Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as we all know by now, yesterday evening, the House passed a bipartisan bill to lift the debt limit and begin the process of reining in our Nation's unchecked spending habit.

From the time the United States reached the debt ceiling in January, it was clear that a compromise bill would be the only way to avoid a full-blown economic crisis, which is what would happen if we were not to raise the debt ceiling. With a Democrat-led Senate and a Republican- led House and a Democrat in the White House, bipartisanship was and is a necessity.

Now, Republicans, for our part, were clear that any increase in the debt ceiling must come with spending reforms. Otherwise, it would be like your maxing out your credit card and then asking to raise the credit limit so you could borrow more money without having an adult conversation about how you were going to pay the money back. In the real world, that is what would happen. You would have to have that conversation or there would be no increase in your credit card limit. But only in Washington, only in the Nation's Capital would it be even argued that you could raise the debt limit without talking about spending reform.

What has happened is, our Nation's national debt has ballooned now to more than $31.4 trillion. That is a number--I doubt that anybody here in the Chamber could tell us how many zeros follow that 31.4.

The American people are clearly unhappy with what they see is happening here when it comes to out-of-control spending. A recent poll found that 60 percent of adults think the government spends too much, and they are right. They are frustrated by the unnecessary and wasteful spending, and they are eager for Congress to do the reasonable, rational thing, which is to begin to get our financial house in order.

That is precisely what Republicans demanded throughout this process-- necessary fiscal reforms as part of the debt ceiling negotiation. But instead of stepping up, doing his job, acting responsibly, President Biden took a very different approach. He said: I refuse to negotiate. This is a President of the United States with $31.4 trillion in debt. He said: I refuse to negotiate. He went on to say that only a clean debt ceiling increase was an option, and he refused to engage in negotiations altogether.

It is helpful to remember that it was in January when we actually hit the debt ceiling. What has happened since then is the Treasury Secretary has engaged in what is euphemistically called extraordinary measures in order to pay the bills as the money comes in through tax revenue. But now she has told us that the X date--which presumably is the default date after extraordinary measures are exhausted--would be June 5. That is Monday. That is Monday.

The President has known since January that this day would come. He has refused to negotiate, and he has led us into this scenario where, unless Congress acts by June 5, we will breach the debt limit and begin to default on paying our bills as a nation.

I don't have to remind anybody that inflation as a result of some of the profligate spending habits of the previous Congress, particularly on our Democratic friends' side--they were happy to spend roughly $2.3 trillion last year on strictly party-line spending votes. But you put enough gasoline on the fire, and inflation is going to spiral out of control. That is exactly what has happened.

As a consequence, two things have happened. One is that hard-working American families have found their standard of living reduced because they simply can't afford to keep up with the increase in costs as a result of inflation. The second thing that happened is that in order to try to deal with this hidden tax, the Federal Reserve has had to raise interest rates, which has slowed down the economy even more.

Why in the world would President Biden, as a responsible public official, refuse to negotiate when he knows that the anxiety associated with hitting this X date on Monday is causing even more uncertainty, even more trepidation, and even more anxiety over exactly what the future is going to look like? Why would he risk that? President Biden stuck to his ``no negotiations, no reforms'' position for literally months even though it was painfully obvious that a bipartisan deal was the only way to avoid a further economic crisis.

I want to pause for a moment to commend the Speaker of the House, Speaker McCarthy, for his leadership throughout this process. Without a negotiating partner, he did everything in his power and within the power of the House of Representatives to move this process forward. He stood strong behind the need for fiscal reforms and led the House in passing the Limit, Save, Grow Act. He lured President Biden to the negotiating table, and he successfully moved a compromise bill through the House. But I think the backstory about Speaker McCarthy's leadership is that President Biden didn't dream that in a million years, after the difficult race for Speaker that we saw in January, Speaker McCarthy would be able to unify Republicans in the House of Representatives and actually pass a bill that raised the debt ceiling. That is what the Limit, Save, Grow Act was. I think President Biden was shocked that he was able to get that done. And I congratulate him for it. It changed the whole dynamics of this negotiation.

But now that the House has acted, the ball is in our court. This Chamber will soon vote on the McCarthy-Biden agreement, and now is the time for the Senate to do its job. Our job is not simply to accept or to rubberstamp what the House passed. That has never been the case. We weren't a party to the agreement; why should we be bound by the strict terms of that agreement?

The Senate has not had a say in the process so far, and it has led to serious frustration on both sides of the aisle. This bill didn't go through regular order; in other words, it didn't go through a committee. Members didn't have the opportunity to weigh in or shape the legislation at that level or even the final text.

Given the time constraints wholly created by President Biden's delay and refusal to negotiate, this rushed process was completely unavoidable. We didn't have to get on the precipice of a default in order to act if President Biden had done his job and responsibly engaged in the negotiations that he finally did engage in at an earlier point, months earlier. So the President dragged his feet for several months, leaving the narrowest possible window to reach a deal and avoid a further crisis.

This is not how this should have played out, but that doesn't mean our hands are tied behind our backs here in the Senate. The Senate is not required, as I said, to rubberstamp the House bill. We have the opportunity to amend this legislation and make it better.

I share the concerns expressed by the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Senator from Maine; the Senator from South Carolina, Senator Graham; Senator Sullivan, the Senator from Alaska; and Senator Cotton, I believe, has spoken on that publicly, that the defense number in this agreement is simply inadequate.

It is simply unacceptable to leave it in the hands of Senator Schumer, the majority leader, whether or not we actually pass appropriations bills this year because if we don't, under the terms of the McCarthy-Biden agreement, then we go back into a sequestration, with a 1-percent cut across the board.

That may not sound like a lot, but our country is facing more national security threats than we ever have before. Whether it is the challenge in Europe with Russia's unjustified invasion of Ukraine; whether it is the aspirations of the Ayatollah in Iran to build nuclear weapons; whether it is Kim Jong Un in North Korea or Vladimir Putin or President Xi, it is easy to see that the threats are not diminishing. They are getting more and more serious, which means that a sequestration of the Defense Department's spending by automatic operation of law is unacceptable.

Senators on both sides want amendments. Members want to make changes to try to improve the bill. As I said, the Senate should not be cut out of the process due to President Biden's foot-dragging. We still have time before the June 5 deadline. The Senate could move through the amendment process fairly quickly. We could do it today. We have ample time to vote on amendments and send an amended version back to the House for final passage.

I might add, there is no reason for the majority leader to block amendment votes. Senators deserve an opportunity to vote on amendments, and I hope the majority leader will not stand in the way of those Senators on both sides of the aisle who want to offer amendments and then receive-up-or-down votes.

This bill does include some very positive developments--beginning to rein in our Nation's spending habits--but it is not a magic pill to cure the Federal Government's chronic financial troubles. America's $31.4 trillion debt developed over the course of decades, so it is unreasonable to expect we are going to turn that around with the passage of one bill. But we can start, and we should start.

We know the pandemic accelerated these problems. We spent a lot of money necessarily on a bipartisan basis to try to deal with the public health crisis and the economic consequences of the pandemic, but then, as I said, at President Biden's request, our Democratic colleagues abused the rules of the Senate to go on two partisan spending sprees.

First came the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, followed by the $700 billion so-called Inflation Reduction Act. That is $2.6 trillion more, which gets us up to the $31.4 trillion today. But then they used that money to do everything from funding a supersized IRS to taxpayer- provided subsidies for rich people to buy electric vehicles.

So I am glad the Speaker was successful. In addition to beginning the long process of beginning to bend the curve when it comes to reckless spending, I am glad the Speaker was able to agree with the White House to claw back some of that money, including $27 billion in unspent COVID funds, and to redirect a reported $20 billion in IRS funding to other priorities.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates this bill will reduce Federal spending by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, which is a strong start in the fight to right America's financial ship.

As I said, this bill is the beginning of that fight; it is not the end. And I know many of us, including this Senator, would like for us to be able to do more. But the fact is, one bill cannot erase decades of financial troubles. We need to build on the progress made in this legislation in the months and years to come. Of course, the best way to do that is at election time because it matters who wins elections. It matters who is in the majority. It matters who controls a body of Congress and the White House.

But the next big battle will be in the Senate and House Appropriations Committees. As we know, every year, the committees are charged with writing 12 separate bills to fund the various components of the Federal Government.

The process of drafting those bills is designed to involve public hearings, committee votes, and rigorous debate. It gives every member of the Appropriations Committee opportunities to shape the individual spending bills and address America's spending habits. And once it gets voted out of committee, then all 100 Senators should have that opportunity to shape and improve the legislation.

Once these bills are completed, they are supposed to pass both Chambers and be signed into law by September 30 every year. But that didn't happen in 2021 or 2022. The Democratic Senator majority leader refused to allow us to pass a single appropriation bill last year, forcing us into the ugly process of considering and passing an omnibus appropriation bill. That is not the way that is supposed to be done.

Congress cannot continue to operate like this--with bloated budgets, last-minute spending bills, backroom negotiations. That is no way to gain the public's trust or to run the Federal Government. We need to return to a transparent and regular process where every elected Member of Congress has the opportunity to participate in budgeting and deciding what the appropriate expenditure of taxpayer dollars should be.

So we have known this date was coming since January. President Biden put us in this difficult situation by wasting valuable time, and he has pushed us to the brink of default. Now, thanks to his delay tactics, the Senate is preparing to vote on a bill that no Member of this body had a hand in writing. Given the time crunch, this truncated process was a necessary evil, but it cannot be the norm.

We need to return to the processes that were designed to promote smart and responsible spending. Hearings, committee votes, and public debate are absolutely critical. For today, Senators deserve the opportunity to amend this bill and, as I said, to make it better if they can; but all of our colleagues have the right to have a say in this process, and I urge the majority leader to allow that process to go forward with up-or-down amendment votes.

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