[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 27, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S895-S898]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Veterans Unemployment

  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I would like to take a moment to speak 
on a topic that is very important to me, to Montana, and our Nation; 
that is, our veterans.
  The Veterans Jobs Caucus has organized a day of action today to draw 
attention to veterans unemployment, and I am very proud to help shine a 
light on that.
  Jobs must be our No. 1 priority. There is no better place to start 
than with our veterans. With the war in Iraq coming to an end and 
Afghanistan winding down, we have a responsibility to make sure every 
single one of these men and women returns home to a paycheck, not an 
unemployment check.
  I urge my colleagues to join me in declaring war on veterans 
unemployment. Let us work together to make sure every American veteran 
has the good-paying job they deserve.
  I yield the floor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time? If no one yields time, time 
will be charged equally to both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Baldwin). The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I have made it clear that I oppose the 
confirmation of Jack Lew to the most serious Cabinet position of 
Secretary of the Treasury. The President's Cabinet nominees should be 
given substantial deference; that is not in doubt. But our Constitution 
makes clear that appointments to high government office may only be 
made by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Certainly, the 
Senate is not a rubberstamp or a potted plant.
  I believe a decent respect for the seriousness of this occasion, for 
my colleagues and for their opinions, for the President and for the 
nominee, requires, in this case, that I set forth my objections to the 
appointment. They are serious, and I believe what I say is important; 
important for the institution of the Senate and important for our 
country.
  I have not had a personal relationship or extended meetings with Mr. 
Lew. My objections arise primarily and first from his performance as 
Director of the Office of Management and Budget. It is, in many ways, a 
key position in our government. That is the office through which the 
President controls all the departments and Agencies of our government 
which he is required to supervise.
  Normally and necessarily, the OMB Director is the single office that 
drives efficiency and demands accountability on behalf of the President 
and the American people throughout our great

[[Page S896]]

bureaucracy. In that aspect of his job I have seen little leadership, 
and at this time of surging debt, I would rate that performance as an 
F. I have never seen a consistent, determined effort from Director Lew 
to reform and make more productive the government of the U.S. Indeed, 
his primary effort consistently has seemed to be to defend any program 
under attack, scrutiny, or question rather than examining vigorously to 
save every single dollar that can be saved for the taxpayers of the 
country.
  If the OMB Director will not insist on efficiency and good 
government, who will? The Secretary of Energy, pushing out failed 
Solyndra programs? Is that whom we look to? Or the GSA leaders who host 
hot tub parties in Las Vegas? This government of ours has never been 
more poorly managed. It has never had, for a number of years, the 
serious oversight and management from the top supervisory agencies.
  Congress is not empowered to daily manage the agencies of America. 
That is the Chief Executive's job, and the primary person in his 
administration, President Obama's administration, charged with this 
duty is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. At least, 
historically, that has been the case.
  But, my concerns go even deeper. I believe every public official in 
this Nation owes an absolute loyalty to the United States, to the 
betterment of this country and its government, and to the institutional 
processes that lead to the governing of America. There can be no doubt 
that every government official, from the President on down, is 
accountable to the institutions of our government and to the people 
ultimately.
  Without doubt, the Director of OMB has such a duty. He is required to 
meet that duty with honor, honesty, efficiency, and responsiveness. He 
serves us; we don't serve him. He serves the American people.
  The American people send their money to Washington, and they expect 
it will be honestly and openly managed--accountable. They have every 
right to demand high performance from all officials, but particularly 
the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
  Surely, there can be no higher duty for such an important official 
than to periodically report to the people truthfully on the important 
affairs of state--specifically to report the financial condition of the 
Nation and to produce a budget plan that will fix it. Without doubt, 
the great challenge of our time is how to confront effectively the 
unsustainable debt course we are now on. That is clearly the greatest 
threat to our Republic.
  Admiral Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has 
said debt is the greatest threat to our national security. We are 
heading toward a financial crisis if we do not change. All have told us 
that, including Simpson and Bowles of the President's debt commission. 
They said this Nation has never faced a more predictable financial 
crisis. They jointly gave that statement to us in the Budget Committee.
  Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, when asked to make comments about 
some of the long, great projections of debt out into the future, said: 
That will never happen. You will never get that. In effect he said: You 
will have a crisis before that ever happens. We are on an unsustainable 
debt path.
  Even the most current Secretary of Treasury, Secretary Geithner, made 
the same comments about Director Lew's budget. He acknowledged that 
that budget left the country on an unsustainable financial path. 
Therefore, the report of the Nation's top management official on budget 
and management to Congress on these issues must be absolutely accurate. 
It must be true. His budget that he would set forth as director of the 
budget each year, as required by law--the President submits a budget--
must put the Nation on a sound and sustainable course, not keep us on 
an unsustainable course.

  If changes in the operating methods of the country are needed, he 
should say so and help lead that reform effort. He is the one who keeps 
the books. He is the one who must, along with the President, rally the 
Nation, as mayors and county commissioners and Governors have done all 
over America to rein in reckless spending and unacceptable debt in 
their jurisdictions. Why is it not happening here, now, at this time of 
national crisis?
  In February 2011, as Director of OMB, Mr. Lew produced a budget for 
the President, and he presented it to the people and to the Congress. 
That was February, 2 years ago. He was the budget director.
  The budget he prepared utterly failed to meet the needs of the 
Nation. It just did. As Mr. Bowles said right after the budget was 
announced by Mr. Lew--he said with great disappointment, the White 
House budget request ``goes nowhere near where they will have to go to 
resolve our fiscal nightmare.'' This is the man President Obama 
appointed to head the debt commission, and he said this budget came 
nowhere near where they will have to go to avoid our fiscal nightmare. 
This budget was a disaster.
  Instead of making our debt problem better, it made it worse. It taxed 
more and spent more. I was shocked and amazed.
  Please remember, this was in February 2011, not long after the 
midterm congressional elections in which the American people rose up 
and shellacked a lot of big spenders and demanded that we get our 
financial house in order. The American people were shocked by the 
explosion of debt and the surge of big government, and they demanded 
more accountability. They insisted on it. Presenting a budget that did 
not do what the public demanded, control spending and debt, would not 
have been popular.
  Imagine what went on in the White House. I am just a Member of the 
Senate. I observe these things like all of us. The question was, Would 
the President of the United States now, after the midterm elections 
that gave the majority to the House of Representatives--would at that 
point a policy, a budget, set forth a sound, sustainable path for 
America that could lead the country out of this fix?
  I know they discussed it. Surely, they did. It was the most important 
issue they faced. Would they back down from spending and investment and 
taxes? Would they opt for a more limited growth in spending in America?
  They made their decision. Actually, it is pretty clear two decisions 
were made. I do not think this is unfair to analyze it in this way. 
First, they decided that despite the election, they would not curtail 
spending or lay out a plan that would alter the debt course of America; 
that they would not fix and save and strengthen our entitlement 
programs, such as Social Security; and they would lie in wait, I guess, 
for anybody in the House of Representatives, particularly, and 
criticize their plan. They would not lay out any plan in their budget, 
which is the time that you would normally lay out your plan. They would 
set up a method to attack the Republicans when they produced their 
budget, as required by law, and their budget would have to deal with 
these things and propose real cuts in spending, and they would 
criticize that. Apparently, that is a decision they made.
  But this presented a problem. To announce a budget that did not do 
what the public had just demanded--control spending and control debt--
would not be popular. So what do you do then? It is pretty clear to me 
how the conundrum was decided.
  Mr. Lew would go before the American people and Congress and just 
declare that the budget he had put forth did put the Nation on a sound 
financial course; that it would end deficits and put us in a position 
to pay down our debt. They just decided that Mr. Lew would go out, 
despite what was in the budget, and declare that it would do those 
things. Thus, the statements of Mr. Lew amounted to what I have 
called--and will explain--the greatest financial misrepresentation 
concerning the finances of this Nation ever made.
  If somebody has something different, I would like to see it. I would 
like to see somebody say, when we finish talking about this, that they 
have other examples of this kind of misrepresentation.
  These statements were made carefully and deliberately calculated and 
for the political purpose, I have to say, of misleading the public. You 
may say: Surely not, Jeff. You are exaggerating this situation. Surely, 
he wouldn't do that.
  Let me tell you what happened. The day before the budget was to be 
released, on a Monday, Mr. Lew went on

[[Page S897]]

the Sunday news programs to report on the budget that the President 
would be submitting to explain what was in it. This is what he said on 
CNN on a Sunday morning program.

  I will put this up because the words should live in infamy. This is 
how he described the budget he laid out:

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

  That is exactly what the American people want to hear. There was no 
qualification placed on this statement, none whatsoever. He was 
speaking directly to the American people on a Sunday morning news 
programs. He said other things on several of the other programs that he 
participated in on February 12, 2011.
  There were no qualifications. How could it be heard other than the 
way those plain words would suggest? It suggests that we had a plan, 
that the President had a plan, and that Mr. Lew was producing a 
budget--which his office produced--that would make sure we were on a 
sustainable financial course and we would not be adding to the debt 
anymore. ``We're not adding to the debt anymore.''
  What else did that suggest? It suggested we can relax. We didn't need 
to talk about real spending reductions because we had a plan. Just 
follow the President's plan. Everything is going to be okay; relax. 
Don't get too excited as they did in this last election because we have 
everything under control. Our plan fixes it.
  That is essentially what happened, but the budget documents Mr. Lew 
submitted revealed the opposite. The question is: Did his own documents 
confirm this analysis? Did it come close to it? Well, these documents 
will reveal the truth. Actually, his documents revealed a rosy scenario 
of the truth. The numbers I am going to give of what his documents 
reveal turned out to be less positive than even they predicted.
  In his own accounting table, Mr. Lew's 10-year budget got nowhere 
close to the point where we could not say we are adding to the debt 
anymore or that we were in a position to pay down the debt. To anybody 
who has the slightest concern for the meaning of words--or who believes 
in the most basic concept of an objective truth--this statement must be 
condemned. Even though the Lew budget documents made calculations more 
favorable than the rosy projections of CBO, it still unequivocally 
showed that over the 10-year budget window there was never a year--not 
one year--when we would be able to pay down the debt or balance the 
budget or not add more debt.
  Indeed, over the 10-year period his budget covered, which he was 
referring to in this document, we would add $13 trillion to the total 
debt of the United States. It would almost double it. It would be $9 
trillion to the public debt and $13 trillion to the gross debt. The 
year with the single lowest deficit out of 10 years was $600 billion in 
debt. In other words, the lowest single annual deficit in 10 years was 
$600 billion. President Bush's highest deficit was less than $500 
billion over 8 years. This is a huge debt, $600 billion, but would 
average almost $1 trillion a year. On average it would be $1,000 
billion a year, which clearly leaves us on the same unsustainable path 
we had been on.
  On Tuesday Mr. Lew appeared before the Budget Committee. I am the 
ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. I was amazed at what he was 
saying on television. After we scrambled around and looked at the 
documents, it became clear this was not close to correct. How could the 
Budget Director of the United States of America go on national TV and 
make these kinds of statements? How can we have any expectation of the 
truth in Washington when the Budget Director tells us we are on a sound 
path when it didn't appear to be so? And, indeed, it wasn't so.
  He came before the Budget Committee, and I quoted this CNN statement 
to him. I read it back to him and directly asked whether his statement 
was accurate, and this is what he replied:

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

  Further, let me note that outside the 10-year window--based on the 
financial plan that that budget set forth--the deficits got worse. They 
were going up in the outyears. The lowest year was $600 billion, but 
they were going up every single year, by his own accounting. CBO's 
numbers were much higher as far as the debt that would be added to the 
country.
  For me this was a most stunning development. I don't believe it could 
be explained away. It is obvious he determined that he was going to 
stand pat with his story, which was a political narrative that they 
wanted to spin. They wanted to spin a political narrative, but it was 
not accurate, and that is important for us. The chief budget person in 
America needs to tell the American people and the Budget Committee of 
the U.S. Senate the absolute truth about the financial condition of 
this country. He is not entitled to sugarcoat it, and he is absolutely 
not entitled to totally misrepresent it.
  I examined him. He said we are going to have a primary debt. We are 
going to have a primary deficit. So what is this, a primary debt? Well, 
we don't count interest. I kid you not. The Budget Director of the 
United States of America said the statement--as I interpret it, and it 
was not inaccurate--that he was not counting the interest on the debt. 
Did he qualify that when he told the American people that? No, he did 
not. Did he make any kind of representations as to that? No. I would 
suggest the numbers clearly show that even if we have the kind of bogus 
accounting where we don't count our interest, who could possibly write 
a household budget, a city budget, or a State budget that didn't 
account for the interest they have to pay every year? How ridiculous is 
that? That is the kind of phony, gimmicky accounting that puts this 
country on a path to financial crisis. But that is what he said. Even 
by that definition it was not true, and this would not be true, and it 
is false. Well, phony accounting procedures, budget manipulations, and 
gimmicks such as this primary balanced idea are the way politicians 
have maneuvered us into a situation where our path is so dangerous.
  The American people are not happy about it, and they should not be 
happy. There is no reason we have placed this country at such risk 
because of debt and spending--no reason we should do that. They sent us 
here to this Congress for a lot of reasons, but the primary reason is 
to properly manage their money.
  I see my colleague from Vermont, and I think we might get there a 
different way, but I think we may share some of the views about this 
nomination. I respect his independence and gumption, as we would say in 
Alabama, to express his views openly and directly.
  I will talk some more because this is an important matter, and I 
don't intend to let it go lightly. I believe this Congress and the 
American people are entitled to honest, sober, serious commentary and 
information from our leaders, and we are not getting it. It makes it 
hard to get the American people together to figure out how to tighten 
our belts and how to handle the financial crisis we are in if we have 
top officials who say: We don't have a crisis, don't worry about it, we 
have a plan that fixes it.
  I don't see any reason to extend for a longer period of time the Lew 
nomination. He has come out of committee and he has bipartisan support. 
He is going to be in a position to be confirmed, but I am not going to 
vote for him. I wish to talk some more about some of the additional 
problems we have with his nomination but will do so later. I believe it 
is my responsibility to do so, and I intend to fulfill it.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I say to my friend that he is right 
when he said that I oppose the Lew nomination also. I oppose his 
nomination for different reasons than he does, and I will speak later 
on that issue.
  From my perspective, at a time when the middle class is disappearing, 
when we have 46 million people living in poverty, when we have the most 
unequal distribution of wealth and income since the Great Depression, 
we need a Secretary of Treasury who is going to

[[Page S898]]

stand up for working families and be prepared to take on Wall Street. 
He needs to be prepared to change our disastrous trade policies, be 
prepared to defend Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the safety 
net that is so important to tens of millions of Americans. That is my 
objection to Mr. Lew.
  I agree with my friend from Alabama that deficit reduction is a 
serious issue. Where we disagree is that I don't believe we balance a 
budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick, and the 
poor.
  I ask my friend to take a look at the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. 
Take a look at all the corporations making record-breaking profits and 
stashing their money in the Cayman Islands. For what purpose? To avoid 
paying taxes to the U.S. Government.
  The Senator and I have met with the parents of young men and women 
who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that is called patriotism. 
It is not called patriotism when corporations run to the Cayman Islands 
to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, would the Senator yield?
  Mr. SANDERS. I will.
  Mr. SESSIONS. With regard to the Senator's views, I am concerned that 
working Americans are not being fairly recompensed for their work on 
the American debt. We have gone a long time with no real net 
improvement in the income, inflation has been higher than wages, and 
Wall Street is doing fine. It seems as though they win whether things 
go up or down. I don't have any brief for that crowd. I think the 
Senator is right to be skeptical about how things are handled on Wall 
Street, and I salute my friend for being aggressive in that pursuit.
  Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend from Alabama, and with that, I yield 
the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican whip.