Congressional Record, Volume 158 Issue 171 (Monday, December 31, 2012)

[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 171 (Monday, December 31, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8565-S8570]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EXTENSION OF MORNING BUSINESS

Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the
period for morning business for debate only be extended until 3 p.m.,
with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN of Ohio. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CORKER. Madam President, I just listened to the President, and my
heart is still pounding. I was very disappointed to hear what the
President just had to say in front of a pep rally--something very
unbecoming of where we are at this moment.
It is my understanding that most of the tax issues have been worked
out--should have been worked out on the floor in regular order. I think
most of the Senate is very distressed that we are in a situation where
the negotiations are taking place all of this time and it is not being
done through regular order, but that is the way things are today in the
Senate.
But I just heard the President say that in dealing with the sequester
that was put in place to reduce spending--it was part of a $2.1
trillion package to reduce spending so that we could raise the debt
ceiling back in August of 2011. No one ever thought we would end up in
this place where the sequester would be enacted, but it was done so
that we would reduce spending.
I notice my friend from Arizona is here. He has been one of the best
there is to focus on defense spending and how it should be done, and I
know he would like to see things happen in a very different way in that
regard.
But I just heard the President say that the way we are going to deal
with this sequester is in a balanced way, through revenues and through
reduced spending. I just want to go on record here on the Senate
floor--I know there are negotiations that are taking place, but the
sequester was to be dealt with and substituted with other spending
reductions, not through revenues. I hope all those who are involved in
bringing this together understand that even on the Democratic side,
that was the understanding. Not only was it to be dealt with through
spending reductions if these were considered to be ham-handed--and they
are, and we should deal with them in a different way--but they were to
be dealt with in the same time period. In other words, we weren't going
to reduce $100 billion of the sequester and pay for it over 10 years;
it was to be done during the same amount of time.
So I know the President has fun heckling Congress. I think he lost
probably numbers of votes with what he did. He didn't lose mine; I am
not that way; I am going to look at the substance. But it is
unfortunate that he doesn't spend as much time working on solving
problems as he does on campaigns and pep rallies.
But I just want to say that I am very disappointed in what the
President had to say, and I am one Senator. I just want to go on record
that it is absolutely unacceptable to pay for the sequester with
revenues.
Yesterday we had a meeting that broke down because all the money was
being spent. The President campaigned for a year on raising taxes on
the upper income. We have acquiesced to that. We know it is going to
happen. But yesterday the deal was that all the money was going to be
spent. There was going to be no deficit reduction. It is unbelievable--
unbelievable that all of the money was going to be out the door as soon
as it came in. As a matter of fact, before it came in, it was going to
be spent.
I just want to say that I know the President enjoys heckling and
having pep rallies to try to get Congress to act instead of sitting
down and actually negotiating, but I hope that is what is going to
happen, is we will end up following through on the reductions in
spending that need to take place to replace the sequester.
I will also add just for what it is worth that the last time we
extended unemployment insurance, we paid for it. The last time we did
not cause the doc fix, the SGR, to go into place, we paid for it. And I
hope that as this negotiation goes forward, we keep the same principles
in place that we have had.
This country is over $16 trillion in debt. The sequester was put in
place because we couldn't reach an agreement on reductions, but we knew
they

[[Page S8566]]

had to take place. Mr. President, I hope we will continue to honor the
fact that the sequester--the $1.2 trillion that we don't like the way
it is being implemented--will only be adjusted through other
reductions. If that is not the case, count me out. I think most people
in this body consider me to be a semireasonable person, but if that is
not what we do, count me out.
This country has a spending problem and a revenue problem, I agree
with that. I am willing to support revenues to deal with this problem,
the overall problem. But what I will not agree to is using revenues to
replace spending reductions that were part of the Budget Control Act;
that, candidly, we need further reductions in place to totally get this
country where it needs to be.
With that, I know we have other Senators on the floor. I don't know
what their response is to what just happened at the White House.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed
to follow Senator Mikulski.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coons). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Maryland.
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise to speak as to what is going on
here today as the new chair of the Senate full Committee on
Appropriations. That means we are the committee that actually puts
money in the Federal checkbook. I would like to talk about that
because, you see, today here we are on New Year's Eve doing what we
should have done right after Labor Day.
We are behind the clock, and actually we are behind the thinking of
the American people. They want us to come together and have sensible
fiscal policies that promote growth and at the same time balance it
with a new sense of frugality. The fact that we have come to this point
with this culture of delay in this institution I think is really
unacceptable. But I don't want to go into the culture of the
institution, I want to go into actual discussions of something called
sequester and spending.
The words of Washington are a foreign language. We use words that
nobody understands, and we use numbers that nobody believes. I am
telling you that with me, there is going to be a new day and a new
way--plain talk, straight talk about what we are doing here.
So let's talk about the word ``sequester.'' Sequester literally means
that you are going to--sequester stands for an arcane government word
that means you are going to have automatic, across-the-board government
spending cuts. These are supposed to be triggered if we don't resolve
the issues today and will happen on January 2.
What is being proposed is that we would cut $110 billion in 2013--$55
billion in defense and $55 billion in nondefense. This means every
single program--not programs that are dated, not programs that are
bloated, not programs that might be for another era or only benefited a
small group of people in a distant past, it means every single program.
Yes, there will be certain exemptions to that in terms of Social
Security benefits, veterans' benefits, and certain things related to
the military.
Since we are already 3 months into the fiscal year, the impact of
these cuts will even be worse. So when you hear that we are cutting
deals on the sequester, we are actually talking about government
spending.
Now let's talk about cuts. This is not the first time either party
has talked about cuts, nor is it the first time either party has
started to talk about a sense of frugality. One party, however, wants
to also understand that we need to be able to meet the compelling needs
that are in the mission of our government, and we have already given at
the office.
So let's talk about, oh, this could be new spending, and I don't want
this. The fact is that since 2010, not 2001--let's get our zeroes
straight for a change--since 2010 we have already cut domestic spending
by $43 billion. We have already cut $43 billion. That is nearly 10
percent of domestic spending in just 3 years. That $43 billion was in
nondefense programs.
Then there is talk about, oh, why don't we have a budget? On August
2, 2011, we passed something called the Budget Control Act. That was
deemed to be the budget of the United States of America. In that Budget
Control Act, they instructed those of us on the Appropriations
Committee to cut discretionary spending $1 trillion over the next 10
years. The Appropriations Committee will honor the instructions of the
Budget Committee, as approved by the Congress of the United States. We
are on the program. We are on the same page. We are on the same
glidepath. We don't have to have showdowns here.
So we have already cut actual dollars--an actual checkbook--of $43
billion. That is a lot of money. Also, in the Budget Control Act, we
are to cut $1 trillion over the next 10 years. That would meet what was
being discussed in Simpson-Bowles and so on, so we need to understand
that.
Now let's go to this across-the-board cut. I see on the Senate floor
the distinguished Senator from Arizona, a well-known advocate for our
national security, well versed over the years in the compelling needs
our military must have to protect the Nation. I am sure he will speak
to those needs, and I will also.
But I also want to speak about another dynamic, which is the impact
of $55 billion across the board in discretionary spending. What I want
to say is that if, in fact, we go ahead with this, we are going to cut
defense, there is no doubt about it, $55 billion, and it is going to be
a meat ax. That is not the way to go, that is not the way to treat our
military, and that is not the way to focus on our national security.
Secretary Panetta, along with the generals, General Dempsey, the head
of the Joint Chiefs, has gone through his own budget. He has
recommendations where, out of the $66 billion of defense, how we could
begin to have a prudent way where we could begin to have modest
reductions in the DOD account without jeopardizing national security.
I serve on the Intelligence Committee. I served with the Senator from
Arizona and other distinguished people. We are going to make sure we
can do this in our own way, but sequestration could really affect a
variety of things related to operations and maintenance.
Let me tell you what else there is. There are many other people who
defend the United States of America, and I am proud of them all. These
are things such as our Federal law enforcement. With our Federal law
enforcement, if we go into this meat ax approach, over 7,500
positions--because it will come out of personnel--will be affected.
This could affect as many as 3,000 Federal agents--3,000 Federal agents
of the FBI, DEA, and ATF. They might not be laid off, but they are
going to be furloughed. They are going to have short-term furloughs.
This is going to have a direct impact on morale, a direct impact on
mission, and it will have a direct impact on protecting the American
people, whether it is from cyber threats, border control threats--all
these things they do. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug
Enforcement Agency are absolutely important.
Then the other area is in homeland security. We could reduce the
mission hours at the Coast Guard by as much as 50 percent. Now, the
Coast Guard is absolutely crucial when it comes to drug interdiction
and also protecting our borders from our waterways.
You know, a lot of people love the Weather Channel. I love the
Weather Channel too. If you watch what they do in Alaska, down in
Florida, wherever they are, they are doing search and rescue and making
sure drug dealers aren't using our waterways and byways to bring drugs
into the country and just standing sentry and protecting the United
States of America.
Again, we could talk about the border control, but then there is this
whole issue of the center for health and human services. Whatever you
feel about ObamaCare, that doesn't affect what goes on at the Centers
for Disease Control. Right now, the Centers for Disease Control and the
FDA are trying to make sure we have food safety and drug safety and are
watching out to make sure there are no big outbreaks that spread.
All of us were horrified at the meningitis outbreak. We had a
situation with a medical technician who went State to State--he was
kind of a technician by hire--who spread terrible meningitis by
injecting dirty needles into people who needed steroid injections
because of their back.

[[Page S8567]]

So we need the FDA. We need the Centers for Disease Control. They are
out there working to protect our American people. Remember, they are
the ones who discovered Legionnaires' disease.
Mr. President, how much time have I consumed?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Ms. MIKULSKI. I have a commitment to the gentleman from Arizona, and
I will honor that commitment both in speaking here and in dealing with
these issues.
Mr. President, the point I am making is this across-the-board meat
axe approach has very serious consequences. Let's use prudence and
delay them, I would hope, for at least 1 year or 2 years and not a
matter of weeks. But I am saying, and I promise, we do have methods for
getting our spending under serious discipline.
I yield the floor, and I look forward to working with my colleagues.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Maryland as
always for her usual courtesy, and I think she had a very important
message. I appreciate not only the words themselves but her eloquence
and passion.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from South
Carolina be included in a colloquy during my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Presidential Leadership

Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I, as I believe all of us have, just
finished watching the President's remarks at--I guess it was the
Executive Office Building. I am not sure yet, as I sort out my
impressions of the President's remarks, whether to be angry or to be
saddened.
I have been around this town for a number of years, and as is well
known, I had more than an academic interest in the Presidency. I have
watched a lot of Presidents, going back to President Reagan, from the
standpoint of being a Member of Congress, and I have seen these other
crises as we have gone through them--whether it was the potential
shutdown of the government when Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House,
or the crisis of the debt limit expiring, and a number of others. It is
sometimes, unfortunately, the way we do business here.
But I must say, at a time of crisis, on New Year's Eve, when at
midnight, at least, certain actions will take place or have to be
planned to take place, today we had the President of the United States
having a cheerleading, ridiculing-of-Republicans exercise in speaking
to the people of the United States of America. As I have watched other
Presidents address crises, the way they were able to address them and
resolve them--with Presidential leadership, and that is why we elect
Presidents, to lead--was by calling the leaders of both parties to the
White House to sit around the table and do the negotiations and the
discussions.
Sometimes concessions have to be made; compromises have to be made.
But what did the President of the United States just do? He kind of
made funny--he made a couple of jokes, laughed about how people are
going to be here for New Year's Eve, and then sent a message of
confrontation to the Republicans. I believe he said: If they think they
are going to do that, then they have another thought coming.
I guess I have to wonder--and I think the American people have to
wonder--whether the President wants this issue resolved or is it to his
short-term political benefit for us to go over the cliff. I can assure
the President of the United States that historians judge Presidents by
their achievements.
Now, we all read the polls. We, Republicans, know what is in the
polls; that is, the majority of the American people--50-some percent--
support and approve of this President. We also see the approval ratings
of Congress--10, 11, 12, 9, 15 percent, whatever it is. I haven't seen
one that high lately. But historians judge Presidents by what happens
on their watch, and this President just made comments which clearly--
clearly--will antagonize Members of the House. We are a bicameral
government. His comments will clearly antagonize them, and once we get
an agreement--and I appreciate that negotiations have been going on in
the Senate between the majority leader and the Republican leader--
whatever is done and whatever is agreed to has to be ratified by the
House of Representatives, men and women who were elected on promising
their constituents they wouldn't raise taxes.
Now, whether they should have made that commitment or not, whether
that was the right thing to do, the fact is that is what they said. So
the President basically, in his talk to whatever group of people he was
talking to--who were laughing and cheering and applauding as we are on
the brink of this collapse, of the incredible problem this creates for
men and women all over, all of our citizens--said to the Republicans on
both sides of the aisle, but particularly the House of Representatives:
Take it or leave it. That is not the way Presidents should lead. These
are draconian effects.
Now, whether we should be at this cliff is a discussion for scholars
in years to come, but we are where we are. Frantic discussions are
going on. They went on into the middle of the night last night. So what
is the President of the United States doing? In the middle of this, as,
hopefully, they were reaching an agreement--and I understand there was
only one major issue remaining--he comes out and calls people together
and has a group standing behind him while he laughs and jokes and
ridicules Republicans. Why? Why would the President of the United
States want to do that?
I want to say a word about sequestration. Now, sequestration is about
to kick in. The Pentagon and our Defense Department are like a giant
oil tanker. We have to turn it around in a very difficult and slow
manner because they have to make plans, and they have to have
contingencies. They have to have procurement of weapons, and we have to
do all the things that are necessary to make sure our men and women who
are serving in the military are the best trained, the best equipped,
and most professional in the world--and they are. But when we look at
sequestration, the Secretary of Defense says it will decimate our
ability to defend this Nation.

Shouldn't the President be concerned about that, about what his own
Secretary of Defense is saying and what his own selection of Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is saying? Instead, he kind of jokes
around and tells people they are going to be here for New Year's Eve.
That is not the way to lead this Nation.
So I come to the floor and say to my colleagues, we need to get this
done. We all know we need to get this done. If we go over the cliff, we
are going to disappoint the people we are elected to represent, and we
will disappoint them mightily, as we already have. But I also say it is
the time for Presidential leadership. It is time to stop the
cheerleading; it is time to stop the campaigning. The President won. We
all know that. He won fair and square. Isn't it now time to govern?
Isn't the best way to govern to sit down with people from the other
party and from both Houses and say this is an issue we must resolve for
the good of the American people?
So I hope, again, the President will spend some time with the leaders
of both parties in the Oval Office sitting down and ironing this out
before the people of this country pay a very heavy price.
Now, my friend from South Carolina was around when we almost went
over the cliff the last time, as we were about to shut down the
government, and there were all kinds of consequences. But we pulled
back from the brink, after almost going over it, and it was the most
serious of all these that I have seen. I guess I would ask him, is it
not true, in our experience, that Presidents, whether they be
Republican or Democrat, no matter what party or affiliation, going back
to the famous Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill relationship, where they
sat down together and they saved Social Security for about 25 years--
and it was tough medicine, but they did it together. The President of
the United States basically dismissed Social Security and Medicare from
his list of priorities.
As my friend from Tennessee pointed out, we have a $16 trillion debt.
For us to say we are not going to do anything about spending when we
all know that spending is the biggest problem we have in this
agreement--again, that is

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throwing kerosene on the fire that is on the other side of the Capitol,
and that is my Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle who
have committed and pledged to their constituents that we will end this
hemorrhaging that we call spending which has given us the greatest debt
in the history of this country.
So I guess I would ask my colleague from South Carolina, who is
usually very modest and reticent in explaining his views, particularly
in various media outlets, what is his view on this situation.
Mr. GRAHAM. Well, I thank Senator McCain. My first view is it is
better not to go over the cliff than to go over the cliff. But it is
also important, as my colleague just said, to understand what we have
accomplished.
Let's assume for a moment--let's hope this is a good assumption--that
we are reaching an agreement by the end of the day that raises tax
rates on people who make over $400,000. I don't think that is a good
idea because I think it hurts job creation. The better way to get
revenue is to eliminate deductions and exemptions for businesses and
wealthy individuals and take that money back into the treasury, lower
tax rates to create jobs and pay down some debt. That is what Bowles-
Simpson did.
Not one bipartisan group, I say to the Senator, that has tried to
solve our debt problem and our spending problem and our revenue problem
has suggested raising tax rates. Bowles-Simpson, a bipartisan group,
actually lowered tax rates, and they did that by eliminating deductions
and exemptions, and they put a lot of money on the debt. They had a 25-
percent corporate rate, and the top personal rate was 30 percent. They
took this $1.2 trillion we give out every year in exemptions and
deductions to the favored few and brought it back into the treasury.
They paid down the debt and they lowered tax rates to help create jobs.
This President's approach is the opposite of Simpson-Bowles and the
Gang of 6. We had six Senators, three Democrats and three Republicans.
How did they try to solve our long-term problems? They reformed the Tax
Code by eliminating virtually all deductions. They took that money back
into the treasury, they paid down debt, and they lowered tax rates,
just as Simpson-Bowles.
Now, this President has taken another path. He wants to raise tax
rates to generate revenue. My concern is the higher the tax burdens in
America, the less likely to create a job in America. There are better
ways to generate revenues. But he has gotten his way and he is going to
win.
Hats off to the President for having the courage of your convictions.
You said during the campaign you were going to raise tax rates on
everybody making above $250,000. Well, you probably are not going to
get that, but you are going to be somewhere around $400,000.
The money to be generated, you say you want it to go on the deficit.
Well, that is good. Yesterday, the proposal by our Democratic
colleagues was to take that increased revenue from raising tax rates
and spend $600 billion on the government. That is why they don't have a
deal.
I am willing to swallow my pride and vote for a tax rate increase--
even though I don't think it is good policy--just to save the country
from going into the abyss and destroying the military. I am willing to
do that, and I will take some heat. But that is the way democracies
are. You win some, you lose some.
What I am not going to do is raise tax rates on anybody and take that
additional money to grow the government when we all know we need to get
out of debt. That is what was going to happen yesterday.
By 2037, the amount of debt we have in the Nation will be twice the
size of our economy. Every child born in America owes $51,000 of debt
on the day of their birth. When we look at Medicare, Social Security,
and Medicaid, the three big spending programs, called entitlements, in
about 25 years the cost of those programs is going to consume all the
revenue coming into the government, and there will be no money for the
Defense Department.
So when the President said today that round 2 will be the debt
ceiling, he is right. He won round 1. But we have done nothing, as
Senator McCain indicated, to lower the deficit in any real way.
If we took every penny of the money we are generating from raising
tax rates for people above $400,000, that is 6 percent of the national
deficit. That doesn't even begin to solve the problem.
So this is a hollow victory--a victory of revenue with no change in
the Nation's march toward becoming like Greece, no real reduction in
our deficit or our debt. The good news is that we are one big deal away
from dominating the 21st century because America's problems are less
than most other places. The bad news is that deal is elusive. It
requires Presidential leadership, and I haven't seen much of it. If we
stay on the course we are on today, we are going to lose the American
dream because our grandchildren and your children cannot pay off the
debt we are about to pass on to them.
So in about 2 months round 2 begins, and we will be asked to raise
the debt ceiling. Trust me, I don't want to default on our obligations.
But in August of 2011, we borrowed $2.1 trillion because we ran out of
money, and 42 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed money. If we
don't keep borrowing, we have to cut the government by 42 percent.
Nobody suggests that is a good idea overnight.
But here is what I will not do. I will not continue borrowing money
unless we address in the process what got us into debt to begin with.
So when we have to raise the debt ceiling again, I want to make a
simple request: Let's come up with a plan bipartisan in nature to save
Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy because they are going to
run out of money and become insolvent in the next 20 years. Let's also
create a spending reduction plan that will allow us not to become like
Greece.
If you want to raise more revenue by capping deductions, count me in
because we will need more revenue. But in 17 months, ladies and
gentlemen, we spent $2.1 trillion. We are burning through money like
crazy. It took us 200 years to borrow the first $2 trillion. We spent
$2.1 trillion of borrowed money in 17 months. That has to stop.
So to President Obama: Congratulations on your tax rate increase. You
fought hard and you won. I hope I have the courage of my convictions
not to raise the debt ceiling until you and others will work with me to
find a plan to begin to get us out of debt. You mentioned Medicare
today in your speech, and I am glad you did.
In 2024, it completely becomes insolvent. Think of how many people in
this country need Medicare and will need it 20 years from now. If we
don't do something, it is going to run out of money. The age of
eligibility for Medicare recipients is 65. It hasn't changed one day
since 1965 when it first started. We are all living longer. I propose
we adjust the retirement age to 67 over a 10-year or 20-year period.
That will save the program in many ways.
People at my income level shouldn't get any money from the government
to help buy prescription drugs. I should pay the full cost because I
can afford to. That is called means testing. This CPI thing you hear a
lot about, that is how you evaluate benefits. That needs to be
reevaluated based on real inflation. We are overestimating the cost and
adding burdens to these programs.
That is kind of technical stuff, but here is what I am telling you. I
am not going to vote to raise the debt ceiling until we do something to
save Social Security and Medicare from bankruptcy, and I am not going
to borrow a bunch more money that our grandkids are going to have to
pay off without a plan to get out of debt. If that is too much to ask,
so be it. But it is not too much to ask of you at home because if you
spend a lot more money than you make, you go to jail. We call it good
governance. That has to stop.
So round 2 is coming, and we are going to have one hell of a contest
about the direction and the vision of this country.
The President we need 2 months from now is going to be the one who
will come down here and talk with us and work with us and not have a
press conference. Because, Mr. President, I want to make you a historic
President. I want, on your 4-year watch, for us to change the course of
the country. I want to save Medicare and Social Security from
insolvency, and I will give

[[Page S8569]]

you full credit as the Presidential leader if you will help us as a
nation find a way to save these programs from bankruptcy. I want to
turn around the spending problem we have and prevent us from becoming
Greece. And if you will lead I will follow. Yes, I will raise more
revenue in a responsible way. But without you, it is going to be hard
for us to get there.

So the next time we meet, it is going to be a round of debt ceiling,
and the image I want is not a bunch of people behind the President who
are clapping for him, but Members of Congress--Republicans and
Democrats--behind the President, clapping for the President because he
signed a bill that will save all of us from a certain fate. And our
fate is being sealed as I talk unless we make changes.
We cannot survive on the course we are taking today. The good news
is, with some bipartisanship and Presidential leadership, we still have
time to turn around this country and actually dominate the 21st
century. It is going to take some pain and it is going to take some
sacrifice.
One final story. When I was 21 my mom died. When I was 22 my dad
died, 15 months later. My family owned a liquor store, a restaurant,
and a pool room. Everything I know about politics I learned in the pool
room. My sister was 13. My uncle took over the businesses. He left the
textile industry to run the businesses. We moved in with my aunt and
uncle. They never made over $25,000 or $30,000 their entire life. And
if it weren't for Social Security survivor's benefits for my sister, we
would have had a hard time making it. She went to college on a Pell
grant.
I am 57. I am not married. I don't have any kids. I am part of the
problem. That is what is happening all over America. But when I was 22,
we needed every penny we could get in Social Security benefits. Today,
I could easily give up $500 when I retire and not feel it at all, and I
could pay more for Medicare--and I would, and I am going to ask people
in my situation to do that. We just have to have the courage to ask. I
think most Americans would say yes.
So Medicare and Social Security are not programs to me. I know what
they do for real people, and if we do nothing, in 2032--which seems
forever but it is not--Social Security becomes insolvent, and we have
to cut benefits 25 percent for everybody, whether they can afford it or
not or raise taxes by 38 percent, whether businesses can afford it or
not. And the way you solve that is to reform the programs like Ronald
Reagan and Tip O'Neill.
Mr. President, I am willing to play, along with my other Republican
colleagues, the role of Tip O'Neill. You just need to play the role of
Ronald Reagan.
So the next time we talk about fiscal problems in America, I want a
news conference where the President is center stage, not surrounded by
political activists but surrounded by Republicans and Democrats who can
celebrate accomplishing something that we should all be proud of.
They tell me this is the least productive Congress in the history of
the Nation. If it is not, I would hate to be in the one that was. We
haven't done a whole lot up here.
I know Senator McCain has been here a few years now. I ask the
Senator, what is his opinion of where we are going as a nation and how
we get along with each other?
Mr. McCAIN. I would say to my friend, first of all, we have had some
meetings of a bipartisan fashion to try and improve the process so that
we can move legislation forward.
I believe the issue before us right now--at nearly 3 p.m., 9 hours
from midnight and we still have not reached an agreement--and the
longer it takes for us to reach agreement, the less time we will have
examining it and the less time we will have before voting on it. As the
Senator from South Carolina said: We can't keep doing business like
this. And we can't.
But on this particular issue, I want to express, as I began, my
disappointment in the President in having a cheerleading rally when we
should be sitting down together and resolving this issue. That is what
I have seen other Presidents, Republican and Democrat, do.
I hope, now that the President has made his statement with his
cheering section, that now he would sit down--as Presidents have and
should--and work to hammer out this agreement and agreements in the
future.
The Presidential campaign is over. He won. Congratulations. Now let's
get down to the serious business of governing this country in a
bipartisan fashion.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, would the Senator from Arizona yield?
Mr. McCAIN. I yield to the Senator from Georgia.
Mr. ISAKSON. I rise for a moment to associate myself with the Senator
from Tennessee, the Senator from Arizona, and the Senator from South
Carolina. I want to tell a personal story somewhat like the Senator
from South Carolina.
I made my living my entire life before I got here for 33 years
selling houses, causing two people to come together and agree on price,
agree on terms, sign and shake on a deal, and walk away from a closing
table feeling like both of them won.
I have also been elected to every legislative body I could be elected
to in my State, and I have served in legislatures for 34 years. I have
negotiated deals and been on conference committees, and I never once
found myself making a deal by intimidating or insulting the other side.
What the President did this afternoon set us back in civility and in
leadership and in dealmaking, and I am a big enough guy to know I am
not going to take it personally. If the desire was to offend me, the
speech did. But if the desire was to deter me, it did not.
It is time we all found ways to come together as Americans and solve
our problems, not just in the short run but in the long run; not fill
our room with partisan supporters, but, instead, cause everybody to sit
together around the table and find a way to make a deal.
This is the greatest country on the face of this Earth, and it will
continue to be unless we forget what got us here. What got us here are
the American people, not the American politicians. The American
businessman, the American entrepreneur, the American worker, the
American laborer, and the American leaders--people who, through their
sweat, their blood, and their toil built businesses, built factories,
built companies, and made this great enterprise known as the United
States of America work.
If we want to raise our revenue--sure, you can raise by percentage
your revenue by raising your assessment, but if you lower your base
your revenue goes down. What we need to do is empower our base by
raising the prosperity of the American businessman, the American
employee, and the American worker. As their prosperity rises, taxes
will go up not because we are charging them more by rate, but because
they are making more. The rate and what they pay goes up because they
are more prosperous.
You will never raise the revenue you need by insulting the American
people or taking away the incentives to work, make a living, maybe take
a risk and be an entrepreneur. So while we had a speech today--the
intention of which I don't know, but it probably protracted and delayed
what we are trying to do here today, and that is find a way to come
back and fight another day.
I agree with Senator Graham. The big battle is yet to come, and it is
over the debt ceiling. It is going to be a big battle, and I share
every comment and every sentiment that Senator Graham said because that
is the one where we have to find a way to make a deal. The President is
not going to make a deal by poking us in the eye and by charging one
side against the other to try and have a win-win proposition. I never
made a deal if it wasn't a win-win proposition. I always lost a deal
when I made it a win-lose proposition.
I am at the table. I will continue to negotiate. I want to make this
country work, but let's work together. Let's find common ground. In the
eleventh hour and in the twelfth hour, let's do what is right for the
American people.
I want to thank Senator Graham, Senator Corker, and Senator McCain
for their remarks. I associate myself with them, and I yield the floor.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I yield the floor for the Senator from
Tennessee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I thank the Senators from Arizona, South

[[Page S8570]]

Carolina, and Georgia for the comments they have made. I already
addressed the issue of the speech. I agree with the comments made by my
colleagues here.
I want to address the substance of this. We get caught up in
terminology around here and sometimes talk beyond each other. I don't
know what most people are doing today, but the country almost came to a
halt in August of 2011 as we negotiated some reductions in spending--
$2.1 trillion worth. Most people believed that was not enough. I know
everybody in this body has been contacted by the Fix the Deck folks and
others who think we need to have a $4.5 trillion to $5 trillion deal,
and I agree with that 100 percent. I thought that was what we were
going to be doing.
As the Senator from South Carolina said, had we done that, we could
focus on the tremendous potential this country has. We are not going to
do that.
Let me go back to August 2011 when we agreed to reduce spending by
$2.1 trillion. We implemented some things and we put some things off to
what we call the sequester, which is what I am talking about now. The
sequester was supposed to kick in on January 1 if we didn't reach an
agreement on other spending reductions. I had hoped we would come up
with other spending reductions. I know my friend, the Presiding
Officer, felt the same way. But we have not done that.
Here is the substance of what the President just said in his speech;
that is, since we did not come up with an agreement on spending
reductions, we are going to deal with the sequester that kicks in
tomorrow--the $1.2 trillion.

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