 
problems underlying the fiscal situation that exists here in the United 
States. Until we level with the American people and until we have the 
will to step forward and do what is necessary to save this country from 
default, to save these social safety net programs from default, we will 
be continuing what has been done in the past, and that is leaving us in 
an ever more precarious position.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.

                          ____________________