[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 11796-11798]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         CUT, CAP, AND BALANCE

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, the American people deserve an accounting 
of what happened on the floor this morning. The citizens of Utah, whom 
I am honored to represent, and citizens all over this country thought 
the Senate would be voting on the cut, cap, and balance bill later this 
week. I am an original cosponsor of this bill in the Senate. I have 
signed the cut, cap, and balance pledge. I have always supported a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
  This year, it is one of my proudest achievements to have introduced 
S. J. Res. 10, a balanced budget amendment that is supported by every 
Republican in this body for the first time in all the balanced budget 
amendments brought to this floor. It is the strongest balanced budget 
amendment ever written--one that fundamentally deals with our spending 
crisis. I am honored to have worked with my colleague and friend from 
Utah, Senator Lee, in crafting this amendment. We worked with Senator 
Cornyn and 44 other Republicans as well. I am honored to be working 
with old and new friends, such as Senators Cornyn, Kyl, Paul, Toomey, 
Rubio, and many other Republicans in pursuing this constitutional 
amendment for the American people.
  The cut, cap, balance legislation the Senate tabled today culminates 
in a balanced budget amendment, but also includes the short-term 
deficit reduction that families and markets are demanding.
  Cut, cap, balance provides meaningful deficit reduction for the next 
year and spending caps for the years that follow. It sets us on a path 
toward a balanced budget. It addresses the gross overspending of the 
Federal Government in the short term, taking on the deficits and debt 
that are holding back economic growth and permanently burdening 
American families and businesses.
  Most importantly, cut, cap, balance would fix the problem of 
government overspending permanently. It would eliminate the bias in 
Washington for ever more spending by requiring Congress to send a 
balanced budget constitutional amendment to the States for ratification 
prior to any increase in the debt ceiling.
  The more the American people hear about this plan, the more they like 
it. They know the President has no plan. They know the markets are done 
with promises to cut spending down the road. They know raising taxes is 
not the solution to a government spending problem. The President and 
congressional Democrats know the people know this. That is why they 
have pulled out all the stops to kill this bill's momentum.
  The President threatened to veto cut, cap, balance. But that did not 
do the trick. So after the House passed cut, cap, balance, the 
President all of a sudden supported the so-called Gang of 6 proposal. 
His advisers knew they had a problem. All of his clever talk about 
raising taxes on oil companies and corporate jets and yachts was not 
distracting the American people from a simple fact: My friends on the 
other side of the aisle have no credible plan for balancing the budget. 
The President has no credible plan for balancing the budget. He has not 
offered anything that would help us get to a balanced budget, nor do I 
believe he ever will offer anything. They have speeches and executive 
summaries of bills that will be written down the road; they have plans 
and proposals for future spending cuts that remain a mystery to 
everyone; they have budget frameworks; but they have no plan.
  The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee has a budget outline. But 
here is the Senate Democratic caucus budget proposal. Let me refer to 
this goose egg up here on the chart. That is the Democratic caucus 
budget proposal--a big goose egg.
  As meager as this is, I have to hand it to them, it beats the 
President's budget proposal. The President has offered us nothing, and 
we have a big goose egg here in the Senate.
  The American people are done with this. The people of Utah know the 
same people who brought you the stimulus--the policy equivalent of 
taking $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars and throwing it into the Potomac 
River--the same people who brought you $2.6 trillion in new spending 
and $\1/2\ trillion in new taxes with Obamacare, are not credible

[[Page 11797]]

when they now boast of their commitment to deficit reduction and 
balanced budgets.
  The most recent proposal is from the Gang of 6. We are still looking 
at this proposal. I will not condemn anyone who makes a good-faith 
effort to get to the bottom of our serious problems. Their efforts 
might be on the side of the angels, but the devil is in the details, 
and many of us have real questions about this proposal. Specifically, 
we want to know what the revenue impact will be, because by some 
accounts it will raise taxes by between $2 trillion and $3 trillion.
  At the very least, the American people understand that the 
President's desperate embrace of this plan is to avoid, once again, 
dealing with the deficit. Whatever its substantive merits or demerits, 
this proposal is a commitment to dealing with deficit reduction later. 
But later is too late. We need to deal with deficit reduction now. The 
people of this Nation are telling us this over and over. They are 
lighting up the Capitol switchboard. I am confident that my colleagues 
on the other side are hearing the message loudly and clearly: Balance 
the budget now. Get spending under control now. A last minute op-ed 
from the President telling us to ``go big'' on a debt deal is a little 
too late. We are facing our third straight year of trillion dollar 
deficits. Our debt is now over $14.3 trillion.
  The President has shown no serious signs of getting this fiscal 
crisis under control. He offered up a dead-on-arrival budget in 
February. When even his friends in the mainstream media panned his 
budget for its total lack of attention to our looming debt crisis, he 
offered his budget mulligan with a much ballyhooed speech on deficit 
reduction. But a speech is not a plan. Meanwhile, it has been over 800 
days since Senate Democrats have produced a budget, thus abdicating 
their most basic of duties.
  The American people are finished with this dithering. They know what 
the solution is. The President and the majority leader no doubt saw the 
polling yesterday on the cut, cap, balance plan.
  Here is the bottom line: Nearly two-thirds of the American people 
support it. But that is only half the story. Here is the rest: Everyone 
likes cut, cap, balance--not just Republicans, not just Democrats. It 
makes sense.
  American families want deficit reduction, and with this plan they get 
it. No vague platitudes or speeches or rallies about reducing the 
deficit. This plan reduces the deficit and it fixes the underlying 
problem, which is Washington's predisposition toward more spending.
  The President frequently demands that Congress put partisanship aside 
and come to a deficit reduction agreement. But the American people are 
one step ahead of them. The cut, cap, balance plan, along with the 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, wins support across the 
board. Sixty-three percent of Democrats back cut, cap, balance. Fifty-
three percent of those who oppose the tea party support it.
  Democrats threw everything they had at this bill. They absurdly 
called it the ``cut, cap, and destroy Medicare plan.'' What bull. The 
left is becoming a caricature of itself when it comes to demagoguery on 
the issue of Medicare. I think the American people have caught on that 
liberals claim that when the Republicans turn on the lights in the 
morning, they are working to destroy Medicare. Bull. These claims no 
longer have credibility. The left is out of talking points. Their 
constituents are telling them to pass cut, cap, balance. They know it 
won't destroy anything. It will save this country.
  So instead of having a vote on it, Democrats decided to pull the plug 
on the vote. Ordinarily, it is not a good idea to actively undermine 
the will of the people.
  But in this case, there is a method to their madness. The President 
and his hard-left supporters are in a real pickle. They refuse any 
structural reforms to our biggest spending programs--the programs that 
are driving our country toward a fiscal collapse--but they know they 
cannot come clean with the American people about the tax increases that 
will hit squarely on the middle class if these structural reforms fail 
to occur. So they do nothing. Unable to talk straight with citizens who 
are demanding a balanced budget, they do nothing. They focus on $21 
billion in tax benefits that go to energy companies over 10 years when 
we have a $1.5 trillion deficit this year--this year.
  This is how Peter Roff at U.S. News and World Report put it:

       The president and congressional Democratic leaders are 
     still dug in, trying to pull a rabbit out of their hat that 
     will get them what the political coalition behind them 
     demands: new taxes, new spending, and no real cuts.

  This is not going to happen. So unable to thread the needle between 
the President's hard-left base that refuses spending reductions and the 
majority of taxpayers demanding deficit reduction, what do they do? 
They punt.
  Today, they managed to avoid a vote on the bipartisan cut, cap, and 
balance plan. There was a great deal of bluster surrounding this dodge. 
To distract the American people from the fact that they were running 
from a fight, the rhetoric was laid on pretty thick. This is what we 
heard about this bill. According to my friends on the other side, cut, 
cap, and balance is ``as weak and senseless as anything that has ever 
come on this Senate floor.'' It is ``anathema to what our country is 
all about.'' This is ``some of the worst legislation in the history of 
this country.'' Now, let's be clear what they are talking about. They 
are smearing a bill that would balance the budget. They are trashing a 
bill that requires a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
  I personally am glad to know where the other side stands, but they do 
not stand with the American people. They certainly don't stand with my 
home State of Utah. The American people think balancing the budget is 
precisely what America is all about. Reining in spending, restoring the 
Constitution, and securing the liberty and prosperity of America's 
families is exactly what Congress should be doing.
  I am disappointed in what happened here today, but I am also 
confident this fight is not over. The left might be able to hide from a 
vote on balancing the budget by a simple motion to table--which they 
are hoping obscures their desire to not balance the budget--but they 
cannot hide from the markets and the legacy of debt President Obama has 
given this country because that is a real threat to our credit rating.
  Yesterday, Standard & Poor's made clear that avoiding the default was 
only one variable in their rating of U.S. credit. This is what Standard 
& Poor's said:

       We have previously stated our belief that there is a 
     material risk that efforts to reduce future budget deficits 
     will fall short of the target set by Congressional leaders 
     and the administration. In this light, we see at least a one-
     in-two likelihood that we could lower the long-term rating by 
     one or more notches on the U.S. within the next three months 
     and potentially as soon as early August . . . if we conclude 
     that Washington hasn't reached what we consider to be a 
     credible agreement to address future budget deficits.

  Now, after years of reckless spending by President Obama and his 
Democratic allies, the chickens are coming home to roost. We face an 
imminent debt crisis, and a failure to take it on will impose a 
crushing burden on America's families and businesses. Our economy is 
stagnant, and the failure of the President to lead on deficit reduction 
now threatens higher interest rates and will slow it even further.
  This is Standard & Poor's analysis of the impact of a debt downgrade 
due to a failure of deficit reduction:

       We assume that under this scenario we would see a moderate 
     rise in long-term interest rates (25-50 basis points), 
     despite an accommodative Fed, due to an ebbing of market 
     confidence, as well as some slowing of economic growth (25-50 
     basis points on GDP growth) amid an increase in consumer and 
     business caution.

  For an economy that is slogging along with anemic growth and job 
creation, this warning should wake people up. It should make the 
President and the left get serious about deficit reduction. But, 
instead, the President is still casting about for a plan.

[[Page 11798]]

  It is important to remind people that we have a plan. It is called 
cut, cap, and balance. It culminates in a balanced budget amendment to 
the Constitution, and it is supported broadly by the American people. 
Some folks on the other side claim to be for a balanced budget. They 
claim to stand with the people. But on a party-line vote they voted to 
table this proposal today.
  When America's Founders came together in the summer of 1787 to draft 
our Constitution, they faced many challenges. But at heart they had a 
respect for republican government, they had a respect for the sovereign 
power of the American people, and they understood that the fundamental 
principle of popular sovereignty gave the Constitution its legitimacy. 
For that reason, the Constitution they wrote was clear that the voice 
of the people should be loudest on the most pressing issues.
  The provisions for amending the Constitution provided that on the 
most important issues, the people rule directly. The Constitution 
belongs to the people. It only became law because it was ratified by 
the people, and it can only be changed by the people.
  Our Nation is deeply in debt, and this debt now threatens the very 
liberty of our families and the vitality of our economy. It is a threat 
to current and future prosperity. Most importantly, it is a threat to 
limited constitutional government. The people know this. They know it 
in their guts. They know the problem here is spending. Our problem is 
too much spending, not too little taxation, and they know what the 
solution is: cut, cap, balance, and a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution.
  There will be talk now about moving on, but I am not moving on. 
Democrats want to write the obituary on this bill and turn to some new 
plan or framework this President produces one way or the other, I 
guess. But no plan this President produces will get us to balance. Cut, 
cap, and balance does.
  I am not so sure what my friends on the other side are afraid of. The 
founder of their party, Thomas Jefferson, had a deep respect for the 
democratic process and the sovereignty of the people. What are they so 
afraid of? Why not pass cut, cap, and balance? Why not send a balanced 
budget amendment to the States for ratification? If liberals have a 
better argument, they can lead a fight against the amendment in the 
States. All they need is 13 States to defeat the balanced budget 
amendment. Why not let the people decide?
  During the last Presidential campaign, the President frequently told 
his admirers: Yes, we can. Well, now the American people are saying it 
back to him. They are telling him they want to balance the budget and 
that we can balance the budget. We can and we should pass cut, cap, and 
balance and send a balanced budget constitutional amendment to the 
States for ratification.
  I will just repeat it: If the Democrats so hate the idea of a 
constitutional amendment to balance the budget, all they have to do is 
get 13 States to vote against ratification. We have to get 38 States to 
vote for ratification. That may seem like an overwhelming job, but I 
don't think so. I think the amendment would be ratified so quickly, 
Democratic heads would be spinning and, I might add, maybe even some 
Republican heads as well.
  All I can say is this country is in trouble. This country is on the 
way down to self-destruction unless we get it under control, and I 
don't see one program from the other side that even comes close to 
showing how we get this under control--except more taxes and more 
spending. I guarantee, if we raise taxes, they would spend every 
stinking dime of it. That has been the history of my 35 years in the 
Senate, as the most senior Republican. All I can say is we are not 
going to let them get away with it anymore. We are a minority now, but 
I believe we can get back in the majority.
  I think the Democrats would do themselves a great favor if they would 
vote for cut, cap, and balance and a constitutional amendment and let 
the people--let the people--decide. Let them make this decision. Come 
on, Democrats, all you need to do is get 13 States. What are you so 
afraid of? I think what is so fearful is that this waltz that has been 
going on of big spending all these years is going to come to an end.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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