[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14287-14288]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE DEFICIT

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today to speak briefly about two 
issues, and I know Senator Burr wants to continue his discussion of the 
FDA tobacco bill.
  There are two issues which are very significant to the American 
taxpayer, especially to those of us who are concerned about how much 
debt this administration is running up on our children, and they need 
to be highlighted.
  The first is good news. It looks as though a number of banks are 
going to repay a fair percentage of the TARP money that has been put 
out by the administration--potentially $65 billion. When TARP was 
originally structured, the understanding was that we would buy assets 
in banks or from banks, and at some point we would get that money back 
as taxpayers. In fact, we would get it back with interest. This is what 
is happening now. The money is coming back, as these banks have 
restored their fiscal strength, and it is actually coming back with 
interest. About $4.5 billion on top of the money we have put out, is my 
understanding, as to what will be paid back on the interest side 
relative to the preferred stock. So that is all good news.
  First, the financial system was stabilized during a cataclysmic 
period in September and October, and the investments which remained in 
preferred stock, with taxpayers' money, is now being repaid.
  The issue becomes, however, what are we going to do with this money 
that is coming back into the Treasury? Well, it ought to go to reduce 
the debt. This administration in recent days has been giving at least 
lipservice to the fact that the budget they put in place, with a $1 
trillion deficit over the next 10 years on average every year--$1 
trillion every year for the next 10 years, of doubling the debt in 5 
years, of tripling it in 10 years--they have been giving lipservice 
that they understand that is not a sustainable situation. The Secretary 
of the Treasury, the Chief Economic Counsel, and even the President 
have said the budget they proposed is not sustainable because the debt 
that is being run up on the American public cannot be afforded by our 
children. It goes from what has historically been about 35 percent of 
the gross national product up to over 82 percent of the gross national 
product. The interest on the debt alone at the end of this budget which 
the President proposed will be $800 billion a year--$800 billion a 
year--just in interest payments that the American people will have to 
pay. That will actually exceed any other major item of discretionary 
spending in the budget. We will be spending less than that on the 
national defense. We will be spending more on interest, in other words, 
than we spend on national defense because of all of the debt that is 
being run up.
  Well, if this administration is serious--and I am not sure they are; 
I think they are basically holding press conferences because they did 
something else today which implies that--if they are actually serious 
about trying to address this debt issue, then they should immediately 
take the $65 billion they are going to get back from the banks to which 
money was lent and that was put out by taxpayers and knew we would get 
back, they should immediately take that money and apply it to reducing 
the Federal debt. It should not be spent on other programs. It 
shouldn't even be recycled through the financial system.
  It should be repaid to the taxpayer by reducing the debt of the 
United States. That is the only reasonable way to approach it. It would 
be a tremendously strong signal not only to the American taxpayers that 
this administration is serious about doing something on the debt side, 
but it would be a strong signal to the world markets that we were 
willing, as a nation, to take this money and pay down the debt. 
Ironically, it would also follow the proposal of the original TARP 
bill, which said that after the financial system was stabilized, any 
moneys coming in should be used to reduce the deficit and debt of the 
United States. It certainly should not be used to fund new ventures 
into the private sector, whether it is buying automobile companies or 
insurance companies or anything else such as that. It should be simply 
used to reduce the debt.
  I hope the administration will do that because that would follow the 
law, and it would be a good sign to the world markets, which are 
becoming suspicious of our debt, as we have seen in a number of 
instances--for example, the cost of 10-year bills, 30-year bills, and 
also the fact that the Chinese leadership, in the financial area, 
expressed concern about the purchase of the long-term debt of the 
United States. It would also be a positive sign to Americans that we 
are going to do something about this debt we are passing on to our 
kids.
  It is unfair to run up a trillion dollars a year of deficit, double 
the debt in 5 years, and triple it in 10 years, and send all those 
bills to our kids. These young students here today as pages, in 10 
years, will find the household they are living in has a new $30,000 
mortgage on it, and it is called the bill for the Federal debt. They 
will have a new $6,500 interest payment that they will have to make, 
which is called the interest they have to support on the Federal debt. 
It is not appropriate to do that to these younger Americans and to the 
next generation. Let's take the $65 billion and use it as it was 
originally agreed it would be used, which is when it came back into the 
Treasury, with interest, which is pretty good, it would be used to pay 
down the debt.

[[Page 14288]]

  Why am I suspicious that this administration is giving us lip service 
on the issue of fiscal discipline? There is a second thing that 
happened today. The President today came out and held a big press 
conference about how he was for pay-go. I have not heard a Democratic 
candidate for Congress, and now the President of the United States, not 
claim they are going to exercise fiscal discipline here by being for 
pay-go, because the term has such motherhood implications, that you are 
going to pay for what you do here. It is total hypocrisy, inconsistent 
with everything that has happened from the other side of the aisle in 
the era of spending and budgeting. Not only do they not support pay-go, 
they punch holes in what we have for our pay-go law.
  In the last 2\1/2\ years, this Congress--and now in the last 3, 4, or 
5 months--and this Presidency have passed--democratically controlled--
10 bills that have waived or gamed the pay-go rules that are already on 
the books to the tune of $882 billion. If you throw in the things they 
wanted to do that they weren't able to pass, because we on our side 
stood up and said, no, that is too much--and we did it on the rest, but 
we got rolled--it is over a trillion dollars of instances where this 
Congress and this President have asked for initiatives that would 
waive, punch holes in, go around the pay-go rules we already have. That 
is why I called it ``Swiss-cheese-go,'' not pay-go. Now we have this 
disingenuous statement from the administration that suddenly they are 
for pay-go. It already exists; we just don't enforce it around here. 
Not only do they claim they are for pay-go, even in their statement 
they claim they are for it, and they game their own pay-go proposal by 
saying it is not going to apply to the doc fix, the AMT fix, or even to 
the health care exercise. There should be a pay-go point of order 
against the first 5 years, and they waived that on health care reform.
  It is a good precedent. It will be picked up by the mainstream media 
as an effort by this administration to try to discipline spending 
because, of course, they are not going to acknowledge that it has been 
gamed to such an extraordinary extent that over $882 billion has been 
spent that should have been subject to pay-go rules. So it is a touch 
inconsistent and disingenuous for them to suddenly now find the faith 
of pay-go when, in fact, they have been ignoring pay-go rules and 
gaming those rules so they could spend money.
  Again, what happens there? They run up the debt on the American 
people in the United States, creating a system where our government 
will not be sustainable or affordable for our children.
  If this administration wants to do something meaningful in the area 
of reducing the debt and controlling spending, take the $65 billion 
they are about to get in repayment of TARP money from the various banks 
and apply it to reduce the debt. That would be real action versus the 
precedent.
  I yield the floor and appreciate the courtesy of the Senator from 
North Carolina.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from North Carolina is 
recognized.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
an hour as in morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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