[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10978-10988]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR MILITARY CONSTRUCTION, THE DEPARTMENT OF 
   VETERANS AFFAIRS, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING 
                 SEPTEMBER 30, 2012--MOTION TO PROCEED


                             Cloture Motion

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair 
lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will 
state.
  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 the motion to 
     proceed to Calendar No. 91, H.R. 2055, an act making 
     appropriations for military construction, the Department of 
     Veterans Affairs, and related agencies for the fiscal year 
     ending September 30, 2012, and for other purposes.
         Harry Reid, Richard J. Durbin, Patty Murray, Daniel K. 
           Inouye, Christopher A. Coons, Sheldon Whitehouse, 
           Barbara Boxer, Robert P. Casey, Jr., Tim Johnson, Frank 
           R. Lautenberg, Sherrod Brown, Jack Reed, Dianne 
           Feinstein, Jeff Merkley, Benjamin L. Cardin, Mark L. 
           Pryor, 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 the 
motion to proceed to H.R. 2055, an act making appropriations for 
military construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and related 
agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2012, and for other 
purposes, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call 
the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 89, nays 11, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 109 Leg.]

                                YEAS--89

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Bingaman
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown (MA)
     Brown (OH)
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coons
     Crapo
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Kerry
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (NE)
     Nelson (FL)
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Webb
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                                NAYS--11

     Corker
     Cornyn
     DeMint
     Grassley
     Johnson (WI)
     Lee
     Paul
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Toomey
     Vitter
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. On this vote, the yeas are 89, the 
nays are 11. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn having 
voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to.
  The majority leader.

[[Page 10979]]


  Mr. REID. Madam President, I would hope following the Republicans' 
luncheon they will allow us to move to this bill. Senator Johnson and 
staff are ready to move forward on this legislation. We would hope 
after the luncheon they would allow us to be on it. So it would be open 
for amendment. There are lots of spots open for people to offer 
amendments. This would be our first appropriations bill. I think it 
would be, especially in that we are working on these budgets, deficit-
reduction programs right now here and at the White House, a good 
message to everybody that we can do an appropriations bill and stay 
within our legislative framework as far as spending.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Franken). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent to speak 
as in morning business for--well, it will not be 20 minutes but let me 
ask for up to 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           State of the Ocean

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, nothing is more important in the short 
term than resolving our debt limit impasse, and I would urge my 
colleagues to take Social Security out of their gun sights. It has not 
contributed to our debt or deficits.
  I would urge my colleagues to focus not on Medicare benefit cuts but, 
rather, on health care system reforms that will save not only Medicare 
and Medicaid costs but private health care and health insurance costs 
as well--cost savings throughout the system. I would urge my colleagues 
to yield a bit on defending every tax loophole, every tax gimmick and 
tax preference as if they were tax hikes. They are not. They are just 
not. They are earmarks in the Tax Code. They are special benefits in 
which ordinary Americans usually do not share, and we should not put 
the special interests first, ahead of ordinary Americans who did not 
get special tax deals.
  But as important as all of that is in the short term, there are some 
things that are more important in the long term than our debt limit, 
and I rise to speak about one.
  In April of this year a group of scientific experts came together to 
discuss an issue with consequences that will influence the planet and 
our American society for generations to come. They met at the 
University of Oxford to discuss the current state, and eventual fate, 
of our oceans. ``The ocean,'' as stated in the workshop's summary 
report, ``is the largest ecosystem on Earth, supports us and maintains 
our world in a habitable condition.''
  For 3 days, 27 scientists representing 18 prominent research and 
conservation organizations worldwide, reviewed the latest findings on 
ocean stressors--and in particular the consequences of multiple, 
combined stressors--for marine life and for the human population. The 
scientists found that stressors in combination magnify the negative 
effect of each one occurring alone.
  Based on this determination, the scientists at this meeting 
concluded:

       We have underestimated the overall risks and that the whole 
     of marine degradation is greater than the sum of its parts, 
     and that degradation is now happening at a faster rate than 
     predicted.

  In short, things for the ocean are worse than we thought and getting 
worse faster than expected.
  All too often, we take for granted the fact that our oceans feed us, 
support our coastal communities, and drive our tourism economies. 
Unfortunately, these ocean ecosystems are severely stressed, from 
nutrient pollution, chemical dumping, overfishing, marine debris, 
invasions of exotic species, warming waters and, perhaps most alarming, 
a drop in ocean pH to levels not seen for more than 8,000 centuries: 
acidification of our oceans. Individually, these stressors would be 
cause for concern. In combination with each other, this expert group of 
scientists concluded, they are driving our ocean toward the brink of a 
mass extinction and ecosystem collapse.
  One example of the multiplier effect on marine life comes from 
plastic debris and toxic chemicals. Plastics make their way as trash 
into the ocean where they break down into small particles that are 
consumed by marine life, like sea turtles, sea birds, and microscopic 
plankton. Consumption of plastic alone becomes fatal for marine life, 
when they consume so much indigestible material that they stop eating 
all together and starve to death. But the surfaces of plastic particles 
also easily absorb chemical pollutants, so they amplify the load of 
chemical pollution on these creatures.
  The levels of chemical pollution are themselves on the rise in even 
the most remote seas where no human development exists. Many of these 
chemical pollutants, like flame retardants and fluorinated compounds 
are poured down home sinks, or expelled as waste from industrial 
facilities, directly into the ocean. Plants and animals have not 
evolved ways to break down these new synthetic compounds, so they 
``bioaccumulate,'' meaning they become increasingly concentrated as 
they are passed up the food chain, or passed in marine mammals from 
mothers to calves in their milk, until many of our top oceanic 
predators, our most majestic creatures, are now swimming toxic waste.
  Another example of what the scientists call ``negatively 
synergistic'' environmental harms is the combination of destructive 
fishing practices, nutrient runoff, and the presence of hormone-
disrupting pharmaceuticals in our wastewater on coral reefs. But now, 
these precious ecosystems, known as the rainforests of the sea, do not 
have to just contend with overfishing, nutrient, and wastewater 
pollution. Now the reefs, like the mangroves, salt marsh estuaries, and 
seagrass meadows, in their damaged and less resilient state, must also 
face a rapidly changing climate and its dual effects of ocean warming 
and acidification. Coral reefs are more likely to bleach when exposed 
to both increased temperature and acidification than if they are 
exposed to either condition separately.
  Add both conditions to pre-existing stressors, and 35 percent of the 
world's reefs are classified as in a critical or threatened stage. 
Scientific projections indicate that without urgent action, coral reef 
ecosystems could be eliminated in 30-50 years.
  The death and decline of coral reefs, the most diverse ecosystems on 
the planet, dramatically impairs the reproduction and development of 
hundreds of other species that call them home. When a reef ecosystem 
collapses and does not recover, it quickly becomes dominated by algae, 
and the phenomenal biodiversity once present disappears. For human 
society, this is accompanied by a loss of food, loss of income, and 
damage to the billion-dollar per year tourist industries.
  The workshop report echoes the overwhelming body of peer-reviewed 
science and literature on climate change and carbon pollution, stating 
that:

       Human actions have resulted in warming and acidification of 
     the oceans and are now causing increased hypoxia (lack of 
     oxygen). Studies of the Earth's past indicate that these are 
     the three symptoms . . . associated with each of the previous 
     five mass extinctions on Earth.

  We are now talking about changes whose precedents can only be found 
in geologic time. I have often said how we have veered outside of the 
bandwidth of carbon concentration that has prevailed for 800,000 years. 
This comparison is to mass ocean extinction events 55 and 251 million 
years ago. Back then, the rates of carbon entering the atmosphere in 
the lead-up to these extinctions are estimated to be 2.2 and 1.2 
gigatons of carbon per year, respectively, over several thousand years. 
But, as this new report identifies, ``Both these estimates are dwarfed 
in comparison to today's emissions of roughly 30 Gt of CO2 
per year.'' Such a massive dumping of carbon pollution into our 
atmosphere creates the prospect of devastating damage to our oceans.

[[Page 10980]]

  And, in fact, we may already be witnessing this devastation. In one 
breathtaking part of the report, the scientists remark that, ``The 
speeds of many negative changes to the ocean are near to or are 
tracking the worst-case scenarios from the IPCC and other 
predictions.'' The IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 
created several scenarios predicting how the Earth's natural systems 
could respond to ever-increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere. This report says observations are worse than the IPCC's 
worse case scenarios. The predictions of the IPCC have received a lot 
of special-interest-sponsored mockery on this floor, but these are not 
predictions now, they are observations. For instance, the decrease in 
Arctic Sea ice cover and the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice 
sheets, which hold enough water to raise sea levels by more than 200 
ft, are actually occurring, and faster than expected. Correspondingly, 
sea levels are rising.
  Likewise, the report observes that ``acidification is occurring 
faster than in the past 55 million years, and with the added man-made 
stressors of overfishing and pollution undermining ocean resilience.''
  These observations should be sobering. Not only are the changes 
great, but they are happening so quickly that marine life cannot adapt.
  Numerically, the average ocean pH has decreased from 8.2 to 8.1 since 
the industrialized revolution. This seems like a small change, but the 
pH scale is logarithmic, so the change is profound. If that same amount 
of change in pH occurred in our blood, we could suffer respiratory or 
kidney failure. It is not difficult to imagine how this change has huge 
consequences for marine life and especially the calcifying organisms, 
like coral reefs, shellfish, and plankton, which are increasingly 
becoming soluble in their environment as it becomes increasingly 
acidic. If this unprecedented rate of change in ocean pH continues it 
could mean an almost 200 percent decrease by mid century. It is not an 
exaggeration to say that we are on the verge of an ecosystem collapse 
that we could see happen in a single generation.
  Though mass extinction events have occurred in the past, workshop 
participants state that, ``comparing the current environmental change 
with these events is difficult because the rates of environmental 
change are unprecedented. It is therefore difficult to predict what the 
outcome of the current anthropogenic experiment will be.'' However, the 
report continues: ``it can be said that we are pushing the Earth system 
to its limits.''
  The workshop participants concluded, ``Unless action is taken now, 
the consequences of our activities are at a high risk of causing, 
through the combined effects of climate change, overexploitation, 
pollution and habitat loss, the next globally significant extinction 
event in the ocean.'' Again, they mean in geologic time.
  So what will we do? This is not the first report to state with 
certainty that our oceans, and thus our ocean dependent populations and 
economies, are in serious jeopardy. In 2003 the Pew Ocean Commission 
report led off with the following, ``America's oceans are in crisis and 
the stakes could not be higher.'' In 2004, the U.S. Commission on Ocean 
Policy, as mandated by Congress in the Oceans Act of 2000, published 
their final report and pronounced, ``The importance of our oceans, 
coasts, and Great Lakes cannot be overstated; they are critical to the 
very existence and wellbeing of the nation and its people. Yet, as the 
21st century dawns, it is clear that these invaluable and life-
sustaining assets are vulnerable to the activities of humans.''
  Nearly two centuries ago, the poet Byron could write:

     Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll.
     Ten-thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
     Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
     Stops with the shore.

  Well, no more. Now, in 2011, this international group of scientists 
reminds us that we are now marking the oceans with ruin and that ``the 
human interactions with the ocean must change,'' to quote their report, 
``to sustainable management of all activities that impinge marine 
ecosystems.''
  Mr. President, we must work together to preserve and protect the 
ocean ecosystems we rely on so heavily, for we too are greater than the 
sum of our parts. In a bipartisan effort, Senator Snowe and I have 
introduced the National Endowment for the Oceans to provide dedicated 
funding for ocean and coastal research, restoration, protection, and 
conservation. Too often, the knowledge and the information we need to 
better protect and understand these ecosystems comes too late or comes 
not at all. We hope to change that.
  Together, we can still turn the tide to protect our ocean and our 
society, but if we are to have any chance, we must act soon, and we 
must make progress quickly. I look forward to working with my 
colleagues to confront these looming challenges.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I am in somewhat of a unique position as a 
returning Senator after being out of Congress for 12 years. I never 
contemplated running for the Senate again or being back on this floor 
in any capacity except as a former Senator, but I had a chance to do it 
over, I guess is the best phrase, and assess what is important and why 
I am here.
  I ran for only one reason. I am deeply concerned about the direction 
of our country and our plunge into debt. I want to try and avoid coming 
here and assessing blame, but rather set aside who is responsible. I 
want us to avoid the politics of all this and simply recognize this is 
the situation we face. Our fiscal situation has potentially dire 
consequences for the future of this country, not just for our children 
and grandchildren, but even for this generation.
  Our economy is not in good shape. We still have not recovered from 
one of the deepest recessions since the Great Depression. There are a 
lot of people out of work. The official unemployment number is 9.2 
percent. The real number is a lot higher than that because many people 
have given up looking for work, or they extended their time in school 
because they know that if they graduate and get out into the job market 
they are not going to be able to find work in the area they are trained 
for, or perhaps in any area. A lot of people have tried and tried and 
simply cannot find work.
  It is clear and I think there is a consensus--if not total consensus 
at least pretty close to total consensus--that we simply have run out 
of money. As a government we have made promises that we can no longer 
afford to pay for and fulfill, without serious financial restructuring. 
We have enjoyed a lot of largess and a lot of prosperity in the past. 
As a result, commitments were made for spending in discretionary 
programs, building highways, and sewer systems, etc.--a lot of good 
things but things we simply no longer can afford.
  We see this happening across the world. There has been a 60-year 
spurt or commitment to credit and now the money has run out to pay for 
all that. Whether it is southern Europe, other parts of the world or 
the United States, this is a very difficult situation. For the last 6 
or 7 months a lot of us have worked very hard to try to find a 
solution. We are now in the month of July, and we are approaching the 
date in which we reach our debt limit. We no longer can continue to 
borrow without raising that limit.
  About 40 percent of everything we spend now has to be borrowed. That 
is unsustainable. We are told that funding for the basic programs that 
help the senior citizens of our country enjoy the rest of their lives--
Medicare and Social Security--are drying up, and it will not be long 
before either benefits have to be cut or programs become insolvent. No 
one here wants to see that

[[Page 10981]]

happen. What we do want to see happen, though, are necessary steps to 
preserve those programs for the future.
  This crisis is occurring all over the world. We are watching it take 
place as it creeps through different countries, and now we are facing 
that. Whether it is a liberal economist or conservative economist or 
someone in between, or someone with no political interest, there is 
consensus that we have to take action and we need to take it now. We 
cannot postpone it. We have been doing this for years.
  We all knew the baby boomers would retire and put tremendous pressure 
on our budget, and that is exactly what has happened. The quicker we 
take action, the less painful it will be. It is going to be painful 
because we have put fixing this problem off for so long.
  For 6 or 7 months there has been a sincere effort by a lot of people 
to solve this problem--Republicans and Democrats. These are people who 
genuinely have concern for the future of this country and believe we 
need to address these issues, as painful as they are. It goes against 
political instincts of preparing and positioning oneself for 
reelection, whether it is 2012 or beyond.
  But as I said from the beginning, we must find a way to transcend 
politics and the 2012 election. Unfortunately, the closer we get to the 
crisis, the more we see politicians positioning themselves so as not to 
be blamed.
  The reason we came here was not to position ourselves politically so 
we can succeed in the next election. The reason we came was to deal 
with the problem in front of us right now and that needs to be 
addressed right now. What is the rough consensus? The rough consensus 
is that if we don't have at least, over the next 10 years, $4 trillion 
to $6 trillion of cuts in discretionary spending and in some of the 
mandatory programs, we are not going to have a credible program the 
financial world will be able to look at and say: You can still trust in 
the value of the dollar and ability to continue viewing America as a 
safe haven to place investments.
  There is a consensus that unless we make structural changes--not just 
cuts and nicks and little slices here and there, but structural 
changes--in the entitlement programs, they will not be solvent in the 
years ahead. Then we will have to turn to those senior citizens and 
beneficiaries and low-income people and say: I am sorry. We simply 
cannot pay you what we had committed to pay you. Your benefits are 
going to have to be reduced, or we are going to have to raise taxes to 
pay for it.
  Without comprehensive tax reform, we are not going to have the kind 
of package we need to create a dynamic, growing economy that can solve 
some of our revenue problems. It is not just cutting, it is not just 
growth, but it is a combination of those items and structural reform 
that is necessary in a package, and that is what we have been debating: 
how to get there.
  What is disturbing to me lately is that we have shifted away from 
that central focus, and now we are focusing on who will take the blame 
when we default or don't default on August 2. There is a lot of 
political posturing around here. This is not about corporate jets. It 
is not about all these ads out there and mailings and so forth saying: 
Congress is going to take away your Social Security. Congress is going 
to slash your Medicare benefits.
  I guess I am asking that we acknowledge the reality of the situation 
we are in, that we do our very best to put this above the politics of 
2012, and work to find some sensible solution to all of this.
  I believe comprehensive tax reform can potentially provide a way to 
address the need for revenue and the need for growth. As we know, there 
are hundreds, if not thousands, of special expenditures, exemptions, 
subsidies, credits in the Tax Code that were put in for the few and not 
for the many, that have complicated our Tax Code to the point where no 
one can understand it except for someone with an advanced degree in 
accounting or law.
  So I believe tax reform is essential as a part of whatever reform 
package we finally come up with to address the debt. Senator Wyden and 
I, on a bipartisan basis--a Democrat from Oregon, a Republican from 
Indiana--have put together a comprehensive tax reform package. We don't 
call it perfect. We are open to suggestions. But it eliminates those 
special exemptions and uses the revenues gained from cutting loopholes 
to lower tax rates for Americans. Our corporations pay the highest 
corporate tax rate of every one of our global competitors except one. 
There are 36 countries that compete and sell their products around the 
world, and we are 35 out of 36 when it comes to our tax rate. We want 
to level playing field with the rest of them because we think we can 
outcompete, and that will be a significant and positive impact on our 
economy. So using those revenues from eliminating loopholes as a way of 
lowering tax rates and addressing some of the needs we have is 
certainly something we ought to be exploring.
  Lastly, let me just say we need to focus on the reality of the 
situation in a personal way because we get caught up in numbers, and we 
get caught up in generalities. What are we trying to do? We are trying 
to get this economy moving again so people who have been searching for 
work for 2 and 3 years can get their jobs back; so young couples who 
wish to raise a family have the opportunity to buy a home; so parents 
who are saving and trying to get their children into good schools for 
postsecondary education have the ability to do that; so college 
graduates can come out of school with a degree and find a place to work 
and begin a career.
  We owe it to the people of our country who are suffering right now, 
and there are many. We owe it to this Nation that has provided so much 
opportunity and so much prosperity for so many people. No country in 
the world has come close to what America has achieved. We owe it to our 
children and our grandchildren who will inherit what we have done or 
not done. The reality is, we are going to transfer a debt load onto our 
children and future generations that they may not be able to overcome. 
I don't want to leave that legacy. I don't want to be part of a 
generation that does that. So I think it is time for us to stand up and 
do what is necessary to address this problem.
  Letters and emails from Indiana are running 100 to 1 in favor of 
cutting government, and running 100 to 1 against cutting anything in 
Social Security or Medicare. I have people coming into my office every 
day saying: We know we have to get our fiscal house in order, but let 
me tell you why our program needs to be exempted.
  As politicians, we want to say yes to people. As responsible, elected 
officials faced with a very difficult situation, we have to, with 
compassion, look at people and say: No, we are not able to do this. We 
are not able to afford this, but we are taking this action today so we 
can afford it in the future. We are taking action now so we can leave 
future generations with the same types of opportunities our generation 
has enjoyed and the benefits that come from living in America. That may 
cost some people their elections. There are a number of people here who 
are willing to sacrifice for that purpose.
  Do we want to leave and say: Well, I survived all these years 
unscathed politically, or do we want to leave here saying at the right 
time we did the right thing? At the time of crisis, at a time when our 
country desperately needed us to come together to address this very 
serious problem that could plunge our country into a deep recession, if 
not depression, at a time when financial institutions around the world 
are fragile, at a time when wars and conflicts are popping up all over 
the globe, did we do the right thing? What do we want our legacy to be 
regardless of the consequences?
  We are 2 or 3 weeks away from defaulting on our debt. There are a lot 
of excuses around here about that and some even think it will not have 
many consequences. It will. The idea of using that as leverage to gain 
what we need to do doesn't appear to have worked.
  I think if we keep our focus simply on default or not default, we 
still have a major problem. Just simply finding a way to get through 
this and raising the debt limit does not solve the underlying problem. 
That has to be addressed. I wish we had been able to do

[[Page 10982]]

that because the situation is dire. We cannot wait until 2013. We need 
to do it now.
  So here I am. I don't have answers. I have some guidelines from 
people who know a lot more about this than I do, people who do not have 
a political stake in this in terms of what they think we need to do to 
put together a package. We need a plan that has credibility with the 
financial world, so that what has happened in Greece, Portugal and 
Ireland and maybe now in Italy or Spain, and other places in the world 
will not happen here because we have restored some confidence and faith 
in the American people and the investment see the United States as a 
safe haven for their money. We need credibility so others know we have 
seen the problem, we have recognized it, we have taken meaningful 
steps, and while it will be painful and take time--America has come 
through.
  To paraphrase Winston Churchill: America always will do the right 
thing after it has tried all the wrong things. Well, we spent a lot of 
years doing the wrong things and not recognizing that we were building 
up an unsustainable fiscal situation that would come back to haunt us. 
We have tried a lot of methods and postponements and deferments and 
everything else. What we have not done is stand up to the problem we 
have and do what is necessary, take this above politics, and do what is 
right for America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Merkley). The Senator from Alaska.


                                croatia

  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I rise to speak briefly about progress in 
the nation of Croatia, which I was honored to visit recently.
  At the invitation of the Croatian Minister of Defense, I participated 
in what is known as the ``Croatian Summit,'' a gathering of leaders 
from Eastern Europe.
  The theme of this year's summit was: ``A New Decade for Southeast 
Europe: Finalizing the Transition.''
  Less than 15 years after a terrible ethnic war that devastated 
Croatia, the nation is making enormous progress. It is rapidly making a 
transition to a market-based economy and its government leaders are 
committed to a strong and lasting partnership with the United States.
  They are a great partner of ours in Afghanistan and in other trouble 
spots across the globe.
  That is personally important to me because 100 years ago this year, 
my grandfather emigrated from Croatia to this country. John Begic--then 
it was spelled B-E-G-I-C--then 17 years old, left his farm and 
eventually settled in northern Minnesota's Iron Range.
  John Begic and his young bride, Anna Martinich had four children. 
Their youngest, Nicholas, made his way to America's new frontier of 
Alaska even before we were a state. He was my father.
  Nick Begich was an educator and eventually was elected Alaska's lone 
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1970. I am honored to 
follow in his footsteps as a Member of the Senate, where I am the only 
Member of Croatian decent.
  My recent visit to Dubrovnik was my first to Croatia. I was honored 
to represent this body at the summit, along with officials from the 
State Department and U.S. Embassy.
  I was impressed with the great progress underway there, as well as 
the excellent job being performed by our embassy personnel. There are 
enormous opportunities for partnership between the United States and 
Croatia, and I am anxious to pursue those.
  I ask unanimous consent that my remarks at the Croatia Summit be 
printed in the Record to document my participation in the summit and 
the strong partnership between our nations.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

 Croatia Summit Panel: Security Challenges in the Altered Mediterranean

       Thank you, Defense Minister Bozinovic, for that kind 
     introduction.
       Thanks to all the government leaders of Croatia and to the 
     people of Croatia for the warm hospitality you have extended 
     to me in the short time I've been here. It's also an honor to 
     meet with many of the other leaders of the region at this 
     Summit.
       Visiting Croatia has been a life-long dream of mine, never 
     realized until yesterday. It was exactly 100 years ago that a 
     17-year-old farmer by the name of John Begic left the family 
     farm in the small village of Podlapaca, over the mountains 
     from the Adriatic not far from Zagreb.
       Upon landing at Ellis Island, they gave him a new name--
     Begich--with an H. And permission to establish himself in 
     America. John Begic was my grandfather. He eventually settled 
     in Minnesota's Iron Range.
       John Begic and his young bride, Anna Martinich, had four 
     children. Their youngest--Nicholas--made his way to America's 
     new frontier of Alaska even before we were a state. He was my 
     father.
       Nick Begich was an educator and eventually was elected 
     Alaska's lone member of the United States House of 
     Representatives in 1970. I'm honored to follow in his 
     footsteps as a member of the United States Senate, where I am 
     the only member of Croatian decent.
       From the moment of my election nearly three years ago, the 
     people of Croatia have treated me as a long-lost son. In 
     fact, I've had better coverage in the Croatian press than my 
     hometown newspapers back in Alaska!
       When I was invited to participate in this Croatian Summit, 
     I jumped at the opportunity. Not because I'm an expert in the 
     issues of this region, but more to commend the people of 
     Croatia for your enormous progress and your great partnership 
     with my country.
       Croatia has made remarkable political progress since the 
     end of the war more than 15 years ago. You are a welcome 
     member of NATO and will soon become the 28th member of the 
     European Union. Both of these landmarks came with enormous 
     challenge, and I salute your achievement. There will be bumps 
     in the road to this new future.
       And there is no doubt that Croatia has earned membership in 
     both. As a NATO member, Croatia has stepped up to the 
     responsibility of providing security in both the region and 
     internationally.
       As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am 
     closely tuned to military engagements across the globe. By 
     the end of this year, nearly 10,000 soldiers from my own 
     state of Alaska will be serving in harm's way in Afghanistan. 
     This is one of the highest percentages of any state. Their 
     service on the front lines is not without controversy back 
     home, and I know you face the same questions here. So I thank 
     you for your partnership.
       Croatia's troop commitment in Afghanistan--330, soon to be 
     350--is one of the highest per-capita contributions in the 
     International Security and Assistance Force there. And 
     Croatia has taken the lead in establishing a military police 
     training center in Afghanistan, to which other members in the 
     region will also contribute trainers.
       This cooperation alone, in faraway Afghanistan, involving 
     countries that not long ago were embroiled in a vicious war, 
     brings a certain stability to the region of the former 
     Yugoslavia and creates a unique opportunity.
       Fifteen years ago Croatia was a security consumer, with UN 
     Peacekeeping troops deployed throughout the country. It is 
     now a security provider, with 472 troops deployed across the 
     globe, including in Kosovo, the Golan Heights, Afghanistan, 
     Western Sahara, India-Pakistan, and in counter-piracy 
     operations in the Gulf of Aden. They even have staff officers 
     assigned to NATO operations in Libya.
       One impressive observation: Croatia recently hosted the 
     U.S.-led ``Immediate Response'' military exercise involving 
     troops from countries throughout the region. Most 
     importantly, Serbian troops participated.
       Imagine, just more than 15 years since Serb and Croat 
     troops fought it out throughout this country, Serbian and 
     Croatian troops cooperated side by side in an exercise to 
     ensure security in the region. This is a testament to the 
     determination of the governments of Serbia and Croatia to put 
     the past behind them. This type of cooperation ensures that 
     this region will have a secure and prosperous future.
       Croatia has also demonstrated a desire to play a 
     constructive role in assisting neighboring Bosnia and 
     Herzegovina. Bosnia's stability and prosperity are absolutely 
     key to security in the region.
       Croatia is in a position to play a positive and leading 
     role in assisting countries in the region in their efforts at 
     Euro-Atlantic integration. Joining the EU and NATO, with 
     their shared values of democracy, human rights and rule of 
     law, is perhaps the best way to ensure security and 
     prosperity in the region.
       In early May, I was honored to welcome to my office 
     Croatian President Josipovic. I congratulated him then on the 
     enormous progress Croatia has achieved in a little more than 
     a decade after a devastating war.
       I understand that per capita income is the second highest 
     in the former Yugoslav states. Health, education and other 
     quality of life factors are on par with many European 
     countries. Despite these signs of progress, the president 
     reminded me that

[[Page 10983]]

     Croatia's economy remains troubled, with high unemployment 
     and outdated industries. That's a situation we can certainly 
     sympathize with in my country.
       One note of caution: Croatia still has a long way to go to 
     reform its overly bureaucratized economy in a way that will 
     ensure prosperity ensures stability and encourages 
     investment.
       Croatia, like many of its European neighbors, is in a 
     position to play a positive role in providing security in a 
     Mediterranean that is in transition. I noted earlier that 
     Croatia has provided staff officers as members of the NATO 
     team conducting operations in Libya. Croatia has also stated 
     publically that it is working with the anti-Ghadafi 
     Transitional National Council, and has recognized it as the 
     legitimate voice of the Libyan people.
       Just as the countries of East and Central Europe had their 
     own European Spring in 1989 and after, North Africa and the 
     Middle East is groping toward a kind of democracy and social 
     justice that for the most part had eluded them. The nations 
     of Europe, especially those like Croatia who made the 
     transition from dictatorship to democracy, can and are 
     playing a special role to help all the people of the 
     Mediterranean achieve democracy, rule of law and prosperity. 
     Euro-Atlantic engagement with the pro-Democracy movements in 
     North Africa and the Middle East is the best way to ensure 
     their revolutions do not take a turn down the wrong path.
       The U.S. is anxious to assist with economic partnerships 
     with this region. One specific area is with increased 
     tourism.
       From what little I've been able to see of Dubrovnik, you 
     have an enormously attractive city which many Americans would 
     love to visit. And we'd certainly welcome Croatian visitors 
     to our states, including Alaska. I am working with Senator 
     Mikulski of Maryland on her visa waiver bill to ease the 
     ability of Croatians to get visas to visit the United States.
       Let me conclude by restating how excited I am to be here in 
     Croatia and to commend you for a productive and lasting 
     partnership with the United States. I hope this conference 
     creates many more opportunities for cooperation within this 
     region.

  Mr. BEGICH. Mr. President, I wish to say thank you for the 
opportunity to put on the Record my experiences in Croatia this last 
weekend and, again, seeing the country after 15 years ago going through 
incredible devastation to where they are today.
  I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Carolina.
  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                          Budget Listening Tour

  Mrs. HAGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to report to the Senate on 
the completion of my North Carolina Budget Listening Tour. While people 
in this town were mired in political gamesmanship that seems to be 
pushing parties further apart, I wanted to hear directly from community 
leaders and business leaders in North Carolina about how they think we 
should be approaching the responsibility we have to reduce our deficit 
and our debt. I held listening sessions all over the State--from 
Raleigh to Greensboro and Charlotte to Wilmington--and I heard from 
North Carolinians of every kind: small business owners, health care 
workers, veterans, entrepreneurs, and more.
  The message I heard could not have been more different from the 
partisan bickering in Washington that is dominating the airwaves. In 
Washington, we see negotiators walking away from the table, refusing 
any and all compromise, putting politics ahead of what is best for the 
American people. In North Carolina, people were coming to the table and 
putting party aside for commonsense solutions to meet our shared budget 
obligations. To me, the message was crystal clear: Washington needs to 
take a lesson from North Carolina. It is far past time to put 
partisanship aside and do what is right for the American people.
  At the Charlotte listening session, I heard from the executive 
director of a health care nonprofit responsible for caring for the 
elderly. She told me about important ways we can reduce health care 
costs and save lives, such as expanding access to preventive care for 
seniors to reduce the onset of expensive chronic diseases. Gayla Woody, 
the director of aging at the Centralina Council of Governments, told me 
the story of how one of her clients--a man caring for his wife with 
Alzheimer's--was able to continue to care for her at their home thanks 
to the comparatively small investments made in the Family Caregiver 
Program rather than a more expensive nursing home. They both also told 
me we cannot afford an extreme plan to turn Medicare into a voucher 
program for vulnerable seniors. Balancing the budget on their backs is 
not a solution I can support.
  I also heard from small business owners, economic development 
coordinators, and community bankers at our Wilmington and Raleigh tour 
stops. They told me about how Washington's partisan paralysis is 
preventing them from having the sort of certainty they need to be able 
to make the hard decisions to invest in their businesses and to grow 
jobs in this economy for their companies. If these businesses don't 
know whether they ought to be investing in new equipment or new 
employees, then we are not going to be able to sustain the economic 
growth that is a necessary component to reducing our deficit and our 
debt.
  I also heard from a veteran of the U.S. Marines Corps and current 
chaplain for the Onslow County Special Incident Response Team. This 
dedicated public servant talked about the importance of protecting 
services for our veterans. And I will fight for them just as hard as 
they fought for us. He also talked to me about the importance of 
priorities. He said we ought to keep our promises to those who 
sacrificed for us--our seniors and our veterans--but we also need to 
invest in our children and their education. It was important for the 
future, he believed, and I agree he was right.
  While the challenge of reducing our deficit may appear daunting, I 
don't believe meeting it is impossible if Washington takes to heart the 
message I heard all over North Carolina last month. Both sides--
Democrats and Republicans--need to put aside partisanship and come to 
an agreement that is bipartisan and balanced, one that includes a 
shared sacrifice but also fulfills the sacred promises made to our 
seniors and our veterans and makes the critical investments necessary 
for a prosperous American future. Above all else, they do not want us 
to kick the can down the road one more time. They sent us here to make 
hard decisions. Putting them off to resolve during some future crisis 
is simply not an option.
  These broad goals and values are widely shared across party lines. I 
recognize turning them into a bipartisan, balanced solution to our 
fiscal challenges will not be easy, but the consequences of failing to 
do so are simply too great to ignore.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor and note the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                The Debt

  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today as a Member of 
the Senate--specifically, though, as a Senator from Wyoming because in 
Wyoming our families know they have to live within their means. Wyoming 
is a State that lives within its means. In Wyoming, our very 
constitution requires that our State live within its means.
  Washington has a total debt now that is over $14 trillion and 
continues to climb every day. Wyoming's total debt is zero. How did 
Washington fail where Wyoming succeeded? Well, in Washington, this city 
overspends in Washington there is nothing really to stop it. In 
Wyoming, we live within our means because our constitution demands that 
we balance our budget every year. It is time for Washington to take a 
lesson from Wyoming and the other States that balance their budgets 
every year.
  The President says, ``All of us agree that we should use this 
opportunity to

[[Page 10984]]

do something meaningful on debt and deficits.'' Well, passing a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is possibly the most 
meaningful thing we could do.
  This city's finances are in disarray. Our Nation's finances are in 
disarray. It has been over 800 days since this body has passed a budget 
resolution. Since the last time a full budget was passed, our country 
has spent over $7 trillion, and $3.2 trillion of that was money we did 
not have.
  Our total debt now is over $14 trillion. People say: How much money 
is that? The number is astonishingly large. Let's try to put it a 
little bit into perspective. Every day, Washington borrows over $4 
billion. We borrowed over $4 billion yesterday, $4 billion today, and 
if someone will lend us the money, we will borrow over $4 billion 
tomorrow. That is over $2 million a minute, every minute. Every single 
day, Washington borrows enough money to buy tens of thousands of new 
homes. Every single hour, Washington borrows enough to buy nearly 2 
million barrels of oil. Every single minute, Washington borrows enough 
to send 53 students to private college for a full year. Every single 
second, Washington borrows enough to buy two new automobiles. We paid 
over $200 billion last year in interest on the debt alone. The 
President talks about a tax on private jets. That is enough money--the 
interest alone--to buy over 200 private jets every day.
  It is not enough to think about this in the large terms; you have to 
try to put it in terms that people understand. Because we are spending 
and borrowing so much money, it is difficult to put it into terms that 
people grasp and that they see. It is good to hear the President 
acknowledge that we have to stop making more than the minimum payments 
in order to pay off and deal with this incredible debt.
  The President has also announced his willingness to make a deal that 
he says involves meaningful changes to Medicare, to Social Security, 
and to Medicaid. To his credit, the President has accepted that much of 
the problem with saving these programs springs from his own side of the 
aisle. He says, and I agree, that now is the time to do it.
  The Associated Press quoted the President asking the most important 
question of all: ``If not now, when?'' Well, the clock is ticking. In 
just 13 years, Medicare will be bankrupt. We have to strengthen 
Medicare. In 25 years, the same will be true of Social Security. Unlike 
our debt limit, this is not a limit Congress can simply legislate away. 
We have to act now to prevent these programs from failing not just 
today's generation but future generations.
  The Senate minority leader said: I commend the President for putting 
Social Security and Medicare on the table.
  He is correct in doing that. So with the President seeing the light 
on so many issues, why are we still talking about finding a solution 
instead of actually getting one passed here in the Congress? Because, 
for all that he claims to understand, the President has still fallen 
back on the same tax-and-spend policies that made this economic 
situation worse. It is clear that the policies of this administration 
have taken a tough problem and may have made it worse. On the 
President's inauguration day, the unemployment rate in this country was 
just under 8 percent. Today, it is 9.2 percent. Every American child 
who is born today will owe roughly $45,000. Let's compare that to the 
day President Obama was inaugurated. Every child then owed roughly 
$35,000. So in just those short years, the debt on a child born in 
America, the debt they are born with has gone up from $35,000 to 
$45,000. These disturbing economic results are the direct result of the 
past 2 years of policies.
  Liberals want to hold the U.S. credit rating hostage for more tax 
hikes, and the President is leading the charge. He is trying to push 
more tax hikes despite the very fact that even he has now said it is 
the worst time to raise taxes. Back in 2009, President Obama said: The 
last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a recession. So why, 
then, is he calling for $400 billion in tax increases today? And why is 
the Senate Budget Committee chairman trying to one-up the President by 
calling for $2 trillion? Well, of course, the President will not admit 
he wants to raise taxes. He likes to use wiggle words. He uses words 
such as ``revenue'' or the ``spending in the Tax Code'' instead. But 
when you translate this Washington doublespeak, it comes out ``higher 
taxes.''
  With the spin exposed, liberals are trying another tack: They are 
trying to claim they will delay the tax increases until the economy 
recovers. They are not saying they are not going to raise taxes; they 
say: Let's put it off for a while. This week, the President showed what 
this really means. He said, ``Nobody is going to raise taxes right 
now.'' He said, ``We are talking about potentially 2013 and the 
outyears.'' So, in other words, this is not really about waiting until 
the economic recovery comes; it is about waiting until 2013, until 
after the President's reelection campaign.
  More troubling still, the President has already signaled that he 
wants to spend more in the future. Our problem is not that we are taxed 
too little, it is that we spend too much. Yet the President wants to 
spend even more. At his press conference, he said he is only tackling 
our debt so we can be ``in a position to make the kind of investments I 
think are going to be necessary to win the future.'' When the President 
talks about investment, it is common knowledge that what he is talking 
about is spending.
  Finally, for all his posturing about getting this done, now it is 
really the President who seems to want to kick the can down the road. 
His plan may cut trillions, but Washington would be able to take as 
long as 10 years to do it.
  Minority Leader McConnell has already blown the liberal cover on 
these very cynical political bluffs. He said, ``The President has 
presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or 
default.'' Well, Republicans choose none of the above.
  As a doctor, I have taken the Hippocratic Oath. The oath says: Do no 
harm.
  Raising taxes will harm our economy. Cutting spending at a snail's 
pace will do very little to help. We have to tackle our fiscal problems 
today. The first step toward solving these problems should be to pass 
an amendment to our Constitution requiring Washington to balance its 
budget.
  A balanced budget amendment would require Washington to spend no more 
money than it takes in every year. Such an amendment would force 
Washington to live within its means as many States do and as families 
across the country do.
  I come to the floor as cosponsor of the balanced budget amendment. As 
a matter of fact, every Republican in the Senate is a cosponsor of the 
balanced budget amendment, 47 Republican Senators. Every one is a 
cosponsor of the balanced budget amendment. We are united and will 
remain united. This is a commonsense approach, and it will show the 
American people that they can trust their government with their money 
once again because right now the American people have little confidence 
they are getting value for the money they send to Washington.
  I believe we need to lead today, not defer leadership until tomorrow. 
Americans are courageous; they deserve a courageous government. That is 
why I know the American people overwhelmingly support a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution.
  The President said the other day that it is time to ``eat our peas.'' 
We all saw him on television saying it is time to ``eat our peas.'' I 
agree with another President, Ronald Reagan, who said it is time to 
``starve the beast.'' The beast is Washington and the Washington 
wasteful spending that the American people are seeing every day.
  Mr. President, Americans pay their debts. They want their country to 
do so too. It is time for Washington to listen. It is time for a 
balanced budget constitutional amendment, and then it is time to start 
paying off this massive debt.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page 10985]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, like you, I have heard a lot of loose 
talk over the past months invoking the Founding Fathers--loose talk to 
underscore an expedient argument about what they would be doing if they 
were legislating today. But the way our Founders are often used is as a 
caricature to distort history for the benefit of partisan and narrow 
interests.
  To hear some people talk about it, you would think the Founders were 
engaged in a process of dismantling a country rather than building one. 
That version of events is not only wrong but it also thoroughly 
diminishes the founding generation's extraordinary accomplishments and 
the lessons we should draw from them.
  Our Founders met enormous challenges with great courage and sacrifice 
to start a country around an ideal. In the same vein, our modern 
history has been characterized by meeting great challenges with 
distinct qualities. We are hard working. We meet our challenges by 
refusing to allow their complexities or attendant political difficulty 
to lead us toward accepting failure as an option. We are inclusive. We 
meet our great challenges by meeting them as one, by crafting solutions 
that involve buy-in, participation, and sacrifice from all parts of the 
political landscape, and the American people.
  We act with courage. We meet our great challenges when, and only 
when, the leaders of the day have the courage to decide they will be 
the ones who meet those challenges, that they will transcend the short-
term incentives and political imperatives of their time to do something 
of greater importance.
  These traits have enabled us to end a Civil War, overcome the Great 
Depression, and march toward civil rights. But they have also allowed 
us to do smaller and still very important things such as work together 
in the 1980s to protect and preserve Social Security.
  Today, that honorable past and the sacrifice it entailed has been 
hijacked to protect and defend narrow interest group politics and tax 
loopholes.
  Our tax and regulatory codes are backward, facing in a way that is 
straining our recession-battered middle class and failing to drive 
innovation in our economy. As a result, middle-class income continues 
to fall, the gap between rich and poor grows wider, and all of us wait 
for a 20th-century economy to produce 21st-century jobs. That wait will 
be in vain.
  It will particularly be in vain for those of our citizens unlucky 
enough to be born poor and who therefore stand a 9 in 100 chance of 
ever graduating from college in the United States of America in the 
year 2011. That is because year after year we have torn each other up 
so much on issue after issue, because of the smallness we have 
exhibited in the face of what our big challenges are, and now we find 
ourselves at a crisis point without a politics capable of even 
addressing the kinds of challenges we face each year, let alone a 
generational crisis like our deficit and debt.
  I have come to the floor for months arguing for the need for a 
comprehensive approach to addressing our deficits and debt. What 
Colorado wants is nothing more than what this country has seen from 
past generations of leaders in past times of crisis. As I have said 
over and over, what people in red parts of the State and what people in 
blue parts of the State want is a solution that materially addresses 
the problem. They know we are not going to fix it overnight, but they 
want it materially addressed. They want a demonstration that we are all 
in it together, that everybody has something to contribute to solving 
the problem. They emphatically want it to be bipartisan because they 
don't believe in an either-party-going-it-alone approach when it comes 
to our debt and our deficit.
  I add a corollary to that, which is that we need to assure our 
capital markets that the paper they bought is actually worth what they 
paid for it.
  It was in the spirit of getting together on a solution like that my 
colleague, Senator Mike Johanns, and I wrote a letter to the President. 
Sixty-four Members of the Senate--evenly divided between both parties--
signed onto an approach that called for entitlement reform, tax reform, 
and discretionary spending cuts. The math compels this answer. The 
economy needs this certainty. Colorado and the country want this 
result. It should achieve the $4.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 
10 years and should have a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue 
increases. That is what the Bowles-Simpson Commission recommended.
  Our political system seems intent on thwarting an approach supported 
by Senators in both parties. Both parties seem willing to submit to 
that flawed system's perverse incentives.
  While I am convinced that many in this body and the House would 
actually like to make this deal, these interests distort the 
conversation into a partisan war and rip it apart from the inside.
  On one side, some advocate for no changes to the Medicare Program; on 
the other, for no changes to revenue. Yet these are among the two 
biggest drivers of our long-term debt--and everybody knows it.
  Only in Washington could people pretend that significant deficit 
reduction could be accomplished while ignoring the two biggest fiscal 
challenges we face. I am a former school superintendent, and what that 
tells me is that Washington has a severe math problem. We are in need 
of remediation.
  When it comes to a solution on the debt, the contrast between 
Washington's dysfunction and Colorado's common sense could not be 
clearer. Yesterday, I had a call with Colorado business leaders who 
spanned the ideological spectrum--both Democrats and Republicans--to 
talk about our deficit and debt. Despite their differing party 
affiliations, there was clearly a consensus that everything needed to 
be on the table when it comes to the debt--including both tax revenue 
and entitlement changes. But somehow this common sense gets lost in the 
current debate.
  If changes to entitlements are off the table, we as leaders will 
fail. If changes in revenue are off the table, we as leaders will fail.
  I turn to the American people watching this debate with worry or 
disgust and say: If challenges to our ideological beliefs or to the 
politics that historically define our debate are off the table, then as 
a generation we cannot meet the challenges we face, and we are not 
going to be able to support the aspirations we have for our kids and 
our grandkids.
  This is about courage: courage on the part of Democrats who know 
refusing to touch Medicare is an argument we could win, but the price 
of winning that argument may be losing America's ability to pay its 
bills; courage on the part of Republicans who know revenues are 
unpopular but who secretly understand that we can't simply cut our way 
out of this budget hole. And in a moment of such crisis, this should be 
the least Americans can expect of us.
  During the worst recession since the Great Depression, Madam 
President, it was my privilege to spend the last 2\1/2\ years traveling 
my State while we were going through this horrible economic turmoil. 
Americans and Coloradans have made gut-wrenching decisions in their 
personal lives--about where to send their children to school, how and 
where to live, what medicines they can afford, and what medicines they 
might hope to live without. Local officials have been held accountable 
to citizens for the decisions they have had to make. Yet Congress has 
struggled to reflect the ideals and aspirations of the people we 
represent.
  This DC political culture serves special interests but it doesn't 
even register the needs of Coloradans. No business would sacrifice the 
economic interests of its shareholders, because the ones that do are 
gone. No mayors in Colorado would threaten their bond rating for 
political ideology--not one. It wouldn't occur to one of them to 
threaten their credit rating, because

[[Page 10986]]

mothers, fathers, taxpayers, and everyday citizens would have their 
heads, and rightfully so. I think the difference is that no special 
interest stands between a Colorado local government official and the 
people he or she represents.
  Having served in local government, I have to say what often seems to 
be an unattainable standard for a high officeholder is simply life in 
the real world for the rest of us. Last week, we came to Washington to 
cast a series of inconsequential votes. But by the end of the week, 
some of us were encouraged by the talk coming from the President and 
the Speaker.
  My friend John McCain came to the floor pushing the need for a 
breakout strategy, referenced a Wall Street Journal editorial that 
called for a far more comprehensive and far-reaching plan. But now we 
learn a comprehensive deal feels once again out of reach. We are told 
we will have to settle for something small that one more time kicks the 
can down the road; that taxes and entitlements are just too hard for 
Washington politics.
  I may not have spent enough time here to see through these political 
games. This may all be part of an elaborate strategy to get to yes. But 
I shudder--I shudder--when I wonder what investors, our creditors, and 
the American people think of this political game of chicken. Unlike 
Congress, they do not conduct their business with winks and nods, and 
they solve their problems before they become insurmountable.
  All of which brings me back to our Founders and the political 
leadership of other generations past that made these enormous and 
difficult decisions. As for us, we have chosen to put them off time 
after time, and now we are at an inflection point where we need to get 
this done. We have a $1.5 trillion deficit and almost $15 trillion in 
debt. Revenue is at a 60-year low and spending is at over a 60-year 
high. And we have the path to begin to bridge this. The Simpson-Bowles 
commission has given us that path forward.
  I am the first to say--and I should say--this debt is something we 
all own. I voted for things that contributed to it, as have all of my 
colleagues, and of all the things that comprise the debt, there is 
something each member of our great Nation wants or needs. We all share 
in the responsibility for how we arrived at this point.
  So to be clear, if anybody thinks this is merely an attack on the 
institution, we need to understand this massive debt is something for 
which we are all responsible. Those who voted to fight the wars and to 
pass the tax cuts did so as a reflection of what they believed was a 
moment of truth. These decisions were not made in a vacuum. We got here 
because we aspire to be a society that is better than our competitors. 
We are all responsible. We are all responsible for the crisis that 
looms. But the inflection point we have reached has led to a different 
mandate, a different moment of truth. The American people are asking us 
to lead.
  This is a country of patriots, of incredibly courageous people who 
take on challenges little and big every day. I have tremendous respect 
for my colleagues and for this institution, and I am well aware that 
until about 6 months ago I had never even been elected dogcatcher. So I 
recognize how much I have to learn. But clearly--clearly--we are not 
living up to the standard of courage that past generations of leaders 
and every generation of ordinary Americans have set for us. Congress is 
certainly not living up to the standard the people of Colorado and of 
this country expect from us.
  I wonder if maybe we have looked at this the wrong way. The President 
has put entitlement cuts on the table, and that is the right thing to 
do. I encourage him to do more.
  As for the question of revenue, I will tell any politician that this 
is not the time to be wedded to the status quo. There is nothing 
magical about current revenue levels, about our Tax Code, or about all 
the loopholes and special interest perks that we account for only by 
borrowing more and more money.
  But there is something else important to mention, which is also lost 
in the debate. We have waged two long and costly wars. I don't want to 
re-litigate today the wisdom of going to war. My colleagues in the 
Senate and House--many of whom are still here in the Congress--had to 
cast difficult votes to send our young men and women into harm's way. 
But regardless of your position for or against, Congress ultimately 
made a decision to layer those costs on top of our current budget. We 
did this instead of accounting for them as part of our annual expenses. 
That was the decision that Congress made, and it began our slide from 
surplus to deficit.
  So for a moment let us separate the costs of these wars from the 
important and robust debate we are having about entitlement spending--
Medicare, Social Security, and our discretionary programs--and resolve 
a threshold question, or maybe two: Are we, as a generation, going to 
pay for these wars or are we going to continue to borrow from foreign 
governments and stick our kids with the bill? Are we even willing to 
make just a down payment on their incremental costs? Because that is 
what we are talking about.
  The amount outlined by the Debt and Deficit Commission--$785 billion 
in tax reform--which, by the way, would lead to lower rates, doesn't 
even cover the incremental expense of the war commitments we have made. 
But it would be a good start. Are we willing to walk away from this 
moment and say we put the burden of fighting and dying in these wars on 
our sons and daughters, and at the same time leave the burden of paying 
it to our grandchildren?
  And, after all, are we really willing to threaten the full faith and 
credit of the United States by failing to raise the debt ceiling for 
debts we already owe? This is not like cutting up your credit card. 
This is like getting your mortgage this month and saying, I'm not going 
to pay it because I spent my money somewhere else. Are we really 
willing to do that by failing to act comprehensively against our debt 
at a moment of global fragility in the capital markets? Would we risk 
all of this just for politics?
  Interestingly enough, in their wisdom, the Founders understood and 
anticipated this very problem. They had a spirited debate about whether 
the Federal Government should have what they called ``a general power 
of taxation'' or whether we should have a system of ``internal and 
external taxation''--a system where the States could impose taxes but 
the Federal Government would be limited to collecting its revenue 
through duties on imports.
  Ultimately, the Founders resolved the question in favor of the 
general power of taxation for the exact reasons that are staring us in 
the face today. So rather than talk about the Founders, I actually want 
to read what they said on this subject, in the hopes it will give us 
some guidance. Let me quote from Federalist No. 30. I apologize for the 
length, Madam President, but, as always, their words impoverish our 
own.

       If the opinions of those who contend for the distinction 
     [between internal and external taxation] were to be received 
     as evidence of truth, one would be led to conclude that there 
     was some known point in the economy of national affairs at 
     which it would be safe to stop and say: Thus far the ends of 
     public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of 
     government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or 
     anxiety.

  They went on to say:

       Let us attend to what would be the effects of this 
     situation in the very first war in which we should happen to 
     be engaged. We will presume, for argument's sake, that the 
     revenue arising from the impost duties answers the purposes 
     of a provision for the public debt and of a peace 
     establishment for the Union. Thus circumstanced, a war breaks 
     out. What would be the probable conduct of the government in 
     such an emergency? Taught by experience that proper 
     dependence could not be placed on the success of 
     requisitions, unable by its own authority to lay hold of 
     fresh resources, and urged by considerations of national 
     danger, would it not be driven to the expedient of diverting 
     the funds already appropriated from their proper objects to 
     the defense of the state? It is not easy to see how a step of 
     this kind could be avoided; and if it should be taken, it is 
     evident that it would prove the destruction of public credit 
     at the very moment it was becoming essential to the public 
     safety. To imagine that such a credit crisis might be

[[Page 10987]]

     dispensed with, would be the extreme of infatuation. In the 
     modern system of war, nations the most wealthy are obliged to 
     have recourse to large loans. A country so little opulent as 
     ours must feel this necessity in a much stronger degree. But 
     who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures 
     for borrowing by an act which demonstrated that no reliance 
     could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying? 
     The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in 
     their extent as burdensome in their conditions. They would be 
     made upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to 
     bankrupt and fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and 
     enormous premiums.

  I am going to paraphrase that in a minute. But it is almost as though 
Alexander Hamilton, who wrote these words in 1787, were sitting here 
today. And from the bottom of my heart, I wish he were. He closed the 
Federalist Paper No. 30 with an admonition to ideologues, writing that:

       . . . [s]uch men must behold the actual situation of their 
     country with painful solicitude, and deprecate the evils 
     which ambition or revenge might, with too much facility, 
     inflict upon it.

  As we have at other times in our history, we experienced the kind of 
evils that Hamilton anticipated on 9/11. We responded. And now, at this 
extraordinary time, it is left for us to get our house in order.
  In truth, these are small decisions, when we consider them in the 
context of what our Founders faced. Their greatness is measured by the 
large task they took on and conquered. Ours is merely a junction 
between our own institutional impulse toward fecklessness and our 
individual love for our country and for our kids. When faced with 
similar decisions, families cut back; they sacrifice. And now we must 
do the same. Now, to paraphrase Hamilton, the last thing we need to do 
now is act in a way that jacks up our interest rates.
  The 100 of us who are here in the Senate didn't create the system in 
which we operate. None of us decided it would be fun to have special 
interest groups scoring our every move or lobbyists hounding us about 
this or that tiny little provision or television channels reducing 
everything we do and say to a story line of endless minute conflict. 
And look, I understand what the incentives are here. It is possible we 
could fail and get away with blaming somebody else. It is possible 
cutting off our nose to spite our face could be a smart political move 
in this insane system. But there is a reason we venerate the Founders 
and Lincoln and the great legislative and executive figures of the last 
century. They were great not only because of what history threw at 
them, but because of the way they threw themselves at history.
  They raised their hands. They showed real courage not only when they 
had to but when they didn't. They made themselves of use.
  The Founders were practical people--dare I say it, Madam President, 
practical politicians searching for an ideal that became the United 
States of America, and they created in their practicality what Lincoln 
called the last, best hope of Earth. Think of that. Think of our actual 
history, not a cartoon, and imagine that we stumble, not because the 
Founders in their time failed to form a union but because in our time 
we failed to act as one.
  Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Whitehouse). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.


                               The Budget

  Mr. TOOMEY. Mr. President, I think it is fair to say we have two 
really major problems we are grappling with here in this Congress. More 
importantly, the people all across our country are grappling with them.
  First, there is an economy that is far too weak. It is growing far 
too slowly, if at all, and it is certainly producing far too few jobs. 
The latest data is particularly discouraging on the job-creation front. 
Until we turn this around and get strong growth, we are not going to 
produce nearly the number of jobs we need.
  The second big problem that strikes me as very disturbing is the 
unsustainable level of Federal spending and corresponding deficits and 
debt that have mounted as a result of all that spending. Federal 
spending since the year 2000, from 2000 to 2010, has doubled from just 
a couple of years ago when spending was less than 20 percent of our 
total economic output. Today, it is nearly 25 percent of our total 
economy, and that is way too large and unsustainable.
  All this spending has predictably led to huge deficits. We have been 
running annual deficits these last couple of years of nearly 10 percent 
of our entire economy--really staggering in size, $1.5 trillion for the 
last couple of years running. The deficits are covered by issuing debt, 
so we have been accumulating debt at this really breakneck pace.
  Of course, all of this debt has caused us to crash into our debt 
limit, and we are now mired in this debate, in this discussion, in 
these ongoing, very difficult negotiations over what to do because we 
have reached the statutory ceiling of the amount of money the Federal 
Government is permitted by law to borrow--$14.3 trillion. That is a 
number which is very difficult to grasp because of its sheer enormity, 
but there we are. We are at the limit, and we have to decide what we 
are going to do about it.
  I am not impressed with where the current negotiations seem to be and 
where they have been. I think we have yet to see a plan from the 
President that lays out exactly what he is willing to cut in spending 
to put us on a sustainable path.
  The President proposed a budget. I sit on the Budget Committee. We 
looked at that budget, we had testimony about that budget, and what we 
learned was it is not a serious budget. It would continue with huge 
deficits and mounting debt. It did not address any of the fundamental 
problems. When that budget was on the Senate floor for a vote, the 
President's budget got zero votes. The President subsequently backed 
away from his own budget but has not proposed an alternative. 
Unfortunately, my colleagues in this Chamber on the other side have 
proposed no budget whatsoever.
  So here we are, the world's largest enterprise, the U.S. Government, 
preparing to spend this year--as we did last year--something on the 
order of $3.7 trillion without so much as a blueprint for how we are 
going to spend that, rules that would govern how it gets allocated in 
different categories, guidelines for where the revenue is going to come 
from, how big the deficit will be--none of that. We are simply 
proceeding along without a budget. I have to say I think that is 
shockingly irresponsible. Now we go into these discussions about the 
debt limit. Frankly, it is not clear to me that we are any closer to a 
resolution today than we were several weeks ago.
  Some of us have suggested a solution. We have suggested a way out of 
this impasse that I would like to describe today. The solution we are 
proposing is that we go ahead and raise the debt limit by the amount 
the President has asked. Many of us are not particularly enthusiastic 
about that, but we acknowledge that failure to do so will at some point 
in, presumably, early August result in a considerable disruption and a 
partial government shutdown. It will not result in a default on our 
debt, and there are many of our ongoing expenses we could continue to 
cover from ongoing tax revenue, but it would nevertheless be very 
disruptive, and it is my hope that we never get there and instead find 
a resolution.
  The resolution some of us are proposing--specifically Senator Mike 
Lee from Utah, whom I credit a great deal for his leadership--Senator 
Lee and I have introduced a bill, together with a number of other 
colleagues--I think we have over 25 cosponsors in the Senate--based on 
the idea we call cut, cap, and balance. We would agree to raise the 
debt limit by $2.4 trillion, as the President has requested, provided 
that we get ourselves on a path to a balanced budget. By that, we see 
three pieces:

[[Page 10988]]

cuts in immediate spending; statutory caps in spending over the next 
few years; and a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, which 
we acknowledge would take several years to achieve. But the point is 
that the combined effect of these measures would clearly put us on a 
path to a balanced budget, end the practice of running deficits, and 
eventually end the need to raise debt limits because we would not be 
issuing new debt. We would, instead, as a government be living within 
our means.
  If you ask me, this is very reasonable, to suggest that the Federal 
Government ought to live within its means. It is reasonable for 
families. Families do not have any choice; they live within their 
means. Businesses have to live within their means or they do not 
survive. And 49 of the 50 States have a requirement that they balance 
their budgets every year, and they find a way to do it.
  This President would not be the first Democratic President to embrace 
this if he were to embrace this idea. President Clinton, working with a 
Republican-controlled Congress in the 1990s, first embraced the idea 
that we ought to strive for a balanced budget, that it was a worthwhile 
goal, that it was an achievable goal, and within a few years, in fact, 
they achieved it, two different parties working together--not always 
enjoying each other's company as much as one might like, but the fact 
is they got it done. I think we ought to consider using that model 
today.
  As recently as 2007, we were actually quite close to a balanced 
budget. Our deficit was just over 1 percent of our total economy, as 
opposed to today, where it is nearly 10 percent of our total economy. I 
fully acknowledge that we cannot get there overnight, as much as many 
of us would like to. We have dug a deep hole. We are borrowing almost 
40 cents of every dollar we spend. It would be too sudden and Draconian 
to think we could balance the budget overnight. So we suggested a path 
that might take 8 or 9 or 10 years to actually reach a balance, but it 
would surely put us on a path that would get us there, and that would 
be enormously constructive, not only in the sense that it would ensure 
the long-term fiscal viability of our country, which is in and of 
itself an absolutely vital goal, but it would also create some 
certainty in the market, reduce the risk of huge inflation and huge 
interest rates and the other dangers that accompany the irresponsibly 
large deficits, and in the process help to encourage stronger economic 
growth and job creation.
  I think we ought to be flexible in how we get there. We have proposed 
one way. It is not the only way to do it, but it, importantly, is 
premised on this principle that we can reach a balance and we ought to 
do that. It is absolutely critical that we demonstrate that we have the 
political will and the ability to tackle this, arguably the biggest 
challenge we face.
  We have seen what has been unfolding in Europe because they chose not 
to tackle these problems in recent years. I suggest we are not that far 
behind some of the countries in Europe that are in the middle of truly 
devastating sovereign debt crises. We are not quite there yet, but if 
we do not change the path we are on, that is the direction we are 
heading.
  Let me walk through the particular items in this approach we are 
advocating in which we would cut, cap, and balance.
  First is to cut spending. We are suggesting a cut from the 2011 
levels of $142 billion. That is actually less than 4 percent of the 
amount of money the government spent last year--we are still in the 
current year, but the fiscal year of 2011. It would still spend more 
than we spent in 2010, so it is very hard to see how this could fairly 
be described as any kind of Draconian cut. It is a very modest cut in 
spending. By 2012, the levels will be almost $\1/2\ trillion more than 
the levels of spending in 2008. But that is the first step, to cut 
spending in the immediate future, in this next fiscal year.
  The second is to cap spending over the next several years. To do 
this, we have established a set of caps, statutory limits on how much 
the government can spend each year based on the level of spending in 
the budget resolution I introduced on the Senate floor, which had 
almost all the Republicans' support. I wish we had some Democratic 
support, and I still hope we will get some. But the important thing 
about this budget resolution and these cap levels is they reach a 
balance--not overnight; it takes 9 years. But by controlling spending 
and adopting progrowth policies that encourage an expanding economy, we 
would, following these cap levels, be able to balance our budget. Then, 
finally, we are advocating that as part of this package, as part of an 
arrangement, we would agree to raise the debt ceiling. We would also 
pass in both the House and Senate a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution and send it off to the States.
  We would not suggest the increase in the debt limit be contingent 
upon State option, but I am confident the States would, in fact, pass a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution if we in Congress would 
send it to them. It would have three big features and, again, the 
details ought to be a subject of discussion. One that would not be open 
for negotiation would be that the first outlays need to equal revenues. 
That is obviously the fundamental definition of a balance. We don't run 
deficits; we make sure we spend no more than we take in.
  The second aspect some of us feel strongly about, and I am one of 
them, is we ought to limit spending as a percentage of our economy so 
the economy doesn't keep growing, which is what happens when the 
government occupies too large a segment of our economy.
  Finally, we have advocated that we not create a mechanism that simply 
guarantees big tax increases in order to balance the budget, and to do 
that we would like--and we have included--a supermajority requirement 
to raise taxes so that a simple majority wouldn't be enough. It would 
require a supermajority which would only occur, presumably, in truly 
extraordinary circumstances.
  I believe very strongly we can have strong economic growth and the 
job creation we need, but to get there we have to create an environment 
in Washington; we have to pass legislation and create an environment 
that encourages risk taking, encourages business formation, encourages 
new hiring, and we have not been doing such a good job. One of the ways 
to do that is to put us on a sustainable, viable fiscal path, and the 
cut, cap, and balance approach would do that.
  We would raise the debt limit by the full amount that the President 
has asked for provided he agree with us to put this country on a path 
to a balanced budget. I do not think that is asking too much. I think 
that is a way to achieve long-term fiscal sustainability, and just as 
importantly it is a way to create an environment for the strong 
economic growth and job creation we need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I request unanimous consent to 
speak up to 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Nelson of Florida pertaining to the introduction 
of S. 1364 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on 
Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

                          ____________________