[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 158 (Tuesday, September 14, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6466-S6467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Business Before the Senate

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, in just a moment, I want to talk a little 
bit about the situation in Afghanistan. But before I do that, I just 
wanted to speak to something that the majority leader said earlier 
regarding some of the upcoming business that we have to deal with this 
fall.
  We have a whole series of deadlines in front of us. The fiscal year 
ends on September 30, meaning that we have to at some point fund the 
government, which presumably would be in the form of a continuing 
resolution. We are told that the House of Representatives, when they 
move that and send it over here, will include a debt-limit increase.
  The debt limit does run out, and we will hit that at some point. 
There are varying estimates of when exactly that would be--some say as 
early as mid-October; some say perhaps mid-November--but inevitably 
that will be upon us. There has been a discussion here about how that 
ought to be lifted and who ought to deliver the votes to get that done.
  I just want to make the point that the majority leader, as he was 
down here making his remarks earlier, indicated that this was all debt 
that was accumulated during the previous administration. Certainly 
there was some debt because, obviously, during the coronavirus 
pandemic, all of us responded in a very bipartisan way. Most of the 
debt was at that point in time. It was the votes that we made in March 
of 2020 and subsequently to that.
  Of course, there was another $2 trillion earlier this year in 
February, which no Republican voted for--that was all Democratic 
votes--most of which had nothing to do with the virus; most of which 
had to do with other elements of their agenda, including expanding the 
government.
  But, nevertheless, when the debt limit hit its expiration at the end 
of July, it reset, and it covered everything up until that point. What 
we are talking about now is raising the debt limit to accommodate 
trillions and trillions of new spending proposed by the Democrats here 
in Washington and by the President and his administration.
  It strikes me, at least, that that being the case, if the Democrats 
on their own, without a single Republican vote--and there won't be any 
Republican votes for the $3\1/2\ trillion bill they are talking about, 
which the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says really isn't 
$3\1/2\ trillion; it is $5\1/2\ trillion--$5\1/2\ trillion of new 
spending, massive expansion of the government, financed some with tax 
increases but inevitably some with adding to the debt--that it would 
make sense, since the Democrats are going to do that through 
reconciliation, which is a purely partisan exercise, with only their 
votes, that it could accommodate

[[Page S6467]]

an increase in the debt limit to pay for all of that spending.
  I think that is a fair--very fair way to look at this. It strikes me, 
at least, that since the Democrats have embarked upon this one-party-
rule approach, that if they are going to spend another $3\1/2\ to $5\1/
2\ trillion, that they ought to raise the debt limit to accommodate all 
that additional spending. I think that is a reasonable way to approach 
this, and I, frankly, think it is consistent if you look at what has 
happened in the past.
  The last time we raised the debt limit was in the summer of 2019. 
That was a bipartisan deal, and it was a bipartisan deal that actually 
put caps on spending. We were limiting spending as we were raising the 
debt limit. Republicans and Democrats joined together at the time to do 
that.
  The spending that I referenced in March of 2020, the $4\1/2\ trillion 
or thereabouts that was spent on the response to the pandemic, was also 
bipartisan. In fact, it was so bipartisan, it passed in the Senate 96 
to 0. Does anybody here ever remember anything around here passing 96 
to 0, particularly of that consequence? Clearly--clearly--there was 
strong bipartisan support for doing something that needed to be done in 
response to the worst pandemic we have seen in this country in a 
century.
  Those were things that were done in a bipartisan fashion. Now, this 
is an entirely different scenario. And I don't think anybody can 
dispute the fact that the Democrats, as they embark upon this $3\1/2\ 
trillion reckless tax-and-spending spree, and, again, other estimates--
the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says it is not $3\1/2\ 
trillion; it is actually $5\1/2\ trillion when you look at the spend 
out in the various budget windows and timelines.
  But let's just say for the sake of argument that it is $3\1/2\ 
trillion to $5\1/2\ trillion. It is still a massive amount of spending, 
none of which is related to the coronavirus, all of which is part of a 
dramatic expansion of government, which I have referred to before here 
on the floor as the ``free everything'' bill--literally cradle to 
grave, the government, the Federal Government, will take care of you--
in addition to a lot of other leftwing agenda priorities like green 
energy provisions and all sorts of things in this that are Democratic 
priorities with no buy-in from Republicans, no attempt to reach out to 
Republicans or to do anything in a bipartisan way.
  This is a strictly, purely partisan exercise in which the Democrats 
are trying to include things that have absolutely no relationship to 
spending, debt, or revenues, which is what the reconciliation process 
is designed for.
  They are talking about doing immigration--immigration--major, major 
policy that needs to be done on a bipartisan basis that affects this 
country in a profound way, as we can see from the crisis at the border. 
Already in the month of July of this year, there was a 420-percent 
increase over the previous year in the number of illegal crossings. Two 
hundred and twelve thousand people came across the border illegally 
just in the month of July. It is a major, consequential crisis. The 
Democrats are going to try to do something to legalize people who are 
here illegally without addressing the other elements of the immigration 
debate on a strictly partisan basis as a part of the reconciliation 
bill. This is a purely, purely partisan exercise done without any input 
from Republicans.
  I don't think there is a single Republican who ought to be pushed 
into or feel like they in any way need to support the massive expansion 
of government we are talking about here, the trillions and trillions 
and trillions of dollars in new spending.
  That is what the debt limit is about. It is about raising the amount 
of debt, the amount that this country can borrow, to pay for a massive 
expansion--massive expansion, reckless expansion--of our government 
that moves us more in the direction of a Western European social 
democracy rather than the American country that I think we all know and 
love.
  We have a heritage in this country. It is built around freedom. It is 
built around individual responsibility. It is built on the need to 
protect our country and maintain a strong national defense. I think 
that is one thing I hope that, as we look at spending, we can agree 
upon.
  But this massive expansion of what they call social or human 
infrastructure is nothing more and nothing less than the biggest 
expansion of government that we have seen literally in decades, and it 
will be financed--some--with tax increases, which I could spend a lot 
of time talking about, which will harm the economy, but also with 
additional debt.
  And that debt, the debt that is acquired for the huge runup in 
spending that will be supported purely by Democrats through 
reconciliation, a procedure that is a partisan procedure, that ought to 
be paid for--that ought to be done by Democrat votes. And it can be 
done. There is a way in which the reconciliation procedure can be used 
to raise the debt limit to pay for all of the new spending that the 
Democrats have in this bill.
  So when they get down here and talk about how important it is to be 
bipartisan, well, it would be one thing if there was actually any kind 
of a bipartisan negotiation going on, but there isn't. And the last 
time the debt limit was raised, there was, in 2019, and at that time it 
was about caps. It was about reducing spending. There was a bipartisan 
agreement to reduce spending as the debt limit was being increased.
  The other thing I would mention in response to what the majority 
leader said earlier is that the debt that was accumulated in the 
previous administration, much of which was done on a bipartisan basis 
in response to the biggest pandemic that this country has seen in a 
hundred years, in March of 2020--$4.5 trillion of that debt was put on 
the bill because of a bipartisan agreement that was reached, as I said 
earlier, 96 to 0. Ninety-six to 0 was the vote here in the U.S. Senate.
  So Democrats want to go down this path. If they want to spend, spend, 
spend like there is no tomorrow and tax, tax, tax like there is no 
tomorrow and borrow, borrow, borrow like there is no tomorrow, then 
they ought to pay, pay, pay with their votes when it comes to raising 
the debt limit and, unfortunately, handing the bill for that to our 
kids and grandkids.