Repealing Section 403 of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 - Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I see that S. 1963, a bill to repeal certain reductions made by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, is on the calendar. I didn't vote for the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013, and my no vote was cast for one reason--this so-called CPI-minus-1-percent injustice done to military retirees. Military retirees under the age of 62--according to this newly passed bipartisan budget bill signed by the President--will not be able to keep up with the cost of living because their annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, would be reduced each year by 1 percent.

I think we have clearly pointed out to the American people the injustice of this provision in the Budget Act. An enlisted person would lose approximately $80,000 out of his or her pocket over their lifetime. These military retirees have fulfilled every part of their bargain. After they have done their share and subjected themselves to worldwide duty--perhaps serving in a war zone any number of times--the government comes along in the form of this bill and says: We have changed our minds. We are not going to give you your full cost of living. We are going to take a percent of that each year. For officers it is even more than $80,000 over their lifetime.

I believe most Americans now realize that it was a mistake to do this. It needs to be corrected, and we need to go back and keep our promise to military retirees. We have an obligation to do this for our military retirees.

At the same time, we have an obligation to future generations not to go back on the budget savings that were so hard fought in this budget act. I supported the level of budget savings, but I didn't like the way they were done.

Time and time again I, along with Senator Ayotte, Senator Graham, and others came to the Senate floor and pointed out that there were other ways to pay for the savings that needed to be made in the budget. There are better ways to do that than taking it out of the hides of the people who volunteered to serve their country in the military.

We have a bill, S. 1963, that we will be considering, and it is authored by Mr. Pryor, Mrs. Hagan, Mrs. Shaheen, and Mr. Begich. I like the idea of addressing the problem. There is only one fault in the bill. It does not have a pay-for. So of the budget savings that we made last December, some $6 billion of that would simply go away and we would end up spending that $6 billion we were planning to save.

Our obligation needs to be to the military people and to future generations. Why do we need to cut $6 billion? Why do we need to stay with the $6 billion in budget savings? Because we have an obligation to do something about the debt. That was the whole reason for the budget bill last December. We are drowning in a sea of debt to the tune of $17 trillion-plus and growing every day. We need to rectify the wrong done to military people, and at the same time we need to find the budget savings elsewhere.

Today I will vote to proceed to the bill. I will do so in the hope that Republicans and conservatives will be allowed to offer amendments in the regular order and find the $6 billion in savings needed over a 10-year period to pay for this bill.

There is a proposal by me, Senator Ayotte, and Senator Graham that would use an Obama administration pay-for to pay for the cost of rectifying the wrong to the military retirees. It is a closing of a loophole in the U.S. Tax Code. The loophole I am referring to allows people to improperly claim an additional child credit.

The Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that this change could save approximately $20 billion over the next decade. This was an issue identified by the Obama administration's Treasury Department and their inspector general. We are not taking something from the Heritage Foundation. This is something by the Treasury Department of the Obama administration and their inspector general.

I simply submit this to my colleagues. Let's rectify the wrong done to the military retirees and also admit we have an obligation to future generations and not add to the debt any more than this Congress has already done. We can fulfill both of these obligations today, and the way to do it is to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed, which I, and I believe many of my Republican colleagues, will do.

In return, we ask for regular order on this important bill. Allow amendments and pay-fors through the Ayotte-Graham-Wicker legislation or perhaps through another amendment. If there are Members on the other side of the aisle who have a better pay-for, bring that to the floor, offer it, let the sun shine on these suggestions, and let the American people know where we stand on righting the wrong and protecting future taxpayers.

I say to my colleagues, vote yes on cloture on the motion to proceed. I say to the leadership, don't lock it down this time like it has done in the past. Don't fill up the amendment tree. Allow Republicans and Democrats--who have other ideas about how to protect our future generations from a sea of debt--to bring those ideas to the floor, vote on them, and let the American people see that we can correct this wrong to the military without adding $6 billion to the debt.

I hope we will have a bipartisan consensus and begin this new year with regular order and allow the elected representatives of the States to work their will rather than having deals cut behind closed doors.

I thank the Presiding Officer and note the absence of a quorum.

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