[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 12 (Tuesday, January 29, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S339-S341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DEBT CRISIS

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I have been coming to the Senate floor just 
about every day that we have been in session so far this year, and I am 
going to continue to do so to talk about what I believe is our most 
pressing crisis that this body faces and that our country faces; that 
is, the uncontrolled runaway Federal spending and accumulated debt and 
how it is dragging our economy down and how it threatens to provoke a 
major economic disaster if it is not addressed.
  In previous remarks I have made on this floor, I tried to make the 
point that if we fail to get Federal spending under control in the 
short term, our economy will continue to remain in the doldrums because 
of this cloud of economic uncertainty that hangs over investors, 
businesspeople, and consumers. But I don't want my colleagues to just 
take my word for it. A host of experts, commentators, businesspeople, 
and investors around the country--and, frankly, around the world--
people from both sides of the political spectrum have been and will 
continue to make this same point.
  The message is this: Unless Washington stops punting this problem and 
begins to demonstrate the will to cut spending in serious ways to 
reduce our long-term debt, the economy will continue to limp along; 
investors will continue to remain on the sidelines; business owners 
will continue not to hire new employees; and, we will hasten the day 
when investors lose confidence in the United States as a worthy credit 
risk.
  I know the market has responded in a favorable way recently. I hope 
that continues. But the fundamentals underlying our current economy 
don't justify that continuing far into the future.
  So today I would like to quote from what others are saying, not just 
what a Senator from Indiana believes and has been saying on this floor. 
I want to talk about what they are saying about our debt and spending 
crisis.
  First, I believe we can all--or most of us can--agree with this fact: 
that the first and the most essential function of the U.S. Government 
is to defend and protect its citizens from threats to their national 
security. As our national debt continues to rise unrestrained, we are 
putting our children's future and our country's future in a very 
vulnerable state.
  Perhaps the most dire and frightening warning has come from one of 
our Nation's highest ranking officials, former Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, who said:

       The continually increasing debt is the biggest threat we 
     have to our national security.

  Not al-Qaida, not suicide bombers, not Islamic fundamentalists. 
According to the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, someone who has 
made a career leading our country through tumultuous battles of war, 
the largest threat to our national security is our very own red ink.
  Erskine Bowles, former White House Chief of Staff to President Bill 
Clinton, also recognizes the imperative need to address our spending 
and debt crisis. As we all know, Bowles was tapped by President Obama 
to lead a bipartisan deficit commission with former Republican Senator 
Alan Simpson. The two

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men, along with the commission, proposed recommendations for a big and 
bold plan to reduce our long-term debt. Rather than heed some of these 
recommendations and build off of this bipartisan momentum several years 
ago, the President ignored it completely and since has done nothing and 
offered no plan of his own to fix our dire fiscal plight other than to 
propose new taxes.
  As I mentioned in previous remarks, the President got his tax 
increases on millionaires and billionaires, but no one should be fooled 
into thinking this solves our fiscal crisis. Recently, in an interview, 
former Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles rightfully criticized the 
administration and the Congress for not striking a significant budget 
deal and called that failure, ``The most disappointing thing in my 
life.'' He went on to say:

       They're bouncing from one crisis to another. . . . It's 
     nuts. We have an enormous fiscal problem in this country. . . 
     . We've got to put our big boy and big girl pants on and go 
     to work.

  He also added:

       . . . the problems are real, the solutions painful, and 
     there's no easy way out.

  Finally, he said:

       We got to do stuff that's real. I mean there's no sense in, 
     you know, just working at the edges. . . . If we don't slow 
     the rate of growth in healthcare programs, it's going to eat 
     up the entire budget and virtually bankrupt the country.

  The warning signs and the calls for action are coming from all 
sectors.
  From the business sector, Gary Loveman, chairman of the Business 
Roundtable's Health and Retirement Committee, said the following:

       Keeping the U.S. economy from careening over the fiscal 
     cliff was the first step, but our elected leaders must not 
     stop there. Although economic recovery has been stalled, 
     renewed expansion is possible if conditions are set in a 
     comprehensive budget agreement that includes entitlement 
     reform and long-term changes to reduce deficits. In this way 
     we will ensure the viability health and retirement safety net 
     for future generations of Americans.

  John Mauldin, president of Millennium Wave Advisors, an investment 
advisory firm, publisher of Mauldin Economics, and author of ``End 
Game,'' a book many of us have heard about and read, said this:

       The real issue is the deficit. The leaders of both parties 
     recognize that the current path spelled out on our fiscal 
     balance sheet is unsustainable. The deficit must be brought 
     under control . . . or we will find ourselves all too soon in 
     the situation now facing much of Europe and Japan. The 
     options at that point become far more dire.

  Business owners in my home State of Indiana also recognize these 
dangers. Reflecting the sentiment of virtually every businessperson I 
have talked to over the past 2 years, Rick Zehr, a business owner in 
Fort Wayne, IN, said:

       We all need to manage our income and not borrow beyond what 
     we can afford. I look at our country's deficit spending and 
     it's so far beyond what the rest of us have to live like 
     every day. As a business owner, it makes me nervous. Everyone 
     is paying for deficit spending.

  Economists are sounding the alarm as well. Kenneth Rogoff, a 
respected Harvard economist, said:

       The idea that one should just ignore all these problems and 
     apply crude Keynesian stimulus is a dangerous one. It matters 
     a great deal how the government taxes and spends, not just 
     how much. The U.S. debt level is a constraint. A growing 
     number of empirical studies, including my own joint work with 
     Carmen Reinhart, suggests that the U.S. has already reached a 
     debt level that has been associated with slower growth in 
     advanced countries.

  Our own Treasury Department and some credit rating agencies have also 
weighed in. These warnings alone should be enough to urge Congress and 
the administration to act.
  According to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Report of the 
U.S. Government for Fiscal Year 2012:

       While these projections are subject to considerable 
     uncertainty, the debt-to-GDP ratio would continue to rise 
     unsustainably under current policy.

  Can I state that again? Our own U.S. Treasury report said that while 
these projections are subject to considerable uncertainty, the debt-to-
GDP ratio will continue to rise unsustainably under current policy.
  Does that not suggest to us that current policy is not working when 
the U.S. Treasury puts out a report saying: What the administration and 
Congress are doing is unsustainable? Unless we grasp the reality of 
what is happening with our spending and our debt, we are headed for a 
crisis if we are not in one already.
  When Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. Federal Government debt in 
August 2011, they said:

       Our lowering of the rating was prompted by our view on the 
     rising public debt and our perception of greater policymaking 
     uncertainty.

  There is that word again, ``uncertainty.'' There is that implication 
again: failure to take action. The time to act is now. We can no longer 
sit back and hope this problem is going to go away. Too many people 
want to just think, well, if we just sort of stumble along the way we 
are stumbling along, it is all going to work itself out.
  We can no longer, and should no longer, accept double-digit 
unemployment. Yes, I said double-digit. While the official number is 
hovering around 8 percent, we all know millions of Americans have given 
up looking for work, and millions of others have dropped out of the 
employment lines or settled for jobs below their qualifications. The 
real numbers are far higher, and the distress is far greater than what 
is admitted.
  This is not a new problem. It has been long recognized even by the 
President. In February 2009, 4 years ago, President Obama held a fiscal 
responsibility summit, and here is what he said:

       And that's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we 
     inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This 
     will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult 
     decisions and face challenges we've long neglected. But I 
     refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot 
     repay--and that means taking responsibility right now, in 
     this administration, for getting our spending under control.

  Here we are, 4 years from those remarks where the President's own 
budget and bipartisan deficit commission was dismissed, 4 years from 
the time when he pledged to the American people that he would cut the 
deficit in half, 4 years from the time when he said responsibility 
needs to be taken now.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 3 more minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COATS. It has been 4 years since the President made those 
statements, and here we are where we have added trillions of dollars of 
new debt--the greatest increase in the history of America, and we have 
ignored and pushed spending down the road without a real budget 
proposal or a long-term deficit plan. Experts and economists from both 
sides of the aisle agree that spending reductions must be a part of the 
equation to address our dangerous debt. The President has called for a 
balanced approach but is showing no signs of leadership on 
restructuring mandatory runaway spending.
  Even the Washington Post editorial board, which is not necessarily 
conservative, acknowledged this in a piece just recently on November 
27, and I quote:

       Elections do have consequences, and Mr. Obama ran on a 
     clear platform of increasing taxes on the wealthy. But he was 
     clear on something else, too: Deficit reduction must be 
     ``balanced,'' including spending cuts as well as tax 
     increases. Since 60 percent of the federal budget goes to 
     entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social 
     Security, there's no way to achieve balance without slowing 
     the rate of growth in those programs.

  In conclusion, let me say this: There is a widespread consensus about 
the seriousness of this problem and the fact that we must take 
significant measures to rein in our deficit spending and do it now. We 
need a bold plan that will reduce spending, reform and simplify our tax 
system, and, most of all, restructure Medicare, Medicaid, and Social 
Security to preserve those benefits for future generations. In 
subsequent remarks, I intend to address how Congress can get with it 
and become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. We need 
to create a long-term deficit reduction plan that begins by fulfilling 
our constitutional obligation to pass a budget, which this body has not 
done in more than 1,300 days. Let's be honest with ourselves--this will 
only happen if we, the Senate, summon the political courage and the 
will to engage in direct, good-faith, bipartisan efforts to deal with 
our Nation's No. 1 challenge.
  Perhaps Alice Rivlin, budget director under President Bill Clinton, 
summed it up best:


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       There's no mystery about what we ought to do, we just need 
     to get on with it.

  Mr. President, Senate colleagues--Republicans and Democrats--let's 
get on with it.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  (The remarks of Mr. Hatch, Ms. Klobuchar, Mr. Rubio, and Mr. Coons 
pertaining to the introduction of S. 169 are printed in today's Record 
under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Heitkamp). The Senator from Iowa.

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