[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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