[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 179 (Tuesday, December 17, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8905-S8906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            BUDGET AGREEMENT

  Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the budget agreement 
before the Senate. We had a vote today on moving ahead to that 
legislation, and I supported that movement. I supported the cloture 
vote and will support the underlying budget agreement because it does 
take modest steps to reduce the deficit. It does so without raising 
taxes. It also relieves some of the sequester's worst impact on our 
national security, and it also prevents another government shutdown 
next month and also next year.
  I also support it because it is time for us to have a budget. We have 
not had a budget for 4 years. It will enable us to begin the process of 
having appropriations bills again. In the appropriations process, of 
course, we have oversight over the Federal departments and agencies and 
we prioritize spending, which is very important. Among other things, 
this will give us the opportunity to root out some of the waste and 
fraud and actually determine what programs are working and not working 
to be able to use the power of the purse that Congress has, to help be 
sure taxpayer funds are being used efficiently and effectively.
  As Members know, this agreement was the culmination of what is called 
a Budget Conference Committee between the House and the Senate. So it 
was Democrats and Republicans but also the House and Senate coming 
together. That has not happened in 4 years. So we have not had a budget 
in 4 years. We have not had a budget conference in 4 years. If you 
think about that, is it any wonder that during those 4 years Congress 
has racked up historic debts and deficits?
  The deficits of the past 4 years have been the largest deficits in 
the history our country, and one reason is we have not had the 
discipline that comes with having a budget and being sure there is some 
accountability for the spending. We have not made the hard choices our 
constituents have to make every day, how much to spend and what to 
spend it on. That is what a budget is supposed to do.
  This budget agreement we will be voting on this week is far from 
perfect. There is a lot I don't like about it. In fact, I just 
supported the attempt to amend it on the floor of the Senate to improve 
it, but I do believe that with a divided Congress--Republicans in 
charge in the House, Democrats in charge in the Senate--it was the best 
we could hope for. There were no tax increases, as the Democrats 
wanted. We just heard from one of my colleagues about how more taxes 
are needed, but there were no tax increases in this budget agreement.
  There is actual deficit reduction, although I will acknowledge that 
the deficit reduction is way too small. There is about $22 billion in 
deficit reduction over 10 years compared to the existing law.
  It does provide some sequester relief for the Department of Defense. 
The Department of Defense was facing across-the-board sequester cuts 
which were kind of arbitrary across-the-board cuts of about $20 billion 
starting on January 15 and over the next few months.
  This relief is very important to our military. We have heard from 
them. It is important to our readiness. It is important to our troops. 
It is important to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and other 
bases around the country. It is important to our war fighters who are 
stationed around the globe tonight and putting their lives on the line 
for us. So I think the sequester relief for the Department of Defense 
that is in the budget agreement is important.
  While this might be the best 2-year budget agreement that is 
imaginable in a time of a divided government, such as we have with all 
of the dysfunction in this town, it is certainly not the comprehensive 
agreement the American people deserve.
  Through this agreement, Congress has now accomplished the bare 
minimum of what the American people should be able to expect from 
Congress. After all, Congress does have, as I said earlier, the power 
of the purse, and that is in the Constitution. Every dime has to be 
appropriated by the Congress. We should be the ones determining how 
taxpayer dollars are spent, and we certainly need a budget.
  There are some who took to the floor today, and will tomorrow I am 
sure, who will say this is a great budget agreement; this shows 
everyone how Washington can work and come together to fix a problem. 
Fair enough. We avoided a government shutdown. Yes, we are not going to 
gut national security, and, yes, we will have a small deficit 
reduction--again, about $22 billion.
  Let's be honest about the opportunity Congress missed this week with 
this budget agreement. When it comes to the very real budget and fiscal 
problems we face as a country, when it comes to the mandatory spending, 
which is two-thirds of the budget and is on autopilot, that is the part 
that is driving our country toward bankruptcy and threatening to 
undermine important vital programs, such as Social Security, Medicare, 
and Medicaid.
  We have done nothing on that side of the ledger in this budget 
agreement. We kicked the can down the road one more time and missed the 
opportunity. As we all know, unless we address these fiscal problems, 
the day of reckoning is coming.
  This is a pie chart of Federal spending that will kind of show where 
we are relative to 1965 when mandatory spending--again, this is the 
part Congress does not appropriate. It is on autopilot. It is 34 
percent of the budget. Defense is 43 percent of the budget, domestic 
discretionary is 23 percent.
  Here is where we are today: Mandatory is 66 percent of the budget. We 
went from 34 percent to 66 percent. Remember, this is Social Security, 
Medicare, Medicaid, also interest on the debt. By the way, defense 
spending has gone from 43 percent down to 18 percent. Yet the sequester 
disproportionately takes most of the savings out of defense, which is 
one of the reasons this budget agreement was needed.
  We have seen big growth in mandatory spending. By the way, over the 
next 10 years, it goes from 66 percent to 76 percent. What does that 
mean? That means it crowds out discretionary spending--defense 
spending, research spending, education spending, infrastructure 
spending. That is what is happening.
  Our deficits are going to record highs over the next couple of 
decades and mandatory spending is exploding and it is squeezing the 
other spending in our budget.
  Over the next decade, the Federal Government is going to collect 
revenue of about $40 trillion, spend about $46 trillion, and run a 
deficit of $6.3 trillion. Over the next 10 years, there will be another 
$6.3 trillion on top of the $17 trillion debt.
  In that 10th year, by the way, 2023, the best case scenario has a 
projected annual deficit of nearly $1 trillion--$895 billion for 1 
year. By the way, it assumes no wars, it assumes a decade of 
prosperity, and it assumes 10 years of historically low rates. It is 
quite a rosy scenario. If any of these factors fall through, things 
could be much worse, and it could be well over $1 trillion.
  This is not a problem that can be solved by just cutting 
discretionary spending. Over the next 10 years, Washington will spend 
more than $22 trillion on these vital programs: Medicare, Medicaid, and 
Social Security. If we

[[Page S8906]]

were to cut our defense budget over the next decade all the way down to 
zero--have no defense spending at all, zero--we could pay for just one-
quarter of that cost of the $22 trillion.
  If we removed every penny of potentially identifiable waste in 
government--which we should do, by the way, and that is why we need to 
get back to appropriations--we could pay for less than 10 percent of 
this exploding cost on the mandatory side.
  If we pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan today and ended all bailouts 
and corporate welfare, reversed the tax cuts for all Americans making 
less than $450,000 a year that we kept as part of the fiscal cliff 
agreement, repealed ObamaCare altogether--if we did all of those 
things, we would cover just 20 percent of the cost of those programs, 
this $22 trillion.
  In other words, even if we wanted to try to do it by cutting this 
spending, we could not do it because there is not enough money in that 
part of the budget. So it is not just a matter of choosing spending 
priorities and it is certainly not a matter of raising taxes.
  Earlier my colleague talked about how we needed to raise more taxes 
for different things, and I understand a lot of people are saying that, 
but let's be honest about this: It is a bad idea at a time of a weak 
economy to raise taxes. Plus, over the next decade, you know what 
happens on taxes. Over the next decade we have been told by the 
Congressional Budget Office that taxes will be--as a percent of the 
economy, which is the way economists tell us we ought to look at it--at 
historically high levels.
  So the economy is already weak, tax revenues are headed toward their 
highest sustained levels in history, and when it comes to taxes, there 
is an alternative, which is let's reform the Tax Code.
  What we should be doing is restraining spending, reforming these 
vital but unsustainable programs, while also raising more revenues 
through growth, and economic growth can come through tax reform. That 
tax reform gives the economy a shot in the arm. It helps bring back the 
jobs. It increases revenue through growth. That is why we need both 
entitlement reform and tax reform.
  The issue of entitlement reform is a tough one politically. A lot of 
Members of Congress are hesitant to touch it. It is called the third 
rail of American politics. That is akin to the electrified rail in the 
subway system, where if you touch it you are electrified. Let's start 
small. How about means testing of Medicare. This could be a first step 
in the right direction.
  Under Medicare, the average two-earner couple retiring today pays 
$119,000 in lifetime Medicare taxes, yet receives $357,000 in lifetime 
Medicare benefits. So $1 of taxes for $3 of benefits. That is how 
Medicare works. That is for a typical family in Ohio or around the 
country. When we multiply this by 77 million retiring baby boomers, we 
can see why we have an unsustainable program, because not enough money 
goes in to pay for the benefits going out.
  Providing $3 in benefits under Medicare for every $1 paid in taxes 
for low-income seniors is one thing. We want to be sure low-income 
seniors are being taken care of. For the most part, in their working 
years, they probably didn't earn enough income to pay large Medicare 
taxes, and the program is designed to see that they do receive the 
medical coverage they wouldn't otherwise get. But should upper income 
seniors--seniors who are on Medicare--receive benefits that far exceed 
what they pay into the system? That is what happens now. Is that fair? 
I don't think so, when the program is going bankrupt, when our kids and 
grandkids are facing massive tax increases to pay for a problem that we 
all foresee and yet fail to correct.
  By the way, I tried in this latest budget agreement to say, on the 
mandatory side of the ledger, why don't we deal with means testing of 
Medicare. That would provide enough revenue to provide relief on 
sequester. We wouldn't be doing things such as TSA fees or things such 
as reducing the benefits for our military. It was rejected. I talked to 
a number of Democrats about it who said we can't touch that. We can't 
touch even means testing of Medicare without raising taxes. So, in 
essence, raising taxes on the wealthy is necessary to reduce benefits 
for the wealthy. That is the point we are at. That is how tough it is. 
That is why we need a new approach. That is why we need some 
leadership--in the House, in the Senate but also in the White House. We 
need a President willing to help us on this, to talk about it.
  Have we ever heard the President talk about the fact that there is $3 
of benefits coming from Medicare for every $1 paid in? Have we ever 
heard the President talk about the fact that entitlements are otherwise 
going to bankrupt the country? We need a little straight talk and 
honest dialogue about this.
  If we do nothing, as we have done with this budget agreement in the 
Senate with regard to mandatory spending, entitlement spending, and as 
we have done time and time again, the Social Security disability trust 
fund will go bankrupt in 2016, a couple years from now. Medicare will 
follow in 2026--again, every year, much more being paid out than being 
paid in. Social Security, already in a cash deficit, meaning there is 
more money coming out in terms of benefits than there are payroll taxes 
going in every year--but it will collapse, the trust fund will collapse 
in 2035. Medicaid has no trust fund, so it will not go bankrupt itself; 
it will just continue to grow at unsustainable levels, helping to 
bankrupt the country, but also, in that case, it may take the States 
down with it, and States will tell us it is generally their largest and 
fastest growing expense, Medicaid.
  So these are issues we must address. On the floor of this Chamber, we 
often talk about the next generation. We hear speeches about protecting 
the elderly and ensuring every American gets the benefit of the bargain 
made when Social Security and Medicare came into being. I agree, but to 
do that we need to improve and preserve these programs, and we need to 
stop blaming one another for what happened because, frankly, 
Republicans and Democrats alike are responsible for this. We have done 
one thing that is truly bipartisan in the last few decades; that is, we 
have overspent and we have overpromised, Republicans and Democrats 
alike. Because we helped create this mess together, we have to work 
together to resolve it.
  With this vote on the budget this week, another budget crisis has 
passed, and that is good. We are on the road to avoiding another 
government shutdown in January and again next year. That is the most 
basic job of government, and I think that is good. We have a little bit 
of deficit reduction, we didn't raise taxes on a weak economy, but we 
need to aim higher. Perhaps in the context of the debt limit debate 
that is coming up in a matter of only a few months, we can get more 
serious about the underlying problem, because it is that underlying 
problem that is driving our future deficits. We all know that. We all 
agree on that. We all know it has to be fixed. So let's do it this 
coming year.
  We have seen how divided government can achieve something important 
but small. That is what happened with this budget agreement this week. 
In 2014, next year, let's see how divided government can achieve 
something big and critical to economic growth and jobs and to the 
future of our children and grandchildren. That is our solemn 
responsibility in the Congress, to ensure that we are leaving a better 
world to future generations. We cannot do this if we do not address 
this fiscal crisis.
  I yield back my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, are we in a period of morning business?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.

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