[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 50 (Wednesday, March 25, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S1834]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PAST ATTEMPTS AT DEFICIT REDUCTION

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I wish to give those within the sound of my 
voice a very brief tutorial on how serious the Republicans are about 
balancing the budget.
  I led a trip to South America. We had 10 or 12 Senators, equally 
divided between Democrats and Republicans. It was a wonderful trip. I 
chose purposely Kent Conrad, who was the No. 1 person on the Democratic 
side of the aisle at the time on numbers, and I also decided to see if 
Judd Gregg, who was the Republican's No. 1 person on numbers, could go. 
These two good men sat together that whole trip, hour after hour. They 
had their yellow tablets, and they were doing what they loved to do--
play around with numbers.
  When the trip ended, they had an idea. They were both experienced 
legislators. They had been here when we did something that hadn't been 
done before. We had military bases in America going back to World War I 
that should have been closed, but we couldn't do it because of the 
politics of the Senate. But we decided long ago to try something 
different. We appointed a commission, they would report back to the 
Senate and the House, and they would make a decision as to which bases 
should be closed--no filibuster, no tricky procedural rules; yes or no 
on what they recommended. We did two rounds of base closings and we 
closed scores of bases, saving the country billions of dollars.
  Conrad and Judd decided to do the same thing with this deficit we 
have. They drafted legislation based on the base closing commission 
legislation, and they brought it before the Senate. It had a like 
number of Democrats and Republicans supporting this Conrad-Gregg 
legislation. We had seven Republican cosponsors. Even the Republican 
leader today, at that time didn't cosponsor it, but he said he liked 
it. He said publicly that he liked it. In fact, he said: ``This 
proposal is our best hope for addressing the out-of-control spending 
and debt levels that are threatening our Nation's fiscal future.''
  What a tremendous idea. I was so happy to have had something to do 
with setting this program up.
  But look at what happened. Seven of those Republicans who cosponsored 
the legislation voted against proceeding to it. We couldn't even get on 
the bill because the Republicans ran away from it. They ran away from 
doing something about the deficit. Why? Ask them. I have ideas, but 
that is the way it is. Even my friend, the now Republican leader, voted 
against it. It failed by 7 votes--7 votes of the Republicans who 
cosponsored it but who no longer voted for it.
  So, based upon that, we were in a quandary. What should we do? So a 
number of us, Democrats and Republicans, asked President Obama if he 
could do something with a commission of his own. Now, it wouldn't be as 
good as what we had tried because that was pretty specific--to bring it 
back for an up-or-down vote.
  So the President did what was the right thing to do. He found two 
stunningly good people who are good with money, good with numbers, 
including the former Senator from the State of Wyoming, who is such a 
great guy, Senator Simpson. He is just a fine man with a great sense of 
humor, and he knew his numbers. Senator Simpson teamed with Erskine 
Bowles, who had been the President's Chief of Staff. They set up the 
Bowles-Simpson Commission. It was terrific. It gave us some hope that 
maybe something could be done. They had long hearings. It was really 
good. The hearings included people from the private sector and from the 
House and the Senate--Democrats and Republicans.
  Now, even before that, when the Conrad-Judd effort failed, we thought 
that we had some hope. Once again, the Republicans on the Bowles-
Simpson Commission walked away from it. It really is unfortunate, but 
that is what happened. It was quite interesting. People who had been 
criticized over the years for being too liberal, big spenders--someone 
such as Dick Durbin from Illinois--voted for the Bowles-Simpson 
Commission. It took a lot of courage for him to do that, but he did. 
But Republicans who we thought would have been for it voted against it, 
and it failed.
  Then, Senator Biden, because of his close relationship having served 
in the Senate for 36 years, got with some Republicans, and they made a 
run at it. There were all kinds of press that they were making 
progress. What happened? The Republicans took a hike. They broke up the 
meeting, wouldn't go any further, and that ended that.
  So then, we had one last attempt. I worked hard on this. Others 
worked hard on this. It passed. It passed the Congress. We set up a 
supercommittee: the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The 
committee had an equal number of Democrats and Republicans--six of 
each. What happened? The Republicans, once again, walked away from it.
  So all of this happy talk I heard this morning and I am going to hear 
over this week and over the next couple of days about this great budget 
the Republicans have is an absolute farce. Pundits have written 
accordingly. Talk about a balanced budget--they have revenue coming in. 
One example--of course, Republicans want to repeal ObamaCare, but they 
want to use the revenue coming from ObamaCare for this fake budget of 
theirs.
  Any time the Republicans are asked to close tax breaks for companies 
shipping jobs overseas--no--but they are happy to cut Social Security, 
Medicare, and of course, never focus on middle class priorities. They 
use the words, but it is just a joke. They want a loophole for wealthy 
hedge fund managers. They want unlimited tax breaks for the oil and gas 
industry. In this budget, they have not asked millionaires and 
billionaires to pay one extra penny.

  So all this talk about this great budget we have is an absolute 
farce. There are editorials all over the country. I read a number of 
them yesterday, what they say about this.

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