[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 767]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ECONOMIC MELTDOWN

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, I actually came to speak on another 
subject, but I had the opportunity to hear the minority leader's 
remarks as I was waiting to speak. I would point out in response that 
our friends on the other side love to characterize the spending that 
has taken place in recent years as something that was the will and 
choice and desire of President Obama. What they fail to recall is that 
during that period, we actually had an economic meltdown. Most 
Americans remember that economic meltdown. States such as Rhode Island 
are still in the aftermath of that economic meltdown--an economic 
meltdown, by the way, that occurred at the end of the last Republican 
administration and was caused by those policies.
  The economic meltdown was relatively global. We have very practical 
examples of countries that went the path of spending cuts that the 
Republicans recommend--recommended through the whole economic meltdown. 
Just take a tour of Europe and you will see where the austerity plan 
was followed, the results have been far worse: lower GDP growth, higher 
unemployment. We are actually struggling through better in America by 
understanding that when the economy is collapsing, if the Federal 
Government withdraws even more money from it, it just collapses faster 
and you postpone the period of growth and recovery.
  This business us only having a spending problem--well, you can look 
at the revenues as adequate, but it depends what you are measuring it 
against. If you are measuring revenues against the times when we had a 
balanced budget, it has always averaged 20 percent. It averaged around 
20 percent of GDP. We are at 16 percent right now. This is a huge gap. 
If we drop and try to balance the budget, which is what I think we 
would like to achieve at 16 percent, we are going back to the social 
conditions of the early 1950s, conditions where many seniors still 
lived in poverty. I know the party on the other side likes looking 
back, but I do not think they want to look back to that. I really do 
not think most Americans want to live in a country in which that is the 
case.
  So, do we have a spending problem? Yes, of course, we do. But when 
revenues are at 16 percent of GDP and we have never balanced the budget 
in recent history at 16 percent of GDP--in recent history, it has 
always been with revenues around 20 percent of GDP.
  When you have these unbelievable revenue giveaways to special 
interests--Big Oil getting these huge subsidies, hedge fund managers 
paying these favored low tax rates, tax rates lower than their 
chauffeurs and their doormen and their maids pay--the Tax Code is 
riddled with those kinds of special interest giveaways, and if we can 
bring some of that back into the equation, not only does that add 
revenue and move us better toward the goal of a balanced budget and a 
reduced deficit but, frankly, in most of those cases, it is the right 
thing to do all on its own. It is the fair thing to do all on its own.
  Yes, there are things that are idiotic buried away in the Federal 
budget. I am not here to defend studies about pig manure or reality TV 
shows. But the problem is that once you actually get into discussions 
on this subject with the other side, it is not long until their guns 
turn on Medicare, it is not long until their guns turn on Social 
Security. We have seen it before. They tried to privatize Social 
Security. They thought they had the power to do it, and the American 
people told them: Heck no. But that is where the discussion goes. It 
may start with reality TV shows and pig manure, but before you know it, 
they have their guns trained on Medicare and Social Security. We need 
to defend programs such as those on which families depend.

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