Shared Sacrifice in Resolving the Budget Deficit-Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. First of all, I thank the Senator for his leadership. He has been talking loudly and clearly about the fact that we should not have recessed this week. I know President Obama tried to claim credit for that. It is because of the Senator's leadership and the members of the Republican conference in the Senate who said: No, we are bankrupting America and we need to stay here and start debating this issue.

Unfortunately, that is not what we have been doing this week. It is sad. One word I have used all the time now that I have come to Washington is ``unbelievable.'' It is simply unbelievable that tomorrow will mark 800 days that we haven't passed a budget.

My background is in business for the last 34 years. I have had to produce budgets on time. I have had people produce budgets for me on time. In business--even a small business--it is inconceivable that if you tell a colleague to make sure to have the budget on your desk by April 15 that it wouldn't be there; 99.9 percent of those accountants and controllers would have a budget on time, on April 15.

We are dealing with the United States of America. We are talking about our financial future, the fate of America. The Democrats in the Senate have failed to meet that obligation for 2 years in a row. That is simply unbelievable, and it is so incredibly irresponsible. Really, I think the Senate has been guilty of willful neglect. The phrase I have used is that the Senate has been ``fiddling'' while America is going broke. That is sad.

As the Senator pointed out as well, what does the financial future of America rest on? Some secret talks--talks

between a few individuals going out behind closed doors far from the view of the American public rather than in an orderly process where a plan is presented that can be viewed by the American public, that can be debated openly the way our Founders envisioned on the floor of this Senate, this historic floor; instead of using the process that we should have been using, what is going to happen? Are we going to have a result, a negotiated settlement drop in our laps a couple days before this deadline date? Is that what is going to happen? Is that really how the financial fate of America is going to be decided?

I personally find that process disgusting. That is why I stood last Tuesday on the floor of the Senate and said unless we start seriously addressing this problem, the bankrupting of America, in the open, in the bright light of day, I was going to begin to object. I was going to begin to withhold my consent.

I was heartened by the support I got from my Republican colleagues because, let's face it, we understand how urgent the situation is. We understand how dire our financial situation is. We are willing to sit down and work with anybody who will seriously address the fact that we are driving America toward bankruptcy. But we need a willing partner, and up to this point in time I haven't seen one.

The fact that the only plan we have seen is the President's budget, 4.25 inches thick, 2,400 pages long--how many thousands of manhours did that document take to produce? It was so unserious it would have added more than $12 trillion to our Nation's debt in the next 10 years. It would have continued the bankrupting of America. It would have made us go broke. It was so unserious, it failed in the Senate by a vote of 0-97. Not one Democratic Senator found that bill serious enough to give it a vote. That is the only plan I have seen.

I woke up this morning to a couple of news reports, and there was more detail about what the administration might plan to do fed to reporters than fed to a Member of Congress.

I am sorry to be so blunt about this, but that is a disgusting process. The American people deserve far better. I guess today what I am standing here saying is, I want to see a plan, and I want to see a budget, and I want to see it to give us enough time so we can actually analyze it and debate it and pass the real structural reforms so that we can actually solve this problem. I am calling on the President and I am calling on the Democrats in this Senate to produce that plan so we can have an open debate on it. That is kind of how I am thinking.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. I would like to pick up on Senator Blunt's point about just how unserious this week has been.

Just in comparison to business, about 5 years ago I bought a business out of bankruptcy. I watched those business owners over the course of 2 or 3 years struggle to make a go of that business. You would not believe the number of hours those people, those hard-working Americans put in to save that business. It didn't work. They went into reorganization under the bankruptcy laws. I bought that business out of bankruptcy. I saw how incredibly hard my team worked to make that business survive, and it did survive. These are individuals putting in 16, 17, 18, 20 hours a day to make a product, to build a good life for themselves and their families, to provide employment, jobs.

This is the American spirit. That is the entrepreneurial spirit. That is what Americans do day in and day out, whether they own a business or whether they

contribute their effort: their labor to make their business successful, the one they work for successful. That is what Americans do.

What has this President done? What has this Congress done? What has this Senate done?

In the last 6 months since I have been here, we passed six laws, six bills that have become law. Three of those had to do with the continuing resolutions of last year's business: funding the government for this year. Those were laws that should have been passed 1 year ago, but it was left over for us to do that.

We had two bills to extend the PATRIOT Act. If we take a look at how that was even done, it was last minute, rush-rush, very little time for debate. We couldn't even get amendments in there.

Then, of course, the other one is we kind of cleaned up a little bit a little part of the health care law that dealt with 1099s, which would have been a nightmare. It would have cost billions of dollars to comply with and not brought in any revenue. So we finally got that off the books, thankfully.

The other bills we have debated, we spent 16 weeks debating three bills. The total dollar amount of those bills is $20 billion. That is about 1/2 percent of what this Federal Government will spend this year. So we have spent 16 weeks debating 1/2 percent of our $3.6-trillion-a-year budget. That, in my mind, is the definition of being not serious.

Of course, we have said it has been 799--tomorrow it will be 800--days since we actually passed a budget. This week we spent 15 hours of debate. We call it a sense-of-the-Senate resolution? It should be called the nonsense of the Senate. That is what has been occurring this week, and it is a tragedy. It is a tragedy.

But, again, that is why I stood up and started to object. I will continue to do that until we actually start getting serious, until we actually see a plan, a budget that we can start debating.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Well, the reason I ran is because we are bankrupting the Nation. I love America. We love America. When I watch what is happening, and when I saw how broken Washington was, when I saw them pass the health care law, from my standpoint that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Our first child, my daughter Carey, was born with a very serious congenital heart defect. Dedicated doctors and surgeons saved her life the first day. Then 8 months later, when her heart was the size of a plum, another dedicated surgical team of dedicated professionals totally reconstructed the upper chamber of her heart. Her heart operates backwards now. But she is 28 years old, and she is a nurse herself in a neonatal intensive care unit.

When I heard President Obama say these doctors, that they will take out a set of tonsils for a few extra bucks, I found that outrageous. Then when this Congress and this President signed the health care law, I know the result of that. It is designed to lead to a government takeover of our health care system.

All we have to do is take a look at Canada and Britain. We don't have to theorize what that is going to result in. It will lower the quality of care. It will result in rationing, and the medical innovation to save my daughter's life and millions of others--it really is America where medical miracles are created. I think that innovation is going to come to a grinding halt.

So that is just the quality aspect of the health care bill, but it is going to destroy our budget.

I wrote a piece with Douglas Holtz-Eakin, ex-CBO Director. Rather than $93 billion a year, when this bill kicks in, as it is designed to do, and a large percentage of Americans lose their health care employer coverage and get dumped into the exchanges, we are talking about a $ 1/2 trillion or maybe $900 billion.

I see we are running out of time, but that is why I ran, because we are bankrupting America.

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