Recognition of the Minority Leader

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I appreciate the comments of my colleague from New Mexico. As a former chief executive myself, it is remarkable to me that regardless of who is the President of the United States, he or she ought to be able to get their team in place, with appropriate oversight and review. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the case in this body.

Many of the other debates we have had are important, but in my 4-plus years that I have been here, this supersedes everything else that if we could reach some resolution on, I think might go further than any other action in both lowering some of the rhetoric and lancing some of the boil of partisanship in the Senate, as well as doing more for the kind of job growth that is still so desperately needed. That is getting our fiscal house in order, getting our balance sheet in order.

We have seen some good news as the economy recovers. We have seen our annual deficit numbers go down, although I have to look with somewhat jaundiced eyes when the press is saying: Hallelujah, this year our deficit may only be $746 billion. That is still not good enough, and the solution set we are looking for is not that far away.

I am going to make a couple comments and then ask my colleague, the chair of our Budget Committee, to once again make an offer to proceed with regular order, something that is in the backstop of this debate about rules, something our colleagues on the other side of the aisle--perhaps appropriately--beat us over the head for 3 years about the fact that we ought to have regular order around the budget.

It has now been 110 days since the Senate approved a budget, after a marathon session that went to 5 in the morning--a session that I think even our colleagues on the other side who didn't vote for the budget would agree was open and appropriate to rules and everybody got the chance to have their say and offer their ideas.

Now, for the 16th time, we are going to come and ask our colleagues: Let's abide by regular order and go to a budget conference. Let's do the hard work that is necessary to make sure we finish the job of getting the kind of deficit reduction, getting our balance sheet in order, that will allow this economy to move forward and, quite honestly, allow us to get back to regular order on issues such as appropriations bills and a host of other things. I can't speak for everyone, but people in Virginia and I imagine people in Washington State--and I see colleagues from New Mexico and Florida--and elsewhere are saying: What are you doing? Why can't you get something done?

Every day that we remain in this paralyzed state, while it may be great late-night fodder for comedians about Congress's inability to act, at some point this dysfunction erodes the underlying confidence the American people have in our institutions. That is not good for American democracy, and it is not good as well for the ability of our economy to recover.

One of the things we have seen in press reports and what is starting to seep into consciousness is the actions that were set up in sequestration; that they don't seem to be as bad as people think. But let's remind ourselves that sequestration was set up to be the stupidest option possible, an option so stupid that no rational group of people would ever let it come to pass.

I have cut budgets as Governor. I have cut budgets in business. There is a smart way and a stupid way to cut a budget. We set up a process that was so stupid that no rational group would ever let it happen.

One of the reasons why I think our approval rating hovers around 8 percent is we didn't come together, we didn't let this budget process take place, and we allowed this sequestration to move forward.

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