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

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, since I was sworn into office this January, about 6 months ago, the House and the Senate have both been understandably and properly concerned with one issue that has perhaps eclipsed every other issue that has come before us in this half-year period of time; that related to our national debt and the anticipated expiration of our debt limit which will hit in just a couple weeks. Many Americans are understandably concerned and have articulated the concern that if we pass the debt limit deadline of August 2 without raising the debt limit, there could be catastrophic financial consequences.

In light of that, I, along with a number of my Republican colleagues both in the Senate and in the House, have introduced legislation called the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act to address the debt limit, to address it head on. It says we will raise the debt limit if three conditions are met: first, that we make significant cuts to domestic discretionary spending for the fiscal year 2012 budget; second, we need statutory spending caps to put us on a smooth but steady glidepath toward balancing our budget sometime within the next decade; third, we need a balanced budget amendment passed out of Congress and submitted to the States for ratification.

We think all three of these steps are necessarily required before we take the significant additional step of raising the debt limit. Because of the fact that it took us a long time to get to this point, the point where, by the end of the year, we will have accumulated $15 trillion in debt--about $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in America, between $120,000 and $150,000 for every wage earner in America; this is a lot of money--before we extend that debt limit again by an additional $2.4 trillion, we have to solve the problem. We have to address the problem that led to its creation in a real, lasting, binding fundamental way.

That is why the most critical part of this legislation, while each part is important, happens to be found in that which rests upon the idea of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We as Members of Congress could decide right now that over the next 10 years or 15 years, it might be a good idea to cut spending by $2 trillion, $3 trillion, $4 trillion, $5 trillion, $6 trillion, perhaps more--but if we made that promise today as a downpayment to the American people in exchange for the permission of the people to raise the debt limit, it is a promise we cannot make good on because we cannot bind a future Congress.

This Congress was sworn in in January of 2011. Elections will be held in November of 2012 and a new Congress will be sworn in based on those elections in January 2013. The same thing will happen again in January 2015 and every 2 years after that for the duration of our Republic. The decisions we make right here, right now can affect the here and now and can be binding for the here and now, but we cannot reasonably expect and we cannot ask the American people, when making a decision so long-lasting and precedent-setting as this one, to simply trust us that future Congresses will see things the same way we do.

The only way we can bind a future Congress is by amending our law of laws, that 224-year-old document painstakingly ironed out by some of the brightest men of the last several centuries in Philadelphia 224 years ago.

When we amend the Constitution, we make it possible to bind a future Congress. That is what we need to do. We have had some interesting debate and discussion surrounding this proposal. Last Friday, I listened with surprise and dismay as our President said we don't need to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget, but we do need to balance our budget. In the opinion of the President, Congress just needs to do its job, not amend the Constitution.

I think I understand his point. I think he is suggesting that for Congress to do its job it needs to balance its budget. But I have to ask the question, how has that worked out for us? Have past Congresses balanced their budgets? Has the current Congress balanced its budget? Overwhelmingly, the answer is no. It happens every now and then. Some would describe those instances where it has balanced in the last two or three decades as an accident; others, a momentary blip; still others would suggest it was the product of accounting gimmickry rather than an actual act of budget balancing when that occurred.

Regardless, we know that balanced Federal budgets are newsworthy indeed because they are very rare. I look forward to the day when they are no longer newsworthy, when they are customary, and the only way to make them customary, based on our experience as Americans throughout most of our Nation's history, is by amending the Constitution to require it, to make this a binding and permanent law.

I was shocked and dismayed again to learn that our Senate majority leader, Senator Reid from Nevada, stated just a few hours ago that he does not like this legislation. He made some very disparaging comments about it, notwithstanding the fact and completely ignoring the fact that this is not just the best legislation to address the debt limit issue, right now it is the only legislation. It is the only legislation that addresses this issue that is moving through Congress and that has been reduced to legislative language. It is certainly the only one that has been passed by one body of Congress and is now moving over to the Senate.

He is criticizing something when he himself has not offered anything. This is the only show in town. Given how close we now are to the August 2 deadline and, in part, because we punted this so long and, in part, because we have not been having the debate and discussion in Congress we should have been having for months, this is it. This is the only proposal.

If Senator Reid has suggestions on how we might change this proposal, I am all ears. I would love to hear what they are. If he has his own proposal, I would love to see what that is. But simply to stand from that desk over there and disparage this legislation is inexcusable, absolutely inexcusable, given the fact that he has offered nothing.

Let me read some of his words. He said: ``The American people should understand that this''--``this'' meaning the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act--``is a bad piece of legislation, perhaps some of the worst legislation in the history of this country.''

I don't know what he is referring to. He didn't give specifics, nor has he given any specifics on what he would like to see in its place or how it could be improved. My suggestion to our Senate majority leader is, if he has ideas, please put them on the table because, as we approach this debt limit deadline, we are running out of time. The clock has been ticking for 6 months. We have known this was going to happen. This is not news to us.

Why, then, has there been so little debate and discussion in this body? Why is it that we spent weeks and weeks and weeks, often dealing with legislation that paled in comparison to the importance of this issue. The clock kept ticking and we kept debating and discussing other legislation far less important.

This, in my opinion, was a gross dereliction of duty. But we still have a few weeks. We can still deal with it. We can still address it. I suggest strongly that we address it by starting with that legislation that has actually been proposed and that we have full debate and discussion.

But, no, we are told. Even after the House of Representatives earlier this week passed the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, passed it with bipartisan support, by the way--no fewer than five members of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives voted to support this. That was passed Tuesday night. We were told later we would be having a vote on Saturday or perhaps Monday. Then, just a little while ago, we were informed by the Senate majority leader that the vote would be tomorrow, giving us little or no time for actual debate and discussion on the floor of what is still, to this moment, the only legislation moving through to address this issue.

This is not an appropriate moment for demagoguery. Demagoguery on an issue this important can result in a lot of unnecessary pain. No one disputes that there could be significant negative economic consequences associated with not raising the debt limit. I do not dispute that, not for a moment. That is exactly why I put my neck on the line in order to file this legislation because nothing else was moving forward. I didn't want to do it, but when I was sworn in as a Senator just a few months ago, I understood it was my obligation to do what I could to make things better, to make our constitutional system work. So I filed it.

It is an insult, not only to me and to my colleagues but to all Americans when addressing an issue this important, to have so little debate and discussion over this issue. I find it appalling. I find it reprehensible. I demand an explanation, and I demand an alternative solution, if the Senate majority leader is going to pick this apart and say he will not do it. Moreover, I will remind the Senate majority leader that just a few short years ago, in 2006, when we had a different President, belonging to a different party, and this body was in control of another party, if my memory serves me correctly not only did then-Senator Barack Obama vote against raising the debt limit, calling the need to do so the product of a failure of leadership that he was not willing to condone and perpetuate, but every single one of his Democratic colleagues joined him in that vote. Not one of them voted to raise the debt limit.

Here we are again approaching the debt limit. Here we are again with only Republicans stepping to the plate and offering a solution. Only this time the solution is a permanent one. Unfortunately, in 2006 and prior and in subsequent debt limit extension votes, there was no serious debate attached to it as to a permanent solution.

We have to amend the governing document, the law of laws, the only kind of law that can bind future Congresses in order to solve this problem. We have to do it now. This is part of what it means to be an American.

We, as Americans, crave liberty and we eschew tyranny to any degree. Every single time we authorize deficit spending we fuel the unfettered expansion of the Federal Government and all its power. We commit ourselves and our posterity to a future that will include working more and more hours and days and weeks and even months just to pay their Federal tax bills every single year. That is time they will not get back. That is time we will not get back. That erodes our individual liberty.

It also erodes our liberty when the same regulatory structure that exists today grows bigger and bigger every year because we are borrowing now more than $1.5 trillion every single year--not because of some aberrational condition, some unusual development that requires an unusual expenditure of borrowed money, but just to cover our basic day-to-day operations. This is what fuels the perpetual expansion of government, and when government expands perpetually, our individual liberty is diminished, unfortunately, and to a corresponding degree. This is unacceptable.

But there is a way home. The way home is found in limiting the role of government. We can limit the role of government most effectively at this point in time, I believe, by limiting the pool of money to which Congress has access. The only way to do that is through a constitutional amendment.

I wish to close by addressing one final argument that sometimes has been used in response to and against the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. Many of its detractors are making the claim that I find extraordinary, a claim that says: Why are you even supporting this because it can't pass. It is a little bit akin to saying: Why do we even play the Super Bowl when it is expected that one team is going to beat the other team. We have to play. But this one is not a game. This one is for real.

When we vote after debating and discussing, Members of this body can and will be held accountable to our constituents. So it will be up to me and each of my colleagues in this body to decide how to vote on this issue. For those who make the unfortunate decision to vote against this, notwithstanding the fact that 75 percent of the American people strongly support the idea of a balanced budget amendment; notwithstanding the fact that 66 percent of Americans--both of these figures according to a CNN poll today--support the principles underlying cut, cap, and balance; notwithstanding the fact that this is the only permanent way of solving our debt problem, if Members of Congress and Members of this body choose to vote against this legislation, they will do so, I believe, at their own peril.

They will have to face their constituents and explain why a handful of them were unwilling to raise the debt limit, unwilling to address this problem, unwilling to fix the perpetual deficit spending habit of Congress simply because they did not want a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. I think that is a tall order. I think that is difficult to explain. I think those who try to make that explanation to their constituents will do so at their own political peril. But, more importantly, the vote they cast will be at the peril of the people of the United States of America, of their liberty, of their economic stability and of their ability to prosper now and in the future.

We can turn this ship around, but in order do it we need robust debate and discussion, and our constituents deserve more. The American people deserve more than to have the kind of sleight-of-hand scheduling and the kind of dismissive, cavalier attitude toward what is being characterized correctly by many as the fight of an entire generation.

We need to pass the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. It is not only the best solution, it is the only solution. The time is running out, and I urge each of my colleagues to support this.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Utah. I am just a bit taken aback by the majority leader's decision to alter the course that I thought we were on that would allow for debate and work on a bill to deal with the budget, the debt ceiling, and our budget deficit tomorrow. In some of his comments he made today after he changed his mind yesterday, he said:

I'm committed to allowing a fair and full debate on this bill. I want the proponents and opponents to have time to air their views.

And so forth. Then he says:

I think this piece of legislation is about as weak and senseless as anything that has ever come before the Senate. I am not going to waste the Senate's time day after day on this piece of legislation which I think is an anathema to what our country is about.

And he goes on to say:

The American people should understand this is a bad piece of legislation, perhaps the worst legislation in the history of this country.

That is what the majority leader said just a few hours ago. Well, let me ask Senator Lee--he is newly elected from the State of Utah. He has traveled all over the State.

Did the Senator share with his people at various times in his efforts that he thought a constitutional amendment, like so many States have to contain spending, is good and sound policy? Did they hold that against the Senator or does he think his election was an affirmation of the cry of the American people that we take some action that would actually constrain spending?

Mr. LEE. On countless occasions throughout the State of Utah, I have articulated the fact that I believe we have no business raising the debt limit without first adopting permanent structural change in the form of a constitutional balanced budget amendment. The people of Utah elected me in part based on that promise. Elections have consequences, and in my case this was one of them.

Mr. SESSIONS. I am flabbergasted by the majority leader's comments. He said:

I think this piece of legislation is about as weak and senseless as anything that has ever come up on the Senate floor.

Well, wouldn't the Senator say that compared to all the other legislation we are talking about passing--and some of it has some teeth to it, I acknowledge--but compared to all of that, a constitutional amendment that requires us to live within our means is certainly not a weak piece of legislation.

Mr. LEE. I would hardly call it weak. Quite to the contrary. Calls for legislation such as this date back a couple of hundred years. Thomas Jefferson was arguably the first one to suggest this kind of proposal. He called for it again and again, and those calls have continued throughout most of our history, but they have accelerated in recent decades. They have accelerated because this body has refused to balance its budget, and it has abused its borrowing power to the point we are spending more than $1.5 trillion a year more than we bring in. It is bankrupting our country. We are burying our children under a mountain of debt. We are killing jobs, we are spending money we don't have, and that is wrong.

I would hardly call legislation designed to deal with that in a permanent binding way senseless, and I am insulted that the majority leader would suggest that this is somehow senseless just because he doesn't like it because it will make him less powerful.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, I think that is getting to the nub of the matter. I think it is a sense in which--now for a constitutional amendment to pass, it has to have a two-thirds vote in the Congress, both Houses, and three-fourths of the States. Once passed, no majority leader could come in next year and say: Well, I know I have been in favor of balanced budgets, but I don't want to do it this year. I have more spending I want to occur.

It would, indeed, curb the power of the majority leader and actually some newly constituted Senate to spend more money than the government takes in, would it not?

Mr. LEE. Yes, it would. The whole purpose of the balanced budget amendment is to restrict our power and give that power back to the people where it belongs. The power has been abused here. It has been abused over a prolonged period of time, and it has been abused to a severe degree. This is why the election of 2010 brought about some significant outcomes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I couldn't agree more. I think the American people rightly have concluded that our Congress of the United States that borrows 40 percent of the amount of money it spends--because it is spending more money than it takes in--is acting irresponsibly.

As I have noted earlier, somebody said: Oh, you know, the tea party is angry. Well, why shouldn't they be angry? We have completely mismanaged the American people's business. We are elected to be responsible leaders. Nobody, I believe, would come to the floor of this Senate--I would like to see if it happens--and defend what we are doing, borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend no matter what it is on. And the President proposed his budget for next year that would include a 10-percent increase for education, 10-percent increase for energy, 10-percent increase for the State Department, and we are spending money that we don't have.

So I think a constitutional amendment would require a major participation by the American people and all the States of America would discuss it. If the American people decide they believe Congress needs to be restrained and pass that constitutional amendment, what is wrong with that? Isn't that a legitimate way for the American people to have their voices expressed according to the Constitution?

Mr. LEE. There is nothing wrong with it, and quite to the contrary. This is exactly the kind of activity that our Constitution contemplates, authorizes, and with good reason. I should note here it is significant that in this body each State is represented equally. A relatively small State such as mine, the State of Utah, has the same number of Senators as a large, heavily populated State such as California or such as New York because we represent the States. We represent the States as States.

One of our jobs is to make sure that their sovereign interests are vindicated in this body. To suggest that we should not balance our budget, to suggest that we should not propose a balanced budget to be considered by the States--keeping in mind that it is the States ultimately that ratify it if three-fourths of them choose to do so--is insulting to the very States we represent. It somehow suggests our States can't handle it when the States overwhelmingly, almost every one of them, balance their budgets every year.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, I agree with that, and it is just odd to me--and contrary to the heritage of the Senate--for the majority leader to assume as much power as is being assumed now. I am ranking member on the Budget Committee, and essentially the Democratic leadership told the Budget Committee not to even mark up a budget this year even though the statutes of the United States in the United States Code require Congress to have a budget.

I know the Senator is a skilled lawyer. His father was Solicitor General of the United States. It is probably the most prestigious position a lawyer can have in America, in my opinion. To be able to stand before the U.S. Supreme Court and to represent the U.S. Government in court is an honor that is very high. So he is a student of the law, and I know he is familiar with the statutes of the United States that require a budget. It doesn't say you go to jail if you don't, I will admit, but it says we should have a budget.

Does the Senator think the people in Utah--and I think the people in Alabama--would think we should have a budget because it is the right thing to do, No. 1, and, No. 2, we should do it because it is the law?

Mr. LEE. It is the law, and notwithstanding the fact that we don't have a court order enjoining us to do that, we still have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution. I think that means especially on an issue so fundamental, so important, so sweeping as the budgeting process, we should be complying with that law or at least making an effort to do so.

What I see here is not only a lack of effort to comply with that law but a deliberate, conscious effort made with malice aforethought to avoid the law. That is damaging. That is wrong.

Mr. SESSIONS. The House of Representatives passed this bill. They passed it by more than a few votes to spare and sent it here. I believe if the American people knew what was in it, they would favor it. The people in my State would favor it. I think the American people would favor it. How does the Senator think the good people in the House, the good people of America, who overwhelmingly favor a restraint in spending and balancing our budget, would feel about the leader curtailing our debate on this important subject and saying:

I think this piece of legislation is about as weak and senseless as anything that has ever come on this Senate floor. I'm not going to waste the Senate's time.

Mr. LEE. I think the American people would be profoundly disappointed by that statement. More importantly, they would be profoundly disgusted by the fact that it wasn't enough for the Senate majority leader simply to say: I disagree with it or to point out areas in which he might disagree with it or might want to improve upon it. He went so far as to say it is not even worth our time to debate and discuss this. That smacks of tyranny. Americans don't respond well to tyranny, and this is unacceptable.

Mr. SESSIONS. I have to say I think we are having a problem in the Senate. I consider the majority leader a friend. I know it is a very difficult job. I have said that many times. I wouldn't want it. Trent Lott said it is like herding cats or it is like pushing a wheelbarrow with frogs; you put one in and two jump out.

It is a tough job, but he asked for it.

The Senate is a great institution. I don't know what Robert Byrd, the late Senator from West Virginia, would say if he were here. I think I know. I think he would be very uneasy about the process we have gone through this year when, through the power of the Chair, the majority leader has blocked legislation after legislation, has blocked us moving forward with a budget, refusing to allow the committees to move forward, and refused to allow the budget even to come up last year.

We are now I think 812 days without a budget in the Senate, running the largest deficits the Nation has ever run, and those deficits are not transient. They are not going to turn around when the economy picks up a little bit. It is a systemic, deep, structural problem, and we are endangering our future. We are being blocked from even being able to discuss it while people meet in secret over at the White House with the Vice President, with the President, and a few others meet with a group of Senators. Nobody elected them, but they are good people. If they want to meet, that is fine. We need to be seeing legislation, actual bills we can take to committee and score and see how much they cost.

Being the student of American law and the Constitution as the Senator from Utah is, and being knowledgeable about common people, does the Senator think the American people think there is something wrong with this process, where we have gone all year long and not done anything of significance to deal with the most significant issue facing our Nation maybe in the next decade, and that is the size of our debt?

Mr. LEE. Absolutely. Absolutely. Look, the American people understand that power is most dangerous in government when it is consolidated into the hands of a few people. It becomes even more dangerous when that power is wielded under cover of darkness.

The great thing about sunlight is it illuminates and it disinfects. We need that illumination and that disinfectant during that process, because it is corrupt. A process that allows something of such profound importance to be decided by a handful of people, who tell their colleagues: You plebeians don't worry about it; this is for us high-minded people; we will decide; you will follow; and we will do it in such a way that you won't have time to read it, to review it, to debate it, to discuss it; this is corrupt, and it has to end.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I think what the Senator has said is sadly too truthful. I do believe this is a corruption of the process. I believe it has been happening over a period of time since I have been here. I have seen it happen more and more. Both parties have done a lot of this, but I do believe it has reached a new height this year.

I think Senator Reid believes in the Senate. I think he respects the Senate. I do. But I think he is under constant pressure, and they have decided that--some of his Members, I guess, didn't want to stay here this weekend. They wanted to go home. They had a speech they wanted to give or a party they wanted to attend or a fundraising event they wanted to go to, so they don't want to stay here this weekend. Just yesterday, I think it was, Senator Reid was complaining about the House going home this weekend, and promising we would stay here and we would work. Now, all of a sudden, anybody who stays here and wants to vote on a bill that passed by a substantial majority in the House of Representatives, he says is acting--he says the bill is anathema to the Senate, and senseless, and not worth our time to talk about. How does he get to decide this?

Mr. LEE. He gets to decide it only if we allow him to decide it. We outnumber him, and if we vote contrary to his will, we can overrule him. If enough Members of this body are willing to stand up for truth and justice and the American way, debate and discussion and the rule of law, this thing he is trying to do to us won't happen. We can have actual debate and discussion.

We have responded. We have responded politely and well to his directive that we would stay here this weekend. We had made plans. We have canceled plans in our home States. All of a sudden, his high and mighty speech earlier this week telling us we had to stay here is no longer important when he disagrees with some legislation we put forward. He would rather shut down debate and discussion. He would rather end the process that is absolutely necessary to avert this crisis that is quickly coming than he would to have to confront the facts, offer up his own solution and respond to the valid points that have been made in this debate and in this discussion.

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