[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 156 (Thursday, December 6, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7677-S7680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
FISCAL CHALLENGES
Mr. COONS. Madam President, this is a critical moment. Over the next
few weeks, serious choices must be made about how our Nation spends its
money, about our national budget. At its heart, a budget is a statement
of balance. A budget shows the world what we care about, what we
prioritize, what we invest in, how we intend to build our future.
Everyone who comes to this Chamber comes with their own values,
representing their own State. But each of us also knows we have to find
a way to bridge those divides to work together to solve the enormous
fiscal challenges we face as a Nation. That means addressing the more
than $500 billion in automatic spending cuts, tax increases, and other
fiscal changes all scheduled to take place at the beginning of the next
year and known collectively as the fiscal cliff.
We find ourselves at the edge of this cliff because of our shared
beliefs that deficits matter and that we can't keep spending money we
don't have. As it stands today, our deficit and debt are unsustainable.
Last year we ran a budget deficit of well over $1 trillion, and now we
have a national debt that exceeds $16 trillion. If we don't get these
numbers under control, interest payments will inevitably skyrocket,
taking up a larger and larger percentage of our budget until they crowd
out other critical, progrowth investments in our country's
competitiveness and the essential social safety net that puts a circle
of protection around the most vulnerable in our country. I don't
believe either one of us wants to put those two vital things at risk.
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When a budget is so out of balance we have to take a hard look at
both the money coming in and the money going out. The only way to get
back on track, in my view, is to address both sides of this equation--
revenue and spending. We have to find a balanced solution that combines
tough spending cuts with reforms to our Tax Code that bring in more
revenue while also ensuring fairness to taxpayers. I believe there is
real momentum for this kind of big, balanced, bipartisan solution for
the first time in a long time.
We have seen some courageous Republicans in both the House and Senate
recently stand and say that revenue has to be on the table and a few
even that an increase in tax rates for the wealthiest Americans may be
necessary to get a budget deal that moves us forward. They know what we
all know--that, frankly, even the most drastic across-the-board
spending cuts, like the kinds contained in the sequester that will kick
in in January, won't save enough to close the budget gap. At the same
time, across-the-board, meat ax cuts to domestic programs violate some
of our basic American values by failing to protect the most vulnerable
in our society, those who I believe our values call us to put a circle
of protection around, even in this most difficult recovery.
Risking public safety, for example, by cutting funding for police and
firefighters or leaving families out in the cold this winter by cutting
heating assistance to low-income seniors--these are not American
values. They are not the best way to solve our fiscal challenge. The
truth is that those programs specifically have already been cut more
than I would ever have liked to have seen. The Budget Control Act
passed last year made a dramatic $1 trillion in spending cuts over the
coming decade, which fell like an ax on some community-based programs
on which Delaware families depend and which I used as county executive,
in partnership with our community, to fight for the disabled for
affordable housing and for low-income heating assistance programs.
So let's not let this moment pass us by. Let's instead seize the
opportunity before us and start finding areas where, across the aisle
and between the Chambers of the Senate and the House, we can agree. One
of those areas of agreement is the need to extend tax cuts for the
middle class, for families and small businesses still working their way
out of the deep hole of the financial collapse of 2008 and still making
their way through this recovery.
No one from either party, from the House, the Senate, or any State in
this country, wants to raise taxes on middle-class families and small
businesses and families like Deborah's.
Deborah is a single mother in Wilmington, DE--my hometown--who is
working a full-time job and a part-time job on top of that just to make
ends meet. She wrote to my office, concerned about tax increases and
the fiscal cliff. She said that ``the middle class is the heart and
soul of this country--what keeps it going--what else can we be hit
with? I know that I cannot take on any more financially.''
So my first call today is let's give Deborah and families like hers
in Delaware and around the country the certainty, before we end this
calendar year, of knowing their taxes will not go up in 26 days when
the calendar turns to 2013. One way to do that is for the House to take
up and pass legislation this body has already considered and passed in
a bipartisan way that would extend the Bush-era tax cuts for 98 percent
of families and 97 percent of small businesses while also achieving
nearly $1 trillion in debt and deficit reduction.
This bill extends tax cuts that would otherwise expire for all
Americans who earn income and for all small businesses that earn
revenue but just on the first $200,000 of individual income or $250,000
in family income.
Tax rates on income over and above $\1/4\ million a year would revert
to the levels of the Clinton administration, the time of enormous
economic growth and prosperity.
This one step would blunt the impact of the fiscal cliff for the vast
majority of Americans and give them the certainty they so badly need.
It would also be a serious downpayment on meaningful deficit reduction
and ensure that our budget more closely reflects our values, our
fundamental belief in the American dream and that if you work hard, you
can still get ahead.
Leading Republicans in the House and the Senate, including Senator
Snowe and Congressman Cole, have urged the House to move forward and
pass this bill to provide badly needed security and certainty to
middle-class families before the end of this year. I join their call,
but let's not stop there. Let's keep going and find additional areas of
compromise and constructive common ground to provide the business
community with the certainty they need to plan the deployment and
investment of capital so they can get Americans back to work. This
would provide the market with certainty to sustain this recovery, while
continuing to invest in our future. This would help families who need
to know their budget future and need to be able to have confidence to
take risks, to invest in growth. They want to educate their children,
to buy a larger home, to take care of their children and their parents.
To find the kind of balanced, bipartisan, long-term solution we need is
to find a solution to all of these problems.
It is only by coming together over the next few weeks--not as
Republicans and Democrats but as Americans--that we can avoid a fiscal
calamity that was entirely predictable. This is the result of a decade
of unresolved budget fighting in this Chamber. For both parties, simply
blaming the other side and waiting for the next election to give us a
stronger mandate is no longer a tolerable or sustainable path forward.
Working together is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength.
Americans have faced tough times before, but our strength has always
been our unity and our ability to come together. It is my hope, my
prayer, that faced with the challenge of the impending fiscal cliff, we
can do it again.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to enter
into a colloquy with the senior Senator from Delaware.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CARPER. Would my colleague yield?
Madam President, I want to follow up--we are supposed to talk about
tomorrow being Delaware Day, if I could do that. But I wish to follow
up on Senator Coons' remarks on the fiscal cliff.
A friend of mine who has done a lot of research on the fiscal cliff
says that if you look at domestic and discretionary spending, that is
not really the overwhelming problem as far as why we continue to have a
big budget deficit. The problem is really twofold. One of those is that
if you look at revenues as a percentage of GDP, historically when we
have been in budget, the revenues as a percentage of GDP, at least in
the last 10, 15 years, revenues have been about 21 percent of GDP.
Today they are about 15, 16 percent of GDP.
But the other big driver in our deficit situation going forward is
health care costs. It is health care costs, including Medicare and
Medicaid. While we have to be smart enough to try to figure it out
while being humane about caring for older people and the poor who count
on Medicaid and Medicare to some extent, we have to focus on how to get
better health care results for less money. That is what we have to
focus on--how to get better health care results for less money. There
are a lot of good ideas for doing that. Some of them are actually part
of the health care law for our country.
So it is revenues, and the other key here is better health care
results for less money. We need to make sure that we have focused on
Medicare and Medicaid in a humane way and that we do so in a way that
doesn't harm, doesn't hurt, is not mean-spirited to those who depend on
those programs.
At the same time, we need to preserve those programs for the coming
generations. For the pages down here--how old are you guys? Fifteen,
sixteen years of age? Several of you are nodding your heads. We want to
make sure these programs are still around when you are 65, 66, 67 or
older. That is what this is for. It is sort of a P.S. to the wonderful
comments of my colleague from Delaware.
What is tomorrow in Delaware, I ask the Senator?
I seem to forget. What is this all about?
Mr. COONS. Madam President, as anyone who has looked at the beautiful
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Delaware flag knows--and it flies in our offices and hallways here--it
has a date emblazoned on the bottom--December 7, 1787, and that is
known as Delaware Day. That is the day when Delaware became the first
State to ratify the Constitution. So to celebrate Delaware Day, we do
some things together, don't we?
Mr. CARPER. And we have fun doing them. One of the things we are
going to do--a great idea from a brandnew Senator to Delaware about a
year ago--is to have a ``Taste of Delaware.'' In fact, we are doing
that this afternoon. It is not something paid for by the Federal
Government but sponsored by our Delaware State Chamber of Commerce, as
I recall, and others of its members to sort of be able to show off some
of the finest of our State, and some of them pretty tasty, as it turns
out. So we are looking forward to a lot of people coming by and
enjoying that.
Mr. COONS. We are looking forward to doing that in just a few
minutes, actually. We have Dogfish Head Beer, we have Grottos pizza,
and Capriotti subs, and dozens of restaurateurs and breweries and
wineries from across Delaware--in age-appropriate settings--who will
make available some of the finest of what Delaware has to offer. So it
is my hope members of staff and our colleagues will join in the
celebration of Delaware Day.
One of the questions folks who are listening might have is: What
about Delaware are you celebrating? It is, in my experience--and I
believe my colleague's--a State that is not just the First State
because of a wonderful accident of history, where we were the first
State to have the vision and the courage to sign the Constitution, to
ratify it, but it is also a State that has a nearly unique culture--a
culture of respect, of innovation, of education, and of civility. It is
a place that has a special, even a unique political culture, one that
is at times the polar opposite of what I have seen here--forgive me,
Madam President--in the last 2 years. Delaware, much like New
Hampshire, feels and seems like a small town that is, through the magic
of federalism and the Connecticut Compromise and the Continental
Congress, a State with two Senators.
One of the things I am proudest of about my State--and Senator Carper
knows this well--is a tradition that just celebrated its 200th
anniversary. It is the epitome of what we call the Delaware Way. It is
a tradition that happens 2 days after every election. It is called
Return Day, and it happens in Georgetown, which is the county seat of
our southernmost county, Sussex County. What happens 2 days after the
election--or the first thing that happens, because there are a lot of
different pieces to it--is we all gather out at a local farm, and two
by two--ark rules--the candidates who ran against each other in the
general election get into horse-drawn carriages and ride--slowly--down
the main streets of Georgetown where crowds of thousands come out to
see the candidates, who just days before were engaged in vigorous
political combat, being polite, being friendly, and waving to the
crowds.
What happens after that, I ask Senator Carper?
Mr. CARPER. We have this beautiful center of Georgetown, with all
these beautiful old brick buildings, courthouses and other buildings,
and as we gather there in the circle of Georgetown--and the Senator may
have said this and I just missed it--but the town crier comes out on
the balcony of the courthouse and he has on his top hat and his tails
and he announces the results of the election 2 days earlier. This is
Thursday after the election. He calls out the results of the election 2
days earlier just for Sussex County, DE, where about a sixth of our
State's population lives. He calls out the results of everything from
President, Vice President, all the way down to justice of the peace or
sheriff. And when he finishes, we have a couple of short speeches on
the platform there in front of thousands of people, maybe a patriotic
song or two, and then the leaders of parties, Democrat, Republican,
maybe Libertarian chairman, take a hatchet--a pretty big hatchet--and
they grab it, each holding on, and they put it down in a glass aquarium
half full of sand. And then someone brings in some buckets of sand,
maybe from Rehoboth Beach or Dewey Beach, and they cover up and
literally bury the hatchet.
Some of my colleagues from New Jersey said: If we had a ceremony like
that in our State, and we buried the hatchet, it probably wouldn't be
in the sand. It would be in the anatomy or some part of the body of our
opponents. But we do it in the sand. And then we have maybe a
benediction, and we go off and eat, and people open their homes for a
reception. So as the day carries on and the Sun sets in the west, the
travails and the passions of the election begin to dissipate and people
start to think and refocus not on how do we beat our opponents' brains
out but how do we work together to govern our State.
It is a wonderful tradition. We have talked about this before. I
think we could use a return day for our country. It certainly works in
our State. It has a very civilizing effect on all our campaigns.
Mr. COONS. Whether it is the reception in the morning, the long
carriage ride through the middle of Georgetown, the speeches on the
podium, the announcement of the results, the literal burying of the
hatchet, or the receptions that go on all afternoon and into the night,
the experience of Return Day for me--and I believe for my colleague
Senator Carper--has been one of reconciliation, one of moving past the
election and then forward toward the challenge of making decisions
together for the people we represent.
Everybody shows up--the winners and the losers. It is only the sorest
of losers who don't show up and only the most arrogant of winners who
don't show up. So, frankly, it is almost always everybody. In the
elections I have been blessed to stand in and be successful in for the
people of Delaware, the Return Day is a great end to the campaign
season and beginning of our season of service to the people of
Delaware.
So as we go from the floor now to the reception in honor of Delaware
Day, I want to say how grateful I am to serve with my senior Senator,
who has always been personally a model of the civility, of
graciousness, and of the service that marks the Delaware Way and marks
Delaware Day which we celebrate officially tomorrow but which we kick
off tonight with a reception.
Mr. CARPER. I would add to that this is a commitment to civility that
Senator Coons and I share, and it is also one that our Congressman John
Carney certainly does, and winning in races before him, Mike Castle. If
you think of all of those--Castle with a ``C'', Carney with a ``C'',
Coons with a ``C'', and Carper with a ``C''--people say what is it with
the letter ``C'' and the State of Delaware? If I can, before I close
here, I want to roll back in time about the economy of our State.
People say what do you all do there? How do you provide for your
living, your income? I would say the economy of our State is pretty
much founded on the letter ``C.'' It includes corn. We started off by
growing corn. Then chickens. There are a whole of lot of chickens
there. For every person in Delaware, there are 300 chickens. For anyone
listening and wondering what to have for dinner, chicken would be good.
We have chemicals--the DuPont Company. A poor impoverished French
family came to Delaware over 200 years ago and established what I call
the DuPont country club. They didn't have many members. They figured
they needed to establish some jobs so people could join their country
club, so they started a chemical company, and a power company, and now
they have quite a successful science company in our State--for over 200
years. We have cars. We have built a lot of cars over the years for GM
and Chrysler. We are home to corporations of over half the New York
Stock Exchange, half the Fortune 500. Credit card businesses are in our
State. The coast of our State is the site of the Nation's summer
capital--Rehoboth Beach and a bunch of other places. So the letter
``C'' has been pretty big.
People say: Well, why do they call you the First State? Well, we are
actually the first colony that threw off the yoke of British tyranny on
June 15, 1776 and at the same time said to Pennsylvania, take a hike,
we want to be a State on our own. And then 225 years from tomorrow, to
be exact, we were the first State to ratify the Constitution.
We have the best beaches in the country. Last year I think there were
four five-star beaches in America, with
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two of them in Delaware--Rehoboth and Dewey Beach. We have the best Air
Force base, we think, in the world. We were first in Ph.Ds per capita.
We have, I think, the finest Judiciary--acknowledged year after year
after year as the finest judicial system in the States. We have the
best financial controls and cash management system. We have had triple
A credit rating since--what was that guy's name as Governor, Carper or
something? We continue to have that kind of credit rating. So we are
proud of being first.
What is our State motto? ``It is good to be first.'' And we attempt
to be first in a whole lot of ways. Some things you don't want to be
first in, and we want to be last in those. But we are proud of what we
are first in--first in civility.
As Senator Coons said, this all goes back to Return Day. When you
announce your candidacy for election, whether it is for the U.S. Senate
or as sheriff, you know at the end of the campaign--2 days after the
campaign--you are going to be in Georgetown, DE, in a horse-drawn
carriage or maybe an antique car with the man or woman you were running
against, their family, your family, and surrounded by friends and
supporters and thousands of other people. And I think it has a very
tempering effect on the nature of our campaigns, a wonderful effect.
That is one of much that we are proud of in our State. We are lucky
to be Senators from this State, but this is a State that works and
focuses on results. This is a State where we govern from the middle,
whether the Governor is DuPont or Castle or Carper or Markell. And
whether the Senator is Carper or Coons or Biden or Kaufman, we govern
from the middle. We are a State where Democrats and Republicans
actually like each other. We just want to get things done and do what
is right for our State.
With that in mind, we hope some of our friends and neighbors can join
us later today in the Russell Building up on the third floor. We will
make a toast to Delaware and enjoy some sarsaparilla and some other
goodies as well.
It is a great joy to serve with my friend.
Mr. COONS. I thank my colleague.
With that, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. BENNET. Let me be the first to congratulate my two colleagues
from Delaware on Delaware Day. Have a happy Delaware Day.
We have a lot of great things in Colorado, but I am not going to try
to outcompete you on beaches this afternoon. We don't have a lot of
those. I do think it puts me in mind of something, and that is our
constitution. Delaware, as Senator Coons mentioned, was the first State
to ratify the Constitution of this great country. My State didn't
become a State until nearly a century later. We are the Centennial
State as a result of that.
That constitution that enabled generation upon generation of
Americans had a preamble which said: to secure the blessings of liberty
for ourselves and our posterity. It is important in these days of these
budget discussions to remind ourselves they didn't stop with
themselves. The document doesn't stop with ourselves. It is about
ourselves and our posterity. That is what we are talking about here
when we are involved in this budget discussion. These aren't decisions
that are about ourselves, these are decisions that are about the next
generation of Americans and the generation after that. And it is time
for us to do our job. It is time for us to walk back from this fiscal
cliff and come up with a comprehensive plan. We know what the outlines
of that are today, and we need to stop playing political games in this
holiday season and get this work done, not for ourselves but for our
posterity.
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