[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 9 (Thursday, January 24, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S236-S238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE NATIONAL DEBT
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, in 2008, a prominent Democratic politician
said that adding $4 trillion to the national debt was ``irresponsible
and unpatriotic.''
In 2009, this same politician said, ``I refuse to leave our children
with a debt they cannot repay. We cannot simply spend as we please.''
Again, in 2010, this same individual said, ``It keeps me awake at
night looking at all that red ink.''
Then in 2011, he echoed the statements of the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, when he said, ``The greatest long-
term threat to America's national security is America's debt.''
And then finally, in 2012, this same politician said he was running
for reelection ``to pay down our debt in a way that is balanced and
responsible.''
Well, you might have guessed who this was. These are statements made
by President Barack Obama.
Unfortunately, the President's actions have not come close to
matching his own rhetoric. Since he took office, the gross national
debt has increased by nearly $6 trillion. Indeed, the President has
served at a time when we have accumulated far more debt than any other
President in American history.
After spending his first term maxing out America's credit card, the
President is demanding yet another increase in the debt limit. The
President argues he is merely asking lawmakers to pay the bills that
have already been racked up. And he continues to blame others--
certainly not himself--for trillion-dollar annual deficits and
skyrocketing debt. But he fails to acknowledge that his stimulus bill
borrowed more than $1 trillion, increasing the debt by that amount;
and, secondly, that Obamacare will spend more than $2 trillion in its
first decade.
Those on this side of the aisle, Republicans, have shown our
willingness to pass a budget that stabilizes our public finances.
Indeed, I applaud the reaction of the White House and of Democrats in
the Senate saying that for the first time since 2009 they are willing
to take up and pass a budget in the Senate--the first time since 2009.
It is long overdue but welcome news.
Likewise, we are willing to make compromises--not on principle, but
we are willing to find common ground, and we are willing to take tough
votes. Indeed, that is part of the budget process because we know--
whether it is a family budget; whether it is a small business; whether
it is a county, city, State or the Federal Government--priorities have
to be established in a budget because we know they always involve tough
decisions: What is the most important? What do you have to have? What
are the things you want but you need to delay because you don't have
the money to pay for it now? What are the things you would like to have
but you simply cannot afford?
Those are decisions that are made by every family in America on a
daily
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basis, and the Federal Government, particularly the Senate, has not
been willing to make those sorts of hard choices since 2009.
In this cloud I guess there is a silver lining. Finally, we are going
to see some movement in the Senate which is long overdue. The only way,
though, to get the real spending cuts we need to bring our budget into
balance and real deficit reduction over the next 4 years is if the
President takes the lead. This is not something Congress can do without
the President. We need the President's leadership and, indeed, that is
something that many of us on a bipartisan basis have been looking for
since the Simpson-Bowles Commission report came down in December 2010.
I am still astonished that rather than embrace that bipartisan
commission report--not all of which I agree with, by the way, but at
least it was a start. The President could have done something important
that had bipartisan support, and it actually would have enhanced his
chances of getting reelected because people would have seen it as
statesmanship and leadership.
We have had an unfortunate set of experiences here as recently as the
end of last year, New Year's Eve, because we approached a manufactured
crisis, a deadline known as the fiscal cliff. But I don't think anybody
in America, certainly not anybody in this body, wants another 2 a.m.
Senate vote--not because it is inconvenient, but because it is not a
good thing in the people's House, the Senate and the House of
Representatives, to be voting in the dark of night when people are not
able to watch. Nobody wants another cliff hanger that weakens public
trust in our government or in our willingness to meet our
responsibilities. Most of all, no one wants another credit downgrade.
This is important.
The President talks about the importance of lifting the debt ceiling
because he said we do not want to suffer another downgrade in our
credit standing. But, indeed, one of the reasons we have already
suffered a negative response to our credit rating is because we have
not dealt with the real problems that confront our country, the $16.4
trillion in debt, and we have not come together in a bipartisan way to
save and preserve Social Security and Medicare and to keep the promises
that we have made to our seniors. That has caused the credit downgrade.
Most of all, what Americans want, I believe, is a serious, good-
faith, open, transparent discussion over America's long-term budget
strategy. They want both parties to work together. Ironically, the best
time to actually do that is when we have divided government, like we
have. They want both parties to demonstrate that we are capable of
having an adult conversation about balancing our budget.
Unfortunately, the President has given very little indication that he
is prepared to negotiate on these important issues. Indeed, his
inaugural speech, eloquent as it was, barely mentioned the preeminent
challenge facing America today; that is, our $16.4 trillion debt and
millions, tens of millions of Americans either unemployed or
underemployed. The President barely touched on those issues.
Instead, at a recent press conference the President suggested that
certain unnamed Republicans really do not care about poor children, the
elderly, or medical research. Rather than taking the high road of
Presidential leadership, unfortunately, the President chose the low
road. This is the same President who frequently bemoans the poisonous
atmosphere and toxic partisanship of Washington, DC.
When President Obama is ready to quit slandering his opponents and
quit knocking down straw men, when he is ready to make serious
arguments and serious compromises, we might finally be able to work
together to make some real progress on long-term fiscal consolidation.
Americans are yearning for that kind of leadership. They are yearning
to see real solutions to the challenges that face our country. They are
looking forward to seeing concrete proposals from the White House that
cut spending and reduce our national debt.
The President said he wanted a balanced approach. He wanted revenue
to go along with the cuts and the reform of Social Security and
Medicare. The President got his pound of flesh in the fiscal cliff
negotiations. Unfortunately, because of the expiration of a number of
temporary tax provisions, taxes were going to go up in the $3 trillion-
plus range, if Congress did nothing. We were able, fortunately, to
mitigate some of that and to eliminate tax increases on the vast
majority of Americans and to make many temporary provisions permanent.
But it is going to require genuine leadership from the President, which
I hope he will provide soon, because Americans cannot afford to wait
much longer.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana.
Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I appreciate the remarks of my colleague
from Texas. I want to add my thoughts to much the same issue. I rise,
once again, to address what I believe and what many believe is the most
important issue that faces this Congress and faces the Nation as a
whole; that issue is, the out-of-control Federal Government spending
that continues to pile up unsustainable debt and threaten our economic
future.
Both Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals have
acknowledged that unless we get the debt under control, we will
eventually reach a tipping point where investors either stop buying our
debt or insist on higher interest rates to account for their greater
risk. This can trigger a crisis of confidence, a crisis that would
likely happen if we do not take action, and take action soon to address
this problem.
We have witnessed what happens in a number of European nations.
Greece comes to mind, of course. That country is in chaos based on
promises made that cannot be kept, based on spending that could not be
covered, based on a country that defied the math and the laws of
economics. But it is not just Greece. I just heard earlier this morning
the latest numbers on unemployment in Spain: over 25 percent and rising
among all workers, and for those under the age of 25--those coming out
of universities and colleges and the educational system looking to
start their lives and begin their roles as breadwinners, the providers
for their families and holding down a job so they can participate in
life as people capable of paying their bills, buying a house, getting
married, raising their children, and providing for their education--
that number for those young people is over 55 percent. More than one of
every two young people in Spain is without employment--on the streets,
nothing to do, no job to go to every day.
We see the austerity measures having to be imposed in the United
Kingdom. Italy is in and out of the news in terms of its' financial
status. There are questions about France, questions about other
countries. Germany is struggling along with very little growth, even
though it is seen as an economic provider and dynamo, at a level of
growth which is so anemic there are questions raised as to whether and
how much it can do to help the European situation. But even aside from
the potentially catastrophic debt bomb that continues to tick away, if
we fail to get spending under control in the short term, our economy
will remain in the doldrums because of this cloud of economic
uncertainty it creates among businesses, investors, and consumers--
created by our inability to grasp the fiscal plight of our excessive
and reckless spending.
The fact is that we are not going to be able to get our economy out
of the rut we have been in unless we tackle the Federal Government's
spending addiction. Washington's reckless spending and failure to
produce even a budget plan over the last 4 years undermines confidence
in our economic prospects and causes investors, businesses, and
consumers to sit on the sidelines rather than take risks with their
money. As my colleagues know very well, our spending addiction in
Washington has at long last led us to the point where we now face the
process of record deficits as far as the eye can see into the future, a
spiraling Federal debt that is now nearly $16.5 trillion, and a
possible further downgrading of the credit rating of the United States.
Were interest rates not being held at historically, artificially low
levels by the Fed we might already be facing our day of reckoning.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, even a 1
percentage point increase in interest rates would add $1.3 trillion to
our debt over a period of 10 years. If borrowing costs return to their
20-year
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average, which certainly they will at some point, deficits over the
next 10 years will increase by $4.9 trillion. If interest rates were to
rise to the level of the 1980s, the total U.S. debt in 2021 would be
$5.3 trillion greater. That is $5.3 trillion in new debt that would
occur without any changes in spending or taxes. Interest rates would
simply drive our debt out of control.
Make no mistake that this is a spending problem and not a revenue
problem. The President campaigned on the false narrative that taking
more from the top earners would alleviate the economic burdens we face.
As a result of winning the election, he was able to get higher taxes on
Americans at the higher end of the income scale. But no one is fooled
and math does not lie. Increasing taxes on higher income earners is not
going to make much of a dent in our $1 trillion deficits.
The fact is, even if the President had received all of the revenue
from the expiration of all of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts in tax rates,
Federal revenue would have come in at this historical average of just
over 18 percent of GDP, but spending continues to rise, on average, 23
percent of GDP over the same period of time--more than 2 points ahead
of its historical average. Thus, the problem: the fact that we are
spending more than we can afford. We are spending more than we receive.
Actions speak louder than words. President Obama may talk about the
need to rein in spending--although lately he has even rejected that--
but his administration refuses to act. Instead, the President started
off his second term doubling down on--what? The need for more taxes.
Are not the American people being taxed to death? It is not just the
Federal income tax, it is the State tax added to that, it is the sales
tax, it is the excise tax, it is the car tax, it is the alcohol tax--it
is any number of things that add up to a burden of taxation on the
American people that is severely hampering our ability to grow and our
economy to provide the necessary employment and the necessary jobs for
people so desperately in need of and looking for that work.
While the President has not truly recognized that spending is the
problem, the business community has. A recent survey of chief
executives said they are considerably less optimistic about the short-
term growth process for their companies than they were just a year
ago. The reason is uncertainty. The business community does not have
confidence in the growth prospects for our country because there is
little confidence that Washington can get its act together and deal
with the spending crisis that is dragging down this economy.
In an atmosphere of uncertainty, investors, businesses, and consumers
proceed with caution. They hold back in making significant investments
or expenditures. Also, they don't hire people, and they will not until
they get more clarity about the future and our ability to address our
problems.
As I traveled across Indiana and talked to business owners' large,
small, and in between, as well as farmers, to owners of restaurants, to
CEOs of major companies, they all said the same thing. They all said
the lack of certainty and the prospects for the future--unless we get
control of our spending--are such that they have no choice but to just
sit on their hands and hold back.
The big credit agencies are saying the same thing. They know that
without significant spending reform and spending cuts the United States
will be unable to pay its bills at some point. Refusing to make the
tough choices now just hastens the day of reckoning when markets decide
the United States has become a bad credit risk. Standard & Poor's,
Moody's, and Fitch Ratings all have a negative outlook on the United
States' prospects and are threatening a further downgrade of our credit
rating unless we get our fiscal house in order. Other downgrades would
follow in short order: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as many
State governments. As a result, this would irreparably damage many
State and local pension funds. They are all at risk.
It is a nightmare scenario that is not far away from happening if we
don't start getting a handle on our reckless, runaway spending. We need
to get a handle on it now not later. There is no more reason for
excuses. We have done all we can on the revenue side. The President got
what he wanted. He got his taxes, but now is the time when we need to
focus on the real problem, which is runaway spending. Big spending and
small, everything from the need to reform our mandatory entitlement
spending to the smaller, duplicative, wasteful, yet important, spending
that Washington specializes in and is not necessary particularly at a
time of austerity.
I intend to get into some more detail about spending reforms in
future speeches, but the overall point is undeniable: Unless we get our
spending under control, we are going to continue to stagger forward
with a weak economy, high unemployment, and draw ever closer to the day
when our investors and creditors lose faith in our ability to pay our
debts.
The next time I come to the floor--and I am not sure when since it
depends on what our schedule might be--I want to talk not about what
Dan Coats is saying, not what the Senator from Indiana is saying; I
want to talk about what others are saying. I want to hear from those
who are not saying it from a political perspective or trying to reflect
their party's position but from those who spend their time analyzing
our current situation. I want to hear from those who understand the map
of where we are and what the implications and consequences are for our
country. I don't just want to hear statements by those of us here but
statements made by others and the importance and need for us to address
this most serious of problems and challenges.
With that, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask that following my remarks, the senior
Senator from Rhode Island be granted permission to speak.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
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