Establishing the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays

Floor Speech

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Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I rise on the floor today to speak on the tremendous issue that has captivated the attention of our country.

I do not enjoy or relish the partisan role of attack dog. I never found any fun in that. I don't think it is constructive, and I don't intend to become that in the Senate.

I have only been here for 7 months, which means I haven't been here long enough to think any of the stuff that is going on is normal. I certainly don't think anything that goes on around here too often is normal. So I think the fact that I have only been here for 7 months has served me well in that regard.

One of the things I have noticed this week is that Washington is full of--and rightfully so--people from all over the world and our country who have traveled here this week to come and watch their government at work and to see the monuments of the city, and they have found themselves in the middle of this debate.

I think it is important to remind people about what we are debating. It is not a complicated issue. It is straightforward, and here is the way I describe it. The United States--and these are rough numbers but accurate--spends about $300 billion a month. It has $180 billion a month that comes to the Federal Government through taxes and other sources of revenue. That means that in order to meet its bills at the end of every month, it needs to borrow $120 billion.

For much of the history of this country, there have been increases in the debt limit and the ability to borrow money. But what has happened over the last few years is that it is no longer a routine vote because the people who give us our credit rating are saying: Too much of the money you spend every month is borrowed, and we want you to show us how over the next 10 years you are going to borrow less as a percentage of what you spend. So that is why, for years, where the debt limit was routine, it can no longer be routine.

This wasn't just made up in a conservative think tank. The reality is that we cannot continue to borrow 40 to 41 percent of every dollar the government spends, which is what brought us to this point. You would think that, seeing that, our government and leaders in both parties would react to that immediately and work on it.

I have heard a lot of talk today about delaying tactics and delaying votes. I argue to you that this issue has been delayed at least for the last 2 1/2 years. In the 2 years before I even came here, neither this Chamber nor the other proposed or passed a budget. It is a startling figure that for the last 2 years this government has operated without a budget. Think about that. Two years have gone by without a budget.

The first 2 years President Obama was in office, no budget. Some people would stay: Well, that is because of the partisanship in Washington. That is not true. In the 2 years before I got here, the House and Senate were controlled by members of the Democratic Party, the President's party. In this Chamber, in at least 1 of those 2 years, they had 60 votes; 60 out of the 100 Members here caucused with the Democrats. On Christmas Eve of 2009, they were able to pass a health care bill that was very controversial because they had the 60 votes in the President's party.

Do you know how long it has been since this Chamber proposed a budget? It has been 822 days. That is a long time. A lot of things have happened in the last 822 days, but proposing a budget is not one of them. We got here in January. Seven months have passed, and there is still no budget. Again, there has not been a budget passed, proposed, or offered, and there is still no budget--822 days and every single day I have been here.

In the last 7 days on this debt debate, we have finally seen a proposal from the Senator from Nevada, the majority leader. You would think he would have brought it to the floor. Not until last night. Again, he offered a proposal over the weekend, and still for 6 days we sat around and we did nothing around here. It was never brought to a vote.

You would think these issues would have been worked on in January, February, and March--nothing. This Chamber has done nothing. Talk about delay tactics--they have been delaying for 2 1/2 years.

The President doesn't have the luxury of some of these things. By law, he has to propose a budget. And he did. I will tell you how ridiculous that budget was. Not a single Member of the Senate voted for it, including Democrats. It increased the debt. That is how absurd the budget was.

Where is the President's plan? We have not seen it. Here is the President's plan: a blank sheet of paper. He hasn't offered a plan. Again, if this were a Republican President, I would say the same thing. I do not understand how, on an issue of this magnitude, of this generational importance, the President of the United States has not offered a plan. If somebody has seen the President's plan, please send it to me because nobody else has seen it. It doesn't exist.

This has been their plan all along, by the way. The plan all along was not to take a position, let the days count down until we got to this point, with 72 hours to go, and force a vote on something they wanted. I believe that has been the plan the entire time. You can see it carrying itself out.

Do you want to know why people across America get grossed out by politics? It is by watching this kind of stuff happening. First of all, today and for much of this time, I have heard attacks and name-calling. If we had $1 billion for every time I hear the words ``tea party extremists,'' we could solve the debt problem.

Let me read some quotes about the debt limit. I found some pretty extreme quotes, and here is one:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.

That is from a tea party extremist, right? No. This is a quote from March 16, 2006, from then-Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

I found another extremist quote:

Because this massive accumulation of debt was predicted, because it was foreseeable, because it was unnecessary, because it was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management, I am voting against the debt limit increase.

That must be a tea party extremist Member of the House, right? No. This is from March 16, 2006, from Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.

Last but not least is a quote from September 27, 2007:

I find it distasteful and disturbing to increase the debt limit yet again. Clearly, we need to change course. And this debt limit bill is just another reminder of that.

That is Majority Leader Reid from Nevada on that date in 2007.

Yet now these same quotes in this context, where we are talking about raising the debt limit more than it has ever been raised in one vote, is extremism? This name-calling is absurd, and it sets this process back.

The other thing I hear: Oh, it is not reasonable. It is a waste of time. This bill cannot pass the Senate--talking about the House bill. Does that disqualify a bill? Well, the Senate bill cannot even pass in the Senate.

Mr. KERRY. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. RUBIO. Yes.

Mr. KERRY. I thank the Senator, and I appreciate it.

I ask the Senator this: As ironic as it may be that on

occasion people in the past have indeed voted against the debt limit--both Republicans and Democrats alike--is it not true that in those situations, those votes did not hold the Nation hostage, did not come at a moment of enormous economic fragility, as we are in today, and did not run the risk of default because it was going to pass overwhelmingly every time? Is that not true?

Mr. RUBIO. I will say two things. First, if the Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, had gotten his way, we would have been in the same position we are in right now. He voted against it. The President has now said he made a mistake and would not have said that were he here today. My point is that the rhetoric 2 years ago was not considered extremist language.

Now, I think it is a myth. There may be a handful of people in the House and Senate, perhaps, who believe the Nation doesn't have to raise the debt limit, but by and large everybody recognizes that something must be done about it. I speak for myself, not for any other Member of the Chamber.

What I have also said is that it would be a terrible mistake to lose this opportunity to do something meaningful about the debt and that the debt limit gives us an opportunity to do something meaningful about the debt because the crisis America faces is not one I have defined but one defined by the ratings houses and agencies that have said: If you do not get spending in order, we don't care whether you raise the debt limit or not, we will downgrade you. What that means is an increase in interest payments for every American.

Mr. KERRY. If the Senator will yield, I appreciate what the Senator is saying. First of all, everybody understands the danger of the rating agencies right now. The problem is, we have to reach across the aisle and negotiate. We have to come to an agreement. Right now, there is not a lot of negotiating going on.

I ask the Senator if he doesn't agree that there is an enormous difference between the--a moment ago, the Senator said ``if he had gotten his way.'' The whole point is that everybody knew he wasn't about to get his way. That was a truly symbolic vote. Today, however, is it not true that we are on the brink of a default, and the absence of negotiation or of a settlement presents us with a far more serious consequence to the unwillingness to raise the debt ceiling today?

Mr. RUBIO. I just ask, is it possible to negotiate with someone who does not have a plan or will not offer a plan or put a plan on the table? The finger-pointing is relevant, but it is not an essential issue here.

Also, in March of this year--March 30, to be exact--I wrote an op-ed piece that ran in the Wall Street Journal which outlined the things I was looking for to be a part of this debate. I was told in March of this year that we didn't have enough time to do all those things, although later we found that perhaps we did--this grand bargain.

I am prepared, as I stand here today, if there is a meeting going on after this, I am prepared to discuss the things I believe we need to do, not just to raise the debt limit--raising the debt limit is the easiest thing this country has to do right now. That is one vote away. It is hard to show the world we are serious about putting our spending in order so that we can pay our bills down the road.

That is a combination of things I have outlined very clearly not just in March of this year in the Wall Street Journal but in repeated speeches on this floor.

We need to do two things. We need to grow our economy. While the debt is the biggest issue in Washington, jobs are the biggest issue facing America. If we can get more people back to work, we will have more people paying taxes. If we had more people paying taxes, we would have more revenue for our government.

So that is the first thing we need to do, figure out how we can create jobs in America, and I think there is bipartisan agreement on what we can do to do that.

The President himself mentioned regulatory reform as a necessity in his State of the Union. Let's do it. We have all talked about tax reform--flattening and simplifying our Tax Code. If there are things in that Tax Code that do not belong there because they are the process of good lobbying instead of good policy, then let's go after those things. Let's talk about that.

I think we all agree there have to be some changes in discretionary spending. But we also agree that doesn't solve the problem. That is a small piece of our overall budget. We have to save Medicare, because it goes bankrupt if we leave it the way it is. We have to save Medicaid, because it goes bankrupt if we leave it the way it is.

I can tell that you history will back me up on what I am about to say. There is no government--run by conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, put whoever you want there--if given the opportunity, that will not spend more money than it has. It will do it. It will do it every time. That is why I believe there are at least 20 Members of the Senate in the other party who have voted for some version of the balanced budget amendment. Yet it is something we cannot get a vote on, much less discuss here in the Senate.

I believe there can be compromise on those outlines. But since I believe my time is about to expire, let me close with this. Compromise is fantastic. I would love nothing more than to leave this building tomorrow night having said the Republic still works; I was able to stand shoulder to shoulder with people from States far from mine, with views different from mine, but who love their country so much we were able to come together and save it when it faced this catastrophe. I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that is not a solution is a waste of time. If my house is on fire, I can't compromise about which part of the house I am going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down. We either save this country or we do not. To save it, we must seek solutions.

I yield the floor.

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