[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12810-12812]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BUDGET CONTROL ACT

  Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, I want to speak just momentarily about the 
legislation that was just passed.
  I, for the last 14 months traveling my State in almost every nook and 
cranny, have talked about the situation our country is in, talked about 
possible solutions, and offered legislation--the only bipartisan, 
bicameral legislation offered until this point--to deal with our 
country's deficits and debt.
  I had hoped that we would figure out a way to deal with $5 trillion 
to $7 trillion worth of spending and/or savings over the next 10 years, 
and finally decided that $4 trillion was the magic number. I know the 
markets had looked at that, the rating agencies looked at that, the 
people who buy our Treasurys had looked at that number. Over the course 
of the last few weeks, it became apparent that $3 trillion was probably 
the most that was going to be achieved, and then now we have ended up 
with this bill that passed today, and I supported that hoping to 
achieve $2.1 trillion to $2.4 trillion in savings over the next decade.
  Mr. President, obviously, like many of us in this body on both sides 
of the

[[Page 12811]]

aisle who know our country is in dire straits and we have a lot of work 
to do, I am disappointed at the magnitude of this legislation. But I am 
hopeful and thankful that we have taken the first step. I think this is 
going to be a decade of us having to focus on our country's 
irresponsibility over the past many years. Both parties, no doubt, have 
been responsible for putting us in this situation. It is going to take 
both parties to move us away from where we are. But I think everyone in 
this body fully understands that on the present course our country's 
best days are behind us. I think all of us want to ensure that this 
country's greatness continues; that we can continue to display American 
exceptionalism not only here but around the world.
  I look at this solely as the first step. I know we are going to have 
an appropriations opportunity to look at even more savings at the end 
of September. I know we are going to have a committee that is going to 
be looking at this during the months of November and December. I know 
we are going to have a series of opportunities for us to deal with 
this. Again, today was just a first step.
  I learned through a lifetime of business, starting with doing very, 
very small projects at the age of 25 when I first went in business, 
that as a company, you can never go broke taking a profit. What I have 
learned in the Senate is you should never say no to spending cuts.
  So while these spending cuts are not of the magnitude that I would 
like to have seen, I think this is a very good first step and is 
something that we can all build upon. I look forward to working with 
people on both sides of the aisle to ensure that this is just the first 
step and that our country continues to have the discipline, the 
fortitude, the courage, and the will to make the tough decisions that 
all of us know we are going to need to make over the course of the next 
many years.
  That is what we owe these young pages who are getting ready to leave 
after service to this country over the last month; that is what we owe 
future generations; that is what we owe Americans; and, candidly, that 
is what we owe the world as citizens of this world; that is, for us to 
be disciplined and to know that we have to live within our means and to 
know the best thing we can possibly do as a country at this moment in 
time is to show we have that courage and that will.
  Mr. President, I thank you for the time to speak on this topic. I 
know all of us leave here and go home to recess. I know many of us will 
be talking about the vast amount of work that needs to be done as it 
relates to making sure we rein in this out-of-control spending that has 
been taking place for many years. I look forward to that. I look 
forward to talking to citizens back in Tennessee, and I look forward to 
coming back in September and dealing with folks on both sides of the 
aisle to make sure we put that thought into action.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Tennessee, 
Mr. Corker, for what he just said. I want to affirm the extraordinary 
amount of effort he has made to not only inform this Senate body of the 
crisis that we face financially, but also to come forward with some 
very constructive solutions on how to deal with this crisis.
  I know he is disappointed that we were not able to reach a better 
solution than the one voted on today. I know he struggled to decide 
what was the best course to follow moving forward. In the end, he 
decided to support the bill as a first step; but, as he said, this is 
the first step of what probably will be a decade-long challenge facing 
all of us to successfully address this deep hole of debt we have dug 
for ourselves as a nation.
  I rise today to speak, sharing all those concerns, certainly 
believing that our work has just started and there is much more to do. 
But also as someone who decided to vote against the bill that we just 
had before us. I have not taken this vote lightly.
  For the past 1\1/2\ years, as a candidate I traveled the State of 
Indiana, to just about every town and city in the State, talking to 
thousands and thousands of Hoosiers on a day-after-day basis hearing 
what they had to say. If, frankly, I could categorize their thoughts 
into one statement, it would be a deep concern about the future of our 
country and a deep desire to have their elected representatives go to 
Washington and do everything they can to address this situation.
  I have spent the last 7 months in the Senate hearing from hundreds, 
if not thousands, of Hoosiers who have written, called, visited, and 
talked with me back at home. Nothing has changed except the urgency of 
these concerns, and the deep worries that they have expressed have 
simply grown.
  We saw, in 2010, Americans across the country express their desire 
for Congress to get hold of our fiscal situation; that the era of 
spending, of promising beyond our means, was over, and that we had to 
take major steps to reverse that. That is why I decided to return to 
the Senate, to come back to work to help repair our country's economic 
future. I came back to work on the things that many consider 
politically toxic: entitlement reform, tax reform, passing a balanced 
budget amendment to make sure that we would never end up in this 
situation again; that if there was a legacy that we could pass on to 
our children, if there was something that we could do for the future of 
our country, something that we could do for our children and 
grandchildren, and everyone's children and grandchildren, it would be 
to never have them have to go through what we are going through now 
because we had taken fiscal responsibility, passing a balanced budget 
amendment that would, as we are sworn in, require each of us to come 
here and put our left hand on the Bible and our right hand in the air, 
to repeat the oath to honor the Constitution, and that Constitution 
would attain a balanced budget amendment as a requirement.
  So before taking this vote, I pondered for days and nights about the 
many Hoosiers who had put their faith and confidence in me and sent me 
back to the Senate to do everything I could to accomplish this goal. 
Some of those Hoosiers had tears in their eyes, worried about the 
future for themselves and for their children. Some had fingers in my 
chest, saying: Don't let me down. Don't go and settle for too little. 
Do everything you can. That is what I have tried to do.
  After giving it consideration, I decided not to support this bill 
because I could not come to grips with having to come back and tell 
Hoosiers that this is the best we could do.
  I do wish to recognize the work and leadership, the strategy and the 
efforts of our minority leader, Senator McConnell, and whip, Senator 
Kyl, those in leadership and others--John Boehner and Eric Cantor in 
the House and the people who represented Republicans at the White 
House.
  I, like most of us who serve here, appreciate their hard work and 
understand their frustration at Washington's inability to accomplish a 
meaningful goal, a grand bargain or at least a big plan that would put 
us significantly on the way to fiscal reform. I don't hold them liable 
at all or anybody who voted for this bill. As Senator Corker just said 
and as others have said and can say: Look, this is the best we could 
do. We will keep going.
  I applaud that. It is just that I thought we could have done so much 
more when the crisis we face is so severe, when the consequences are so 
great and imminent. It is not 2013. It is not even 2012. It is now. I 
don't know what the rating agencies are going to do because of our 
debt. Many were saying that this vote would not result in a debt 
downgrade. I think already we have heard information to the contrary, 
that that is not the case. That means the full faith and confidence in 
the United States of America as being that last safe haven of safety is 
put at risk.
  We have taken a step in the right direction. It is a small step. It 
is a marathon we have to run, and we do need to go much further. I 
believe the bill we just passed is significantly short of what is 
needed to address the severity of the crisis.

[[Page 12812]]

  Senator Corker said there has been a consensus that a minimum of $4 
trillion of cuts are needed over the next 10 years, with true 
enforcement mechanisms to lock those cuts in place. We achieved just 
half of that in the bill we passed.
  I have been stating over and over that the reality is if we do not 
address health care spending and the entitlements that provide benefits 
through Medicaid and Medicare, the virtual consensus is, no matter what 
else we do, we will not be able to solve the problem. This is an area 
that people do not want to talk about. It is supposedly the third rail 
of politics. It is suicide to bring it up, and there have been a lot of 
efforts to avoid these tough choices. But that is what we are going to 
have to do.
  It has been avoided in this bill, pushed off to the selection of a 
special committee of six Senators, six Congressmen; balanced, six and 
six from each party, to come up with an additional $1 trillion of 
savings or perhaps a little more. I have some real reservations about 
whether this committee should have to do this in the first place 
because that is the job of Congress, all of us. That is what we were 
elected to do and we were not able to do it. We have turned it over to 
12 Members of Congress. I am not sure how they are going to accomplish 
what we were not able to. Nevertheless, I hope and pray they are 
successful, and I hope they will address, in whatever recommendation 
they make to us later this year, entitlement reform and make a 
commitment to tax reform: entitlement reform because that spending is 
bankrupting this country and is denying future seniors benefits they 
are counting on--who are dependent on Social Security and Medicare--
denying them the opportunity to rest easy that their benefits will 
remain the same or increase with the cost of living.
  The situation the trustees have reported regarding the future of the 
Medicare Part A is that serious cuts will have to be made unless we 
take measures now to reform the system in a way that preserves those 
benefits for those currently on it and those within, say, 10 years of 
retirement. We all know we have to do this. We all know, if we do not 
do this, we simply will not be able to accomplish what we need to, no 
matter what else we do.
  The real work is ahead. Congress must commit to address the root 
causes of our problem and our debt. We have to make the difficult 
choices necessary to restore economic growth and good-paying jobs for 
the American people. That is where tax reform comes in.
  On a bipartisan basis, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and 
myself have joined together to put together a comprehensive tax reform 
bill. I give Senator Judd Gregg credit for the 2 years he spent with 
Senator Wyden putting this together. Senator Wyden and I worked 
together for the last 7 months, making additional changes and 
improvements to that product. If we are going to have a growth 
component to grow our way--through a more prosperous economy--out of 
the debt problem we have, that has to include not only spending cuts, 
but it has to include real tax reform.
  Those special interests out there that are receiving exemptions and 
special breaks, credits, subsidies--those are going to have to be 
closed out on a rational basis. We can retain some of the legitimate 
deductions, such as mortgage interest and charitable deductions, but 
most have to be eliminated. Those funds and revenues generated from 
elimination of those special interests have to be used to reduce rates 
to make our businesses more competitive, to give them a rate that is 
competitive with businesses around the world.
  We are literally at the highest tax rate of all 36 of our worldwide 
competitors. That has to be adjusted. In doing so, we can stimulate our 
economy to grow, and we can bring in revenue on the basis of that 
growth. More companies will be making more money and therefore paying 
more taxes and more people will be at work and getting paychecks and 
therefore contributing what they are not contributing now.
  Past tax reform efforts, on a comprehensive basis, have proven the 
best stimulus we can provide for an economy and the best thing we can 
do to get an economy thriving and moving again is getting people back 
to work. So entitlement reform--absolutely necessary to preserve those 
programs for future retirees and benefits that current retirees are 
receiving--and tax reform to move our economy forward need to be the 
core of what this special 12-member committee deals with and 
recommends.
  My litmus test for this next tranche is that there be a commitment to 
move forward in these two critical areas that will have more impact on 
our future than anything else we do or have done so far to date.
  I know we have committed, through this bill that just passed, to take 
up, debate, and vote on a balanced budget amendment. Clearly, if we 
want to ensure and guarantee the future solvency of our country and the 
future confidence of our citizens, we need to impose upon the 
Constitution an amendment that balances the budget or we will find 
ourselves back in this situation as the propensity of Congress to spend 
and not say no to anyone will continue. It seems to be almost part of 
who we are. It is so hard to say no to someone. It is easier now, 
first, because we don't have the money and, second, we have expanded 
this government beyond its ability to fulfill its responsibilities 
correctly.
  The work is ahead. We have to address the root causes. My sleeves are 
rolled up. I will continue to push forward to rein in spending. I will 
continue to work to reform the Tax Code so businesses can provide more 
jobs and be more competitive. I will not back away from addressing the 
need for entitlement reform. We need to restructure those programs to 
keep them from becoming bankrupt and denying important retirement 
benefits for our citizens.
  Now is the time for us in the Congress, whether we voted for this 
bill or against this bill--I am not criticizing anyone who voted for it 
because many of those believed it is the first of many steps. It was 
not adequate, in my opinion, but at least it was a first step. I do not 
believe we should be criticizing those who made that decision.
  It also addressed the question of default. I did not support default, 
which is why I suggested a short-term plan. I believed this initial 
bill being presented to us was woefully inadequate for what we need to 
do right now to send the right signals that we are on a serious path to 
reform. I was willing to allow for a debt increase of a limited period 
of time, 6 to 8 weeks, cancel our recess, work to find a better 
solution that could achieve more support and gain confidence in the 
investment industry that we have taken a serious step forward.
  That obviously did not go forward. But, nevertheless, when we return 
from recess, all of us, whether we voted yes or no, must make a 
commitment to engage, plunge into the problem, to do whatever is 
necessary--not political necessary, whatever is necessary for the 
future of our country. That is our challenge, and I hope we will rise 
to that challenge.
  I have not given up on our ability to respond to the will of the 
people and to respond to the crisis we face. So, yea or nay, let's all 
agree to come back with a focus on where we need to go, what we need to 
do, and the courage to make the tough choices for the future.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. KERRY. 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.

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