[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 212 (Wednesday, December 8, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9027-S9028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I have a different approach that will 
get the same result.
  But to my colleagues here, we are playing the Medicare card in a very 
dangerous fashion. Senator Hawley said it pretty well. Medicare is 
something people depend upon, and all of us understand the need to keep 
Medicare solvent. We need to reform it to save it.
  But this idea puts all of us in a box, and I don't appreciate it and 
I won't forget it.
  Now, this is a problem on our side. You don't even have to listen, 
Senator Wyden. For 4 months, we have been saying, as a party, our 
Democratic colleagues are spending all this money by themselves through 
reconciliation; they should choose that path to raise the debt ceiling.
  Because what are we talking about? A $1.9 trillion spending bill 
without one Republican vote through reconciliation.
  We have pending next week another reconciliation proposal that scores 
at 1.7 trillion, if you assume every program goes away in a year. I 
will be in the NBA before that assumption. I don't like my chances.
  Ronald Reagan said the closest thing to immortality on Earth is a 
government program.
  So they have written the bill for the 17 big spending items to expire 
within 1, 2 or 3 years, and not one of them want them to expire.
  So the whole bill is a fraud. And the Congressional Budget Office is 
going to give to me Friday what the bill would cost if the sunset 
clauses actually went away--did go away; what would it cost if the 
programs survive, which it will.
  And I anticipate, Senator Kennedy, it will be at least twice what we 
are talking about.
  The effect on the debt is 367 billion only because they limited the 
programs to last for a year or two rather than the 10 years they are 
actually going to last.
  So the deficit is going to go from 367 billion to probably close to 2 
trillion. We are going to expose that Friday. They are playing a game. 
They are creating gimmicks.
  And Senator Manchin, to his credit, said: ``I believe Build Back 
Better is full of gimmicks.''
  We will know Friday exactly what the bill would look like without 
gimmicks.
  This is the ultimate gimmick. If you had asked me 4 months ago, ``How 
does this movie end?'' I will be reading in the paper about a rules 
change to the Senate made by the House, where I have got to pick 
between Medicare and abandoning what I said I would do for 4 months.
  This is a deal that led to Donald Trump. If you wonder why there is a 
Donald Trump, it is moments like this, where everybody starts down a 
road that makes perfect sense, you panic, and you throw everybody over.
  They would raise the debt ceiling through reconciliation because they 
should, and we want to do it that way to deter spending in the future. 
We want to make it harder to use reconciliation to spend more money 
than World War II cost.

  If you look at the cost of World War II in present dollars, it was 
4.7 trillion. When you look at all the money we spent and going to 
spend, it is going to be 5.4 trillion. Literally, we have spent more 
money in the last year and a half than we did to win World War II.
  I think they should raise the debt ceiling, Senator Kennedy, through 
the

[[Page S9028]]

process they used to spend the money. That made perfect sense to me as 
a Republican. That is why I said it for 4 months.
  Now, all of us on our side have a moment of reckoning here. I don't 
want to default, and we won't. But I do want to make sure that when 
Republicans tell their other Republicans and the public at large, you 
can somewhat count on who we are and what we say. We put that at risk 
for no good reason.
  To the leadership of both sides, I like you. Senator McConnell has 
been a great Republican leader--minority leader, majority leader. But 
this is a moment where I want to be on the Record to say, I don't like 
this.
  What we have done is allow the House of Representatives to change a 
Senate rule. No matter what the subject matter, that is not a good 
idea. We have set in place a process that allows our Democratic 
colleagues to raise the debt ceiling without using reconciliation, the 
budget process, where they would have to amend the budget resolution. 
The very resolution they used to spend all this money, we are simply 
asking amend it to pay for it.
  We have taken that off the table, and people on our side are not 
going to accept this very well. So all I can say is--I want to make it 
clear--when it comes to Medicare, count me in to avoid the cuts. When 
it comes to raising the debt ceiling, I want it done through a process 
that will make it harder to spend all this money in the future. And I 
want to be part of a Republican Party that you can take what we say to 
the bank on big stuff--stuff that matters.
  So I have a proposal that when the bill comes over from the House, 
which it is here, that would allow us to vote to prevent Medicare from 
being cut, would strip out the way you are going to raise the debt 
ceiling, reject the idea that the House can amend a Senate rule to 
limit minority rights--and that is what we have done here.
  This is not a good idea, to take Medicare and marry it up with 
anything important, as Senator Hawley said, because there is no end to 
that game. And it is not a good idea, in my view, even with some 
Members of my own party agreeing, to let the House change the Senate 
rules. I don't like that. We have set in motion some really dangerous 
stuff here, so I have the following proposal:
  As if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that when the 
Senate resumes consideration of House message to accompany S. 610, it 
be in order for me to offer amendment No. 4877, which strikes section 8 
relating to the debt limit. I further ask that the Senate vote on 
adoption of the amendment prior to the vote on the motion to invoke 
cloture on the motion to concur in the amendment to S. 610.
  In English, I am asking for a vote so that we can show the country 
that we will protect Medicare, but many of us are not going to have our 
fingerprints on a Washington deal that I think stinks up the place.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator form Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, now, my colleague from South Carolina 
began his remarks with two of my very favorite subjects: supporting 
America's senior citizens and playing in the NBA, a lifetime dream of 
mine.
  But the fact is, this unanimous consent request from my colleague is 
essentially a different way to do the same thing as the Kennedy 
request. And, colleagues, it is wrong for exactly the same reason.
  The prospect of default is not simply a matter of the two sides 
squaring off over who has got the best talking points. The fact is, 
default would just be an economic disaster.
  I just laid out what it would mean for our small businesses and our 
folks who depend on keeping interest rates from shooting into the 
stratosphere, and the military would have difficulty getting paid. That 
is not what America wants.
  Colleagues, I was just home this weekend. I got around my State, and 
what people said overwhelmingly is--they said: ``Hey, I heard you guys 
just got together''--I say to my friend from South Carolina--``and you 
guys got an agreement on keeping the government open. Heard that wasn't 
going to happen.''
  And then they said: ``Ron, what you have always tried to do since 
those Gray Panther days''--and my colleague from South Carolina knows I 
always try to be bipartisan.
  They said: ``Keep it going. Keep going with that bipartisan effort.''
  Now, they are listening to a debate about my colleagues trying to 
bust up an agreement between the Democratic leader, Senator Schumer, 
and the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, to make sure we pay the 
bills for costs that have been incurred.
  So my colleague from South Carolina has asked for consent, and I 
think it would be a mistake for this country and be a mistake 
particularly for our country's senior citizens that I have devoted so 
much time to. For that reason, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. So why does this matter? It matters a lot about how the 
Senate works. Every Member of this body has the ability to come down to 
the floor and object to a piece of legislation. That makes the Senate 
different than the House.
  What we have done here is allowed the House to change the Senate 
rules in a fashion where, if you can get 10 Republicans, all of us are 
dealt out. So that is not a good idea 1 time, 10 times, or 100 times by 
either party because what it does, it changes the rules of the Senate 
in a fashion that I feel very uncomfortable with simply because the 
House has been able to change the rules of the Senate so that all of us 
have been basically marginalized.
  There will be some Republicans who are my friends, and do what you 
need to do. I understand. I don't want to default on the debt either. 
But this is a bad idea. It is not what we promised we would do. It sets 
in motion playing the Medicare card in a dangerous fashion, and it sure 
as hell sets in motion playing with the rules of the Senate in a 
fashion that I never even thought of until 24 hours ago.
  So I want to make this hard, not easy, because I think what we are 
doing is going to really change the structure of the Senate and 
certainly going to do a lot of damage to the Republican Party.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Ossoff). The Senator from Tennessee.