Balanced Budget Amendment

Floor Speech

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Ms. AYOTTE. I thank my colleague from South Dakota. This is such an important issue, as he has pointed out, and as his constituent has written him.

As a mother of two children, I am deeply concerned with what is going to happen to the next generation if we continue to kick this can down the road and if we don't use common sense to balance our budget.

I have heard from constituents in New Hampshire--and I am sure the Senator from South Dakota hears the same--that basically only in Washington would the notion of balancing your budget be called ``extreme.''

It is common sense that you can't spend more money than you have. We need to pass the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan, because it is a commonsense proposal to ensure that we don't continue along this cycle of continuing to increase our debt and not have a plan to pay our bills.

And borrowing money from China--that has to stop. When you think about all the money we have borrowed from a country such as China, which doesn't share our values--right now, there is no other plan that has been presented but the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan, which was just passed by the House. We can do this now and put our nation on a path to a balanced budget and make sure that the Senator's constituents--and I know he is a father as well--and our children don't bear the burden of our failure to make the tough decisions today. We owe it not only to everybody in our generation but to our children and our grandchildren.

I wanted to ask the Senator from South Dakota this: The cut, cap, and balance plan puts emphasis on cutting spending instead of raising taxes to bring down our deficit and our $14 trillion debt. Does he believe that is the right approach for America?

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Ms. AYOTTE. I thank my colleague. What I have heard from my constituents in New Hampshire--and we do have a requirement to balance our budget, and it is not easy to make those tough choices--is that they do not understand why in Washington there is controversy over the notion of balancing the budget because at home people are balancing their budgets. Families balance their budgets, and businesses balance their budgets.

I meet with businesspeople, and they look at me in disbelief and say: I don't understand why in Washington they don't look at what they have to spend and then stick within a strict budget. It really comes down to common sense.

One of the biggest issues I have heard about from my constituents is that they are concerned that it has been over 2 years--over 800 days--since the Democrat-controlled Senate last passed a budget. The notion that we have been operating without a budget and running well over trillion-dollar deficits and haven't sat down and done the hard work of rolling up our sleeves, allowing the Budget Committee to do its work, astounds New Hampshire citizens because they understand that if we don't have a basic spending blueprint for our country, the end result is that we are going to continue to run up deficits and spend money we don't have, borrowing from countries such as China, which doesn't share our values.

One of the things that is very important about this cut, cap, and balance plan is that it cuts $111 billion in fiscal year 2012 and it places firm caps on future spending, contingent upon the House and Senate passing a balanced budget amendment, which is so important.

As we have talked about, let's let the States decide. Really, this is about sending it to the people of this country and allowing them to say whether we should balance our budget. I know what the answer will be in New Hampshire. They will say: Yes, please, balance the budget.

If you look at where we are, as Senator Thune has mentioned, with respect to spending in terms of the size of our economy, we are over 24 percent of our GDP that we are spending right now--well above our historical level, well above the amount of money we are bringing in. Yet the only fiscal plan the President brought forward would massively increase our debt over the next decade, so much so that not even one Member of his own party in the Senate voted for that budget.

So when we talk about a real plan to get America back on track, this cut, cap, and balance plan has a very commonsense approach. We will cut spending right away, put together a responsible fiscal plan for America, and then make sure we have those caps in place so we don't continue to spend close to 24, 25 percent of our GDP. I mean, the President has increased our debt 35 percent since he has been in office.

Finally, let's put to the States the question of whether they think it makes sense to balance our budget. I think we know what the answer will be. They will say: Yes, please balance your budget, as we have to do at home, as we do in State government.

The other issue we are facing right now is, of course, what the rating agencies have said about our failure to handle this fiscal crisis. We have heard about the concerns that if we do not come up with a credible plan that really cuts spending right now, our credit ratings will be threatened. That will further impact our economy, and that is why we can't continue to put off the tough decisions. This cut, cap, and balance plan will put forward $6 trillion of cuts over the next decade. That will help make sure we preserve our credit ratings for this country. It will make sure we focus on real economic growth that get people back to work.

If we raise taxes the way CBO has suggested based on the questions from Senator Gregg and Congressman Ryan, we know that is going to hurt the American taxpayer. It is going to hurt job creators in this country.

I also happen to come from a small business family. I know the impact of raising taxes in the way that was described. If we have to raise taxes to address the spending problem we have in Washington, it is going to hurt our small businesses--those who create the jobs in this country--and that is the last thing we should be doing when we have over a 9-percent unemployment rate.

So I hope my colleagues will pass the cut, cap, and balance plan right away. The House has passed it, and we can raise the debt ceiling with a responsible plan to cut spending right away, impose spending caps, and send a balanced budget amendment to the States.

I would ask my colleague from South Dakota, when the Senator was first elected, before he served in the Senate, I know he had a career in the House of Representatives and served the people of South Dakota there. There was a vote on the balanced budget amendment at the time in the Senate, and it only failed by one vote. What does the Senator believe our current fiscal situation would be had the balanced budget amendment passed the Senate at that time?

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Ms. AYOTTE. I thank my colleague from South Dakota. And I, too, hope we will have bipartisan support for this cut, cap, and balance plan. It is so critical, and as the President's own fiscal commission said:

Our challenge is clear and inescapable. America cannot be great if we go broke. Our businesses will not be able to grow and create jobs and our workers will not be able to compete successfully for the jobs of the future without a plan to get this crushing debt burden off our backs.

Well, the cut, cap, and balance plan will help get this crushing debt burden off our backs to allow our job creators to actually create jobs.

Also, when we think about starting from where we began this discussion, our children, we have to act now. I don't want my two children looking at me one day in the future and saying: Mom, what did you do about the fiscal crisis that everybody saw coming? Right now in the Senate, we can come together around this cut, cap, and balance plan. Once and for all, let's commit to passing a balanced budget amendment. Let's send that question to the States. Let's let the people of this country weigh in, because we know they will weigh in with common sense because they do it at the State level, they do it at a family level, they do it in their small businesses.

So I, too, hope we will work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle; that we will get this cut, cap, and balance plan passed. I look forward to working with all the Senators in this Chamber, and particularly the Senator from South Dakota who, I know, has been such an advocate and such a strong fiscal conservative, wanting to preserve our country and the greatness of America to make sure we get this plan passed now.

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