[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5387-5394]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I could not agree more that we should not 
have a government shutdown. I could not agree more that we need to take 
steps to protect and improve our economy. I could not agree more that 
we need to take steps to make sure our brave uniformed men and women 
are fairly compensated and otherwise treated. I must, however, express 
my profound, albeit respectful, disagreement with my colleague, the 
junior Senator from New Jersey.
  This is not a possible shutdown that we are facing as a result of the 
Republican Party or as a result of the tea party. As a lifelong 
Republican and as a founding member of the Senate Tea Party Caucus, I 
can tell you unequivocally that there is not one member of this body, 
nor is there one member of the Senate Tea Party Caucus who wants a 
government shutdown, certainly no Republican. From the outset, 
Republicans have attempted to bring forward proposals to make sure we 
do not get into a shutdown.
  The question we need to ask ourselves is, Why does the President of 
the United States, President Barack Obama, want a government shutdown? 
Let's ask a few questions.
  Why was it that a few months ago, after the election but before the 
new Congress took over, when the President had both Houses of Congress 
under the control of his party, why did he opt not to pass a full 
budget for fiscal year 2011? That was the first seed he sowed in the 
direction of a government shutdown. I submit it was one that was either 
irresponsible on the one hand or deliberate and malicious on the other, 
intending to bring about a sequence of events that would culminate 
inevitably in a government shutdown.
  No. 2. Even after the new Congress convened, after the balance of 
power shifted completely in the House of Representatives and after a 
number of seats in this body shifted and the new Congress convened in 
January of this year, the President did not bring forward something 
that could attract both Houses of Congress to approve and that he could 
fund the government with for the balance of the year. He instead chose 
to operate on a series of continuing resolutions. We are now moving up 
against what I believe will be our seventh continuing resolution if it 
is passed. What we have from the President is radio silence in the 
direction of what we need to do to move forward.
  A number of us have suggested all along in this process that at a 
point in time in America when we have a national debt approaching $15 
trillion, at a point in time when we are adding to that debt at a 
staggering rate approaching $1.7 trillion a year, it does not make 
sense and it is not responsible to continue, even in small increments, 
perpetuating that degree of reckless, perpetual deficit spending.
  What we want to see more than anything isn't any specific set of 
social issue legislation. It is not any specific degree of spending 
cuts. It is instead a plan, some plan that will move us in the 
direction of a balanced budget, that will put us on track so we might 
once again enjoy the benefits of a balanced budget, so we might again 
enjoy the day and age when we don't have a debt-to-GDP ratio well in 
excess of 90 percent. We know when we have a debt-to-GDP ratio in 
excess of 90 percent, it slows economic growth by as much as half every 
year, costing our economy as many as a million jobs every single year. 
This ultimately is about jobs. Our sprawling debt kills jobs and kills 
economic growth necessary to create jobs.
  So, no, this is not a quixotic quest for perfection. This is a quest 
for that which will suffice to get us back on track toward fiscal 
responsibility.
  I mentioned two seeds the President has planted to lead to a 
shutdown, the first being his refusal to push through a budget for the 
entire year, fiscal 2011; the second being his reliance on continuing 
resolutions. The third seed he sowed, one I am not sure we will be able 
to get around this time, much as we wish to, is his threat in the last 
hour or two, his promise to veto the continuing resolution the House is 
expected to pass this afternoon. It may have passed moments ago. He is 
threatening to veto that before it even gets over here. One must 
wonder, why does the President want a shutdown.
  We have to remember, these are not drastic changes that have been 
proposed. In fact, they are not even sufficient to get us back on track 
so we can say this heads us in the direction of an eventual balanced 
budget. These are minor cuts. Yet the President insists on moving us 
inevitably, inexorably in the direction of a shutdown.
  While we are on the subject of addressing a false blame placed on the 
Republican Party and the tea party, I care to address the accusation 
made by various of my colleagues, an accusation I believe made in 
ignorance and that, in any event, is manifestly incorrect with regard 
to the tea party. This is a movement whose views are not extreme. What 
is extreme is a $15 trillion debt we are adding to at a staggering rate 
of $1.7 trillion a year. That is extreme, as is what has happened in 
the last few years, including the U.S. Government takeover of 
everything from our banking industry to auto manufacturing to our 
health care industry. Those things are extreme.
  The tea party movement is something that is shared by many Americans, 
regardless of whether they appear at a rally of any kind. It is a 
spontaneous grassroots political phenomenon that simply recognizes our 
Federal Government has grown too big and has become too expensive.
  We need to do something about that. Many of us who consider ourselves 
part of the tea party movement and believe the best solution, perhaps 
the only solution, is to return to that 223-year-old founding document 
we call the Constitution, look to those powers that are identified as 
something within the exclusive ability, the exclusive power and control 
of the Federal Government. The more we do that, the more we believe we 
can turn to constitutionally limited government of the sort that can 
operate on a balanced budget.
  This is not necessarily even a politically conservative movement. It 
is neither conservative nor liberal. At the end of the day, it need not 
be Republican or Democratic. It is simply American. It recognizes this 
country was founded upon the principle that national governments, as 
they become large and powerful, have a certain tendency toward gaining 
an excess of power and spending an excess of money, and to prevent a 
form of tyranny. A national government can function best when it has 
limited enumerated powers of the sort we granted the Federal Government 
a couple of centuries ago, powers including things such as national 
defense, establishing a uniform system of weights and measures, 
regulating trademarks, copyrights, and patents, and so forth. Included 
in that list we won't find anything about a government takeover of 
health care or manufacturing industries or the banking industry.
  This is neither liberal nor conservative, neither Republican nor 
Democratic, and it certainly isn't extreme. It is simply American. It 
is what makes us great. It is part of what has created the strongest 
economy and the greatest civilization the world has ever known. At the 
end of the day, as those who have planted quite deliberately the seeds 
for an inevitable shutdown seek to blame others, we have to remember 
the seeds they have sown, and we have to be willing to cast blame where 
blame is due.
  The blame here cannot and, as long as I am standing, will not be 
placed at the feet of the Republicans or of the tea party. We do not 
want a shutdown.

[[Page 5388]]

We will do everything we can to fight against it. If we have one, it 
will be because the President of the United States and members of the 
other party in this august body have refused to put forward a 
palatable, defensible budget.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. DeMINT. Mr. President, I associate myself with my colleague from 
Utah. I appreciate the clarity of his remarks. I wish to add to them.
  I am glad we have some folks here today listening in. There is 
probably no other place in the country we can hear so much nonsense as 
we will hear on the Senate floor today. Unfortunately, we just heard 
that from the colleague before my colleague from Utah.
  The House just passed another resolution to fund the government, fund 
the military for the rest of the year, pretty much at a figure we have 
all agreed on. It includes funding for 1 week to keep other aspects of 
the government open, and it makes some very modest cuts to our budget. 
Most of these have been agreed to in advance. But there seems to be one 
sticking point. This bill would prohibit using taxpayer money to fund 
abortions in DC.
  My colleague who spoke a minute ago said this is an invasion of 
reproductive rights. I am here to tell colleagues that no one has a 
reproductive right to use somebody else's money for an abortion. That 
is all this is about. Not only taxpayers' money, but we are borrowing 
money to do something at a time when the country is nearly broke that 
Americans disagree on, and it violates the conscience of many 
Americans.
  But my colleagues on the other side have decided to make this the 
crucial issue. Either Republicans agree to use taxpayer money for 
abortions or they are going to shut down the government. And they say 
we are emphasizing social issues. This is not just a social issue. It 
is an American issue. Even people who support abortion support the idea 
that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for it. It is a small 
request. The cuts are small. But it is clear, as the Senator from Utah 
just said, this shutdown has been planned by the President and the 
Democratic majority for a long time, believing they can win the PR 
battle, thinking that Americans are too stupid to figure it out. I am 
confident, as we go into this, that Americans are much smarter than my 
Democratic colleagues. I think they are going to figure out how 
irresponsible the President has been, how much lack of leadership there 
has been in the Senate, trying to blame Speaker Boehner in the House 
who controls one-half of one branch of government for a shutdown, when 
last year, when the President controlled the whole government, we 
didn't pass a budget. We didn't fund any aspect of government. This 
landed in the lap of a new Congress which still includes a Democratic 
majority here in the Senate.
  There has not been one bill from the Senate that the Democrats agree 
on. The President has not sent down one funding request we could vote 
for. We don't have a bill proposed by Senator Harry Reid today that we 
can vote for to keep the government open. Yet he is saying what the 
Republicans on the House side are sending over is not good enough.
  The House just passed another bill. Fifteen Democrats voted for it. 
If we had 15 Democrats in the Senate who were reasonable, we wouldn't 
have to deal with this ridiculous, irresponsible government shutdown. I 
don't know what else Republicans in the House could do. They sent over, 
over 40 days ago, a bill that would have funded the government through 
the rest of the year with very nominal cuts. It was set up to fail in 
the Senate. We have yet to have hardly any debate on the issue. During 
all this time we have spent less than 3 hours of debate on the most 
important issue in the country. We spent the last couple of weeks on a 
small business bill. I bet no American could tell us what we are even 
talking about. Before that we spent a couple of weeks on a patent 
bill--anything we could do to avoid the responsibility of debating the 
most pressing issue in this country.
  I also have to take issue with what the Democrats are trying to do 
with the tea party. I remind them that many tea party members are 
Democrats. They are Independents. They are Republicans. Many of them 
have never been involved with politics before. Many are Hispanic and 
African American. They are all Americans. But they are concerned about 
our country. They seem to be able to do something we can't do here. 
They add and subtract. They understand we can't keep spending more than 
we are bringing in and expect the country to survive. We even brought 
up a resolution--the Senator from Utah did--to have a sense of the 
Senate that we should balance our budget. Just about every Democrat 
voted against that. That means there is an intent to bankrupt our 
country. Because there is no way around it; if we keep spending more 
than we bring in, we will bankrupt the country.
  That is the course this President has put us on. That is the course 
Senator Reid and the Democratic majority want to keep us on. When we 
try to do even modest, nominal reductions in spending to change the 
trend line, they are coached, as Senator Schumer has said, to call it 
extreme and to blame it on the tea party. Americans are smarter than 
that. I think my colleagues are getting ready to figure that out.
  We come down to the bottom line the Senator from Utah mentioned. Why 
are they doing this? They look back to 1997, back in the 1990s, and 
they think they can win the PR battle. Even more importantly, the 
President needs a distraction. The focus on the President now is 
revealing a lack of leadership in domestic policy and foreign policy. 
He has led us into a mess in Libya. He has led us into a domestic mess 
and has us on a course to bankrupt the country. He is trying to take 
over health care. And all those unions and other people who were 
advocating for it are now asking for waivers. There have been over 
1,000 waivers, people who want to get out of this health care bill. The 
financial reregulation Dodd-Frank bill is threatening to hurt the 
economy even more. The President needs a distraction. This is a 
choreographed distraction to close the government down, to draw 
attention, to try to shift the blame from a President who has been AWOL 
from leadership and has very little political courage.
  That is what we need right now across America. That is what Americans 
are asking us to do, to keep fighting, be bold. This is not a matter of 
partisan politics as much as it is a matter of national survival. We 
have to make some hard decisions. We can't keep spending more than we 
are bringing in. We have to do what families do, tighten our belts, 
balance the checkbook.
  These are not radical ideas. All we have to respond to is what the 
House has passed today. Senate Democrats who control this place have 
not offered any solution. The President has not offered a solution. I 
suspect we will not even be allowed to vote on the one option we have, 
what the House sends over here. Yet they think Americans are so stupid 
that they can come to the floor and blame Republicans who have no 
control over the situation except to send us what they think is best 
from the House.
  That is what they are doing. They need to be applauded. Speaker 
Boehner has done everything he can to try to work with all parties here 
to responsibly keep the government going and at the same time to 
recognize we cannot keep this reckless spending the President has been 
doing the last couple of years. This is an urgent and serious matter 
that I am afraid is being played as a PR game by the other side.
  The misrepresentations I heard just before about the budget being 
proposed on the House side are very difficult to swallow. The truth is 
very rare in this body. I hope all Americans will take the time to look 
at what is really going on because this is all a blame game, and the 
Democrats are counting on Americans not to pay attention, to take their 
cues from the national media.
  We are going to do everything we can to keep the government open, to 
responsibly respond to what the voters

[[Page 5389]]

told us last November, and not to play the blame game with the other 
side. But this is being played as a game instead of a matter of serious 
national survival, a serious national issue. But the bill we will 
hopefully have a chance at least to debate that the House just passed 
will take our No. 1 responsibility, to defend our country, fund our 
troops, and make sure that is done for the balance of the year. We can 
argue about the rest next week, but let's fund our troops this week and 
do what we were sent here to do.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to add the 
following Senators as cosponsors to S. 724: Senator Manchin, Senator 
Udall of Colorado, and Senator Rockefeller.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Madam President, that brings to 43 the number of 
bipartisan Senators, including the Presiding Officer, who are 
supporting the bill that will assure that our military personnel are 
paid even if there is a government shutdown.
  We all realize the stress that a military person and a family are 
under if that military person, especially, is deployed overseas. We 
have troops in Afghanistan. I was talking to my staff a minute ago, and 
he heard from one of his friends in Afghanistan, on his ninth 
deployment, who had heard about our bill and he thanked us for 
realizing there might be a delay in the military pay and for trying to 
address it if, in fact, the government is shut down. His ninth 
deployment, and he is worried about whether he is going to be paid on 
time so his family, with a 1-year-old child, will be able to make sure 
and pay the mortgage on the first of the month. Oh, my gosh, what are 
we thinking here?
  I think there are certainly legitimate disagreements about the 
spending and the budget. I am one who believes we should be cutting the 
spending. I think the ways to get there are certainly legitimate areas 
of disagreement. There should be one matter on which we do not disagree 
and that we would unanimously pass in this Senate; that is, in the 
event the government does shut down because the sides are still apart 
when the deadline comes Friday night, that our military get their 
paychecks, and those who are serving our military overseas or wherever 
with food service and the things that are done by civilian employees 
serving the military, that they, too, would show up for work and they 
would be paid.
  We cannot have somebody thinking: Oh, golly, now, I wonder if I am 
supposed to show up to serve the military meals in Afghanistan or in 
the base in Iraq or the police station where our troops are embedded. 
Are we going to ask those questions? I hope not. I hope that if there 
is one thing this Congress and this President can agree on, it is that 
there should be no question that the mother at home with the 1-year-old 
child whose husband is on his ninth deployment in Afghanistan will not 
worry that she will have that, hopefully, direct deposit so she can pay 
her mortgage on time.
  S. 724 is very simple and very clear: that our military will be 
required to come to work, which will be no doubt for them, and they 
will be paid on time. The same goes for anybody serving the military 
where it is essential for the service of the military. We have almost 
100,000 people in Afghanistan today. We have 47,000 in Iraq. There are 
a lot of people who are serving under great stress and doing a great 
job under very trying circumstances. I hope this Senate, if, in fact, 
the government shuts down, can speak very clearly.
  I don't think we can wait until 11 o'clock Friday night to make that 
determination. The processing of the bills and the direct deposits and 
all that is right now because the paychecks are imminent. It is about 1 
week until the paychecks come, but we have a process and we need to 
ensure the process is going forward.
  We know the House, as we speak, is debating the 1-week continuing 
resolution. It does have the funding for the Department of Defense 
until the end of the fiscal year. The President has said he will veto 
that because of the riders in the bill, which means we could be facing 
a government shutdown. I don't want the government to shut down because 
I don't think we even know the real consequences to the thousands of 
people who are affected, to the veterans who get benefits and live 
benefit to benefit or the military personnel, of course, and those in 
the Department of Defense.
  Many of us are trying to make the decisions as to who is essential in 
our offices. It is very hard to do the constituent services when we are 
involved in a government shutdown. I can't tell my colleagues the 
number of emergencies I get: people who have loved ones overseas who 
can't get visas, can't get back, who lost passports. We have so many 
calls where people need services. So we have to select what are the 
essential services. These are all things people are not aware of that 
will happen when there is a shutdown of government.
  So I hope we can come to an agreement. If, in fact, we have an 
agreement--and some people are saying we do for the top-line spending; 
I haven't heard it yet, so I don't know if that is the case--but if the 
leaders have made a decision that there is now an agreement on that, I 
hope we will be able to act and not have a government shutdown.
  I also hope we will be able to pass a long-term continuing 
resolution. It is high time people know what they can contract for, 
what government services are going to be ongoing and at what price, at 
what funding level. Nobody would run a small business this way. Nobody 
would run a corporation this way: Well, we can't agree, so we will just 
have a week-to-week continuing resolution in a business. Nobody would 
do that.
  I think we have to be focused on the big picture. We have 6 more 
months in this fiscal year, until October 1. We need to make sure we 
get this out of the way so we can focus on what is truly going to make 
a difference in terms of whether we can get this deficit down and get 
the debt off the plates of our children in the future, and those will 
be the reforms that will be tied to the debt ceiling. If we don't have 
reforms, that is when we should draw the line in the sand and say we 
are not going to have the debt ceiling lifted without the reforms in 
place that will allow us to not hit that $14 trillion number in the 
future. I hope we will have a 10-year plan that would start lowering 
the deficit every year over 10 years so eventually we would have it 
down to a reasonable amount as compared to our gross domestic product. 
That would provide the credibility to the rest of the world that we are 
going to meet our obligations, that we will not default, and that we 
would be taking hold of our financial situation in this country. That 
would be the prudent thing to do. I hope we will all be able to work 
together to do it.
  As of now, I think the important thing for this Senate to do is to 
pass S. 724 that now has 43 cosponsors. It is a bipartisan bill that 
says the military should not have to worry about a government shutdown. 
That should be the last thing on their minds. They should be protecting 
themselves from harm in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families should 
be able to do the best they can to support their families while their 
loved ones are overseas. I hope there will be a time going forward when 
we can pass this bill in short order--not at 11 o'clock Friday night 
but in the next day or so--if, in fact, we are not able to see our way 
to passing the 1-week continuing resolution that would prepare us, 
hopefully, for the long-term continuing resolution to get this fiscal 
year out of the way and let us focus on next year's budget, which 
starts October 1, and the long-term reform that is going to be 
necessary to start cutting our deficit significantly.

[[Page 5390]]

  Thank you. I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I understand our Democratic leader is 
meeting with the Republican Speaker of the House and the White House 
and working to try to establish the funding level we will have for the 
rest of this fiscal year that ends September 30.
  Let me explain, briefly, how we got here. Our Democratic majority in 
the Senate failed to pass a spending level last year--failed to pass a 
single appropriations bill last year and, at the start of the fiscal 
year, voted a continuing resolution for 5 months. In the course of all 
that, there was a national election and the most driving force in that 
election was the American people's deep concern about reckless 
Washington spending and surging debt that they know is endangering the 
American economy, can reduce growth, cause a debt crisis and put us on 
an unsustainable path and burden our children and grandchildren with 
massive debt, the likes of which we have not seen before.
  The continuing resolution that passed at the start of the fiscal year 
carried us 5 months of the 12-month fiscal year. I suppose, after the 
shellacking the big spenders took last fall--the biggest shellacking in 
80 years--huge numbers of individuals got elected to the House and a 
large number to the Senate who are committed to containing spending--
there should have been no doubt that when we came to decide how much 
spending we would have the last 7 months of the fiscal year, that there 
would be proposals to reduce spending. The House responsibly came 
forward with H.R. 1, which calls for a reduction of spending by $61 
billion over the last 7 months of the fiscal year, and it was sent to 
the Senate. The Senate has done nothing. We have a vote on the bill. 
Actually, more votes were obtained in the Democratic-controlled Senate 
for the Republican House bill than votes achieved for the Senate 
Democratic bill. Ten Democratic Senators were uneasy with the bill the 
Senate majority produced because it only reduced spending by $4.6 
billion. Have they forgotten what happened in November? Have they 
forgotten that projections continue to grow throughout the year, and 
instead of a $1.3 trillion expected deficit this year, the numbers have 
grown to $1.4 trillion in debt added to our country this fiscal year 
ending September 30?
  Did not the American people expect us to do something? One would have 
thought this $61 billion reduction is somehow the end of the world. We 
have been fighting ever since.
  We have had a series of short-term continuing resolutions so the 
government does not shut down. Why should the government shut down? 
Because under our Constitution, if the Congress does not fund a 
government entity, the entity does not have a right to exist. It can't 
go out and operate as a government entity if it has not been funded by 
the Congress. So we have a serious problem. I hope our colleagues reach 
an agreement. I hope Senator Reid and Speaker Boehner can reach an 
agreement, but I am uneasy about it. Frankly, I am not happy about some 
of the things that have been occurring.
  Let me read for my colleagues what Senator Reid, our Democratic 
leader, has been saying. You know we want to have a compromise, they 
say. Why don't you guys all get together and be nice to one another? 
Well, we should, and we do, even though we sometimes are pretty 
aggressive in our debates. But it is a bit much when Senator Reid says 
the tea party is trying to push through its extreme agenda--issues that 
have absolutely nothing to do with funding the government.
  He goes on to say:

       They have made a decision to shut down the government 
     because they want to make it harder, for example, for a woman 
     to get a cancer screening.

  I have asked myself: What in the world could he be talking about 
there? My staff thinks the only thing he could be referring to is the 
proposal to reduce funding for Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion 
provider in America.
  He goes on to say:

       Do they really want to shut the government down because the 
     tea party doesn't want scientists to make sure the air we 
     breathe is clean and pure?

  Give me a break.
  He goes on to say:

       This is a time we don't have to fight over the tea party's 
     extreme social agenda.

  They had a tape of my good friend, Senator Schumer, and he had to 
back down from it, but everyone agreed to use the word ``extreme.'' So 
they called everybody ``extreme.'' They had a press conference and it 
got picked up. One of our fine Democratic colleagues was talking about 
the extreme Republicans, and then he said the extreme Republicans, ``my 
good friends.'' Good for him. Give me a break. There are other 
statements like that. The Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, 
said:

       The GOP Ryan budget is a path to poverty for America's 
     seniors and children and a road to riches for big oil.

  One of the Congressmen said that the Ryan budget ``puts yet another 
brick in the wall between the haves and the have nots.''
  Senator Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, of which I am the 
ranking member, called that budget ``unsustainable and unreasonable.''
  Well, we have a problem in America. The debt in this country is 
dangerous. We are coming out of the recession, and we need to continue 
growth. We need to continue job creation. It is not as good as a lot of 
people say, but it is improving. It has been slower than most 
recessions for us to recover. But Alan Greenspan, Erskine Bowles, Bill 
Gross at PIMCO bond company, the largest in the world, who has stopped 
buying U.S. Treasury bonds and sold all his U.S. Treasury bonds, and 
Moody's have all warned us that we could be facing a crisis in short 
order. We need to make some changes.
  Also, all of this is being conducted under an atmosphere that is 
affected by the budget for fiscal year 2012.
  Chairman Ryan and his fabulous Budget Committee in the House have 
produced a very good budget. It is a courageous and long-term budget 
which deals with the unsustainable course of Social Security and 
Medicare and Medicaid. He proposes solutions that save those programs 
and protect our seniors. They put us on the right trajectory. That is 
what has been hammered as some extreme document.
  What has the Senate produced? Nothing. The Senate hasn't produced 
anything, nada. This is most troubling. But what has the other party, 
who is required to submit a budget--the Budget Act requires the Senate 
to produce a budget, and it requires the House to produce a budget, and 
it requires the President to submit a budget. The President, a week 
late, submitted a budget.
  Mr. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson tell us we are facing the most 
predictable economic crisis in our Nation's history as a result of the 
debt we are running up. We cannot continue this. It is unsustainable. 
Mr. Bernanke says we are on an unsustainable course.
  What did the President do? What kind of budget did he propose? His 
budget increases spending every year. It increases discretionary 
spending every year. It increases taxes by $1.7 trillion. It doubles 
the debt in 5 years and triples it in 10 years. It is unsustainable. It 
is, in light of the circumstances we face today, unacceptable. He 
provides no suggestion whatsoever to save Social Security, which is 
moving into an unsustainable course, nothing whatsoever to fix or 
strengthen Medicare or Medicaid, all of which every expert in the 
country agrees are on dangerous paths that cannot be sustained. It is 
stunning.
  Interest on our debt last year was $200 billion. We borrow the money 
we don't have. Interest last year was $200 billion. This year, we are 
going to spend $3.6 trillion and we are going to take in $2.2 trillion. 
Forty cents out of every dollar we spend is borrowed. This is the third 
straight year with a $1 trillion-plus deficit. These last 3 years, we

[[Page 5391]]

are averaging $1.4 trillion in deficits per year. The highest we ever 
had before that was $450 billion.
  The lowest budget deficit, projected by the President's own budget 
office, scored by the CBO, in 10 years would be $740 billion. Worse, it 
is going up in the outyears. In the tenth year, under President Obama's 
budget, the deficit would be $1.2 trillion. And the reason the numbers 
dropped was always there--based on the projection that our economy will 
continue to rebound, nothing that the President has done. His spending 
levels increased under the budget.
  Therefore, I believe and I honestly think that the President's 
budget, in light of the warning and the danger this debt is posing to 
America, is the most irresponsible budget ever presented by a President 
of the United States. It is stunningly damaging. It is unacceptable. It 
accelerates the unsustainable path we are on. As Congressman Ryan, 
chairman of the House Budget Committee, said, it makes it worse than 
the unsustainable baseline numbers we are operating under now. It makes 
it worse.
  The Republican House has produced a good budget, the President has 
produced a budget that is unacceptable, and our Democratic colleagues 
in the Senate have produced nothing. They just want to complain. They 
want to make these kinds of attacks: punishing working families; 
another brick in the wall between the haves and the have-nots; denying 
women the right to have breast exams and cancer screening; extreme 
social agenda--extreme, extreme, extreme. Be sure to use that word, 
``extreme.'' I don't believe the American people are going to buy this 
or that they are going to be taken in by the big spenders. They weren't 
last fall when 64 new House Members were elected who are committed to 
restrained spending, and I don't believe they will in the future.
  Some think that Republicans will get blamed for shutting down the 
government if they don't have an agreement. Let's talk about that.
  As a matter of compromise, the House has sent over another bill, H.R. 
1363, that would extend funding for another week and allow the 
negotiations to continue for another week, and that will reduce 
spending by an additional $12 billion. That bill also funds the Defense 
Department through the end of this fiscal year so that they are not 
hung out there with CR after CR, and so that the Defense Department, 
the people who defend our country can have confidence in the funding 
level for the rest of the year. H.R. 1363 is here in the Senate. The 
House passed that legislation so the Senate can pass a permanent fix 
for the rest of the fiscal year or it can do 1 more week and we can 
continue to talk. It is hard for me to imagine how the Republican 
House, which has sent two good pieces of legislation over here, ought 
to be blamed when the Senate has passed nothing. They brought up 
nothing.
  It is a bit odd to me also that the President said, ``I am going to 
veto it.'' I saw a commentator this morning say that the President 
wants to act like a good daddy and try to get the Senate and the House 
together and put his arm around them and be the person who brings them 
all together. Maybe that would be good if it would happen. It looks as 
if he has taken that hat off and is threatening to veto even a 1-week 
extension of spending that funds the Defense Department.
  Why? One experienced Senator told me: I will tell you why. Senator 
Reid may not have the votes. He may not want to vote on the 1-week CR. 
A lot of his Members are getting tired of this. They know we have to 
reduce spending and we need to fund the Defense Department. If it came 
up on the floor, maybe a lot of Democratic Senators would vote for it 
and it would pass. Maybe they can work out some of these agreements if 
we have another week.
  I am just saying that some people think all of this sound and fury is 
politics. I guess there is some politics in it; that is hard to deny. 
But this is not the normal political squabble between Republicans and 
Democrats. We really do face a debt crisis. We really have a 
responsibility.
  President Obama's own debt commission pleaded with us to do something 
about the systemic threat we face from our surging debt that could 
knock down the growth and progress we are just beginning to feel a 
little bit here. It could kick us back. Alan Greenspan, former Chairman 
of the Federal Reserve, and as Erskine Bowles, a chairman of President 
Obama's debt commission and President Clinton's former chief of staff, 
have said that nothing could be more devastating to the country than if 
we had a debt crisis. They are warning us to do something now, not just 
a short-term spending level for the rest of this fiscal year but the 
budget for the next year. They tell us we have to deal with the 
entitlements, the long-term danger they present, as well as the short-
term spending levels. I believe Congress knows that.
  Some say the American people don't believe in cuts; they talk about 
cuts, but they don't believe in them. I don't think so. I believe Mr. 
Christie is hanging in there in New Jersey, and Governor Cuomo in New 
York is proposing serious reductions in spending. His popularity is 
strong. In Alabama, my State, Dr. Bentley, our new Governor, just 
announced that the discretionary spending levels would be cut by 15 
percent the rest of this fiscal year. Nothing we are proposing is close 
to those kinds of spending reductions they are talking about in 
Alabama. We are going to have to do some spending reductions. It is 
going to be meaningful, significant, and it will be difficult to deal 
with. We should do it carefully.
  If we bring down this level of spending, it will have a 
transformative impact. For example, if you take the $61 billion and you 
did what the House said--reduce the spending level $61 billion--that 
reduces the baseline of Federal spending by $61 billion, and over 10 
years we will save $860 billion. That is real money just from reducing 
baseline spending by $61 billion. We have to think in terms of 10-, 20-
, 30-year budgets because, as it gets in the outyears, the dangers are 
even worse.
  I believe we can do this, and I believe the American people are ready 
to face up to these challenges.
  I salute my colleagues in the House for presenting a budget that is 
honest. If you want to know what kind of challenges we face, look at 
that House budget because it deals with them. The budget the President 
submitted is filled with gimmicks. When the CBO analyzed the 
President's budget, it found over $1 trillion in gimmicks. CBO found 
that his debt projections were off by over $1 trillion because of 
gimmicks.
  I think Congressman Ryan's budget is honest. Not only that, it deals 
with the long-term threats to our economy and our finances. It is 
something we ought to consider. If my colleagues have different ways to 
achieve some of the things he achieves in his plan, let's hear them, 
let's talk about them. Let's make sure seniors are not going to get 
hammered and unfairly treated in any way. We can do that. We ought to 
have an open and fair debate.
  The only people who have stepped up and have shown leadership so far 
have been the members of the House Budget Committee. The President's 
budget is irresponsible, and the Senate has done nothing. It is time 
for us to get together, get our act together, finish the funding for 
this fiscal year, reduce spending every dollar we can, and do a budget 
for next year that puts us on a path to a sound economy where growth 
can occur and jobs will be created.
  I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Klobuchar). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, earlier today the House of 
Representatives passed H.R. 1363, a 1 week continuing resolution that 
will pay our troops and keep the government running.
  It is a pretty sad commentary on the willingness of the White House--
and my colleagues on the other side of the

[[Page 5392]]

aisle--to get serious about spending, that we have even arrived at this 
point.
  We need to be clear about a few things in this debate.
  First, we are here because Democrats did not do their job last year. 
Among the most basic responsibilities of Congress--in fact its core 
constitutional responsibility--is to take up and pass a budget and fund 
the core functions of the government for the year.
  Last year, Democrats had the majority in the House of 
Representatives. They had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. 
And, of course, they had the White House.
  But they were so tied up with pressing matters like passing a $2.6 
trillion health care bill that the American people did not want, that 
they never got around to passing a budget.
  And then in the fall, as the bottom fell out of public support for 
the Democrats, they were too interested in salvaging their majorities 
and trying to spin ObamaCare that they never funded the government.
  So that is why we are here.
  We are debating a spending bill for fiscal year 2011.
  It is April of 2011.
  Fiscal year 2011 started in October of last year.
  It is very simple.
  Democrats did not do their job, and so they left it to the new 
Republican majority in the House to fund the government for fiscal year 
2011.
  The Republican-led House got to work. They passed H.R. 1.
  Now I know that it is in the Democratic talking points to call this 
bill extreme, but what exactly did it do?
  When you strip away the ideology and the rhetoric about this so-
called dangerous and extreme bill, what exactly did it do?
  Here's what it did.
  It reduced non-defense discretionary spending by $61 billion. That is 
a big number, but let's put this in perspective. This year we are 
scheduled to spend $207 billion just on interest on the debt.
  This year we have a projected budget deficit of $1,600 billion.
  And this year, the Federal Government is on pace to spend $3,800 
billion.
  So H.R. 1 was proposing $61 billion in reduced spending by a Federal 
Government on pace to spend $3,800 billion.
  You all have heard the old joke.
  When someone is asked if they got a haircut, they respond I got them 
all cut.
  In this case what the Republicans are proposing is like going to the 
barber and getting just one of the hairs on your head trimmed.
  The Democrats call this bill draconian.
  But as one person put it, the spending reductions in this bill are 
equivalent to ordering a Big Mac, a large Coke, and a large fry, and 
then eating the whole Big Mac, drinking the whole Coke, eating 98 of 
the 100 fries in the bag, taking a bite of the 99th fry, and then 
leaving the rest. That is hardly a crash diet.
  But to hear Democrats talk, Americans would starve if H.R. 1 passed. 
That is not an exaggeration. Former Speaker Pelosi suggested as much 
just yesterday.
  To hear Democrats talk, this is Armageddon. To hear them talk, this 
$61 billion in spending reductions is so onerous, America will never be 
the same.
  Americans aren't buying it. The people of Utah, and people around the 
country, understand that if the Senate were to accept the full $61 
billion in spending reductions, life would not only go on, no one would 
notice any difference at all.
  Let's look at this a different way. Nondefense discretionary 
appropriations have been hiked up by 24 percent in the last 2 years, 
and 84 percent if you count the stimulus bill. But to hear Democrats 
talk, even beginning to roll back this explosion in government spending 
is akin to shredding the Declaration of Independence. Give me a break. 
The bottom line is that the cuts in H.R. 1 are more than reasonable. 
People who are remotely serious about reducing the size of government 
should accept them in full.
  But the White House, and their Capitol Hill allies, do not seem to 
have gotten the message that Americans want to roll back spending. 
Instead, they are playing politics. They have calculated that if the 
government shuts down--if Senate Democrats refuse to pass and the White 
House refuses to sign a bill to reduce spending--the Republicans will 
be left holding the bag. They think that history will repeat itself, 
and just as in 1995, the public will blame Republicans for a government 
shutdown.
  Even the New York Times might not be able to carry that much water 
for the President and his Democratic allies.
  The American people get this, and they are saying enough is enough. 
If the White House and its Capitol Hill allies think they can force a 
government shutdown and blame Republicans, they must have zero respect 
for their constituents. The last week of negotiations has proven yet 
again that big spending is in the Democrats' DNA.
  They are congenitally incapable of reducing government spending, so 
much so that they are even willing to shut down the government.
  In the words of John Blutarsky, ``when the going gets tough, the 
tough get going.''
  But when the going got tough on these negotiations, the Democrats 
were missing in action.
  The President jetted off to a couple of fundraisers. And his Capitol 
Hill allies turned to the rankest of political smears.
  The incoming chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, who 
until about 5 minutes ago was scolding Republicans for their lack of 
civility, hit the ground running and claimed that the budget proposed 
by House Republicans for next year is a death trap for seniors and a 
tornado through nursing homes. So much for an adult conversation.
  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee was quick to 
fundraise off of these spending fights,.
  In an e-mail to their dare-I-say extreme base, they claimed that 
Republican negotiators are engaged in blackmail and blamed tea party 
citizens for the shutdown, rather than the Democratic leadership that 
refuses to pass the fiscal year 2011 spending bill and move on.
  I will tell you what. They might have an easy time raising money by 
smearing conservative Republicans and blaming them for this mess. But 
this is fool's gold, because they are going to have a heck of a time 
explaining to our men and women in uniform why it is that they refused 
to pass a bill that would make sure they are paid.
  Because the Democrats in this chamber will not accept the modest 
spending reductions in H.R. 1, the House took up H.R. 1363 today. This 
is a continuing resolution that will fund the government for a week, 
prevent a shutdown, and fund the Department of Defense through the end 
of the year, making sure that our servicemen and women receive their 
paychecks and that our national security is not compromised.
  The ball is in the court of this body's leadership.
  The President has now made it clear that he is willing to shut down 
the government rather than pass this CR.
  They have issued a Statement of Administration Policy suggesting that 
they will veto this continuing resolution if passed.
  If the President wants to go off this cliff, I can not stop him.
  But I would encourage my Democratic colleagues here that they do not 
need to follow him off that cliff.
  Now, their leadership is saying that it will oppose H.R. 1363 because 
it eliminates taxpayer funding of abortions in the District of 
Columbia.
  In the end, I cannot believe that they would shut down the entire 
Federal Government in order to appease the most radical pro-abortion 
members of their left-wing base.
  We will see what happens.
  Maybe the Senate will do the prudent thing and pass H.R. 1363.
  But I am not holding my breath.
  The $61 billion in spending reductions passed by the House months ago 
is equivalent to 1.6 percent of total projected federal spending. 
Americans tighten their belts much more than this every day, but 
Democrats are acting like these cuts are the end of the world.

[[Page 5393]]

  I would say that the leadership on display from the White House on 
this issue is pathetic, if there was any on display at all.
  Because the White House has showed zero leadership on the issue of 
spending and government bloat, because it has refused to make the 
decisions that would force the Federal Government to live within its 
means, we are in this unacceptable situation of a potential government 
shutdown. Our Nation is broke. We have to stop spending money we do not 
have.
  But on this most critical of issues the President has been missing in 
action.
  His advisers seem to be treating this exercise like it is a no-stakes 
Harvard Law seminar in multiparty dispute resolution.
  But the stakes could not be higher.
  This situation calls for leadership, but we are getting nothing from 
the White House.
  It is time for real leadership that keeps the government running 
while cutting spending.
  I urge the Senate to adopt H.R. 1.
  In the alternative, we should adopt the House-passed short-term CR.
  There is no need for a government shutdown.
  Democrats who think that clever strategists and professional 
politicos can spin the American people into thinking this is the 
Republicans' fault, even though it was the Democrats who walked away 
from the from the table, should remember last year's experience with 
ObamaCare.
  Reluctant Democrats in the House and Senate were told by the same 
strategists and professional spinners that ObamaCare could be messaged 
in a way so that it would benefit them.
  Today there are many former House and Senate Members who wish they 
had not bought that snake oil.
  If the government shuts down, no amount of spinning is going to 
convince Americans that this was the fault of anyone other than the 
President and Democratic congressional leadership who have refused to 
make any meaningful reductions in Federal spending.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida is recognized.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, have you ever noticed when 
someone points their finger and says ``it is all your fault, it is all 
your fault,'' did you notice that there are three fingers pointing back 
at them?
  Here we have the blame game going on. What we have is politics at its 
worst. In trying to govern a country that is large and diverse and 
complicated, as our country is, you have to have people of good will 
who will come together to build consensus, who will respect each 
other's opinion, who will respect each other, and realize that their 
opinion may not be the only opinion.
  That is what we have that is leading us to this point. We have folks 
who are saying, it is going to be my way or no way. And because of the 
vote structures, 60 votes required here in order to pass anything out 
of 100 Senators, we are coming to the precipice, and we are about to 
fall off.
  It is not supposed to work this way. You can have people who sharply 
disagree about a particular issue, but when it is time to build a 
consensus and get it done, you have got to have that capability of 
coming together. Some people use the word ``compromise.'' But 
compromise has a dirty connotation. It should not. It is the glue of 
solution making. And that is what this world's most deliberative body 
for over two centuries has done so well, is come together to build 
consensus to govern the country. Notice something else. You do not 
govern from the political extremes. If the political extreme says, it 
is my way or the highway, you cannot build that consensus in the 
middle. Thus, that is the situation we have gotten into. A radical, in 
this case--we have had it on the left end of the political spectrum in 
the past, but that is not what this is. This is a radical rightwing 
agenda that is saying, from the House of Representatives, it is going 
to be their way or no way or they are going to shut down the 
government.
  That is a sad state of affairs. That is saying we cannot come 
together and agree and reach a solution. So what is going to be the 
consequence? Well, do you realize when the government is shut down and 
people are out of work, this does not just affect Federal employees? 
What about those employees in the private sector whose business depends 
on being frequented by Federal employees? For example, someone whose 
business suddenly goes down, are they going to be able to pay their 
rent?
  What about the poor person who is suddenly not going to have a 
paycheck and they are not going to be able to pay their mortgage? Do 
you think their bank is going to work with them in order for them not 
to be in default?
  Wait. Let's back up. Look at the experience of my State, Florida. How 
many banks have worked with people who have been unemployed who have 
not been able to pay their mortgage, and the banks are not working with 
them?
  So if we go out of the government being functioning, and all of the 
activities of government, what about the airlines? Certain essential 
employees will have to operate the air control towers and TSA for 
security. But do you think the people who are not going to be able to 
work in the Federal Government in the hemisphere of aviation, do you 
not think that is going to ripple through the economy in this example 
of the airlines?
  What happens if there is that lapse of safety and this time an 
airliner does not land safely as we have had where people have fallen 
asleep in the tower?
  Let's talk about our military. At the end of the day the other side 
is saying, oh, is it not awful that those of us on this side are not 
going to pay the military? We are going to vote over and over to pay 
our military. Our leadership is going to make consent requests over and 
over to pay our military if we are going to be shut down.
  What about our intelligence apparatus, the very apparatus that in far 
distant lands gets a snippet of information that is passed through the 
governmental centers that allows us to avert the terrorists from ever 
doing the attack in the first place? Is that going to be affected? Oh, 
essential personnel will be there. But what about some of those 
extended personnel we rely on for our intelligence apparatus?
  Ladies and gentlemen, we are not only playing with fire, we are 
playing with superheated fire. What about Gabby Gifford's husband, the 
commander of the next space shuttle mission? They are supposed to 
launch April 29. Are all of those workers at the Kennedy Space Center 
who are preparing the next to the last space shuttle flight going to 
continue that preparation? Are they going to lay off the astronaut crew 
because they are not essential as they are training in split-second, 
very precise training?
  Is CAPT Mark Kelly, United States Navy, going to be able to command 
that mission to take the final components up to low-earth orbit to 
connect those final components of the International Space Station? What 
kind of effect is that going to have and be felt throughout the NASA 
centers all over the country?
  What about the Securities and Exchange Commission? What about the 
banking regulators? What about the Internal Revenue Service going after 
the people who are trying to defraud us? Do you know that we have 
prisoners in the State prison system in Florida--more than any other 
State--who have been putting in fake income tax returns and getting 
refunds? We have finally got the IRS working with the State prison 
system, and they are going to shut that off in the next week. Are we 
going to be able to stop that fraud upon the taxpayer? What about the 
fellow who just received a $250,000 IRS refund check, and he has not 
even filed his income tax return, because somebody has stolen his 
identity and put in a fake return, and fortunately the check got to 
him, not to the shyster. Are we going to have those IRS personnel to 
continue to go after that? You can go on and on.
  What about our court system? What about the administration of 
justice? This is what we are facing.
  Rigid ideology, in some cases placed on top of excessive 
partisanship, is now

[[Page 5394]]

bringing us almost to our knees. If we shut down at midnight tomorrow 
night, and if we go through the weekend, guess what is going to happen 
to the Asian financial markets come Sunday afternoon, Sunday evening 
here, when it is Monday morning there, and those Asian markets open up. 
Oh, and by the way, have not the people of Japan suffered enough? The 
20 or so ships we have over there trying to assist the people of Japan, 
are they going to have to go on furlough too?
  This is the time, as the Good Book says, for people to come. Let us 
reason together. This is the time for people of good will--and there 
are plenty of those people who are Members of the Senate--on this side 
of the Capitol and on the other side of the Capitol to come together. 
Come, let us reason together.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). The majority leader is 
recognized.

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