[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 11 (Monday, January 28, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S301-S302]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SOLVING THE DEBT PROBLEM
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there are many complex issues facing
Congress at the moment, many of which have vexed us literally for
years. But one issue that demands our immediate attention is the
national debt because if we do not do something now to rein in our
Nation's out-of-control debt, we may never be able to put America back
on a sustainable fiscal and economic path. If that happens, then many
of the other issues we face will be largely irrelevant.
We need to give this issue everything we have, and we need to start
right now. We need to devote the same kind of energy to this issue that
we devoted to other great national threats in the past. That means
serious bipartisan negotiation, careful committee consideration, and,
yes, tough decisions on the kinds of votes that reflect that. This work
will take time. That is why I have been urging Senate Democrats to set
the legislative gears into motion right away.
Last week the House passed a bill that would give us 3 months to work
out an effective solution to the debt crisis we face. On Wednesday we
will take it up here in the Senate. If the House bill passes here and
is signed into law, the Finance Committee should immediately--
immediately--begin laying the foundation for a solution. Negotiations
should begin, hearings should be scheduled, and legislation should
actually be marked up.
Three months, as you know, is not very much time in Congress,
especially considering the fiscal deadlines we have to address in the
coming weeks. Let's use this additional time to develop a plan, a
serious, effective, bipartisan plan that can put the debt on a downward
trajectory. Let's put together a proposal that gives new confidence to
the American people in our ability to work together, with an eye toward
improving their lives and their prospects rather than our own. That
gives new confidence to the markets and to the ratings agencies that
have warned us against doing anything that doesn't address our long-
term problem, which is, of course, Washington spending.
I know a number of Democrats view this exercise as little more than
an opportunity to raise taxes. What I am saying is that they need to
put their preoccupation with taxes aside and focus on the root problem.
Raising taxes is something you do when you lack the will or the courage
to reform a government that has become entirely too expensive.
It is time to make some tough decisions for a change, and we will
only do it if we get started right now, in a bipartisan fashion,
through the regular order. I know my constituents are tired of seeing
us careen from one crisis to another around here. Regular order is how
we will avoid that. Let's avoid the eleventh-hour deals, and that means
getting started right now on a legislative plan that can actually pass.
Some pundits claim that Washington is simply incapable of ever
solving a challenge as big as this one. They say that our democratic
institutions are broken, that divided government precludes us from
passing things that matter to the future of our country. I say the
opposite is true. History shows that divided government offers actually
the best opportunity to finally surmount this challenge.
The President came to office in his first term with a promise to
unify our country, to work with Democrats and Republicans to take on
America's greatest challenges. Unfortunately, his rhetoric was just
that. Four years later, polls show we are more divided as a nation than
we were when the President first took office.
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As I said last week, I believe the beginning of a second term
actually presents a real opportunity to change course, to do the work
so many have refused to do for the past 4 years. This is our chance.
This is our chance to prove the pundits wrong and actually get
something accomplished.
Let's be clear about something up front: Solving our debt problem
isn't about austerity, it is about opportunity. It is not about
austerity, it is about opportunity. It is about creating some space for
businesses to grow and for our rising generation of Americans to feel
as though they can look to the future with optimism rather than with
dread. But that only comes after some hard work on the debt is done.
Let's get to work.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. It seems lately that I come to the floor when the
Republican leader is making especially reasonable, sensible proposals.
I heard him say the same thing last week, and I agree with him.
I saw a number of my Democratic friends this weekend in different
places, and I said: Look, the President has been elected. He deserves
credit for that, and he now has a chance to define his legacy. He told
us what that is in his inaugural address. Isn't this the right time to
get out of the way this difficult problem of dealing with entitlements
that every single one of us knows we have to do? Hasn't the House of
Representatives actually given us an unexpected 3 or 4 months in which
we can do it?
If President Obama wants, as I am sure he must, to begin to work on
the other issues he talked about in his inaugural address--immigration,
for example, and his other important issues--why would we not go to
work right now, as the Republican leader says, and deal with the
runaway, out-of-control entitlement spending that is going to bankrupt
the program the seniors depend upon to pay their medical bills? We know
that is going to happen. The Medicare trustees have said it is going to
happen in 12 years, and we have all made speeches saying what we should
do with it. Let's just do it. As the Republican leader says, this isn't
about austerity.
The Australian Foreign Minister came to this country about a month
ago, and in his first address--he is a great friend of America's. He
said the United States of America is one budget agreement away--one
budget agreement away--from reasserting its global preeminence. That is
his view from Down Under. Looking at Asia, looking at China, looking at
Japan, he wants us to succeed. He thinks that if we succeed, Australia
succeeds. He wants us to get this done.
Average families want us to get this done. They don't know why we
don't get it done. They understand we can't keep spending money we
don't have.
We have had recommendations from the President's debt commission,
from the Domenici-Rivlin group, and from the Ryan-Wyden proposal. We
have had all of these different ideas. We know exactly what to do, and
suddenly we have 3 months to do it. I urge the President to make a
proposal, show us what to do. There are 40 or 50--there might be 60 or
70 of us here on both sides of the aisle ready to go the work and to do
it now.
I congratulate the Republican leader for his reasonableness and his
comments, and I hope he continues to offer this. I might say, without
trying to embarrass him, that every time we have had a crisis we need
to solve, it has been the Republican leader and the White House that
have gotten it done. So why don't they try again? Why don't they try
again? That is my wish.
I came here to talk about something else today, but I am glad I was
here to hear that, and I congratulate the Republican leader.
Mr. McCONNELL. Would the Senator yield?
Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield to the Senator.
Mr. McCONNELL. As we have discussed before, and I think it is worth
repeating, divided government is actually the best time to do difficult
things. We have had four excellent examples in the last 25 years:
Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill raised the age of Social Security, which
saved that important program for another generation. Ronald Reagan and
Tip O'Neill did the last comprehensive tax reform. Bill Clinton and the
Republicans did welfare reform and actually balanced the budgets,
believe it or not, in the late 1990s.
There is ample evidence that divided government is the best time to
do really difficult things. When you join hands and do it, the American
people understand that surely it must have been something we needed to
do because these guys actually were able to agree on it.
I hope we won't miss another opportunity. Sometimes I think we are a
little bit like the early Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, who said
of the Palestinians that they ``never miss an opportunity to miss an
opportunity.'' It appears as if we have rarely missed an opportunity to
miss an opportunity. Hopefully, we won't miss this one as well.
I thank my friend from Tennessee.
Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Kentucky.
As we spoke on the floor, another example is President Johnson and
Everett Dirksen on civil rights. That would not have happened if the
government hadn't been divided, and it wouldn't have been as easily
accepted by the American people if it had not been divided.
If the Republicans and the Democrats--if this Democratic President
and this mixture of Republicans and Democrats in Congress say to the
American people: We have a real fiscal cliff for you; all the programs
you depend upon to pay your medical bills aren't going to have enough
money to pay them, and we are going to have to make some changes to
deal with that, people will accept that, especially if it comes from
both of us.
As far as who is supposed to propose it, well, Senator Corker and I
have proposed it. We proposed what to do, but we are not President. We
are not President. I don't know what the experience of the Governor of
Virginia was, but if in Tennessee I had waited around for the
legislature to come up with a road program, we would still be driving
on dirt roads.
The President has to lay it out there and say: Let's do it this way.
Then the legislators, all 535 of us, will say: No, Mr. President, we
couldn't possibly do it that way. Let's do it a little bit differently,
and we will come to a result. That is the way our system works. We have
3 months to do it, and I hope the Republican leader will continue to
make his point.
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