Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I will accept the kind and generous offer of the Senator.

Mr. SESSIONS. I was concerned about Senator Leahy. If I would have 4 minutes, I would consent to the Senator----

Mr. SESSIONS. If I would have 4 minutes--I would ask unanimous consent that the vote be delayed until I have 4 minutes and Senator Leahy has 1 minute.

Mr. SESSIONS. The bill before us today is a perfect example of why it is dangerous to produce a deal in secret and rush it through on the floor of Congress in a panic, as we have done time and time again. This bill is a perfect example of why we need regular order, why the Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body that debates and amends legislation--there is no amendment being allowed to this legislation-- and why each Senator is supposed to have a chance to have their say and offer amendments to the bill. Each Senator in this Chamber, Republican and Democrat, is being diminished if they are not allowed to have an amendment on an important piece of legislation such as this. I was astonished to hear earlier that we have no choice but to pass this bill exactly as it is, that there is no other alternative. What about letting the Senate work its will, I suggest. Could we not find 51 Senators who could have agreed on a better way to save money than to cut retired military personnel, a cut that was used to increase spending in other areas, some of which is clearly not more significant than the cuts falling on military retired personnel? We learn after the House has passed the bill, that also includes a cut to the pensions of wounded warriors and--I suspect most House Members didn't realize that, as my friend from Mississippi has pointed out. We were blocked yesterday from having a vote, and it looks as if we will continue to be blocked. We will move to final passage, and there will be no opportunity to amend this bill and the big $500 billion Defense authorization bill that will be on the floor next immediately. Thereafter, it will be voted on tomorrow, and there will be no amendments to it. This is unprecedented to have the Defense bill on the floor when we often have 30 or more amendments. Zero. We don't have time, we have wasted our time on all kinds of things. We had a whole week in which there were two measly votes conducted when 30 or more could have been conducted easily that week, and there wouldn't have been that many votes on the Senate bill. I would say that I do not believe this legislation is sound legislation. I believe it does damage to the ability of this Senate to protect the Treasury of the United States of America. I think it takes us down the road to eroding the power of individual Senators to constrain spending and stay within the limits we agreed to, that we put in law. I am not happy about it. I wish I had more time to talk about it. I don't. I appreciate the opportunity to work with Senator Murray. I greatly respect Congressman Ryan. But there are some problems with this legislation. We should not pass it, and there is plenty of time for the House of Representatives to respond to any changes we were to make. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Reserving the right to object, I would note this is the way the process--the train that runs through this body and denies amendments to be allowed--occurs. At this point, there will be a move, in effect, to clear the tree so this can be passed. It is an unhealthy tree we are in, and I am disappointed that we are heading in this direction, but it points out the actual legislative steps that are required to get to final passage after the leader has filled the tree.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to waive the quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the budget conference didn't meet. We didn't produce a budget in conference. Our conferees did not vote. The two leaders of the conference, Senator Murray and Congressman Ryan, prepared the legislation now before us which has a number of problems, in my opinion. To skip the conference and create this legislation instead is not the right way to have conducted this process. But the question is, Should we advance with this legislation or does it need to be improved? I believe it can be improved, I believe it should be improved, and I believe legislation of this size and scope should be carefully considered. Since this bill actually amends the Budget Control Act of the United States, which has successfully contained the growth and spending for a couple of years the Budget Control Act ought not to be altered without more care and thought. I suggest the right vote today would be to vote against cloture and say to the leadership and Senator Reid that we want to have amendments on this legislation. If this legislation goes forward, we are about to have a significant reduction in the retirement benefits of disabled military personnel, people who have served 20 years in the U.S. military. The pay is going to be cut as much as $70,000 for a staff sergeant over their lifetime. We need to think about that. This legislation, amazingly and disappointingly, has altered the ability of this Senate to block increases in spending. We have a budget point of order today which allows an objection to be raised to require 60 votes in order to spend more than we agreed to spend. This legislation takes that away. Perhaps the House didn't understand the significance of it, but it is very significant. We have used it three separate times successfully to block tax-and-spend legislation within the last year or so and help us stay with the commitment we made to the American people to keep spending at an agreed-upon level. So, colleagues, there are a lot of problems with this bill. But the only way to fix it would be to say to Senator Reid and the Democratic leadership in the Senate: Let's slow down, let's give Senators a chance to have actual amendments, and let's fix some of the problems. There is plenty of time to fix those problems, send the bill back to the House, and be able to pass it before the deadline of January 15. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Enzi for his leadership on the Budget Committee. He is a long-time member, a senior member, and he has worked hard on these issues for years. He is an accountant. He is able to add and subtract. He can see a debt crisis when one is there, and I appreciate the comments he has made. I believe he is exactly correct on so many of those points. The Senator suggested that something is awry on the pension benefit commission in which we, in effect, tax employers more supposedly to help the guarantee fund be able to honor people's pensions if a company goes bankrupt. But it seems to me in simple dollars and cents if we do that we can't then spend it on other items unrelated to pension guarantees. Is that the concern the Senator has raised, essentially?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank my colleague. And I was referring to the fact that Senator Enzi is the one who has explained to us in a very clear way, from his accounting background, the problems we have had with the pension guarantee fund, and it is a very real situation. It is actuarially unsound in the long run. It needs to be put on a better basis, but we can't put it on a better basis if we tax the employers. That may even reduce, as the Senator from Wyoming says, the number of employers who provide a pension. That would be a terrible policy error, if we keep driving up the cost to supposedly fix the fund but then spend the money on something else and we therefore disincentivize the businesses from even having retirement plans for their employees. So I thank my colleague for raising that very important issue.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish we had an agreement that is grand and great and would do what a lot of people have been dreaming of for some time and would put us on a sound financial path for decades to come. It is within our grasp. But it seems we are unable to make those choices or bring that forward. I believe if the President has led and given a commitment to fixing our financial problems in America, we could have done it in the last few years. But he has not. So it has put us in a bad position, and we end up with the agreement we have today, which essentially would save some of the risk of a government shutdown and reduce some of the tension, which a lot of people think is great and I do too. It would be good for the country to have more predictability. It would be good for the Defense Department to have more predictability. It would be good for the financial community to have more predictability about what is happening in Washington. But what occurred is not sufficient in any way, and it has been postured to look a good bit better than it is. Essentially, we remain on an unsustainable financial path in America. The numbers are real clear. We are seeing a reduction in our deficit in the near term, but the Congressional Budget Office tells us in the next several years we will begin to see the relentless increase in deficits every year, reaching almost $1 trillion again by the end of this 10- year window. That is not a good path to be on. We pay interest on the debt which we accrue each and every year, plus all the money we have borrowed previously. The amount is notable. We have exceedingly low interest rates, so it is not impacting us as much as it is likely to impact us in the future, as they will return to the mean and we will see rates go up. But just to point out that this agreement--the legislation before us--spends $63 billion to $70 billion in the next 2 years. Where does that money come from? Essentially, it adds to the debt. But we are told not to worry because we have other cuts in spending, other fees that will come in, which will eventually pay for it. But over half of the pay-fors occur outside the 8 years left on the Budget Control Act window and in the last 2 years of the 10-year budget window for this legislation. But the Congressional Budget Office has scored that, because we are spending more money sooner--money which has to be borrowed--it would add $10.5 billion to the interest payment of the United States over this 10 year period. So the claim it is going to reduce the debt over time if every bit of this is adhered to--which our pattern is not to adhere to what we promise. But if we were to adhere to it over the 10 years, the savings wouldn't be $23 billion as claimed, it would be $12.5 billion because the legislation supporters haven't discussed the interest cost of this gimmicked-up bill, where we spend more now and save later. It is a very serious matter. They say the sequester is hard. The sequester is so bad that it cannot be sustained, America will collapse, and we will not be able to act in a compassionate way and be supportive of people in need or meet the basic needs of the government. The former Speaker Pelosi, now leader of the Democrats in the House, said the cupboard is bare. There are no more cuts to make. She said on September 21 of this year: There are no more cuts to make. There are plenty more cuts to make. There are ways to save money. For example, the majority in the Senate changed the rules of the Senate using the nuclear option to ram through the appointment of three new Federal judges. Each one of those, with their staff, costs the taxpayers $1 million a year, and it was for the DC Circuit, which absolutely does not need these judges. They are not needed. The DC Circuit has by far the lowest caseload per judge in America, even with the vacancies on the court. So what we should have done, and I worked toward previously, is not filled those judges and move them to other circuits which need judges that we are going to have to fill. That would have saved $3 million a year. That is just one example of the waste of money. It is the equivalent of burning $1 million to $3 million a year on the mall out here because those judges were not needed. So to say there are no cuts to make and we can't reduce spending any more is not accurate. It is all through the system. As Senator Enzi said, his State was prepared to take an 8-percent cut. But under the Budget Control Act, which includes the sequester, we are not cutting spending over 10 years; we are increasing spending over 10 years. We are just increasing it $2 trillion less than before. We were on the path to increase spending, at the time the Budget Control Act was passed, by $10 trillion--from $37 trillion to $47 trillion over 10 years. We passed the Budget Control Act and said it would increase to $45 trillion instead of $47 trillion. So we go from $37 trillion to $45 trillion. That was essentially what the agreement was. It passed both Houses of Congress. It had no tax increases in it. It was simply a commitment to contain the growth of spending, and it sharply reduced spending. It reduced spending in the near term. But after this year, spending is allowed to continue for the last 7 years or 8 years of the Budget Control Act agreement, a 2.5- percent-a-year annual increase every year after this year. So the cuts began to bite this year. They were being felt this year. What did Congress do? It folded up like a house of cards. Congress couldn't sustain the heat and couldn't honor the promise we made in August of 2011 to reduce the growth of spending just a little bit. That was the promise. To raise the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion, we agreed to reduce the growth of spending by $2.1 trillion over 10 years. Now we have already hit the debt ceiling. We have already borrowed another $2.1 trillion. So now we hit the debt ceiling again, but we are not honoring the promise to reduce spending. What happened? The sequester said we had to have more cuts this year, more reductions this year, and Congress couldn't sustain it--just couldn't--would not take the heat, and we came up with this new plan that is before us to avoid a shutdown. I guess we can say we avoided a shutdown, but we can also say we did not do the right thing about spending in America. We have not faced the challenge we have because we remain on an unsustainable financial path. In a couple years we will be back on a deficit growth pattern which is going to be very serious and will threaten the financial future of America. As President Obama's Simpson-Bowles Debt Commission has told us, nothing fundamentally has changed in that. So we have our colleagues who are anxious to have more taxes--more revenue they call it. What they are talking about are more taxes. House Minority Leader Pelosi says that there are no more cuts to make, American people. We have cut all we can cut. There is no more we can cut. So now we have decided the problem is you, American people. You haven't sent us enough money. We demand, we insist, we require you to send us more money so we don't have to make any tough decisions anymore. We don't have to make the financial choices they made in Wisconsin or Alabama or Wyoming, that every State and city has had to face during this financial crisis, and they are leaner and more productive and more efficient as a result of having to make those choices. But we don't have to because we want to have more revenue. So after this August of 2011 Budget Control Act passed, which reduced spending over 10 years by $2.1 trillion, the President signed and agreed to, had no tax increases in it, it was just a commitment that we would contain spending--that is what the agreement was, a spending containment bill. In January, President Obama submitted a budget that wiped it out, busted it wide open. It would have added $1 trillion in new taxes and $1 trillion in new spending. Wow. What kind of commitment was that to the American people; you sign a bill, you say you are going to do something, and before the ink is dry you are proposing a different idea that goes back on the very promise that was made. Eventually, this year, the Senate Democrats passed a budget increasing spending $1 trillion and increasing taxes $1 trillion. It is a tax-and-spend budget, the same budget the President submitted each year. They said we are going to have a balanced approach. What they wanted the American people to hear when they said a ``balanced approach'' is: We have a plan to reduce the deficit, and the plan is we are going to cut some spending and increase revenues. That is what they wanted the American people to hear. It was a subtly and carefully crafted message, but it was not the truth. The truth was that they wanted to spend more and tax more. Taxes were not used in a balanced approach to bring down the deficit from the unsustainable path on which we remain. The taxes were used to fund additional spending above the amount we agreed to in the Budget Control Act of August 2011, which is still in effect--unless this legislation passes, and that is going to amend it. The fundamental fact is that my colleagues want to tax and spend. They say they have cut all they can cut and they want more revenue and more money from the American people. Just send it to us, and we will spread it around and we will do all the good things we can dream of with your money. We don't have enough of it; we want more. I don't think that is good for America. I don't think that is good for the economy. We need a vibrant private sector with growth possibilities and the opportunity to have innovation and creativity and the efficiencies that occur in the private sector that are not present in the government sector. We can't run this government. We have never managed the government effectively. It is so massive. We spend so much money. We need to be leaner and more productive. We need to decide which areas in our country we don't need the government to undertake. We need to let the private sector handle that wherever possible. If we do that, we can manage a smaller and more efficient government. We need to extract less money from the American people. We have commitments. We are committed to Social Security, Medicare, and other funding we need to make sure we are honoring. We can't take money from Medicare, our seniors' health care program, and then spend it and say we have strengthened Medicare and made it better because we reduced its costs. The money that is saved in Medicare needs to be used to strengthen the long-term viability of Medicare, which is in great doubt. It is not on a sound path. I know we can do better. We are going to have to face up to this. It is not going to be easy. It has challenges for all of us. But reductions in Federal spending can work. For example, they say we need more revenue. Well, have we gotten more revenue? Yes, we have already. This Budget Control Act did not include more taxes. The Budget Control Act represented a $2.1 trillion reduction in the growth of spending, but in January of this year we passed a $650 billion tax on the rich, upper income people, and the ObamaCare legislation included a $1 trillion tax increase on top of that. This bill has $34 billion in fees and taxes. Is there not revenue around here? Revenue is being increased, but the problem is that it is not being used to reduce our deficits and it is not being used to put us on a sound financial path. It is being used to advance more spending, and that is the danger we are in, that is the danger we have to watch, and that is the danger that threatens us all. I know how seductive it is for us to think we just can't reduce spending; the cupboard is bare. Minority Leader Pelosi says that we can't cut any more. Well, we can. There is a lot we can do to make this government leaner and more productive, and we are required to do so. I yield the floor

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would like to continue to raise a simple point but a point of profound financial significance to America. One of the things that has happened in the bill that is before us is there has been an extension in the 10-year BCA plan--which was enacted 2 years ago; there are only 8 years left--an extension of a 2-percent reduction in payments to hospitals and doctors who provide services through Medicare, treat patients, and get paid by the U.S. Government. So they were reduced 2 percent. This is scored as a savings for the country. In effect, it is perceived as a savings that allows us to spend more money somewhere else. That savings, as was done in this legislation, involved the last 2 years--years 9 and 10--of the 10-year window from today. It creates some money, they say, because we reduced Medicare costs and we can spend that money in this year and next year on nondefense and defense discretionary spending, and we are going to promise to use the money we save in Medicare in years 9 and 10, outside the promised BCA 10-year window which is already moving along. What I want to raise is a deep and fundamental point. Medicare is already in deficit. Medicare is already spending more money to provide care for seniors than is being taken in off people's paychecks every week. But Medicare does have a trust fund. Medicare Part A does; it's called the Hospital Insurance trust fund. Social Security also has a trust fund. People have that money come off their paychecks every week when they go to work, and they believe, correctly in my opinion, they have a right to receive those benefits in the future. They are not happy. They believe America is going on the wrong track when we take that money and spend it, therefore, jeopardizing the confidence they should have in retirement that their Medicare and Social Security are going to be in place. We know there are some deep problems with Medicare and Social Security actuarially because people are living longer and there are more people retiring and we have to deal with some problems there. But what I want to say is, the worst thing you can do is to do the things necessary to make Medicare sound--tighten up payments to providers, perhaps; although there is a limit at some point as to how much you can do there--and do other things that make Medicare more financially stable, but you should not see that savings as something you can spend on a new program. The entitlement programs that went into ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, $500 billion of that money that supposedly was used to fund it was from Medicare and some from Social Security too-- saving money in those accounts. But those programs have trust funds. They have trustees. When they ran a surplus, as they had done for many decades--but not now--when they were running a surplus, the money was loaned to the Federal Treasury and they spent it. But the Federal Treasury owes it back to them. Now that both of those programs are heading into steep fiscal decline, they are calling the notes, they are calling back the money they loaned. The trustees of those programs know whom they represent. They represent Social Security recipients. They represent Medicare beneficiaries. They are demanding their money, they are going to get it, and we are going to honor it. So what I am saying is we cannot count that money twice. That is what Mr. Elmendorf, the Director of the CBO, told us on December 23, the night before the ObamaCare bill was passed on the floor of the Senate in 2009. He said: You cannot count the money twice, and to suggest you are strengthening Medicare and simultaneously providing a source of money to spend on the new ObamaCare program is double counting. He used the words ``double counting.'' How simple is this? My question to him, when he gave the letter--and I asked him to put it in writing. I insisted he do that. He works for us, and he did what he is supposed to do. He said: Even though the conventions of accounting might suggest otherwise, you cannot simultaneously use the same money to strengthen Medicare and fund ObamaCare. That is what he said. So under our conventions of accounting, we have what we call a unified budget. The CBO does it both ways, but the one we talk mostly about, the one everybody focuses on, is the unified budget. So if Social Security is a little better off, it is assumed it is in the same pot. Everything is in one pot. So anything that cuts the expenses of Medicare and Social Security to make them strong is utilized and considered to put more money in the pot to be spent somewhere else. What is happening to us now is the unfunded liabilities in pension funds, retirement funds, Medicare, Social Security, and other accounts are reaching unprecedented levels, some say nearly $100 trillion, and it is growing considerably. This is the long-term threat to America. This is the thing that several attempts have been made in recent years to fix, to confront, to put us on a sound path financially, but it has always failed. People can blame everybody, and everybody is subject to blame, I assure you. However, I do believe it is quite plain it will not happen unless the President of the United States leads and participates and says: I want to fix it. He is basically saying: We do not have a problem. We are doing fine. He is not willing to call on the American people and use his bully pulpit to lay out the challenges we face in how we could put ourselves on a financially sound path without destroying the country. We can do that. We really can do that. But it will take belt- tightening in every aspect of our government, and everybody should share equally in the belt-tightening, not just a few, not just veterans, military people who have served 20 years, and disabled veterans having their retirement cut, as this legislation does. It needs to be something where everybody participates in tightening the belt. We could get the country on a sound path. But I want to register again--and I am going to continue to talk about this because I think it leads to a false impression. It leads to the impression we have more money than we have. You cannot use Social Security's money, Medicare's money to fund ObamaCare, the Defense Department or nondefense discretionary spending. It is not possible to use that money twice. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank my colleagues for their heartfelt remarks about the cuts in this bill that will immediately impact the retirements of American military. They are subject to recall, to Active Duty. They are expecting these payments. Other departments and agencies and government employees are not going to get their retirement reduced; only people who served in the military. It is not correct, and it should not happen. What I want to emphasize to all of my colleagues and highlight for us here today is that the legislation before us now was brought forth in a way that will not allow any amendments. If people have an idea about a problem with this legislation that was agreed to in secret by a couple of Senators--I suppose maybe some staff involved, so they agreed to this language. It is the first time we have seen it. It is the first time it has been before the light of day in the Senate, and we find problems with it, real problems. If people ask schoolchildren, if people ask senior citizens in America, if a bill hits the floor of the Senate and it has bad provisions in it, what can Senators do, well, they will say that Senators offer an amendment and they fix it. Isn't that what we were taught? Isn't that what the history of the Senate is all about? It is a place where people can debate and amend and improve legislation. But we are in an odd and unusual circumstance--not so odd in recent years. The majority leader of the Senate has sought recognition, as he is able to do, and he has filled the amendment tree, and nobody can get an amendment. Nobody can get a vote on this amendment to fix this part of the legislation that plainly needs fixing. It is not available to us. That is awfully hard to believe. It is awfully hard to believe that in the great Senate--as Senator Robert Byrd said, there are two great Senates: the Roman Senate and the American Senate; and he defended it and its rights and priorities. But we have one leader of the Senate, supported by his colleagues, who says: We don't want amendments because we might have to take tough votes, and all we want to do is rubberstamp this agreement, this bill written in secret, and we want to pass it without any amendments. How did that become the policy of America? How did that become the policy in the Senate? What justification can be given to the concept that duly-elected Senators can't stand up on the floor of this body and defend the rights of their constituents and their States by offering amendments to improve legislation? Tomorrow we are going to have the Defense spending bill, authorizing the expenditure of over $500 billion--$500 billion-plus--to fund our military. A lot of people have ideas about how to improve that bill. We are not going to get a single amendment because the majority leader has filled the tree and he is going to deny the Members of this body, who represent millions of people in their States--and really we represent everybody--the right to offer amendments to improve that bill. It is contrary to our tradition. It is contrary to our heritage. It is contrary particularly to the heritage of the U.S. Senate, where open debate and discussion is so important. I thank Senator Wicker. He spoke this morning. I thank Senators Ayotte, Graham, and Inhofe, who shared their thoughts about the lack of wisdom in this legislation. I am going to offer a tabling motion, and the purpose of it will be to remove the parliamentary maneuver of Majority Leader Reid and allow us to have a vote. So what is this motion about? This motion will remove the filling of the tree, and it will allow the Senate to vote on this amendment to strike the military retiree pay cut--and other amendments, perhaps, but this amendment in particular. I believe that is in the tradition of the Senate. I believe it is extremely important. So, Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending motion so that I may offer a motion to concur with amendment No. 2572 which is filed at the desk.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I still have the floor, I believe.

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the Senator for a question.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I would be pleased to yield to the Senator without yielding the floor to answer that question.

Mr. SESSIONS. I yield to the Senator without yielding the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, I thank the Senator. I would note that Senator Ayotte, who has spoken, Senator Graham, and Senator Wicker, along with myself, were conferees on the budget conference committee and that this was supposed to be the kind of thing we would discuss. But we were not called to the final discussion, and now this legislation is brought to the floor that we did not have time to approve in advance.

Mr. SESSIONS. I say to Senator Graham from South Carolina, I am pleased to yield for a question.

Mr. SESSIONS. I do not, I say to Senator Graham.

Mr. SESSIONS. I say to Senator Graham, you are a full colonel in the Air Force, still serving in the Reserve.

Mr. SESSIONS. Bless your heart. But it is a fact that this retirement pay is really more than retirement pay, is it not? It is really an income, a source of payment that ensures that the person can be recalled. So it is part of the right to recall you, a compensation for that.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank Senator Graham. I think he made the defining point there, that this is a one-sided reduction of retirement benefits to people who served in the military, not impacting lots of others. I want to return to the central point. This bill that will be voted on tomorrow--final passage--cuts military retirement by $6 billion. That $6 billion is counted in the numbers of the proponents of the legislation toward their justification for spending more money the next 2 years. They say they are paying for it by reducing this $6 billion over time. It is mandated. It is not an option in the bill. We should not pass legislation that does that. So what I would propose is that we not go along with Majority Leader Reid's determination to run the train over the men and women of our military, that we slow down and we follow the regular process of the Senate, not fill the tree, and allow amendments to be voted on on this substantive matter. So parliamentary inquiry, Madam President.