Trade Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, in the morning we will vote on a budget agreement and I will vote no. I think it is useful and important for my constituents to understand my thinking and the basis on which I reach that conclusion.

In my mind, one of the most important issues that we face in this country today is the fiscal condition of our country. The amount of debt that we incur and the amount of debt that we continue to incur is a significant drag on our economy, on job creation, and, in reality, on the American dream.

It is an economic issue. At some point in time, if we don't get our fiscal house in order, we will pay a significant price. We can either deal with this issue in a gradual, incremental way, in which we set ourselves on a path to right, or we can wait for the crisis to occur, which I have no doubt will happen.

While it is often said that this is an economic issue, and fiscal issues matter to the country, I also would point out that this is not just an economic issue. It is a moral issue. The borrowing of money to pay for services and goods that the government provides the American people is a selfish circumstance in which we take the so-called benefits of government programs today and expect future generations of Americans to pay for those benefits. It is wrong economically for us to continue down the path of fiscal irresponsibility, but it is also morally wrong to expect someone else to pay for the so-called benefits we receive today.

As to this issue today, this Bipartisan Budget Act--this bipartisan effort to resolve the circumstance we find ourselves in because we face a debt limit problem--the problem is that if we don't do something, then we reach the debt limit. There are those who will argue that the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling are so dramatic, so damaging that we need to do that regardless of the fiscal consequences of doing so.

I come down on the side of fiscal responsibility, and I want to explain why. I want Kansans to know how I think about this issue. In fact, one of the first letters I ever wrote to President Obama as a new U.S. Senator, March of 2011, was an explanation to the President that he needed to work with Congress, and I offered to work with the President and the administration and my colleagues in the Congress and the Senate to see if we couldn't find a solution so that when we raised the debt ceiling, we actually did something that would change the course, the path of spending we are on.

I explained to Kansans, by publishing that letter and explaining my comments in the letter to the President, what I believed was important, most important. Unfortunately, since 2011 we are no more on a course of fiscal sanity than we were when I wrote the letter to the President.

Here is the point I want to make. If we give up the leverage, the opportunity that this issue presents to us as Members of Congress, to force us to do things that we apparently don't have the will, the courage, the political desire to do, how do we ever get it done? Again, I guess there will be editorialists--certainly across the country and perhaps a few in Kansas--who will say that we need to raise the debt ceiling because it is irresponsible not to. Isn't it also true that it is irresponsible simply to raise the debt ceiling every time we need it? If we don't take advantage of the circumstance we are in to force ourselves to do the things that need to be done, we are irresponsible.

I read a lot of history. For a few years I have studied our country as a private citizen, and I have been involved in the political process in Washington in trying to resolve problems our country faces. Here is an observation: Things have changed over time. It used to be a bipartisan desire, a bipartisan understanding that balancing the budget was important. One of things that has changed over time is there no longer seems to be the desire on the part of many in Congress--many don't see it and in my view Democrats in particular don't see deficits as a bad thing. We look the other way.

Maybe in days gone by, when there was broad consensus from Republican Presidents and Democratic Presidents that balancing the budget was something that mattered, that reducing the debt at least over time was important, that when we incurred expenditures going to war that we paid for them, that was something that was generally believed across the country by the vast majority of Americans and by the vast majority of Members of Congress, regardless of what political party they associate with.

That consensus, that drive, that insistence that we do that no longer exists, which highlights for me that the necessity of using this issue of whether the debt ceiling should be raised to determine what we should do about reducing spending, reducing the debt, figuring out what the balance is between taxes and expenditures is all the more important.

If I had any faith that this Congress, this President were going to deal with the deficit, regardless of what happened with the debt ceiling, then I wouldn't be interested in using the debt ceiling as a tool to force change in behavior in Washington, DC, but unfortunately I have no faith that there are enough people here who care enough about the deficit to do something about it unless we are forced to do so.

At the moment, the only tool I have is to insist we use this opportunity, in which we are requested to raise the debt ceiling, to change the course our country is on in regard to spending and deficits. Again, the argument may be by some it is irresponsible. In fact, I have heard so many times that all we are doing is authorizing the borrowing of money to pay for the things we have already encumbered.

Wouldn't it seem a better solution for us to quit encumbering over time rather than coming after the fact and saying let's raise the debt ceiling? But the reality apparently is there is no will to do that. We can say it is irresponsible not to raise the debt ceiling. We can say we are only paying for the things we have already decided to spend money on, but if that is the only thing we say, we never take it to the necessary step of doing anything about the problem.

It is irresponsible not to use this opportunity to force us to behave in ways that are good for the country today, that are economically solid and sound, that are morally correct. Borrowing money ad infinitum is not an option for this country under either economic or moral circumstances.

It is irresponsible for us to once again decide we will try to solve this problem later. I have always thought that the most important political issue we face, the one that has been most important to the country since I was elected to the Senate, was how do we make certain that the economy is growing, there are job opportunities, people feel secure in their employment, they have the opportunity to advance their careers, and they have the sense that they are saving for their kids' education, that they are saving for their own retirement. This issue of the fiscal condition of our country inhibits the ability for that economic security to be available to Americans.

I wish to conclude by saying we need to do what is responsible. What is responsible is making certain we pay our way and that we don't expect others to do so in the future. To only say that we have to reach this agreement in order to avoid greater challenges in our country is to walk away from something that I think is a primary and important responsibility of Congress and the President. It is unfortunate.

In my time and service in the Senate, President Obama has been the President, but I have seen no political will on the part of this administration to do anything about the long-term consequences of spending more money than we have. That means we have no choice but to insist that something be done, and the only opportunity before us is this question of whether the debt ceiling should be raised without corresponding reductions in spending.

In my view, those reductions in spending take priority. It is important. Our primary responsibility as American citizens, as an American citizen, not just as a U.S. Senator but all of us as American citizens--we have a responsibility to do two things for the future of our country: protect and preserve the freedoms and liberties guaranteed by our Constitution and make sure the American dream is alive and well so future Americans have the chance to pursue their dreams in this country.

To continue to borrow money to put our country's fiscal condition in jeopardy once again means we will have failed that responsibility because the spending and borrowing of money inhibits our personal liberties and freedoms and reduces economic opportunity, the American dream for all Americans.

I will vote no.

I yield the floor to the Senator from Nebraska.

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Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I spoke a few moments ago on the Senate floor, and as I was leaving I was made aware of an article in which the minority leader, Senator Reid, was quoted. I wish to highlight something I want my colleagues to hear and know.

What the Senator from Nevada indicated was--the article begins: Having secured their goal of getting a budget deal addressing the debt ceiling and sequestration cuts, Democrats are now looking forward to the appropriations process.

As an appropriator, so am I. I am interested for us to have the opportunity, if this budget agreement passes, to make decisions about the priorities of spending within those budget numbers. What is so troublesome to me is that the indication was that President Obama and Democrats stand firm against efforts to target environmental regulations and other contentious riders.

I am quoting the Senator from Nevada:

We're holding hands with the president, we're all holding hands. We are not going to deal with these vexatious riders. We feel comfortable and confident. .....''

He goes on to talk about the agreement.

This is a Congress that is supposed to deal with contentious and vexatious issues. Why does anyone have the opportunity to say it is off the table? It happened in these budget agreements in which we were told dealing with mandatory spending is off the table. Yet it is one of the most important issues we need to address, and you ought not start negotiations by saying we are not even going to talk about an issue. In this case, ``off the table, not subject to discussion'' is the issue of contentious or environmental regulations.

Congress--Republican and Democratic Members--ought to care about the power of Congress that is granted to us by the Constitution in our representation of the American people. We need the days in which the Congress and Members of Congress are not wedded to a Republican President or a Democratic President just because they happen to be Republicans or Democrats. We need to make decisions based upon what is good for the country, not whether we are backstopping a President who happens to be a Member of our political party. Where are the Members of Congress who say congressional authority is the constitutional grant of power to act on behalf of Americans?

We need not only to establish priorities as a Congress when it comes to the spending process, but we need to make decisions when an agency or a department exceeds their authority, when they operate in ways that are contrary to what we believe is in the best interest of the country, in circumstances in which they are doing things that lack common sense. The role of Congress is to direct the spending. It is granted to us by the Constitution of the United States. We are saying that while we are pleased we have a budget agreement, we will not stand for Congress determining whether the money can be spent in a certain way, whether it can be prohibited from being spent in a certain way. We are taking vexatious riders off the table.

This is our responsibility. It is just as important for us to determine whether money should be spent at all as it is for us to determine how much money can be spent on a government program. It is particularly true, I don't think there is any question but that this administration has been the most active, many of us would consider acting in an unconstitutional way in the development of regulations, of policies, of the bureaucracy of what the departments and agencies are doing. This is an administration that cries out for congressional oversight, not for someone who says it is not even on the table to be considered.

I would think Republicans and Democrats both ought to have an interest in determining how money is spent as well as whether we should tell an agency, a department they can't spend that money at all. Many of my Democratic colleagues have indicated they support a number of riders, including ones that are considered environmental.

Waters of the United States is one that I have been told numerous times that my colleagues on the Democratic side of this Congress support the rider that is in the appropriations bill. Numerous times I have been told that many Democrats support reining in the regulations that are coming from the Department of Labor related to a fiduciary rule. Now we hear that vexatious environmental riders are off the table. We ought not allow that to stand. It is not that I expect every rider that I am for to receive approval of Congress, but those votes ought to be taken. That is our responsibility and majority rules.

Again, the circumstance we now find ourselves in, this is nothing that we are even going to talk about. It is troublesome to me that those of my colleagues who have expressed support for those riders--I guess I should explain to Kansans and to Americans, a rider is a provision--language in the appropriations bill that oftentimes says no money can be spent to implement this idea, to implement this regulation.

It is an absolutely important responsibility for Congress. It is not unusual. It is not something outside the boundaries of what we are supposed to be doing. It is absolutely a significant component of our responsibility. Now those who claim they are for a rider, say the Waters of the United States or the fiduciary rule that the Department of Labor is promulgating--we have colleagues who say they are for that. Now they will be able to say: I am for it, but I never had a chance to vote on it because it was off the table.

I would again ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, don't fall into this trap in which we are here to support ad hoc, at every instance, the executive branch just because they happen to be a Member of our political party.

When there is a Republican President, I hope to abide by those same rules. I am here on behalf of Kansans and on behalf of Americans, not on behalf of an administration regardless of their political party, and we ought to demand that Congress do its work. We had an election, the people of this country asked for something different, and once again we are back in the circumstance in which no longer are we able to move forward on legislation.

I assume by what the former majority leader is saying that when he says it is off the table, he means there will not be 60 votes for us to even consider an omnibus bill in which those riders are included. Now, what I will say is that before long, we are going to be hearing about how Republicans are interested in shutting down government because they want these riders. Well, the reality is that the Senator from Nevada is indicating there is no discussion, and the blame ought not fall on those of us who actually wanted Congress to work. The allegation of shutting down government ought to rest on those who say: We won't even discuss an appropriations bill that includes vexatious or contentious riders.

Who would want to be a Member of a Congress that is unwilling to deal with contentious issues? It is our constitutional responsibility. The American people ought to demand the opportunity for us to address issues of importance to them, and it ought not be off the table before the conversation even begins.

Again, the point is that we have a constitutional responsibility that we failed to exercise. When the decisions are made, it is off the table. We need a Congress that works, and we need a Congress that puts the American people above defending a President, regardless of his or her political party.

I yield the floor.

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