[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Pages 681-682]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SOLVING THE DEBT PROBLEM

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, there are many complex issues facing 
Congress at the moment, many of which have vexed us literally for 
years. But one issue that demands our immediate attention is the 
national debt because if we do not do something now to rein in our 
Nation's out-of-control debt, we may never be able to put America back 
on a sustainable fiscal and economic path. If that happens, then many 
of the other issues we face will be largely irrelevant.
  We need to give this issue everything we have, and we need to start 
right now. We need to devote the same kind of energy to this issue that 
we devoted to other great national threats in the past. That means 
serious bipartisan negotiation, careful committee consideration, and, 
yes, tough decisions on the kinds of votes that reflect that. This work 
will take time. That is why I have been urging Senate Democrats to set 
the legislative gears into motion right away.
  Last week the House passed a bill that would give us 3 months to work 
out an effective solution to the debt crisis we face. On Wednesday we 
will take it up here in the Senate. If the House bill passes here and 
is signed into law, the Finance Committee should immediately--
immediately--begin laying the foundation for a solution. Negotiations 
should begin, hearings should be scheduled, and legislation should 
actually be marked up.
  Three months, as you know, is not very much time in Congress, 
especially considering the fiscal deadlines we have to address in the 
coming weeks. Let's use this additional time to develop a plan, a 
serious, effective, bipartisan plan that can put the debt on a downward 
trajectory. Let's put together a proposal that gives new confidence to 
the American people in our ability to work together, with an eye toward 
improving their lives and their prospects rather than our own. That 
gives new confidence to the markets and to the ratings agencies that 
have warned us against doing anything that doesn't address our long-
term problem, which is, of course, Washington spending.
  I know a number of Democrats view this exercise as little more than 
an opportunity to raise taxes. What I am saying is that they need to 
put their preoccupation with taxes aside and focus on the root problem. 
Raising taxes is something you do when you lack the will or the courage 
to reform a government that has become entirely too expensive.
  It is time to make some tough decisions for a change, and we will 
only do it if we get started right now, in a bipartisan fashion, 
through the regular order. I know my constituents are tired of seeing 
us careen from one crisis to another around here. Regular order is how 
we will avoid that. Let's avoid the eleventh-hour deals, and that means 
getting started right now on a legislative plan that can actually pass.
  Some pundits claim that Washington is simply incapable of ever 
solving a challenge as big as this one. They say that our democratic 
institutions are broken, that divided government precludes us from 
passing things that matter to the future of our country. I say the 
opposite is true. History shows that divided government offers actually 
the best opportunity to finally surmount this challenge.
  The President came to office in his first term with a promise to 
unify our country, to work with Democrats and Republicans to take on 
America's greatest challenges. Unfortunately, his rhetoric was just 
that. Four years later, polls show we are more divided as a nation than 
we were when the President first took office.
  As I said last week, I believe the beginning of a second term 
actually presents a real opportunity to change course, to do the work 
so many have refused to do for the past 4 years. This is our chance. 
This is our chance to prove the pundits wrong and actually get 
something accomplished.
  Let's be clear about something up front: Solving our debt problem 
isn't about austerity, it is about opportunity. It is not about 
austerity, it is about opportunity. It is about creating some space for 
businesses to grow and for our rising generation of Americans to feel 
as though they can look to the future with optimism rather than with 
dread. But that only comes after some hard work on the debt is done. 
Let's get to work.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. It seems lately that I come to the floor when the 
Republican leader is making especially reasonable, sensible proposals. 
I heard him say the same thing last week, and I agree with him.
  I saw a number of my Democratic friends this weekend in different 
places, and I said: Look, the President has been elected. He deserves 
credit for that, and he now has a chance to define his legacy. He told 
us what that is in his inaugural address. Isn't this the right time to 
get out of the way this difficult problem of dealing with entitlements 
that every single one of us knows we have to do? Hasn't the House of 
Representatives actually given us an unexpected 3 or 4 months in which 
we can do it?
  If President Obama wants, as I am sure he must, to begin to work on 
the other issues he talked about in his inaugural address--immigration, 
for example, and his other important issues--why would we not go to 
work right now, as the Republican leader says, and deal with the 
runaway, out-of-control entitlement spending that is going to bankrupt 
the program the seniors depend upon to pay their medical bills? We know 
that is going to happen. The Medicare trustees have said it is going to 
happen in 12 years, and we have all made speeches saying what we should 
do with it. Let's just do it. As the Republican leader says, this isn't 
about austerity.
  The Australian Foreign Minister came to this country about a month 
ago, and in his first address--he is a great friend of America's. He 
said the United States of America is one budget

[[Page 682]]

agreement away--one budget agreement away--from reasserting its global 
preeminence. That is his view from Down Under. Looking at Asia, looking 
at China, looking at Japan, he wants us to succeed. He thinks that if 
we succeed, Australia succeeds. He wants us to get this done.
  Average families want us to get this done. They don't know why we 
don't get it done. They understand we can't keep spending money we 
don't have.
  We have had recommendations from the President's debt commission, 
from the Domenici-Rivlin group, and from the Ryan-Wyden proposal. We 
have had all of these different ideas. We know exactly what to do, and 
suddenly we have 3 months to do it. I urge the President to make a 
proposal, show us what to do. There are 40 or 50--there might be 60 or 
70 of us here on both sides of the aisle ready to go the work and to do 
it now.
  I congratulate the Republican leader for his reasonableness and his 
comments, and I hope he continues to offer this. I might say, without 
trying to embarrass him, that every time we have had a crisis we need 
to solve, it has been the Republican leader and the White House that 
have gotten it done. So why don't they try again? Why don't they try 
again? That is my wish.
  I came here to talk about something else today, but I am glad I was 
here to hear that, and I congratulate the Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Would the Senator yield?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I yield to the Senator.
  Mr. McCONNELL. As we have discussed before, and I think it is worth 
repeating, divided government is actually the best time to do difficult 
things. We have had four excellent examples in the last 25 years: 
Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill raised the age of Social Security, which 
saved that important program for another generation. Ronald Reagan and 
Tip O'Neill did the last comprehensive tax reform. Bill Clinton and the 
Republicans did welfare reform and actually balanced the budgets, 
believe it or not, in the late 1990s.
  There is ample evidence that divided government is the best time to 
do really difficult things. When you join hands and do it, the American 
people understand that surely it must have been something we needed to 
do because these guys actually were able to agree on it.
  I hope we won't miss another opportunity. Sometimes I think we are a 
little bit like the early Israeli Foreign Minister, Abba Eban, who said 
of the Palestinians that they ``never miss an opportunity to miss an 
opportunity.'' It appears as if we have rarely missed an opportunity to 
miss an opportunity. Hopefully, we won't miss this one as well.
  I thank my friend from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Senator from Kentucky.
  As we spoke on the floor, another example is President Johnson and 
Everett Dirksen on civil rights. That would not have happened if the 
government hadn't been divided, and it wouldn't have been as easily 
accepted by the American people if it had not been divided.
  If the Republicans and the Democrats--if this Democratic President 
and this mixture of Republicans and Democrats in Congress say to the 
American people: We have a real fiscal cliff for you; all the programs 
you depend upon to pay your medical bills aren't going to have enough 
money to pay them, and we are going to have to make some changes to 
deal with that, people will accept that, especially if it comes from 
both of us.
  As far as who is supposed to propose it, well, Senator Corker and I 
have proposed it. We proposed what to do, but we are not President. We 
are not President. I don't know what the experience of the Governor of 
Virginia was, but if in Tennessee I had waited around for the 
legislature to come up with a road program, we would still be driving 
on dirt roads.
  The President has to lay it out there and say: Let's do it this way. 
Then the legislators, all 535 of us, will say: No, Mr. President, we 
couldn't possibly do it that way. Let's do it a little bit differently, 
and we will come to a result. That is the way our system works. We have 
3 months to do it, and I hope the Republican leader will continue to 
make his point.

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