[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 176 (Tuesday, October 31, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6908-S6910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            Wasteful Government Spending and Economic Growth

  Mr. PERDUE. Mr. President, since 2001, the Federal Government has 
exploded in constant dollars from $2.4 trillion in 2000 to last year 
almost $3.9 trillion in costs. Those are constant dollars. In September 
of this year, just a few weeks ago, our national debt surpassed $20 
trillion for the first time, and no one in Washington blinked an eye. 
If that is not enough of a wakeup call, this debt is projected to 
increase over the next 10 years, according to the budget we are 
operating under now, by another $11 trillion. If that is not enough, 
over the next 30 years alone, it is projected that over $100 trillion 
of future unfunded liabilities--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, 
pension benefits for Federal employees, and the interest-only debt--are 
coming at us like a freight train. These are unfunded liabilities.
  Today, with $20 trillion in debt, we are only paying about $270 
billion every year in interest only. I say that because just in the 
last year, we have seen four increases in the Federal funds rate, which 
fundamentally increases our interest by 100 basis points. That 100 
basis points over the next few years will grow our interest on the debt 
by more than $200 billion on top of the $270 billion. By the way, today 
that is almost 25 percent of our discretionary budget, already, just at 
the $270 billion. If it doubles, it will be almost half of our 
discretionary budget. If interest rates just go back to their 30-year 
norm--between 4 percent and 5 percent--we could be paying as much as $1 
trillion on our Federal debt. That is almost equal to today's 
discretionary budget.
  It is going to take a long-term fix. We can't tax our way out of this 
problem. We can't cut our way out of this problem, and we can't just 
simply grow our way out. It is going to take a multifaceted approach. 
There are five interwoven imperatives that are at work in solving this 
problem. It is one thing to call the crisis, but it is another to call 
out the ways to fix it, and they are all within our grasp today.
  No. 1, we need to fix Washington's broken budget process.
  No. 2, we need to root out all the wasteful spending in the Federal 
Government today.
  No. 3, we have to grow the economy by repealing and pulling back on a 
lot of regulations that are unnecessary, by revamping our tax structure 
and by unleashing our energy potential.
  No. 4, we have to save Social Security and Medicare, of which both 
trust funds go to zero in 14 short years.
  Lastly, we finally have to get after the real drivers of spiraling 
healthcare costs.
  As we are working to change our archaic tax system to become 
competitive with the rest of the world and to get our economy rolling 
again, I want to talk about two things today. One is

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this wasteful spending, and two is economic growth. These are two of 
the five imperatives that I just outlined.
  According to the General Accountability Office, today and also every 
single year, this Federal Government wastes hundreds of billions of 
dollars. It is estimated today--and this bipartisan organization has 
identified this--that we are overspending about $700 billion a year.
  Let's put that in perspective. As I just said, we spent $3.9 trillion 
running the entire Federal Government. That is about $1 trillion for 
discretionary spending and about $3 trillion for mandatory spending--so 
almost $4 trillion. Of that, over $700 billion has been identified as 
wasteful spending. I will describe those in a second, but to put it in 
perspective, that is almost 20 percent of everything we spend as a 
Federal Government. It is a larger number than what we spend on the 
national security of our country. Let me say that again. The number 
identified by the General Accountability Office of wasteful spending is 
larger than what we spend on our military.
  There are three facets to this as they outlined. No. 1 is redundant 
agencies. These are agencies targeted to do exactly the same thing that 
one administration or another has come in and added and that basically 
do the same things. That costs about $135 billion every year.
  Just since 2003, we spent $1.2 trillion in improper payments. That is 
about $144 billion every year. These are overpayments--improper 
payments. This is not fraud. This is not anything like that. It is 
basically an administrative error, where the Federal Government has 
made a mistake and made improper payments--Social Security Disability, 
SNAP overpayments, unemployment insurance, and others. This is 
outrageous.
  The third item is that it is estimated that we have a net tax gap of 
$406 billion. This is a 17-percent error rate in the IRS Tax Code. That 
means that people are underpaying or not paying what is calculated, 
according to the General Accountability Office. The Federal Government 
last year took in almost $3.5 trillion of taxes. Yet we had this $400 
billion. That is a 17-percent error rate. I don't know what else to 
say. Those three things add up to about $700 billion of wasted 
spending. We have to get to the bottom of this. Let me also put it in 
perspective another way. That $700 billion every year is $7 trillion 
over the next 10 years.
  This tax package we are talking about has an initial cost of about 
$1.5 trillion, as identified by both sides, before you get to the 
economic growth that more than pays for it. A 0.4 percent of growth 
pays for this tax package that we are working on. But this $7 trillion 
of wasted spending is overspending by the Federal Government, 
unnecessarily. Nobody in this body--no Democrat, Republican, or 
Independent--has voted on this spending. This is spending in error. 
These are just common mistakes made by an oversized bureaucracy. It is 
not a partisan talking point. Both sides bear responsibility in this 
debacle.
  Again, these are numbers from the nonpartisan Government 
Accountability Office. I am apoplectic that I even have to be here 
bringing this to the attention of my colleagues. Washington knows about 
these problems and has known for years--decades. Yet nothing is done. A 
former Member, Senator Tom Coburn, actually worked hard on this. There 
are others who are beginning to pick up this mantle here, as I am.

  But as we talk about the tax package changes--the tax changes that 
will get this economy growing again--I wanted us to reflect on the 
opportunity we have right here that can more than pay for what we need 
to do to give the middle class a tax break and get our economy growing 
again. There are things identified in this report by the Government 
Accountability Office. There are recommendations that can get at most 
of this $700 billion of wasted spending.
  Let me give you a couple of examples. If the Department of Defense 
just manages commissaries more effectively, there is a $2 billion 
opportunity there over the next 5 years. If the Department of Defense 
weapon acquisition programs were more effective, it is estimated that 
tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years could be saved in 
terms of purchasing the same level of equipment and machinery. If the 
Department of Defense simply completed an audit, we believe it would 
identify further opportunities for wise spending of our taxpayers' 
money.
  But since coming to the United States Senate, I was shocked to 
understand that the largest line item on our budget has never been 
audited. It is high time that we complete that audit. By the way, there 
is a law that was passed in this body in 1991 requiring the Department 
of Defense to submit an audit. Here we are in 2017, and we still don't 
have that audit.
  In my opinion, as hard as it is for the American people to earn their 
salaries and to pay their taxes, it is unconscionable that I am 
standing before the U.S. Senate tonight reminding us all that there is 
$700 billion a year that we spend in error--just bureaucratic error. 
Because of that and because of this financial intransigence, we have 
built up a debt that has created a crisis in our country. Because of 
these years of fiscal intransigence, we are losing the ability to fund 
our government the way it should be funded.
  We are losing the right to do the right thing when it comes to 
funding things like emergencies and disaster relief efforts. Just a 
couple of weeks ago, we passed a $15 billion relief package for two 
hurricanes. Last week, we passed a $36 billion supplemental, as if 
nothing had happened. Every time we do that, it is borrowed money. We 
can wait no longer to solve this debt crisis. It is going to take tough 
decisions to solve the debt crisis, and we are going to have to be 
making these very quickly, but eliminating redundant spending, improper 
payments, and eliminating this tax gap are at the top of the list.
  Along with reducing our spending by almost 20 percent each year, we 
need to grow the economy to solve this debt crisis. The single most 
important thing that we can do to grow the economy this next year is to 
change this Tax Code.
  Let me remind this body that so far this year, under this President's 
guidance, we eliminated over 860 rules. These were rules made by the 
Federal Government that were choking the very life out of our free 
enterprise system. The result of that this year alone is that in the 
third quarter we have now achieved a 3-percent growth again. This is 
not the Holy Grail.
  Who knows what this economy should be growing at right now if we just 
get Washington out of the way? Part of the way to do that is to correct 
this archaic tax policy. Changing the Tax Code will mean more jobs and 
higher wages for the American worker. For example, if we eliminate the 
repatriation tax on our corporations--again, we are the last country in 
the world to have a double tax on U.S. profits made overseas--it is 
estimated by independent, nonpartisan groups, that this would mean 
$4,000 to $9,000 of annual income for the average worker in the United 
States.
  I don't know what else to tell you, except that we are not 
competitive today. We have to become more competitive. What we are 
talking about here should not be partisan issues. America needs to be 
competitive. We all know that.
  The idea that bigger government will create more jobs has been proven 
not to work. Look at the last 8 years. We have had the lowest economic 
growth in the history of the United States.
  As we debate how to fix this archaic tax system and become 
competitive with the rest of the world, I am reminding us tonight that 
we also need to get serious about cutting this wasteful spending. This 
spending is not benefiting anybody. It is not providing for national 
security. It is not taking care of people who need help. These are just 
simply overpayments, mispayments, and they are creating problems that 
should not have been created. Changing the Tax Code, as I said, is a 
historic opportunity to generate growth and make us more competitive. 
Eliminating this spending, which amounts to 20 percent of what we spend 
as a Federal Government, is absolutely mandatory. People back home 
should be demanding that.
  There is a lot of heavy lifting to dig out of this debt crisis, but 
these two things I am reminding us of tonight should be at the top of 
the list. We simply cannot fail the American people to get this done. I 
am committed to that.

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I urge my colleagues to take seriously this opportunity we have of 
changing our Tax Code. It is historic. At the same time, we have to get 
serious about eliminating our redundant, outrageous, and unnecessary 
spending.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the pending nomination.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Joan 
Louise Larsen, of Michigan, to be United States Circuit Judge for the 
Sixth Circuit.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President. I agree with my colleague from Georgia 
that we need to simplify our Tax Code. We need real tax reform. We have 
seen a lot of junk built up in the Tax Code over many years, put there 
by special interests that seek special deals for themselves--deals that 
are not enjoyed by the American public. We should do tax reform.
  What we should not do is increase our national debt and our national 
deficits, and we all know that the budget plan that passed this 
Senate--and just recently passed the House--has written right into it 
an increase in the national debt of $1.5 trillion over the next 10 
years. In other words, it is engineered right into that bill. So I hope 
our colleagues who really do care about reducing our national debt will 
make sure that, as we discuss this tax proposal, we do not increase our 
national debt.
  We should, of course, eliminate unnecessary and wasteful 
expenditures, but we should not have a tax proposal that increases our 
debt by $1.5 trillion and possibly more. As it appears now, that would 
primarily be done to provide big tax breaks to very wealthy people and 
big corporations, at the expense of everybody and everything else in 
the country.
  But we will have a fuller debate starting tomorrow when the House 
Ways and Means Committee unveils its proposal.