[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5844-5845]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             SEQUESTRATION

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, something really remarkable happened in 
the Senate last night. It was sort of late in the day, so for those who 
missed it, here is a little recap.
  Late yesterday afternoon the majority leader handed us a hastily 
crafted bill and then asked if we could pass it before anybody had seen 
it. Apparently, someone on the other side realized they had no good 
explanation for why they hadn't prevented the delays we have seen at 
airports across the country this week, so they threw together a bill in 
a feeble attempt to cover for it. It is pretty embarrassing.
  It actually proposes to replace the President's sequester cuts with 
what is known around here as OCO. I know this isn't something that will 
be familiar to most viewers, so let me borrow an explanation provided 
by Senator Joe Lieberman in a letter he signed with Dr. Coburn last 
year. Here is what Senator Lieberman said about OCO:

       The funds allocated for OCO or ``war savings'' are not 
     real, and every member of Congress knows this. The funds 
     specified for Overseas Contingency Operations in future 
     budgets are mere estimates of what our nation's wars cost may 
     be in the future. And since it is likely that future OCO 
     costs will be significantly less than the placeholders in the 
     Congressional Budget Office's estimates, it is the height of 
     fiscal irresponsibility to treat the difference between the 
     assumed and actual OCO costs as a ``savings'' to be spent on 
     other programs.

  Let me read that last part again.

       It is the height of fiscal irresponsibility to treat the 
     difference between the assumed and actual OCO costs as a 
     ``savings'' to be spent on other programs.

  This is from the man who was once the Democratic nominee to be Vice 
President.
  There is bipartisan consensus that this thing we call OCO is a 
fiscally irresponsible gimmick. The director of the Concord Coalition 
has called it ``the mother of all . . . gimmicks.'' The president of 
the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget called it a ``glaring 
gimmick.'' Whether OCO is the mother of all gimmicks or just a glaring 
one, everybody other than the majority leader evidently agrees on one 
thing: It is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.
  Now, just as important as what the majority leader's proposal is, 
however, is what it isn't. It isn't a tax increase. That is actually 
news. The majority leader is clearly ditching the President on this 
issue. As you may recall, the President has said he would only consider 
replacing the sequester with a tax hike. Whatever you want to say about 
OCO, it is not a tax hike--it is borrowed money that will have to be 
repaid later.
  Still, it doesn't punish small businesses the way the President's 
proposals would. So this is, in a sense, big news. It represents a 
significant break from the President's favored approach on this issue.
  As I said yesterday, the President rejected the flexibility we 
proposed on the sequester for obvious political reasons. He wanted 
these cuts to be as painful as possible for folks across the country 
and to provide an excuse to raise taxes to turn them off. Well, it is 
simply not working. Even his own party is starting to abandon him on 
this issue.
  The broader point is this: Even without the flexibility we propose, 
he already has the flexibility he needs to make these cuts less 
painful. He has it right now. He should exercise it.
  I also think we should all acknowledge that there is now a bipartisan 
agreement that tax hikes won't be a replacement for the sequester. The 
real solution, as I said, is for the administration to accept the 
additional flexibility we would like to give them to make these cuts in 
a smarter way and to get rid of wasteful spending first.
  Surely, in the $3.6 trillion we are spending this year, we could find 
a way to reduce the spending we promised the American people we would 
reduce a year and a half ago when the Budget Control Act was passed and 
do that in a sensible way. This is what we have consistently said. 
There is more flexibility in the law right now. We would be happy to 
give the President even more to achieve the cuts we promised the 
American people we would achieve.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. REID. Remember, Congressman Ryan, when he came up with one of 
these budgets, used these overseas contingency funds to balance his 
budget.
  Let's not even worry about that for purposes of this conversation, 
the overseas contingency fund. Let's just talk about the war in 
Afghanistan. What my friend is saying is that it is OK to borrow money 
for the war in Afghanistan but not to use that same money to reduce 
pains being felt all over America today.
  Even Joe Scarborough on ``Morning Joe,'' a former Republican 
Congressman from Florida, said today that he can't believe that the 
pain is being felt all over America today and no one is concerned about 
the war in Afghanistan.
  Does anyone think we are going to be fighting a war in Afghanistan 5 
years

[[Page 5845]]

from now, 10 years from now? That is the money people are trying to 
protect. I hope not. For the sake of my children and grandchildren, I 
hope we are not still fighting in Afghanistan 5 or 10 years from now.
  We are asking to take a few dollars of the $650 billion that is 
there--billion dollars--to relieve the pain we are feeling now for 5 
months. That is it.
  I think it is really unfair that it would be so easy to turn the 
sequester around and allow us to do something for a long term to take 
care of this issue, but, no, the Republicans like the pain.
  One Republican Senator who came here last night said: Well, why don't 
we take the money from the construction fund for airports?
  Those create jobs.
  He said: Why don't we take it from essential air services?
  That dog has been here and fought lots of times. That has been 
stripped bare.
  As I indicated in my opening statement, this is supposed to be fair 
and equal. You can't jimmy things around. It is the same amount of 
money. The Republicans say: Well, it is the same amount of money, but 
give more pain to somebody else than the other; just balance it out. 
The pain is too severe; it can't be balanced out.

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