Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012
Floor Speech
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Mr. LEE. We have now been operating for more than 800 days without a budget having been passed. We are operating at the direction of the party in control of this body on autopilot. It is easy to operate on autopilot. In many ways it is far easier than operating not on autopilot, especially when we are spending more than $1.5 trillion a year more than we are bringing in, more than $1.5 trillion every year more than we have, continuing to bury our children under a mountain of debt. When you are on autopilot, you don't have the same constraints, the same hard choices, the same prioritization demands that need to be made that Americans make every single day as they manage their homes, their lives, their families, their businesses--and State and local governments. This is unfortunate. It is unnecessary, and it is shameful. It should not continue to operate this way. An enterprise as large as the Federal Government, which brings in $2.2 trillion every single year, having access to more money than perhaps any other institution on Earth, ought to be able to operate with a budget. It ought to be able to pass a budget. It ought not be operating on autopilot so as to insulate itself from critiques justifiable and unjustifiable alike, from those who would say: Why are you doing it this way? Why are you doing it that way? To have a debate, a discussion, that is necessary. It necessarily surrounds the budgeting process in any legislative body, in any republic around the world.
In the process of operating on autopilot, we are severely exacerbating our deficit problem with our national debt now totaling nearly $15 trillion. What then is the solution? I believe the solution to our current problem, especially as we approach the debt limit, involves the cut, cap, and balance approach, including passage by both Houses of Congress of the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, one that would require, in addition to our making immediate short-term cuts and adopting statutory spending caps designed to put us on a firm, smooth glidepath toward a balanced budget, that we also pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. All of these would be passed as conditions precedent to our raising the debt limit, which many of us are willing to do, if necessary, to get those measures passed. We are not willing to raise it without those measures first being passed because we cannot continue to perpetuate this problem, one which we operate on autopilot while burning $1.5 trillion a year that we do not have.
This is crowding out other priorities. It is crowding out other investment in our economy. It is killing jobs. It is jobs we need to be focused on because that is what the American people are focused on. They are worried about their ability and the ability of their friends and family members, many of whom are unemployed, to be able to provide for their children, to pay their rent, to buy their groceries. These are things every American ought to be able to have access to and would have access to if only they had access to jobs. But at a time when we are spending at such a rate as we are, when we borrowed to such a degree that we have that our debt-to-GDP ratio is at about 95 percent, we are killing as many as 1 million jobs every year in America as long as we remain in that danger zone. This simply cannot continue.
Another thing we face right now that is something I find completely unacceptable is the fact that amidst all of this debate and discussion we have had in recent weeks about the debt limit, amidst the offer on the part of what are now most of the Republicans in the Senate to raise the debt limit under the circumstances I have outlined, the President of the United States responded to those offers by threatening--promising, perhaps--to cut Social Security to current retirees if the debt limit is not immediately raised and raised only consistent with the conditions that he is demanding right now. I fail to understand why the President of the United States would prefer to make so hasty, so cruel, and so reckless a threat as withholding Social Security checks for current retirees before looking at any other Federal program.
Look, we borrow at a rate of about $125 billion a month. That is a lot of money. A lot of people don't make that much money in a whole year. As we are borrowing at that rate, we have to take into account the fact that Social Security benefits cost the U.S. Treasury about $50 billion a month. It is $50 billion out of $125 billion each month that we borrow, assuming that is the portion we borrow. Meanwhile, we are bringing in $200 billion a month in tax revenue. So there is more than enough tax revenue there to cover not only Social Security benefits but also interest on debt and a number of other things as well. That begs the question: Why are Social Security beneficiaries the first to be threatened? Why is it their checks that the President is threatening to withhold first? There is no explanation to this that he has offered, and I hereby demand one.
I think our current retirees deserve more than to be used as pawns in a high-stakes political game, one that uses fear and uncertainty and doubt rather than reason and discussion and debate and willingness to compromise. The need for this has never been greater. The consequences for disregarding the need for debate and discussion have never been higher. I urge my colleagues and I urge all Americans to work together to find a solution to this, a solution that need not involve and should not involve threatening America's most vulnerable, including retirees, who rely each month on Social Security, withholding those benefits simply because the President of the United States is unwilling to compromise, is unwilling to meet the conditions many Republicans in this body have acknowledged are their conditions precedent for raising the debt limit.
There is a way forward. There is a road that will take us home, and the road home can be found in the Cut, Cap and Balance Act. This is not just the best proposal, this is the only proposal that currently has significant public support from a substantial number of Members of this body. Sometime today or tomorrow, companion legislation will be introduced in the House of Representatives, and we will be moving forward. I urge my colleagues to carefully consider this, and I urge my fellow Americans to carefully consider these and to urge their representatives and their Senators to embrace them and to adopt them.
I thank the Chair.
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