[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 6170-6171]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, for 38 straight months private sector 
companies have added new jobs and put Americans back to work, 7 million 
Americans in all. They have done it in spite of economic policies that 
hampered growth--harsh austerity policies Republicans have forced on 
the economy for the last 2 years. Yet the Dow Jones Industrial Average 
and the other indicators hit an all-time high last week and the 
manufacturing sector remains strong.
  While the economy isn't back to full strength, and that certainly is 
the truth, last week's job report shows we have made remarkable 
progress in 3 years. But just imagine how strong job growth could have 
been if Republicans had not insisted on round after round of meat axe 
budget cuts that undercut economic expansion.
  Every expert, every respected economist says the best way to 
encourage a recovery, the best way to create jobs is with targeted 
investments and balanced deficit reduction. The most responsible way to 
reduce our deficit is to get away from short-term fixes, last-minute 
negotiations and, instead, pursue a responsible budget process. We 
can't begin to find common ground if we never get to the negotiating 
table. That is why again today I will ask unanimous consent to go to 
conference with the House on the budget, the budget that we passed.
  For 2 years my Republican colleagues have complained the Senate had 
not passed a budget resolution, even though we had enacted a budget 
with the force of law and signed by President Obama. Remember, a budget 
resolution is just an inter-Congress matter. It doesn't have anything 
to do with the President. He doesn't have to sign that, but we enacted 
a budget with the force of law and signed by President Obama.
  The Republicans complained and complained: Why didn't we do a budget 
resolution? We had something much better than a budget resolution, but 
for 2 years Republicans longed for the days of regular order. We know 
because they told us so. They wanted amendments; we gave them 
amendments. They wanted bills to go through committee; they got bills 
reported out of committees. Republicans were desperate for the Senate 
to vote on a budget resolution that would set spending priorities for 
the fiscal year. They got them. We passed a budget resolution under 
regular order, complete with a late-night budget vote-arama that lasted 
until 5 a.m. that included more than 100 individual votes. Still, the 
House has refused to go to conference with us. Since they got what they 
claimed they wanted, their interest in regular order has not just 
waned, it disappeared.
  They don't want to go to conference as we would under the regular 
order--that they said they wanted. They don't even want to name 
conferees. We tried to get that out of this body.
  The ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee admitted these 
stall tactics were an effort to provide political cover for his 
colleagues in the House. This is what he said:

       There are difficulties in the fact that we haven't been 
     able to have any understanding on how this conference might 
     work and what prospects we have for success might be. I think 
     it's possible that we could succeed, but at this point we're 
     not close enough to anticipate a successful conference and 
     that presents complications for the House.

  Can you imagine? They don't have any understanding how this 
conference might work. Well, probably one of the reasons he doesn't 
have an understanding of how a conference works is because they have 
stopped us from going to conference on virtually everything.
  He also says: We don't know what the prospects are for success. That 
is what conference is all about. The Senate passes a bill, the House 
passes a bill, and we sit down and try to work it out.
  He said:

       I think it's possible that we could succeed, but at this 
     point we're not close enough to anticipate a successful 
     conference, and that presents complications for the House.

  We are the United States Senate, not the United States House of 
Representatives. We should do our business and not be worried about the 
tea party-driven House of Representatives. The budget process is the 
only way to work through our differences without bringing the country 
to the brink of another artificial crisis. To accelerate job growth and 
reduce the deficit without harming the economy, we have to make 
important and smart spending cuts, while asking the most fortunate 
among us to do a little better, contribute a little more.
  The arbitrary across-the-board cuts of the so-called sequester do 
just the exact opposite. The sequester uses a meat cleaver where a 
scalpel is needed. The sequester cuts were designed to be too painful--
so painful they would force the supercommittee to reach a bipartisan 
compromise. We all remember what happened there. Republicans refused to 
allow one penny of revenue. When they did that, they insisted on a 
cuts-only approach. They ensured the sequester would kick in.
  Eliminating sequester is part of a larger challenge: to set sound 
long-term fiscal policy through the regular order of the budget 
process, which they said they wanted--they, the Republicans. Now they 
have walked away

[[Page 6171]]

from it. That will take cooperation. Remember, Democrats and 
Republicans voted for these arbitrary cuts, and Democrats and 
Republicans will have to work together to reverse them.
  Why are my Republican colleagues so afraid? We know the two sides 
will not agree on every aspect of the budget. We know finding common 
ground will not be easy.
  We can get it done. We used to do it until we have been stopped from 
doing everything by a tea party-driven House of Representatives and the 
strongly influenced Republicans in the Senate by the tea party. 
Republicans believe in one set of principles for how the government 
should spend money and how it should save money.
  Democrats have very different principles. Republicans would lower 
taxes for the rich while the middle class foots the bill. Democrats 
would ask the wealthiest individuals and corporations to contribute a 
little more to reduce the deficit. Republicans would turn Medicaid into 
a voucher program, in effect doing away with Medicaid as we know it.
  Democrats would preserve and protect Medicare for future generations. 
Republicans would use more harsh austerity to reduce the deficit. 
Democrats would adopt a balanced approach that couples smart spending 
cuts with new revenue from closing loopholes.
  Remember, we have already cut more than $2.5 trillion from the debt. 
We have our differences, but Democrats aren't afraid to work out those 
differences. We are ready to go to conference to begin the difficult 
work of compromise.
  If this Congress is serious about reducing the deficit and protecting 
the economy, we need to go to work now, not wait until this minor 
impasse--and that is what it is--turns into another major manufactured 
crisis, which the House loves to send to us at the last minute.

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