[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 338-350]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 DISAPPROVAL OF THE PRESIDENT'S EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY TO INCREASE THE 
                     DEBT LIMIT--MOTION TO PROCEED

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I move to proceed to H.J. Res. 98.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report the joint 
resolution by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 294, H.J. Res. 98, 
     relating to the disapproval of the President's exercise of 
     authority to increase the debt limit, as submitted under 
     section 3101A of title 31, United States Code, on January 12, 
     2012.

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time 
until noon will be equally divided and controlled between the two 
leaders or their designees for debate on the motion to proceed.
  The Senator from Montana is recognized.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, Benjamin Franklin once said, ``Promises 
may fit the friends, but nonperformance will turn them into enemies.'' 
We should be clear about what the debt limit means and what it does 
not. Raising the debt limit does not authorize new spending. Let me 
make that clear. Raising the debt limit does not authorize new 
spending. It does not mean an increase in future spending.
  What does it mean? It simply means the United States will be able to 
meet its obligations. Increasing the debt limit only permits the 
Treasury Department to pay the bills we have already incurred. It does 
not authorize new spending. It permits the government to pay the bills 
that have already been incurred. They have been incurred. We owe the 
obligation. It says: OK, we owe that. It is in the law, passed. It is 
history. We have to pay the bills. It allows our country to meet our 
promises to our citizens, and it means there is money to provide the 
benefits to millions of seniors and veterans whose families depend on 
them every day to make their ends meet.
  We should remember why we are taking today's vote. Last August, 
Congress enacted the Budget Control Act of 2011. We all remember it. 
This legislation reduced spending by $2.1 trillion. That was a budget 
action taken by the President and the Congress together that reduced 
Federal spending by $2.1 trillion. It is a reduction. That is not 
commonly understood, not widely known, but that is the fact. And it 
provided a plan to raise the debt limit by the same amount. It did so 
so that the Federal Government could meet its financial obligations so 
we could keep our promises.
  Today's vote would reverse that agreement in August. Voting to 
disapprove an increase in the financial limit is unreasonable. It would 
be very much like your bank increasing your line of credit unless you 
tell them not to. Nonetheless, that is the issue we are voting on and 
debating in the Senate.
  Passing this resolution would mean there would be no money to keep 
our promises. The United States would default for the first time in its 
history. It would send a message to the world that the United States 
does not keep its promises. With all of the uncertainty in the world, 
especially in Europe, that could have disastrous consequences. It could 
be a contagion. There could be a reaction, a debt spiral in the wrong 
direction, an interaction between the two--the United States defaulting 
on its debt and Europe--some countries defaulting on theirs, perhaps 
Greece.
  This is clearly the wrong time to take an action that would leave the 
United States to be placed in default. There would be disastrous 
consequences for our economy alone, irrespective of the repercussions 
and reverberations around the world, especially Europe. Our gross 
domestic product would shrink by as much as 1 percent and more than 
$150 billion. We would be defaulting. That default would compromise our 
credit rating. What would happen if our credit rating was in jeopardy? 
It would cause interest rates to skyrocket. Just think what would 
happen if the United States, as we are struggling to slowly get our 
economy going, was faced with a big spike in interest rates. That would 
stop the recovery dead in its tracks. It would do more than that. It 
would probably plunge us back into recession. That is what would 
happen. Yearly prices for food, gas, and utilities would increase by 
hundreds of dollars for American citizens. Americans could lose 
thousands in retirement savings; that is, if we default and interest 
rates have to go up so much as a consequence of default.
  We have to act so investors would want to invest in the United 
States. If we default, U.S. businesses would not be able to meet 
payroll much less expand. Millions of Americans would not be paid. 
Millions more would lose their jobs. We are trying to get the 
unemployment rate down. This would cause it to go up dramatically. 
Default would cause it to go up. If this passes, that would mean the 
United States would be in default and jobs would be harder to find and 
unemployment would rise. Americans would be unable to access credit to 
buy a home, a car, or take out loans for college. The housing market 
would plummet again. The economy would fall into another recession or 
even a depression.
  At a time when our economy is starting to show signs of recovery, now 
is exactly the wrong time to risk a contraction. American workers, 
families, and small businesses cannot afford that, to say the least. If 
today's vote succeeds and causes a default, the Federal Government 
would not have funds to pay troop salaries.
  What about SEAL Team 6 who took on Osama bin Laden? We read about 
them in the last couple of days rescuing an American out of Somalia. 
There would not be a SEAL Team 6, let alone the other troops that would 
not be paid. Social Security benefits would not be paid. Just think of 
that. Medicare bills would not be paid. Think of that.
  These programs would all be in danger if we were to default, and a 
positive vote here would cause default. We are voting on a motion to 
disapprove. That would hurt the families and seniors who rely on these 
programs I just mentioned.
  We need to do all we can to help these families make ends meet, not 
put their jobs and paychecks in danger. There is no doubt that we need 
to work together to reduce the deficit. Everybody agrees on that. We 
need to work together to get it done. Clearly, we need to make changes 
to both revenue and the spending sides of the budget. That is clear.
  We need to do so in a way that doesn't put jobs and economic growth 
at risk. We need to do it, obviously, in a fair and balanced way. That 
is why the people in our States sent us here.
  As we do that, we can't refuse to meet our country's obligations. 
There

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have been many efforts to reduce the budget deficit, whether it was the 
Biden deficit commission, the so-called supercommittee, and the many 
budget proposals we talked about--Bowles-Simpson and Rivlin-Domenici--
and we are getting closer and closer and we are going to get the job 
done.
  As we work on that, again, we cannot refuse to meet our country's 
obligations, and we have to make sure we pay the bills we have already 
incurred. We need to show the world the United States keeps its 
promises. We have to show people we live up to our word.
  I urge my colleagues to keep our promises and to vote no on the 
motion to proceed.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Utah is 
recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I wish to express my disapproval of the 
President's request of a debt limit increase of $1.2 trillion, which 
would place the total limit just below $16.4 trillion.
  The requested increase amounts to nearly $4,000 of additional debt 
for every American man, woman, and child; and the total debt limit 
being requested works out to over $50,000 per person. This would be a 
terrible burden to impose on our children.
  For many in Washington, including this President, this debt limit 
increase is just a matter-of-fact necessity. Watching the mainstream 
media, many Americans might be surprised to even know that it was set 
to happen. But this is no small matter. This is not an inconsequential 
increase in the limit on Federal spending.
  Federal spending is already out of control, and we all know it. Our 
total debt is already greater than the size of our entire economy. I 
will repeat that: Our total debt is greater than the size of our entire 
economy. The debt ceiling increase being requested amounts to nearly 8 
percent of our entire gross domestic product, or GDP, and the total 
debt limit being requested amounts to over 108 percent of GDP. That 
would place us in worse shape than many of the eurozone countries 
currently confronting their devastating fiscal crisis.
  Given the recent experience in Europe, it is disconcerting to hear 
repeated calls by the grow-government-at-all-costs crowd to double down 
on failed government initiatives to stimulate the economy by borrowing 
even more. Rates are cheap, they say, so let's continue riding this 
debt bubble as far as we can.
  We should have learned from the housing bubble and the European 
sovereign debt bubble that bubbles pop rapidly and with great 
devastation. It was not long ago that the grow-government crowd was 
mocking concerns about indebtedness in the eurozone, taunting what they 
called ``bond vigilantes'' and saying that there was nothing there to 
see. Interest rates will not go up. Don't worry. Rates are low, so 
borrow and spend.
  We know how this story ends. It was not long ago that we saw the 
housing market participants, lured in by the promise of an ever-bigger 
``McMansion,'' being told: Don't worry. Rates are low and housing 
prices never fall. The government backs your mortgage, so there is no 
risk.
  As outsized and highly speculative activity took place in the housing 
and financial sectors, Federal regulators ignored all warnings, failed 
to use their existing authority to promote safety and soundness and, 
frankly, failed to do their jobs. To date, it is difficult, if not 
impossible, to come up with a single name of a regulator who lost a 
job. In fact, many in the top slots got promotions. Meanwhile, 
everything bad that exists in the housing market and in mortgage 
finance is blamed on the evils of private business. That is a great way 
to deflect regulatory failure, but a terrible way to get private 
activity back into the housing arena.
  The fact is, the housing bubble was caused by too much borrowing and 
the folks who egged it on. The results were not pretty. Global 
investors struck against mortgage-backed securities issued in the 
United States, leading ultimately to a precipitous global strike on 
financial intermediation and massive government bailouts of financial 
institutions.
  The experience with the housing bubble caused by mortgage debt is 
being replicated with the explosion of sovereign debt. The bond 
vigilantes did strike against profligate eurozone countries, and they 
precipitously demanded higher and higher interest rates to protect 
lenders from risks of default. This effectively shut entire countries 
out of the debt market. Entire countries face an inability to borrow at 
rates they can sustain. Absent an ability to roll over debt, those 
countries have been forced quickly and violently into fiscal 
restructuring, immediate austerity, and sometimes even partial default.
  The President's most recent request to take on more debt follows the 
same bubble pattern that we know will lead to devastation and losses. 
I, for one, don't wish for us to continue flirting with catastrophe by 
encouraging bubbles with the fools' gold that because rates are cheap 
we should borrow more.
  We are on the edge of the cliff, and it is time to carefully but 
deliberately take a few steps back. Rates may be low today, but they 
can turn on a dime. When they do, the outsized Federal Government we 
currently have will suddenly be exposed as unaffordable. When that day 
comes, our creditors can go on strike as quickly as they have in 
Europe.
  Last summer we got a taste of what is to come when we received the 
first downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt in history from a major credit 
rating agency. Americans can never be allowed to forget that this 
downgrade occurred under, and because of, this administration's fiscal 
stewardship. We cannot risk what are likely to be further downgrades in 
the near future by raising the debt limit.
  It is time to resist the siren song of cheap credit and put our focus 
back on the job at hand, which is to allow the private sector to create 
jobs and to get rid of the $1 trillion-plus deficits of the Obama 
Presidency, to get rid of our mountain of debt that surpasses the size 
of our entire economy, and to bring the size of our Federal Government 
back to its historical norms.
  Federal outlays as a share of our entire economy averaged 18.6 
percent over the past 40 years. Under the current administration, 
Federal outlays represent 25 percent of GDP in 2009, 23.8 percent in 
2010, and were estimated to have been 25.3 percent in 2011. The current 
administration has engineered a Federal Government where outlays 
represent 25 percent--one-quarter--of our entire economy. The last time 
Federal spending represented such a large share of our economy was back 
in 1946 as the world began rebuilding after the ravages of World War 
II.
  I guess this is what one of my colleagues meant when he said the 
other day that America is in good shape. Economic and job growth remain 
weak, but Washington and the government jobs it funds is doing just 
fine.
  The administration likes to talk about economic fairness--about the 
haves and have-nots. But ultimately the people in the best shape in 
this economy are those who owe their livelihoods to the Federal 
Government and Federal taxpayers. When the 99 percent are being taxed 
to fund and fuel an ever-growing Washington bureaucracy, we have what 
the President might call economic justice.
  There is no end in sight. After Federal spending spiked in World War 
II as the entire Nation mobilized to defeat the axis powers, it quickly 
ratcheted down, with Federal spending averaging 16.5 percent of GDP in 
the 10 years that followed. Yet with President Obama, the ratchet only 
moved in one direction, up.
  Equally of interest is the behavior of Federal spending relative to 
the size of the economy in those Clinton years, which many look back on 
as the golden age of fiscal correctness. While Democrats focus solely 
on the existence of budgetary bliss despite higher tax rates under 
Clinton, they typically fail to mention how the budgetary bliss was 
generated. It is difficult to deny the facts, which include a reduction 
in Federal outlays relative to GDP from 21.4 percent in 1993 to 18.2 
percent by 2001, a 3.2-percentage point reduction.
  During those years government receipts relative to GDP did rise from

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17.5 percent to 19.5 percent, a 2.0-percentage point increase. But it 
is impossible to deny that the budget bliss was largely generated by 
reducing the share of the economy accounted for by Federal spending. Of 
course, my friends on other side of the aisle pledge allegiance to tax-
and-spend economics. They wish to maintain a Federal Government where 
spending amounts to one-quarter of the size of the entire economy. To 
them, Federal spending and big government are not problems; they are 
virtues from which good things trickle down from government to 
preferred classes of people.
  They decry that a deep recession has caused government receipts as a 
share of GDP to fall below 15 percent and argue in panic that the 
decline is proof that taxes must be raised, while refusing to 
acknowledge that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects 
that revenues as a share of GDP will rise with economic recovery. 
Federal revenues have averaged 18 percent of GDP over the past 40 
years. They are projected by our Congressional Budget Office to reach 
nearly 19 percent of GDP in 2013, 21 percent in 2021, and 23 percent by 
2035 under current law. That is what they say.
  Even under the CBO's so-called alternative fiscal scenario, CBO puts 
revenues as a share of GDP at around 18.4 percent, higher than the 
long-run average. Congress and the President should focus on the things 
they are capable of controlling.
  Mr. President, Federal revenues come from the economy, and as the 
economy recovers, CBO expects revenues to recover and rise above 
historical norms relative to the size of the economy. The President and 
his allies are putting the cart before the horse. They want to increase 
revenues by raising taxes. But the real way to increase revenues is to 
promote economic growth.
  Federal spending is something that Congress and the President have 
full control over, however. Every Federal dollar spent counts because 
Congress and the President decide to spend it. Our deficits and debt 
are on an unsustainable path because of unsustainable spending. Yet 
with this debt limit increase, the President and his allies are 
confirming they are comfortable with our government consuming an ever-
increasing share of the economy.
  The President has made clear before that in the name of class warfare 
he is comfortable raising taxes regardless of whether those tax hikes 
generate revenues or decrease deficits and debt. With his latest 
proposal to tax the so-called rich, he has shown again he is willing to 
ignore the fact--the clear fact--we have a spending problem not a 
revenue problem.
  To tackle our spending problem, unsustainable government promises 
embedded in entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social 
Security must be reformed. There is no budget analyst on this planet 
who does not identify entitlement reform as key to getting the Federal 
budget back on track. Yet over the 3 years of the Obama Presidency, 
there has been no plan--no plan from the administration--to deal with 
entitlements.
  The entitlement can is simply being kicked down the road, and to 
deflect attention from our real fiscal challenges my friends on the 
other side of the aisle resort to the politics of division. Tax the 
evil banks and all will be equal, just, and fair, they suggest. Tax 
millionaires and billionaires no matter whether they are fat cats on 
yachts or small business owners and all will be equal, just, and fair, 
they suggest.
  The politics of division bears no fruit. It is an economic dead end. 
Yet it is elevated to the top of the President's agenda to divert 
attention from our bloated Federal Government. The taxes on the so-
called rich or on evil financial institutions or evil energy producers 
or evil insurance providers have been promoted in the interest of 
fairness and equality.
  Reducing income and wealth inequality is a laudable goal. Yet my 
friends on the other side of the aisle have not--and I repeat, have 
not--proposed new tax measures to generate greater income equality 
through the Tax Code. The numerous permanent surtaxes on the so-called 
rich or on energy producers or on financial institutions have not been 
offered with corresponding permanent reductions in taxes for others 
with lesser means. Rather, they have been offered to promote more 
government spending and a permanently larger government. They are 
permanent tax hikes used to pay for temporary stimulus or taxes on 
business to fuel more spending or bailouts or government jobs.
  Of course, no mention is made of what effect those taxes have on 
businesses or private sector job creation. No mention is made about the 
effect those taxes have on the returns on retirement portfolios of 
seniors, which contain stocks and bonds of the vilified banks and 
energy producers and insurance companies. The message to retired 
seniors in Sandy, UT, is clear: You have been suffering for years 
through near-zero returns on bonds because of Federal Reserve policy. 
But now you will just have to take it on the chin when the value of 
your pensions fall because the Federal Government needs to tax business 
to get more revenue for union construction jobs or stimulus or for 
bailouts of mortgages of speculative housing investors.
  Mr. President, my friends on the other side of the aisle say they 
want more equality and more jobs but do not offer tax proposals that 
would generate more equality through the Tax Code or a better 
environment for job creation. Instead, they want to tax the so-called 
rich to get money for things such as high-paid infrastructure 
contractors while fighting tooth and nail on behalf of their union 
constituencies to retain and even expand Davis-Bacon and Contract 
Service Act coverage, which we know costs taxpayers money and stifles 
job creation. These kinds of schemes have nothing to do with equality. 
They have nothing to do with promoting as much job creation as 
possible. They have everything to do with the politics of division and 
with cronyism.
  In the recent flurry of tax-the-rich surcharges offered by the other 
side, each corresponding spending idea has been clearly directed to 
appease Democratic constituencies--mostly unions, again--and to build 
up campaign season talking points that say the only thing standing in 
the way of Democrats' do-goodery is Republican refusal to tax some 
easily demonized group. This might make for good politics, but it is no 
way to formulate fiscal policy, and it is no way to run a country.
  At first, to pay for a massive new stimulus plan of the President, 
the Democrats wanted to limit deductions for people earning $200,000 or 
more, which in September of last year was evidently how Democrats 
defined who was rich. Next came a proposed surtax of 5.6 percent on 
people earning $1 million or more to pay for the President's stimulus 
scheme. I am guessing the earlier definition of ``rich'' at $200,000 
did not sit too well--or poll too well--with Democrats in high-income 
jurisdictions, in places such as New York and California.
  Next came a surtax of 0.5 percent on those earners to give funds to 
States to help pay mostly union workers.
  Next came a surtax of 0.7 percent on those earners to help pay for a 
new Fannie-and-Freddie-like, government-sponsored enterprise called the 
infrastructure bank.
  Next came a permanent surtax of 3.25 percent on those earners for 
what was billed as a temporary payroll tax preference which, 
ironically, gives more to richer earners than it does to poorer earners 
and gives nothing at all to the unemployed.
  Next came a long-term surtax of 1.9 percent on richer earners, again 
for the allegedly temporary payroll tax preference.
  Mr. President, the pattern is clear. Democrats settle on their 
stimulus spending plan of the week, find out how much it will cost, and 
then find out what surtax to slap on high earners, including business 
income recipients. That is how we get tax proposals with rates of 5.6 
percent, then 0.5 percent, then 0.7 percent, then 3.25 percent, then 
1.9 percent, and who knows what is going to come next. Never mind that 
businesses across this country have been clear that massive uncertainty

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from the current administration's policies and proposals is holding 
back hiring, job creation, and the economy.
  Given the past few months of tax rate roulette being played by the 
Democrats, is it any wonder families and businesses lack the confidence 
to take risks, make significant purchases and grow the economy?
  And never mind that the Joint Committee on Taxation has told us 
approximately 34 percent of flow-through business income, which tends 
to be small business income, would be subject to Democratic surtax 
proposals. My friends on the other side of the aisle ask us not to mind 
the effect on job creators, even as the economy faces massive 
joblessness.
  If we abide by the recommendations of the editors of the New York 
Times, who are in lockstep with the Democratic Party, we should not 
care about more taxes on businesses. Indeed, in a December 9 editorial 
last year, those tax policy experts told us:

       For any savvy business owner, a surtax would have no 
     bearing on hiring decisions. If new workers are profitable 
     before tax, they will be profitable after tax, even if the 
     employer has to pay slightly more of the profit in taxes.

  This view perfectly encapsulates the understanding of the economy 
held by those who have never created a private sector job or worked to 
turn a profit. By this view, these rich business owners would not even 
flinch if we increases taxes. After-tax profitability of hiring does 
not matter evidently, especially when we view business earners as those 
evil rich.
  Mr. President, I know in certain circles it is fashionable to vilify 
business and hold the profit motive as the root cause of mega-wealth. 
But the notion that business decisions, including hiring, will not be 
affected in the least by higher taxes is truly bizarre.
  The ongoing vilification of private businesses in America is 
shameful. Hard-working Americans who are by no definition rich, but who 
work in mortgage markets and real estate markets and securitization 
markets and energy production markets and in financial markets, have 
been hit with a blanket indictment from this administration that they 
are wrongdoers.
  Of course, if they do wrong they need to go to jail. But my 
experience with the American people is, by and large, they play by the 
rules, seek to offer useful products to their buyers, and look only for 
fair rewards for their efforts. They do not deserve to be vilified by 
the President and painted as purveyors of tricks and traps to abuse 
their neighbors in order to buy yachts.
  Again, anyone who breaks a law should go to jail. Any Federal 
regulator who fails to do their job should be fired. But the vast 
majority of Americans who operate and work hard and honestly in 
business should not be shamed for their work. It would be far more 
appropriate to shame lawmakers who set tricks and traps in the Tax Code 
in order to get more money for the Federal Government to spend while 
falsely selling their schemes as paths toward equality.
  While President Obama seeks to take attention away from his 
historically record-high deficits and Federal spending that accounts 
for 25 percent of the economy and his jobs deficit and his 
congressional relations deficit by identifying some sort of ``trust 
deficit'' he has with financial institutions, it is imperative that he 
and Democrats in Congress do not spend the rest of this year playing 
election-year politics. People need jobs, and the Nation cannot afford 
to wait for the President and Democrats to get past November.
  We need to stop the tsunami of job-crushing regulations and the 
runaway regulatory agencies which continually stretch their authority 
in order to intervene into the economy and crush job creation. We need 
to reduce the time needed for private sector projects to clear the 
forest of regulatory and permitting redtape. We need to proceed 
immediately with known shovel-ready, job-creating, and environmentally 
safe projects such as the Keystone Pipeline. Despite having cleared 
years of reviews and oversight and despite support from virtually all 
interests--including unions but excluding radical environmentalists--it 
is inconsistent for the President to say he cares about American jobs 
while he prevents them from being created by approving the pipeline.
  While the President needs to approve the Keystone Pipeline, I wish to 
again express my disapproval of the administration's Federal spending 
pipeline.
  For 3 years, the administration has lacked any serious and coherent 
budget plan. The administration has refused to deal seriously, if at 
all, with tackling unsustainable entitlement spending. It wishes to 
continue to practice the politics of division in order to permanently 
enshrine a European-sized Federal Government that absorbs over one-
fourth of the entire size of our economy.
  Americans do not want this oversized government. Americans do not 
want or need job-stifling tax hikes. Americans do not need the Federal 
Government running their lives and making their choices. Allowing the 
debt limit to rise would only serve to promote things that Americans do 
not want and that Americans do not need.
  Therefore, I disapprove of the President's request for a $1.2 
trillion increase in the debt limit which would place the total limit 
at nearly $16.4 trillion, and I urge my colleagues to similarly 
disapprove.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma is 
recognized.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I first wish to thank the Senator from 
Iowa for allowing me to move in front of him; and I ask unanimous 
consent that at the conclusion of my remarks he be recognized.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I speak 
immediately following the Senator from Iowa.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me say to Senator Hatch and his 
remarks, there has never been anyone I can recall who has been so 
relentless in trying to stop all this deficit spending whom I 
associated with and served with in the Senate.
  One month ago we were standing here trying to pass a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution and Senator Hatch was right in the middle 
providing leadership. We wanted that to be a reality.
  My activity with the balanced budget amendment goes all the way back 
to the 1970s, when then-Senator Carl Curtis was trying to preratify an 
amendment to the Constitution. I was a State Senator at that time, and 
we were the first State to preratify the Constitution. So we know it 
has been a real up-hill battle. It has been very difficult.
  I think it is important, though, and one thing that hasn't been said 
in this debate is why we have this deficit and why we have this debt. 
It is important for people to understand, and I know most people don't. 
But to overly simplify it a little bit: The debt is the responsibility 
of the President. It is not the Republicans, it is not the Democrats, 
it is not the House, it is not the Senate; it is the President who puts 
together a budget every year.
  We have a President who put together his first budget, and the Obama 
first budget had a deficit of $1 trillion; the second budget he had in 
2011 was $1.3 trillion; then, last year, his budget deficit was $1.1 
trillion. But if you stop and think about what has happened in the 
past, that 2011 deficit was going to be much more than that because 
they have now upgraded that to $1.65 trillion. So we are talking about 
a President who is going to have in excess of $5 trillion in deficit, 
in the 4 years he has been in office, by his own budgets.
  I remember back in 1996, when President Clinton came out with the 
first $1.65 trillion budget and I was outraged that we couldn't sustain 
that kind of spending. Yet that was to run the entire country of the 
United States of America, and this is just the deficit alone.
  So it is estimated the President will have presided over $14 trillion 
in spending by the end of the year. By then, our

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national debt will be over $16.3 trillion, making this President 
accountable for increasing the national debt by about $6 trillion.
  That is more debt than all Presidents, from George Washington to 
George W. Bush, combined--one President, in a 4-year period.
  Over the last couple years, the President has been warned and warned 
and warned that we have to do something about it. He has ignored these 
warnings and instead went after the single largest contributor to the 
deficit and to debt that this government is having; that is, 
government-sponsored health care. He did this with the passage of 
ObamaCare, a bill he talked about was going to be fiscally responsible. 
In reality, the bill will increase the Federal expenditures by $2.5 
trillion in the first 10 years following the law's full implementation. 
After that, it will only skyrocket.
  Their own estimate on ObamaCare is, after the first 10 years, it will 
go up $4.4 trillion in addition to the $2.5 trillion.
  We are talking about trillions, and every time I hear a projected 
cost, I know it is going to be a lot more than that. I recall back in 
1967, when the House Ways and Means Committee projected what Medicare 
was going to cost. Medicare was put in, in 1966, and they said by 1990 
Medicare was going to cost $12 billion. Guess what happened. In 1990, 
it wasn't $12 billion; it was $110 billion--10 times more than what 
they were expecting. So I know this is going to cost a lot more than 
the $4.4 trillion they are projecting after the first 10 years.
  The President convened groups, gangs, commissions to figure out, Why 
is our Nation going so far in debt? We are going in debt because we 
have a President whose budget reflects over $1 trillion of deficit each 
year, and that is for four budgets. They talk about forming those 
commissions; they come out with recommendations. Some of the 
recommendations, by the way, were good, but the President rejected all 
those recommendations. In fact, I would say the only cuts he is willing 
to go along with are cuts that are in our national security spending. 
He has decimated our military, and right now we are looking at a 
reorganization that is going to be an even more difficult situation to 
recover from after this President is gone.
  By the way, when the President says he inherited deficits, it is 
interesting that when President Bush went into office, he took over a 
military that had been cut down during the Clinton administration by 
about 40 percent. That was back during the euphoric chant that the Cold 
War is over and so we don't need to have a military anymore, and so 
they did that. Right after that, of course, we know 9/11 came. So 
President George W. Bush did have deficits. His deficits averaged $240 
billion a year for 8 years. Add that and it is $2 trillion. But this 
President, in 4 years, will have done nearly $6 trillion--three times 
as much as President George W. Bush did in 8 years.
  So we still have the problems. Unemployment is ticking around 8.5 
percent, the labor market is very weak, the regulatory train wreck, and 
the regulations right now. People have talked an awful lot about the 
deficit spending. That is what we are talking about this morning. I 
don't want to confuse this issue, but I wish to tell you the 
overregulations we are having--here we have a President who is now 
trying to invoke a cap-and-trade through regulation that he was not 
able to do through legislation. There is another cost that would be 
somewhere in excess of $300 billion, not once but every year. So the 
regulations, the train wreck is on its way. It is alive and well, and 
we have to do everything we can to try to stop it.
  So they came up with a deal. They said: Let's put together something 
where, over a period of 10 years, we are going to try to come up with 
$1.5 trillion. Keep in mind, that is over 10 years when this President 
does that much in deficit each year.
  So the first phase of this grand program they had was to increase the 
debt limit by $900 billion to the current level of $15.2 trillion. It 
was matched by discretionary spending cuts--or it was supposed to be--
in the same amount. Then the supercommittee went to work to find $1.5 
trillion. Keep in mind, we are supposed to have $1.5 trillion to reduce 
as a justification for increasing the debt limit, which we did before, 
and that was over a period of one decade. So they are trying to find 
$1.5 trillion over 10 years that this President has been accountable 
for increasing the deficit, the same amount, every year--or what will 
be every year--for the 4-year period. But because we all know it 
failed, we are facing additional automatic spending cuts of $1.2 
trillion. In exchange for this, the President is going to be allowed to 
increase the debt limit by $1.2 trillion to a staggering level of $16.4 
trillion.
  That is a lot of money, and it is hard for people to understand. I 
think the best way to explain it is, what he is doing is he is 
administering an increase in the debt of more than this country has 
sustained since the country's beginning.
  In the President's first State of the Union Message, he promised to 
cut Federal deficits in half by the end of the first term, but we know 
what happened.
  Before we agree to an increase in the debt limit, I think they are 
going to have to have some kind of reforms that actually reduce 
spending to levels that can put our Nation in a fiscally sound 
position.
  If we are serious about this and want to do something about the debt, 
want to do something about the deficit, do you know how we can do it? 
It would be very simple. All we would have to do is repeal ObamaCare. 
That is all we would have to do. As already mentioned, the law is a 
fiscal nightmare, and it hasn't started yet. But as things stand, our 
$15 trillion debt is weighing us down, and now the President wants the 
authority to add another $1.2 trillion to it. We can't allow this to 
happen.
  I know the President thinks he has us over a barrel. What he has done 
now three times in a row, and he is planning to do it again, is say: If 
you don't do something about increasing the debt limit, we are going 
into default. He talks about the horrible results that are going to 
happen. But when would that end if we don't have any sincere effort to 
stop the spending of the Obama administration?
  Here is the last chance we have--the first chance we have is this 
resolution of disapproval that will be voted on. If we can do this, 
then that is going to shock the President into knowing he has to be 
fiscally conservative. I am not speaking on my behalf. I am speaking on 
behalf of my 20 kids and grandkids who are going to have to pay for all 
this fun we are having.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Iowa is 
recognized.


                          Recess Appointments

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, as the chairman of the Health, Education, 
Labor, and Pensions Committee, I wish to respond to some of the shrill 
rhetoric and outright misinformation regarding President Obama's recent 
recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and to the 
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
  When all the political grandstanding is done, at the heart of this 
dispute is the ability of these two agencies to carry out their 
congressionally mandated functions. One is charged with defending the 
rights of consumers and the other defending the rights of workers.
  Republican partisan obstruction and filibusters prevented 
confirmation of nominees to lead both these agencies, which would have 
prevented their legal authority to act. With the rights of millions of 
American workers and consumers on the line, the President did what was 
his duty to preserve the functioning of two critically important 
agencies--agencies that are essential cornerstones of our efforts to 
rebuild and restore our struggling middle class.
  At a time when our Nation is engaged in serious soul-searching about 
the demise of the middle class, the missions of the Consumer Bureau and 
the Labor Board have become particularly essential. These agencies are 
tasked with the vital responsibility of standing for consumers and 
workers against Wall Street and powerful corporations.

[[Page 343]]

  Indeed, the true significance of the debate over the President's 
recess appointments is not about legislative or secure power or the 
meaning of a pro forma session, but the true significance is about 
whether we will let the powerful and well connected use the political 
process to rig the system or if, instead, we will enact and enforce 
laws that will give workers and consumers a fighting chance at a decent 
middle-class life.
  As a centerpiece of the Dodd-Frank bill to rein in the recklessness 
on Wall Street, the idea behind the Consumer Bureau is simple. We need 
a cop on the beat, looking out for the best interests of consumers who 
use financial products, as we have regulators looking out for the 
financial health of banks, as we have a Food and Drug Administration, 
the FDA, looking out for the safety of food and drugs for consumers or 
the Consumer Product Safety Commission that looks out for and protects 
our kids from harmful toys.
  A strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will ensure that 
consumers are not lured into debt through hidden fees. It will simplify 
disclosures and reduce paperwork so consumers are not faced with 
mountains of paperwork they cannot understand. It would oversee 
providers of consumer credit such as payday lenders--which for years 
have acted similar to banks but without facing any kind of bank 
regulation.
  Additionally, as student debt surpasses credit card debt as the 
largest source of consumer debt in America, the Bureau can play a 
critical role in helping families better understand the increasing 
challenges of financing a college education as well as bringing some 
sanity to the private student loan marketplace.
  Despite these laudable goals, Republicans refused to confirm Richard 
Cordray, the President's nominee to lead the agency, unless the 
President would agree to water down the law and weaken consumer 
protections. Forty-four Republican Senators served notice they would 
not confirm anyone to the position of Director unless structural 
changes were made to the Bureau that would effectively gut its ability 
to stand for consumers. When the President refused, they filibustered 
and prevented an up-or-down vote on this nomination, leaving the 
consumer bureau unable to fully interpret and enforce the law.
  As a consequence, Americans across the country were left in limbo, 
with limited ability to stand up to big banks and financial scam 
artists. Leaving the Bureau so powerless was unacceptable, so the 
President had no choice but to use his constitutional authority to 
ensure that this critical agency can continue to perform its 
legislatively mandated mission.
  The ramifications of Republican obstruction were even more dire at 
the National Labor Relations Board, where the impending loss of a 
quorum of members meant the Board would become totally inoperable if 
the President did not step in to fill the vacancies. Similar to the 
consumer bureau, the NLRB, as it is known, is a government agency 
tasked with standing up for working families. In its very text, the 
very text of the law that created the Board, it established that the 
policy of the United States is to encourage the process of collective 
bargaining. Senator Robert Wagner of New York, the act's author in 
1935, explained that collective bargaining would increase the 
purchasing power of American workers and therefore aid our national 
recovery from the Great Depression. This law was one of the 
cornerstones of a new American economic policy that created the largest 
middle class in history, gave rise to the economic boom that 
transformed America and the world, and brought economic security and a 
better life to generations of Americans.
  Unfortunately, not everyone agrees with this mission. Some very 
powerful interests think that a few at the very top should have a 
monopoly power in our economy; that they should be able to set all the 
rules. These interests have lined up allies in Congress to wage a 
relentless crusade against the National Labor Relations Board. In all 
my years in public office, I have never seen anything like it.
  Last year, Republicans in the House held at least eight hearings, 
specifically addressing the NLRB. They passed two bills to amend the 
National Labor Relations Act to strip workers of their rights. 
Republican elected officials have tried to defund the agency. They have 
threatened the professional credentials and livelihoods of nonpartisan 
career employees and even called on a Republican board member to 
resign, in order to incapacitate the agency. On the campaign trail, 
Republican Presidential candidates have raged against the National 
Labor Relations Board and its employees.
  What are the great crimes these dedicated public servants at the NLRB 
are supposed to have committed? First, they started a new initiative to 
make sure workers are aware of their rights under law. In April of this 
year, employers will have to post a notice about National Labor 
Relations Act rights on the office bulletin board, next to other 
longstanding notices about the minimum wage, workplace safety, and 
other basic worker protections. This hardly seems to be an unreasonable 
burden.
  Second, the NLRB prosecuted a case against a company that allegedly 
retaliated against its employees for going on strike. I spoke at length 
about this case last year, on numerous occasions, on the floor of the 
Senate because there was so much misinformation about it. While the 
case was brought against a powerful company and became very 
controversial as a result, prosecuting retaliation cases is 
unquestionably a necessary and important part of the NLRB's 
responsibility. After all the fire and brimstone and all the threats 
from Republicans against this agency and the Governor of a certain 
State, as has happened in the past, this dispute was resolved by the 
company and the union. It has happened so many times in the past 
without us having to do a thing about it.
  Third, the National Labor Relations Board enacted a rule to 
standardize timelines for national elections. Under the act, after 
workers petition for an election, the NLRB holds a hearing to decide 
who should be in the bargaining unit and who should not be. In recent 
years, many employers have started flooding that hearing with frivolous 
litigation to stall the elections for months or even years, while 
arguing or appealing over every minor detail their lawyers can imagine. 
The NLRB decided to fix this problem and make sure workers get a vote 
in a reasonable period of time. The Board said workers should vote and 
then, if necessary, the ballots would be sequestered while the 
litigation drags on over certain peripheral issues. The new rules do 
not encourage union organization and they do not discourage it; they 
just give workers the ability to say yes or no in a reasonable period 
of time. Workers should not have to wait until innumerable lawsuits, 
one after the other, are disposed of before they even get a chance to 
vote.
  In response to these eminently reasonable and fair proposals, 
Republicans have attempted to shut the Board down by blocking all 
nominations. Senator Graham of South Carolina vowed publicly to block 
all nominees to the labor board, even if it meant the agency would 
cease to function. In his opinion, Senator Graham said, ``The NLRB as 
inoperable could be considered progress.'' To the thousands of American 
workers every year who rely on the NLRB to enforce the law and defend 
their rights, that must sound pretty cold-blooded, a direct attack on 
middle-class Americans.
  In practice, disabling the NLRB would mean American workers would 
have nowhere to turn if their rights are violated. Thousands of 
American workers are fired every year for trying to organize a union in 
their workplace--their legal right, by the way. With the labor board 
out of commission, these workers might never get their jobs back. If an 
employer or a union refused to adhere to a contract, there would be no 
NLRB to resolve the dispute.
  The labor board also ensures that unions do not step outside the law 
in their interactions with workers or employers. Those cases would be 
stuck in limbo too. Perhaps that is why a senior

[[Page 344]]

counsel to the National Federation of Independent Business told the 
Congressional Quarterly that ``to have the Board totally shut down 
would be a travesty.''
  The President averted this travesty by appropriately exercising his 
recess appointment authority. Indeed, the President showed restraint by 
only appointing nominees to agencies that would lose their ability to 
function due to Republican obstruction. Acting to ensure the continued 
smooth functioning of government under these circumstances is a 
President's--whether it is President Obama or any other President--
constitutional responsibility. As constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe 
has explained, the Constitution considered the possibility that 
congressional squabbles would lead to paralysis and determined:

       The Constitution that has guided our Republic for centuries 
     is not blind to the threat of Congress's extending its 
     internal squabbles into a general paralysis of the entire 
     body politic, rendering vital regulatory agencies headless 
     and therefore impotent. Preserving the authority the 
     President needs to carry out his basic duties, rather than 
     deferring to partisan games and gimmicks, is our 
     Constitution's clear command.

  Again, I say, if my colleagues do not like the National Labor 
Relations Act or Dodd-Frank, they can introduce a bill and try to get 
support to change the law. Of course, Republicans know such a bill 
would fail miserably. Instead, they are trying to short-circuit the 
process laid out by the Constitution to pass legislation. Under their 
theory, under the Republicans' theory, just 41 Senators could 
effectively repeal an existing law by simply denying an up-or-down vote 
on the President's nominees. Think about that. We pass a law by 
majority vote. It might even get through; of course, overriding a 
filibuster with 60 votes. The President signed it into law. A couple 
years later, the minority says we want to change it. We do not have the 
votes to change it, but we can block a nominee, nominees to the agency, 
and effectively shut down the agency with only 41 Senators. That is 
what is going on here. That is what is going on.
  President Obama took a bold but necessary step. Stepping in to 
protect ordinary Americans from the consequences of congressional 
dysfunction is hardly an intrusion on Congress's authority. It is the 
essence of leadership.
  I might point out I think facts will show that the last President 
before President Obama, President Bush, exercised his authority to 
appoint recess appointees 171 times. I think President Obama is right 
now around 20 or 21, something like that.
  Since President Obama was elected, Republicans have openly stated 
their No. 1 goal is not to govern or legislate; their No. 1 goal is to 
prevent the reelection of President Obama. Republicans in Congress may 
have the luxury of playing these political games but any President does 
not. Americans are counting on this President to do what is right for 
the middle class and that is unquestionably what he did by making these 
recess appointments to these two vital consumer protection agencies, 
the Consumer Protection Agency and the National Labor Relations Board.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Texas is 
recognized.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I am going to speak about the debt 
disapproval resolution that is before us because I feel so strongly it 
is time to send a strong message to the President and give the people 
of America some comfort that we are not going to continue to raise the 
debt ceiling again and again without doing something that shows we 
understand the crisis we are in and that we are going to take the steps 
necessary to whittle down our debt and do the responsible thing. 
However, I do want to respond to what has just been said about the 
recess appointment of Mr. Cordray, the Director of the new consumer 
agency, which was done by the President when Congress was out of 
session, depriving Congress of the ability to advise and consent to 
this appointment.
  I think to put it in the context where it is proper, it is very 
important to know that this consumer agency was created by a Democratic 
President who had complete Democratic control of Congress and gave this 
agency unprecedented power--unprecedented in that the agency has no 
congressional oversight. None. We don't control the budget. In fact, no 
one controls the budget of this new agency that was created with 
complete Democratic control of Congress and the Presidency.
  This agency was created in the Dodd-Frank bill with no oversight by 
any entity whatsoever other than the Democratic President who signed 
the bill that was given to him by the Democratically controlled 
Congress. So Mr. Cordray is now the head of an agency without 
congressional approval, and Congress has no control over its budget, 
and we now have the possibility of a burgeoning new Federal bureaucracy 
that is going to put more regulations on probably the most 
overregulated industry in America today, which is the banking industry.
  If you talk to anybody out there trying to get capital in a small 
business, they will tell you that the banks are being hamstrung. So now 
we are going to give them more regulations that are going to put a 
freeze on their capability to make consumer small loans. The banking 
industry has plenty of regulation, and the Comptroller of the Currency 
does a good job. Certainly the FDIC has done its job in trying to make 
sure that the reserves are met for banks to be stable because we are 
not going to be bailing out banks.
  I heard the President of the United States talking at his State of 
the Union Message. I heard him say: We are going to go through this 
government, and we are going to cut back on regulations because we know 
regulations can hamper the ability of our small businesses to get up 
and get out there and hire people and make a profit. We think profit is 
good because we think profit makes people able to hire more people and 
get this economy going.
  So there is a constitutional issue at stake where the President just 
decided that Congress was out of session and appointed Mr. Cordray. In 
any other instance, Congress would have some say because we would be 
able to set a budget for the agency and we would be able to curb some 
of its overreach if we feel that it is there; however, not this agency 
because there is no congressional oversight of this agency.
  So we are in a position where we have Mr. Cordray--and let me say 
there is nothing personal against Mr. Cordray, but there is a lot that 
is wrong with Mr. Cordray being appointed by the President rather than 
being confirmed by the Senate, which is in the law. There is a problem 
when there is no congressional oversight whatsoever that would be able 
to curb the overregulation that we suspect is going to happen in this 
agency.
  This is not the end of this subject. Today we are going to be voting 
on the increase in the debt limit by $1.2 trillion. What do we already 
have on the books for debt? It is $15.2 trillion, which is a figure 
that is now equal to or more than our gross domestic product. We are 
not talking about Greece, we are talking about the United States of 
America. We should be the beacon of economic stability in the world, 
and we are here to raise the debt limit without so much as a plan to 
curb spending or to look at the entitlement reforms we know are 
necessary because we cannot cut enough spending in the discretionary 
accounts to actually do what we must do to whittle down a $15 trillion 
debt because the discretionary accounts are approximately 30 percent of 
the total expenditures of our country.
  The major responsibility this country has in defense is getting ready 
to be shredded by this administration, while we have a new consumer 
agency that has unfettered budgetary authority. Where is our 
perspective here? We are talking now about 30 percent of the budget 
that we spend, the spending in our country, being discretionary 
accounts, and we are hearing today that the President is going to cut 
enormous numbers out of our defense budget, but at the same time we 
hear very little talk about entitlements, which are the automatic 
expenditures we cannot control. If the President were to lead, he would 
be going into the entitlements and providing some solutions and some

[[Page 345]]

leadership. The Republicans have said repeatedly: We will work with you 
on entitlements because we know it is hard.
  I have introduced legislation--along with Senator Kyl--that would 
begin the process of shoring up Social Security and saving our system. 
In fact, it is called the Defend and Save Social Security Act, and it 
would cover a 75-year shortfall without raising taxes and without 
cutting core benefits. Anyone in our plan who is 58 years of age or 
older would not be affected at all. However, starting in 2016, under 
our bill, the normal retirement age would start to increase 3 months 
each year for normal retirement. So if you are 58 or above, it would 
not affect you at all. If you are 57, you would retire 3 months later. 
If you are 56, you would retire 6 months later. That would begin to put 
us on a much more accurate table of when people are actually living and 
retiring. The actuarial tables show that people are healthier now than 
when Social Security passed, they work longer, they want to work 
longer, and we need to make the actuarial tables match today's 
standards of health and work.
  In addition, my bill would propose a very modest change in the annual 
cost-of-living adjustment. We would begin the cost-of-living adjustment 
if inflation is over 1 percent, and at that point we would factor in 
whatever the inflation rate is. So it would be a minor adjustment in 
the cost-of-living adjustment, but we would never go into the core 
benefits, nor would we tax anyone any more than they are being taxed 
right now. That is how we can address this in a gradual way and give 
our Social Security system the ability to stay solid and secure for 75 
years.
  We have not heard the President of the United States talk about 
correcting something as solid and necessary as Social Security. We have 
not heard anything from him about helping to solve the Medicare 
problem, which is a different issue, but clearly it must be addressed 
because we are going into deficits every month, every week, and every 
day on Medicare.
  The missing ingredient--and what the President has said in his State 
of the Union and what actually needs to happen--is entitlement reform. 
Republicans have said: We will work with you on tax reform that will 
produce more revenue with a fairer, flatter tax system, and one that 
will make our businesses and corporations more competitive. If we put 
our corporations at a better competitive position in the world, then 
they are going to hire more people. If we can do that with the 
President, we can make a difference in this debt and the deficits. 
However, all I am hearing is kind of a class warfare argument. It just 
seems old and stale because I think the American people are smarter 
than that. I think the American people know that if businesses are 
hiring and if we can get an economy that is robust and strong with more 
people working, everybody is going to do better, and that is what we 
all want.
  Raising taxes, which is the only option the President seems to care 
about, is not what we ought to be doing in a recession. You can dance 
around it, but if this is not a recession, then I don't know what it is 
with millions of people not working and almost a 9-percent unemployment 
rate. I don't know what the definition of ``recession'' is by the 
economists, but I think that when millions of people are not working 
and the unemployment rate is about 9 percent, that is a time when you 
don't want to increase taxes and increase the burden on businesses with 
a health care plan that is out of control. It is freezing hiring.
  It is not rocket science, and it is time we got together with the 
President of the United States. He is the elected leader of our 
country, and we don't need partisan rhetoric and campaign speeches. 
What we need to do is look at the real capability we have to do 
something about this deficit; that is, cut domestic spending in a 
reasonable way, address entitlement reform, which we can do, and for 
heaven's sake, tax reform that creates a fairer, flatter tax and gives 
our corporations the ability to compete globally would be a step in the 
right direction.
  I hope we reject his request. Let's not increase the debt limit. 
Let's sit down and get to work on bringing the debt down so we will 
never go beyond $15 trillion in debt for our country and our future 
generations.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Brown of Ohio). The senior Senator from 
Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that 
Senator Durbin of Illinois be the next Democratic speaker.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.


                         Voting Laws in Florida

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, Senator Durbin, the chairman of 
the Civil Rights Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, will convene 
a hearing of the subcommittee in Tampa tomorrow afternoon at 1 o'clock 
for the purpose of reviewing Florida's new election law that was passed 
a year ago by the Florida Legislature. It is what has been 
characterized by this Senator and others as a voter suppression law. 
Interestingly, there is a pattern in about 14 States that has changed 
the election laws to make it harder to vote, harder to register to 
vote, and harder to have one's vote counted as they intend. It is 
rather extraordinary that in this year of 2012 we would be concerned 
about the right of access to the ballot and the right to vote, which is 
a cherished constitutional right and one which is under assault in this 
country at this moment, especially in my State of Florida.
  Let me give my colleagues some particulars. The new election law, for 
example, has changed the voting registration requirements for those who 
sign up to register others--in other words, third parties--such as the 
League of Women Voters. The League of Women Voters had been registering 
voters in Florida under the old law that was on the books for decades. 
That law gave them, once they registered the voter--took the 
information--10 days to turn it in to the county supervisor of 
elections. That law had been on the books for decades.
  Last year the Florida Legislature--signed into law by the Governor--
changed that time period to 48 hours and the penalties that accrue go 
up to $1,000 for the person who is registering the voters and does not 
turn in those names within 48 hours. Therefore, the League of Women 
Voters in Florida, which has been doing this as a civic duty, has 
stopped registering voters. They are not going to take the chance that 
their members would be fined up to $1,000.
  Now, doesn't that sound like something exactly the opposite of what 
we should be doing? We should be encouraging people to register to 
vote, which is what the League of Women Voters has been doing according 
to their civic duty for years. It is happening before our eyes. But 
there is more.
  College students, young people, got excited about politics in the 
last Presidential election and voted in record numbers compared to what 
they had been doing before. But the Florida Legislature changed the 
law. Now, if a college student who has not been registered before 
suddenly gets interested and goes down to the Supervisor of Elections 
Office and registers to vote for this year's general election, and they 
arrive on election day and they are asked to show their identification, 
and they pull out their driver's license--the likelihood is their 
driver's license is the address of their parents where they have grown 
up. If that address is in a different county from the county they 
registered in, they will not get a ballot; they will get a provisional 
ballot.
  We know from the last Presidential election in 2008 in Florida only 
half of the provisional ballots were counted. Is this what we want to 
do to encourage young people to get excited and interested in their 
government, to get there on election day and get a provisional ballot 
instead of a regular ballot? I don't think so. But it is happening 
right underneath our noses. That is one of the reasons the Judiciary 
Committee is coming to Tampa tomorrow. We are going to flesh this out 
with a whole bunch of witnesses. But, unfortunately, there is more.

[[Page 346]]

  After the debacle in the 2000 Presidential election in Florida where 
we saw mistake after mistake after mistake--and all too painfully we 
know the results of how that election played out--to the credit of the 
Florida State government, they made it easier to vote. They created 
early voting. They created what was the old absentee ballot, where a 
person had to swear they were actually going to be absent from their 
place of voting on election day, and they made that easier by having 
the vote by mail. They set early voting--and it has been the case for 
years now--14 days prior to the election.
  It was so successful in the last Presidential election that fully 40 
percent of the entire general electorate voted before election day. So 
one can imagine the process was a lot more orderly and there were less 
lines when 60 percent of the electorate turned out on election day 
between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Of course, the 40 percent who voted early, 
many of them have jobs, and it wasn't convenient for them to get to the 
polls. So they could do it at their convenience and they could do it on 
the weekend. Some of them, such as single moms who had to arrange to 
get a babysitter, could do it at their convenience. Indeed, many 
minorities found it convenient when they could not get away from work 
to vote early.
  So the Florida Legislature changed the law, and it was signed into 
law by the Governor, constricting that 14 days to 8 days. Then a very 
interesting change took place. Instead of early voting going all the 
way up to and including the Sunday before the Tuesday election, they 
constricted that so the last day of the 8 days is now Saturday. Guess 
who has voted in record numbers after church on the Sunday before the 
Tuesday election, record numbers: African Americans. So they will not 
be able to go and vote on the Sunday before the Tuesday election 
because of the new law in Florida.
  Now, those who passed this new law said it was to cut down on fraud. 
Yet they have no example--and I am looking forward to asking some of 
the witnesses tomorrow to make the record complete--no example of any 
increase in fraud in the last decade of which these election laws were 
passed after the 2000 Presidential election to make it easier to vote. 
So what we have is a pattern in over 14 States, including our State, of 
what I have just described, which is the law is one of the most onerous 
and one of the more distinct voter suppression laws that has been 
enacted. Why? Is it for partisan reasons?
  If we restrict young people, if we restrict minorities, if we make it 
more difficult for women, particularly single moms, does that suggest a 
pattern of restricting certain voters and making it more difficult 
because of partisan reasons? I think it is pretty clear. This is 
happening in America in the year 2012 when, in fact, the Constitution 
tells us that one of the most cherished opportunities--we even went 
through a civil war and then we went through the civil rights movement 
in order to guarantee the right of access to the ballot, and we had to 
knock down poll taxes and all kinds of impediments for people to vote. 
We have gone through all of that experience since the 1850s and here, 
right under our noses, we are having these kinds of voter suppression 
laws enacted.
  There is a three-judge panel that is now considering this law in the 
District of Columbia. There is also an examination under the Voting 
Rights Act of 1965 in the five counties that are watched counties under 
that act in Florida as to whether their civil rights have been 
eclipsed. I am certainly hopeful that the court and/or the Civil Rights 
Division of the Justice Department will look behind this smoke screen 
of so-called fraud as to what is really the motivation.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, what is the pending business before the 
Senate?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The motion to proceed to H.J. Res. 98.
  Mr. COBURN. And the amount of time that has been allocated by the 
majority leader and under the unanimous consent agreement?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republicans have 8 minutes remaining.
  Mr. COBURN. I understand that, but what is the total amount of time 
that has been allocated to H.J. Res. 98?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time until noon is equally divided.
  Mr. COBURN. So the total amount of time is less than 2 hours today 
that we are going to discuss this resolution; is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Slightly more than 2 hours.
  Mr. COBURN. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to speak on the 
resolution for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, how many minutes does the 
minority have remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The minority has 7 minutes remaining.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. How much time does the majority have 
remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority has 24 minutes remaining.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Would the Senator consider 15 minutes, given 
the inequity of the time?
  Mr. COBURN. Well, actually, that was my whole point. We are going to 
spend a little more than 2 hours to raise the debt limit by $1.2 
trillion, and we can't give a Senator 20 minutes to talk about it?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, is there a consent order that 
was entered into yesterday?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There was a unanimous consent agreement 
yesterday.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. And the minority has 8 minutes remaining?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator now has 6\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I am asking for unanimous consent to speak 
on this issue, a $1.2 trillion raise in the debt limit, for 20 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator will proceed.
  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I come to the floor aghast that we have 
entered into a unanimous consent agreement to spend less than 2\1/2\ 
hours talking about raising the debt ceiling another $1.2 trillion--
$1.2 trillion.
  We passed the Budget Control Act that raised the debt limit to $15.2 
trillion. The President has requested another increase in the debt 
limit of another $1.2 trillion. We passed the Budget Control Act that 
didn't cut spending. There is no absolute reduction in spending. We 
didn't eliminate one program. We didn't do one oversight hearing on the 
waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal Government from the time of 
August, when we passed that, until now. No wonder America is disgusted 
with Congress.
  On September 7, the debt limit was increased from $8.9 trillion to 
$9.8 trillion. In July of 2008 the debt limit was increased to $10.6 
trillion, and in October to $11.3 trillion, in February of 2009 to 
$12.1 trillion, in February of 2010 to $14.3 trillion, in August of 
2011 to $14.7 trillion, in September of 2011 to $15.2 trillion, and now 
we are going to raise it to $16.3 trillion.
  I did not vote for one of those. The reason is a debt limit does not 
mean anything in this country, because every time we come up to the 
debt limit, what we do is just pass it rather than do what the American 
people have asked us to do.
  Little has changed in Washington in the last 5 years. We have argued, 
debated, and lamented over how to rein in the Federal Government's 
costs and the out-of-control spending. All the time that was going on, 
we were on a spending binge, spending money we do not have on things we 
do not need. Even though we knew we had to borrow more money, Congress 
has done nothing to avoid raising the debt limit--nothing.
  We did not do oversight of Federal programs. We did not eliminate one 
duplicative program. We did not eliminate any spending in the Tax Code.

[[Page 347]]

  We hear all the Members of Congress and the President talking about 
how we have to change stuff. We did not do anything on that which would 
generate more revenue, fair revenue to the Federal Government. We did 
not work to save Medicare. We did not work to save Social Security. 
Instead of fixing the problem, we made it worse. We increased the 
deficit. We funded ineffective programs. We wasted money on silly 
projects. We funded duplication. We approved $1 trillion in more 
spending for next year--all of which will essentially be borrowed on 
the backs of our grandkids and our kids.
  Let me give some examples of what we spent money on last year.
  We spent $75,000 to promote the awareness that Michigan raises 
Christmas trees. We spent $113,000 for video game preservation. We 
spent $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to 
the collapse of the Soviet Union. We spent $48,000 for the second 
annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival. We spent $350,000 to support an 
international art exhibit in Venice, Italy. We spent $10 million to 
remake ``Sesame Street'' for Pakistan. We spent $35 million on our own 
party conventions, and we spent $764,000 to figure out how students use 
mobile messaging devices for social networking, which they already know 
how they do it.
  In February of last year, GAO brought us a wonderful report. It 
showed thousands upon thousands of programs that are duplications. The 
majority leader of this body voted against both attempts I made to take 
advantage of that and eliminate waste and duplication. He never once 
instructed committee chairmen to go find this duplication and eliminate 
it to save our children, to save our country, and we did not do any 
better on our side of the aisle. The fact is, we did not do anything. 
Of the thousands of things we could have done, we did nothing to lower 
our deficit, cut the waste or eliminate duplication.
  We have known about this significant $100 billion gold mine of 
savings from the GAO report for over 1 year now, and we have done 
nothing--zero. America should be disgusted with Congress because what 
we care about is party power, not fixing the problems of this country.
  Just this week, the GAO reported--an additional report; and next 
month we are getting the second third of the Federal Government on 
duplication, and it is going to have another $100 billion identified as 
waste--we have 209 separate Federal programs to advance science, 
technology, engineering, and math education--209 programs, of which 
most of them overlap one another.
  We have put amendments on the floor to say: We want every agency to 
tell us of all the programs. It is defeated. They vote against it 
because they do not want to know what all the programs are. The only 
way we eliminate the duplication is to make the agencies show us what 
they are doing. That goes down to defeat. Why? Because we do not want 
to do the hard work of living within our means such as every family and 
every business in this country does. We ignore the realities. We are in 
la-la land on who can win the next election.
  We have done nothing about the $9.5 billion in government benefits 
that have been paid to people who earn more than $1 million a year in 
this country. We have done nothing about that since that report came 
out. Government benefits from unemployment insurance to student loans, 
$9.5 billion a year, and we have done nothing--zero. We could have done 
it. We could save money. We have done nothing.
  Real Americans--everyday Americans--understand the way we get out of 
our problems is through sacrifice and prioritizing what is important 
for our country. We lack the leadership in this body to do that.
  A veteran who served our country in a time of war wrote me a letter 
about our current financial situation. More than nearly anyone I come 
in contact with in Washington, this regular citizen from the middle of 
the country understands the problem, and he understands what is needed 
to fix it.

       Dear Senator Coburn:
       I'm a retired military member and Veteran, deployed four 
     times during my career--having spent years of my life in some 
     very dangerous places, away from home, and in tough 
     conditions. I am very familiar with shared sacrifice. In all 
     those days away, my sole purpose was to be prepared and 
     ensure my Soldiers were ready to deploy and return alive. In 
     our current situation, it's easy to feel like we're (as a 
     country) going into battle unprepared against an economic, 
     financial enemy of political gridlock and no compromise [no 
     leadership]; with two political parties vying for the next 
     election.
       I'm well aware that many proposals currently out there 
     would potentially affect me. However, I'm willing to work 
     hard now and be part of a solution which solidifies our 
     country's future versus robbing my kids and grandkids from 
     the same opportunities our great country [offered me].
       Please inform your colleagues--there are more people like 
     me awaiting leadership and good decision making than there 
     are left and right side uncompromising voters. These times 
     call for briefings to the American people, not speeches. 
     These times call for members of congress to stand together 
     and [to brief us on our unfunded liabilities]--and to show 
     how sacrifice now can lead to renewed prosperity later.
           Sincerely,
                                            Robert Boudiette, Jr.,
                                                       Lawton, OK.

  I am embarrassed for us that we fail to meet the very standard we ask 
of the people who serve this country.
  So rather than give a speech, let me give a briefing. We have done 
nothing to fix the 100-plus programs in surface transportation. We have 
done nothing to eliminate the duplication in the 82 Federal Government 
programs for teacher quality. We have done nothing to consolidate the 
88 economic development programs. We have done nothing to consolidate 
the 80 different transportation assistance programs. We have done 
nothing to eliminate the 56 financial literacy programs. We have no 
business teaching anybody financial literacy when we do not even have 
it ourselves. We have done nothing to consolidate the 47 job training 
programs. As a matter of fact, we heard the President say he wanted to 
add to it. Homeless prevention and assistance, 20 programs we have done 
nothing to consolidate; the food programs, disaster response and FEMA, 
and there are hundreds more. Yet we have done nothing.
  Shouldn't we come together as men and women, Americans--not Democrats 
and Republicans--and say we are going to do what we can do to assure 
the future of this country and quit thinking about the next election? 
We ought to be doing what is needed. It is called making priorities. We 
could save $50 billion if we got together and said: OK. Every committee 
is going to do oversight, eliminate duplication, and eliminate fraud. 
We have a bill with 37 cosponsors to eliminate the fraud in Medicare--
37. It is bipartisan. We cannot even get it to the floor to vote on it 
to make sure CMS eliminates some of the $100 billion a year in waste 
and fraud at CMS in terms of Medicare. That is how we save Medicare. 
But yet we cannot get it to the floor. So when we do work together, we 
are blocked or impeded from having a vote where we have bipartisan 
consensus.
  I call on my colleagues--I love them dearly; I think they are 
tremendous individuals--we better change our vision. We better change 
what we have our eye on in terms of the risk to our country, the 
survival of our country, and it is time we come together, put 
partisanship aside, and say we are going to solve the problems in front 
of this country. We can do it. The brainpower is here. The capability 
is here. Let's do it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on each side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic side has 18 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DURBIN. Is there time remaining on the other side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is no remaining time on the other side.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to ask the chairman if I 
could have 8 minutes or 10 minutes to speak.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to my colleague from 
Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Finance 
Committee and my friend from Utah, the ranking member of the committee.

[[Page 348]]

  Senator Coburn of Oklahoma, who just spoke, and I probably see so 
many things differently, but yet we see many things the same. He and I 
come to the Senate with different backgrounds, perhaps different 
political values in many areas, and a much different voting record. 
They would put us on opposite sides of the political spectrum if they 
described those voting records. Yet I have found, over the last several 
years, Senator Coburn and I have been able to agree and come together 
on some of the important issues which he just raised on the Republican 
side of the aisle, which are shared on the Democratic side of the 
aisle.
  Senator Coburn and I served on the Bowles-Simpson Commission, a 
commission appointed by President Obama, to reduce our Nation's debt 
and deficit. I voted for the Commission report, with some misgiving 
over proposals but believed it moved us in the right, proper, and 
necessary direction.
  The fact and simple fact is, the United States borrows 40 cents for 
every $1 our government spends. It borrows 40 cents for every $1 we 
spend, primarily after we have exhausted the savings of Americans, from 
foreign nations such as China, that end up buying the U.S. treasurys to 
fund our debt. So as we go more deeply into debt, we become more 
indebted to foreign countries, sovereign nations and their sovereign 
funds. I think that is something that needs to be addressed, addressed 
in a proper fashion. Where Senator Coburn and I may disagree is in the 
fashion that we approach it.
  We are currently emerging from a recession. We know what the impact 
has been. Families and businesses across America have been hard hit--
families and their savings, many people losing their jobs, and 
businesses either going out of business or cutting back.
  We are starting to see the first indications of recovery--the ``green 
shoots,'' as they say. As the President said in his State of the Union 
Address, we lost 4 million jobs in America in the 6 months before he 
was sworn in and another 4 million before his proposal to get the 
economy moving forward was enacted into law--8 million jobs in that 
short timeframe out of the 14 million unemployed today.
  The President started to move the economy forward working off a 
proposal by President Bush to deal with financial institutions--a 
bitter pill for many of us but, I am afraid, necessary to keep our 
economy stable--and then, with his investment program, to put America 
back to work.
  These things are starting to take hold. We have seen a growth of some 
3 million private sector jobs since the President's program started. It 
is an indication we are moving in the right direction.
  I would just say to my friend from Oklahoma, when we talk about 
issues such as deficit reduction and spending reduction, we should 
speak to those issues in the context of economic recovery, to make 
certain that whatever decisions we make in reducing the deficit, 
reducing spending, raising taxes, whatever it may be, that at this 
point in time in our history, it is in the context of getting America 
back to work.
  At 12 o'clock today we have a scheduled vote, and the vote is on the 
debt ceiling. What is the debt ceiling? It goes back to my earlier 
point. When we spend more than we bring in in revenue, we need to 
borrow it. As the need to borrow increases, the President has a 
responsibility to ask for authorization from Congress. It is known as 
the debt ceiling limit. In years gone by, it was a routine vote. In 
fact, if I am not mistaken, President Reagan asked for some 16 debt 
ceiling extensions in the 8 years he served. For most of these, he was 
given permission to extend the debt ceiling on a bipartisan vote. 
Sixteen times in 8 years--a rather common occurrence at that time but 
one that we anticipated being part of the ordinary business of 
government. That issue has become politicized now, and there are some 
Members who will come to the floor and vote against extending the debt 
ceiling, extending the authority of the President to borrow money to 
keep our government functioning.
  What troubles me greatly is that many of the same Senators who are 
going to vote against the debt ceiling voted for the spending. They 
voted to spend the money knowing we did not have it and now, as former 
Congressman Obey of Wisconsin used to say, want to pose for holy 
pictures--``Oh, I am opposed to the debt ceiling. I am not in favor of 
debt.'' Really? How about your vote for the appropriations bills to 
fund our wars? Did you not vote for those? Did you not vote for the 
budget resolution which passed on a bipartisan basis which established 
our spending for 2 years? Did you not vote as well when it came to the 
continuing resolution of appropriations that had to pass both the House 
and the Senate?
  Many of my colleagues who dutifully voted for all of this spending, 
knowing in the back of their minds we did not have enough money and 
would have to borrow to accomplish it, now will come to the floor in a 
few moments and are going to say: We are holier than the others. We are 
going to vote against an extension of the debt ceiling.
  I would say to those colleagues: Do not vote for the spending if you 
will not vote for the borrowing because we know now they are linked 
together. They are one in the same. And the President is only doing 
what is responsible.
  You know, we faced a government shutdown over this debt ceiling last 
year. That was one of the first ever where a serious threat was looming 
that we were not going to extend the debt ceiling and, in fact, would 
renege or basically default on America's debts around the world. The 
result of that would have been catastrophic. The reputation of America, 
its economy, and the soundness of the dollar was at stake. Thank 
goodness, at the last minute those who were opposing the debt ceiling 
relented, and they set up the process we will be addressing in just a 
few moments. They said: Well, on a periodic basis, the Congress will 
have to vote to extend the debt ceiling.
  Last week, the House of Representatives said: No, we do not want to 
extend the debt ceiling. The same Members of the House who voted for 
the spending bill, the same Members who voted for the Budget 
Enforcement Act, the same Members who give speeches back home about how 
we can't turn our backs on our men and women in uniform and have to 
spend the money to bring them home safely, those same Members voted 
against the debt ceiling. It is a totally inconsistent position. It is 
not honest. An honest position would be ``I do vote for spending. I do 
not vote for borrowing.'' Very few Senators, if any, can say that with 
a straight face. In fact, just the opposite is true.
  I hope my colleagues here will accept our responsibility to extend 
the debt ceiling by voting no on the motion to proceed to the 
consideration of the debt ceiling. It is an important vote. And then I 
want to join and meet the challenge of Senator Coburn of Oklahoma. 
There are things we can and must do to bring our Nation's debt down, 
consistent with the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, consistent with 
the work of the Gang of 6, and consistent with growing the American 
economy. It has to include, as the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission 
recommended, both revenue increases as well as spending cuts. Both have 
to happen.
  When the President comes before us in the State of the Union and 
suggests increasing tax rates of those making over $1 million a year, 
the vast majority of Americans say that is reasonable. It is reasonable 
to ask those who are well off to pay their fair share. Well, let's make 
that part of our conversation here. If we are serious about the 
deficit, let's include revenue that will not hurt working families who 
are struggling from paycheck to paycheck but will bring the money in to 
lessen our need to borrow money from overseas.
  That should be part of it, spending cuts and revenue enhancement that 
will not hurt the economy. I think we can do that if we address it on a 
bipartisan basis. I stand ready to cooperate with my colleagues to 
achieve that. I hope they will join me in voting no against the motion 
to proceed.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana is recognized.

[[Page 349]]




                                 Burma

  Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I will speak on a different matter for 
about 2 minutes. I wish to compliment the senior Senator from Kentucky 
for his longtime work on behalf of dissidents in Burma. Very recently, 
he visited Burma. He met Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel 
Peace Prize. As the senior Senator from Kentucky reported to us earlier 
this morning on the floor of the Senate, we as Americans are making 
real progress in Burma. Our sanctions in Burma are working. The 
government there is relenting. I have had briefings from the State 
Department, and while we need to retain sanctions for the time being to 
encourage further progress, it is undeniable that we have been seeing 
real progress in Burma. The dissidents, as led by Aung San Suu Kyi, are 
engaged in this process. Again, I want to compliment the Senator from 
Kentucky for his 20 years of work in this area, and I think it is 
probably in large part due to his efforts that we are making progress 
in Burma.
  Mr. President, turning back to the subject at hand, Alexander 
Hamilton once said:

       To be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that 
     the credit of a nation should be well established.

  That is obvious. We have low interest rates today because so far we 
have been able to borrow on good terms. The good terms are that the 
American people and investors worldwide know the United States is a 
safe haven given all the consternation occurring in the world, the 
problems in Europe, for example, and other countries. The United States 
is a safe haven. Investors want to borrow on U.S. Treasurys. That is 
why the rate is low, the lowest in recent history. And that is 
essentially because our credit is good. Investors trust the United 
States.
  It is important to also remember that this debt limit we are voting 
on today is not an authorization for new spending. I repeat, it does 
not authorize new spending. That is not what this is. It has nothing to 
do with new spending. It just says that we have to honor our past 
bills, honor our past debts. As Alexander Hamilton said, for a country 
to be on good terms, it is important that we honor our past debts. The 
credit of a nation should be well established.
  I strongly urge our colleagues to vote no on this motion to proceed 
to disapprove because the result would be chaos. If that were to pass, 
it would be chaos. We would plunge ourselves back into recession, 
probably through that into a depression. Interest rates would 
skyrocket. Inflation would skyrocket. We are trying to lower 
unemployment rates, not increase unemployment rates. We want people to 
have jobs, not people not to have jobs.
  If the United States did not honor its bills, if the United States 
did not honor its debt it has heretofore incurred, it would cause 
chaos. It would show we are not a creditworthy country. For that 
reason, I think it is a no-brainer that this bill should be disapproved 
and, frankly, should be unanimously disapproved.
  I think every Member of the Senate wants to honor the credit of the 
United States of America, wants to pay the bills we incurred in the 
past. It is an entirely different question as to what we do in the 
future, entirely different question as to how much we reduce our debt, 
entirely different question as to how much we cut spending and increase 
revenues in order to reduce our deficits and our debt. That is an 
entirely different issue--an extremely important issue but entirely 
different. That has nothing--nothing--to do with this vote. This vote 
is only whether we honor our past debts.
  Once we say yes, we are going to honor our past debts, then clearly 
it is imperative that this body move ahead to reduce deficits, reduce 
our national debt. There has been a lot of discussion about that. We 
have not made as much headway as we should have. But it is important to 
remember that in August of last year, this Congress voted to reduce 
spending by $2 trillion, $2.1 trillion--to reduce spending by $2.1 
trillion over 10 years. Close to $1 trillion of that was accomplished 
on that vote, and the other $1.2 is part of the sequestration which 
goes in effect in January of next year. It is not unimportant that this 
body voted to reduce spending by about $2 trillion.
  So we should honor our past debts. We should reduce spending--we 
should reduce our budget debt and deficit. We do that by cutting 
spending and increasing revenue. That is a different issue. That is 
what we do in the future. That is what we have to work on this year and 
next year. But today, it is important for the world to know that we 
honor our commitments; the United States can be trusted; we have credit 
that is well established because we honor our past obligations.
  I strongly urge Members of the Senate to vote no on the motion to 
proceed to disapproval because I think there would not be a positive 
outcome if that vote were to pass. I am not one who is prone to 
exaggeration or to hyperbole, but I might say in this case that if this 
motion were to proceed, we would be on the border of catastrophe.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Utah is recognized.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, we are here today to debate the President's 
desire to take on more debt. We are here to debate whether it is a good 
thing to put current and future generations on the hook for the 
spending policies of this administration.
  I believe that it is not a good thing. We should not enable this 
administration to spend more taxpayer dollars by increasing the debt 
ceiling.
  We should be forcing the administration to lead, and to make the 
reductions in government programs and spending that everyone knows must 
happen if we are to remain a free and prosperous Nation.
  Here is the bottom line, and it is not pretty.
  Our debt today is $4.6 trillion higher than when President Obama took 
office.
  In his 3 years in office, President Obama has run up the three 
largest deficits in American history.
  Three trillion-dollar deficits.
  This is an enormous burden that the President is placing on American 
taxpayers.
  He talks about fairness. Well, this debt is unfair to current 
taxpayers and future generations.
  Yet by this debt ceiling increase, he wants Congress to give him a 
green light to spend more, running our debt up to nearly $16.4 
trillion.
  The debt per person has increased by $13,963 since President Obama 
took office.
  This is unacceptable.
  I will be voting for this resolution of disapproval. The debt ceiling 
should not be increased. The fiscal path that this Nation is on is a 
path to ruin. The President knows that. But instead of hitting the 
brakes and getting spending under control, he is slamming on the 
accelerator.
  This is no longer acceptable.
  Voting for this resolution, as the House did overwhelmingly, would 
make it clear that the way to address our spending problem is by 
reducing spending.
  This resolution is worthy of our support, and I encourage my 
colleagues to support it.
  I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second? There is a 
sufficient second.
  Mr. BAUCUS. I yield back the remainder of our time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  Under the previous order, the question is on agreeing to the motion 
to proceed to H.J. Res 98.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), 
the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. 
McCain).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. 
Corker) would have voted ``yea.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 44, nays 52, as follows:

[[Page 350]]



                       [Rollcall Vote No. 2 Leg.]

                                YEAS--44

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Coats
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     DeMint
     Enzi
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (WI)
     Kyl
     Lee
     Lugar
     Manchin
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Paul
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rubio
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Thune
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                                NAYS--52

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

                             NOT VOTING--4

     Chambliss
     Corker
     Kirk
     McCain
  The motion was rejected.

                          ____________________