[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 8 (Wednesday, January 23, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S195-S197]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I was pleased to hear a few days ago 
that Senator Schumer said we would have a budget in the Senate. It has 
been now, I think, about 1,370 days, give or take, since we have had a 
budget in the Senate, even though plain statutory law requires the 
Congress to have a budget. Now Senator Murray has followed up today, I 
believe, with a quote saying: ``. . . the Senate will once again return 
to regular order and move a budget resolution through the Budget 
Committee and to the Senate floor.''
  So the Budget Committee has not been meeting. It has not been doing 
its duty. As the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, I have 
been aghast at the process and have talked about it for now for over 
1,000 days. So this will be a good step.
  My colleagues would like to suggest somehow that they decided to do 
this out of the goodness of their hearts because it is the right thing 
to do. But I think the American people have had a belly full of this.
  The U.S. House of Representatives has repeatedly passed budgets, but 
the Senate has refused to even bring one up in committee or on the 
floor for over 2 years now. They have said they are raising the debt 
limit for about 3 months, but they have declared that the Senate does 
not get paid until we have a budget. Right now there is no punishment 
for not passing a budget. I was a Federal prosecutor for over 15 years 
and know how to read a code. It has no penalty for failing to pass a 
budget. It says the Senate should bring up a budget. It should complete 
the budget process in committee by April 1 and then the full Senate 
should take it up and it should be completed by April 15. The Senate is 
given priority: 50 hours of debate, virtually unlimited amendments--an 
opportunity to debate the financial condition of America.
  That is why it has not happened. Senator Reid, the Democratic leader 
for the last several years, has said it would be foolish to have a 
budget. What he meant was that it would be foolish politically. Because 
when you bring up a budget, this is a tough thing. The House did that.
  Paul Ryan offered a historic budget that would change the debt course 
of America and put us on a sound path. They had to make some tough 
choices. So they were, of course, attacked in the election--Oh, these 
are horrible people; they want to throw old people off the cliff and 
that kind of thing and it was irresponsible--while during this entire 
process, the Senate was in direct violation of Federal law that 
required us to bring up a budget. We did not bring it up because it 
would be foolish, foolish politically, because we have to take tough 
votes. We have to stand and be counted. Numbers have to be analyzed: 
How much are you truly going to raise taxes? Oh, well, is that going to 
change the debt course?
  Is this latest $600 billion tax increase going to change the debt 
course of America? No; it is not. Our deficit last year was about 
$1,080 billion. How much would this tax increase, this $600 billion, 
have changed that? That is $60 billion a year. Instead of $1,080 
billion or so in deficit, our deficit would have been $1,020 billion. 
Is that going to fix our problem? No, it will not.
  These are difficult problems. These are very difficult problems, and 
it is not going to be easy. But it was easy to attack the House while 
not producing a budget. It is a pretty flabbergasting thing to me. So I 
am glad we are now going to have this process. It will not be easy for 
Republicans. It will not be easy for Democrats. But what are we paid to 
do? What responsibility do we have as the Congress--that has the power 
of the purse--if not discussing the great issues of our time?
  We are on an unsustainable debt path. Last year there was another 
trillion-dollar deficit, and they are projecting we will have a 
trillion-dollar deficit this year. That is 5 consecutive years of 
trillion-dollar deficits. I know President Bush was criticized, and 
correctly sometimes, for spending too much. The highest deficit he ever 
had in 8 years was $470 billion. The year before he left it was $160 
billion. President Obama has averaged well over $1,000 billion a year 
in an annual deficit ever since.
  This is not sustainable, as every expert has told us time and time 
again. So I am worried about it. Maybe we can move out of these secret 
meetings where the Senate just sits around and we wait for the people 
to appear, write us a bill at midnight on December 31--actually 1 a.m. 
on January 1--that is supposed to handle it and nobody has even read 
it.
  That is what we have been doing for the last 4 years. It has worked 
out good politically because it has kept an honest discussion of the 
dangerous path we are on from being part of the public debate. We have 
to have it part of the

[[Page S196]]

public debate. I am not saying this budget, if it moves through the 
Senate, is going to solve our problems and that it will be adopted. I 
am not saying that. But I do believe the American people will 
understand better the challenges we face and Senators will understand 
better the challenges we face, how deep they are, how systemic they 
are.

  In 2011, after Republicans won a victory in the midterm elections, 
there was hope we would have a new budget from the President, that he 
would reach out to the House that had gotten a Republican majority for 
a change--they took back the majority, and there were more Republicans 
in the Senate--and that the President was going to produce a budget 
that would put us on the right path and maybe a historic path that 
would help make Social Security and Medicare sustainable, preserve 
those programs so people can go to bed at night and feel confident 
these programs not going to go bankrupt and there are not going to be 
dramatic cuts. We can do that. It would take some belt-tightening, but 
we could do that. Yet the administration refused: You are just 
partisan, Sessions.
  I am saying, without fear of contradiction by anybody who knows what 
has happened, that this administration basically has not wanted to talk 
about those deep spending issues that amount to more than half the 
money we spend.
  That was a challenge. Maybe that logjam has broken and this budget 
process will give us an opportunity to move forward.
  I do not like to be critical of nominees or anyone. I try to be as 
courteous and respectful as we can to people whom we deal with on a 
regular basis in the Congress. But I have to share with my colleagues a 
deep feeling that we have a serious credibility problem with 
credibility on debt and financing. We have to end that credibility 
problem. We have to be honest and deal with real numbers.
  In January of 2011, Mr. Jack Lew, the then-Director of the Office of 
Management and Budget, with a substantial staff--one of their primary 
duties is to produce a budget every year--submitted the President's 
Budget to Congress. The President always submits a budget--it has been 
late, but they have always sent them over. The Senate has not moved 
budgets like it is required to, but every President has always sent 
over a budget. There was great hope that the budget would be the kind 
of breakthrough--with a Republican House and a Democratic President and 
a Democratic Senate--that somehow this would be an opportunity for 
historic agreement to put America on a sound path and get us off these 
trillion-dollar deficits, put us on a path to a balanced budget and do 
the kind of things that are necessary for the welfare of our country.
  Mr. Lew produced the budget, and he went on television immediately 
and talked about it. On Wednesday of that week, he was going to be 
before the Budget Committee, but this is what he said in his CNN Sunday 
morning interview about his budget. I would ask you to listen to these 
words, colleagues and friends, anybody who is watching, and see what 
they mean to you. He said:

       Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the 
     point where we can look the American people in the eye and 
     say we're not adding to the debt anymore; we're spending 
     money that we have each year--

  Money that we have each year--

     and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.

  That was on CNN.
  So he appeared before the Budget Committee and I asked him if that 
was an accurate statement; did he stand by that. He said: Yes, sir, and 
he never wavered from that.
  I will just say that as part of the budget process we get a stack of 
documents--this much--from Mr. Lew's office. The Office of Management 
and Budget submits them--supporting documents--as part of their 
process. They are easily ascertainable. The numbers are not in dispute.
  The lowest single deficit over 10 years that Mr. Lew projected was 
more than $600 billion. In other words, there was never a balanced 
budget, never paying down the debt, never a single year we were not 
borrowing at least $600 billion.
  None of what he said is accurate. It is breathtaking. I called it the 
greatest financial misrepresentation in history. It would have added 
$13 trillion to the debt of the United States over 10 years, by his own 
estimate, not stuff I made up. Yet he said we are not going to be 
adding to the debt anymore.
  So I thought, if a businessman reported to potential stock 
purchasers, our company is on the right track, we are not adding to our 
debt anymore--we are going to look the American people in the eye and 
say we're not adding to the debt anymore, we are spending only money we 
have--you are borrowing--the least amount of money you have borrowed in 
a single year is $600 billion, larger than President Bush ever had in 8 
years as President.
  When I asked him about it, he insisted that it was true. So we have 
got a problem here, and that is why I am not going to support Mr. Lew 
for the Secretary of the Treasury. I am not going to vote for him. I 
believe he knew exactly what he was saying. He produced a budget that 
was panned by virtually every editorial board in America. They hammered 
it as failing to meet the challenge of our time, and he knew it was 
that way. He is not a person who doesn't understand these issues. He 
knew what it was all about. But they decided they would go out and spin 
it this way. They would say it did what the American people wanted.
  I hate to be this harsh, but there is only one conclusion. They 
decided to produce a budget that did not change the debt course of 
America and left us on an unsustainable path. Even their own numbers 
show that, but they would tell the American people this, say it was 
fixed, and maybe lull them into a false sense of confidence.
  Then they attacked Paul Ryan of the Republican House for producing a 
realistic budget. It wasn't a dramatic budget, it didn't even balance 
in 10 years, but it changed us and put us on a sound path. They would 
attack him as not caring about people, and for 2 years that is what has 
happened.
  Once we bring a budget to the floor of this Senate, Republicans and 
Democrats are going to find out this is a very difficult situation we 
are in. The challenge is going to be very difficult, and we are going 
to have a hard time dealing with it.
  Mr. Lew didn't just make that comment to CNN, in case you think I am 
exaggerating here. He also said this in an NPR, National Public Radio, 
interview on February 15, 2011, the day, I believe, of a Budget 
Committee hearing:

       If we're able to reduce the deficit to the point where we 
     can pay for our spending and invest in the future, that is an 
     enormous accomplishment. This budget has specific proposals 
     that would do that.

  He looked the American people in the eye, or, I guess, talked to 
their ears on NPR, and said his ``budget has specific proposals'' that 
would put us in a position to pay for our spending and invest in the 
future and reduce our deficit.
  He went on to say on February 15, 2011, at the Budget Committee 
hearing--and I think this was my question, Was this an accurate 
statement that you made, Mr. OMB Director?
  He said:

       It's an accurate statement that our current spending will 
     not be increasing the debt. We've stopped spending money that 
     we don't have.

  I mean, I almost can't read those words without the hair standing up 
on the back of my neck. The Director of the Office of Management and 
Budget appeared before the U.S. Senate Budget Committee, and he said, 
``it's an accurate statement,'' this baloney, ``it's an accurate 
statement that our current spending will not be increasing the debt . . 
. We've stopped spending money that we don't have.''
  Nothing could be further from the truth--the lowest single deficit 
was $600 billion.
  What about on a different CNN interview on February 14, 2011:

       It [the budget] takes real actions now so that between now 
     and 5 years from now we can get our deficit under control so 
     that we can stabilize things so that we're not adding to the 
     debt anymore.

  He promised, and looked the American people in the eye and said, in 5 
years, we are not going to be adding to the debt anymore. He knew 
exactly what he was saying. He knew exactly what he wanted the American 
people to hear. There is no ambiguity about it, and it was utterly 
false.
  February 13, 2011, on ABC, he said:

       This budget has a lot of pain, [but] it does the job, it 
     cuts the deficit in half by the end

[[Page S197]]

     of the President's first term . . . It's going to take us a 
     lot of hard work just to take us to the point where we're not 
     adding to the debt.

  There is not one year that they are not adding to the debt.
  In the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth years of the budget that Jack 
Lew presented, when you look at his real numbers, the deficit was going 
up each year. So it was not a fix to our debt problem.
  Then he says this on the White House blog, February 13, 2011:

       Like every family, we have to tighten our belts and live 
     within our means while we're investing in the things that we 
     need to have a strong and secure future . . . We know that 
     you have to stabilize where we're going before you can move 
     on and solve the rest of the problem. This budget does that.

  So it is going to stabilize us and move us forward.
  Well, as I say, that was not well received. The New York Times wrote 
this on February 5, 2011. That was his op-ed. I won't go into the 
editorials, but a whole list of those were critical of Mr. Lew.
  I would just say this, we are in a difficult financial position. We 
need honesty, we need a budget that is truthful, we need the regular 
order so the Budget Committee does its work, and then it comes to the 
floor of the U.S. Senate--this will be first time in over a thousand 
days--it guarantees 50 hours of debate, it can't be filibustered, it 
can be passed with a simple majority, we will know what is in it, and 
people can offer amendments. That is what should have been happening 
for a long time that has not been happening. That is what the law 
requires, and that should be completed by April 15 of this year.
  As we go forward, I am confident that we will be better served by 
public discussion of our debt, not secret meetings. I have been 
critical of them. I had hoped that some of them would ripen into some 
good solutions, but all we have had is temporary ``kick the can down 
the road'' maneuvers, and nothing substantial has been done to change 
the debt course of America.
  By the way, when Mr. Erskine Bowles, whom President Obama appointed 
to head his fiscal commission, saw this budget in 2011, he said it goes 
nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal 
nightmare. Everybody knew this budget wouldn't do the job, and that is 
why it was never brought through the process, and that is why it wasn't 
brought to the floor for a full budget analysis in committee and in 
debate on the floor.
  So as we go forward, I will be meeting with our new chairman, Senator 
Murray. She is a great, tough advocate for her values, but she is a 
good person to work with. I have told her we will try to work with her, 
but we are going to talk about the great issues of our time, the 
difficulties we face, and see if we can't make this system work better 
and try to put this country on a sound financial footing.
  We can do it. We can get this country on a sound path. It is not 
impossible, but anybody who thinks it will be easy is wrong. This is 
going to take some hard work. As we do that in a bipartisan, open way 
in the committee, on the floor of the Senate, the American people will 
be able to digest the difficulty of some of our challenges, and so will 
our Members in Congress. In the end, that, I think, leaves us in the 
best position to reach the kind of agreement, compromise, solution, 
that can put us on the right path, because everybody is going to have 
to swallow a little bit.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa.

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