[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 15694-15695]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           THE DEBT INCREASE

  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, the Republican Senators met with 
President Obama earlier today and discussed many of the financial 
issues facing America and the difficulties we are having in achieving 
an agreement that puts us on a sound financial path. There surely are 
actions we can take together to improve our situation. I believe there 
was some progress made, and there are some avenues for progress that 
could be opened in the hours to come. I hope we can do that.
  But now it is well to recognize that our Medicare and Medicaid 
programs are surging in costs, and--as the President rightly noted to 
us at our meeting earlier today and has done so for a number of years--
that government health care costs are the biggest drivers of our debt. 
In other words, it is increasing at a faster rate than other programs, 
and we project it will continue to increase at those rates.
  I think that is true. It is true. We have a huge challenge there. But 
importantly to this whole discussion, I recall during a formal address 
to a joint session of Congress in September 2009, the President 
promoted his Affordable Care Act and stated that he would help fix this 
problem of growing costs of health care and then flatly and 
unequivocally promised, ``I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to 
our deficits either now or any time in the future, period.'' That is 
astoundingly inaccurate, and we have to know this. We are voting and 
wrestling on what to do about our health care bill and other spending 
programs. But one thing that has been overlooked is this promise that 
the health care bill--the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare--is not paid 
for as it was promised, and it is astoundingly over budget.
  Let me talk for a few minutes about this issue and its importance. As 
we work together to try to reach a compromise, we have to understand 
that fact. As we work to deal with some of our long-term financial 
challenges, we need to focus on that matter.
  Indeed, it appears, according to the Government Accountability 
Office, that over the long-term accounting period used to evaluate the 
unfunded liabilities of the United States, that the Affordable Care Act 
will add $6.2 trillion to the unfunded liabilities of America. That 
does not count the interest on that over this long period of time which 
may well double that figure. It puts it almost equal to the liability 
of Social Security--and maybe even more. So this is a big deal.
  I want to share with my colleagues some thoughts as good faith 
negotiations are going on by Members. Republicans and Democrats are 
talking, the White House staff people are talking, and House Members 
and the Speaker are talking. There are some principles they need to be 
aware of as we go forward. I have a budget warning, and will make this 
point: Trust fund improvements--Social Security and Medicare 
primarily--are produced by savings or increased revenues in these 
programs. A number of ideas have been floated that could do that, and 
they need to be done. But those savings through revenue or new cutting 
of expenses cannot be used to justify or pay for breaking Budget 
Control Act caps, and that is very important.
  It is essential in these hours of financial debate that all Members 
of Congress and the American people understand that the savings gained 
from much-needed reforms of our financially unsound Social Security and 
Medicare trust funds can only be used to strengthen those funds and not 
be used simultaneously to support spending for a new program, such as 
the Affordable Care Act. We can't use the money twice.
  Our vital Social Security and Medicare programs are not solvent at 
this time. We know they are going into deficit right now. Our revenues 
will increase for those programs or costs to those programs will be 
brought down--as many ideas are being floated, and indeed, a number of 
them are in the President's budget and have some merit--and the 
resulting funds can only be spent once. The Budget Control Act 
restricts discretionary spending. It says: We are not going to increase 
spending over a certain rate. We are going to reduce the rate of 
increase in government spending.
  The Budget Control Act is in the law. It was negotiated by the 
President, Senator Reid--the majority leader here--the Speaker, and 
Senator McConnell, and they agreed on certain limits on spending over 
the next 10 years. At that time we were projected to increase spending 
over 10 years by $10 trillion. If it was flat spending, we would spend 
$37 trillion; under projected growth it would go to $47 trillion.
  Under the Budget Control Act we said: OK, we are going to cut 
spending. It really wasn't a cut in spending. But we would reduce the 
growth of spending from $10 trillion to $8 trillion, and that is why we 
are hearing so much today.

[[Page 15695]]

  In the 2 years-plus since that agreement, Congress--except for a few 
budget gimmicks that my staff members bring up--has largely stuck to 
those limits. The President and the Democratic Senate have openly and 
directly opposed those limits. The President--6 months after signing 
the Budget Control Act--submitted a budget to this Senate that would 
increase spending $1 trillion over the limits agreed to in the Budget 
Control Act. Can you imagine that? There was a bipartisan meeting. As 
we worked on the debt ceiling to raise the debt ceiling $2 trillion, we 
agreed that over 10 years we would cut spending by $2.1 trillion.
  Six months later, the President submits a budget to the Senate and to 
the House that calls for spending $1 trillion over that amount. So I 
think that was a breach--a serious act of the President to move away 
from the promises he had made and the act he signed into law.
  To be more specific about it, one of the proposals in the President's 
budget that received a lot of discussion is an alteration of the way we 
calculate the inflation index for Social Security. It has been referred 
to as chained CPI. It is projected to save a certain amount of money--
maybe $128 billion or maybe more. Let's just say it is going to save 
$100 billion--chained CPI--and it would, in fact, increase the revenue 
into Social Security, and it would reduce the amount of money that is 
paid out of Social Security. It would save, let's say, $100 billion. So 
this would strengthen Social Security, there is no doubt about that. It 
would strengthen Social Security because the Social Security 
liabilities are going down and the revenue is going up.
  What I wish to say to our colleagues as they wrestle with how to 
bring our numbers into better balance is that those savings cannot 
benefit Social Security and simultaneously justify increased Treasury 
spending over the Budget Control Act levels.
  We can't use the money twice. This is so basic. We are talking about 
hundreds of billions of dollars.
  CBO, our Congressional Budget Office, has analyzed this kind of 
maneuver, and they have clearly affirmed that even though the budget 
score over 10 years, using the unified budget accounting methods, would 
suggest otherwise, we cannot spend the money in both places.
  So if we know how to ask a question of CBO, over the 10-year budget 
window, it can give the appearance that we have this money because it 
creates more money coming into the government that we can spend over 
here. But the money is dedicated to Social Security. It is Social 
Security money. It can't be spent twice. If it is going to strengthen 
Social Security, it can't be spent over here.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has consumed 10 minutes.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for 5 
additional minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Presiding Officer most graciously.
  CBO has flatly called this in a letter, at my request, double-
counting. Can my colleagues imagine the Congressional Budget Office 
saying that the U.S. Congress is double-counting? Actually, in that 
case, in dealing with the Affordable Care Act, $500 billion of money 
extracted out of Medicare was being used to claim it would pay for the 
Affordable Care Act when it was Medicare's money.
  So I am talking at this point and just sharing an example from Social 
Security and the chained CPI, but the principles are the same because 
both are trust funds. So it is double-counting.
  In fact, any Social Security or Medicare trust fund savings so 
produced are legally assets of the trust fund, and debt instruments of 
the U.S. Treasury are issued and interest paid from the U.S. Treasury 
to Social Security and to the Medicare trust funds on the monies that 
are borrowed in that way. If the savings, as is likely, do not result 
in a trust fund surplus, then there is really no surplus that they can 
borrow. It simply tends to show more income to the U.S. Treasury--
falsely showing that because, again, the money is committed off-budget 
to Social Security.
  The critical fact is that all of those moneys are already obligated 
to Social Security and Medicare and will be needed by those programs, 
and more money, actually, is going to be needed by those programs to 
meet the future obligations of those trust funds, which are insolvent. 
They don't have enough money coming in to pay the obligations they will 
be required to pay in the years to come.
  So the scope of this abuse of our accounting system is truly enormous 
and threatens our Nation's very financial future. For example, it has 
allowed the President to falsely assert that the Affordable Care Act 
would not add one dime to the debt when, absent double-counting, the 
act would increase our debt by over $500 billion over the next 10 
years--$500 billion. It is going to adversely impact the financial 
condition of America.
  The same accounting manipulations enabled many supporters of the Gang 
of 8 immigration bill to assert that their legislation was paid for. 
They were going to spend all of this money and they were going to make 
us safe from illegal immigration and it was all paid for--every dime of 
it--and wouldn't add to the debt. Do my colleagues know how they did 
that? Well, they were going to give Social Security cards to millions--
11 million or however many would come forward--and they would pay 
Social Security, and they would have more Social Security money coming 
into the U.S. Treasury, and therefore that would pay for the extra 
border patrol and other expenses they said they have to spend money on.
  But I ask my colleagues to think about it. The money paid by the 
people who have been given legal status, the Social Security they have 
paid for is their money. It is their money. They are going to draw out 
every penny of it when they get older. We can't say it is available to 
pay another expense today. If we do, it is not going to be there, to 
pay for their Social Security when they retire. How simple is this? 
This was the message here on the floor. They steadfastly insisted that 
the bill was paid for, double-counting Social Security money.
  So we have to get straight about this, I have to say. Legislation 
must be adopted to stop this double-counting. It is open to abuse and 
manipulation and has been done, really, by both parties in the past but 
not as much as we have seen lately. It is enabling the Nation's 
dangerous financial trajectory.
  Finally, as we work to end the Nation's financial impasse, another 
warning is needed. All should understand that consent to passage of a 
continuing resolution or debt ceiling bill cannot be achieved until we 
have sufficient time to have a complete CBO score of it so we know what 
kind of maneuvers are being used in the bill. So I am going to object. 
We are not going to wake up one day and say we have to run to the floor 
and pass a bill with 30 minutes' notice or 3 hours' notice. That would 
be a mistake.
  Madam President, I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.

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