Export-Import Bank Reauthorization Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. Mr. President, by now, it should come as no surprise that the Senate has not passed a budget in over 3 years. I believe it has been 1,111 days. When I go to back to Wisconsin--and I think it is probably true of my colleagues--the people of Wisconsin, and I think the people all over America, want us to work together and solve our debt and deficit issue. Since I have been here, the Republicans have fulfilled the responsibility to show what the plan is for stabilizing our debt and deficit. The House passed a budget in the last 2 years, but the Democrats in the Senate have not. It is because they simply refuse to be held accountable. That is a real shame.

I realize the American public wants us to work with each other, but my suggestion is that the first individuals who need to work with each other, the first compromise that needs to be done is with our Democratic colleagues in this Chamber. They have 53 percent, and they only need 51 to pass a budget. They need to get together and work together, and they need to hammer out a compromise and pass a budget. The way that we get together and compromise in the entire process is the House budget would be presented with the Senate budget, we would do a conference, and we would have a process for being able to compromise. That is the basic minimum of what I think needs to be done in the Senate.

One point I want to make is that President Obama has made a number of promises during his administration, and one I will talk about now is on February 23, 2009. In his opening remarks to the fiscal responsibility summit, the President stated:

Today I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we have long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay, and that means taking responsibility right now in this administration for getting our spending under control.

I point out that when he made those remarks, the most recent estimate for what the deficit would be in fiscal year 2009 was put forward by CBO on January 7, 2009. They were estimating that the deficit for that year would be $1.186 trillion or 1.2 rounded up. Half of that amount would be $593 billion. That is the promise President Obama made to this Nation in terms of the work he would put in and what he would deliver to our Nation in terms of deficit control.

The facts are far different. In 2009, largely because of the very partisan stimulus package the President passed, the deficit wasn't $1.2 trillion, it was $1.4 trillion. That was followed in 2010 by $1.29 trillion. Then in fiscal 2011, it was $1.3 trillion. The latest CBO estimate for deficit for this year will be $1.253 trillion, almost $1.3 trillion. That is double what the President promised he would be delivering to the American people in terms of deficit control.

Moving forward, this President in his budget is projecting increasing our debt from $15 trillion to over $25 trillion. I am not sure that is believable. The other quote of his was on September 26, 2011, in remarks at a DNC fundraiser in San Diego when he was trying to sell his Americans Job Act. He said the following:

What I have said is that this is a very simple principle that everybody should understand. Warren Buffett's secretary should not pay a lower tax rate than Warren Buffett. A teacher making $50,000 a year, or a firefighter making $50,000 a year, or $60,000, should not be paying a higher tax rate than somebody making $50 million a year. And that basic principle of fairness, if applied to our Tax Code, could raise enough money that not only do we pay for our jobs bill--

And here is the key quote:

--we would also stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade.

Mr. President, I don't know what you call that last statement, but I think it could be called a doozy. I think the President has a very serious responsibility not to mislead the American public. I think that statement was a gross violation of that duty.

I have one chart here, a simple one. It shows the 4-year deficit figures for the last 3 administrations. Here's Bush's first 4-year administration, which is a $.8 trillion total deficit in 4 years. In the second 4 years, it is $1.2 trillion in deficit spending. This President will accumulate $5.3 trillion in deficit spending in his 4 years. Four years of the Buffett rule--that tax President Obama said would stabilize the debt and deficit--would be $20 billion. I realize the people in the gallery probably cannot see that line on the chart, but it is obviously not enough to stabilize the debt and deficit.

I think the President has the obligation and duty not to mislead the American public. That is what he did in this case.

Senator Corker has been a real leader on this issue in terms of being a real hawk in trying to get our Nation's fiscal house in order. I wonder if he has any comments.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. I thank the Senator from Wyoming. I came prepared with charts, and a number of things that have already been mentioned by my colleagues I am ready for.

We are talking about the true cost of the health care law. When this was passed--and I actually grossed up these figures because they actually netted out--the savings of Medicare with new spending in Medicare, the way ObamaCare was originally going to be paid for was about $1.3 trillion to cover about $1.1 trillion in outlays. That was split up in basically two ways: about $590 billion in taxes, fees, and penalties, and then $665 billion in reductions in Medicare, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage.

Now, we have not imposed the $208 billion of the doc fix, the sustainable growth rate formulas, because even Washington realized if we reduce payments to providers, there will be less access for seniors. So I guess I don't have any reason to believe those cuts in Medicare will actually occur.

If we move the budgetary window forward to the timeframe when ObamaCare truly kicks in--because, initially, by the way, we had 10 years of revenue and only 6 years of outlays. But really we only had 4 years of full outlays. If we move the budget window forward, the true cost of ObamaCare over a 10-year window is $2.4 trillion, and that is a very minimal estimate. That is very conservative. If we don't impose Medicare cuts, and we only grow the taxes, fees, and penalties--about $816 billion--that leaves a $1.6 trillion deficit risk over 10 years.

We are talking about these deficits now that for 4 years have been $1.4 trillion, $1.3 trillion, and $1.3 trillion, $1.3 trillion. We are trying to close a $1.3 trillion deficit with about $1 trillion worth of discretionary spending. The other graph I had--and this plays into what the earlier part of the conversation was--reflects the 1960s, when 68 percent of our expenditures were appropriated. They were under some control in Congress. And 32 percent were the mandatory programs and interest. Currently, about 36 percent of government expenditures are appropriated and 64 percent are basically off-budget, on automatic pilot.

As the Senator from Texas pointed out, 10 years forward, only about 25 percent of our Federal budget will be appropriated--will be discretionary spending. Everything else is on automatic pilot. That is simply not sustainable.

The last graph I want to put up--and we haven't talked about this yet--reflects what I really fear. If we take a look at the average borrowing costs for the United States from 1970 through 1999, when we were a far more creditworthy nation, our debt's GDP ratio ranged from about 40 percent to 67 percent. Our average borrowing cost as a nation was 5.3 percent. Over the last 3 years, from 2010 to 2012, our average borrowing cost has been 1.5 percent because we have held rates artificially low.

If we just revert to that mean, that would actually be a 3.8-percent differential. Applied to our debt, that would be $600 billion to $700 billion per year in additional interest expense. Compare that to $1 trillion worth of discretionary spending, and that would totally wipe out the defense budget, for example, or if we maintain the defense budget, it would wipe out all discretionary spending.

That is what we need to be concerned about. That is the day of reckoning I am concerned about: when creditors from around the world take a look at the United States and say: You know what. I am not going to loan you any more money. What is more likely to occur is they will say: I will loan you more money but at a far higher interest rate.

I know the Senator from Tennessee is fully aware of these types of figures.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Wisconsin. I appreciate those comments.

I will conclude.

There really are two plans on the table right now. One is from the House Republicans. It actually passed the Chamber. Republicans were willing to put their votes to a budget. Republicans are willing to be held accountable. Of course, the other plan would be the President's budget, which last year lost in this body 0 to 97, and his current budget lost in the House 0 to 414. So I guess you can say that is a plan that doesn't sound like a particularly serious plan.

So I join my colleagues, and I thank the Senators from Texas and Wyoming and Tennessee for joining me. I would join them in asking this body to please exercise your responsibility, own up to your duty, and let's pass a budget.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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