[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10972-10978]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            SHARED SACRIFICE IN RESOLVING THE BUDGET DEFICIT

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will resume consideration of S. 1323, which the clerk will 
report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 1323) to express the sense of the Senate on 
     shared sacrifice in resolving the budget deficit.

  Pending:

       Reid amendment No. 529, to change the enactment date.
       Reid amendment No. 530 (to amendment No. 529), of a 
     perfecting nature.
       Reid motion to commit the bill to the Committee on Finance, 
     with instructions, Reid amendment No. 531, of a perfecting 
     nature.
       Reid amendment No. 532 (to the instructions (amendment No. 
     531) of the motion to commit), of a perfecting nature.
       Reid amendment No. 533 (to amendment No. 532), of a 
     perfecting nature.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there 
will be 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees.
  The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise to speak in morning business.
  I wish to thank my colleague, the Democratic majority leader, for his 
opening remarks. He and I have been given an assignment of going to the 
White House each day to sit down with the leaders--Democratic and 
Republican leaders in the House and the Senate, as well as the 
President, Vice President, Secretary of the Treasury, and leaders in 
the President's staff--to deal with this pending crisis over the debt 
ceiling limit.
  On August 2, we are required to extend the debt ceiling of the United 
States of America. It is an interesting exercise which usually goes 
unnoticed.
  Senator Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico presented to us yesterday a 
history of the debt ceiling. I was glad to learn a little bit more. In 
1939, we passed a law which said we could extend the debt ceiling of 
the United States as needed, rather than have congressional approval of 
every bond issued by the Government of the United States. It made it a 
much more efficient way for the government to operate. As Senator Reid 
said earlier, since 1939, we have extended the debt ceiling 89 times, 
and on most every occasion it has gone unnoticed because the United 
States has quickly extended its debt ceiling and kept its credit rating 
in the eyes of the world because of our timeliness. There was only one 
exception--a technical lapse that led to perhaps an increase in costs 
of government for just a brief time--but by and large, on 88 occasions 
this was done without any fanfare or notice.
  It is interesting to look at the Presidents who extended the debt 
ceiling. The alltime recordbreaker when it comes to extending the debt 
ceiling was Ronald Reagan, who extended the debt ceiling 18 times in a 
matter of 8 years. So more than twice a year, Congress was extending 
the debt ceiling as our national debt increased dramatically under 
President Reagan. The same thing happened under President Bush. He 
holds the record--the second highest record, I believe--with eight or 
nine extensions of the debt in his 8-year tenure as President. On both 
occasions, under President Reagan and under President George W. Bush, 
the debt of the United States increased dramatically.
  As Senator Reid said earlier, under President George W. Bush, the 
debt of the United States of America in 8 years nearly doubled. In 
fact, some say it more than doubled. This was a period of time when we 
were doing things that, frankly, cost us a lot of money in terms of our 
national expenditures.
  President George W. Bush waged two wars without paying for them. When 
we do that, of course, the cost of the war is added to the Nation's 
debt. President George W. Bush also did something no President had ever 
done: He cut taxes on American taxpayers in the midst of a war. Most 
Presidents understand we have to do just the opposite--we have to raise 
more money to wage a war because we have the ordinary costs of 
government that have to be met as well. So the idea of cutting taxes in 
the midst of a war added even more to the deficit under President 
George W. Bush. Then he had this theory that there were major programs 
we could enact and not pay for, such as Medicare prescription Part D.
  All of these things accumulated together with the basic philosophy of 
the Republican Party that if we just keep cutting taxes, the economy 
will get well. It didn't happen. Just the opposite occurred. When 
President George W. Bush took office, our Nation's budget was in 
surplus. When he left office, it faced the largest deficit in its 
history. Instead of giving President Obama a positive economy when 
President Obama was sworn in as President, we were losing hundreds of 
thousands of jobs each month. Now we face a deadline of August 2 on 
whether we extend the debt ceiling.
  I see the Republican leader has come to the floor. I commend him for 
what I consider to be a positive and thoughtful response. He 
understands, as most all of us do, that extending the debt ceiling is 
essential for the economy of

[[Page 10973]]

the United States and for our recovery from this recession. I asked my 
staff what would happen--what would happen if we defaulted on our debt 
ceiling and didn't pay and interest rates went up 1 percent. They are 
around 2.8 percent, 2.9 percent now.
  What if interest rates went up 1 percent because of this self-
inflicted wound of a failure to extend the debt ceiling? The 
consequences are real, and not just for the government but for families 
and businesses across America. A 1-percent increase in the interest 
rate, if we would default and not extend our debt ceiling--here is what 
the Third Way reports: Treasury rates, if it increased 1 percent, would 
cause deficits to increase by $20 billion in the first year and by $150 
billion in the outyears. In other words, the debt of the United States 
would increase by a dramatic amount.
  Increased Treasury rates would cause the gross domestic product; that 
is, the economic activity of America, the sum total of our goods and 
services, to decrease by 1 percent, according to J.P. Morgan. That 
would cause the U.S. economy to lose 640,000 jobs. At a time when we 
are losing jobs in the public sector but gaining them in the private 
sector, the failure to extend the debt ceiling would, in fact, increase 
unemployment in America.
  J.P. Morgan predicts that a 1-percent increase would cause a stock 
market loss of 9 percent. What does that mean to the savings and 401(k) 
plans of American families? They would lose, on average, $8,816--
something no family would like to see. And raising mortgage rates by 1 
percent would cause the typical mortgage to increase by somewhere in 
the range of $38,000--$38,000 in payments that need to be made.
  So why would we inflict this wound on ourselves? As we sit with the 
President and try to find our way through this crisis, we should 
understand that as the business leaders reported to us yesterday, this 
would be a disaster--a self-imposed disaster, a failure of political 
leadership.
  The President has called us together, and he has said: You are going 
to meet every single day until we get it done. That determination by 
the President is keeping us at the table and focusing us on the mission 
at hand.
  I will tell you, I believe we can reduce this deficit if we are 
honest about the spending in Washington. To focus only on domestic 
discretionary spending--a part of the budget that has not increased in 
real dollar terms in the last 10 years--and to ignore the costs that 
are growing on the security side, the defense side, as well as the cost 
of entitlement programs, is not only being blinded to reality, it 
really means the cuts that are made in domestic discretionary spending 
are outrageously deep.
  What we need to do, what the Bowles-Simpson commission told us needed 
to be done was painful but necessary: Put everything on the table--
everything on the table. That means all spending, all entitlements, and 
revenue.
  I find it hard to understand the Republican position that says we can 
impose new obligations on the families of children going to college to 
pay more for student loans but we cannot impose any additional burden 
on the wealthiest people in America to pay more taxes. To think that 
the George Bush tax cuts means that for a person making $1 million in 
income each year--that is $20,000 a week in income--to think that 
George Bush tax cut is worth $200,000 a year in tax cuts for a 
millionaire and that we would blithely hear from the other side that we 
should allow that to continue while asking everyone else in America to 
sacrifice is upside down.
  It is instructive to me that, when asked, people across America 
believe we should put everything on the table, including taxes and 
revenue. We can do this.
  The argument that this is the wrong time to raise taxes on anybody 
because of the state of the economy is not borne out by history. 
Whenever taxes have been increased in recent times, we have seen the 
opposite occur. If they are increased in a thoughtful way--not imposed 
on working and middle-income families and lower income groups--in fact, 
we have seen in the past that the economy has grown. It has not stopped 
us from growing.
  We now have a top income tax rate of 35 percent. When it was over 39 
percent under President Clinton, we had the fastest and most dynamic 
growth in our economy in modern time. There is no linkage between taxes 
on the wealthy and the growth of our economy other than the exact 
opposite of the Republican argument. Where taxes have been raised on 
higher income groups, we have actually seen our economy expand time and 
time and time again.
  So I would hope we would have a balanced approach to dealing with 
this deficit and put everything on the table. I would hope that as we 
meet with the President, we get the job done. And we ought to do it 
soon. The longer we wait, the more the uncertainty, and it is not good 
for our economy in a world where we have a volatile economic situation, 
particularly in Europe. It is not good for job growth, where we know we 
desperately need to create more good-paying jobs right here in America. 
And it is certainly not good for our reputation in Congress. We were 
elected to lead, to make hard decisions. We have that opportunity, and 
we need to do it now.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Republican leader is 
recognized.


                       Balanced Budget Amendment

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, yesterday morning I came to the floor 
to announce my conclusion that, despite his repeated claims to the 
contrary, the President has no real intention of cutting spending or 
dealing with our deficits and debt. It has been my fervent hope that 
the President could be persuaded to view the upcoming debt limit vote 
as an opportunity--an opportunity--to change direction, to cut 
spending, to cut debt, and to preserve entitlement programs. But those 
hopes have evaporated as the President began to insist in recent weeks 
that he would only consider spending cuts later if Republicans agreed 
now to one of the biggest tax hikes in history. Republicans refused to 
be drawn into this legislative trap.
  When Democrats proposed a smaller plan that they claimed, without any 
details, amounted to more than $1 trillion in cuts, we refused to go 
along again because we knew that it really did not cut $1 trillion. We 
refused to pretend that a bad idea was a good one. Our bottom line is 
this: The White House would have to prove that the cuts it was claiming 
to support were real and enforceable before Republicans would sign off 
on any plan to endorse them.
  As it turned out, our skepticism was well founded.
  Earlier this week, I asked an administration official point blank 
what the cuts they were proposing as part of their so-called bipartisan 
deal would amount to next year; that is, year 2012. He said they were 
talking about a $2 billion reduction--$2 billion--for next year. We 
will borrow more than $4 billion today. That, Madam President, is not a 
deal in which I am particularly interested. This is what they were 
planning to spin as more than $1 trillion over 10 years. It was at that 
point that I realized the White House simply was not serious about 
cutting spending or debt. The only thing they were serious about was 
putting together a plan that appeared serious but really was not, and 
they wanted Republicans to go along with it. Well, we are not 
interested in playing that game.
  In the end, the White House gave us three choices in exchange for a 
vote to increase the debt limit: a massive tax hike, smoke and mirrors, 
or default. And none of these options is acceptable. So yesterday I 
proposed a possible fourth option as a last resort if the President 
continues to shirk his duty to do something about our dire fiscal 
situation. If the White House continues to insist on either tax hikes 
or default, then we would send legislation to the President that 
requires him to propose spending cuts greater than the debt limit he 
requests; make the President show in black and white the specific cuts 
he claims to support. If he refuses, he will have to raise the debt 
ceiling on

[[Page 10974]]

his own. But he is not going to get Republicans to go along with that. 
That way, the President cannot pretend to support cuts when he does 
not. He is forced to simply put up.
  I understand the reluctance the American people have in concluding 
that a serious solution is not going to happen. I hope I am wrong. The 
idea of not doing something serious about the debt before August, 
frankly, sickens me. Like most Americans, I previously did not believe 
anyone in this country could seriously deny the need to rein in 
government spending. Like most Americans, I previously did not believe 
anyone could be so shortsighted as to propose massive tax hikes in a 
weakened economy. Like all of you, I did not think even the most 
liberal among us would go to such lengths to protect the expansion of 
government. I am sorry to report there are people who believe all of 
those things, and they currently reside right down at 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue. But Republicans refuse to let the President use the threat of a 
debt limit deadline to get us to cave on tax increases or on phony 
spending cuts that future Congresses could just as easily reverse with 
a single vote. We are not gambling our Nation's fiscal future on the 
promise of spending cuts tomorrow for tax hikes today.
  It is time to change the conversation altogether. It is time to 
refocus this debate on the kinds of real cuts and debt reduction 
Americans are demanding of us. It is time to show there are two 
different versions of our Nation's future at work here. So over the 
next several days, Republicans will redouble our efforts to avoid all 
four scenarios. Americans do not want tax hikes, they do not want phony 
spending cuts, they do not want a debt disapproval plan, and they do 
not want us to default on our debts. They want real cuts and real 
reforms now, and that is what Republicans will spend the next 2 weeks 
fighting for--the one thing that will ensure that Washington gets its 
house in order and forces future Congresses to live within their means.
  The time has come for a balanced budget amendment that forces 
Washington to balance its books. If these debt negotiations have 
convinced us of anything, it is that we cannot leave it to politicians 
in Washington to make the difficult decisions they need to to get our 
fiscal house in order. The balanced budget amendment will do that for 
them. Now is the moment. No more games. No more gimmicks. The 
Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We have 
tried persuasion. We have tried negotiations. We have tried elections. 
Nothing has worked. If the President will not do something about the 
debt, we will go around him and take it to the American people. We will 
have a real debate. Those who support endless spending and debt will 
vote against it. It is time we all stand up to be counted.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the Republican leader for his 
efforts in this regard. I know for a fact that Senator McConnell and 
the leadership on our side hoped and believed it was possible to take 
advantage of the opportunity of the discussion over raising the debt 
limit to create a major alteration in our plan of spending in this 
country. It has been disappointing to not have been met halfway in that 
regard.
  When Senator McConnell was told the White House's plan included only 
a $2 billion cut next year in spending, I found it stunning. Our 
deficit this fiscal year will have added $1,500 billion to our debt. We 
are going to save $2 billion next year? This is not acceptable, and I 
am disappointed. I appreciate the Republican leader's efforts in that 
regard.
  I would note, as to the discussion about that the war is causing our 
deficit, it has been expensive over 10 years. The war on terrorism, 
Iraq, and Afghanistan together have cost about $1.5 trillion. This next 
year, we are projecting a little over $100 billion to be spent. So I 
will just say that the amount of the deficit this one year will equal 
the cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars over 10 years. The deficit 
this year is $1,500 billion. The cost of the war this year is about 
$150 billion. It is about 10 percent of the deficit we are running this 
year. Although we hope to bring those numbers down and are already 
projecting next year those numbers to come down to closer to $100 
billion from $150 billion, the cause of our deficit is not the war. It 
represents about 10 percent of the total deficit we are running this 
year. That is just a fact. That is what the numbers show.
  One of the few things mandated for Congress to do every year is to 
pass a budget. According to the Congressional Budget Act, contained in 
the U.S. Code, signed into law in 1974, the Senate Budget Committee 
must produce a budget resolution by April 1 and adopt a conference 
agreement on that budget by April 15. Furthermore, a budget must 
include total levels of spending, expected revenue, and deficits for no 
less than 5 years, and frequently we do 10-year budgets.
  Once a budget is in place, Congress is prohibited from passing 
legislation with spending that exceeds the levels that were in the 
budget--sort of like we do in our homes. In essence, a budget is both a 
concrete plan for the future, and an enforcement mechanism to help us 
stay within the limits we set, and to ensure honest accounting.
  One of these enforcement mechanisms in the Budget Act as set forth in 
the code is a prohibition against the consideration of any 
appropriations bills in the absence of a budget. We should not move 
forward with spending bills until we have established a budget. How 
simple is that? That is why we are supposed to have it done by April 
15, because the appropriations bills come along afterwards.
  This is the essence of good government. We should not spend taxpayer 
dollars without a plan for how to officially allocate the dollars and 
in a way that maximizes the effectiveness of our spending and minimizes 
waste and abuse and fraud. We have too much of that in our government.
  This point of order--and there is a point of order in the code--
contained in section 303(c) of the Congressional Budget Act, once that 
point of order is raised, the legislation in question cannot move 
forward unless a majority of the Senators vote to waive the budget 
requirement that taxpayer money should not be appropriated without a 
budget--without a plan.
  This is what the law dictates. I believe this is our responsibility 
as legislators and as Senators. This is what the organizational 
structure of this very Senate requires, and this is the duty the 
Democrat-led Senate has refused to fulfill for 805 days. Senate 
Democrats have failed to adopt a budget in more than 2 years, and this 
year they have refused to even produce a budget for public review. They 
claim they have one. They claim it does some good things, and they leak 
portions of it to the public and spin it as being a positive document. 
But when asked to produce it, they do not do so. When asked to have 
hearings on it, they do not do so.
  If they are proud of it, if it will sustain public scrutiny, why do 
they not bring it forward? I have never imagined that I would serve 2 
years in the Senate and now be ranking member of the Budget Committee, 
and we would not have a budget even presented. Today we are scheduled 
to vote on a motion to proceed to the Military Construction 
appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012, beginning October 1 of this 
year.
  Regardless of my feelings about the legislation or my high admiration 
for those who have worked on it, I think I have a responsibility, a 
duty, as ranking member of the Budget Committee during this time of 
extreme fiscal danger, the greatest debt we have ever seen, to oppose 
cloture on this measure and to raise the 303(c) point of order should 
cloture be invoked.
  My objection does not mean I do not support the bill. To any who 
would suggest otherwise, let me say that this action is at its core a 
defense of our men and women in uniform. No one understands duty better 
than those who wear the uniform, and it is our duty to write a budget 
that sets priorities and ensures the needs of our troops are met. The 
military is a priority of the highest order. To protect that priority, 
we must have a budget, especially in these challenging economic times.

[[Page 10975]]

  The Senate has failed those in uniform if it chooses political 
expedience over drafting a budget that includes a military spending 
plan. How can we protect the military from unwise cuts if spending 
plans are not even made public?
  The only area of government significantly cut in the unseen 
Democratic budget proposal that I have referred to previously--that I 
have called a ``phantom budget''--appears to be the Pentagon's.
  If we take the numbers that were leaked from their budget plan, it 
calls for $900 billion in cuts to the Pentagon, to the government, to 
the military. Well, if this is their plan we ought to know it. So I do 
not want to hear people say that I am objecting to the Military 
Construction bill because I do not appreciate the military, while the 
Democratic majority, who is producing this Military Construction bill, 
claim they have a budget that hammers the Defense Department by $900 
billion.
  Indeed, while that appears to be the plan, the budget submitted by 
President Obama earlier this year--not one produced by the Senate 
Democrats but the President's own budget--calls for a 9.5-percent 
increase in the Energy Department, a 10.5-percent increase for the 
Education Department, a 10.5-percent increase for the State Department, 
and a 60-percent increase for high-speed rail and the Transportation 
budget without money to fund it.
  While they are proposing major cuts in defense, we have major plans 
on the table to increase spending next year when we are, again, going 
to run a $1 trillion-plus deficit. The authors of the Congressional 
Budget Act likely did not contemplate a future in which the governing 
party believes budgets are no longer necessary. That seems to be the 
case today. That is why I am also bringing forward legislation that 
will raise a 303(c) point of order threshold to 60 votes--no 
appropriations without a budget unless 60 Senators choose to waive that 
requirement. That is in the law.
  We sometimes put requirements in the law. We do not have very good 
enforcement mechanisms. The danger we face from continuing to operate 
this government without a clear, concrete budget is simply too great. 
Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that 
our Nation's debt is the gravest of all national security threats we 
face. It is so. We are reaching a point where our economy could enter 
into a financial crisis as a result of our national debt.
  We owe it to the extraordinary men and women who serve this country 
to defend at home the way of life they have defended abroad. That means 
the Senate must confront the debt problem that threatens us with 
economic disaster. Already, as economists Rogoff and Reinhart 
demonstrated, we are losing at least 1 million jobs a year as a result 
of our high debt, which is now 95 percent of GDP and soon to be 100 
percent of GDP.
  In just a little over 2 months our Nation's gross debt will be as 
large as our entire economy and growing larger. This year we will take 
in $2.2 trillion, but we will spend $3.7 trillion. By the end of the 
first 3 years of the Obama administration, we will have accumulated $5 
trillion in gross debt--new debt.
  Over the next 10 years we are projected to spend $46 trillion, adding 
another $13 trillion to our national debt. That is 13,000 billion. The 
President proposed saving $2 billion next year. He proposes we increase 
taxes on corporate jets that over 10 years would save $3 billion, while 
he has a budget submitted to the Senate that would increase the debt by 
$13,000 billion over the next 10 years.
  I do not defend corporate jets. We can eliminate that as far as I am 
concerned and change our whole tax structure, which needs simplifying 
and more integrity and more effectiveness in it. But that is not a 
responsible way for a leader to suggest that we are going to fix our 
debt problems--by changing the corporate tax rate for jets. No nation 
can sustain this level of debt, nor can any nation ever raise enough 
taxes to cover this level of spending. The course we are on is not 
merely unsustainable, it is unimaginable. The American people have 
every right to be angry with their Congress. We are sitting here 
running a government and borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. 
They should be furious with us. It is unacceptable. It is 
unexplainable.
  We spend and borrow all we can. That is the fact. There is only one 
sound answer: control spending and grow the economy, not tax it into 
submission. For Americans to regain prosperity, Washington must regain 
discipline. Hiking taxes to bail out the Washington spenders who have 
put us in debt by increasing domestic nondefense spending in the last 2 
years--not war, not Social Security, I am talking about general 
expenditures of our government have gone up 24 percent in the last 2 
years. They have run up huge debts, and now they want the American 
people to pay more so they can continue to spend at this irresponsible 
level. I say no to that. I am not for that.
  Since the Democratic-led Senate last passed a budget, we have spent 
$7.3 trillion and increased the debt by $3.2 trillion. When President 
Obama took office the public debt of the United States was about $5.7 
trillion. In 3 years we have added close to $4 trillion in debt. In 4 
years President Obama's debt that he will have run up at this rate will 
be larger than the debt that has been accumulated in the entire history 
of America.
  We are on an unsustainable course. This fiscal abandon has brought us 
to the brink of the debt ceiling that we have. We have a limit on how 
much debt we can run up statutorily. Yet, still, the Senate Democrats 
will not produce a budget, and the White House will not put together an 
honest plan with real spending cuts that they will stand behind and let 
people analyze and score. Just more gimmicks, tricks, and games. That 
is not acceptable. That is why we are in this fix today.
  Majority Leader Reid actually declared it would be ``foolish'' to 
have a budget--``foolish'' to have a budget. Would you tell a family 
who is having difficulty with their finances it is foolish to have a 
budget? Would you declare to a family who is running up credit card 
debt and 40 percent of what they are spending is put on a credit card 
every month that they should not have a budget?
  The United States Code requires us to have a budget by April 15. It 
is easy to claim deficit reduction as a priority, but if our leaders 
were actually to put a plan on paper it would become all too clear that 
their real desire is for larger taxes and only meager cuts to spending. 
That is the truth. That will not get the job done. Numbers do not lie. 
Their rhetoric creates the appearance of savings, but those savings do 
not exist when you look at the numbers carefully.
  But while the White House and Senate Democrats may think their 
strategy is clever, I do not think the American people should be 
amused. I do not think the American people are amused. Until the 
majority, who asked for the responsibility to lead this Senate--that is 
what they wanted. They have it. Until they allow this Chamber to adopt 
a badly needed budget, I am going to continue to raise points of order 
on appropriations bills.
  Now more than ever, we should fulfill our legal duties, not shirk 
them. More than ever today we should. We were not elected to preside 
over the financial decline of this country. We were not elected to shut 
down the committees, deny them the right to function, to shut down 
debate or cede our constitutional responsibility to secret meetings and 
closed-door proceedings.
  The debt limit is not only about fulfilling our obligation to 
creditors, it is about fulfilling our obligation to the all of the 
people we serve, good Americans. We owe them a Senate that works, that 
works openly and tirelessly on their behalf, which casts votes on these 
important matters and has to respond and be accountable to the American 
people. We owe the people an honest, competent, limited, efficient 
government. We owe them a Senate that is worthy of their faith and 
trust.
  We are not there. We are not fulfilling that responsibility. 
Therefore, I

[[Page 10976]]

expect that I will object and raise a budget point of order against 
movement to the Military Construction bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I want to echo some of the remarks made 
by my colleague from Alabama regarding a budget. He is the ranking 
Republican member on our side on the Budget Committee.
  It is ironic that we are on the floor of the Senate this week, as we 
were last week, debating a nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate bill that 
states ``those earning $1 million or more per year make a more 
meaningful contribution to the deficit reduction effort.''
  It doesn't specify what that is. It doesn't say there should be tax 
increases or spending cuts that should have an impact on these high-
income earners. I echo what was stated by my colleague, which is that 
this is no substitute for a budget. Congress's job is to pass a budget. 
That is why we are here. That is why the taxpayers elected us. It is to 
set priorities and make decisions about where we are going to allocate 
their hard-earned tax dollars.
  The Democrats have not passed a budget for 805 days. Now, this sense-
of-the-Senate bill--which is vague, ambiguous, and meaningless--does 
not do anything to address the fiscal challenges our country faces or 
achieve any level of budgetary savings.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. THUNE. I am happy to yield for a question.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from South Dakota is an experienced member 
of the Budget Committee and a member of the leadership on the 
Republican side in the Senate. Isn't it true that we had more interest 
from Members wanting to join the Budget Committee this year, 
particularly new Members who had gotten elected and talked to their 
constituents about their fear of America's debt and they wanted to be 
on the Budget Committee, and only a few could be selected out of the 
group who wanted to be on it?
  What has been the Senator's observation as to how they have reacted 
to the fact that no budget has been presented; that the committee has 
never met or even marked up and held hearings as the United States Code 
requires? Maybe the Senator can share how they feel about this.
  Mr. THUNE. My colleague is absolutely right. There was tremendous 
interest this year. If we look at the last election, the 2010 election, 
a lot of the people who were elected in the House and Senate were 
elected because they ran on a message to their constituents of getting 
America's fiscal house in order, getting spending and debt under 
control.
  Where does that start? It starts with a budget. So they got here and 
tried to get on the Senate Budget Committee. We have all these bright 
new Members of the Senate who have a lot to contribute and who have had 
no opportunity to do that because we haven't had a budget, a markup, 
and we haven't done the necessary things in order to move the budget 
process forward.
  I am completely in agreement with the Senator from Alabama when it 
comes to what the priorities should be. It ought to be doing a budget 
that actually focuses on cutting spending and getting this debt under 
control.
  I tried to offer an amendment to this nonbinding sense-of-the-Senate 
bill, but the majority is blocking amendments. That amendment would cut 
all nonsecurity discretionary spending for the current fiscal year by 
2.5 percent. It is a nominal amount, I recognize that. It is not a big 
spending cut. It is a small haircut. It will not solve our problem. It 
would produce about $11 billion in savings from some of these accounts 
that have seen, as the Senator noted, extraordinary growth since 2008.
  Spending has increased in the discretionary part of the budget by 24 
percent in 2 years, when inflation was about 2 percent. The government 
was spending at a rate of 10 or 12 times the right of inflation. It is 
unsustainable.
  We cannot argue to the American people with a straight face that that 
is the kind of spending that ought to be going on in Washington, DC. 
Because the amendments have been blocked, we are probably not going to 
have a chance to vote on that. But the amendment says: Let's cut by 2.5 
percent the discretionary spending, given the fact that it has 
increased 24 percent in the last 2 years.
  These accounts started to feel downward pressure when the continuing 
resolution passed earlier this year, but more needs to be done. We need 
to put pressure on the spending side of the equation, not the tax side. 
All of my Republican colleagues have said it multiple times, but I 
think it bears repeating and explaining that our problem in Washington 
isn't that Washington taxes too little; it is that it spends too much. 
That is true.
  Revenues are below their historical average, but spending is 
dramatically higher than its historical average. The reason we have 
revenues that are lower than the historical average is because we have 
an anemic economic recovery. If we get the economy growing and 
expanding and creating jobs again, we will start to see some of the tax 
revenue pick up. Just as a point of fact, in 2006 and 2007, we had a 
very similar income tax system to what we have today. At that time it 
raised more revenue than our historical average. Our historical average 
is around 18 percent of our entire economy--what we raise in tax 
revenues. In 2006 and 2007, in the Tax Code, the rates were similar to 
today. We have exceeded the average.
  The issue is not that we have too little revenue in Washington, not 
that Washington taxes too little; it spends too much. Once the economy 
starts to turn around, we know we are going to be raising a substantial 
and sufficient amount of revenue without having to resort to tax 
increases. In fact, if we were to enact tax reform that was revenue 
neutral--and by that I mean it doesn't generate more revenue for 
Washington to spend--but if we were to lower the rates on people and 
businesses and broaden the tax base, our economy would grow and expand 
dramatically, and we would see even more revenue generated for the 
Federal Government and more jobs created, which is what everybody wants 
to see. We should not, however, simply increase taxes to pay for ever-
increasing spending for programs that aren't sustainable.
  This year Federal government spending will comprise 24.3 percent of 
our Nation's entire economic output. So almost a quarter of every 
dollar spent in this country will be spent by the Federal Government. 
That doesn't take into consideration spending by State and local 
governments. But it is 18 percent more than our historical average. We 
spend about 20.6 percent, historically, of our entire economy on the 
Federal Government. This year it is 24.3 percent. We are almost at a 
quarter out of every dollar being spent by our Federal Government in 
Washington, DC.
  What happens? That means there is less activity in the private 
economy, which is where the real jobs are created. When the Federal 
Government is spending this much and borrowing this much, it crowds out 
private investment and makes it difficult for the private economy to 
create jobs that are permanent, good-paying jobs for the people of this 
country.
  Perhaps an even more pertinent statistic is the years in which our 
budget has been balanced since 1969. These budgets were balanced 
because spending was constrained. If we look at the 5 years when the 
budget was balanced, the Federal Government's spending in those 5 years 
comprises just under 18.7 percent of our GDP, our economic output. So 
if we look at the problem that we are trying to diagnose in this 
country, our colleagues on the other side diagnose it as a revenue 
problem. I submit that the problem we are trying to solve is 
fundamentally a spending problem. Five times, when the budget was 
balanced since 1969, in every instance it was because we were spending 
less than the historical average.
  This year's spending is over 30 percent more than the years in which 
we balanced the budget; that is, as a percentage of our entire economy. 
That is

[[Page 10977]]

how much higher it is than the years in which we balanced our budget. 
That is how much and how fast government spending is growing. 
Unfortunately, it remains above the historical average every year in 
the President's budget. He submitted a budget that borrows more, spends 
more, and taxes more. I can't think of a worse way to get out of an 
economic downturn and start creating jobs than to continue to spend at 
this uncontrollable rate, to continue to borrow more and more money, 
and impose higher taxes on an American economy that is already 
struggling.
  After 2018, according to the President's budget, spending increases 
every single year. That is a spending problem; that is not a revenue 
problem. Despite that, the administration wants to take what they call 
a ``balanced approach'' and to have shared sacrifice.
  Only in Washington, DC, would spending more and taxing more be 
considered a balanced approach. Only in Washington would shared 
sacrifice mean taking more of taxpayers' hard-earned money to spend on 
the administration's priorities.
  To put a fine point on that, this week, the President said he would 
``rather be talking about things that everyone wants, like new 
programs.'' This is code for: I need more of your money so I can spend 
more.
  I reject that notion. We don't need more spending in Washington, DC. 
We don't need more programs. We don't need to expand government. 
Government is too big already, at 25 percent of our entire economy.
  Let's pretend for a minute that deficit reduction really was the 
President's priority. What has happened in the past with these 
``balanced budget'' deals? In 1990 the budget agreement reached by 
President Bush at Andrews Air Force Base was supposed to have spending 
cuts that outnumbered tax increases by a 2-to-1 margin. Spending was 
supposed to be cut by $274 billion, and taxes were going to be 
increased by $137 billion.
  What actually happened? Tax hikes certainly materialized, but the 
reality is that spending actually increased. So in the 1990 
``balanced'' budget approach, we got increased spending and increased 
taxes. In 1982, under President Reagan, the exact same thing happened.
  Madam President, I simply say to my colleagues that this is 
fundamentally a debate about the size of our government. We believe in 
a debt crisis we ought to make government smaller, not larger, and not 
create more programs. Our colleagues on the other side have a different 
view. We ought to be talking about what we can do to get people in this 
country back to work and small businesses hiring.
  There was a Chamber of Commerce survey that said 64 percent of small 
businesses will not add to their payrolls this year, and 12 percent 
will cut jobs. Why? Because of the economic uncertainty created in 
Washington and because we are unwilling to deal with the spending and 
debt issue that is in front of us and to put policies into place that 
will enable job creation and economic growth.
  I hope my colleagues will work with us to reduce the size of 
government, not grow it.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, how much time remains?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On the Democratic side, 15 minutes 
remains, and there is no time on the Republican side.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise to speak about the budget and 
deficit issues that are facing us. The first point, which is becoming 
clearer and clearer to the American people, is how bad a default would 
be.
  The bottom line is very simple: America has never defaulted on its 
debt--nor should any country, particularly the greatest country in the 
world--debt that is a promise of expenditures that have already been 
made. When we raise the debt ceiling, we are simply saying we are going 
to pay our bills.
  The bottom line is that every family in America has to do that. If 
you own a mortgage, you can't say, after you have signed the mortgage 
and lived in the house: I am not going to pay my mortgage unless ABC 
happens.
  If you have credit card debt and you have incurred significant debt, 
you can't say to the credit card company: I am not going to pay that 
debt unless you do ABC.
  Yet some of our colleagues on the other side--and particularly in the 
House of Representatives--seem to say that. It would lead to disaster. 
It would lead to disaster for the government. In August America has 
$306 billion--this government, this Federal Government, has $306 
billion in obligations and $172 billion in income. If we don't raise 
the debt ceiling, we are going to have awful choices: Do we pay the 
Social Security recipients and not the veterans? Do we pay the veterans 
and not those to whom we owe money? Do we say we will pay veterans but 
not pay people who inspect food or guard our borders? The choices are 
awful, and choices the American people should not have foisted on them 
by an irresponsible Congress that says we will not raise the debt 
ceiling.
  It will also hurt American homeowners and debtors. If you are a 
mortgagor, your debt will go up. If you have a variable-rate mortgage, 
and we don't raise the debt ceiling, you will pay perhaps hundreds of 
dollars more each month. If you have credit card debt, which most 
Americans have, the rates are likely to go up.
  Overall, at a time when we need jobs and the economy is so 
precarious, it could send us back into a recession and perhaps even 
worse, according to some economists. So not raising the debt ceiling 
and defaulting on our debt is not an option.
  Yesterday, Senator McConnell realized that. The substantive good news 
here is that the plan Mitch McConnell offered, for all its faults, 
makes the likelihood of our not paying our bills, of not raising the 
debt ceiling less likely. However, the plan has a good deal of fault to 
it. It seems to be a political document. It says what we care most 
about is two things: It says we want to throw the responsibility of 
raising the debt ceiling to the other side, and it says the Republican 
Party cares more about preserving tax breaks for the wealthy and 
corporate America than actually bringing down our debt.
  All the talk about deficit reduction, all the talk about getting a 
handle on our debt has been thrown to the wind, all in an effort to 
say: We know if we raise the debt ceiling there will be trouble. 
Senator McConnell is well aware--he is very smart when it comes to the 
politics of it--that had the debt ceiling not been raised, the blame 
would have fallen on the party that has been saying they don't care 
about raising the debt ceiling.
  Hundreds of members of the Republican Party throughout the country--
scores in this Congress both in this House and the other--have said: We 
are not going to raise the debt ceiling. Senator McConnell, realizing 
the consequences of doing that would fall on the party that doesn't 
believe it is important to do so, had to act. But at the end of the 
day, where is the debt reduction? Where is the deficit reduction we 
have heard about in speech after speech after speech from the other 
side?
  The bottom line is very simple: Again, when President Obama offered a 
plan that would remove tax breaks from the rich, that would close 
corporate loopholes, the other side said: We can't tolerate that, even 
if it means debt reduction. The McConnell plan shows what the other 
party, the other side of the aisle, cares about: preserving tax breaks 
for the rich and preserving corporate loopholes much more than reducing 
our deficit and bringing down our debt.
  Having said that, as I said, Senator McConnell has at least 
recognized, even if partially politically, the gravity of the 
situation, and he joins the other leaders in Washington in doing that. 
President Obama has as well, and that is why he put out his $4 trillion 
plan. Speaker Boehner has also. That is why he was willing to 
entertain--until the rug was pulled out from under him--a big plan. 
Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi have constantly talked about their views 
and ways we can reduce the deficit and avoid default. There is only

[[Page 10978]]

one person who hasn't come up with a plan, who hasn't compromised, and 
who hasn't reached out to the other side in an effort to move forward, 
and that is the majority leader in the House, Mr. Cantor. He is the 
only one who still says: My way or the highway. Every other leader has 
said they are willing to make certain concessions--even though they do 
not like them--to avoid default.
  The Nation, and, of course, this Congress is waiting for Leader 
Cantor to step to the plate in a similar way so that maybe we can come 
to a compromise that actually avoids default and, at the same time, 
gets a handle on the debt and deficit problems and reduces both of 
those.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and 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. NELSON of Florida. 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. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, I know we have a vote that is 
coming up momentarily, but I just wanted to say my wish for those folks 
who are huddling up down at the White House every day: Don't miss this 
opportunity for a grand bargain to do something serious about deficit 
reduction. That is why I am concerned about Senator McConnell's 
proposal because it would take us off that practice.
  When they look at that real opportunity for $4 trillion of deficit 
reduction, they ought to look at the proposal of the Senate Budget 
Committee--$4 trillion, $2 trillion of which over 10 years comes out of 
the $14 trillion of the tax expenditures--or tax preferences that 
special interests have. We would only have to take from 9 to 17 percent 
of all that $14 trillion of tax preferences in order to produce the $2 
trillion of revenue over 10 years.
  I have just put that issue to a panel of experts in a joint Ways and 
Means-Finance Committee meeting as to what they would recommend, and I 
will talk about that later today.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all 
time be yielded back.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 1323, a bill to 
     express the sense of the Senate on shared sacrifice in 
     resolving the budget deficit.
         Harry Reid, Richard J. Durbin, Patty Murray, Daniel K. 
           Inouye, Christopher A. Coons, Sheldon Whitehouse, 
           Barbara Boxer, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Bernard Sanders, 
           Frank R. Lautenberg, Sherrod Brown, Jack Reed, Dianne 
           Feinstein, Jeff Merkley, Benjamin L. Cardin, Carl 
           Levin, Charles E. Schumer.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. By unanimous consent, the mandatory 
quorum call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on S. 
1323, a bill to express the sense of the Senate on shared sacrifice in 
resolving the budget deficit, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 51, nays 49, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 108 Leg.]

                                YEAS--51

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Boxer
     Brown (OH)
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Conrad
     Coons
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Inouye
     Johnson (SD)
     Kerry
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--49

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown (MA)
     Burr
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kirk
     Kyl
     Lee
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Paul
     Portman
     Pryor
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 51, the 
nays are 49. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not 
having voted in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.

                          ____________________