[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4770-4772]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             OMB NOMINATION

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we will have this afternoon a vote in 
the Budget Committee, of which I am ranking Republican, on the 
nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be President Obama's deputy 
budget director at the Office of Management and Budget. OMB is a very 
critical part of the

[[Page 4771]]

administration of any American government. OMB is the agency that 
controls, on behalf of the President, the lust of all agencies and 
departments to get more money for their budgets. They send up their 
requests. OMB is the control point for the President. He cannot sit 
down and negotiate every single dispute over funding. OMB handles that, 
controls it. If there is a real loggerhead debate between Cabinet 
officials and OMB, they can go directly to the President, and the 
President will decide it. But most times overwhelmingly decisions are 
made in OMB. It is that institution that is critical to contain the 
growing spending we have. It is a very important position.
  I supported the appointment of Jack Lew for Director. He had been OMB 
Director under President Clinton. He was said to be the one to get 
credit for balancing the budget. I do remember that the House 
Republicans under Newt Gingrich fought over spending for months and 
years. Actually for a short period of time the government shut down. It 
looks as though it didn't destroy America. We are still operating. But 
they fought, and they balanced the budget. So Mr. Lew was there during 
that period of time. Certainly he deserves some credit. I was pleased 
to support him. But I was stunningly disappointed when Mr. Lew went on 
television and said the President's 10-year budget calls on America to 
live within its means, to not spend more than we take in, when over the 
10-year budget, there is not a single year by the President's own 
budget, submitted by Mr. Lew, in which the deficit fell below $600 
billion. And in the outyears the numbers were going up to about $800 
billion.
  Since Mr. Lew submitted the President's budget, the Congressional 
Budget Office, nonpartisan group, analyzed President Obama's budget and 
said it is far worse than that. The lowest single deficit we will have 
in 10 years is $748 billion. The highest deficit President Bush ever 
had was $450 billion.
  This is unbelievable. This year the budget deficit is going to be 
over $1.4 billion. In the tenth year, CBO said Mr. Lew and President 
Obama's budget would call for a $1.2 trillion deficit, a clearly 
unsustainable path of surging debt in the outyears going up. That is 
why Mr. Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, and Erskine Bowles, 
President Obama's chairman of the deficit commission, both said this is 
an unsustainable path.
  Interest last year on the budget was about $200 billion. We paid out 
$200 billion to people in China and governments of China, Japan, all 
over the world and to American citizens who loaned us money so we can 
spend $3.6 trillion this year while we are only taking in 2.2. We have 
to borrow that money. We don't have that money. Forty cents of every 
dollar that is spent is borrowed. We get a budget for next year, 
blithely calling for education funding to be increased 10 percent, 11 
percent, calling for the Energy Department to get a 9.5-percent 
increase, calling for the State Department to get a 10.5-percent 
increase, calling for huge increases in the Transportation Department, 
while inflation is 2 percent or less, and deficits are surging out of 
control. And what do they say? They say these are investments, but 
sometimes we don't have money to invest. How can I buy stock if I don't 
have any money? We don't have money. Reality has to break through.
  The fact that the President continues to assert his budget calls on 
us to live within our means when it sets forth the most irresponsible 
surge of debt the Nation has ever seen is breathtaking. I am 
disappointed that Mr. Lew has mouthed the same phrases. He has said the 
same things.
  Mr. Erskine Bowles, who cochaired the commission President Obama 
appointed, he and Alan Simpson a few days ago issued a statement when 
they testified before the Budget Committee. They said this country is 
facing the most predictable economic crisis in its history. When asked 
by Senator Conrad, our chairman, about that, he said it could be 2 
years, Mr. Bowles, maybe a little less, maybe a little more, we will 
have a crisis. Alan Simpson, cochairman of the commission, popped in 
and said he thinks 1 year; by the end of this year we could have a debt 
crisis. It is time to act and get on the right path and not be in 
denial as we are at this time.
  I asked Ms. Higginbottom about some of these issues when she was 
before the committee to try to determine whether she understood the 
gravity of the situation which we are now in. I was not satisfied.
  First, Ms. Higginbottom's experience level is stunningly lacking. She 
was a former campaign adviser to President Obama, has had no formal 
budget training or experience, not even a college class in economics. 
She said: I am not an accountant. No, she is not. She has never served 
on the Budget Committee. She never studied business, never ran a 
business, never was a mayor of a town, a county commissioner who had to 
balance a budget or served in a Governor's office in any way, shape, or 
form. She has campaigned for Senator Kerry. The highest job she has had 
was legislative director, not the Chief of Staff who manages the staff, 
but the legislative director for Senator Kerry who testified for her.
  She is a fine person. I think she seems in every way to be a decent 
person and would be a good legislative director in the Senate. But to 
be the person who looks a Cabinet official in the eye and says: 
Secretary Smith, you are asking for X billion dollars and we don't have 
it. OMB says you don't get it. Who can talk to the American people and 
tell them we are in a fiscal crisis that could lead to a debt crisis to 
put us in another recession, a double dip? I don't think she has any 
comprehension of that. How could she? This is not her experience. She 
has been a political operative, a legislative operative. When pressed 
about it, she basically said: The President's budget is a policy 
document.
  At this point in history, OMB needs to be thinking about dollars and 
cents, needs to be thinking about debt. This idea that we can spend and 
invest regardless of the financial consequences that will inevitably 
accrue is false. We need to be listening to someone like Erskine 
Bowles. We need someone like Erskine Bowles in charge of the OMB. When 
the President announced his budget, that very day, Mr. Bowles said it 
came nowhere close to doing what is necessary to get this country on 
the right track, nowhere close. We need somebody of seriousness who 
understands the threat this country is facing.
  They say you have objected to her because she is young. I have never 
mentioned the word ``young.'' But she is young. But the most important 
thing is, she does not have the kind of experience in business or 
accounting or budgeting or responsibility for management that one would 
look for in the second in command of the OMB, the most central unit in 
our entire governmental structure committed to containing wasteful 
spending. We need somebody who will go after waste, fraud, and abuse.
  Being a former Federal prosecutor, a little experience in going after 
criminals who are trying to steal from us wouldn't hurt. It would be of 
some value. But she doesn't have that.
  Despite the fact that she is a person of character and a good 
personality and is liked, she is not the right nominee, and, in my 
view, the nomination should not go forward, and I object to it.
  I know in the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, 
where she also had a hearing, Senator Scott Brown asked her a number of 
questions.
  He asked:

       You'll be No. 2. And if Director Lew is not there, you will 
     be No. 1, potentially. In that respect, I would presume you 
     would be dealing with accounting and budgeting, obviously, 
     problems within OMB. Is that a fair statement?
       Higginbottom: Sure, uh-huh.
       Brown: So I guess my original question is, what type of 
     budgeting and accounting experience do you have?
       Higginbottom: I have done a lot of policymaking.
       Senator Brown: All right. I understand that. But I guess 
     I'm asking, do you have any accounting or budgetary 
     experience aside from dealing in policy matters?

[[Page 4772]]

       Higginbottom: I am not an accountant, but the President's 
     budget is an articulation of his policy agenda.

  I think that fails to evidence an understanding of the difficult role 
the OMB has.
  My staff director for the minority in the Senate Budget Committee 
served in OMB for a while--such a wonderful person. One reason he came 
to my attention was because a member of President Bush's 
administration, whom I know well, said he had to go to him and try to 
ask him to approve additional funding for a department or agency, and 
he said he could say no, and he would do it in a way that he showed he 
understood what we were talking about but he would not give in, and he 
made you respect him for it.
  Well, that is kind of the nature of the OMB. All these agencies and 
departments want to ask for more money for their departments--they can 
do all these good things--and somebody has to say: This is putting us 
over the limit. This is putting us over our budget. We do not have this 
kind of money.
  I hope we can get the kind of serious leadership in that office that 
does not seem to be present today by virtue of the language that 
indicates that our OMB believes we have a good budget that lives within 
our means. Both Director Lew and President Obama have repeatedly said 
the President's budget allows us to live within our means, ``spend 
money that we have each year'' and ``begin paying down our debt.''
  Five or six fact check organizations that analyze statements to see 
if they are accurate have found these statements to be false. And they 
are plainly, utterly false. The lowest deficit we are going to have, 
under the President's Budget, according to the CBO, is $748 billion in 
the next 10 years. The lowest annual deficit. And our interest payment 
will increase from $200 billion this year to over $900 billion in 2012.
  Mr. President, I do not know what time is left on this side. There is 
no time left? I will wrap up and say it is for those concerns I have 
expressed that I will not support Heather Higginbottom as OMB Deputy 
Director, even though she has many fine qualities, as Senator John 
Kerry set forth in his testimony on her behalf, although he was not 
able and did not contend that she has experience in budget, accounting, 
or finance.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Maryland is 
recognized.

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