[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16645-16646]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE FISCAL CLIFF

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I have to answer some of the comments made 
earlier by the Republican leader as he talked about the state of 
negotiations between the President and Congress as we face the fiscal 
cliff. He said at one point that the President is calling for raising 
taxes $1.6 trillion. That is true. But I would call to his attention 
that the Simpson-Bowles Commission suggested that 40 percent of the $4 
trillion in deficit reduction comes from revenue and taxes. What the 
President is suggesting is entirely consistent with that bipartisan 
group's call for more revenue and taxes as part of our deficit 
reduction.
  The President has made it clear, though, that he wants to protect and 
insulate middle-income families from any income tax increases, and I 
agree with him. We should not raise the income taxes on those making 
less than $250,000 a year. I voted that way in July. We sent the bill 
to the House. It sits there. It languishes in the House because the 
Speaker will not call it. He has his chance this week or next to call 
that bill on the floor of the House of Representatives to avoid any tax 
increase on middle-income families. That is an important bill for us to 
get done before we leave at the end of this particular session of 
Congress.
  Let me say that $1.6 trillion in taxes over 10 years is not an 
unreasonable amount. The tax rate the President is asking for is the 
rate that was in place during the expansive period in our economy under 
President Bill Clinton. To argue that the President has gone too far in 
asking for tax and revenue is to ignore the obvious. It is the same 
percentage asked for by Simpson-Bowles, if not less, and it is a tax 
rate that, frankly, ruled in this country at a period of time when we 
had more jobs and businesses created than ever in recent history.
  A second argument that was made by the Republican leader is that 
there is a proposal from the President to raise the debt ceiling at his 
whim. Those are his words. I beg to differ. What the President has 
proposed is exactly the McConnell procedure. Senator McConnell of 
Kentucky suggested to us that we have a process for extending the debt 
ceiling that allows Members of Congress to vote to approve or 
disapprove and ultimately for the President to decide whether to sign 
into law--their resolution of disapproval, for example. That, of 
course, could lead to a veto and another opportunity for Congress to 
vote again.
  This was a process Senator McConnell suggested. It was a way out of a 
bind when the House Republicans and others threatened to shut down the 
economy over the debt ceiling extension, which is, in fact, the 
mortgage of the United States of America. It would have otherwise led 
to the first major default on America's debt in our history, with 
calamitous results when it came to the impact on our economy.
  For the Republican leader to come to the floor and criticize the very 
same procedure he suggested and voted for I think is hard to understand 
and explain. Last week he came to the floor and suggested that we 
enshrine it in law. He offered the bill on the floor. Senator Reid came 
and said: We accept your invitation, and we will take a rollcall vote 
on that, at which point Senator McConnell filibustered his own bill 
that he had introduced, I recall, earlier in the day. I think he made 
history in the Senate, filibustering his own bill when we had a chance 
to vote and pass it.
  I would say this notion that the President is looking for an 
extraordinary power when it comes to the debt ceiling is not quite 
accurate. I say to the Senator from Kentucky, if we accept your 
approach to it, it will give the Senate and House a voice, but we will 
not risk default.
  Third, the Senator from Kentucky was lamenting the size of government 
growth. When we took a look at the last time we balanced the budget and 
had a surplus in Washington, it was under President William Jefferson 
Clinton, a little over 12 years ago. What has happened to spending 
since President Clinton's balanced budget? It has gone up 
substantially. Where has it gone up? In domestic discretionary 
accounts, which are often the target of speeches like Senator 
McConnell's today? No. That has basically been flatlined when you take 
inflation into consideration. The dramatic growth in government 
spending since we were last in balance has been in two areas. One of 
those was in military spending. I might add that the reason it has 
grown dramatically is we have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 
President has extricated us from Iraq, and we are in the process of 
leaving Afghanistan.
  If you want to know why government spending has gone up so fast, 
there has been a 64-percent increase in military spending since the 
budget was last in balance. There was no increase in domestic 
discretionary spending when you take inflation into account but 64 
percent in military spending. That is why spending has gone up. Yet, 
when they suggest we will cut spending in the sequester, people say: 
You cannot touch it; it has to continue to grow. I question that. I 
think we can be safe as

[[Page 16646]]

a nation and really address the wasteful spending taking place in the 
Pentagon as well as every other government agency.
  Where else is there a growth in government spending? The same 
analysis by Senator Inouye says that since the budget was in balance, 
the expenditures in entitlement spending have gone up 30 percent--30 
percent. It is a substantial pool of money. Why? Because yesterday 
10,000 Americans reached the age of 65, today another 10,000, tomorrow 
another 10,000 and every day for the next 18 years as the boomers 
arrive. To lament the growth in entitlements is to ignore the obvious: 
we have more people calling on Social Security and Medicare for help. 
People have paid into these systems for a lifetime and now--I think 
quite rightfully--expect to be covered by the same programs they have 
supported for so many years in their working lives.
  Is the Senator from Kentucky suggesting that we need to cut back when 
it comes to eligibility in Social Security and Medicare? That would 
sure restrain the growth, but it would be fundamentally unfair and 
unwise to tell people who paid in a lifetime to Social Security and 
Medicare that now you do not get your benefits.
  Let's be honest about the growth in government spending. When you 
have wars that you do not pay for, when you have entitlement programs 
created, such as the Medicare prescription Part D, unpaid for, when you 
have a growth in entitlements just by the demographic growth in 
America, that accounts for a lot of the increase in spending.
  There is one other key element. A large measure of the increase in 
Federal spending has been increased health care costs, and we estimate 
that in the next 10 to 20 years, 70 percent of Federal budget outlays 
will grow because of increased health care costs. We addressed this. We 
went after the growth in health care costs with the President's 
ObamaCare--the health care reform bill--in an attempt to contain it and 
had not one single Republican who would join us in that effort. Not 
one. We ended up passing it exclusively as a Democratic bill. That is a 
shame because I think Democrats and Republicans should share the same 
goal of trying to reduce the increased cost of health care spending.
  When it comes to the President's offer, we need a bold approach 
again. We need to contain the spending costs as we already have, 
already cutting $1 trillion in spending to date. We need to have 
revenue sources, which the President has asked for, and we need to look 
at entitlement programs--I want to be very specific--not entitlement 
cuts per se but entitlement reform. Untouched, Medicare runs out of 
money in 12 years. That is a challenge to each and every one of us 
today--not 12 years from now but today. What will we do in the next 
year, looking at entitlement programs such as Medicare, to make sure 
they have a life well beyond 12 years? I think that is a responsibility 
we should face squarely, and it should be part of this deficit 
negotiation. I am not for a quick fix that is introduced in the next 
couple of days or hours; rather, I would like to see a thoughtful 
repair and reform of Medicare and other entitlement programs so they 
will continue to be in service in the future.

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