[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 18588-18590]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            FISCAL STABILITY

  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I come to the floor deeply disappointed--
like many--over our failure to seize a unique opportunity to put 
America on a more fiscally sane path for the future.
  My No. 1 priority for this year--I have talked about it so many 
times, not only publicly but with colleagues in discussions for nearly 
a year--that No. 1 priority has been to advocate for a deficit 
reduction package that would be deemed credible by the financial 
markets and would put us on a path to fiscal stability. I think, given 
the situation that exists around the world today, nothing could have 
been more impactful in a positive way producing such a package.
  Financial experts agree--and they have now for years--that we are on 
the wrong path, that we are spending far too much in relationship to 
our anemic growth and GDP, and that we have staggered along for 3 years 
but continued to spend an extraordinary amount of money without seeing 
the economy recover.
  A number of plans have come forward. One year ago today, Simpson-
Bowles produced one of those types of bold plans that could help get us 
back on this fiscal path to prosperity. As you know, Mr. Bowles was the 
Chief of Staff to our former President Bill Clinton. He and our former 
colleague Alan Simpson put together a package that--whether you agreed 
with all of it or not, certainly was something that could have put us 
on a more fiscally sound path. Yet those recommendations were rejected 
out of hand by the White House and others.
  We have seen the activities and presentations of the Gang of 6. 
Forty-plus Senators, including me, came together in a bipartisan way to 
urge the President to join us in pushing for a bold, comprehensive 
plan. That was rejected. Earlier in the year, the President's budget 
was laughed out of this Chamber. Not one person--either Democrat or 
Republican--voted for it.
  Then in August we came far shot short of what we needed to do to 
address our debt crisis when Congress passed the Budget Control Act. I 
was not able to support that particular plan. Although it averted a 
default on our debt, it fell woefully short of what was needed to 
address our fiscal situation. Nevertheless, that opportunity--which we 
had with the involvement of both parties to do something truly 
significant--was passed over.
  So then it fell to the committee of 12, which is called the 
supercommittee. Many of us--offered suggestions and urged those members 
to try and go beyond the minimum of $1.2 trillion of deficit reduction 
over a 10-year period of time.
  There was a so-called Draconian sequester, or across-the-board cut, 
that would go into place automatically, starting in 2013, if the 
committee could not come to an agreement. The consensus at the time was 
these cuts would be so Draconian that it would force an agreement among 
Republicans and Democrats--to come forward with at least a minimal 
plan. Many of us were urging them to do much more, to bring forth 
something that would be credible with the investment community and 
restore confidence that America understood the dire situation we were 
in and we were doing something about it as representatives of the 
people.
  No clearer message came to this body than the message sent in 
November of 2010 with the historic turnover of Members and an 
outpouring of support for putting the future of our country, our fiscal 
future and economic future and the future of our children and 
grandchildren ahead of politics. Yet it is politics that defeated the 
effort.
  Now, it is easy to blame the committee of 12. I know there was an 
earnest attempt to come together. I believe, politically, perhaps, it 
was doomed from the start just by the way it was designed. That is one 
of the reasons I voted against that proposal. Nevertheless, they made 
an earnest attempt but, unfortunately, were not able to bring it home.
  So the responsibility falls not just on those 12, but it falls on 
this entire Congress because we would not even have gotten to that 
supercommittee if we had done our job earlier and presented a real plan 
in August, when we were bumping up against the debt limit extension. 
That's when we should have done what most of us intuitively understand 
needs to be done. Yet the political considerations and ramifications 
were such that we came forward with a very timid and woefully short 
plan of what we needed to do.
  The President has to take some responsibility. We cannot really bring 
forward a bold change in the way the U.S. Government does business 
unless we have bipartisan support. We cannot get that bipartisan 
support unless the Chief Executive, the quarterback of the team, stands 
up and says: I want to be involved and engaged and stay engaged. While 
there was some rhetoric coming out of the White House, there was no 
plan. As I said, the only plan we have had from the President--his 
budget plan--was rejected earlier this year on a unanimous vote, every 
Republican and every Democrat turned it down.
  The President has said some nice words about what we needed to do and 
so forth and so on. But he was AWOL. As I said, the quarterback of the 
team needs to be engaged. He is the key person. Yet that quarterback 
was not even on the field. So responsibility falls on both Congress and 
the White House. I think some responsibility also falls on outside 
groups who distorted what we were trying to do, who mischaracterized 
what Republicans were seeking to accomplish, and there was some 
mischaracterization of what Democrats were seeking to accomplish as 
well. But it was an undermining process. Those groups that supposedly 
are representative of seniors across this country, the shameful way in 
which they distorted the message and what we were trying to do--and, 
obviously, it had a political impact here and put restraint on Members 
because their base was being lied to in terms of what was under 
consideration and what we were trying to do.
  We all know Social Security and Medicare are not going to have the 
funds available in the future to provide the services that were 
promised to the American people. Yet any attempt to try to salvage and 
save and retain those programs' solvency was distorted by these groups 
that supposedly represent the interests of our seniors. Many of these 
groups falsely claimed that we were trying to take away their program, 
we were trying to destroy their program.
  I mean, how ridiculous it is that someone is going to come in here 
and say: My goal is to destroy retirement benefits for the American 
people or I am here to take away health benefits for American retirees. 
None of us are here to do that.
  These programs are law. They are in place. We want them to be more 
efficient, more effective, but, more importantly, we want them to 
remain solvent. Yet outside groups were basically sending just the 
opposite messages. So the Congress failed. We came up short. But having 
done so, Congress cannot avoid the responsibility we have to do 
everything in our power to try to address a very serious fiscal problem 
that exists in this country.
  Years and years, decades and decades, not only this Congress but 
former Congresses, not only this President but former Presidents have 
made promises to the American people that we now are unable to keep 
because we do not have the fiscal capability of doing so. We have not 
had a budget come out of the Congress in more than 1,000 days. There is 
some indication that we will have a budget next year. I sincerely hope 
we can get together and come forward with a deficit reduction budget, 
one that recognizes the fiscal plight in which we find ourselves. I 
will work with both sides of the aisle to try to accomplish that. We 
have to acknowledge that we continue to spend trillions more dollars 
than we have available to us. No nation can sustain that.

[[Page 18589]]

  All we have to do is look across the Atlantic at what is taking place 
in Europe from country to country. It is not just Greece, it is not 
just Portugal, it is not just Ireland anymore. It is Italy and maybe 
France and maybe other countries. The European Union is struggling to 
try to address this serious debit crisis, the same type of problem we 
have here.
  There have been many here that look at Europe and say: They need to 
get their act together. Well, we need to get our act together here 
because what we are seeing there may be coming across the shore. 
Certainly, similar problems exist: promising more than we can deliver, 
borrowing more so that we can pay debts that we do not have the money 
to pay through the revenues we generate in our country. The same thing 
is happening here.
  This is the challenge in front of us. We need to find a way to seize 
this opportunity to do something for the future of this country. Our 
generation must step up for the next generations and for the sake of 
the country's future. We need to continue this debate and go forward. 
It is easy to sit around and grumble and blame somebody else and say, 
well, we gave it our best shot and therefore we will just let whatever 
happens happen. We do not want to do that because what will happen 
here, if we continue on the current course, is what is happening in 
Europe today. There is no clearer picture of the consequences of a 
sovereign nation promising more and spending more than it takes in over 
time. It slows the economy. It piles up the interest payments. It 
shrinks the amount of money available for essential services. It puts 
the programs that were in place in real jeopardy.
  So if we consider the consequences, we clearly have to answer the 
question: Where do we go from here? How do we go forward in a 
constructive way?
  I would suggest a few things: First, we need to enforce the law that 
is there under the Budget Control Act. The law that is in place on the 
books now, even though I believe that law designed a process that is 
woefully short of where we need to go, but we need to enforce it now.
  No one wanted to get to this across-the-board cutting, this sequester 
that impacts our national security and other functions of government. 
But that sequester was supposed to prevent us from failing and urge us 
to come to agreement. It did not. The sequestration rule now is the 
law, and I think an attempt to undo that is one of the most cynical 
things we can do, and the American people know it. I do not believe 
they will allow us to do it.
  So the law needs to be enforced if we cannot come up with the minimum 
amount of cuts required. We need to go forward and do that. So there 
are a number of ways--and I commend the committee for at least trying 
to come up with some efficiencies and effectiveness rein in our Federal 
spending. I believe they have a list of things that we can look to in 
order to enforce more cuts. I have suggested a triage process when we 
review every aspect of an agency of government, every function that is 
performed through this Federal Government, and basically say: We have a 
patient that is sick, a patient with a potentially terminal disease. 
But we need to triage. We have a bunch of people in the waiting room. 
Some of them need attention right away. So we need a triage of every 
agency, every function, every expenditure being examined from the 
standpoint of, is this absolutely essential to the future of this 
country, to the protection of our citizens? Is this an absolutely 
essential function of government that cannot be done at the State 
level, at the local level, or at the private level? If so, then that 
needs to have priority.
  Secondly, there is a whole range of issues. We come down every day 
with new ideas and thoughts of ``this would be nice to do, but we 
cannot afford to do.'' We have to delay these initiatives or just 
simply say to people: I am sorry, we do not have the money to pay for 
this idea.
  So we separate the essential from ``like to do and cannot do,'' and 
then we look at what needs to be done that someone else can do better. 
Whether in the private sector, at the State level, or at the local 
level, there are a whole range of areas where the Federal Government 
has gotten in way over its head. These are functions that can take 
place in the private sector or through State and local governments.
  We can look at the duplication and inefficiencies that exist. Senator 
Coburn came up with a long list, trillions of dollars in expenditures 
that could be saved. We ought to look at that. We ought to look at 
those and decide which ones we want to go forward with and how we can 
start that process.
  Let me mention a couple of things: 18 separate domestic food 
assistance programs. Do we need domestic assistance for food? Probably 
there are some areas where we do. Do we need 18 separate programs 
doling this out?
  There are 47 different job training programs. OK. The economy is 
restructuring. We need job training. Do we need 47 separate programs to 
do that?
  And my personal favorite: 56 financial literacy programs. We can 
argue that the Federal Government is in no place to teach the American 
people how to be financially literate. I think what we need to do is be 
financially literate here in Washington and then use that model to show 
people how to be literate rather than simply say, well, we have the 
answer. We, obviously, do not have the answer. Why we have 56 financial 
literacy programs in place through the Federal Government is just 
astounding.
  So these are suggestions. There are many others regarding cutting of 
spending. But there are other functions that need to be addressed. 
There are three major categories. One is regulatory reform. Regulation 
from various agencies is costing the American taxpayer and Americans 
millions and billions of dollars.
  There is a process underway to look at those. That is one category. I 
can talk for a long time about that, but I will not. A second one is 
entitlement reform. Now, I have been talking about this subject from 
the beginning. This is the engine that drives the train of deficits, 
and we can stand by and continue to lie to the American people and say 
they have nothing to worry about. We can say we are going to preserve 
every penny of the Social Security and every penny of the Medicare and 
Medicaid, and it will always be there. Do not worry. Even the money put 
in via payroll taxes and so forth, it is all sacrosanct, and do not 
worry about it. We can continue that lie or we can tell the American 
people the truth; that is, if we want to keep these programs viable, we 
need to take structured reform measures now.
  Those could be increasing the age of eligibility for Medicare to 
coincide with the current Social Security age. It could be changes in 
some of the indexes that are used to calculate the cost-of-living 
adjustment. That could be modified through means testing.
  Warren Buffett says he does not need Social Security. Fine. If people 
do not need Social Security or Medicare or at least the full payment, 
let's give them back what they paid in. So we could put means testing 
in there. We need to debate and talk about this issue.
  Is it politically sensitive? Sure. But let's be honest with the 
American people. They want us to be honest. I think that is what the 
message of 2010 was all about.
  The third category, one in which I have been very involved in, is 
reforming our Tax Code, which is a mess.
  The tax code is totally incomprehensible to anybody who spends less 
than 15 hours a day as a career studying it and trying to figure it 
out. Our tax code is a nightmare. Americans spend billions of dollars 
having people do their taxes because the tax code is too complex to 
understand. There are tens of thousands of pages in the Tax Code.
  There is a growing bipartisan consensus here in Congress that we need 
to reform our Tax Code. Senator Wyden and I have a bipartisan bill that 
has been worked on for 3 years to reform the tax code. Our plan is not 
the absolute answer to everything, but it is the only bipartisan bill 
in legislative text, it has been scored, and it is available to be 
debated. I know the supercommittee looked at our proposal. The

[[Page 18590]]

Ways and Means Committee and the Finance Committee ought to look at it 
as well. Tax reform can make this country more competitive, grow the 
economy, and help with our fiscal situation.
  I sense that I am close to or running out of time. In deference to my 
colleagues, I will wrap up.
  I came here deeply disappointed today. I remain disappointed that we 
haven't been able to do more. My No. 1 priority has been to advocate 
for going big on a deficit reduction plan. We weren't able to do that. 
Experts agree that we must do more. We only have to look at Europe to 
see what is coming next. Let's try to avoid that. There are plans out 
there we can build off of right now. So instead of just folding our 
tent and saying there is nothing we can do except wait for the election 
results of 2012 when we may have a different President or a different 
Congress, we have a responsibility to act now. There are ways we can do 
this. We need to demonstrate to ourselves and to the American people 
that we will accept this responsibility. I choose to do that. I choose 
to take the tough medicine for the future of the country. I believe the 
American people choose to do that as well.
  I urge my colleagues to join me as we move forward. Let's not sit and 
wait for election results. Let's do something now because the urgency 
and the crisis is real, and it needs to be addressed now. Let's be 
responsible and step up and do it.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Georgia is 
recognized.

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