[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 136 (Friday, October 4, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7206-S7207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXTENSION OF MORNING BUSINESS
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the period
for morning business be extended until 5 p.m., and that all the
provisions under the previous order remain in effect.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I appreciate my two friends for yielding
for this consent agreement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. WICKER. Madam President, as far as I am concerned, my
distinguished friend from Ohio can still have the floor. I only wanted
to take a moment to congratulate him on his remarks and to observe that
when it comes to budget matters, he knows whereof he speaks. He not
only has a distinguished record in the House of Representatives, but he
is a leader in being a budget hawk and was an opponent of additional
debt in the House of Representatives, and has had a distinguished
career in the Office of Management and Budget. So I thank the
distinguished Senator.
It may be that he has already asked for an opinion piece from today's
Wall Street Journal to be printed in the Record.
Mr. PORTMAN. I have not.
Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed
in the Record at this time an opinion piece written by Kevin Hassett
and Abby McCloskey on page 23 in today's Wall Street Journal entitled
``Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 3, 2013]
Obama Rewrites Debt-Limit History
(By Kevin Hassett and Abby McCloskey)
As the government shutdown continues, the nation gets
closer and closer to the day--probably Oct. 17--when
Washington hits the debt limit, and with it the specter of
default. President Obama may be getting nervous about what
will happen to his negotiating position as that day
approaches.
He keeps asserting that the debt limit has never been used
``to extort a president or a government party.'' Treasury
Secretary Jack Lew is selling the same story, saying ``until
very recently, Congress typically raised the debt ceiling on
a routine basis . . . the threat of default was not a
bargaining chip in the negotiations.''
This is simply untrue. Consider the shenanigans of
congressional Democrats in 1989 over Medicare's catastrophic
health coverage provision.
In this case, the problem was political infighting within
the Democratic Party between the House and the Senate.
``Weeks of political maneuvering brought the government to
the brink of financial default,'' the New York Times wrote on
Nov. 8 of that year. The debt limit was raised just hours
before all extraordinary measures to avoid default were
exhausted. The final bill dropped any action on Medicare but
included a measure to repeal 1986 tax rules barring
discrimination in employer-paid health insurance plans.
The Obama administration's campaign to make the debt limit
appear non-negotiable might reflect concern that Republican
congressional strategy might actually work. Six out of 10
Americans say ``it is right to require spending cuts when the
debt ceiling is raised, even if it risks default,'' according
to a Sept. 26 Bloomberg poll. (Only 28% say ``the debt
ceiling should be raised when necessary, with no
conditions.'')
One thing is certain: The debt limit has been a powerful
negotiating tool in the last several decades. It has enabled
the passage of important additional legislation.
According to the Congressional Research Service, Congress
voted 53 times from 1978 to 2013 to change the debt ceiling.
The debt ceiling has increased to about $16 trillion from
$752 billion. Of these 53 votes, 29 occurred in a Congress
run by Democrats, 17 in a split Congress, and seven in a
Republican-controlled Congress.
While large increases that give the U.S. Treasury a healthy
amount of borrowing space happen occasionally, small short-
term increases are common. In 1990 alone, while Republican
George H.W. Bush was in the White House, a Democratic-
controlled Congress voted to increase the debt limit seven
times.
Congressional Republicans who want legislative conditions
in exchange for a debt-limit increase are following a
strategy that has been pursued by both parties the majority
of the time. Of the 53 increases in the debt limit, 26 were
``clean''--that is, stand-alone, no strings-attached
statutes. The remaining debt-limit increases were part of an
omnibus package of other legislative bills or a continuing
resolution. Other times, the limit was paired with reforms,
only some of which were related to the budget.
In 1979, a Democratic Congress increased the debt limit but
required Congress and the president to present balanced
budgets for fiscal years 1981 and 1982. In 1980 the debt
limit, again increased by a Democratic Congress, included
repeal of an oil-import fee. In 1985, the debt limit that was
raised by a divided Congress included a cigarette tax and a
provision requiring Congress to pursue an alternative minimum
corporate tax in the next year.
Most recently, a divided Congress that passed the 2011
debt-limit increase included the Budget Control Act which
aimed to reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion over 10 years
and included the automatic budget sequester that kicked in on
Jan. 1.
As the finger pointing begins, it is important to keep this
history in mind. All told, congressional Democrats have been
responsible for 60% of the ``dirty'' increases when the debt
limit was raised alongside other legislative items.
Republicans were responsible for 15%. The remaining 25%
occurred during divided Congresses.
Of the Democratic dirties, six occurred when Democrats also
controlled the White House, and 10 occurred when a Republican
controlled the White House. For Republicans, all four
occurred while a Democrat held the presidency.
Debt-limit votes often have been contentious, but on the
whole they serve an important function. First, they force
painful votes by legislators who would prefer to offer
supporters free lunches through unfunded spending programs.
Without these votes, politicians of both parties would have a
significantly easier time ignoring fiscal discipline.
Second, debt-limit votes have provided a regular vehicle
for legislation. Divided governments have a difficult time
passing anything. Since the consequences of government
default are so severe, debt-limit legislation has always
passed in the end, and it has often included important
additional legislative accomplishments.
Third, the debt limit has provided significant leverage to
the minority party and has been a check on the power of the
presidency.
Republicans today are playing a role that has been played
many times. While the debt-limit kabuki inevitably roils
markets as deadlines approach, the alternative absence of
fiscal discipline would make government insolvency more
probable in the fullness of time.
Trying to separate ObamaCare from the debt limit, President
Obama has asserted that his health law has ``nothing to do
with the budget.'' His argument is eagerly echoed by an at-
best ignorant media. The Affordable Care Act was passed under
``reconciliation''--a legislative process that is used only
for budget measures and which limits congressional debate.
The notion that legislation passed as part of a budget
might be reconsidered as part of subsequent budget
legislation should be uncontroversial. Perhaps that is why
the administration has staked so much on its
misrepresentation of history.
Mr. WICKER. I thank the Presiding Officer.
This article points out in a very detailed and annotated way a number
of times when this Congress has made policy changes, important, far-
reaching policy changes, in connection with negotiations on the debt
ceiling increase.
So I join my friend from Ohio in saying it is absolutely incumbent on
this Senate--Republicans and our friends on the Democratic side of the
aisle--as well as Members of the House of Representatives and the
President of the United States, our Commander in Chief, to, once again,
negotiate in good faith.
The President may feel we are entirely unreasonable in our position.
Frankly, there have been times during my 19 years in the House and now
in the Senate when I felt the Chief Executive was completely wrong in
his viewpoint on how we should address our national debt. But at no
time in my recollection have the parties been simply unwilling to sit
down and talk at all or to have meetings in the White House and in
those meetings to basically say we are not going to make
counterproposals or to say publicly: Why should I offer them anything
at all? I think the American people see that is an unworkable approach.
So I point out to my colleagues, and I thank the Senator from Ohio in
[[Page S7207]]
pointing out that very important fiscal decisions, very important debt-
related decisions have absolutely been made in our Nation's history,
and I am glad they have been made in connection with this debate on the
national debt.
I yield back to my friend from Ohio and thank him for allowing me to
intrude on his time.
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, if the Senator will hold for a moment,
first, I thank the Senator for referring to the op-ed in the Wall
Street Journal. I have not seen it yet so I look forward to reading it
myself. It sounds as though it is consistent with what I was pointing
out, which is it would only make sense that the American people would
want us to reduce spending when we extend the debt limit yet again--
again, at historic levels now. The American people get it. They know we
can't keep spending more than we take in, so they expect us to do
something about the underlying problem.
Mr. WICKER. Madam President, the Senator from Ohio mentioned the
Budget Control Act of 2011. It wasn't a particularly pretty way to do
debt reduction, but it did give us the spending levels we are operating
under now.
The authors of this opinion piece go on to point out that according
to the Congressional Research Service--an independent arm of this
government--Congress voted 53 times from 1978 to 2013 to change the
debt ceiling. The debt ceiling has increased to about $16 trillion. In
at least 53 votes, 29 occurred in a Congress run by Democrats, 17 in
split Congresses, and 7 in Republican-controlled Congresses. It goes on
to point out time and again how important policy changes were made in
connection with this debate.
So I thank my friend for yielding.
Mr. PORTMAN. Madam President, I wish to ask my friend from
Mississippi a question. He has been stalwart on budget debates and he
is a guy who has always held the line, in the House and in the Senate.
He voted for the Budget Control Act because he believes we need to get
our spending under control. He also wants to ensure that we deal with
the part of the budget that is not being talked about because the whole
continuing resolution debate is about 35 percent of the budget. The
other 65 percent, which is the faster growing part, based on the
Congressional Budget Office, parts of that--the health care
entitlements--will grow over 100 percent over the next 10 years. I ask
the Senator from Mississippi if he is hearing back home what I am
hearing from my constituents, which is they want us to do something on
the spending before we extend the credit card limit again.
I wonder if he could tell us what he is hearing back home, given his
background.
Mr. WICKER. The distinguished Senator from Ohio is absolutely
correct. As a matter of fact, the American people are alarmed,
actually, at the level of debt this government has run up, particularly
in the last 4\1/2\ to 5 years. It has been astounding. We cannot
continue to add debt upon debt for the next generation, many of whom
are within the sound of our voices and some of whom are employed as our
pages. The Senator has already referred to them today. We owe them a
government that grows our debt at a much slower rate.
We have done it before. When the distinguished Senator and I were in
the House of Representatives, we were told we could not balance the
budget within 10 years. Actually, with the leadership of my friend from
Ohio, we passed legislation. We had the cooperation of the President of
the United States who negotiated with us, and that divided government
balanced the budget not within 10 years but within 3 or 4 years, and we
fulfilled that until the terrorist attacks of 2001.
So, yes, the American people are concerned. I think we would be doing
a disservice to them, simply to go along with a debt increase without
addressing the underlying problems. As my friend from Ohio knows, the
President of the United States himself in this budget has proposed very
significant changes in the growth rate of certain of our entitlement
programs, which would go a long way toward getting us to a bipartisan
resolution on this issue.
Mr. PORTMAN. The Senator raises an important point, which is that the
larger part of the budget--the 65 percent of the budget that is not
being debated as part of a continuing resolution, not subject to
congressional appropriations and the faster growing part of the
budget--is an issue the President actually did address in his own
budget. In fact, he laid out a number of proposals called mandatory
spending reforms that would help to reduce some of the debt by reducing
some of the cost increases on that 65 percent of the budget.
By the way, 65 percent today, 10 years from now will be 76 percent of
the budget. The departments and agencies that are appropriated every
year are only 35 percent, soon to be reduced to 24 percent of the
budget. So that is a very good point the Senator makes.
The President himself has pointed out that we need to make changes.
Yet he refuses to negotiate, refuses to talk, refuses to consider any
of these proposals. It doesn't seem to make sense, and it is certainly
not in the interests of the American people, the people from
Mississippi and the people from Ohio.
I thank my colleague from Mississippi for joining me. I look forward
to reading the new material he has provided for the Record today. I
thank him for his leadership.
I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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