[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 128 (Thursday, September 20, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6482-S6488]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SELF-CREATED RESULTS
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I haven't been able to watch all the
speeches by my friends on the other side of the aisle, but I have
watched enough to understand what is going on. This has been a
remarkable show of hubris or arrogance from the Republican side of the
aisle.
One after another, the Republicans have stood to complain about how
the Senate hasn't gotten a lot done. The Presiding Officer has been one
of the leaders in having a more effective Senate, because my friend,
the Presiding Officer, has watched what the Republicans have done. We
are going to do something about it. The Presiding Officer knows that, I
know that.
What they have done is the very definition of chutzpah. The nerve.
What nerve. They are complaining about a result that they themselves
created. They have created the fact that we haven't gotten anything
done. They are good at it. A bill that would allow veterans to get
jobs, they stopped it on a technicality. They have conducted filibuster
after filibuster, blocking one bill after another, and then they
complain the Senate can't pass anything when they are the ones holding
things up. The record is pretty detailed and deep, and I am not going
to cover it all today because, really, it is significant.
I said here yesterday, I have been the leader for 6 years. I may be
off 1 or 2, but I have had to file motions to overcome 382 filibusters
in 6 years. I know the Senate has changed a little bit since Lyndon
Johnson was the majority leader, but during the 6 years he was the
majority leader, he had to file cloture once. To think that they are
here complaining we are not getting
[[Page S6483]]
anything done when they are the ones who caused it? And we start from
this point.
I have to say, I appreciate the Republican leader being so candid and
honest with the American people when he stood at the beginning of this
Congress and said his No. 1 goal was to stop President Obama from being
reelected. That is what he said. And they have legislated accordingly,
stopping us from doing the most important things for this country.
Measures to create jobs, they have stopped. Measures to stop jobs from
being lost, they have stopped. They have done it so many times.
How about this: We have lost approximately 1 million teachers,
firefighters, and police officers because of Republicans stopping us
from get things done, really hurting State and local government. So we
over here thought it would be a good idea that we stop these
significant layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police officers. We
want to make sure it is paid for and we agree it should be paid for. So
we said, Okay, no more layoffs of teachers, firefighters, and police
officers, and we are going to pay for it. How are we going to pay for
it? Anyone making more than $1 million a year would have to pay a
surtax of three-tenths of 1 percent. Every Republican voted against
that.
The Veterans Jobs bill I just talked about. The cyber security bill.
The Pentagon has said the most important issue facing this country is
cyber security. The National Security Agency: The most issue facing
this country? Cyber security. We know, they know, the Republicans know,
because they were down at the same demonstration I had of our
intelligence agency showing what would happen if a cyber security
attack took place in the Northeast just dealing with the power grid. We
know it can happen.
I have heard Senator Feinstein, the chairman of our Intelligence
Committee, say several times it is not a question of if, it is a
question of when. The Republicans blocked a cyber security bill,
stopped it.
They have conducted filibuster after filibuster, blocking one bill
after another. They blocked a bill to stop outsourcing jobs--more than
once.
On all these TV ads that you see, we thought it would be kind of a
good idea that the American people knew who was paying for these ads.
But, no, twice they said let's keep them secret--Crossroads USA or
whatever name they have there, all these names that sound so good. But
I think we would be better served if people knew the ads were being
paid by the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson from Las Vegas or Simmons
from Texas who is boasting about giving $34 million to defeat President
Obama. And that is what the Republican leader wants.
On the passage of several small business jobs bills, one July 12,
just a month or two ago; the motion to proceed to paycheck fairness,
violence against women--they stopped us from going to conference on
that. On April 16 they blocked a motion to proceed to a bill to reduce
the deficit by imposing a minimum tax rate on high-income taxpayers,
the Buffett rule, Warren Buffett. He wants to make sure he pays a tax
rate comparable to his secretary's. That is what we wanted. They
defeated that.
They blocked many bills dealing with unnecessary tax subsidies for
these large oil companies. They have held up hundreds of measures out
of the Energy Committee--hundreds. It used to be we would pass those
just matter-of-factly.
Senator Stabenow had an amendment to decrease taxes on American
businesses. She wanted to do that by extending expiring energy tax
credits for energy that has created hundreds of jobs in America.
They blocked the nomination for weeks and weeks of Richard Cordray to
be the Director of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. They
blocked judge after judge. They blocked a motion to proceed to a bill
to put workers back on the job while rebuilding and modernizing
American infrastructure. It creates jobs.
They blocked motions to proceed to a bill to keep teachers and first
responders--in addition to the one I just talked about--and other ones.
They blocked a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development
Administration. This has been something we have done for 25, 30 years.
They blocked it.
We wanted to reduce the deficit by doing something about these
outlandish subsidies we give Big Oil--blocked it. We were trying to do
a bill to create jobs. We spent weeks because they wanted to dictate
what women could do dealing with contraception.
Then they have this little--this little deal with the House
Republicans. If we work and are able once in a while to get something
done over here, such as a postal bill to save our postal system, then
the Republicans block it in the House. The farm bill--reduces the debt
by $23 billion--they have this deal with the House and now they blocked
that. China currency? The same thing; they blocked it over in the
House.
The record is very clear. The party of trying to defeat President
Obama has done everything they can to make the economy look as bad as
it can because they think if the economy is really bad, it is going to
help them defeat President Obama.
The middle class--we know how they feel about the middle class. That
was exemplified by statements that came out in the last few days by the
Presidential nominee.
This morning, as I said, I wasn't able to listen to everything, but I
listened to enough. One party stands for obstruction and the rich. The
big lie--listen to this: How many times did we have the Republicans
come to this floor and say: They have not passed a budget?
I have served in this Congress for 30 years, and I have admired two
people very much for their knowledge of certain things. One person I
have admired dealing with the finances of this country more than anyone
else is someone with whom I came to the Senate 26 years ago, Kent
Conrad. Kent Conrad has come here and time and time again said: Yes, we
did not pass a budget resolution because we did not need to. We passed
a law. That is why the CR is going forward. We passed a law that set
numbers for us.
It is a big lie for them to come here and say we have not passed a
budget. It is a lie. It is untruthful.
My friend with whom we have served in Congress, we came the same day,
the senior Senator from Arizona, I have said before, and I will say it
again: I admire him. I admire his service to our country. But for him
to come and say that the Senate is not working well because of the
Democrats, that is one of the big lies.
We have tried to legislate. They are holding up virtually everything
we try to do, including the Defense authorization bill. I have been
waiting for months for them to come to me with an agreement. This is
part of the big game they are playing to try to make us look bad when
they are the cause of it. They are the reason we have not done this
legislation. We can't. We have spent weeks on matters that we would
have done before in a matter of an hour or 20 minutes.
Republicans are complaining about a result that they themselves
caused. The Defense authorization bill--we are going to come back after
the election, and we will get that done with their help.
Here is the issue with Republicans, here is why suddenly they are all
upset. They have been upset for some time, but really this week has
been something that would upset nearly everyone because--we thought the
Olympics were over, but yesterday we saw it in full go.
We had Republicans running to break marathon records, sprint records
to get away from their Presidential nominee because it makes it a
little hard for them to have somebody running for President
representing their party who says: I only have to worry about half the
people in this country.
We are going to continue to work to the best we can to move forward
with the legislation we believe is important. We are going to come back
after the election, during the lameduck. Hopefully, they will decide at
that time maybe they have something better to do than try to make the
President of the United States look bad.
We are a very fortunate country. We have a two-party system that is
the envy of the rest of the world. These parliamentary governments,
they work for months and weeks and sometimes longer than that to try to
form a government. We don't have to do that. We are a government of
laws, and we have a system that works pretty well.
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But we know, based on some academic work that has been done--it is
not just me talking. We have two of the foremost experts who have
watched this country for more than 40 years--Thomas Mann from the
Brookings Institute and Norm Ornstein from the conservative Enterprise
Institute--who have said the problem with the government today is the
Republicans. They said they have been here for 40 years and have never
seen anything like it. I haven't seen anything like it, and I have been
here 30 years.
We used to work together. When I came to the Senate we had Republican
Senators and Democratic Senators. We joined hands and we got things
done. But now, because they are being led by someone who believes the
most important thing to do is to defeat Obama, we are getting nothing
done and they are following him like lemmings off the cliff.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, one of the greatest orators in the history
of English-speaking people was Winston Churchill. I can't tell you how
many times I have read and reread his speeches and heard his great
efforts to summon the courage of the British people during World War
II.
In one respect the speech earlier this morning by Senator McConnell
was Churchillian, in the tradition of Winston Churchill, because they
once said to Winston Churchill: What do you think history will have to
say about you? He said:
I'm not worried about what history has to say about me
because I'm going to write the history.
This morning Senator McConnell decided to write the history of the
Senate session. Unfortunately, his version was a little bit different
than the memory of most of us in terms of what has actually happened.
This we do remember: In the beginning of the Obama Presidency, a
short time after the President had been sworn in and asked to try to
take this failing economy and put it back on its feet, when we were
losing 750,000 jobs a month, when businesses were failing, when
American families were losing one-third of the value of their savings,
when the stock market was plummeting, when we ran the risk of a global
fiscal crisis, when we were sending $800 billion to the biggest banks
in America to save them from their own greed and stupidity--at that
time the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, said: ``My highest
priority is to make sure that Barack Obama is a one-term President.''
His highest priority.
That is a fact. That is on the record. That is on tape if you want to
see it. And he lived up to that in terms of his own ambition as the
Republican leader.
When the President came up with a stimulus bill to turn this economy
around, we had three Republicans who would join us, three of them. What
happened to those three Republicans?
One of them, Senator Specter of Pennsylvania, was then threatened
with defeat in the Republican primary for joining in a bipartisan
effort to save the economy. He switched parties, came over to the
Democratic side, and said: It isn't the Republican Party I remember.
Another, Senator Snowe of Maine, announced her retirement a few months
back and said: I can't take the partisanship and division. The third,
Senator Collins, still survives. Those three were the only three who
would stand up with the President to try to get this economy back on
track.
When it came to health care reform, after months of effort by Senator
Baucus to bring in Republicans to craft the bill, Senator Grassley, who
was leading the effort on the Republican side, went back to Iowa in
August, had a town meeting and said: I am finished. No more bipartisan
negotiation on health care reform. And they would not give us a single
vote, not one vote to pass health care reform.
The same thing was true when it came to Wall Street reform to put in
oversight to avoid another fiscal crisis generated by the perfidy of
greed on Wall Street.
Time and time again the Republicans refused to stand with us. To my
left is Senator Conrad of North Dakota. He has been our chairman of the
Budget Committee. He put in a sincere, bipartisan, good-faith effort to
deal with the deficit--with Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican of New
Hampshire, a man who commanded respect on his side of the aisle, as
Senator Conrad does as well. They came up with a notion. Here is what
it was.
We would create a commission that would investigate the deficit
crisis, and if 14 of the 18 members of the commission voted to go
forward it would come immediately to the floor for a vote.
We had a lot of Senators who were cosponsoring that. Democrats and
Republicans finally said that will break the logjam. Then we called it
on the floor. I ask Senator Conrad, does my memory serve me correctly
that the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, who was a cosponsor of
this deficit commission, along with six other Republican Senators,
changed their votes on the floor and defeated the very bill they had
cosponsored to deal with our Nation's deficit?
The Senator didn't hear that this morning, did he? All the speeches
from the other side about dealing with the deficit. Perhaps Senator
McConnell and those six other Senators, those remaining, would like to
explain why they reversed course and said no; they didn't want to be
part of the effort. But it happened. It happened for certain.
As Senator Reid came to the Senate floor and explained, they have
broken all records in the Senate for filibusters. Boy, I tell you what:
If you have a cable TV at home and you have C-SPAN on it and you turn
on the Senate, I know a lot of people across America are calling into
the cable channel providers and asking for a refund. Why in the world
do we have this channel where nothing happens except an occasional
mention of a Senator's name during a quorum call? Does anyone know why?
There were 382 filibusters on the Republican side; 382 delays in the
Senate. What sort of issues are they filibustering? I just saw one this
week. It was a veterans jobs bill. A veterans jobs bill was the subject
of a 2-week filibuster. It was a bill which should have passed by voice
vote. If every Senator who went back home for a Fourth of July parade,
grabbed the flag and walked down the middle of the street and said how
much they loved the veterans would have voted for it, we would have
passed it. Instead, they filibustered it. It was one of 382
filibusters.
I am glad Senator Conrad is here to explain this whole budget
resolution issue. He can do it better than anyone. I will tell the
Senator I took a look this morning at the 30 Senators on the Republican
side who got up to speak and about 10 of them talked about the fact
that there was no budget, that we didn't have a budget this year, and
we don't have a budget next year. I then looked at the votes on the
Budget Control Act. Those same 10 Senators voted for the Budget Control
Act, a law which controls the budget for 2 years.
I am calling for an official investigation by the attending physician
to see if there is something in the coffee urn in the Republican
cloakroom causing amnesia so that these Senators would come to the
floor and forget they voted for the Budget Control Act and make
speeches like they didn't or never heard of it.
Let me say something about entitlements. Senator McConnell spoke to
the issue of entitlements. He is right; it is an important part of what
we need to do to right this ship to deal with our deficit. It would
have been part of the conversation for the Conrad-Gregg commission,
which seven Republican Senators torpedoed, including the Republican
majority leader. We can go through the bills, as the majority leader
has, and talk about the efforts we have made.
We have passed bills on a bipartisan basis. We passed a postal reform
bill to ensure that the best postal service in the world survives. We
passed it with a bipartisan vote--dead in the House.
We passed a transportation bill. Senator Boxer and Inhofe put it
together. It was a strong bipartisan vote to build the infrastructure
of America. It passed in the Senate. It died in the House.
We passed a farm bill with Senator Stabenow of Michigan and Senator
Roberts of Kansas. It was a bipartisan farm bill that gave us a good
architecture for the future of farm programs and reduced the deficit by
$23 billion. We passed it on a bipartisan basis in the Senate. It died
in the House of Representatives. The tea party faction in the House
will not allow it to go forward.
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Senator Reid also made the point earlier. What was the first
Republican amendment on the Transportation bill? Think about this for a
second. It was the first Republican amendment on the Transportation
bill. They wouldn't let us move forward to that bill unless we
considered an amendment which would reduce the opportunity for women
across America to have access to family planning. That was on the
Transportation bill. Now they are arguing that we are finding ways to
slow down the Senate? The Blunt amendment was defeated, but it is an
indication of the political gamesmanship that has gone on at the
expense of the important bills such as the Transportation bill.
The last point I wish to make is this: We know that if we are going
to thrive in this country, the middle-class working families in this
country need a chance.
The Senators on this side of the aisle, as well as President Obama,
want to give working and middle-income families a tax break. We passed
a bill so they will have a tax reduction to help them as they struggle
from paycheck to paycheck. We sent it over to the House of
Representatives, where it is never going to be taken up for a vote.
That is the sad reality.
So as the Republicans came to the floor this morning and gave us this
grand vision of when they were in control, they tried to rewrite
history. Maybe Churchill is capable of doing that, but I would say the
Republican Senators failed to meet that challenge this morning.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). The Senator from North
Dakota.
Mr. CONRAD. First, I thank my colleagues, Senator Reid, our leader,
and Senator Durbin for their kind words. I very much appreciate those
kind words. I also must say I am a little taken aback by what I heard
earlier on the floor from some of my Republican colleagues because it
truly does represent an attempt to rewrite history, the history I have
lived in my 26 years in the Senate.
I announced a little more than a year and a half ago that I would not
seek reelection, so I don't have a political ox to gore. But I am here
to report what I have seen after 26 years of service. Let me start by
saying our Republican colleagues at the leadership level decided early
on that their strategy to be successful was to stop things from passing
in the Senate. It is very clear that has been their strategy. That is
why we have seen more than 380 filibusters in this body, which is
completely unprecedented in the history of the Senate.
The Republican leader made it very clear years ago that his highest
priority was to defeat for reelection President Obama. He did not say
his top priority was to solve the problems of the country. He did not
say his top priority was to get our economy back on track. He did not
say his top priority was to address the deficits and debt of the
Nation. He did not say his top priority was to improve the security
position of the United States. He said his top priority was to defeat
President Obama. Shame on him. That should never be the top priority of
a leader in this body, Republican or Democratic. The top priority ought
to be to help solve the problems the country confronts.
I am a little cranky because many of my colleagues know my wife and I
have a little dog named Dakota that is suffering from cancer. Last
night we were up from 12:30 until 5:30 as he was bleeding internally.
So I must say I am a little cranky after having been up most of the
night, and I got a lot crankier when I heard colleagues say things they
know are not true.
When they say there is no budget for the United States, they know
that is not true. How do I know it is not true, and that there is a
budget? Because I remember what we voted on, and it is in writing. It
is a law. It is called the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act
passed last year and contained the budget for 2012 and 2013. Some say
that is not a budget. Let's look to the language of the law itself and
see what it says.
Here is what it says: For the purpose of enforcing the Congressional
Budget Act of 1974, including section 300 of that Act, and enforcing
budgetary points of order in prior concurrent resolutions on the
budget, the allocations, aggregates, and spending levels set shall
apply in the Senate in the same manner as for a concurrent resolution
on the budget.
What they are trying to do is mislead the American people by saying
we have not passed a budget resolution. What they failed to tell people
is that instead of a budget resolution, we passed a budget law. What is
the difference? A resolution is purely a congressional document. It
never goes to the President for his signature. So instead of a
resolution, we passed a budget law called the Budget Control Act. It
set out spending limits not just for 2012 and 2013, it actually set out
on the discretionary side of the budget limits for 10 years.
In fact, the Budget Control Act, in many ways, is more extensive than
any budget resolution could provide. It has the force of law, unlike
the budget resolution that is not signed by the President. It set
discretionary caps on spending for 10 years instead of the 1 year
normally set in a budget resolution. It provided enforcement
mechanisms, including a 2-year provision allowing budget points of
order to be enforced. It created a reconciliation-like supercommittee
process to address entitlement and tax reforms. It said if the special
committee could not agree on reforming the entitlement programs and the
tax system of the United States, there would be an additional $1.2
trillion in spending cuts.
Let's add it up. The Budget Control Act first cut $900 billion from
the discretionary accounts over 10 years. Then it said if the
supercommittee didn't reform the tax system and entitlement system of
the country, there would be another $1.2 trillion cut from the
discretionary accounts over the next 10 years. That is a total of $2.1
trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years. That is the biggest
package of spending cuts in the history of the United States. That is a
fact.
The Budget Control Act set the spending limits for 2012 and 2013 and
further set limits for 8 years beyond that. So when they say there is
no budget resolution, what they fail to tell people is there is a
budget law.
It is interesting if we compare and contrast what their side
presented as their priorities in a budget because Mr. Ryan, their
candidate for Vice President, came before the House of Representatives
and laid out his budget blueprint. What does that do? First of all, it
extends all the Bush-era tax cuts.
Think about this. Here we have a circumstance in which the revenue of
our country is at or near a 60-year low. The first thing the Ryan
budget does is extend all the Bush-era tax cuts, even those for the
very highest income. Then it says that is not enough for the wealthiest
among us. So the Ryan budget, after extending all the Bush era-tax
cuts, goes and provides another $1 trillion of tax cuts for the
wealthiest among us.
I have nothing against wealthy people. I hope all Americans have the
opportunity to become wealthy; that would be my fondest hope. That was
why I was drawn to public service. What could I do that would
strengthen the economy of the United States? It has always been my top
priority. It is what I truly believe is essential to our democracy. But
in a circumstance in which we are borrowing 40 cents of every $1 we
spend, and then to say the answer is more and more tax cuts for the
very wealthiest among us and try to pay for it by shredding the social
safety net that is critically important to those who are the least
fortunate among us, frankly, I think that fails the moral test. I think
that fails any moral test of government.
The Ryan budget, which our colleagues have endorsed, would give, on
average, those earning over $1 million a year an additional tax
reduction of $265,000 a year.
I know if I were listening to this I would say, How can it be that
someone earning over $1 million can get a $265,000 tax cut, because
that is about all they would pay in taxes. Remember, we are talking
about the average for those earning over $1 million a year, so we are
talking about not just people who earn $1 million a year but people who
earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year. And the average tax cut
provided in the Ryan budget for those folks is another $265,000 a year.
What does Ryan do in order to offset that massive additional tax cut
for the
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very wealthiest among us? Well, here is an interesting quote from a
former top economic adviser to Ronald Reagan, a man named Bruce
Bartlett, who was a top economic adviser to Ronald Reagan. Here is what
he said about the Ryan budget that our colleagues here have endorsed:
Distributionally, the Ryan plan is a monstrosity. The rich
would receive huge tax cuts while the social safety net would
be shredded to pay for them. Even as an opening bid to begin
budget negotiations with the Democrats, the Ryan plan cannot
be taken seriously. It is less of a wish list than a fairy
tale utterly disconnected from the real world, backed up by
make-believe numbers and unreasonable assumptions. Ryan's
plan isn't even an act of courage; it's just pandering to the
Tea Party. A real act of courage would have been for him to
admit, as all serious budget analysts know, that revenues
will have to rise well above 19 percent of GDP to stabilize
the debt.
Those are not my words. Those are the words of a top economic adviser
to President Ronald Reagan.
The Ryan plan is a monstrosity.
If anybody seriously studies the Ryan budget they would have to
conclude that Mr. Bartlett is correct, because Mr. Ryan cuts taxes in a
very dramatic way for the richest among us. Let me be clear. The first
thing he does is extend all the Bush-era tax cuts. Then, on top of
that, he cuts the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. That provides
over $1 trillion of additional tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
And they refuse to do anything to close the tax loopholes that are
allowing certain wealthy people to avoid paying taxes in this country
entirely.
I have shown on the floor of the Senate many times a picture of a
five-story building in the Cayman Islands called the Ugland House. The
Ugland House claims to be the home of 18,000 companies. A little five-
story building in the Cayman Islands claims to be the home of 18,000
companies. I say that is the most efficient building in the world. Can
you imagine 18,000 companies operating out of a little five-story
building down in the Cayman Islands?
All those companies claim they are doing business out of that little
building for a reason. They claim they are doing business out of that
little building in the Cayman Islands because they don't want to pay
taxes in the United States. So here is what they do, and it is very
clever. Through paper manipulations, they show the profits of certain
subsidiaries of their companies in the Cayman Islands rather than in
the places where they actually earned the profits. Why would they do
that? Because the Cayman Islands doesn't have a corporate income tax.
So by showing their profits in the Cayman Islands, even though in truth
they were never earned in the Cayman Islands--through accounting
gimmicks they show their profits in the Cayman Islands and they aren't
taxed. They avoid paying here what they legitimately owe here. What
does that mean? That means all the rest of us get stuck paying for
ourselves and them.
I said earlier the Ryan budget fails the moral test, and it is not
just my judgment that it fails the moral test. How can one justify
cutting taxes dramatically for the wealthiest among us and then turn
around and shred Medicare, which is what the Ryan budget did? The Ryan
budget he initially proposed changed Medicare's finances over time so
that instead of Medicare paying 75 percent of health care costs for
seniors who are eligible, the Ryan budget, over time, would switch that
so Medicare would pay 32 percent. To be clear, under the Ryan plan, we
would wind up with a situation in which the majority of one's health
care costs, if one is eligible for Medicare, would be paid by that
person, not by Medicare. That is to make up for the massive tax cuts he
gives the wealthiest among us.
Here is what the Catholic bishops said. The Catholic bishops say the
Ryan budget fails the moral test. I agree with the Catholic bishops.
This is what they said in the Washington Post in 2012:
A week after House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said
that his Catholic faith inspired the Republicans' cost-
cutting budget plan, the Nation's Catholic bishops reiterated
their demand that the Federal budget protect the poor and
said the GOP measure fails to meet these moral criteria.
In any moral test that I know of in any religion, we don't take from
those who have the least to give it to those who have the most. I don't
know of any religion that practices that as an article of faith--that
we take from those who have the least to give to those who have the
most.
Anybody who knows me knows I am pretty conservative. I come from a
business family. I have a master's in business administration.
Throughout my career, I have been someone who has been judged as
fiscally conservative, someone who believes deeply in balancing
budgets. I was the grandfather of the Bowles-Simpson Commission; served
on it proudly. I was one of the 11 votes for its product--5 Democrats,
5 Republicans, 1 independent.
By the way, when our colleagues said this morning we haven't worked
in a bipartisan way--well, I have spent 5 years working in a bipartisan
way trying to get our debts and deficit under control. Senator Gregg,
the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, and I proposed the
Bowles-Simpson Commission. We served on it. We voted for it. I
subsequently served in the group of six, three Democrats, three
Republicans, who were given the assignment by our colleagues to come up
with a plan to reduce the deficit. We worked for a year and a half to
try to find a bipartisan solution. We have had the Biden group. We have
had the supercommittee, all bipartisan efforts that have gone on for
years to try to produce an agreement. So my friends saying there hasn't
been an effort, that is not true.
What is true is when our friends on the other side were in charge,
they brought this economy to the brink of financial collapse. That is
the truth. Anybody who doubts it can simply go back to the end of the
Bush administration and see where the country was. The stock market was
collapsing. The housing market was collapsing. The financial system was
collapsing. That is what President Obama inherited. He did not create
those crises; he inherited them. At the time President Obama came into
office, the economy was shrinking at a rate of almost 9 percent a year.
We were losing 800,000 jobs a month. Now the economy is growing at a
rate of about 2 percent a year, and we are gaining about 200,000 jobs a
month. That is a dramatic turnaround.
So when they ask the question: Are we better off now than 4 years
ago? Undeniably, we are better off. Undeniably, we are better off. We
have gone from an economy shrinking at a rate of more than 8 percent to
one growing at a rate of 2 percent. We have moved from a time when we
were losing 800,000 jobs a month to a time when we are gaining about
200,000 jobs a month. We have gone from a circumstance in which the
stock market was plunging to a circumstance in which the stock market
has about doubled during the time of President Barack Obama. President
Obama inherited two wars, a war on terror, a financial system that was
collapsing, a financial system that had seen, under the previous
President, the debt double; foreign holdings of U.S. debt were
tripling; and this President has ended the slide and has us going back
in the right direction, and with precious little help from the other
side.
I ask the American people before they cast their votes to think back
to the final days of the Bush administration. I will never forget as
long as I live being called to an emergency meeting in this building
with the Secretary of the Treasury of the Bush administration, the
Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the leaders, Republicans and
Democrats, in the House and the Senate, and being told by the Secretary
of the Treasury and the Bush administration and the Chairman of the
Federal Reserve that if they did not act, they expected a financial
collapse within days--a financial collapse within days. Those were in
the final months of the Bush administration. That is what President
Barack Obama inherited.
The hard fact is that when our colleagues were in charge of
everything--they had the House, the Senate, and they controlled the
White House--they brought this country to the brink of financial
collapse. That is a fact. Thank goodness this President, acting with
this Congress, was able to draw us back from the brink, but we have a
long way to go. We have a long way to go. It is going to take everybody
working together to pull us out of the ditch completely.
I have been part of major efforts for the last 5 years--bipartisan
efforts--including Bowles-Simpson, the group of six; right now the
group of six has been
[[Page S6487]]
expanded to the group of eight. We have been working nonstop, hundreds
of hours of discussions, on a bipartisan plan--four Democrats, four
Republicans--to be enacted when we return, to get America back on
track. That is what is required here.
What we saw this morning from our colleagues on the other side is not
the answer; it is the problem. The same old tired political
gamesmanship is not going to cut it. What we desperately need is
Republicans and Democrats working together to solve America's problems.
That is what we owe the American people. I very much hope when we
return after this election that colleagues on both sides will be
prepared to act in that spirit.
I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am very proud to follow Chairman
Conrad on the floor at this time. There is no person in the U.S. Senate
who has worked harder on a budget compromise than Senator Conrad has.
There is no person who has put out the hand of bipartisan friendship
and cooperation more than Senator Conrad has. There is no person who
has experienced more frustration of having that hand rejected and
slapped away than Senator Conrad has, and there is no person who has
contained that frustration and continued to work forward and seek
resolution in a dignified way than Senator Conrad has.
The Senate Republicans who took to the floor this morning to
criticize Democrats for failing to pass a budget and deal with the
impending sequester and tax cuts expiration failed to note that Senate
Democrats have, in fact, passed a budget law and a bill that extends
the tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small
businesses. It is to protect the 2 percent and the 3 percent at the top
of the income level that Republicans have refused to allow that bill
protecting 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses
from tax increases from going forward.
Senate Democrats also support a balanced approach to replacing the
sequester and reducing the deficit. What they didn't talk much about
but which is very important in this discussion is the Republican Ryan
plan for the budget.
This past May, 41 of our Senate Republican colleagues voted in favor
of a radical transformation of the America we know. And the Republican-
controlled House passed this budget--a budget that would devastate the
middle class. The plan would end Medicare as we know it for future
retirees. It would reopen the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole
that we closed for current retirees. It would slash investments that
America's children depend on, from Head Start to Federal college aid;
and it would give the average million-dollar earner a new additional
tax cut of, on average, $285,000 each in that million-dollar-plus
earner cohort.
The blockade here that is preventing moving beyond the sequester is
by Republicans, particularly in the House, refusing to proceed in any
reasonable way and, instead, demanding these damaging radical cuts for
the middle class.
Let's look a little bit behind the curtain of campaign rhetoric and
examine the harm--the personal real-life, real-person harm--that the
Ryan budget would inflict on millions of middle-class families and
retirees.
In what is one of the extraordinary examples of ``say one thing, but
do another'' rhetoric, Mr. Ryan, in his recent nomination acceptance
speech, said that ``the greatest of all responsibilities, is that of
the strong to protect the weak. The truest measure of any society is
how it treats those who cannot defend or care for themselves.''
His budget, of course, visibly does exactly the opposite. It slashes
taxes for the most well off, while decimating the programs on which
struggling families and retirees rely.
Do not take my word for it. Following the House passage of this Ryan
budget, the Conference of Catholic Bishops said:
Congress faces a difficult task to balance needs and
resources and allocate burdens and sacrifices.
Just solutions, however--
The bishops said--
must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising
adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other
spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health
insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget
resolution fails to meet these moral criteria.
That is what the Conference of Catholic Bishops said. I will state
again: ``The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral
criteria.''
That is not me speaking. That is the Conference of America's Catholic
Bishops.
So let's start our look behind the curtain, the curtain of the budget
that fails this moral test--that Governor Romney said was
``marvelous,'' to use his word--let's start with the budget's tax
theories.
The Ryan budget would lower the top tax rates for both corporations
and the highest earning individuals from 35 percent to 25 percent.
According to a Joint Economic Committee analysis, this would result
in an average tax cut of $285,000 for Americans earning $1 million a
year and more. At the same time, middle-income taxpayers making between
$50,000 and $100,000 would see their taxes go up--go up--by $1,300
because middle-class deductions are stripped away to pay for the high-
end cuts.
Ryan would also shift, at the corporate level, to a so-called
territorial tax system, which would mean that companies that ship jobs
and operations overseas would no longer have to pay any U.S. taxes on
their overseas profits.
Democrats have tried repeatedly to offer tax incentives to companies
that bring jobs home to the United States. And nobody in this body has
worked harder on bringing jobs home to the United States than the
Presiding Officer, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Brown.
Well, the Ryan plan would do exactly the opposite. It would tell big
corporations that if they move their business operations overseas, they
will never pay taxes on those again. The Ryan plan is really a jobs
bill for China, for India, for Korea, not for America. It is an
offshoring rewards act.
In addition to those upside down tax changes that harm the middle
class and raise their taxes to cut taxes for the highest earners in
this country, in addition to its inducements to offshore more jobs
instead of bringing them home, the Ryan budget would slash $2.9
trillion from our health care programs. Beginning for workers who
retire in 2023, Mr. Ryan would convert Medicare to a voucher system,
which, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, would
ultimately add an estimated $6,000 in annual out-of-pocket costs that
our retirees, our seniors would have to fork over.
It is hard to imagine how future seniors living on a fixed Social
Security income will be able to maintain health care coverage with
these substantial increases in out-of-pocket costs that Mr. Ryan's
budget envisions.
If the Republicans are saying they will not make the deal that spares
us the sequester unless that deal puts an end to Medicare as we know
it, holding Medicare hostage, well, it then takes some ``brass''--to
use President Clinton's phrase--to say: We are for the sequester.
The Ryan budget does not stop there. It would repeal the Affordable
Care Act and take away access to affordable health insurance for
millions of Americans of all ages. And, of course, repealing the
Affordable Care Act hits seniors again by reopening that dreaded
Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole that we worked so hard to
close and that is closed over time in the Affordable Care Act.
In 2011 alone, the Affordable Care Act helped nearly 15,000 people in
my home State of Rhode Island save an average of $554 by beginning to
close the doughnut hole--millions of dollars out of the pockets of
Rhode Island seniors.
That made a big difference for people such as Olive, who wrote to me
from Woonsocket. Her husband fell into the doughnut hole last July.
Thanks to the new law, Olive and her husband received a discount on
their prescription drugs. They saved $2,400. If the Ryan budget passed,
they would be stuck paying that full cost again: $2,400 right out of
the pockets of Olive and her husband and into the pockets of the drug
companies. Gee, who would be for that around here?
In fact, under the Ryan budget, the average senior would be stuck
with
[[Page S6488]]
$4,200 in additional out-of-pocket prescription costs--a huge transfer
of wealth from America's seniors to the big drug companies.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act would not just harm seniors, it
would also mean that insurance plans would no longer have to cover
young adults up to age 26 on their parents' plans. This moves over 3
million young Americans--just getting out of college, still looking for
that first job that has health insurance coverage--back on to the rolls
of the uninsured.
The radical Ryan budget would also hurt young people by slashing Pell
grants, making college less affordable. Students and graduates are
already struggling to pay a record trillion dollars that Americans now
owe in outstanding student loans, and the Ryan plan would force
students to take on even greater debt burdens.
On top of these specific cuts, the Ryan budget takes an additional $1
trillion in unspecified discretionary spending cuts. Domestic
discretionary funding is the money that is used to keep the government
operating each year--FBI agents investigating cases, Border Patrol
agents working our borders, doctors and nurses treating veterans at the
VA, employees mailing out Social Security checks, and many other
important programs and functions.
It is already at its lowest level as a share of GDP since the 1950s.
It is hard to imagine any Federal investment--whether it is education
or housing or highways or law enforcement, you name it--not being
jeopardized by such Draconian cuts.
That is why President Reagan's--President Reagan's--former economic
adviser said about this Ryan budget plan:
The Ryan plan is a monstrosity.
Ronald Reagan's economic advisor said: ``The Ryan plan is a
monstrosity.''
The rich would receive huge tax cuts while the social
safety net would be shredded to pay for it. . . . It is less
of a wish list than a fairy tale utterly disconnected from
the real world, backed up by make-believe numbers and
unreasonable assumptions.
If that is what Ronald Reagan's economic advisor thought about it,
think what regular people might think about it.
Ryan's plan isn't even an act of courage; it's just
pandering to the Tea Party.
But that is what is being held hostage on this sequester.
I hope when the election season is over, no matter who wins, that
Republicans will work with us--without insisting on a monstrosity,
without insisting on the end of Medicare--on a balanced and reasonable
plan to reduce the deficit. With a record national debt, now is no time
for more tax giveaways to billionaires, as Mr. Ryan proposes, but,
rather, it is the time to ensure an America where everyone gets a fair
shot, everyone pitches in their fair share, and we go forward as a
country together, as we always have in our best days.
I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Washington is
recognized.
Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I caught some of the dog-and-pony show
that Republicans put on this morning on the floor of the Senate, and I
thought it was pretty indicative of their approach to this entire
Congress--all politics, no participation. Someone must have reminded
them this morning that they are 47 days away from an election and that
for the last 624 days of this Congress, they have done nothing but say
no.
But I am here to say that an hour of speeches on the Senate floor
cannot erase an entire Congress of obstruction. In fact, the
Republicans' show this morning reminded me of a move I have seen many
times before as a former preschool teacher and as a mom who has watched
a lot of kids go through school. It reminded me how on the very last
day of school before summer there was always one student who had not
done their homework all year long, and on that last day they showed up
on their best behavior, homework in hand, hoping to leave a good
impression. They thought maybe this last-ditch effort could help them
avoid a bad grade.
Unfortunately, it does not work that way.
So let me assure Republicans of one thing: Their record of
obstruction and their refusal to compromise will not go away at the
eleventh hour. One-minute speeches on the day before they go to face
voters cannot paper over 100 filibusters. It will not change the fact
that almost 2 years ago the Senate minority leader revealed that his
No. 1 priority was--not working to get Americans back to work, it was
not bringing our economy back from the brink, it was not ensuring that
America remained a leader at home and abroad, no--to defeat President
Obama, it was playing politics, just as we saw this morning.
There has been, seemingly, no group of Americans--well, with the
exception of millionaires and billionaires--who have been spared in the
Republicans' efforts to achieve their goals--not our teachers, not our
college students, not our farmers, not construction workers, not first
responders, not even our Nation's veterans have been spared their
efforts to destroy the work of this Congress.
There was no better example of that than yesterday here on the floor
of the U.S. Senate. The Veterans Jobs Corps bill that we brought to the
floor included 12 provisions to help veterans find jobs.
Eight of them. Let me repeat that. Eight of those provisions were
Republican ideas. This bill was fully paid for. It was based on
existing grant programs that are putting Americans to work. It would
have allowed the veterans to serve their communities. It would have
given unemployed veterans the self-esteem that a job provides. It would
have allowed them to support their families and help ease that
transition back home.
That bill came at a time when one in four young veterans today is out
of work. It came at a time when our military and veteran suicide rates
are outpacing combat deaths and when more and more, as we all know,
veterans are coming home today. The American Legion supported it. The
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America supported it. The problem was,
it seemed, President Obama supported it. So we know from everything we
have seen and attempted on the Senate floor, no matter how good or bad
of an idea, no matter which struggling American would benefit, it seems
that if the President supports it, you can pretty much guarantee Senate
Republicans will not.
That is the legacy the Senate Republicans are going to take home to
voters, the legacy that when middle-class American families needed
their help the most, they refused to compromise to get things done;
that when Americans were hurting, they put politics before people; that
they set a goal of not participating, and they followed through on that
at every single turn. No amount of snappy speeches is going to change
that. No last-minute appeals for leniency will change that record.
In fact, it is ironic that this morning all of the Republican
Senators showed up on the floor because for the last 2 years, when the
American people have needed them the most, they have been absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
____________________