Patent Reform Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Madam President, I am on the floor to speak again in support of amendment No. 115, which I propose in connection with the patent reform bill, a bill I support and a bill I intend to vote for and a bill that is going to be used as a vehicle for this amendment that calls for the sense of the Senate on support for the need of a balanced budget amendment. I am grateful to have the support of my good friend, the former Governor of West Virginia, now the junior Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, who is cosponsoring this amendment with me.

Here is what it does. It calls on us as Senators to come forward and vote on whether we think we should amend the Constitution and submit that to the States for ratification to restrict our power to engage in perpetual deficit spending.

We, as Members of Congress, are authorized, pursuant to article I, section 8, clause 2 to incur debt in the name of the United States. This power has been abused over time to such a degree that we are now almost $15 trillion in debt. By the end of the decade, we will have amassed annual interest payments that will be approaching $1 trillion. This threatens every government program under the Sun. Whether you most want to protect Social Security or national defense or any other government program, you should be concerned about this practice that will threaten the livelihood of so many Americans who depend on these programs one way or another, whether it is to fund their day-to-day existence or fund programs that provide for our safety and security as a nation.

We do have an increased reason to be optimistic about this for a few reasons. First, we have recent polling data showing Americans overwhelmingly support the idea of a balanced budget amendment. Secondly, a recent GAO report shows we could find at least $100 billion annually in wasteful government spending. This is the type of wasteful Washington spending we ought to have eliminated a long time ago, that we could eliminate and would be forced to eliminate if we, in fact, had a balanced budget amendment.

It would also require us to address issues that will confront our children and grandchildren. As a proud and happy father of three, I can tell you, as difficult as the choices we will have to make may be, I am unwilling, as a father, to pass these problems on to my children and my grandchildren who are yet unborn. I am unwilling to pass along to them a system that mortgages the future of coming generations for the simple purpose of perpetuating government largess and wasteful Washington spending.

All this amendment does is call on Members of the Senate to come forward and say they support the idea. By voting in favor of this amendment, they do not have to embrace any particular balanced budget amendment proposal. But what they do say is that they want the wasteful Washington spending to stop, they want the perpetual deficit spending practice to stop, and they want us to stop the practice of mortgaging the future of coming generations. This is immoral, it is unwise, and it ought to be illegal. Soon it will be. With this amendment, we will set in motion a sequence of events that will lead to just that.

I yield the floor.

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