[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 144 (Thursday, September 7, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5044-S5046]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE NATIONAL DEBT
Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, we have had a lot of action today in the
Senate, which is unusual here, and I wish to address it.
I would like to address this to the people in Texas, Louisiana, and
to all of those who just experienced the devastating results and the
impact of Hurricane Harvey. Obviously, our hearts go out to those
people, and, of course, we are going to do the right thing and help the
people of Texas, which is just what we voted on today. But there is a
bigger issue I want to speak to today. I relate to this personally
because, just last year--almost exactly to the day--our family was
evacuated from our home in South Georgia. As I speak today, we were
just notified today that my wife and mother-in-law, who are there
today, will be evacuating this weekend from the south coast of Georgia,
trying to get out of the way of the next hurricane--Hurricane Irma--
which looks to be a very dangerous storm as well, coming into Florida
over the next day or so.
But this crisis that we just saw in Texas and that we might see in
Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina with the next
hurricane--Hurricane Irma--reminds us of a bigger issue. It reminds us
that because of our inability to get our financial house in order and
as a result of the debt crisis we have today, we are losing the right
to do the right thing. Whether it is medical research, whether it is
infrastructure, or whether it is education, whether it is funding our
military, which we will deal with next week, we are losing the right to
do the right thing. By that I mean our own financial intransigence over
the last 16 years, primarily, but, I would say, ever since 1965, when
we had the Great Society and the great War on Poverty, which has failed
miserably. That was another great, sweeping, progressive, liberal
program that failed to make any dent in our poverty rate in the United
States. The poverty rate today is fundamentally the same as it was in
the days when that bill was signed into law.
Because of our intransigence, our ability to appropriate money to
deal with disasters like Hurricane Harvey and potentially Hurricane
Irma and others is in danger. Moving forward, we just simply will not
be able to continue to deal with these emergencies and crises if we
don't have a functioning Federal Government that actually pays its
bills and has its financial house in order.
The national debt is actually what pulled me into the political
process. It is the reason I am in the Senate today.
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The people of Georgia understand that this is an underlying crisis that
we have been digging here for the last two decades and it simply has to
be dealt with.
Today we have $20 trillion in debt. I call that a crisis because we
do not have a plan to reduce that back to some reasonable percentage of
our GDP. This is greater in size than the size of our entire economy.
What is worse than that and what is more concerning is that over the
next 30 years, we have over $130 trillion, by most estimates, of future
unfunded liabilities coming at us like a freight train. That is Social
Security, Medicare, pension benefits for Federal employees, and the
interest on the debt, primarily.
Here we are dealing with this debt ceiling just today, and I would
argue that the debt ceiling has been the most ineffective thing that I
have seen in the Senate. Over 100 times it has been extended or
increased, and it has not slowed down deficit spending in the Congress.
It has not kept us from having a $20 trillion debt today.
Washington knew this was coming, by the way. We have raised or
suspended this debt over 100 times to no avail. It hasn't slowed down
the debt spending that we have been doing, particularly over the last
two decades.
Two months ago in June, a group of Senators and I listed the debt
ceiling as one of the key reasons why we thought we ought to stay here
during the month of August, instead of going home and having our work
period there, because we felt that this needed to be debated and that
we needed to get to a long-term solution.
Exactly 3 months ago today, I stood right here in the Senate and laid
out what I thought the real consequences of the debt would be. At that
time I said:
Congress is the only enterprise I can find anywhere in the
world that funds its operations the way we fund this
government. The problem is we have a system that is
absolutely, totally broken. It is a fraud that is being
perpetrated on the American people.
I stand by that today. The American people know that this is a fraud
perpetrated on them, and that is why I think we have seen change in
leadership in the White House. Just three months later, we see our debt
limit today being dealt with in a way that puts in jeopardy our ability
to deal with these national disasters, such as hurricanes and fires. We
heard just a few minutes ago about the devastating fires in the
Northwest.
Let's be clear. The United States cannot and will not default on our
debts. It will not default on our obligations, but this debt ceiling
issue should have already been resolved months before now. We actually
hit this debt ceiling--just so everybody remembers--in March of this
year. The Secretary of the Treasury has been using unusual measures--
extraordinary measures, they call them--to keep the government funded
during this period of uncertainty. In fact, we hit this debt ceiling at
a time when we should have been dealing with the budget. But still
today--as I stand here today--we do not have a budget for fiscal year
2018, and we have 15 days until the end of this fiscal year, or the end
of September of this year--September 30.
Raising the debt ceiling now just until December 15 isn't what puts
our country at risk. The debt ceiling is not the issue here. It is not
the problem. It is the unbridled spending that both parties have
succumbed to over the last two decades under two Presidents--one
Republican and one Democrat. Our government has grown from $2.4
trillion to $3.9 trillion. That is constant dollars. Neither party can
point fingers at the other in terms of the explosion and the size of
the Federal Government.
What is worse, as I just said, is that over the next 30 years, our
mandatory expenses--it is not our discretionary spending. Discretionary
spending in the last 9 years has come down, largely because of the
Budget Control Act and because of sequestration. Our discretionary
spending has come down from about $1.5 trillion to just over $1
trillion last year. That $400 billion reduction, though, came on the
back, primarily and largely, of our military.
The debt ceiling has to be dealt with, but it is not the driver of
our problems. The budget process is the underlying release valve that
causes this problem, and it allows both parties, particularly in the
last 20 years, to spend money we don't have.
The budget process, as I have said before on this floor, has only
worked four times in 43 years. We have to appropriate 12 bills a year
to fund the Federal Government. The average over that 43-year period is
only 2\1/2\. That is the fraud that is being perpetrated on the
American people. No other body--no other entity that I can find
anywhere in the world--can get away with that. Yet here we are, kicking
the can down the road again for another 3 months.
Fixing the budget process alone will not solve the debt crisis, but
we will not solve the debt crisis unless and until we fix this broken
budget process. We cannot ignore this any longer. We must stop piling
up this debt on the backs of our kids and our grandkids.
The fix is readily available. This debt crisis is not something we
can't solve. People say: Well, you can't touch Social Security and you
can't touch Medicare. Wait a minute. If we don't touch them, they are
going to be broke in 14 short years. In 14 years, the trust funds of
both Social Security and Medicare go to zero--zero. People will not be
up here changing Members of this body at the rate they are now. It will
be much accelerated.
The fix can be done. There are five areas that need attention, and
any of these areas can have bipartisan solutions. I will not go into
detail today. I will just highlight the five areas, but we have to deal
with each one of these on their own merits. The budget process is
broken and can be fixed. I believe we have right now, behind the
scenes, Democrats and Republicans working together to find a
bipartisan, politically neutral platform to present our arguments on
both sides of the budget process and to create a budget that actually
funds the Federal Government appropriately, without all of this drama
and without a release valve of extra spending.
The second thing is redundant spending. We know that the GAO, or the
General Accountability Office, and the Congressional Budget Office both
agree that we have several hundred billion dollars in redundant
agencies and redundant programs.
The third is to grow the economy. This is job one by this President.
This President has said that job one of this administration this year
is to do the things necessary with the regulatory environment and the
tax environment to grow the economy.
The fourth area is to save Social Security--not to cut it but to save
Social Security and save Medicare. That can be done, and I believe
there are bipartisan alternatives that we should be debating right now.
In 2\1/2\ years, that has not come before this body, and I don't see it
happening in the balance of this year.
The fifth area is that, while we debated healthcare most of this
year, we debated the insurance side of healthcare for the individual
market and Medicaid but what we never talked about--and we haven't
under President Obama, President Bush, and, now, even under President
Trump--in this Congress is that we have not dealt with the spiraling
drivers of healthcare costs themselves--healthcare delivery,
pharmaceuticals, and the fact that the neediest among us are getting
the most expensive care in emergency rooms today unnecessarily.
Don't be misled. We are well into this debt crisis. This is not
something that can be solved with a 10-year planning horizon. This is a
situation where we need to tell the bond market and the world that we
are committed to a 20-year or 30-year period in order to fix this debt
crisis.
Ideas are coming from both sides of the aisle. One idea comes from
the Democratic side that says: Let's pick a time in the future, put a
stake in the ground about what target percentage of GDP our debt should
be, and then develop a roadmap between today and that point in time in
the future to commit ourselves to get there. I applaud that idea. I
think that is a genuinely brilliant idea. It is something that other
countries have done before and it is something that works.
I hope my colleagues will please remember that, today, every dollar
we spend in our country's defense, which is about $600 billion
directionally correct in our military and between $150 billion and $200
billion for our veterans,
[[Page S5046]]
and all domestic discretionary spending, or about $1.1 trillion--every
dime of that--is borrowed money. Let me say that again. Every dollar we
are spending on our defense, every dollar we spend on our veterans, and
every dollar we spend on our discretionary domestic programs, like what
we are doing here today, is borrowed money.
This simply cannot continue. I can't think of any taller order.
Between now and the end of the year, as we debate the tax changes that
we want to make to our Tax Code so that we can become competitive with
the rest of the world, let's remember why we are debating that tax
issue.
We are debating the tax issue to become competitive with the rest of
the world, to grow the economy. That is one of five areas which need to
be dealt with. Our regulatory work is the other area in that attempt to
grow the economy. But we will not dig out of this debt crisis unless
and until we fix our budget process, stop this redundant spending, save
Social Security and Medicare, and fix the spiraling nature of our
healthcare costs.
I can think of nothing--nothing--in our future the rest of this year
that is more important than addressing this budget process as we look
at tax and dealing with this long-term debt crisis that we have.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. PORTMAN. Mr. 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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