[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16544-16545]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE FISCAL CLIFF

  Mr. McCONNELL. Yesterday afternoon I came to the floor and offered 
President Obama's proposal on the fiscal cliff to show that neither he 
nor Democrats in Congress are acting in good faith in these 
negotiations.
  With just a few weeks to go before a potentially devastating and 
entirely avoidable blow to the economy, the President proposed a plan 
that members of his own party won't even vote for. So I think it is 
safe to say at this point that the President actually isn't interested 
in a balanced agreement, he is not particularly interested in avoiding 
the fiscal cliff, and he is clearly not interested at all in cutting 
any spending.
  What the President is interested in, as we learned yesterday, is 
getting as much taxpayer money as he can, first by raising taxes on 
small businesses that he believes are making too much money, and then 
on everybody else. This is not so he can lower the debt or the deficit 
but so he can spend to his heart's content. For months the President 
has been saying all he wants is to raise taxes on the top 2 percent so 
he can tackle the debt and the deficit.
  However, yesterday he finally revealed that is not his true intent. 
By demanding the power to raise the debt limit whenever he wants by as 
much as he wants, he showed what he is after is assuming unprecedented 
power to spend their dollars without any limit at all.
  This isn't about getting a handle on deficits or debt for him. It is 
about spending even more than he already has. Why else would he demand 
the power to raise the debt limit on his own? And by the way, why on 
Earth would we ever consider giving a President who has brought us 4 
years of trillion-dollar unchecked deficits the authority to borrow? He 
is the last person who should have limitless borrowing power.
  Look, the only way we ever cut spending around here is by using the 
debate over the debt limit to do it. Now the President wants to remove 
that spur to cut altogether. Of course, it gets in the way of his 
spending plans. Well, I assure you it is not going to happen. The 
American people want Washington to get spending under control, and the 
debt limit is the best tool we have to make the President take that 
demand seriously. The American people want us to fight to cut spending. 
It is a fight they deserve and a fight we are happy to have.


                       Unanimous Consent Request

  Mr. President, I indicated to the majority leader that I was going to 
propound the following consent. I am prepared to ask for consent to 
allow the Senate to vote on the President's debt limit proposal. I 
would ask this either as an amendment to the Russia PNTR measure we 
will vote on this afternoon or as a freestanding bill, if that is 
preferred. Therefore, I now ask unanimous consent that it be in order 
to vote on an amendment, which is the President's debt limit extension 
proposal that I just described, prior to the passage of the Russia PNTR 
bill today.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Reserving the right to object, I have been thinking how 
best to describe what has been going on here on Capitol Hill the last 
couple of weeks.
  Every morning I get up, the first thing I read is the sports page. I 
am disappointed in the sports page from the Washington Post. It is not 
nearly as good as it used to be, and the New York Times is not very 
good either, but I read them. There is always some good news on the 
sports page. Then I go to the front page to get some of the bad news. I 
follow sports no matter what it is--basketball, football, baseball, 
whatever it is--and I have watched very closely.
  It is not one of my favorite teams, but it is really fun to watch the 
New York Jets. Coach Ryan has a problem. He has three quarterbacks: 
Sanchez, Tim Tebow, and he has a guy by the name of McElroy. He can't 
decide who their quarterback is going to be. That is the same problem 
the Republicans are having. Romney is gone, but he is still in the 
background. We have McConnell and we have Boehner. Who is the 
quarterback, Mr. President? Who is the quarterback?
  My friend talks about the trillions of dollars of debt. We just had 
an election. The people overwhelmingly know why we have this debt. The 
polling right before the election showed that the vast majority of the 
American people realized the debt was caused by George Bush. That is a 
fact.
  We will have another jobs report out tomorrow. We had a little 
problem because of what happened with Hurricane Sandy, but we still 
have created about 100,000 new jobs. Private sector job growth has been 
significant. We are approaching--let's see, it must be about 4 million 
jobs now that have been created. That doesn't nearly make up for what 
was lost during the Bush years, but we are making progress.
  People in America realize we can no longer have the top-down economy 
the Republicans so loved during the Bush years and what they wanted to 
create again with Governor Romney.
  I would be happy to take a look at the proposal my friend the 
Republican leader has shown us if we could come up with something like 
we did when they created this other furor by refusing to increase the 
debt, where we had an ability to come here and have a couple of votes 
to determine if we were going to increase it. If that is what they want 
to do again, I would be happy to seriously take a look at that and 
report to the White House and my caucus, but until then I object.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
  The minority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, my friend indicates that there is some 
confusion about who the quarterback is on the Republican side. Of 
course, that is quite common when you don't have a White House. But 
there is no doubt about who the quarterback is on the Democratic side. 
The quarterback on the Democratic side is the President of the United 
States. Unfortunately, he keeps throwing interceptions, and we are 
moving backward and backward and backward away from the goal line. We 
have $4 trillion in annual deficits, and my friend from Nevada still 
wants to blame that on George Bush? And now the President is asking for 
unlimited--unlimited--authority to borrow whenever he wants to for 
whatever amount he wants? If the majority leader supports that 
proposal, I would hope we could work together and get a vote on it to 
give his Members a chance to express themselves as to whether they 
think that is a good way forward for our country--to give this 
President or any other President unlimited authority to borrow as much 
as he wants at any time he wants from the Chinese or anybody else. That 
is the question.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, of course, as I said, I will be happy to 
look at the proposal by my friend, but the President doesn't want to do 
anything other than what we have done before, and that is where we are 
now, and that is why I would be happy to take a look at his proposal, 
because if it is what we did last summer, I would be happy to take a 
look at that and move forward.

[[Page 16545]]

  Mr. President, it is not only we Democrats, but we have a long line 
of Republicans who, as I outlined early on, are recognizing that we 
need to immediately make sure the middle class and the poor are taken 
care of without their taxes being increased. We have Representatives 
Cole, Scott; David Brooks, a columnist from the New York Times; 
Senators Snowe, Collins, and Coburn; and a long list of Republicans 
saying let's move on.

                          ____________________