[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 20]
[Senate]
[Pages 27017-27018]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         CONGRESSIONAL SPENDING

  Mr. LeMIEUX. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks for today, I 
wish to say a few words about the tragedy that occurred yesterday at 
Fort Hood. I know I share the feelings of all Americans who were deeply 
saddened by the events of yesterday, and our thoughts and prayers go 
out to the families of the young men and women who were lost and who 
were injured in the tragic situation that occurred yesterday.
  I also wish to take this opportunity to add words of appreciation to 
the first responders and the medical professionals who helped these men 
and women who were injured yesterday. It is heroes helping heroes that 
really shows America at its best. Our thoughts and prayers will be with 
all of these brave young men and women who were tragically slain 
yesterday, and their families.
  Mr. President, the purpose for which I rise today is to talk about 
the spending of this Congress, something I have been doing for the last 
few weeks since I had the privilege to join this institution as the 
Senator from Florida. I have big concerns, and the more I have been 
here and the more I have seen over the past few weeks has given me even 
more concern.
  Unlike American families and unlike the majority of American States, 
this institution spends money it doesn't have. Each day, we go more 
than $4 billion in debt as we pay for programs we don't have enough 
money for--$4 billion a day, the national debt grows. Additionally, we 
spend $253 billion a year on interest payments. It is the fourth 
largest expenditure in the budget after defense, Social Security, and 
Medicare. So the fourth largest expenditure that we spend every year 
doesn't go to a new program, it doesn't go to help a person; it goes to 
pay for programs in the past that we couldn't afford. It took us until 
1982 to go $1 trillion in debt. Yet we are shortly coming upon nearly 
$12 trillion in debt. In a matter of days, we will hit that number. 
More troubling still, this past year, 2009, this Congress, for its 
annual budget, grew a deficit of $1.4 trillion. That is as much deficit 
as was accrued in the past 4 years combined.
  So I plan to come to this Chamber every week and talk about the 
spending problem this Congress has in order to highlight this issue. It 
is of grave concern to me, not just as a Senator who represents 18 
million people in Florida but as a father of three children--Max, 
Taylor, and Chase, 6, 4, and 2--and a baby on the way. My wife and I 
are concerned, as every parent should be, about their future. It is our 
obligation as parents to make sure they have better opportunities than 
we had. In fact, that is the American creed, that every generation 
ensures that its children have equal or better opportunities than the 
opportunities they enjoy. But I am concerned for my children and for 
all the children in this country that at this present rate of spending, 
we will not be able to ensure that they have those equal or better 
opportunities.
  Congress is spending too much. Both sides of the aisle talk about 
fiscal restraint and fiscal discipline, and yet we keep spending more 
than we have. This government took in $2.1 trillion in revenues this 
year; yet we spent $3.5 trillion.
  I am not used to this system because, as you know, I come from a 
State system, where I served as a chief of staff to a Governor. In 
Florida, we have to balance our budget. Every year we looked at the 
receipts. We anxiously looked, almost on a monthly basis, to see how 
much money was coming in to determine how much could be spent, or what 
kind of tax breaks could be given back to the people, or how much could 
be put in the reserves. Those were the good times. As the economy 
declined, we watched the money and made decisions about how much we 
were going to have to cut. At the end of the day, we had to balance the 
budget.
  Congress doesn't do that. Congress spends more than it takes in, and 
it puts those obligations on our children and grandchildren who some 
day will have to pay off this debt. But the time to make tough choices 
should not be tomorrow; the time to make tough choices is today.
  One of the first pieces of legislation I had an opportunity to 
consider and to vote on was an appropriations bill for housing, urban 
development, and transportation--important issues for this country. In 
the opportunity to consider that appropriations bill, this Congress 
could have cut spending or increased the deficit. Well, it chose to 
increase the deficit, and the increase was by more than 23 percent over 
last year's budget, in a time when we are spending much more than we 
have. In a time when we are about to have a $12 trillion national debt, 
we decided to spend 23 percent more than we did last year. What did we 
spend the money on? Certainly, plenty of good things. Obviously, 
transportation and housing are important. But we spent money on a lot 
of questionable things, too. We built transportation museums--monuments 
to roads we have not yet built. We put up congratulatory signs, saying 
this is how we spent money on a road, and we funded airports with no 
planes, as the number of Americans losing their jobs has now risen to a 
10.2-percent national unemployment level.
  We are spending $700 million a day to pay the interest on the debt, 
and we are funding transportation museums. If we would have stayed at 
the spending level from last year and cut out these extraneous 
programs, congratulatory signs that tell us we built a road, 
transportation museums, and other spending programs--which some 
amendments sought to cut, but they did not pass--we would have saved 
$12.7 billion. In Washington, $12.7 billion doesn't sound like a lot of 
money. We talk about trillions of dollars here. But $12.7 billion could 
have done a lot of good.
  What could we have spent that money on? I think it is important to 
realize that every time we spend a dollar, we are making a choice. It 
is a choice about how we are going to direct this country's future. We 
can either return that dollar and not spend it, give it back to the 
people who paid it, or we could not spend it and not increase our debt 
and put that on our children's backs, or we could have spent it on 
something different and maybe better.
  Here is an example: One thing I applaud the administration for in 
their stimulus program is they have $8 billion set aside for high-speed 
rail. That is exactly the kind of thing this country should undertake. 
The Federal Government should not do much, but they can do things that 
communities and States cannot often do for themselves. High-speed rail 
is such a national-sized project, in my opinion, that the role of the 
Federal Government is there. It makes sense in this difficult economic 
time, because you will actually create thousands of jobs by building 
the high-speed rail. Once it is built, you will have a long-term gain, 
because that high-speed rail will be there to promote infrastructure, 
to

[[Page 27018]]

promote jobs, and to ease the burdens on our everyday lives. There is 
$8 billion in the Federal budget this year that States can apply for to 
build high-speed rail. My State has an application in, along with 40 
other States. We are seeking $2.5 billion to connect Orlando to Tampa, 
which would be fantastic for our State. I hope our State gets those 
dollars. But there is only $8 billion to apply for, and there are 40 
States that want the money. Imagine if we would have taken the $12.7 
billion we wasted here and put it into that program; maybe more States 
could have had high-speed rail.
  Let me give another example. What can you do with $12.7 billion? With 
$12 billion, you could put 427,000 college students through a 4-year 
college. We have to realize every time we spend a dollar, it is a 
choice. That dollar could have been spent better, or it could have been 
returned to the people.
  President Obama recommended in this appropriations bill that we cut 
$211 million out of it. I don't think that was enough, but let's give 
credit where it is due. He suggested we cut $211 million. We didn't 
even do that. The Senate could only find $15 million to cut and the 
House only $20 million. Because of Congress's spending and the 
administration's lack of willingness to cut spending, President Obama 
has presided over more new domestic spending in his first 10 months in 
office than President Clinton did in 8 years.
  One of the first bills I supported when I came here was the Budget 
Enforcement Legislative Tool Act of 2009. It is a long title. It is a 
proposal I think both Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree 
upon. The bill requires us in Congress to do an up-or-down vote on the 
President's recommendation on spending. In this case, we would have cut 
more than $200 million if we would have adopted the President's 
recommendation; not enough but better than what we did.
  I believe it is time to stop talking about cutting spending and do 
something about it. I am going to come each week to the floor and talk 
about the various appropriations bills we have gone over. I will keep a 
running tally, starting with the $12 billion we could have saved in 
this appropriation. At the end of the day, hopefully, the comments I 
make will encourage others in this body and in the House of 
Representatives to take this spending situation seriously.
  I guess all of us wish we were in the situation the Federal 
Government is in, where we could spend more than we have, in terms of 
income, and never have to pay it back. But the truth is, the Federal 
Government isn't in that situation either. One day the chickens are 
going to come home to roost. One day we are going to be accountable for 
the money we spend. One day it will impact our standing in the world. I 
believe that day is very soon. We already know that the banks of the 
world--the central banks--are starting to shed dollars. They no longer 
want to hold our currency because they are losing faith in the United 
States of America as the leading world financial power. We already know 
we are having to sell more and more debt to countries that don't even 
have our interests--countries such as China--and we already know we are 
losing our standing and our ability to move forward because the rest of 
the world doesn't feel we financially manage our situation well.
  While our economy is straining, while countries look at us as suspect 
for our spending patterns, countries such as Brazil are on fire, 
American dollars and investments go there, because people think there 
is a better opportunity to make money in those countries than in the 
United States.
  I want a better future for our children. If we are going to have a 
better future for our children, we are going to have to restrain our 
spending and get serious about balancing the budget of the Federal 
Government, as the States do and as families do across America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WEBB. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

                          ____________________