Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend and note that a number of Senators have raised this objection and we have focused on one thing and one thing only, which is whether the Senate can raise the debt ceiling with just 50 votes or instead whether the Senate can do so with 60 votes. That is the issue. We are perfectly prepared to go to conference on the budget, right now, today. That is a red herring. That is not what this procedural fight is about. Every time this motion has been asked by the majority, the minority has risen to protect the rights of the minority because ordinarily to raise the debt ceiling it would take 60 votes, and if it takes 60 votes, what that means is that the 54 Democrats are not able to do so on a straight party-line vote, freezing out Republicans. Right now the Democrats have stated they believe the debt ceiling should be raised with no preconditions, no negotiations, no structural changes to our out-of-control spending that is bankrupting our country. What the minority Senators have said is that, at a minimum, if we are going to raise the debt ceiling it should be subject to a 60-vote threshold so that we have a conversation about fixing the deep fiscal and economic challenges in this country. It is indeed the majority that--I will give credit for candor--does not wish to say no, we will take the debt ceiling off the table. Because it is, I believe, the Democrats' intention if this budget process goes to conference committee to use reconciliation as a backdoor procedural trick to raise the debt ceiling on 50 votes. I think that would be a travesty. But I think much of this debate is clouded in smoke and mirrors. Much of this debate is clouded in obfuscation. This is a simple question: Should the debt ceiling be able to be raised with only 50 votes or should it require 60 votes, which will necessitate some compromise, some discussion? On that question I am quite confident the American people are with my friend from Utah, are with the Members of the minority who believe that if the debt of this country is going to go higher and higher and higher, we need leadership in this body to fix the problem rather than simply putting more and more debt on our kids and grandkids.

Mr. CRUZ. The 60-vote threshold, as my friend from Utah knows well, was designed to protect this institution that has been called the world's greatest deliberative body and to ensure that the minority has a role in the discussions. On this issue I think that is critically important. There are few if any issues we will address that are more important than the question of the unsustainable debt that is threatening the future of our kids and grandkids. The natural reason why the majority would want to get around the 60- vote threshold is because without a 60-vote threshold the majority does not need to listen to this side of the house. President Obama has been very explicit. The President has said he wants the debt ceiling raised with no negotiations, no discussions, no conditions, ``no nothin' '' to fix the problem. In the last 4\1/2\ years our national debt has gone from $10 trillion to nearly $17 trillion. What we are doing is fundamentally irresponsible and the majority wishes to be able to keep doing it without making any prudent decisions to stop the out-of-control spending, stop the out-of-control debt, fix the problem. The only way they can do it is to use a procedural trick to shut down the minority. I do not believe that is consistent with our obligations to the constituents who elected us, and I don't believe it is consistent with the responsibility of all 100 Senators to take seriously the obligation of protecting the fiscal and economic strength of this Nation for the next generations.

Mr. CRUZ. I think that is a reasonable question to ask. There are a number of points that are relevant. No. 1, there is a considerable history of the debt ceiling being raised through reconciliation, and, indeed, it has been done in 1986, 1990, 1993, and in 1997. So the danger that we are acting to prevent is not a hypothetical danger, it is a danger that has proven accurate. Those who say we will simply trust the House--the House Members were elected to represent their constituents, and each of the 435 Members of the House has an obligation to exercise their best judgment to represent their constituents. Whatever they choose to do--and I would note a number of Members of House leadership have publicly on the record suggested they might well be amenable to raising the debt ceiling through reconciliation. So given their public statements, the scenario we are raising is a possibility that the House leadership has suggested may well be on the table. But more fundamentally, regardless of what the House chooses to do, the Senator from Utah has an obligation to the 3 million citizens of Utah to represent their views. I don't think it would be responsible for him to give up his very eloquent voice or for me to give up my voice or for any of us to give up the voice of the citizens we are representing. I am reminded of meeting an individual at a gathering of Republican women back in Texas about a month ago, and this individual was a veteran who had fought in World War II. He was there, introduced to everyone, and received a standing ovation. A story was told about how he had been grievously injured in World War II. As a result of that injury, he was in a hospital and two doctors were debating about where to amputate his leg. They were debating whether to amputate the leg above the knee or below the knee. This soldier was unconscious, and he awakened in the middle of this conversation between the two doctors about where to amputate his leg. This soldier began to participate in that debate. And, unsurprisingly, he had a very strong view that he would very much prefer they not amputate the leg. He expressed that view vociferously to the doctors who were having that debate. As he expressed his view, he ended up prevailing in that argument and they chose not to amputate his leg below or above the knee. To this day he walks with a limp. He doesn't walk as well as he might if he had not been injured, but he was able to save that leg because he had a voice in that debate, because he spoke up and his interest concerning his leg was acutely different from the two doctors who were debating it without his voice. I think he had every right to participate in that debate because it affected him, it affected his future, and it affected his life. And just so, I think the 3 million citizens of Utah have every right to participate in this debate and not simply to be told to trust the other body of Congress. They have an independent obligation. My friend the Senator from Utah has an obligation to his constituents to make sure their voice is part of this debate.

Mr. CRUZ. My friend from Utah asks a terrific question. It is a question of procedural rules--whether in a courtroom or in the Senate-- designed to protect substantive rights. Ultimately, the 60-vote threshold is designed to protect the substantive rights not of the Senators--we are not here in our own stead. We are instead representing the constituents who sent us here. What the majority is asking us to do by asking for unanimous consent to allow this to go to conference and to set it up for them to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes--the majority is asking for the 46 Republicans on this side of the aisle to give away our right to speak. They are asking us to say we will cede to the majority the ability to do whatever it wishes on the debt ceiling. In giving away our right to speak, what we are giving away is not anything that belongs to us, it is the right of 26 million Texans to have their voice heard. For us to agree with the majority and say, yes, we will hand over the ability to make this decision on the debt ceiling without ever again consulting this side of the aisle would be very much like the situation the Senator from Utah asked about. I don't know how the Senator from Utah would answer a constituent in Utah who said: Senator Lee, why did you give away my voice? Why did you simply hand to the Democrats the ability to decide how much debt the United States should have, to raise it? And why did you essentially give away my seat at the table? It is not the seat of the Senator from Utah; it is not my seat. It is the seat of the millions of constituents in Utah, Texas, and each of our home States that sent us here. The idea that we would willingly give up their right to speak is inconsistent with the obligation we owe the men and women of Utah and the men and women of Texas.

Mr. CRUZ. I thank the junior Senator from Utah for his overly generous comments and kind characterizations. I think the analogy he drew is quite apt, that any lawyer, in representing a client, has an obligation to zealously represent that client; that he owes a fiduciary duty to that client. I suggest all 100 of us owe that same fiduciary duty to the men and women in our States who entrusted us with the obligation of coming here and fighting for them. Because the 3 million citizens of Utah could not all be on the floor of the Senate fighting, the junior Senator from Utah steps in their shoes to fight on their behalf. I feel confident that the citizens of Utah, like the citizens from Texas, would be horrified at the notion that this body would continue raising the debt ceiling over and over again without even trying to fix the underlying problem. This Senate floor has a long and storied history. There have been great men and women, great leaders of this country who have walked on this floor. Yet each generation, going back for centuries, has managed to avoid saddling the next generation with crushing debts. I am reminded of the very distinguished late father of the Senator from Utah, Rex Lee, who was the Solicitor General of the United States, who was widely considered one of the finest Supreme Court advocates to have ever lived. He was an individual who took the obligation of zealously representing his client deeply and near and dear to his heart. Your father's generation, my father's generation, did not leave us with crushing debts, did not leave us with debts from which we could never escape. What has happened in the last 4\1/2\ years is qualitatively different, qualitatively different from what has happened in the last 2\1/2\ centuries in this country. No other generation has said to their kids, their grandkids, and to their grandkids' grandkids, we are going to rack up so much debt that you are never going to be able to escape. My wife and I are blessed. We have two little girls at home, 5 and 2. The idea that Caroline and Catherine are going to spend their adult days working to pay the taxes to pay off the debt we are spending recklessly right now I think is profoundly immoral, is profoundly irresponsible. I cannot tell you how many thousands of Texans, men and women across the State, have said the exact same thing: Stop bankrupting the country. Stop bankrupting our kids and grandkids. That is the fiduciary duty we have to fight for, to defend--to stand for the 300 million Americans for whom this body, Congress, has been racking up a massive credit card debt that threatens to imperil the security of this country and the future generations in America.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I very much want commonsense immigration reform to pass. This bill is going to pass the Senate. But, as written, this bill will not pass the House. As written, this bill will not pass into law. And if this bill did become law, it would not solve the problem--indeed, it would make the problem of illegal immigration that we have today worse rather than better. If you likewise want to see commonsense immigration reform pass, then you have reason to be both optimistic and pessimistic. You have reason for optimism because there is widespread bipartisan agreement on many aspects of immigration. Outside of Washington, DC, there is widespread bipartisan agreement that, No. 1, our current immigration system is broken, it is not working; No. 2, that we have to get serious about securing the borders, about doing everything we can to stop illegal immigration--that in a post-9/11 world it does not make any sense that we do not know who is coming into this country; we do not know their history; we do not know their background--and, No. 3, that we need to improve and streamline legal immigration, that we need to remain a Nation that does not just welcome but that celebrates legal immigration. On those basic principles there is widespread bipartisan agreement. If this body were to focus on those areas of bipartisan agreement, that is how we would get an immigration bill passed into law--not just by one Chamber of Congress but actually passed into law. The reason, however, for pessimism is that to date the conduct of the White House and the Senate Democrats, who have been driving this process, suggests they are more interested in finding a partisan issue to campaign on in 2014 and 2016 than in actually passing a bill to fix our broken immigration system. Of all of the issues swirling about this bill, the path to citizenship for those who are here illegally is the single most divisive issue; and that is the issue on which the Obama White House and the Senate Democrats insist. By insisting on that division, I believe they, by design, destine this bill to be voted down. I think if we do not end up fixing our immigration system, that would be a very unfortunate outcome. I would note in the Judiciary Committee we spent considerable time considering amendments to this bill. At the outset of the markup, I observed that I hoped it would be a real markup, that the majority had the votes, if they wanted, to reject every substantive amendment, but I very much hoped they would not, that they would be willing to work with the members of the committee to improve the bill to make it fix the problem. Sadly, at the end of the markup, I was forced to observe it had played out exactly as I feared it might at the beginning; namely, that the majority of Democrats on the committee voted down just about every single major substantive amendment that was presented, one after the other after the other. What they repeatedly said was there had been a deal that was cut--a deal that was cut with the union bosses, with the interest groups--and that deal could not be changed. Well, if that is the case, that deal is not going to get passed into law. In my view, this legislation has two major problems. The first is it does not fix the problem. In 1986, Congress passed major immigration reform--the last time we addressed and successfully passed immigration reform--and that bill had two major components: No. 1, it granted amnesty, explicit, full-out amnesty for some 3 million people who were then here illegally. The American people were told: This amnesty will be in exchange for securing the borders. In 1986 Congress told the American people: We are granting amnesty, but in exchange we will fix the problem so illegal immigration will go away as a problem. Once these 3 million get amnesty, there will be no more. Now, sadly, we are here some 30 years later and instead of 3 million there are roughly 11 million people here illegally. Because what happened in 1986 is the amnesty happened and the borders never got secured. If this bill were to pass into law, in 10, 20, 30 years we would be back here talking about another 10, 20, 30 million people here illegally. Because, like the 1986 bill, this bill will not fix the problem, and, indeed, it will exacerbate it. This bill is enormously complicated. Indeed, this bill, as currently written, is 1,076 pages--1,076 pages. It is longer than the Dodd-Frank bill, which was 848 pages. It is roughly half the size of ObamaCare, which was over 2,000 pages. In these 1,076 pages, there are, right now, over 1,000 waivers given to the Secretary of Homeland Security and other members of the executive branch to waive law enforcement provisions, to waive border security, to give to the executive more standardless, unreviewable discretion. That, unfortunately, would only serve to exacerbate the problem. Illegal immigration is an enormous problem. It is an enormous problem in my home State of Texas, where I have spent real time down on the border visiting with ranchers, with farmers, with people living on the border, who every week have people coming illegally across their property, who no longer lock their doors at home because they have discovered if they lock their doors, they just get broken into. So it is simpler not to lock the doors rather than deal with the damage of the locks being broken or the doors kicked in. If you look at the numbers, in fiscal year 2012, the Border Patrol reported 463 deaths, 549 assaults, and 1,312 rescues. Let me point out, this current system is the opposite of humane. This current system ends up having vulnerable people coming here seeking freedom, entrusting themselves to coyotes, to drug cartels, to traffickers, and being left--sometimes women and children--to die in the desert, being left sometimes subject to sexual assault, to exploitation, to trafficking. The U.S. Department of State estimates that 14,000 to 17,000 people are trafficked into the United States every single year. And when it comes to the drug cartels and their role in facilitating illegal immigration, the volume is staggering. Between 2006 and 2013, there were 9.28 million pounds of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin seized in Texas alone. To put that in perspective, the space shuttle weighs about 4.5 million pounds, which means there was twice as much--two space shuttles' worth--of illegal-drugs-seized traffic across the border. But the second major failing of this bill: It is not likely to pass. There are not 218 votes in the House of Representatives to pass a pathway to citizenship. My friends on the Democratic side of the aisle know that, but I think they have made a political judgment that they want to campaign on this issue rather than rolling up their sleeves and saying: How do we actually get a bill that can pass into law? That is what I hope this body does. In the course of the markup, I worked very hard to try to improve this bill because I want to see a bill that fixes the problem passed into law. Specifically, I offered five amendments to fix the bill, to fix the problem. Those amendments were all voted down, with every Democrat on the committee voting against them. On the floor of the Senate, I hope to offer the same amendments. If they are voted down again, and this body passes that bill, I very much hope the House of Representatives will look to these amendments as providing a pathway to fixing this bill, to actually addressing the problem. The first amendment I offered was an amendment to actually secure the borders. The amendment I offered, unlike the current bill, which requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to prepare a plan--and the trigger is, when the Secretary prepares a plan, that triggers the legalization provisions of this bill. Well, a plan to plan is, by design, toothless. Instead, the amendment I offered would have tripled the size of the U.S. Border Patrol to put manpower on the ground, boots on the ground, to solve the problem. It would have increased fourfold the helicopters and fixed-wing assets and technology on the ground to solve the problem. It would have put in place a biometric entry-exit system because 40 percent of the illegal immigration we have comes from visa overstays. Unfortunately, every single Democrat on the committee voted against that amendment. I offered two amendments to improve and substantially increase legal immigration. On this point, let me pause for a second to note there is no more enthusiastic advocate of legal immigration in the Senate than I am. I am the son of an immigrant. I am the son of one who had been imprisoned and tortured in Cuba, who came to this country with nothing, seeking freedom, and we need to welcome and celebrate legal immigrants. So I offered two amendments focusing on improving legal immigration so we can continue to welcome those from all around the world coming here seeking freedom. First, I offered an amendment concerning temporary high-skilled worker H-1B visas. H-1B high-skilled worker visas are overwhelmingly progrowth. The economic data indicates that for every 100 H-1B high- skilled workers who come into this country, 183 jobs are created for U.S. citizens. The amendment I offered would take the current cap of H- 1B visas, which is at 65,000, and increase it fivefold to 325,000. The current bill, the Gang of 8 bill, goes up to 110,000. That is a step in the right direction, but it does not go nearly far enough. There is far more demand than that. Right now, every year, we educate tens of thousands of foreign students at our universities. They get graduate degrees in mathematics, in engineering, in computer science. They get Ph.D.s, and then we send them back to their countries, where they start businesses there, they create businesses there, they create jobs there, and they compete against us. It makes absolutely no sense. I think we need to expand dramatically high-skilled workers, and my amendment would increase it fivefold. Every single Democrat on the committee voted against it. I would note that the proponents of the bill often find themselves in Silicon Valley telling our friends in the high-tech industry how they are champions for helping get more programmers, engineers, computer scientists into this country. Yet I note again every single Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted against increasing H-1B high-skilled workers. We need to increase that cap. The second amendment I offered that would increase legal immigration would double the overall cap on legal immigration from 675,000--the current statutory cap--to 1.35 million per year so we can have a legal system that has employment-based immigration. When people have jobs, they can meet areas of need, whether in agriculture or elsewhere. And they can also come for family unification. I am sorry to say many of my friends on the left side of the aisle-- who often describe themselves as advocates of the Hispanic community, advocates of immigrants--every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted in party line against increasing legal immigration and against doubling the caps of legal immigration. Finally, I introduced two other amendments that were both directed at respecting and maintaining the rule of law. One amendment simply eliminated the pathway to citizenship. What it provided is those people who are here illegally shall not be eligible for citizenship. It is important to note that under the existing bill, if my amendment had been adopted, those who are here illegally would be eligible for what is called RPI status, a legal status, and, indeed, in time would be eligible for legal permanent residency. So the underlying bill gives legal status to the 11 million people who are here illegally. The amendment I introduced simply said there needs to be a consequence for having violated the law. It is unfair, in my opinion, to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules--who stayed in line, who stayed in their home country years or decades--to reward those who broke the law with a path to citizenship. I believe it is also critical to passing this bill to remove the path to citizenship, and yet every single Democrat on the committee voted party line against this amendment. The final amendment I introduced was an amendment that provided that those who are here illegally shall not be eligible for State, local, or Federal means-tested welfare payments. This is an interesting issue because the advocates of the Gang of 8 bill frequently go on television and tell the American people: None of those granted amnesty in their bill will be given welfare. I have seen that. That is a central talking point. If that talking point were true, this should have been a very easy amendment to adopt. Yet every single Democrat on the committee voted against this amendment. One of the reasons is, although the Gang of 8 bill for a period exempts those here illegally from Federal welfare, roughly $300 billion a year is spent in State welfare, and those given amnesty under this bill would be eligible for a great portion of that State welfare immediately, means-tested welfare. In my view we should welcome people from across the world, but the people we should be welcoming are those who are coming here to seek the American dream, to work hard. I believe that is the vast majority of immigrants who are coming here for a better life. We should not be putting into place systems where the hard-working American taxpayers are being taxed to provide welfare for those who are here illegally. I think that respects the rule of law to say we will welcome you here if you are working to provide for your family. Each of those amendments was rejected. Often my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle would say something like: I may agree with this particular amendment, but there was a deal cut. I may agree, but the union bosses, the special interests, the people in the closed-door rooms who negotiated this deal, we agreed on a level and we cannot increase it. It may be good to increase high-skilled workers to 325,000, but we cut a deal with the union bosses and we cannot change it. That is not how legislation should be drafted. We should be fixing the problem. We should be making our economy stronger. Right now, in my opinion, this bill is headed for failure. There should be no drama. There should be no confusion. Let's be clear. This bill, I am convinced, is going to pass the Senate. In fact, I think it is going to pass the Senate with a substantial margin. In all likelihood, near the end of this process there will be an amendment or two directed at border security that the American people will be told: OK, this finally puts teeth into the border security provisions. I hope those representations prove true. Regardless of what happens on that, I believe the votes are already precooked that this bill is going to pass the Senate. Absent major revisions, absent revisions along the lines of the amendments I introduced in committee and intend to introduce on the floor again, this bill will crash and burn in the House. It is designed to do so. So how do we save it? If we actually want to fix the problem, not have a political game but fix the problem, the answer is the American people. The American people have to speak. If you want to see the border secured, pick up the phone and let your elected Representative know. Let Senators know, let Members of the House know. Speak out online, speak out publicly. When the American people speak out and speak out loudly, their voices are heard. If you want legal immigration improved so that we welcome high- skilled workers, we welcome those seeking the American dream, speak out. If you want to respect the rule of law and not grant amnesty without securing the borders, speak out and speak out loud. Let me say, what needs to happen to change this dynamic is the key stakeholders need to decide that failure is not an option. The high-tech community, the business community, farmers and agricultural leaders need to decide that they are not willing to have this entire bill held hostage to a provision providing a pathway to citizenship that is certain to fail and designed to fail. I want to speak finally to the Hispanic advocacy groups, to the many who passionately pour their hearts into trying to improve the conditions of those in this country, including the 11 million who are here illegally. I believe the current path this bill is on is a path that is, by design, going to yield it to being voted down. I think that is why the Obama White House is insisting on a pathway to citizenship. I would note in 2007 then-Senator Obama stood on the floor of this Senate and played a key role in killing immigration reform then for the same reasons, for partisan reasons. Indeed, I would suggest a moment of clarity came in the Judiciary Committee markup when a senior Democrat, who is one of the sponsors of this bill, said: If there is no path to citizenship, there can be no reform. I think that sentence summed it up. I certainly thank that senior Democrat for his candor because he made clear there was one overwhelming partisan objective, which is a path to citizenship. In his judgment, if that partisan objective could not be accomplished 100 percent, he was willing to do nothing, zero, to improve the border. He was willing to do nothing, zero, to improve legal immigration--nothing, zero, to expand high-tech immigration; nothing, zero, to improve farmers and agricultural workers; and most telling, nothing, zero, to improve the condition of the 11 million people currently here illegally because, based on the Obama White House position that with no path to citizenship we will take our marbles and go home, we will crater this entire bill. That outcome means those 11 million remain in the shadows, have no legal status. Whereas, if the proponents of this bill actually demonstrate a commitment not to politics, not to campaigning all the time, but to actually fixing this problem, to finding a middle ground, that would fix the problem and also allow for those 11 million people who are here illegally a legal status with citizenship off the table. I believe that is the compromise that can pass. But, at least right now, the partisan advocates of this bill are not willing to accept that. The only thing that can change that is if the American people speak out. The only thing that can change that is if the stakeholders make clear to the Obama White House, to the Senate Democrats, failure is not an option; that if this fails, because as a political matter you insisted on a path to citizenship and threw everything else overboard, that failure would be unacceptable. I very much hope we work together in a bipartisan manner to fix this problem in a way that secures the border, in a way that respects the rule of law, and in a way that improves legal immigration so we remain a nation that welcomes and celebrates legal immigrants.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, in ``Gulliver's Travels,'' Swift told us of two fictional lands--Lilliput and Blefuscu--that had been at war for years over which end of the egg to open first. In Lilliput they opened the big end of the egg, and in Blefuscu they opened the small end of the egg, and the big-enders and little-enders battled endlessly. I am sorry to say that satirical depiction often reflects what occurs in this august body. We spend a great deal of time arguing about procedural niceties, about motions to commit or not commit that do not matter to the American people, and all the meantime we are bankrupting our children and our grandchildren. If I could, I wish to cut through all of the arguments back and forth because in my view most of the arguments are by design missing the point of this disagreement. This disagreement is over one issue and one issue only: Can the Senate raise our debt limit with only 50 votes or does it take 60? Everything else that is being talked about is smoke, is a side issue. The central fight is, Should the Senate be able to raise the debt limit with 50 votes or 60? I will note that my friend from Arizona questioned the knowledge of those who are objecting, and he suggested that perhaps our knowledge was lacking because this could not be done. Well, I know my friend from Arizona is a long veteran of this body, and he surely knows it was done in 1987 and 1990. This is not a hypothetical. In 1995 and in 2004 it was attempted. It didn't quite get accomplished, but it was attempted. What occurs under the Budget Act of 1974 is that when a conference report is adopted and reconciliation instructions are sent, that raises the debt ceiling, and that can then be passed by this body with merely 50 votes. This is all an avenue to allow a debt ceiling increase to be raised with 50 votes. And I know my friend from Arizona is well aware of that because he is such an esteemed historian of this body, he knows not only that it can be done but that it has been done. We don't need to hypothesize over whether that is what this is about because for 62 days we have asked the majority leader: Simply say we won't use this as a procedural trick to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes and then we can go to conference. For 62 days the majority leader has said: No, no, I will not do that; I will not do that. And those protestations make absolutely clear what this is about. I think that on both sides of the Chamber there are different things at work. On the Democratic side of the Chamber--President Obama has been very explicit. He wants to raise the debt limit, and he has said he wants no debate about it. He is unwilling to debate. He wants to shut down the discussion. He simply wants a blank check. He simply wants an unlimited credit card to keep digging the debt hole this Nation is in deeper and deeper and deeper. He said this publicly, repeatedly from the White House. What our friends the Democrats are doing is standing shoulder to shoulder with the Democratic President in fighting to enable the Senate to raise the debt limit with just 50 votes, which means, if that happens, that would then allow the 55-Member Democratic majority to vote to do so without listening to a word from the minority. That is what this fight is about, and there is no other issue being contested here. What is happening on the Republican side? Well, some have suggested we ought to just have a motion to instruct. The problem with the motion to instruct is that a motion to instruct is nonbinding, so it is a purely symbolic gesture. But even a motion to instruct not to raise the debt ceiling would lose. Why? Because there are 55 Democrats, and the 55 Democrats would vote against it. Here is the dirty little secret about some of those on the right side of the aisle: There are some who would very much like to cast a symbolic vote against raising the debt ceiling and nonetheless allow our friends on the left side of the aisle to raise the debt ceiling. That, to some Republicans, is the ideal outcome because they can go to their constituents and say: See, I voted no, and yet at the same time, wonderfully, they lost, and they did not actually have to stand up and stop what was happening. That is an outcome I believe some on this side of the aisle desire. I do feel obliged to rise in defense of my colleagues, the Republicans, because the senior Senator from Arizona has impugned the Republicans by claiming repeatedly it is only a minority of Republicans who are opposed to raising the debt ceiling on 50 votes. He has repeatedly suggested on the floor of the Senate that, in fact, it may be a small minority, that the overwhelming majority of Republicans, the senior Senator from Arizona said, stand with Harry Reid in wanting to be able to raise the debt ceiling on 50 votes. Let me suggest to the senior Senator from Arizona that, No. 1, in saying that, he is impugning all 45 Republicans in this body, but, No. 2, it has been suggested that those of us who are fighting to defend liberty, fighting to turn around the out-of-control spending and out- of-control debt in this country, fighting to defend the Constitution-- it has been suggested we are wacko birds. Well, if that is the case, I will suggest to my friend from Arizona there may be more wacko birds in the Senate than are suspected. Indeed, I would encourage my friend, the senior Senator from Arizona, that if he were to circulate to Republicans a simple statement that said: We, the undersigned Republican Senators, hereby state we support giving Harry Reid and the Democrats the ability to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes instead of 60, I believe he will find his representation to this body that it is only a minority of Republicans who oppose that is not accurate. This issue gets obscured by the procedural complexities, and that is not by accident. Washington is very good at speaking doublespeak that makes the citizens' eyes glaze over. But as its heart it is very simple. Majority Leader Reid and the Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling. They have stated they want to raise the debt ceiling, and they want to do so consistent with President Obama's instructions to do so without debate because he does not want to debate this issue, without conditions, without anything to fix our out-of-control spending, our out-of-control debt--simply give him an additional blank credit card because going from $10 trillion to $17 trillion has not been enough. That is the desire of the Democrats, and it is candid. We could go to conference right now, today, if the Democrats would simply say: We will not raise the debt ceiling with just using 50 votes. We will debate it on the floor with a 60-vote threshold and actually be forced to find some bipartisan agreement. But that is not what the majority wants to do. Those who are arguing that Republicans should accede to that demand are arguing that all of us who have told our constituents we are going to fight to solve this economic problem, we are going to fight to stop out-of-control spending, we are going to fight to stop bankrupting our kids--that those promises are hollow, those are just what we tell constituents at home, that is not actually what we do when we are on the floor of the Senate. I would note, indeed, when the senior Senator from Arizona said it is only a small minority that believes this on the Republican side, if my friend, the senior Senator, is able to produce a written letter with the signature of a majority of Republicans, I will offer here and now to go to a home game of my Houston Astros wearing an Arizona Diamondback hat. And I can guarantee you, in Houston that will not be well received. But yet I stand in complete comfort that I will not find myself in that situation because I do not believe it is right that a majority of the Republicans in this body have given up the fight on spending, have given up the fight on reining in out-of-control Washington bipartisan spending, deficits, and debt. I believe we are seeing leadership in this body stand together to fix the problem. That is what the American people want. Let me say this in closing: It is easy to get confused by all of the procedural discussions back and forth. This issue is about one issue alone: Should Majority Leader Harry Reid be able to raise the debt limit an unlimited amount with just 50 votes or should it require 60? If it requires 60, there will have to be some positive steps made to fix the problem. If it is just 50, the majority leader has the votes right now, today, to write a blank check for the Federal debt. That is the issue, and I think the American people are not conflicted in the answer to that issue. The American people want us to fix the problem and stop digging the debt hole deeper and deeper, stop putting our kids and grandkids on the path to Greece. I am proud so many Senators are standing here working very hard to honor our commitments to our constituents because that is exactly what our job is. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CRUZ. I would suggest that unanimous consent is used to circumvent the regular order----

Mr. CRUZ. And in particular the debt ceiling was not contained in the budget, it was not debated in the budget, it is not part of the budget, and the only question here--we could have gone to conference 60 days ago if the Democrats had simply agreed not to use reconciliation as a backdoor trick to raise the debt ceiling, which has happened three times in the past. So this is not a hypothetical risk. This is, I believe, the intention of the majority, and it is why we are objecting to raising the debt ceiling--to issuing an unlimited credit card--and digging the hole deeper without actually fixing the problem.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, the senior Senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear: I don't trust the Republicans and I don't trust the Democrats. I think a whole lot of Americans likewise don't trust Republicans and the Democrats because it is leadership in both parties that has gotten us in this mess. My wife and I have two little girls at home. They are 5 and 2. When Caroline was born, our national debt was $10 trillion. Today it is nearly $17 trillion. In her short 5 years of life, the national debt has grown by over 60 percent. What we are doing to our kids and grandkids is immoral. I commend the Democrats in this body for their candor. The Democrats and President Obama have been very explicit. It is their intention to raise the debt ceiling, and to do so with no conditions whatsoever--to keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing money without any structural reforms to fix the problems. That is an intellectually consistent position. I think it is a dangerous position but it is at least candid. That is the reason why every day, for 60 days, the Democrats have opposed taking the debt ceiling off the table in this discussion. Unfortunately, one of the reasons we got into this mess is because a lot of Republicans were complicit in this spending spree. That is why so many Americans are disgusted with both sides of this body, because we need leaders on both sides to do as my friend from Virginia said, to roll up our sleeves, to compromise and to work together and fix the problem--fix the enormous fiscal and economic problems and stop bankrupting our country. What this issue is all about is very simple: Will we allow the debt ceiling to be raised in an unlimited amount with a 50-vote threshold? And if the answer to that is yes, we have, in effect, just voted to raise the debt ceiling because the Democrats hold a majority of this body--55 seats--and the Democrats are explicit that they want to raise the debt ceiling. If we go to conference without the debt ceiling being taken off the plate, it is a 100-percent certainty the debt ceiling will be raised. It has been done three times in recent history. Every Republican who stands against holding the line here is saying: Let's give the Democrats a blank check to borrow any money they want, with no reforms, no leadership to fix the problem. I don't think that is consistent with any of our responsibilities. A final point. Much has been said about the budget was debated, the budget was considered, and that is surely true. But the budget contains nothing about the debt ceiling. The budget did not consider the debt ceiling. When all of us were here all night debating the budget, we didn't debate the debt ceiling. The question here is whether the majority of the Senate will be able to bootstrap the debt ceiling--a totally different issue--onto the budget. And the reason for doing it is to use a political trick. It would allow the majority to pass a debt ceiling increase on just 50 votes. I think it would be profoundly irresponsible for this body to raise the debt ceiling without fixing the problem--without getting the economy going, without getting jobs back, and without stopping the path we are on of bankrupting this country. That is what this fight is about. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ. Would the Senator yield for another question?

Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for an additional question?

Mr. CRUZ. So if I understand correctly, we are agreed now this is not the regular order. The Senate is not following the regular order that would have been taking up the House budget resolution and voting on that. That is not what is being pursued here, which is why the majority is seeking unanimous consent to set aside the rules. But let me ask the question, if I might----

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from Illinois, and I would ask him, if the position he is championing is the regular order, then why is it the Democrats are asking unanimous consent to set aside the regular order to go to conference? The only reason unanimous consent is needed is because you are endeavoring to circumvent the regular order, and by doing so opening the door for a procedural trick to raise the debt ceiling with 50 votes rather than 60.

Mr. CRUZ. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. I am happy to yield as soon as I finish this point. I will be happy to yield after that.

Mr. CRUZ. I appreciate the efforts of my friend from Washington to defend the prerogative of the Republican House. What I would suggest is that each of us has a responsibility to our States.

Mr. CRUZ. The vote would be a 51-vote threshold, which would mean-- and my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle have been very explicit that in their collective judgment the debt ceiling should be raised with no conditions. Given that----

Mr. CRUZ. We may well have a vote, but if we had a vote----

Mr. CRUZ. What I expect is that each of us is obliged to carry out our responsibility to defend the interests of our States. I have 26 million Texans who I am not willing to go to and say, if they ask me: Why did you go along with the procedural game to raise the debt ceiling, to allow Republicans in the Senate to be shut out, to give up any ability to force progrowth reforms, to get jobs back, to get the economy back, to get people working, why did you give up----

Mr. CRUZ. If we went to a conference committee and it came back on reconciliation to raise the debt ceiling by $10 trillion, then under reconciliation rules, 51 Senators--only the Democrats--could vote to do so, and the Republicans would be utterly silenced from participating in anything there. It may well be----

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from California, but I have been quite vocal that both Democrats and Republicans have contributed to getting us in this mess, and we need leadership from both parties to turn it around. I would note in the question the Senator from California raised, she did not say one word about not raising the debt ceiling using 51 votes. And everything else about this debate is all smoke. It is all about one thing, which is do we give an unlimited credit card to the Federal Government to raise the debt ceiling $1 trillion, $2 trillion, $5 trillion, $10 trillion. If the result of reconciliation was raising the debt ceiling $10 trillion, it would come back----

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend from California for that question. She may well be right, that one of the reasons spending is out of control is that we no longer have Bill Clinton as President and a Republican Congress. Instead we have President Obama who has expanded spending more than any other President in modern times.

Mr. CRUZ. I will be happy to yield.