[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 152 (Tuesday, October 29, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7601-S7603]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Budget Conference

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about an opportunity--
actually something good that this body could do for the American people 
and for our economy and for the taxpayers. Tomorrow, the Senate budget 
conference that was established as part of this recent agreement that 
was made over reopening the government and extending the debt limit 
will meet. This will be the first public meeting of the group. We have 
had some other meetings, including the one I just had with some of the 
Members of that group, but this is the first opportunity for us to meet 
as House Members and Senate Members, Republicans and Democrats, in this 
budget conference, and it could not come soon enough.
  The opportunity we have with this group is that in the wake of what 
happened at the beginning of this month--which was, again, a government 
shutdown and then a debt limit debate and then pushing right up against 
the debt limit--the opportunity we have now is to finally deal with 
this issue of government shutdowns and to deal with the underlying 
problem of overspending that forces us to extend the debt limit time 
and time again.
  So let's start with government shutdowns.
  The agreement opened the government for 3 months. That is right. In 
January, we once again come to this cliff where the government shuts 
down unless we act. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody. In 
January we hit this again.
  It does not have to be that way. Earlier this year I introduced, with 
Senator Tester from Montana, bipartisan legislation that would have 
prevented the last shutdown and would prevent all shutdowns in the 
future. It is called, appropriately, the End Government Shutdowns Act. 
It is pretty simple, and it addresses several critical issues we saw 
firsthand during this last shutdown.
  It would end the chaos we saw on Federal services and citizens who 
depend on them. It would give government agencies the predictability 
they need to plan their budgets based on these appropriations levels. 
It would add certainty to the economy, and more certainty in the 
economy is certainly needed right now as we try to bring back the jobs. 
It would also take away the pressure for these haphazard, last-minute 
budget deals, which inevitably have stuck in them little provisions 
that nobody finds out about because they are all done at the last 
minute to avoid a government shutdown.
  Here is how this would work: When we do not have spending bills 
agreed to by the time the fiscal year comes to an end--and that would 
be October 1--then the spending continues just as it was the previous 
year. So it is the same level of spending, except that automatically it 
would begin to reduce spending after 120 days and 90 days. So Congress 
would have 120 days to come together and figure out a budget. That is 
the carrot. The stick is that after 120 days the spending would be 
ratcheted down 1 percent and then again every 90 days another 1 
percent.
  I think it has become painfully obvious that Congress needs 
encouragement to get its work done, and this certainly would be 
encouragement. By the same token, we would not have these government 
shutdowns. That gradual decline in spending, by the way, would treat 
all spending equally. So all discretionary spending would be treated 
the same way--no exceptions for liberal spending priorities or 
conservative spending priorities. It would be the same for everybody. 
Both sides of Congress would feel the pain, and both sides then might 
be more willing to actually get the work done.
  Is this the ideal solution to end government shutdowns? No, it is 
not. The ideal solution is that Congress actually does its work, which 
is our constitutional duty--the power of the purse--and that is to sit 
down and have these appropriations bills pass. That requires oversight 
of the agencies and departments which are badly in need of it. It then 
requires prioritizing spending in

[[Page S7602]]

12 different areas. That is how it should work. This legislation, the 
End Government Shutdowns Act, would actually encourage that to work, 
again, because it would establish this situation where, instead of 
doing a last-minute deal where you can kind of throw in these 
provisions that Appropriations Committee members might want, you 
actually have to go through the process; otherwise, it just continues 
the spending from the previous year and then ratchets it down over 
time.
  Sadly, Congress has shown it is pretty much incapable of doing 
appropriations bills without some sort of pressure. The Congress has 
not completed all regular appropriations bills by the October 1 
deadline since 1997. Here in the Senate, actually, over the past 4 
years, during the current administration, the Obama administration, and 
under Democratic control here for the last 4 years, we have passed all 
of one appropriations bill on time. So that is 1 out of 48 that has 
been done on time. It was a MILCON bill in about 2011, as I recall.
  Congress does better with a deadline. Again, we see this with the 
debt limit and with what we just went through these last few weeks. We 
can do better. This legislation would keep the impetus for Congress to 
act without including the threat of another costly and destructive 
shutdown. I think it is a good idea. It is one that is already 
bipartisan. It should be adopted by both sides. We had a vote on it 
earlier this year. It got nearly half of this Chamber. I hope others 
will take a look at it. I think particularly with what we have just 
gone through, it is something our constituents would think would make a 
lot of sense. I hope it gets the support it deserves in this body.
  Of course, in addition to dealing with government shutdowns in this 
budget conference that we are meeting on this week, we also have a 
chance to address the debt limit--which is going to come up soon also 
because February 7 is the date that was chosen there. Now some say, 
well, the Treasury Department can use extraordinary measures to shift 
that beyond February 7. I suppose they could. But instead, why not deal 
with the underlying problem--why we need to extend the debt limit--
which is the overspending.
  It is as though you have maxed out on the credit card. It is a lot 
like that. We can spend only at a certain level in Congress, and then 
we have to have statutory authority to go beyond that limit. When you 
max out on the credit card, you do not just go to the bank and say: I 
would like to extend it. You have to deal with the underlying problem; 
otherwise, you cannot keep your credit card and you cannot keep your 
credit.
  So dealing with the debt limit is the other part that I think gives 
us an opportunity. Over the past 2 weeks I know the administration has 
said repeatedly: Even though we would not negotiate on the debt ceiling 
before, even though the President refused to talk to Congress about 
it--which was unprecedented, by the way; no President in history has 
ever said that--but he said over the last couple weeks: If you all 
extend the debt limit and if you reopen government, then I will talk. 
So now is the time to talk, and the President should talk. I have 
worked for two Presidents: President Bush 41 and President Bush 43. 
They did talk to Congress about debt limits. Why? Because it is a tough 
vote, because our constituents get it, because it is akin to maxing out 
on the credit card and they want to know we are not just going to 
extend it again without doing something about the underlying problem. 
So this budget conference gives us the opportunity to do that, and I 
hope the administration will engage with us.
  It has been 4 years since we have had a budget conference. Think 
about that. The debt has gone up $5.9 trillion since we had the last 
budget conference around here. Almost $6 trillion later we are sitting 
down again, and things are only going to get worse if we do not do 
something to deal with the underlying problem.

  The two-thirds of the budget that is on autopilot--the mandatory 
spending--obviously is where not just the biggest part of the budget is 
but the fastest growing part of the budget. It includes vital programs 
to our seniors, for those in poverty--Medicaid, Medicare, Social 
Security--vital but unsustainable. These programs cannot be sustained 
in their current form. By the way, that is not me saying it. That comes 
from data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The 
President himself has talked about this. By the way, the Congressional 
Budget Office says that Social Security and health care entitlements 
alone are 100 percent of the long-term increase in deficits. Revenues 
are starting to pick up. The discretionary spending is now being 
capped. The issue is this part that is on autopilot. By the way, it is 
66 percent of spending now. It is 77 percent of spending in 10 years. 
The health care entitlements alone are going to increase 100 percent 
over the next 10 years based on what the Congressional Budget Office 
has told us.
  I have heard rumblings in the press that this upcoming budget 
conference is just going to kick the can further down the road; in 
other words, we are not going to deal with the issue. We are going to 
say let's just extend the debt limit a little bit further and push off 
the issue.
  I think it is time for the can to kick back. If the can kicks back, 
that means we will actually tackle some of these tough problems. After 
all, that is why the American people hired us. That is why they sent us 
here. If we are not going to do it now, I do not know when we are going 
to do it. I think divided government is actually an opportunity to do 
it.
  It is time for leadership in the Senate and the House, and certainly 
from the President. It is time to come to the table. As I said earlier, 
the President has indicated he now is willing to do it. Do so in good 
faith and try to put our country on a stable fiscal path. If we do 
nothing, by the way, if we allow these annual deficits to continue, 
they will more than quadruple. Annual deficits will more than quadruple 
to $3.4 trillion within three decades. That is based on the 
Congressional Budget Office.
  We already have a debt that is about $140,000 per household in 
America. We are talking about annual deficits quadrupling. If we let 
mandatory spending reach that point where it becomes 100 percent of the 
deficit--which is what they project--if we allow our national debt to 
reach two and a half times the entire size of our economy--it is about 
the size of our economy now, and it would go up to two and a half times 
the size of our economy--it will be the next generation that will pay, 
and pay dearly, and our legacy will be one of bankruptcy, skyrocketing 
interest rates, skyrocketing unemployment rates, and the collapse of 
these vital programs we talked about earlier: Medicaid, Medicare, and 
Social Security.
  Again, this is not ideology; this is math. It is fact, and it is fact 
that has been reiterated by the Congressional Budget Office, the 
trustees of Social Security, the trustees of Medicare, their trust 
funds time and time again.
  This is our opportunity to begin to do something about it--at least 
take the first steps--both in terms of ending government shutdowns, as 
I talked about, but also dealing with this underlying problem that 
everybody acknowledges and that has to be dealt with if we are not 
going to have for future generations these issues of bankruptcy, higher 
interest rates, lower value of the dollar, higher unemployment.
  The single greatest act of bipartisanship in this Congress over the 
past few decades has been overpromising and overspending. We created 
this mess together, and we can only get out of it working together. I 
have suggested where we can start: $600 billion in the President's own 
budget. In his own budget he has $600 billion-plus in savings on 
mandatory spending over the next decade. But whatever we do, I think we 
can call agree that we are tired of the gridlock, we are tired of the 
stalemates, we are tired of getting nothing done.
  It is time to make some progress, and this is an opportunity to do 
it. These past few weeks have been trying. They have been tough on the 
American people, as they have looked at us and said: Wow. Are these 
guys going to figure it out? And we just kicked the can down the road. 
But we also set up this process and this structure. Let's take 
advantage of it. Let's use this opportunity to do something important 
for the future of our country and for the good of the people we 
represent. Let's seize it.
  I yield back my time.

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  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.