[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5729-5731]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       DAUNTING FISCAL CHALLENGES

  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, I rise to speak about the daunting 
fiscal challenges our country faces and the urgent need for 
comprehensive bipartisan action to address our crushing debt burden. I 
have long believed we need to get serious about the deficit. Since I 
came to the Senate, I have worked to reform the way Congress conducts 
our own business, reducing the budget of Congress, fighting for 
appropriations project reform, and working to restore our pay-as-you-go 
rules and the budget process to ensure we are only funding new programs 
if outdated or duplicative programs are cut.
  I was one of a handful who fought for the creation of the fiscal 
commission, and I have supported efforts by both Republicans and 
Democrats to responsibly reduce the deficit. We wouldn't have even had 
the commission that worked all this past year and came up with a report 
that many people thought would just collect dust on the shelf, but that 
hasn't been the case. That is because a number of Senators last year 
said: We are not going to take this anymore. The country can't take 
this anymore. We will stand up and make sure the deficit commission 
gets started. We are going to make sure we get strong people on the 
commission,

[[Page 5730]]

which was achieved, and that they produce something that is meaningful.
  Right now as we speak, a number of our colleagues, a small group of 
six, are working on the results from that commission report, and we are 
hopeful they will come together in a bipartisan agreement.
  Last year, I supported the efforts of my colleagues, Senators 
Sessions and McCaskill, to enact discretionary spending caps. While 
this proposal could not by itself balance the budget, restraining 
discretionary spending growth is an important piece of the puzzle and 
will result in real budget savings.
  I voted with Senator Coburn to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in 
Federal spending by consolidating duplicative government programs and 
supported Senator Bennet's successful effort to rescind $180 billion in 
unused TARP funds to pay down the deficit. In the first 4 months of 
this year, I have supported $12 billion in cuts and have pushed for 
many more.
  These are all important steps. What our country needs now is for 
Congress to reach across the aisle and build consensus around a 
comprehensive, long-term deficit reduction package that will put us on 
track to prosperity.
  Ever since the economic downturn, families across the country have 
huddled around the kitchen table making tough choices about what they 
hold most dear and what they can learn to live without. They expect and 
deserve that their leaders do the same. The American people are 
counting on us to put politics aside, to pull together and not pull 
apart, to not go to the opposite corners of the boxing ring and simply 
throw darts at each other. They expect us to agree on a plan to live 
within our means and make America strong for the long haul.
  If we are going to succeed in this challenge, we will ultimately have 
to accept what we do not necessarily agree with in an effort to develop 
a plan that is both balanced and comprehensive. We already know much 
about what will need to be done. Our failure to act has not been 
because we lack solutions but because Congress has lacked the political 
will to get behind proposals that on their own sometimes are not always 
that popular. I support the work being done by my colleagues, Senators 
Warner, Chambliss, Durbin, Crapo, Coburn, and Conrad, and look forward 
to working with them to put forward a serious, comprehensive deficit 
proposal.
  Tomorrow, the President will be laying out his recommendations for a 
comprehensive deficit reduction package. Much of the recent debate over 
deficit reduction has been dominated by talk of how best to cut 
programs that millions of American seniors and the most vulnerable in 
our society rely on every day. While I believe entitlement reforms must 
be a part of a comprehensive solution, I believe there are also several 
other key steps we can take to address our deficit in a meaningful way.
  As you know, Madam President, we started down the road of entitlement 
reform with some of the efficiency measures we put in for Medicare. 
Those can be expanded. I know my State has always delivered high-
quality low-cost health care, and we need to do that in more of the 
country when it comes to Medicare.
  With Social Security, there are some excellent ideas to strengthen 
Social Security, to make it more solvent. I think we need to look at 
those, but we have to make very clear we will not be balancing this 
budget on the backs of seniors but that with any measures we take to 
reform Social Security, those savings will go directly into Social 
Security--not to be used to reduce the deficit--to make Social Security 
stronger in the long term.
  That is what we need to do. I think the rest of the world, when they 
look at these kinds of ideas and the measures we can take, will say: Do 
you know what. America is getting it back together. It is not stealing 
from other parts of the budget paying for Social Security. It is 
actually making Social Security stronger by finding a way to make it 
last longer and be there for our seniors today as well as seniors for 
the future.
  Now, I want to talk about a few of the steps I think we could take 
and I hope will be included in the President's suggestions and in the 
deficit commission report.
  First, we need to get serious about making our government work more 
efficiently by reducing programs that have become duplicative or 
outdated.
  Last month, the Government Accountability Office released a report 
that identified 82 different programs with similar descriptions in 10 
different agencies for roads and trains, 47 for training and 
employment, and 56 to help people understand finances. The 
recommendations laid out in this report could save hundreds of billions 
of dollars, not by making Draconian cuts, not by taking drastic 
measures, but simply by eliminating waste.
  There are plenty of other examples of savings we could find right 
here in Washington, with Congress and with our Federal agencies.
  To begin, we could eliminate billions of dollars in waste in Federal 
contracts. How? By ending the practice of giving bonuses to government 
contractors who overcharge and underperform. By requiring Federal 
agencies to set strong standards for awarding contract bonuses--
standards that reward contractors based on the quality of their work 
and their ability to meet deadlines--we could save $8 billion.
  We could cut back on unnecessary costs in the Federal Government's 
day-to-day spending, such as printing expenses. Civilian Federal 
employees spend an estimated $1.3 billion on office printing every 
year, and it is estimated that $440 million of that printing is 
``unnecessary.'' If we could cut that $440 million in waste alone on 
the unnecessary printing, we could save $4.4 billion over 10 years.
  Then there is the $4 billion we spend on Federal vehicles every year. 
If we could cut that budget by 20 percent, we could save $800 million a 
year and $8 billion over 10 years.
  Additionally, the Federal Government is the largest property owner in 
the country, with an inventory of more than 1.2 million buildings and 
structures--some of it unused. It does not make sense for taxpayers to 
continue paying for upkeep of these properties when we could sell them 
or repurpose them to make them more efficient. We could capture $15 
billion in savings on our deficit by selling properties that have been 
identified as excess and eliminating their upkeep costs. Obviously, I 
am not talking about all Federal properties, but these are properties 
that have been identified as excess.
  There are also a number of ways to cut waste from our health care 
spending. We should start by ending the giveaway to the pharmaceutical 
companies and allow for price negotiations with prescription drugs in 
Medicare Part D.
  Unfortunately, the ``noninterference'' clause in the Medicare Part D 
prescription drug benefit expressly prohibits Medicare from negotiating 
lower prices from pharmaceutical companies. This prohibition has 
imposed substantial and unnecessary costs on America's taxpayers and 
seniors who are paying excessive prices for prescription drugs. With 
Medicare barred from negotiating discounts, seniors face inflated 
prices for their medications, while the pharmaceutical industry gets a 
financial windfall.
  I am fighting to change that so our seniors can have access to their 
medicines at the lowest possible prices, and I have introduced a bill, 
along with Senators Begich and Blumenthal, that would allow for price 
negotiations. Allowing Medicare to directly negotiate these prices, as 
the Veterans' Administration does, could save us $240 billion over the 
next 10 years.
  We also need to take a more serious look at Medicare fraud. Law 
enforcement authorities estimate Medicare fraud costs taxpayers more 
than $60 billion every year. This means as much as 20 percent of total 
Medicare spending is lost to fraud each year.
  To help combat these types of fraud, I have introduced the IMPROVE 
Act--Improving Medicaid/Medicare Payment Policy for Reimbursement 
through Oversight and Efficiency--which would

[[Page 5731]]

help deter fraud by requiring direct depositing of all payments made to 
providers under Medicaid and Medicare. These criminals scheme the 
system to rob American taxpayers of money that should be used to 
provide health care to those who need it most. We must put a stop to 
it. Putting an end to waste, fraud, and abuse is a critical step to 
save taxpayer dollars as we look for ways to make our health care 
system more efficient. But we need to continue to look for other ways 
to make our government and the way Washington works more efficient as 
well.
  I mentioned efforts to reduce duplicative programs in our government, 
but we should also take a close look at the different agencies. For 
example, we could cut $75 billion from our defense spending by 
restructuring our budget and increasing efficiency. Whether it is 
holding civilian workforce levels where they were in fiscal year 2010, 
which would save $13 billion, or making targeted changes to Pentagon 
missions and priorities, which would save $11 billion, or even just 
doing away with unnecessary studies and internal reports, which would 
save $1 billion, these cuts all add up.
  Secretary Gates has proposed and supports these cuts, and I believe 
they are necessary as we look for ways to streamline our government and 
reduce our deficit. When Secretary Gates says he does not need a 
certain type of a plane because he has another plane, I think we should 
listen to that as we look at how we are going to save money in this 
government.
  In addition to cuts in spending and efforts to streamline our 
government, we also need to take a serious look at revenues and ways we 
can streamline our Tax Code to pay down our debt and ensure that the 
United States remains competitive in this global world.
  Despite the fact that Federal revenue is at the lowest level as a 
percentage of GDP since 1946, our efforts last year to let the tax 
rates for the wealthiest Americans return to what they were under 
President Clinton were blocked even though it would save $690 billion 
over the next decade. You have said it, Madam President, for people 
making over $1 million--ror those people who make over $1 million a 
year, if you have their taxes set at the levels during the Clinton 
era--at a time when we were very prosperous--you would save nearly $400 
billion in 10 years on the deficit. While not all my colleagues agree 
on how or even whether we should raise more revenue, every serious 
bipartisan proposal has made it a clear must.
  In the quarter century since the last comprehensive tax reform, the 
system has been riddled with expenditures that benefit special 
interests and hurt competitiveness. These expenditures add up quickly, 
costing us over $1 trillion a year. For example, despite oil and gas 
companies reporting record profits in recent years, they will receive 
an estimated $35 billion in tax breaks over the next decade. And there 
are many companies that attempt to evade our tax system altogether. 
Closing these loopholes could save tens of millions of dollars for 
American taxpayers. Expenditures such as these riddle the individual 
income Tax Code as well.
  One aspect that is worth looking at--and something near and dear to 
the heart of every American who owns a home--is the mortgage interest 
deduction. I have used it. Everyone I know who has bought a house has 
used it. Here is the deal. The deduction is expected to lower tax 
revenues by nearly $500 billion from 2010 to 2013. However, most of the 
benefits do not go to the middle class. So one idea--and this came out 
of the fiscal commission--is to make sure those benefits are firmly 
there for the middle class; that is, to set the credit at equal to 12 
percent of interest payments on up to $500,000 of mortgage debt on 
principal residences. So here is what this means. If you buy a house 
for $1 million, you still get the mortgage deduction, but it is up to 
$500,000 in the value of the home. If you get a house for $300,000 or 
for $400,000, it is not going to change the mortgage deduction at all. 
But what does it do for taxpayers? Well, phased in slowly to protect 
the housing market, this proposal would save $400 billion or more over 
the next decade.
  By taking steps such as these, we can lower tax rates, broaden the 
base, simplify the Tax Code, and at the same time bring down the 
deficit. This will benefit working families and make America more 
competitive in the global economy.
  These ideas are just a few of the ideas that I believe warrant a 
closer look and should be considered as we look to reduce our Nation's 
deficit. Together, they represent at least $1 trillion in savings that 
could be included as part of a bipartisan, long-term deficit reduction 
plan, in addition to a lot of the work we have already done this year 
for spending cuts. We can look at some additional ideas for next year, 
and there are many, many more. These are just simply some I hope the 
President includes in his proposal and that the deficit commission 
includes as well.
  Tomorrow we will hear from the President, and I hope we hear a plan 
that reflects the challenges we face as a nation, that builds on the 
work of the fiscal commission, and that brings both parties to the 
table for a grownup debate.
  The sooner we can agree on a long-term package of smart cuts, the 
better for our economy and the better for our country. I am hoping we 
can put partisan differences aside to work on an agenda that 
strengthens our economy, promotes fiscal responsibility, and increases 
global competitiveness because if we refuse to have an honest 
conversation about this, if we insist on just using the debate as a 
vehicle for angry rhetoric and an excuse for taking cheap political 
shots, we will not just be doing ourselves a disservice and this 
institution a disservice, we will be cheating our children and our 
grandchildren out of knowing the America in which we grew up.
  The deficit is not just going to fix itself. We all know that. We all 
know we cannot just close our eyes, click our heels, and--poof--the 
debt goes away. In their report, the National Commission on Fiscal 
Responsibility wrote that ``every modest sacrifice we refuse to make 
today only forces far greater sacrifices of hope and opportunity upon 
the next generation.'' And they are right. The longer we wait, the more 
wrenching the choices become, the more we set ourselves up for becoming 
another Greece or Ireland and having a potential meltdown in our 
financial system. But do you know who is really going to be making the 
painful choices if we do not do anything right now? That is right, it 
is our kids and our kids' kids. Is this really the legacy we want to 
leave them?
  This is our challenge, and it will be a hard challenge to meet. But I 
am confident we can come together to make these tough choices to do 
what is right for our economy and to renew the American promise of 
progress and opportunity for generations to come.
  Thank you. I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak until 
11--I think that is the agreed upon time--and that I be notified 5 
minutes before 11.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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