Balanced Budget Amendment

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, may I inquire how much time remains?

The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 7 minutes 25 seconds.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I was, frankly, shocked by the comments of the President of the United States yesterday at his press conference, telling Congress it needed to get to work. I guess the President forgot his party controls the Senate, and Republicans, being in the minority, have no ability to place matters on the agenda or to force a vote on issues over the objection of Senator Reid, the majority leader, and the Democrats who control the Senate.

I guess the thing that rankled me so much is, rather than hold a press conference and tell Senator Reid to get to work on the budget, the President should have picked up his telephone or invited Senator Reid to come to his office and said: Harry, we need to pass a budget. We need to take care of this debt crisis. We need to take care of this cliff we are getting ready to fall off on August 2, that Secretary Geithner has warned us would have, perhaps, calamitous impacts on markets and on the economy and on interest rates charged on our national debt, among other things.

I guess the most galling thing, listening to the President make this kind of outrageous speech, engaging in blatant electioneering, campaigning sort of rhetoric, class warfare, is that this comes from a person who, since January 2011, has had 31 fundraisers, including one tonight in Philadelphia. I wonder if he is going to cancel his fundraiser in Philadelphia tonight to meet with Leader McConnell and Speaker Boehner to try to work on this threat that he was so emphatic about yesterday. I predict he will not cancel his fundraiser in Philadelphia tonight to get to work on something that only he can do, which is to negotiate a grand bargain with Republicans and Democrats that will solve this problem.

We know he had time on Monday to videotape an appeal to his donors who wanted to solicit donations from people so they might win a dinner with President Obama and the Vice President. He had time to do that. Yet it was not until Monday of this week that the President himself first took ownership of this issue, after Majority Leader Cantor and Assistant Leader Kyl said we cannot negotiate with the Vice President because they keep insisting on raising taxes, and we are not going to go there.

The President had his first meeting with Republican Leader McConnell and the majority leader to talk about this issue that he was flailing Congress about not doing its job just yesterday. Frankly, he should be embarrassed. But, unfortunately, the threshold for embarrassment here in Washington seems to be much higher than in the rest of the country.

The President said Republicans were blocking the deal on the debt limit because they had taken tax increases off the table. That is right. We believe it is a terrible mistake, with unemployment at 9.1 percent--much higher in many regions of the country--to raise taxes on the very people whom you are depending on to create jobs. What is his message to people who cannot find a job because people are not hiring? What is his message to people who are out of work and they cannot pay their home mortgage and they lose their home? It is higher taxes. Let's just raise taxes and everything will be fine.

We do not have a taxing shortfall. The American people pay plenty of taxes already. What we have is a spending binge by the Federal Government. Tax revenue is roughly 18

percent of our gross domestic product, but spending is 25 percent, hence the $1.5 trillion deficit this year and the $14.3 trillion debt so far, which threatens our Nation's future.

Frankly, it rankles many of us to have the President engage in such blatant demagoguery and blame-shifting, when he himself is unwilling to take responsibility for his duties, which are to lead by example. We are ready to work with the President to try to solve the Nation's problems. The House has passed a proposal. It is not perfect. I don't necessarily agree with all of it. But there are plenty of other proposals out there that will fix the Nation's fiscal problems, one of which is the President's own fiscal commission itself. He appointed it, a bipartisan fiscal commission that reported back in December, entitled ``Moment Of Truth,'' otherwise known as the Bowles-Simpson Commission, a bipartisan commission the President appointed himself. But he has ignored it.

There is another one, the Domenici-Rivlin Commission, a bipartisan commission that made recommendations. The President has ignored it.

The President yesterday said: ``Call me naive, but my expectation is that leaders are going to lead.'' That is what the President himself had the gall to say yesterday to the American people when he himself has displayed an astounding lack of leadership. As I said, we are ready to work with the President. I know Senator McConnell invited him to come over to Congress and explain how this increase in taxes was somehow going to create more jobs in America; how we were going to solve the problems with Medicare--which is going to run out of money in a little over a decade. I hope the President takes him up on that invitation.

It is not a partisan issue. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said our national debt sends a message of weakness internationally.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, said that ``the single greatest threat to our National security is our debt.'' If America goes broke, how are we going to pay for our national defense and security that not only Americans depend on but so many countries around the world depend on America being strong to protect them from tyrants and dictators and terrorists?

But if our economy goes bust, if interest rates go up to historic norms, our economy could spiral out of control. But there is not going to be a bailout for the United States of America. Our economy is simply too big. The International Monetary Fund, the Europeans, and others are not going to bail us out while we continue to spend recklessly about 43 cents out of every dollar in money borrowed from these young men and women here sitting in front of me. Every baby born in America today comes into this world $46,000 in debt. It is irresponsible. It is wrong.

The American people sent a message in November of 2010 that they were sick and tired of Washington operating business as usual, and they were not going to take it anymore. And the American people should not take it anymore.

I believe we have an opportunity here. In Texas, we don't recognize problems; we recognize challenges and opportunities. We are a positive bunch of folks. This is a grand opportunity for Democrats and Republicans to come together to do the Nation's business, to be serious, not to be reckless, not to give speeches like the President gave yesterday as part of his reelection campaign. Absolutely disgraceful. He should be ashamed. I respect the office of the President of the United States, but I think the President has diminished that office and himself by giving the kind of campaign speech he gave yesterday.

We do have a solution. The Senator from Alabama, Mr. Sessions, and others of us have sponsored a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. This would be a responsible way to deal with this problem, and I hope we will get a vote on that shortly. But in the meantime, there is no reason we cannot solve this problem. All we need is the President to step up and give us a proposal. So far, he has laid back and criticized everybody else and said: Where is your proposal? How come you haven't done your work? Well, he has not done his work by proposing a responsible solution.

We will have a debate. We will have amendments. We will make constructive suggestions. We will do it in the light of day and not behind closed doors, which is where these negotiations are occurring now. Why does this need to be done in secret? Why, as Senator Sessions said, are we, the elected representatives of the American people, left with a fait accompli shortly before the deadline that says: You either pass this or the country's economy goes down the tubes. That is not what the American people expect of us. That is not what they deserve.

Sure, there are going to be differences of opinion, but that is what this Senate is for--to work those out. We all understand we are not going to get what we want 100 percent of the time, but we do deserve to have a fair and open process, transparent and visible to the American people. I get to offer suggestions, they either win or they lose, and then ultimately the majority vote determines the outcome. We respect that as the process by which these differences are resolved. But we cannot do our job when the President doesn't do his job and make a responsible proposal, when Senator Reid will not bring a budget to the floor.

It has been 2 years since the Senate has had a budget. No one in the United States of America or anywhere around the world can operate with that sort of recklessness and irresponsibility. Everybody has to have a budget. My family has a budget. Every business has a budget. Only by having a budget can you determine what your priorities are. What are the things you have to have or do? What are the things you can put off until tomorrow? What are the things that maybe would be nice to have but you cannot afford?

Every family, every business has to go through that process but not the Senate and not, apparently, the President of the United States. The proposal he made, which doubled the debt in 5 years and tripled it in 10 years, called for huge new tax increases. Yet, when it came up for a vote--and only because Republicans forced a vote on that--it lost. It didn't get any support. I think it was 97 to 0. Not even our friends across the aisle could support the President's outrageous proposal back then. So why doesn't he come back with a new one? Why doesn't he stay at the table? Instead of going to Philadelphia tonight and raising money, why doesn't he call Senator McConnell, Speaker Boehner, Minority Leader Pelosi, and Majority Leader Reid into his office and sit down and do his job, just do his job?

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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