[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5743-5745]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          GOVERNMENT SPENDING

  Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, there is no one else in the Chamber now. 
They said they had other speakers lined up, and when they come in, I 
will be glad to yield the floor to them. In the meantime, let me make a 
couple of comments about the discussion today that everyone is 
addressing, Democrats and Republicans.
  I have been here for a number of years. I have seen different 
administrations come through. I think this is the first time the 
American people have finally awoken to the fact that we have finally 
gotten to a point where we can't continue to do what we have been 
doing.
  When President Obama came into office, he came out with his first 
budget and then his second budget and then his third budget. If we add 
up these budgets, what he has done successfully, since he had total 
control of the House and the Senate, is passed these budgets. He has 
added more to our national

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debt in 2 years than every President throughout--in the history of this 
country, every President from George Washington to George W. Bush.
  I can remember coming to this floor and I was outraged back in 1995 
when then-President Clinton came up with a budget, and that budget was 
a $1.5 trillion budget. This budget President Obama has come out with 
is not just $1 trillion, not $1.5 trillion, it is $3.5 trillion, and 
the deficit alone for this 1 year is greater than the budget was for 
the entire year of fiscal year 1996. It can't happen. We can't continue 
to do that.
  Consequently--and I criticized some of my Republican friends when a 
lot of them voted for the $700 billion bailout back in October of 2008. 
Of course, none of the Republicans voted for the $800 billion stimulus 
package. Right now, we are quibbling over, well, can we really cut $60 
billion from the budget. Yet they passed an $800 billion stimulus 
package--spending. It had never been done before in the history of this 
country. It has to stop now.
  I watched what Paul Ryan is doing over there. That is heavy lifting, 
that is tough, and he is talking about something that is very real.
  I see my good friend from Utah has come in.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I thank my colleague.
  Sometimes it amazes me how quickly debates change here in Washington. 
At this time in 2009, President Obama was riding high. Heralded as the 
second coming of Franklin Roosevelt, the conventional wisdom was that 
his election represented a sea change in the attitudes of American 
taxpayers. Where his Democratic predecessor came to Congress and 
announced that the era of big government was over, President Obama came 
to Washington convinced that the era of big government was just 
beginning.
  With historic majorities in both Houses of Congress, he and his 
Capitol Hill allies set about the business of transforming the Nation's 
economy with massive jolts of new government spending and regulation. 
They cultivated an unholy alliance of big labor, big business, and big 
government, and the hoped-for result was a corporatist state where 
government bureaucrats would calculate the fair share that business 
would contribute to finance the administration's redistributionist 
policies. They exploded the growth of the Federal Government through 
ordinary appropriations and the stimulus. Democrats hiked up nondefense 
discretionary appropriations by 24 percent over the last 2 years and by 
84 percent if you count the stimulus bill.
  But, as an American songwriter once put it, the times they are a-
changing.
  Later this week, we will be considering the continuing resolution 
that gets us to the end of fiscal year 2011. To hear the left talk, one 
would think this proposal was shutting down agencies left and right. 
They say we have cut discretionary spending to the bone. This, of 
course, is a little bit melodramatic. Before the Republicans won in 
November, the Federal Government was on pace to spend $3.8 trillion. 
That is $3,800 billion. The continuing resolution we will vote on 
reduces spending by $38 billion. And $38 billion in spending reductions 
from spending of $3,800 billion or $3.8 trillion--whichever you like--
is not exactly cutting to the bone.
  I agree with my colleagues who say we need to reduce spending by even 
more. Facing our third consecutive year with more than a $1 trillion 
projected deficit, these cuts barely scratch the surface of what needs 
to be done. But make no mistake about it--even these cuts would have 
been impossible if not for the Republicans taking back the House and 
making gains in the Senate last November. When Republicans won, they 
changed the debate in Washington.
  Even the press has been forced to acknowledge the depth of our fiscal 
crisis, though old habits die hard. Just this morning, we witnessed a 
relapse in the mainstream media as it did its best to enable excessive 
spending. The headline on the front page of today's Washington Post 
screamed ``Cuts Will Affect Vast Spectrum of Priorities.'' This made me 
think of the old joke about the likely reporting at the New York Times 
on the outbreak of a nuclear conflict: ``Nuclear War Breaks Out: Women 
and Minorities Hardest Hit.'' But I should not be too hard on the 
press. They seem to be getting it. There is certainly no denying it. We 
are spending way more than we are taking in, and, absent real 
reductions in spending and meaningful reforms to entitlements, this 
country is cruising toward a legitimate debt crisis that will adversely 
impact every American family.
  This desire to reduce spending and restore the Constitution's limits 
on the size of government is the new normal for taxpayers. The Obama 
administration's salad days when they dreamed of permanently expanding 
the size of the Federal Government are way back in the rearview mirror. 
Because of the undeniable seriousness of our debt and deficits and the 
commitment of Republicans to taking it on, the debate has shifted from 
how do we enlarge the size of government to how can we scale it back. 
The administration was slow to recognize this. When given his first 
opportunity to weigh in on this crisis, the President voted 
``present.'' His fiscal year 2012 budget was laughable for its failure 
to take on our deficits and growing debt.
  Even Ezra Klein, the liberal Washington Post reporter, could not 
carry the President's water on this one. Even he couldn't carry the 
President's water on this one. He wrote that when reading the budget, 
it is almost like the fiscal commission never happened.
  The President's fiscal commission recommended over $4 trillion in 
spending reductions, including adjustments to entitlements. I can't say 
I agree with everything in the commission's proposal, but it was a 
serious effort to get our Nation's finances back in order. But the 
President chose to pretend this report did not exist.
  Well, since then, they must have done some polling over at the White 
House. They must have realized that on the most critical issue facing 
the country, American taxpayers and American families want something 
more from their President--they want leadership. The President of the 
United States can't just subcontract out these issues to other people. 
The President of the United States has to lead, and in these areas it 
takes the President. He has to be bold. He has to take a stand. For all 
of the elegiac comparisons of President Obama to Abraham Lincoln, 
Franklin Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan, those were not passive 
Presidents. On the big issues, they took big risks and they led the 
country. It seems as though the President's advisers have finally 
figured this out. They need to get involved in a serious way on the 
issue of Federal spending.
  Sitting back and adding nothing, while your allies demagogue 
reasonable solutions to pressing problems, is simply not acceptable to 
the American people. Democrats tried this tired line of attack last 
week, alleging that Republicans were out to hurt the poor, the 
disabled, and the elderly. These smears really are beneath the dignity 
of our elected officials, and they show a total disregard for the 
common sense of American citizens and the good faith and charity of 
those who support Republicans. A good first step for the President 
would be to disavow these statements. He has a chance to do so 
tomorrow.
  The President is giving a much-hyped speech tomorrow on the issue of 
spending and getting our deficits and debt under control. I can only 
say I hope he comes through. The people of my home State of Utah and 
the people of every State are demanding that Washington tackle out-of-
control spending. Vague outlines or statements of principle are not 
going to do it. The President needs to take a stand, or should I say 
stance.
  I would add that the American people don't want solutions to a 
spending crisis that involve higher taxes. The solution to a spending 
crisis is not higher taxes that will give the government more money to 
spend. Our problem is not that citizens are taxed too little; our 
problem is that government spends too much.

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  So the President needs to come forward with serious, concrete 
proposals and commit to working with Congressman Ryan, Speaker Boehner, 
and Senate Republicans to solve this problem.
  I am willing to give the President a mulligan on his first budget 
proposal. The President, like Members of Congress, represents the 
people. As representatives of the people, we must acknowledge those 
times when we get it wrong. When the people make it clear that they 
want their elected officials to go in a different direction, in a 
democratic republic it is only right that the President and the 
Congress give voice to those concerns. The President seems to 
understand that he got it wrong with this first budget.
  Taxpayers and families want Washington to take on spending, but the 
people will not be fooled. If the President comes out tomorrow and 
speaks in vague generalities, if he comes out and simply defers to 
Congress, he will have satisfied no one. Being the President of the 
United States is not like being a law professor. Your job is not merely 
to facilitate dialog. Your job is to lead.
  I look forward to the President's remarks tomorrow. I guess we could 
call it the President's budget, part deux. My hope is that the sequel 
will be better than the original.
  With that, Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Casey). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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