[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 25 (Tuesday, February 7, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S250-S251]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Debt Ceiling

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, as my colleague from Texas said, 
people are looking forward to hearing what the President will say and 
what he will not say tonight.
  As I have been home over the weekend, one of the things I have heard 
from Tennesseans about is the out-of-control Federal spending.
  Now, we know what the Democrats have done in plussing up the budget 
for the last couple of years, but one number kind of stuck with me, and 
it is about $3.6 trillion--that is taxpayer dollars--that has been 
spent on Democratic wish-list items. A lot of this is the Green New 
Deal. A lot of this is the reckless spending agenda they are pushing.
  Now, they forced through, in 2021, $1.85 trillion in spending. Then 
they came back around, and they wanted to talk about inflation. Joe 
Biden had 1.4 percent inflation when he took office, and because of 
this out-of-control spending and spending more and more and more and 
hundreds of billions of dollars, we saw inflation in June of 2022 hit 
9.1 percent. People are frustrated about this.
  But one of the things that got Tennesseans was the fact that this 
President didn't say: Well, it is because we put all this money--
Federal spending--your dollars--we are putting these back out there. 
No, he blamed Vladimir Putin. It was Putin's fault. To Tennesseans, 
this was outrageous. It was the ``go blame somebody else'' game.
  The Biden administration's neglect of the economy and their complete 
disregard for the destructive effects of their spending is something 
that has caught the attention of Tennesseans. This term for this 
President wasn't even halfway over, and already his policies are making 
everyday life too expensive to afford.
  To be clear, Tennesseans talk to me about being worried about the 
basics of life: food security, food for the table, clothes for the 
kids, gas for the car. They feel like this agenda, this set of 
priorities that this administration has, is just peeling away a lot of 
their life, their living, their enjoyment, because there is no extra 
money left over. It is all going into necessities.
  They are struggling to manage 6.5 percent inflation. They are looking 
at the cost of food that is up 13 percent from where it was a year ago. 
Keeping the heat on in this cold winter is 15 percent more. And it is 
the same story when you talk about school supplies and when you talk 
about clothes for the kids.
  It is the same story here in Washington, where it seems that Joe 
Biden and this administration and the Democrats are once again poised 
and ready to spend more money. They are wanting to raise the debt 
ceiling without even a conversation about spending cuts. To 
Tennesseans, that is outrageous.
  Now, my Democratic colleagues have spent a lot of time talking about 
what will happen if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, and I 
don't think anyone here denies that the country has some serious 
discussions that need to be had. But I would ask my colleagues to 
remember that raising the debt ceiling is not a green light to keep 
spending money until we crash into another debt ceiling.
  Tennesseans understand this. They spent 2 years cutting costs because 
common sense told them that you just can't keep spending with reckless 
abandon, and they want to know why the Democrats in Washington don't 
get this. Yes, indeed, everybody spends too much up here; but why are 
my Democratic colleagues unwilling to talk about making any cuts?
  Now there are some things that we could do to start this process. 
There are three bills that I file every single year. When the Presiding 
Officer and I were across the dome in the House, I would file these 
bills every single year, because it is common sense. They would make a 
1-percent or a 2-percent or a 5-percent across-the-board spending cut. 
Every Federal Agency ought to be able to do that. The American people 
do that. Making that one penny out of a dollar reduction in spending 
would save us money.
  There again, you do this in the discretionary spending to get things 
rolling. Start it there--a penny in a dollar. How about two pennies in 
a dollar? If you take a penny out of a dollar, that would save you $5.2 
billion. If you did

[[Page S251]]

that just in discretionary--didn't do it in the military, didn't do it 
in mandatory spending--just discretionary--2 cents out of the dollar, 
then you are going to get more than $10 billion in savings. These are 
small, little steps. But, you know what? In the end, if you do that, if 
you cut a nickel out, it saves $26 billion. Do it every year. Do it so 
we are not wasting taxpayers' money.
  This is not government money. It is not your money. It is not my 
money. It is not the money of this Chamber or the House. It is the 
money of the people of this country, and we are charged with spending 
that carefully, accountably, and transparently to the people.
  Tennesseans cannot take and they will not accept another year of this 
reckless spending. They are demanding change, and this is the barest 
minimum of what they would accept--tiny little cuts like that, just in 
the right direction, and then holding to it. Don't come back in 2 years 
and say: We have to raise the debt. They want to see some structural 
change.
  Now, unfortunately, the President has said that he has no plans to 
negotiate his spending levels. It will be interesting to see what he 
has to say about this tonight, because to Tennesseans, it is almost, 
unfortunately--somebody said this weekend--it is laughable. It is 
shameful that he does not want to negotiate, that he is not going to 
talk about spending less, that he only wants to talk about spending 
more.
  Senate Democrats cannot keep putting off this debate in order to save 
the President's failed agenda. Our job is not to serve the White House. 
It is to serve the American people. And they are saying: Do something 
about the wasteful, out-of-control spending.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Markey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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