Providing for Expedited Consideration of Certain Nominations

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come here today to compliment the minority leader, Senator McConnell, for his resolution in our effort to put a balanced budget amendment onto the Constitution of the United States.

I come here today to tell you a little story about a friend of mine from Douglas, WY. I was in Douglas on Memorial Day. Every year on Memorial Day in Douglas, they have sunrise ceremony services in the cemetery where they raise the flag, go through the names of all the veterans from Converse County who have passed in the last year, put the flag back at halfstaff, 21-gun salute, and a time for people to come together and think about this great Nation and honor those who have given their lives.

After the ceremony this year, people were leaving the ceremony. My friend Bernie Seebaum stopped me and said: You know, Senator--we have known each other a long time. He is on Medicare now, Social Security, has lived a long life, contributed to the community. He said: I don't care if you do a number of things--if you raise taxes, cut Medicare, take away Social Security--as long as you use it to pay off this debt, this $14 trillion debt.

I said: Bernie, the problem is, if Congress ever does something like that, they are going to get the money and they are just going to spend it.

The first thing we need to do is amend the Constitution so that we actually balance the budget. Then you can start talking about ways to pay off this incredible debt we have.

Here in Wyoming, we live within our means, balance the budget every year. It has paid huge dividends for our State.

You know, you think about the Constitution, and our Founding Fathers produced the greatest governing document, in my opinion, ever conceived. It was written at a time when our country's future was in serious doubt, when our country faced countless threats from abroad, threats that were becoming increasingly difficult to confront, and when the Federal Government lacked both the structure and the foundation to do anything about it. But there we had the Constitution, written in part as a response to those challenges of the day, and it has endured till this day. So amending the Constitution is not something to be undertaken lightly. The Constitution is the highest law of this great land. It has been amended, but infrequently and almost always at a time of crisis. Now, I support a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution because now is just such a time.

When the Constitution was written, they had to decide what the future would bear, so when it was written, as that time came, we now have to decide what sort of future we want for our country. Do we want a future where our children and grandchildren are overburdened by debt, where the U.S. dollar is backed by nothing more than worthless promises, or do we want a future where the only thing we can afford to spend money on--what we are facing right now--is entitlements and interest on our debt. Do we want a future where our country goes broke and a future where Washington lacks the political will to do anything about it or do we want a future with less spending, lower taxes, and more accountability?

Facts are stubborn, and the numbers do not lie. This month, the Congressional Budget Office released a report saying that the outlook of America's debt is growing grimmer. The Hill newspaper put it best when it said that the new CBO report numbers are ``much worse than last year's outlook.'' To anyone who does the math, this is not a surprise. Every day, Washington borrows $4.1 billion more--borrowed over $4 billion yesterday, $4 billion today, and we will do it again tomorrow. That is over $2 million a minute, every minute. Washington did that yesterday, it is doing it today, and it will do it tomorrow. Of every dollar Washington spends, 41 cents of it is borrowed. Much of it is borrowed from China. Every American child born today and tomorrow and the next day is born with an incredible debt of over $45,000. Next year, of every dollar Washington spends, 68 cents will go for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt.

If we as a nation continue down this path, Washington will spend all of what it takes in on these items alone. Everything else, from defense to education, will be paid for on a budget of borrowed money. So you may ask, where is the money going to come from, and how will we ever pay it back? Well, a lot of it is going to come from other countries, countries that do not always have our interests, America's best interests, at heart.

John Kennedy stood outside this building in 1961, 50 years ago. He said:

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

Well, a few years from now, that may change. It may change to: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what your country must do for China.

So consider this. When John Kennedy was President, America's total debt was just over $300 billion, and we only owed 4 percent of our debt to foreign countries. Today, our total debt is over $14 trillion. And debt isn't just a disaster for the distant future; our current debt is irresponsible and it is unsustainable. Even our military leaders have condemned it. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, has said, ``The biggest threat to our national security is our debt.'' The debt is the threat. We do not and we should not take the biggest threat to our national security lightly.

The amount of debt we owe right now, today, is so high that it is hurting our employment at home. Experts tell us that our current debt is costing us 1 million jobs in America. Spending like this makes it harder for the private sector to create new jobs. Because of this, it is harder for American families to buy gas, to buy groceries, to buy cars, homes, to pay tuition for the kids to go to college. And it is harder to create jobs for those kids who will be graduating this year and next year and every year until we get the spending under control. Everyone in this body claims to understand that the situation is irresponsible and is unsustainable.

Back in February 2009, the President called experts to the White House for what he called a fiscal responsibility summit. In his opening remarks, this is what the President had to say:

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration, or the next generation.

Well, I agreed with the President. He was right. So my question to the President is, What have you done about it? Well, one thing he has done is he has called together a debt commission. Late last year, the debt commission released their report on America's fiscal situation, and the findings were sobering. According to the report, they said: The problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no easy way out. Everything must be on the table. Do you know what else they said? They also said: Washington must lead.

Washington has not led. Instead, this administration has offered nothing but empty promises. As the White House makes promise after promise and speech after speech with no action--no action to back it up--it is clearer than ever that spoken promises have become broken promises.

This persistent push to put our fiscal crisis off until tomorrow is unacceptable and must end now. The first step toward doing that should be to pass an amendment to our Constitution requiring Washington to balance its budget. A balanced budget amendment would require Washington to spend no more money than it takes in each and every year. Such an amendment would force Washington to live within its means. We cannot afford to continue to mortgage our children's future to pay for Washington's fiscal failures. Such an amendment would transform the kind of irresponsible spending that goes on today in this very body into an impeachable violation of every legislator's constitutional oath of office.

The American people have overwhelmingly spoken on the wisdom of this approach. A recent poll conducted by Sachs/Mason Dixon showed that 65 percent of Americans support a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, and 45 percent said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who did so. Of those, 68 percent of them were Independents, but there is support for this among Republicans, among Independents, and among Democrats. When the American people call for Washington to lead in numbers this big, it is time for Washington to listen. Every single member of my party on this side of the aisle agrees. That is why all 47 Republican Members of this body have cosponsored the balanced budget amendment. The American people are behind us, and they want us to act.

Meanwhile, the administration and its allies on the other side of the aisle have offered nothing but more empty rhetoric, more of the same tax-and-spend policies that made this economic situation worse. You take a look at where we are and where we have been, they have made it worse.

I am reminded of a quote from Ronald Reagan. He said:

If the big spenders get their way, they'll charge everything to your taxpayers' express card and believe me, they will never leave home without it.

The big spenders can get away with charging everything to the American people's taxpayer express card because no one--no one is forcing them to look at the bills. Now those bills are coming due, and this administration and its liberal allies want a new taxpayer express card and a blank check. They want a blank check to spend as they desire, and they are not going to get it from me, not without specific reforms that will introduce accountability into this broken Washington process.

A balanced budget amendment will not solve every problem, but it is a critical step in the right direction. It would ensure that Washington is constitutionally obligated to avoid the reckless overspending of the past.

Our debt crisis did not surface overnight. It certainly will not be solved without a great deal of additional work.

Before any of that work can be done, Washington has to learn to live within its means the way families all across this great country do. It is time we show the American people they can trust their government with their money again. It is time we lead today instead of deferring leadership until tomorrow. It is time we show the same courage our Founding Fathers did when this country was on the verge of financial collapse. It is time for a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Then I can go back to my friend Bernie and his wife Sally, in Douglas, WY, and say: Bernie, finally, in Washington, they got it right. They realize, as we do in Wyoming, we have to live within our means. We have to balance our budget every year and then start working on paying off this incredible debt.

I yield the floor.

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