[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5604-5610]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS

  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I rise again today to urge my colleagues 
on both sides of the aisle and on both sides of the Capitol to move 
beyond the unnecessary and distracting partisan bickering and come 
together to fund our government through the remainder of the current 
fiscal year, including our military, our early-childhood programs, and 
our essential health services for our seniors and children.
  Six months into the 2011 fiscal year and less than 12 hours before a 
government shutdown would close off many of the important services to 
millions of Americans, Congress has yet to fulfill its most basic 
responsibility and pass a budget.
  I know the people of North Carolina or any State did not send us to 
Washington to point fingers or blame other people for the challenges 
our country faces. They sent us here to work with our colleagues on 
commonsense solutions. During my time as budget cochair in the North 
Carolina State Senate, I learned two things: First, it is never easy to 
craft a budget, there are always tough choices to make; and second, our 
fiscal challenges can only be met if Republicans and Democrats have 
that commitment to work together.
  Despite the impression the American people may have based on what 
they have seen in recent weeks, I know we can work this out. We have to 
work together because after we come to an agreement on this year's 
budget, we must buckle down and chart out a comprehensive bipartisan 
path to rein in our nearly $14 trillion national debt.
  I believe we all share the common goal of reducing this year's 
deficit, but the national debt will not disappear with one bill or in 1 
year alone. It will take a comprehensive and long-term approach that 
moves beyond a singular focus on domestic discretionary spending.
  That is why I remain concerned by some of the cuts passed by the 
House and especially by the dozens of divisive policy riders that are 
disrupting our ability to chart a pragmatic and responsible fiscal 
course for our country.
  It is why I remain concerned that we are holding up government 
funding with threats to take away vital health care to millions of 
American women who could not otherwise afford it. These health services 
include Pap tests, breast cancer screenings, birth control, and STD 
testing and treatment. These services, which are funded through title 
X, were signed into law by President Nixon and supported by George H.W. 
Bush. According to independent, nonpartisan studies, every $1 spent on 
these family planning services saves $4. Is that not what we are 
supposed to be working on--reducing the amount of our government 
spending?
  These proposals are the only things standing between a reasonable, 
bipartisan compromise and an irresponsible government shutdown. If such 
a shutdown does occur, we risk delivering a crippling blow now to our 
already fragile economic recovery.
  More than 1,000 American small business owners, who were already 
facing difficulties securing the borrowing they need to expand and add 
jobs, could see their SBA-backed loans delayed.
  We have 368 national parks in our country. Millions of dollars will 
be lost to the businesses surrounding those parks if we shut down the 
government. In April of 2010 alone, in North Carolina, more than 1.3 
million people visited the national parks and spent millions of 
dollars. These parks include the Great Smoky Mountains, the Blue Ridge 
Parkway, and Cape Hatteras National Seashore and others. Tourism in 
North Carolina is one of our State's largest industries. In 2010, 
tourists spent $17 billion across our State, and the tourism industry 
supports 185,000 jobs for North Carolinians. More than 40,000 
businesses in North Carolina provide direct services to travelers. If 
we close our national parks, these small businesses are at risk of 
losing customers, losing money, which will make it much more difficult 
for my State to recover from this tough economy.
  We risk putting even more pressure on our already shaky mortgage 
market by preventing thousands of homeowners from receiving a loan to 
buy a new house.
  As for North Carolina, I am particularly alarmed about the impact a 
government shutdown would have on our courageous military personnel and 
their families who have dedicated their lives to this country. Two 
weeks ago marines from North Carolina rescued with amazing speed and 
skill the American F-15 pilot who went down east of Benghazi in Libya. 
Last week, I spoke with Marine Corps Commandant General Amos on the 
amazing work of these North Carolina marines. He told me it took only 
90 minutes from start to finish to rescue the F-15 pilot.
  These warriors are heroes, as are the 120,000 active-duty troops in 
North Carolina and the approximately 400,000 American troops who are 
deployed overseas, including 90,000 troops in Afghanistan and 45,000 
troops in Iraq. These heroes and their families do not deserve to have 
partisan bickering jeopardize their financial stability.
  More than a third of the people in my State are either in the 
military, a veteran, or have an immediate family member who is in the 
military or a veteran. So if the government shuts down and we delay 
paychecks to our military personnel, it is not just our courageous 
service men and women whose lives are affected but those of their 
spouses and their children. I know nobody in this body wants to see 
that happen. Whether you represent a State with a large military 
population or not, we are all incredibly grateful for the sacrifices 
our military personnel and their families give this country every day.
  Earlier this week, I cosponsored the bipartisan Ensuring Pay for Our 
Military, sponsored by my Republican colleague from Texas, Senator 
Hutchison, which would prevent an interruption in the pay for members 
of the military if there is a government shutdown. This is an important 
bill--a must-do bill--but I sincerely hope it is an unnecessary bill.
  The American people want Members of Congress to work across party 
lines, avoid an irresponsible government shutdown, and move forward on 
a sound, comprehensive, and bipartisan plan to put our fiscal house in 
order. The American people don't care if it is a Republican plan or a 
Democratic plan, they just want it to be a good plan for our country. 
That is why this week I signed on to the biennial budgeting bill which 
is being led by my Republican colleague, Senator Isakson, and my 
Democratic colleague, Senator Shaheen. This bill, which will move the 
Federal budget from an every year to every two-year funding process, is 
a commonsense, bipartisan approach which will hopefully improve the 
partisan political bickering.
  I urge my colleagues to come together now and fund our service men 
and women, our VA doctors, our Head Start Programs, and our women's 
health care so we can move on to the Nation's No. 1 priority, which is 
tackling our unsustainable national debt.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes.

[[Page 5605]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, I rose yesterday to talk about the 
consequences of a budget shutdown, and I rise again today--hours away 
from facing that reality.
  What I cannot understand for the life of me is after having agreed to 
$78 billion in cuts, more than almost 80 percent of the way of where 
our Republican colleagues originally stated they wanted to be--the last 
time I checked on a negotiation, when someone comes 80 percent of the 
way to where you are, you have done rather well. Yet, even in the face 
of having made those very deep cuts--some of which will clearly affect 
major services delivered to individuals in this country, but coming 
together for the understanding of what is necessary to both get this 
budget year done and being able to begin to significantly reduce the 
deficit--it is still not enough. Why? Because of a driving force in the 
House of Representatives on the Republican side that insists on social 
issues that have nothing to do with the budget and keeping the Nation's 
business open and making sure this economy stays on track, and growing 
jobs, and putting families back to work.
  I will talk about that issue in a minute. But, again, I wish to 
revisit that this isn't about some museums closing on The Mall, even 
though that in and of itself has a tourism and dollar effect on our 
economy to all those places throughout the country that would be closed 
down. This is about businesses here in America.
  Today the New York Times gave examples of that. It talked about the 
manufacturing executive whose company supplies goods to Federal 
agencies; the bank loan officers who make mortgages guaranteed by the 
FHA, which is one of the single greatest block drivers of mortgages to 
be done for middle-class working families; the Wall Street analyst who 
depends on a steady flow of government data. The Federal Government is 
in and of itself a major driver of the economy and a ripple effect to 
businesses across the spectrum in our country, and pulls the plug on 
the other businesses in America that at the end of the day means jobs 
and at the end of the jobs means a consequence to this fragile economic 
recovery.
  That is why the Chamber of Commerce has come out against a shutdown. 
That is why the Business Roundtable has talked about it. These are 
voices of those entities that clearly speak with a one-vision business 
sense, and they say a shutdown does not make good business sense for 
America--all, however, risked for some social issues. When the 
government shut down in 1995, the last time Republicans shut down the 
U.S. Government--let's not forget that. I was there in the House of 
Representatives when that happened. The last time Republicans shut the 
government down for their ideological views, the Nation's economic 
growth was slowed by as much as 1 percent in that quarter--a full 
percent.
  In an economy that is in recovery--and a recovery, I would remind 
people, from where we were to where we are--I think there is a little 
history we need to remember. I remember in the Clinton years when 
Democrats balanced the budget for the first time in a generation and 
created record surpluses, lower unemployment, low interest rates, and 
the greatest peacetime economy in over a generation. We had surpluses. 
The CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, said, We are looking at a 10-
year outlook that is bright. We were actually years ahead for not only 
balancing the budget but from ending debt. And here we are. What 
happened in between? Tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country 
under President Bush, two wars unpaid for, a Medicare prescription drug 
benefit unpaid for, Wall Street allowed to run wild, and we went from a 
surplus with projections of $5.6 trillion in 2011 to the challenges we 
have today. So I know people want to forget the past, but the past is, 
in part, the reality of our present challenges.
  At a time in this fragile economic recovery, where we are ultimately 
meeting the challenges of global events that also affect us here at 
home--the unrest in the Middle East, the driving up of oil prices which 
drives up gasoline prices which drives up commodity prices which drives 
up food prices, and, therefore, has a consequence not only to every 
American at the pump but also at the supermarket and in their lives--it 
has a collective consequence to our economy. What is happening in Japan 
and whether they will be able to send supplies for some of the most 
critical elements of our economy in the technology field; the millions 
of Americans still looking for work, and we are going to give a 
domestic body blow, all because of social issues--all because of social 
issues, that doesn't make sense, and it is not necessary. We could have 
consequences to the markets, the Asian markets. If we close down this 
government, don't open, the Asian markets on Sunday will begin and that 
begins setting a trend throughout the globe. This has real consequence 
to our economy here at home.
  It is amazing to me that we have those who wear the uniform of the 
United States fighting halfway around the globe and they will continue 
to fight for their country, but they would not be paid. They will earn 
the pay and eventually they will get it, but while they are in the 
field they wouldn't get the pay. How about their families here at home 
who are already suffering not having them with them? All because we are 
driven by the Republican voices in the House of Representatives over a 
program called title X. What is title X? Title X is a law signed by 
President Nixon and ultimately had, as one of its strongest supporters 
when he was in the House of Representatives former President Bush, to 
provide lifesaving health care services for women.
  Some voices continue to falsely say this is about abortion. The 
Federal law is very clear: No Federal dollars can go for abortion 
services. No Federal dollars can go for abortion services. This is 
about an array of confidential preventive health services from 
pregnancy testing to screening for cervical and breast cancer, to 
screening for high blood pressure, anemia, diabetes, screening for 
STDs, including HIV, basic infertility services, health education. This 
is about the very essence of a woman's ability to get health care if 
she does not have the wherewithal on her own financial condition to be 
able to go to a doctor. There are many institutions--by the way, 
including Catholic and religious institutions--that receive title X 
money. I am sure no one would claim they are providing abortion 
services.
  Why, when we are looking at the very essence of whether it be my 
daughter or anyone else's daughter in America, or anybody's wife or 
mother, why is it we must have an ideologically driven issue in the 
midst of a budget debate? A budget debate is about numbers and it is 
about making sure services are continued, and it is about making sure 
the economy continues to prosper and it is about getting people back to 
work, but it certainly isn't about using an ideological view that this 
program which ultimately helps women have preventive health care 
services is somehow an abortion issue when the law clearly says it 
cannot be under any circumstances. Why would we deny women in this 
country the ability to have the health care they need so they can be 
healthy, so they can continue to prosper, so their families can 
continue to have that mother, that breadwinner, the person who holds 
that family together, be healthy? I cannot imagine for the life of me 
that we will shut the government down based on those issues. But that 
is, in fact, where we are.
  When I look at that and when I look at the other elements of what has 
recently been discussed as a prelude--this is just the opening salvo of 
a debate that will continue on. Hopefully, we will have a vote. I am 
ready to vote to keep this government open. I am ready to vote to make 
sure those who wear the uniform of the United States are paid when they 
are committing the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their country. But, 
more importantly, I wish to be able to vote to have $78 billion worth 
of cuts and, at the same time, make sure this economy continues to

[[Page 5606]]

move forward, continues to grow, continues to put people back to work.
  I hope cooler minds can prevail in the House and that the ideological 
views can be told it is not for a budget debate; have that debate some 
other time--have those votes, if you want, another time. That is fine. 
But do not hold the Nation hostage to that issue. But I see that as 
only the beginning of what is a broader plan, and that broader plan is 
another reason why we need to get this budget done so we can move to 
that other plan in the next fiscal year.
  I commend to my colleagues, as we look at that plan, the column 
written today by Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize recipient, entitled 
``Ludicrous and Cruel.'' Basically, he talks about the Ryan plan that 
privatizes Medicare, that has large tax cuts for the wealthiest people 
in the country, that ultimately doesn't do either one of the things 
that they suggest, in this column, which I commend to my colleagues. He 
says:

       In past, Mr. Ryan has talked a good game about taking care 
     of those in need, like Medicare and seniors and Medicaid for 
     children, but as the Center on Budget and Policy priorities 
     points out, of the $4 trillion in spending cuts he proposes 
     over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting programs 
     that mainly serve low-income Americans.

  Then he goes on to say that it is a continuation of the voodoo 
economics of the tax cuts for the wealthiest people in the country that 
supposedly are going to create prosperity, and we saw that simply 
wasn't the case. What it did do is a big part of unraveling the 
surpluses that Democrats helped to create and drive an enormous amount 
of the debt that we are realizing and debating today.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that that column be printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 7, 2011]

                          Ludicrous and Cruel

                           (By Paul Krugman)

       Many commentators swooned earlier this week after House 
     Republicans, led by the Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan, 
     unveiled their budget proposals. They lavished praise on Mr. 
     Ryan, asserting that his plan set a new standard of fiscal 
     seriousness.
       Well, they should have waited until people who know how to 
     read budget numbers had a chance to study the proposal. For 
     the G.O.P. plan turns out not to be serious at all. Instead, 
     it's simultaneously ridiculous and heartless.
       How ridiculous is it? Let me count the ways--or rather a 
     few of the ways, because there are more howlers in the plan 
     than I can cover in one column.
       First, Republicans have once again gone all in for voodoo 
     economics--the claim, refuted by experience, that tax cuts 
     pay for themselves.
       Specifically, the Ryan proposal trumpets the results of an 
     economic projection from the Heritage Foundation, which 
     claims that the plan's tax cuts would set off a gigantic 
     boom. Indeed, the foundation initially predicted that the 
     G.O.P. plan would bring the unemployment rate down to 2.8 
     percent--a number we haven't achieved since the Korean War. 
     After widespread jeering, the unemployment projection 
     vanished from the Heritage Foundation's Web site, but voodoo 
     still permeates the rest of the analysis.
       In particular, the original voodoo proposition--the claim 
     that lower taxes mean higher revenue--is still very much 
     there. The Heritage Foundation projection has large tax cuts 
     actually increasing revenue by almost $600 billion over the 
     next 10 years.
       A more sober assessment from the nonpartisan Congressional 
     Budget Office tells a different story. It finds that a large 
     part of the supposed savings from spending cuts would go, not 
     to reduce the deficit, but to pay for tax cuts. In fact, the 
     budget office finds that over the next decade the plan would 
     lead to bigger deficits and more debt than current law.
       And about those spending cuts: leave health care on one 
     side for a moment and focus on the rest of the proposal. It 
     turns out that Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are assuming 
     drastic cuts in nonhealth spending without explaining how 
     that is supposed to happen.
       How drastic? According to the budget office, which analyzed 
     the plan using assumptions dictated by House Republicans, the 
     proposal calls for spending on items other than Social 
     Security, Medicare and Medicaid--but including defense--to 
     fall from 12 percent of G.D.P. last year to 6 percent of 
     G.D.P. in 2022, and just 3.5 percent of G.D.P. in the long 
     run.
       That last number is less than we currently spend on defense 
     alone; it's not much bigger than federal spending when Calvin 
     Coolidge was president, and the United States, among other 
     things, had only a tiny military establishment. How could 
     such a drastic shrinking of government take place without 
     crippling essential public functions? The plan doesn't say.
       And then there's the much-ballyhooed proposal to abolish 
     Medicare and replace it with vouchers that can be used to buy 
     private health insurance.
       The point here is that privatizing Medicare does nothing, 
     in itself, to limit health-care costs. In fact, it almost 
     surely raises them by adding a layer of middlemen. Yet the 
     House plan assumes that we can cut health-care spending as a 
     percentage of G.D.P. despite an aging population and rising 
     health care costs.
       The only way that can happen is if those vouchers are worth 
     much less than the cost of health insurance. In fact, the 
     Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2030 the value 
     of a voucher would cover only a third of the cost of a 
     private insurance policy equivalent to Medicare as we know 
     it. So the plan would deprive many and probably most seniors 
     of adequate health care.
       And that neither should nor will happen. Mr. Ryan and his 
     colleagues can write down whatever numbers they like, but 
     seniors vote. And when they find that their health-care 
     vouchers are grossly inadequate, they'll demand and get 
     bigger vouchers--wiping out the plan's supposed savings.
       In short, this plan isn't remotely serious; on the 
     contrary, it's ludicrous.
       And it's also cruel.
       In the past, Mr. Ryan has talked a good game about taking 
     care of those in need. But as the Center on Budget and Policy 
     Priorities points out, of the $4 trillion in spending cuts he 
     proposes over the next decade, two-thirds involve cutting 
     programs that mainly serve low-income Americans. And by 
     repealing last year's health reform, without any replacement, 
     the plan would also deprive an estimated 34 million 
     nonelderly Americans of health insurance.
       So the pundits who praised this proposal when it was 
     released were punked. The G.O.P. budget plan isn't a good-
     faith effort to put America's fiscal house in order; it's 
     voodoo economics, with an extra dose of fantasy, and a large 
     helping of mean-spiritedness.

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, this is a time to make sure there is a 
vote on this Senate floor on a budget that ends the fiscal year, that 
encapsulates the $78 billion in cuts, that strips out social riders 
that have nothing to do with the budget, that preserves a woman's 
preventive health care services and moves the country forward in terms 
of its economic advancement, creating jobs and making sure we don't get 
thrust back into a recession.
  That is what this debate is about. That is what the vote should be 
about today. I and other members of the Democratic Caucus stand ready 
to do that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I can only imagine that the American 
people who are watching this drama unfold in Washington, DC, are 
scratching their heads and are confused, and are wondering why it is 
that Congress can't perform one of its most basic functions, which is 
to make sure that the government continues to operate.
  I am reminded of an adage from the days I practiced law, and then 
presided as a judge in the courtroom: If you can't convince them, 
confuse them.
  Whether it is inadvertently or intentionally or by mistake, I think 
there is a lot of confusion being encouraged and propagated on the 
floor. The fact of the matter is, there are three things we are talking 
about. One is the continuing resolution that the House of 
Representatives passed and sent over here some time ago, which would 
fund the Federal Government through the end of the fiscal year. That is 
one thing.
  There is a second thing, which is a bill sent over yesterday that 
would fund the government for 1 more week and the Department of Defense 
for the remainder of the fiscal year, which the majority leader has the 
power to bring to the floor today and have us vote on this afternoon or 
tonight. But the President of the United States has sent out a veto 
message saying he would veto it.
  Then, the third thing that is being discussed--and it may be the most 
confusing of all--is when Speaker Boehner says it is all about the 
money, and Majority Leader Reid says, no, it is about the policy 
riders--well, I submit that it is about the money. It is not about 
objections to policy, which 49 of our

[[Page 5607]]

Democratic friends have voted for in the past, which has been signed 
into law by President Clinton and signed into law by President Obama 
himself.
  The real casualties of this dysfunction here, and the inability of 
Congress to get its work done, unfortunately, fall on men and women in 
uniform. In my State, a large Army installation, as the Presiding 
Officer knows, is located in Killeen, TX, at Fort Hood. On November 5, 
2009, a tragedy hit Fort Hood when Major Hassan killed 13 people in 
what could only be described as a domestic act of terrorism. Shortly 
after that, a number of our military who were deployed to Iraq and 
Afghanistan are now in the process of returning. The three corps 
soldiers are finally returning from Iraq and individuals such as SPC 
Kevin Gallagher of Tiger Squadron Calvary Regiment, who is a Purple 
Heart recipient, is just coming back from Iraq. Soldiers of the 20th 
Engineer Battalion and the 36th Engineer Brigade are returning to Fort 
Hood from Afghanistan.
  I wonder what they are thinking now, along with their families, when, 
as a result of the Federal Government dealing with its most basic 
responsibilities, they are not going to get paid--starting tomorrow--
unless the majority leader takes up the temporary bill that was passed 
yesterday in the House and sent over here and we vote on it today to 
make sure our troops and their families continue to get funded, and get 
the pay they so richly have earned and deserve.
  We have heard, as I said, a lot of talk about riders. The only thing 
that is contained in this bill that could be called a policy rider, 
about which there appears to be confusion, is one that 49 Senate 
Democrats have voted on in the past--a spending bill with regard to 
abortion funding in the District of Columbia. President Obama has 
signed it into law, President Clinton signed that into law, and 49 
Senate Democrats voted for it in the past. Yet this becomes somehow the 
obstacle to paying our troops what they have earned.
  The argument sounds as if we will not fund our troops like we can't 
fund abortions in the District of Columbia. I think it is a terrible 
shame and I think it galvanizes public opinion about everyone in 
Washington.
  I think the President and his advisers are wrong if they think a 
government shutdown will help Democrats and help him get reelected and 
hurt Republicans. I think people are saying: a pox on all your houses. 
You need to work together to solve problems, to cut spending, to cut 
the deficit, deal with the unsustainable debt, and you need to get on 
with it now.
  The fact of the matter is, we continue to spend 40 cents out of every 
dollar in Washington as borrowed money. We know that the debt held by 
the public--and this is under the President's own budget proposal--
would double in 5 years, and it would triple in 10 years, because the 
President himself, who is obligated under the Budget Act to send over 
his requested budget, does nothing to deal with the debt crisis that is 
threatening our Nation, threatening our prosperity and our freedom.
  As China continues to loan us money, we are subject to the tender 
mercies of a country that I submit we do not want to be subject to the 
tender mercies of. We need to deal with this.
  Unfortunately, the President and some of my friends across the aisle 
have been very critical of the proposed budget of Paul Ryan in the 
House. At least he tries to deal with the reality of the hand we have 
been dealt, or which some of us have created. The President himself 
ignores his own fiscal commission report that came out in December of 
2010.
  On this chart, here is what the wall of debt looks like, unless we 
deal with this problem. According to the President's own budget, it 
gets worse and worse. In 1997, it was roughly $5 trillion. Now we are 
looking at about a $14 trillion debt. If we don't do anything about it, 
if we continue business as usual in Washington and don't cut spending 
and deal with the structural and systemic problems facing us and our 
debt crisis, it will continue to get worse and worse.
  This is another sobering chart. This shows when we borrow the money, 
we have to pay interest to the people who buy that debt. This chart 
shows that the interest paid by 2021--the last year of the President's 
proposed budget--that the amount of money paid in interest, at assumed 
rates, which are now very low, is $931 billion, which is more than 
transportation, more than defense, and more than Medicare.
  We have been told by the experts that if interest rates were to go 
up--if, for example, we incur a period of inflation, this number could 
explode into multiples of this figure, putting us into a death spiral--
economically speaking--and we could end up like Greece or Portugal. The 
only problem is that there is nobody out there to bail out the United 
States of America. The only one that can stop this is us.
  Secretary Geithner said the debt limit ceiling has to be raised 
sometime in the period between middle May and July. That is the big 
event. What we are talking about now is a preliminary skirmish, albeit 
very important. I will tell you, I do not intend to vote to increase 
the credit card limit of the Federal Government, unless we can get 
systemic reform that will deal with this very real problem.
  One of those ways to do that would be to pass a balanced budget 
amendment. All 47 Senators on our side have now agreed to a 
constitutional amendment provision that would require a balanced 
budget. We hope our friends across the aisle will join us in passing 
it. The last time this was considered, we came within one vote--in 
1997--of passing a balanced budget amendment. The deficit was $107 
billion. Now it is $1.5 trillion. The debt was around $5 trillion and 
now it is $14 trillion. So if it was compelling enough that it came 
that close to passage in 1997, how much more compelling now is the 
evidence that we need to pass a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution?
  In closing, I hope cooler heads will prevail tonight, that those who 
seek political advantage via the game of ``gotcha''--a world class 
sport in Washington, DC--will forbear and allow us to get on with the 
big fights, which are dealing with this unsustainable debt, these huge 
deficits, and not threaten the paycheck of the men and women who wear 
the uniform of the United States, who are fighting three wars around 
the world, and whose families are calling my office.
  Mr. President, I guess they are calling your office and that of the 
Senator from Michigan and New York also, saying: What are you doing, 
and why can't you get this taken care of so that we don't have to add 
this to our list of burdens while our loved ones are away fighting 
America's wars.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan is recognized.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first, I ask unanimous consent that at 4 
p.m. the majority leader be recognized.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I agree with my colleague and friend 
from Texas about the fact that people are scratching their heads. 
People in Michigan are wondering what in the world is going on right 
now. We are still trying to recover from a recession and we have a long 
way to go for most Americans--even though the unemployment rate has 
come down substantially in Michigan. At one point, we were at 15.7 
percent, and that is just what you count, in terms of unemployment. Now 
it is 10.7 percent and going down. Still, it is way too high. Families 
are under water, their houses are under water, and they are trying to 
recover in terms of their incomes and hold it together and look for new 
work or job training. And what about the kids in college and all that 
comes with that? Some in the middle class may be struggling to stay in 
the middle class, or just get into the middle class.
  Small businesses are wondering what the heck is going on around here 
when they are trying to, hopefully--folks who held on through the 
recession and trying to come back, trying to invest, keep the doors 
open, hire more people--they are wondering what in the world is going 
on here.
  We are in a situation where these negotiations have now just become 
so political and the discussion so unrelated

[[Page 5608]]

to what the budget is about and, most importantly, to what people care 
about. The political piece of this now, about pulling in issues around 
women's health care, is distracting us from getting a 6-month budget 
done, which is distracting us from what we ought to be talking about, 
which is jobs and the economy and putting people back to work and 
supporting small businesses to get the capital they need to grow. We 
are in a situation now where the whole process has been politicized to 
the point where it is extremely disappointing to me and extremely 
concerning.
  What the bottom line ends up being is that middle-class families, 
veterans concerned about their disability claims, or seniors concerned 
about their Social Security or Medicare claims, or small businesses 
that are putting together loan applications or somebody trying to close 
on their house with FHA is being held hostage to politics that have 
nothing to do with the budget.
  This latest distraction over breast cancer screenings and cervical 
cancer screenings for women and girls is just another in a long list of 
distractions from the budget crisis and, most importantly, from the 
focus that we need to have on creating jobs.
  We have all agreed that Washington, just like every family, has to 
change the way it does business, has to focus on cutting the items that 
are not important, to focus on what is important. Every dollar that is 
being paid, every taxpayer giving a dollar has found it is a lot harder 
to earn that dollar than to give that dollar. We better be taking care 
of that dollar, stretching it as far as possible and focusing it on the 
things that are most important because those dollars are hard to come 
by these days. That is the reality.
  We have come together. It has been a long time in coming, but we have 
come together. We have agreed on significant spending cuts, changes, 
while keeping a focus on education, innovation, and growth of the 
future. Now, at the eleventh hour, all of a sudden what was agreed to 
in terms of significant spending cuts to allow us to bring the budget 
together and focus on deficit reduction, somehow that is gone and we 
are now talking about whether women's health care will be funded in 
this country, whether women are going to be able to receive blood 
pressure checks, cancer screenings, and other preventive care efforts.
  Is that really what this is about? Are we really going to hold 
middle-class families, small businesses, and veterans hostage over 
blood pressure checks for women and cancer screenings for women? 
Really? Is that what this is about? Stunning. This is absolutely 
stunning.
  In the great State of Michigan, women's health clinics that at this 
point are proposed for elimination provided 55,000 cancer screenings 
last year, and there were 3,800 abnormal results. Women who found out 
those results early were able to detect their cancers early and get the 
treatment they needed to save their lives. It could be your mom, your 
grandmother, your daughter, your friend, your neighbor, somebody at 
church.
  Is this really about telling women in communities across Michigan--in 
Marquette, Muskegon, Burton, Owosso, Three Rivers--that they cannot get 
their breast cancer screenings; telling women in Flint, Grand Rapids, 
Ypsilanti, and Sturgis that they cannot get their cervical cancer 
screenings; telling women in Warren, Brighton, Big Rapids, and Battle 
Creek that they cannot get their blood pressure checked or their 
cholesterol tested? Are Republicans really planning to shut down the 
government and hold middle-class families and veterans hostage in order 
to stop breast cancer screenings and cholesterol checks? Unbelievable. 
I think it is shameful.
  It is time to come together and get this budget done. As I understand 
it, there was an agreement last night on the level of spending cuts. We 
need to get this done and move on to the real focus and debate we need 
to be having about how we grow the economy and compete in a global 
economy.
  There could be a lesson learned from what people in my State have 
gone through and done in the last couple of years. We did not give up 
on the American automobile industry. With the support and help of our 
President and Members here, despite some incredibly tough times and 
difficulties in terms of cutting back that had to take place, we did 
not give up. Workers sacrificed cutting starting pay in half; retirees, 
the companies, the shareholders, communities, everybody got together 
and said: We know there is a big problem, and we are going to get this 
fixed, and we are going to sacrifice together.
  Then we did an important thing with the support of people here, and I 
am very grateful for it. We said: We are going to invest like crazy in 
innovation. Because we did that, that combination of resetting the 
budget and the finances for the auto industry and then investing in 
innovation with the great help of our wonderful engineers and skilled 
labor force and a whole lot of smart people who came together with 
battery investments and retooling loans and are bringing jobs back from 
Mexico now and investments in new advanced manufacturing, we are not 
only growing and for the first time since 1999 the American companies 
are making a profit, but we are winning the awards. We are winning all 
the awards for top quality, the great vehicles of the future.
  I suggest that would be a good model for us: Come together on what we 
need to do, push the reset button, come together and get our arms 
around spending, balance the budget, tackle the deficit, and then 
invest like crazy in the future, in innovation and education and 
rebuilding America.
  Where we are today is extremely concerning to me because instead of 
talking about how we compete in a global economy, instead of talking 
about the United States vs. China, which is what we should be talking 
about, or Germany, India, or Korea, we are at a place where we are 
talking about whether the Federal budget and middle-class families will 
be held hostage in order to stop cancer screenings and research for 
women in this country.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Reed). The Senator's time has expired.
  Ms. STABENOW. I urge we come together.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I rise to speak on the budget issues we 
are facing, the continuing resolution--all the issues that have been 
talked about over the last week or so. Oftentimes when I speak on the 
Senate floor, I talk about what it is like back home in Nebraska. I do 
so because I am enormously proud of my State. It just seems our State 
does so many things right. Again today I am going to take a moment or 
two to get started and talk a little bit about that and my experience 
in dealing with budget issues.
  I had the great honor at one point to serve a couple terms as mayor 
of a great city, the community of Lincoln, NE. It was a strong mayoral 
form of government. Each year I would have the responsibility of 
preparing a budget and submitting it to a seven-person city council 
that would take it apart and put it back together. I would work with 
them to get a budget done.
  It never occurred to me that as mayor of that city I had the ability 
not to do a budget. I cannot imagine walking into a state of the city 
address and saying to the good people of Lincoln that after giving it 
some thought, I decided that it was going to be a situation where I 
would not be submitting a budget for consideration of the city council. 
It just never occurred to me.
  I look at that community today led by a mayor who is very capable. It 
happens to be of the other political party than I am. That community 
has the lowest unemployment rate of any community in the United States. 
Why? Because people take a pretty conservative view of things. In fact, 
in preparing that budget, we would literally go item by item, police 
cars, police salaries, fire engines, whatever, and literally list them 
item by item and then the amount. At some point there would be a line 
drawn through the page where we had spent all of the money we had, all 
of the money available that year was spent. Everything below that line

[[Page 5609]]

was not funded. If I went below that line or a council member did and 
said: We want more done here, we want to fund that item, then we had to 
go above the line and find the money in another program or we had to 
raise taxes. Those were the choices we had.
  After that, I had the great honor of serving the State of Nebraska as 
its Governor for two terms. Actually, the budget process did not differ 
that much. Each year as Governor I would submit at the start of the 
year a budget to our Nebraska unicameral. I would deliver a state of 
the State address where I would talk about priorities or budget issues, 
whatever I chose to talk about as Governor.
  There were three things I could guarantee the citizens each year: No. 
1, that a budget would be submitted and it would be approved; No. 2, we 
would not borrow any money--any money--to balance that budget because 
our constitution essentially prohibits elected officials at the State 
level from borrowing money; and No. 3 was that the budget would, in 
fact, be balanced.
  We did not have the option of going out to the bond market and 
issuing debt to mask the lack of discipline to get the spending under 
control. We, again, had just a few choices: Choice No. 1 was we could 
cut spending; choice No. 2 was we could raise taxes; and choice No. 3 
was we could do some of both. I always favored the cut spending piece 
because if revenues were down, it told me that people were earning less 
and they were spending less, and because of that, less money was coming 
into the State treasury. Why should I as Governor go out and beat them 
up some more by raising their taxes?
  I, as you know, spent a 3-year period of time as Secretary of 
Agriculture. I was given a budget by the Congress, and it never 
occurred to me I should spend more than what was allocated to me. I 
would always tell my subcabinet and my cabinet, when I was Governor: 
Look, this isn't magic, it is math. If the math doesn't work, then we 
have to come to grips with this.
  With all due respect to my colleagues who have come to the floor 
throughout the day and have talked about what this process is or isn't, 
and whether funding is going to be done for this program or what rider 
is there, all I want to say is this: What we are finally focused on in 
this great Nation is what we should have been focused on decades ago; 
that is, we are spending more than is coming in. Every dollar overspent 
is put on a credit card, and it doesn't go away. It won't be canceled 
at my death.
  I have been going across our State with charts and graphs to try to 
illustrate this point. I turned 60 this year. When I was a 20-year-old 
man, our government owed $380 billion. Now, I am sure at that point in 
time many argued that was way too much debt. The projections now are--
under President Obama's plan--by the end of this decade, on my 65th 
birthday, we will owe $20 trillion. So in the span of one lifetime--one 
lifetime--we have gone from $380 billion to $20 trillion.
  Mr. President, that has consequences. Now, maybe that doesn't have 
consequences for a man who is 60 years old--maybe it does; I believe it 
does--but beyond the shadow of a doubt, no matter which side you want 
to be on, it has consequences for our children and grandchildren.
  So you see, it isn't about an individual rider, an individual 
program. It is about the fact that we are spending this great Nation 
into an absolutely hopeless abyss. If we don't come to grips with that, 
if we don't come to grips with this, this won't turn out, and it won't 
turn out for anybody.
  When I came here 2 years ago, I was stuck. Every conversation was, 
how do we spend more? I thought there would be a stimulus package when 
I was elected to the Senate. I thought maybe it would even be a package 
that I would support. Then somebody said it had to be a $500 billion 
package, all borrowed money, and I started getting real squeamish about 
that. Then somebody outbid them and said: No, I think it has to be a 
$750 billion package. Then I really got squeamish, and I knew I 
couldn't support that. Then someone raised the ante, and by the time 
this was all done, with interest, we borrowed from China and other 
places $1 trillion. And I thought, my goodness, will we take a breather 
at some point? But there was no breather. There was a health care bill 
with more gimmicks and scoring than you can possibly imagine.
  So here we are today, fighting over whether this continuing 
resolution should be $30 billion in cuts or $60 billion in cuts. Quite 
honestly, in the grand scheme of what our Nation is facing, that is 
pitiful. It is almost tragic. If we don't come to grips with this soon, 
the big picture, this absolutely is going to destroy any future that 
our kids and grandkids might have hoped for in the United States of 
America.
  But hope springs eternal. I look at the glass as half full all the 
time. I think we are going to get through this. I think we will deal 
with the issues before us--maybe in ways some like, some dislike--but 
if we don't come together somehow, some way, and deal with what the 
real issue is--that we are spending a great nation into the Stone Age--
we are going to be a lesser nation than any of us could have ever 
imagined, and that affects every priority. That affects Medicaid, 
Social Security, education, national defense, homeland security--you 
name your priority, it affects it all.
  So today I count myself as one who wants to come down to the floor at 
some point before the day is out and vote to solve this problem, but 
then I want to do all I can to work with my colleagues to deal with 
what is really facing us, which is debt that is out of control, 
spending that is out of control, with a situation where no budget was 
submitted and not a single appropriations bill. That is where we find 
ourselves today, trying to patch this together because we didn't come 
to grips with the budget process last year. Mr. President, that doesn't 
seem right to me.
  With that, Mr. President, I conclude my remarks, and I yield the 
floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I rise today to ask a simple question: 
What are we doing here? What are we doing jeopardizing our economic 
recovery to score political points?
  I happen to agree with my friend and colleague from Nebraska. I am 
optimistic also in that we have agreed on a $78 billion reduction in 
the 2011 budget. The glass isn't half full, it is more than three-
quarters full. They are grandstanding over the Federal budget when we 
should be focusing on making sure American families can make their 
monthly budgets and get back to work.
  I am here to downplay the need to cut the Federal deficit. I agree 
with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle--we need to make real 
cuts now. We have already committed to the deepest cuts in 
discretionary spending since World War II. Given that we are already 
halfway through the fiscal year, these cuts are a good downpayment on 
even more progress in our fiscal 2012 budget and beyond.
  As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I am already putting 
forth concrete recommendations for more cuts in future budget years, 
such as eliminating the ``orphan earmarks,'' saving upwards of $1 
billion; cutting subsidies for millionaire farmers, saving, again, 
billions of dollars; cutting tax loopholes, saving tens of billions of 
dollars.
  Shutting down the government is not going to get us any closer to the 
real goal of reducing the deficit. We didn't save a single dime during 
the last shutdown. In fact, it cost the American taxpayers $1.4 
billion.
  The economic costs will be even more. Dozens of military construction 
projects are stalled right now, putting at risk hundreds of jobs this 
summer and needed improvements to Alaska's military bases. I have 
talked to these contractors, these individuals who are waiting for us 
to get our work done to provide the certainty they need to get their 
work done. There is over $\1/4\ billion pending and waiting for the 
work to be done.
  Military families are also caught in the middle. The military will 
get paid, but the uncertainty of when they will get paid, because they 
will be waiting

[[Page 5610]]

on us to pass a bill, is unfair. We should push harder to work out a 
compromise for them.
  At the same time, civilian construction projects and the jobs created 
by them for docks, housing, and facilities are also at risk. Critical 
contracts to move forward on the land transfers to the State of Alaska 
and Alaska Native Corporations will not get done in time for the summer 
work.
  Alaska businesses looking to start new operations won't be able to 
get the SBA loans, families won't get the FHA or the USDA home loans, 
and the tax refunds for people who have sent in their taxes by mail 
won't be processed.
  Also, key permits to onshore oil and gas development, which have been 
painfully slow to move forward, will be stalled even further.
  When I was home during this past week, I heard from some of the more 
than 17,000 Federal workers in Alaska about their concerns. It might be 
easy for some to criticize public employees, but in Alaska these 
workers are members of our communities. They contribute to our economy, 
pay taxes, and they provide critical services all across my State. Many 
are getting by paycheck to paycheck. A shutdown could mean their rent 
doesn't get paid, their mortgages are put at risk, and their bank 
accounts won't balance. We cannot and should not play politics with 
their jobs just because we are not doing our job.
  Americans--Alaskans--are frustrated. They are wondering what the heck 
we are doing here, and I agree with them. It has only been 3 months 
since the new Congress convened. Not much to report back home to 
Alaskans who work every day making progress in our State.
  It is past time to get back to work, to roll up our sleeves, finish 
this budget, and put the 2012 budget on the table and focus on the 
economy and creating jobs. Our economy is starting to turn the corner. 
Frankly, the many steps Congress took over the last 2 years to rebuild 
this economy are working. Unemployment dipped to 8.8 percent, 216,000 
jobs were created last month--the largest increase since last May--and 
TARP, which we all had mixed feelings about, is not only being paid 
back. It is returning a profit to the Federal Government.
  Let's not put a wrench in our economic recovery. These are good data 
points, but we are far from getting the job done. The economy is still 
fragile. Rising gas prices make it harder. We need to show voters and 
the folks back home we can work together on deficit reduction but also 
tackle energy legislation, tax reform, small business support, and 
education investment.
  I know it will not be easy to get all this done, but this is what 
folks in my State sent me here to do--to get the work done, balance the 
budget, reduce spending, and continue to invest in growing our economy. 
I always tell Alaskans when I get back home that all the easy issues 
are done. Only the hard ones are left. That is why we are here.
  Mr. President, it is time for us to get back to work.

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