[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

[[Page S237]]

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

[[Page S238]]

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.

                          ____________________