[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Pages 3573-3574]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. BLUNT. Madam President, I thank the Chair for allowing me the 
floor for a few minutes.
  First, I wish to say, Dr. Barrasso's second opinion is clearly the 
opinion of Missourians. I think when you ask Americans if they want to 
see changes in the health care system--but not these changes--they say: 
Yes, we want the health care system to be changed. We just don't want 
it changed this way.
  I remind the Chair, in Missouri in the primary election in August 
last year, 72 percent of the people who voted said they did not want to 
be part of this health care plan. This is going to be a big discussion 
and a big issue for the next couple of years, until we decide what 
direction we are going to take.
  Today I want to talk about spending. Two bills are coming to the 
floor today about spending and there will be lots of discussion about 
the cuts the House made, the $61 billion of cuts and how this cut could 
have been better, how this is a good thing for the government or for 
somebody to do. Of course, I suspect most all of that will be true. 
What is unfortunate is that we on the Senate floor today do not get to 
talk about what we might cut instead of these things, these things that 
will be discussed that people think are such a good idea for us to cut.
  The truth is, we have to make the decisions that get spending under 
control. This year we are going to spend about $3.8 trillion and we are 
going to collect about $2.2 trillion. Even though ``trillion dollars'' 
is too big a concept to wrap your mind around, everybody understands 
that 3.8 is a lot bigger than 2.2. If your business was spending $3.8 
million and bringing in $2.2 million, you would understand your 
business was not going to be in business very much longer. If your 
family was spending $38,000 and bringing in the door $22,000, you would 
know that could not continue. This cannot continue either.
  The idea we cannot make $61 billion of reductions in spending in a 
$3.8 trillion budget, $1.6 trillion of which is deficit spending, 
doesn't make sense to me and it doesn't make sense to the American 
people. We are going to have to have a government that can make 
choices.
  Right now we have government trying to do the same thing over and 
over at all three levels. Some of those things government is trying to 
do at the Federal, the State, and the local level ought to be left to 
families, where they could be left to families. Other things are the 
legitimate job of government. But everything is not the legitimate job 
of the Federal Government and almost nothing is the legitimate job of 
all levels of government. We would be much better off if we tried to go 
through this process: OK, is this a problem that only government can 
solve? If the answer is yes, then the next question is: Can't we solve 
that problem closer to where people live and work, and where the 
problem is, where families are? Can't we solve that at the city level 
or the county level?

[[Page 3574]]

  Maybe the answer is no. Then the question should be: Can't we solve 
it at the State level? Then the question should be: If we are going to 
solve it at the Federal level, is there a constitutional definition 
that allows us to do that?
  There are some things that only the Federal Government can do. But 
there are not very many things that only the Federal Government can do.
  We are going to hear in this discussion today and in the coming weeks 
about lots of good that can be done in our society. We are going to 
hear about some things I have worked to authorize and tried to get us 
to make a priority and still hope to keep a priority. Some of those 
programs are actually cut in the House appropriations bill that I will 
vote for today, because my view is we have to cut spending. If we could 
cut the $61 billion this year from exactly what I wanted to be cut, 
that would be better for me. But I am committed to cut spending in any 
bill we can get enough people to support, to put a bill on the 
President's desk that will say let's head toward a balanced budget. 
Let's get a balanced budget amendment. Let's head toward a balanced 
budget. But let's ask the right questions.
  Before I came to the Congress, I was a university president for 4 
years. It was a private university, Southwest Baptist University in 
Bolivar, MO. We did not take any Federal money or any State money. We 
had to pay our bills. Because we had to pay our bills, as the president 
of the university I was constantly being asked to do good things but I 
had several different categories of ``no, this is why we cannot do 
that.'' There are two that maybe we ought to use the most often in 
Washington, DC, these days. The first is: No, that is a good idea but 
it is not what we do. I said that a lot as the university president. As 
a matter of fact, in the 4 years I was there I never had anybody come 
to me and ask me to do anything evil. I never had anybody come to me as 
president of the Southwest Baptist University and say here is something 
bad I think we should do as an institution. Every idea I got was a good 
idea, but it was not always something we could do. So one of my 
categories of no was ``no, that's a good idea but it's not what we 
do.''
  We are going to hear lots about people with challenges that somebody 
should help. But the Federal Government is $1.6 trillion in debt this 
year--this year; not the $14 trillion accumulated debt, $1.6 this 
year--over $200 billion last month. Last month's deficit was within 
striking range of the annual deficit for the 10 years that ended in 
2008. We are now spending more in deficit spending in a month than for 
a decade we spent in a year. If you average out that 10 years it is 
very close to February--and by the way, February is the shortest month. 
That is the only month where we have 28 days of spending, and we set a 
record on monthly deficit spending for the United States of America 
that was almost equal to the average annual deficit of the previous 10 
years.
  Sometimes people came to me and they had a good idea that actually 
was something the university could do. Often, then, I would have to 
say: Yes, that is a good idea, we ought to think how we can do that, 
but you are going to have to help me figure out what we can stop doing 
so we can start doing this. This may in fact be a better thing than 
some of the things we are doing now, but we can't do everything. 
Families deal with this issue all the time. You cannot do everything, 
even if it would be good to see those things done.
  The Federal Government is doing the wrong thing when it heads down a 
road where you are spending so much more than you are collecting. One 
obvious answer is let's collect more. I suppose if you went to the 
Congressional Budget Office and said what would the collection amount 
be for the Federal Government if the tax rate were 100 percent--since 
they do not do any dynamic scoring over there, they score as if tax 
policy doesn't matter--I guess they could add up all the payrolls of 
America and whatever they added up to, that is how much money the 
Federal Government could bring in if the tax rate were 100 percent.
  But that would not happen. Frankly, the tax rate of collecting the 
$2.2 trillion is about all we ought to be collecting out of this 
economy. For the 65 years after World War II, the government spent an 
average of about $1 out of $5, the Federal Government, that the economy 
could create. Now we are spending $1 out of $4. There is a big 
difference in a country where the Federal Government alone spends 1 
dollar out of 4 that the country can create in goods and services as 
opposed to 1 dollar out of 5. You are not going to get a lot more on 
the taxing side. So we have to make the reductions in spending.
  Then you are going to hear we are making these reductions out of 12 
percent or 15 percent of the budget. Is that fair?
  First of all, that is the only part of the budget we can get to 
without significant legislative activity. That should be the next thing 
on our agenda. Let's talk about the 60 percent of the budget we 
normally do not even talk about where if you meet the definition of the 
program you get the money, and see if we can't figure out how to 
produce better results for fewer dollars. That is what everybody else 
in America has been thinking about for 20 years now.
  If you are still in business in America and you are competing in a 
global economy, you have been thinking how do we get a better result 
for less money, not how do we spend more money. We need to be sure the 
government is as good as the people it serves in that regard. It is 12 
or 15 percent of the budget where we are talking reducing spending by 
$61 billion. That would not begin to be nearly enough, if you apportion 
it out. That is about one-seventh of the budget. If you multiply that 
by seven, you are still well over $1 trillion short of where you need 
to be. We need to start by taking at least this much money out of that 
part of the budget and figure out how we can also make the government 
work better in the other 85 percent of the budget.
  Today is what it is. Today is a discussion to prove, apparently, that 
we cannot do anything. We can't do what the majority of the Senate 
wants to do, we can't do what the majority in the House wants to do. 
Let me tell you what the majority in the House wants to do is a minimum 
entry level to solving this whole problem. I am going to vote for it 
today and I urge my colleagues to vote for it as well.
  I yield the floor.

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