Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Madam President, our country is 2 weeks away from a deadline date, and this deadline is approaching because of Washington's constant inaction. To me, this deadline has to do with our national debt. The President, on the other hand, says it has to do with our debt limit, the amount of money we are allowed by law to borrow.

I believe it has to do with the amount of money we have already borrowed and the amount of money they want to continue to borrow. I believe as Americans we can do better. I believe as Americans we must do better. Our country needs for us to act.

The President has repeatedly said we have to deal with this issue now. Last week he asked the most fundamental question. He said: If not now, when? The clock is ticking.

We got a wake-up call from Medicare not too long ago when we found out that it will be bankrupt 5 years sooner than they initially thought, just over a decade from now. As a doctor who has practiced medicine a long time, I will tell you we have to strengthen Medicare. We know in 25 years the same will happen to Social Security. Unlike our debt limit which Congress can legislate away, strengthening Medicare, saving Social Security, that cannot simply be legislated away. We have to act now to prevent these programs from failing not just people on those programs today but also future generations.

The President has observed that we are in the eleventh hour when it comes to our debt ceiling, and the only clear path to raise the debt ceiling that has passed either House of Congress is the proposal that passed the House of Representatives last night, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act. This act would only raise the debt ceiling if we put our country on the fast track back to fiscal sanity. That is where we need to be, on the track to fiscal sanity. It is an approach the American people will tell us we need now more than ever.

Our creditors are getting restive. This week Fitch credit ratings warned if the United States does not take action to avoid default, we could lose our AAA credit rating.

Standard & Poor's has already warned that unless we cut our budget, our credit rating could be at risk. Wasteful Washington spending has already saddled our children with over $14 trillion of debt. If we default, this spending may also force them to pay punishingly high interest rates that will drain American dollars from our already sluggish economy.

I believe we will not default. We are already paying $6,000 a second on interest alone on our debt. For those of us with children, we know what this impact is going to be on them years and years into the future. Well, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act would put us on the path to resolving the issue by cutting spending immediately, by capping spending in the future, and by forcing--finally forcing--Washington to live within its means. This is the sort of law that the country needs and that the President should actually welcome.

What has the President done? Well, he has threatened to veto this law, he says, if it crosses his desk. The President has threatened to veto the only plan that actually solves the problem that has passed either House of Congress.

Why? Well, the administration emphasizes ``public opinion'' as their reason for opposing the hard choices required by our debt crisis. But yet the President said they are opposed to a balanced budget constitutional amendment. Well, in a recent Mason Dixon poll, 65 percent of Americans say they support a balanced budget constitutional amendment. Where is that respect the President talks about for public opinion?

Finally, the administration has hidden behind catch phrases rather than debate the merits of cut, cap, and balance. They refer to it by a different name. Well, when I hear the White House spokesman talk about cut, cap and balance in a different way, I say: How is that ducking the issue to confront both our spending problem and the debt ceiling head on? That is not ducking the issue; that is facing the issue.

When the President's spokesman talks about dodging the issue, I will say: How is it a dodge to support commonsense solutions to our spending addiction, such as a balanced budget amendment?

Then he used the phrase about dismantling. I say: How does stopping our government from going bankrupt count as dismantling? The White House has even admitted that they do not have a plan. You know what, they do not think they need one. Is that astonishing? The White House--the United States, the most powerful country in the world--the White House does not think they need a plan at the eleventh hour. The White House Press Secretary just recently said: Leadership is not proposing a plan for the sake of having it voted up or down and likely voted down.

The budget that was brought to this floor--the President's budget--failed 0 to 97. Not one Republican voted for it. Not one Democrat voted for it. No one voted for what the President had proposed, no one of either party.

Perhaps the President ought to propose something new. Holding our country hostage to irresponsible Washington spending while trying to hit the economy with tax hikes is not leadership; it is denying the reality. Refusing to put forward a plan to resolve our spending crisis is not leadership; it is deferring the consequences.

Making the economy worse the way this administration has done for the past 2 years is not leadership, and it is hurting our country. The President's policies have made it worse--made the economy worse, made health care worse, made energy availability worse, housing worse. The policies have made it worse.

This administration can accuse cut, cap, and balance of ducking, and they can accuse it of dodging, and they can accuse it of dismantling, but the strategy coming out of the White House seems to be duck and cover. That is what we are seeing.

Anyone who knows the math knows this strategy was never acceptable before, and it is doubly unacceptable now. The amount of debt we owe right now is so high that it is hurting employment at home. Experts tell us our debt is costing us 1 million jobs. Spending like this makes it harder for the private sector to create new jobs, and the unemployment numbers that just came out show us at 9.2 percent unemployment.

With that kind of unemployment, energy prices are high, and people are noticing it in the quality of their lives. It is harder for American families to buy gas, buy groceries, buy cars, homes, pay tuition for their kids to go to college, and it is harder to create jobs for those kids who will be graduating this year and next year and every year until we get the spending under control.

Debt is not just a disaster for the distant future. Our debt is irresponsible. Our debt is unsustainable. Even our military leaders have condemned it. ADM Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said: The biggest threat to our national security is our debt.

The debt is the threat. It is not our enemies who are defeating us, it is our spending that is hurting us so very much. It is time for America to fight back. That is why I am supporting and have cosponsored cut, cap, and balance and will vote for it on the floor of the Senate.

This piece of legislation takes commonsense steps to get our country out of debt. It will immediately reduce spending by over $100 billion as a downpayment on our children's future. It will place a hard cap on spending so that it never reaches the unsustainable heights of the past 2 years. It will send a balanced budget constitutional amendment to the American people for ratification, and it will prevent us from defaulting on our debt.

Passing this law is the kind of leadership that America deserves; and if the President wants to show he understands leadership, he should retract his veto threat and support this approach. I absolutely will support it when it comes to this body.

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

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