Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011-Motion to Proceed-Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. President, I wish to say a few words about the debt ceiling that is rapidly approaching. But on this particular day, I cannot come to the floor and speak about anything without just making one, I guess I would say, note of personal privilege; that is, that today is a particularly sad day in my home State of Rhode Island because one of the great Rhode Islanders has passed away.

Former Gov. Bruce Sundlun, whom I worked for for many years and formed a very devoted affection for has died peacefully at home with his family after one of the most accomplished and eventful lives in Rhode Island history.

I know my senior Senator, Jack Reed, and I will be back on the floor at a later time to give Gov. Bruce Sundlun his proper due and recognition. But for all he has meant to me, for all he has meant to our State of Rhode Island, for all he has meant to the people whose lives have been made so much better or who have been protected from very bad outcomes by his courage and by his determination, I simply could not overlook that at this point. So more will follow on my dear friend, Bruce Sundlun.

So to the matter at hand. Less than 2 weeks from now, our Nation is going to hit its statutory borrowing limit, and it may begin, for the first time in its history, defaulting on its obligations.

Unless we act very soon, the Treasury of the United States of America, long the issuer of the safest and the most conservative securities in the world, will simply run out of money. Social Security checks, as the President has already said, would be at risk. Millions of American families would suddenly lose their household income. The Treasury would have to suddenly stop paying more than 4 out of every 10 Federal dollars, choking off all the economic activity supported by those funds.

Private sector projects across the country that depend on Federal dollars or Federal permits or Federal regulatory approval, all would grind to a halt--a catastrophic triple whammy on our economic activity.

In addition, an increase in interest rates would likely freeze investments and cause the financial markets to plummet. So reaching the decent limit will not just put us back into recession, it would risk economic calamity. With the stakes so high and with time so short, it is unfortunate that the House Republicans who created this completely unnecessary crisis have sent us this so-called cut, cap, and balance bill.

This bill, which cuts no tax loopholes, not one, and puts no cap on corporations offshoring jobs or earnings and dodging U.S. taxes, would do one thing: It would kill Medicare. Consistent with the Republican 2012 budget, this bill puts the costs of deficit reduction right down on those who can least afford it: senior citizens, the disabled, and our children.

The cut, cap, and kill Medicare plan the House Republicans have proposed would begin with steep cuts to Federal programs in 2011, while we are still in this recession, slashing domestic spending by over $111 billion, and eliminating 700,000 jobs from our economy when we need them the most.

It would also require immediate cuts to social safety net programs likely reducing--or eliminating even--student loans, Pell grants, school lunches, Medicaid, and food stamps, some of the most important programs to families who are struggling to get back on their feet during this prolonged period of high unemployment. This is simply unacceptable.

The second part of the cut, cap, and kill Medicare bill would limit Federal spending beyond 2012 to levels significantly lower than during the Reagan Presidency. In fact, our Nation has not seen spending at those low levels since 1966. Mr. President, 1966 was a time when only 9.2 percent of the population was retired and drawing benefits, compared with 12.9 percent today.

So the effects of those spending levels would be even harsher. The cap on Medicare and Social Security makes no adjustment for the $2.5 trillion of Social Security reserves that Americans have paid into that system, that the government then went and borrowed. It makes no adjustment for that being their money or for the aging population that we are experiencing.

So with a fixed cap, and baby boomers retiring in greater numbers, the Republican plan forces devastating cuts to Social Security and Medicare benefits. There is simply no other way. It would address our deficit in the worst way possible, by taking an axe to the retirement programs on which tens of millions of retired Americans rely and which most every working person in America looks forward to.

For ordinary Americans, this approach is wrong. Frankly, it is unthinkable, although it is the goal of a few determined extremists who are driving things within the House Republican Party.

Finally, the cut, cap, and kill Medicare bill would hold the debt limit hostage to an extremist constitutional amendment that has been widely criticized, even by many responsible voices on the right. If this dangerous constitutional amendment were to pass, the Congress of the United States would be unable to respond to an economic or national security emergency without steep supermajority votes, giving even more leverage to small extremist factions in Congress, as if it is not clear that is already not too much of a problem.

As dangerous, this constitutional amendment--this is hard to believe--this constitutional amendment would make it easier to cut Medicare and Social Security benefits than to take away tax subsidies from Big Oil, from offshoring corporations, and from billionaires. It would make it easier, as a matter of law, to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits than it would be to go after these special interest corporate tax loopholes and the gimmicks that allow billionaires to pay lower tax rates than truck drivers in this country.

It builds a constitutional preference for corporate and special interest loopholes into our Constitution, a Constitution renowned around the world for its commitment to equality. Into this great document that has shown the light of equality around the world, we would build a preference for corporate special interests over working people and the retirements they count on.

Constitutional amendments traditionally move this country forward. This would be a colossal step back. In summary, adding all those different features of the cut, cap and kill Medicare bill together, the Republicans in the House would require such severe spending cuts that the only way to achieve them--the only way to achieve them--would be to, in fact, get rid of Medicare as we know it and slash Social Security benefits for seniors.

It would hurt those who depend on government the most, while giving special protection to special interests and corporations with tax loopholes and subsidies that permit them to pay lower tax rates than middle-class families--in some cases, with some of our most profitable corporations--no taxes at all. That is what gets protected.

House Republicans know their cut, cap and kill Medicare plan has zero chance of passing the Senate. It is not going to happen--not now, not ever. It has already drawn a veto threat from President Obama. Nevertheless, as this deadline looms closer and closer, with those terrible consequences portending, the House Republican extremists have forced this piece of political theater while ignoring serious and constructive proposals for deficit reduction such as Budget Committee chairman Kent Conrad's plan, which would reduce deficits by $4 trillion, more than the House's budget plan. We actually do better at solving the deficit than they do.

But we do it with every dollar in spending cuts matched by a dollar in new revenue from closing tax loopholes and tax gimmicks. This plan would stabilize the budget and would reassure the financial markets, and would do so without cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits on which our seniors rely and which all working Americans are counting on. It is one of the basic freedoms we have as Americans--to know that that is waiting for us.

I was proud to introduce a resolution earlier this month which would express the sense of the Senate that ``any agreement to reduce the budget deficit should not include cuts to Social Security benefits or Medicare benefits.'' I am grateful to Senators Blumenthal, Sherrod Brown, Merkley, Franken, Boxer, and Gillibrand who have joined with me on the resolution, and I invite all of my colleagues to do the same.

The Conrad budget proves that we need not attack Medicare and Social Security to deal with our deficit. His budget is living proof that there is no reason to attack Medicare and Social Security to get through our deficit situation. That attack on Medicare and Social Security is a willful and unnecessary act by the Republicans.

Well, Rhode Islanders, in increasing numbers, have been writing to me urging me to continue fighting to preserve these retirement programs, to preserve this infrastructure of American freedom. Time is running short, and Americans are counting on their elected representatives to do the right thing. It is time to do the right thing.

Let me close by reading a piece from an editorial in The Economist magazine. The Economist is a very conservative publication, and it is very much in favor of free markets. I would say, by and large, it is a Republican journal. Here is what The Economist said about the situation we are in now:

The sticking point is not on the spending side. It is because the vast majority of Republicans, driven on by the wilder eyed members of their party and the cacophony of conservative media, are clinging to the position that not a single cent of deficit reduction must come from a higher tax take. This is economically illiterate and disgracefully cynical ..... even Ronald Reagan raised taxes when he needed to do so. And the closer you look, the more unprincipled the Republicans look. Earlier this year, House Republicans produced a report noting that an 85 percent to 15 percent split between spending cuts and tax rises was the average for successful fiscal consolidations, according to historical evidence. The White House is offering an 83 percent to 17 percent split (hardly a huge distance) and a promise that none of the revenue increase will come from higher marginal rates, only from eliminating loopholes. If the Republicans were real tax reformers, they would seize this offer. Both parties have in recent months been guilty of fiscal recklessness. Right now, though, the blame falls clearly on the Republicans. Independent voters should take note.

So it is not just Democratic Senators coming to the floor to point out that the crisis we are at is an unnecessary one. It is a manufactured crisis, a crisis driven by extremism, and it is a crisis that threatens the survival of Medicare and Social Security--two cornerstone programs in the economic security and in the freedom of ordinary Americans.

I yield the floor.

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