Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. All right.

Mr. SESSIONS. For the information of my colleagues--and I guess this will not be in concrete--I will recognize Senator Enzi for 10 minutes, Senator Alexander for 10 minutes, and Senators Blunt and Ayotte for 5 minutes each. Senator Enzi, I know, has worked hard on this legislation, and I yield to him.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I yield 5 minutes to Senator Cochran.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, what is our agreement at this point?

Mr. SESSIONS. You are into it?

Mr. SESSIONS. OK.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I appreciated Senator Tester's remarks and his belief that Montanans believe they should live within their means, and he supports a plan to reduce the deficit. But I just want to share with my colleagues that the budget that is before us today is not balanced. It does not reduce the deficit. It taxes a lot more, but its spending increases at the same level, and there is no net change in the unsustainable debt course we are on. He said it reduces the deficit by $2 trillion. I want you to know that is what the Budget Committee claims for that budget, but it is not accurate. It does not reduce the deficit $2 trillion. It does not. It keeps us on the same path. It is not a balanced deficit reduction plan, because it doesn't reduce the deficit. It increases taxes and increases spending, if you call that balance. It is not the right kind of plan. I wish we could get together on fundamentals of numbers in that budget. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question? I will not insist on an answer but I wish to raise something.

Mr. SESSIONS. You have the time. That will be fine. Thank you.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, my colleague, Senator Murray, has questioned the $1.5 trillion in tax increases that we have contended in this legislation. I think it is there because there are two separate reserve funds that would allow taxes to be increased by $500 billion without legislation and would go through without a supermajority, to be passed on a simple vote. But our colleagues say that is not there, so I would offer into the Record, Mr. President, a number of documents that support our view that it is $1.5 trillion. Others can agree, disagree about it, as it is presently written. I would offer that for the Record and our explanation and why we think that is accurate. I ask unanimous consent to have that material printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS. I would like to say this to my chairman: I am willing to concede the point if the chair would agree to amend the two reserve funds so that they cannot be used to advance tax increases, and I would cease making that argument and accept the fact that you have already almost $1 trillion in new taxes. So I would ask through the chair, is the Senator willing to amend those two reserve fund languages so they cannot be used to add another $500 billion in new taxes?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the chair, and I assume, then, that she refuses to clarify the ambiguity, the certain option to increase taxes by another $500 billion. That could be eliminated simply by making the suggestion I just announced. She is rejecting that. So I think it is legitimate to assume that the intent of this reserve fund is to raise taxes another $500 billion. Secondly, with regard to the situation we have been discussing concerning the sequester, I know the Senator said just a few moments ago that the sequester is not deficit reduction. We can disagree about that, but that was her opinion, apparently. I think it is inaccurate. But my question to the Senator is, does your budget as now presented on the floor eliminate the spending limits that are in current law under the Budget Control Act and specifically the sequester portion?

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, I wouldn't misconstrue it. So it does eliminate the sequester. So then the next question would be, did you score the allowed increase in spending of $1.2 trillion in your budget as increased spending?

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, your staff indicated that you could not double- count that money, and if you eliminated the $1.2 trillion in sequester limit and allowed $1.2 trillion more to be spent, you would not save $1.85 trillion but approximately $700 billion on that decision alone. Do you agree with your staff in their analysis?

Mr. SESSIONS. One more question, then. Do you still stand by the promotional material that went with the budget--and in the budget document itself--that you have reduced the deficit over current law by $1.85 trillion or isn't it a fact that eliminating the sequester reduces that to approximately $700 billion in savings?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would just say that the Associated Press disagrees. It is plainly inaccurate. Plainly, I asked that question, over current law, did they count the sequester increase in spending? And the staff admitted in our Budget Committee mark up that it did not--that increased spending--and therefore we reduce the deficit savings from $1.85 trillion to about $700 billion. There is another $700 billion in gimmicks, so there is no reduction in the deficit in this budget. The AP reported: . . . because Democrats want to restore $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts . . .--cuts imposed by [the] failure to strike a . . . budget pact--Murray's blueprint increases spending slightly when compared with current policies. The Hill says: The Murray budget does not contain net spending cuts with the sequester turned off. So I will say this is a serious issue. We need to understand that the sequester is law. It is not just a policy, it is in law. It is taking effect right now. The deficit reduction proposed by this bill is not $1.8 trillion but, in fact, zero. I thank the Chair and would now recognize Senator Barrasso for 10 minutes, I believe, and Senator Alexander for 10 minutes. I thank them for their patience.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, reclaiming the floor, I ask unanimous consent that the vote start at 8:12, and I will be happy, and we will make it all happen. Senator Hatch can have 1 minute.

Mr. SESSIONS. I will do my best. I yield to Senator Hatch for 30 seconds.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to recommit.

Mr. SESSIONS. There are a lot of problems with the country and the way we manage business. Frankly, President Bush became engaged in a war which used up so much of his time and effort. President Obama is not trained as a manager. He has never been a manager, Governor or managed a business. He has too little tough, serious management of the taxpayer's money in this country. It is time for us to get under control the spending which goes on. In my humble opinion, the American people are tired of sending more money to Washington just because we run out. We say it is not our fault; it is the way things are. We can't have any reduction in spending. There are people who are hurt and in pain, hungry, women, elderly, singles, and married. They need to have more money. Any change in our policy whatsoever means somebody is not getting something they are entitled to. The truth is many of our programs serve many good people in need, but almost all those programs have serious management problems which could be run effectively and efficiently, and the program would cost substantially less without any significant diminishment of the effective aid which is rendered by that program. I believe the American people understand this absolutely and fully. As we have done, as an amendment or idea comes forward to confront wasteful spending, somebody in this body, particularly in the Senate, always objects. They raise the specter of meanness and unkindness and that sort of thing. In truth, we all ought to identify serious problems and fix them. For example, in our energy policy, we have had some of the most amazing failures and losses of Federal money I can imagine, beyond anything which is logical and absolutely should not have happened. Most people have heard of the Solyndra company. They had political connections to the White House and received $528 million in Federal loans, went bankrupt and left Uncle Sam holding the bag. There was another company, Abound Solar. It declared bankruptcy after receiving $400 million in Federal loan guarantees. Failing to deliver on the promises they made, somebody at the Department of Energy, apparently, was not checking very well. Maybe they were more interested in a press release, a big announcement, going to some solar factory and saying how we are going to create jobs, grow the economy and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into a program which sank. Beacon Power received $43 million in Federal loan guarantees before it shut down. Fisker, an electric car maker, is not making any cars now due to production problems. It received more than $190 million from the Department of Energy. A123 Systems, a battery maker, also received substantial Federal loans. It is bankrupt. The President emulates the failing energy programs of Europe. His policies were designed to promote an energy theory which is not ready economically. It is one thing to invest in research to try to create a new battery; it is another thing to try to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to a company to produce a product which is not competitive and not ready for prime time. This is the mistake we made. Mr. Lomborg, from Europe, who wrote the book ``Cool It'' and is, in my opinion, an expert on these issues, pointed out a number of years ago in his book the best way to handle this is for the government to subsidize where it can and direct money to try to reach technological breakthroughs, but you should not mandate the people of the United States, or use any kind of program which will not work, cost a lot more money, and have little benefit on the environment. Back in 2008, President Obama made this statement: ``Will America watch as the clean energy jobs and industry of the future flourish in countries like Spain, Japan, or Germany?'' That is what he said. We need to emulate Spain, Japan, and Germany. Spain right now is having to cut back dramatically on its forward- leaning green mandates. They went probably further or as far as any country in Europe. It has been a total disappointment. They are reducing their subsidies. Their economy is in shambles, and they are not doing well. The Financial Times in February of this year wrote: The Spanish government's latest bid to cut its growing debts to the country's energy sector is expected to slash profits at renewable energy companies as Madrid continues to grapple with a $37 billion deficit built up through years of subsidies. They continue: Shares in Acciona, Spain's largest wind power operator, have tumbled almost 20 percent, with Analysts expecting Acciona's earnings per share to drop by 40 percent, while Abengoa's EPS are forecast to drop by 12 percent. Germany is also cutting back. According to Reuters in January of this year: [The German energy company] RWE is delaying investments. SIAG filed for insolvency. REpower Systems is cutting temporary staff. All show how German Chancellor Angela Merkel's $734 billion plan to replace nuclear reactors with renewable sources is stalling. Former Secretary of Treasury, under President Obama, Larry Summers said this: ``Government is a crappy venture capitalist.'' This is exactly correct. We have no business trying to pick and throw American taxpayers' money into risky ventures. We are not good at it. Spain and Germany are not good at it--governments aren't. When it is your money and you are putting up $100 million, then you are at a point where you need to be very serious about that investment. These are some points I wanted to make because I think the American people are tired of hearing Washington say send more money. No, we are not going to cut spending in Washington. We can't do that in the budget which is on the floor. It does not cut spending, actually does not reduce the deficit. It increases spending, increases the deficit, and increases taxes by $1 trillion. What did they say in the budget? We are not going to cut spending. There is nothing we can cut. The government is working. Every dollar we receive, every dollar we distribute is absolutely critical and cannot be contained. Send more money. Just send more money and don't complain, American people. I think people are getting tired of that. They have a right to be tired of that. They should not send another dime until we are on the right path. I see my friend Senator Enzi, and I would be pleased to yield the floor. I would note Senator Enzi is the senior member of the Budget Committee and is a successful businessman who has a proven record in his State. He understands these issues, and he is trained as an accountant. I am sure when he sees what we do in the budget process around here, he must wonder what world we are connected to. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, we talked about a number of challenges our Nation faces and the debt course we are on. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Elmendorf, testified just a few weeks ago before our Budget Committee and declared that we remain on an unsustainable financial course even after the Budget Control Act that reduced spending and even after the tax increase in January, and that this does not get us out of the danger zone. We have hundreds of billions of dollars in deficits every year, and he is projecting that interest on our debt in the 10th year will rise to $800 billion, which is about what the score of the Murray budget that is on the floor today would add to our debt. Fundamentally, this budget that is before us today did not change the debt course we are on. It does not have $2 trillion in spending reductions, and it leaves us on the same dangerous course as Mr. Elmendorf said we are on, so we have to get off of it. I want to share a few things that drive home the danger we are in. Now, we have a strong economy. We have a great entrepreneurial spirit. We have a tremendous infrastructure compared to most places. We have a rule of law that helps us tremendously in terms of managerial efficiency and contracts and complex documents that can be entered into. If there is a dispute over it, you can go to a Federal or State court and have a pretty good chance of a fair decision being reached even in the most complex matters involving high finance. That is not true in most places in the world, so it gives us an advantage. We have an educated workforce. We have a lot of people who are willing to work and hustle. So we have some advantages. We have a history of trade and freedom. But I want to show this chart, because we may not be doing as well as we think we are, and the debt that we are facing may be more serious than a lot of people will acknowledge. This is a chart that shows the debt per person in the Eurozone compared to the United States. It is a stunning chart. Some people have explained it somewhat by saying, well, our economy in the United States is bigger than other economies in the world. Therefore, individual Americans normally make more money and, therefore, they can carry more debt. But anybody who sees this chart has to begin to understand and worry that the needle of our debt is in the red zone--the danger zone. Look at this. This includes spending for Federal, State, and local government. These are 2012 projections of general government expenditures in nominally U.S. dollars--all converted to U.S. dollars by the International Monetary Fund. This is not the United States. This is the world's economic outlook according to the International Monetary Fund. This is the way they score our debt compared to the rest of the world in comparable U.S. dollars. Look at this: In dollars, Spain's debt per person is $24,000. Spain is in serious financial difficulty now. Its debt has caused the interest on their debt to surge. They are paying a large amount. They have tried to bring that under control, but their unemployment is high, and the net result has been the economy is stagnating dangerously. It is a sad thing. Italy has more, with $26,000; Portugal, $39,000 per person; Greece, $42,000 per person; but the debt per person in the United States, according to the International Monetary Fund, is $53,400--higher than all those countries. I would say to my colleagues, we are not in a position of safety. I would say to my colleagues that this is a kind of debtload that we need not to underestimate. We might find that this economy is more unpredictable than we think. As I said last night, I remember Alan Greenspan being before the Budget Committee in 2001 and telling us we had to worry. And the worry was that we had so much money that we would pay down all the debt in the United States and then--he worried--what we would do with the extra money when we paid the whole debt down. This is the maestro, Alan Greenspan. I say that just to indicate that if he misses it that badly, maybe Mr. Bernanke will miss it. Actually, the Wall Street Journal documented that when Mr. Bernanke was advising Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman, about the bank mortgage situation in the mid-2000s--2003, 2004, 2005--he was advising Mr. Greenspan to keep pouring the low money out, keep encouraging banks to lend, lend, lend, and he rejected the idea we were in danger. Then, whammo, we had this horrible recession of 2007. So I would just say this chart shows us that we need to get our house in order. The American people know that. They tell me that everywhere I go. So why won't Congress respond? Well, the House has responded. I know my Democratic friends don't like to hear that, but this budget that Paul Ryan produced, while not a perfect document, it changes the debt course of America. It balances the budget, and we could do the same thing if we wanted to, and do it in a different way. Let's do it a different way, but we should have a balanced budget. And we don't, and there is no plan to get there--not even close. One of the things that is happening in America today is the growth in our economy is not where it should be. This chart is a vivid indicator that the Congressional Budget Office, our top adviser, has been consistently wrong about its projections in the last several years. This is CBO forecasts 2 years before an event. OK? So in 2008, what was CBO projecting the growth rate to be in 2010? They projected it would be 3.1 percent, but it came in at 2.4 percent. In 2009, what did they project we would have as growth in 2011? They projected we would have 4 percent growth in 2011. We had less than half of that--1.8 percent. That is a huge difference. Now Christina Romer, who served President Obama as his top adviser on economic matters, has estimated that the difference in 1 and 2 percent growth is 1 million jobs. So what do we have here? We have more than 2 million less jobs being created in 2011 than were projected by the experts that we relied on in 2009. And look at this. It is even worse in 2012. They projected back in 2010 that growth in 2012--just 2 years in advance--would be at 4.4 percent, and it came in at 2.2 percent. So these 1.8 and 2.2 percent growth figures are really not growth. That is not a job-creating factor. You need to have more growth than that to create real jobs and hiring and wage improvements and raises. So I just would ask my colleagues: What is causing that? What is causing that? Professors Rogoff and Reinhart did the fabulous book, ``This Time It's Different,'' and they did an empirical actual study of the economies of over 200 years of nations who ran up too much debt. They studied what happened and the ones that had debt crises. What did they conclude? And not based on theory, not some ideal formula reached in academic situations, but what actually happened in these countries? What they concluded was that when the gross debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP, 90 percent of the size of the economy, then growth begins to slow. They found that the growth was slowed by 1 to 2 percent. In 2010, the gross debt of the United States exceeded 90 percent of the economy and CBO's forecast was off. The next year, we were still way above 90 percent. In 2012, we were way above 90 percent of GDP. The debt is so high that it impacts economic growth, it would appear to me. I think this is a fact not being fully considered by CBO and it is impacting our economy, and it argues against any idea that we have no responsibility to start confronting our debt situation now. In addition to Rogoff and Reinhart--perhaps stimulated by Rogoff and Reinhart, in the last couple of years, the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank, and the Bank for International Settlements have studied these very issues because it is a big deal in Europe. Many of the countries in Europe are deeply in debt, their economies are stagnating, and they have studied this issue. And what did they conclude? They concluded basically the same thing. Every one of those studies shows that when a country reaches a high level of debt--in the range of the 90 percent--they begin to suffer economic growth reduction. One of the studies went as low as 60 percent of your GDP in debt begins to slow the economy. They have various factors in how it is done and the studies are constructed in different ways, but the net result is that when our debt situation is applied to each of those three studies, our economy is projected to be suffering as a result of the high debt we have. So I would say those three studies validate the concerns of Rogoff and Reinhart. Those three studies indicate we are already in America suffering growth loss because of the debt we have. As we wrestle with how to deal with our economy, I would challenge all of our Members and challenge commentators in the media to ask tough questions: Can we continue to borrow more, run up more debt, and attempt to create a stimulus effect in our economy today? How much can we do that? The Congressional Budget Office early this year concluded in a thorough report that if we were to balance the budget and bring our debt down to the level--as Congressman Ryan proposed and as we proposed in the committee, and as I proposed in my amendment tonight--and balanced the budget, what would happen? They predict this economy in 10 years would be stronger than it is if we hadn't done that, if we used two other scenarios that had less reduction and allowed more debt to accumulate. Did you hear that? The economy over the long term will be healthier in this country, according to our own CBO, if we get our debt under control and balance our budget. It is in their report in January of this year. We need to listen to that. The American people know you can't get something for nothing. They know you can't borrow your way out of debt. As one of my citizens in Evergreen told me several years ago at a town meeting, My daddy said you can't borrow your way out of debt. Isn't that true? That is what we have been doing. We are going to borrow somehow and create a false high, a sugar high, and that is going to fix our problems. It has proven not to be the case. What do we need to do? We need to do the same thing responsible people all over the world do. We need to do the same thing families do, the same thing States do that are well managed--and many are very well managed--and that counties and cities do; that is, operate within our means. Let's have a budget that actually balances, and all of the other factors will come into play. Debt as a percentage of GDP and these arguments about primary debt, and debt as a percentage of the economy, that is not where we need to be. If we balance the budget over a period of time--carefully, so it doesn't do damage to the economy--and do this in the right way, we will make this economy better, and we will have people working who are now on unemployment. We will have people working and bringing home paychecks who are now on food stamps and TANF and other welfare programs. They will have jobs and they will be able to get pay raises and they will be able to work longer hours and get some overtime, and be able to pay down the house payment or the car payment. People are hurting out there. We have fewer people working today than we did in 2000. The average wage has declined--not increased--in the last 10 years. This economy is not growing. My Democratic colleagues are correct about that. People are hurting. So how do you fix it? Do you borrow more so we can spend more? Is the government going to lift people out of poverty by giving them more checks that we taxed more and passed out more money? Is that compassion? I don't think so. I have worked with working people. I have worked construction. I grew up in the country. I know people who didn't have money and how they can live and take care of their families on modest means, and they were independent, with pride and self-respect. We have an award being given in North Carolina to a food stamp office employee who talked people into taking food stamps who said they didn't need them. The award was given to her for overcoming mountain pride. So is this the status of the American economy today, that we are talking people into not being independent, we encourage them to take benefits from the government when they say they don't need them? That is what they gave her the award for. We have got food stamp promoters in foreign embassies, in the consulate offices all over. They are meeting and promoting new residents to America--legal, presumably--to get on food stamps and other benefits programs. But you are not supposed to be admitted to the United States if you are going to be a charge on the State, so we checked on that. Do you know what we found? That about two-tenths of 1 percent--not 1 percent, but two-tenths of 1 percent of the people who apply to enter the United States are turned down because they might not be financially able to support themselves. One study said at least 36 percent of lawful immigrants in our country today are on some sort of welfare benefit program. If they have to have health care to survive and go to the hospital, they need to get it, and we want to help people who are in need. But doesn't anybody follow common sense? Doesn't anybody understand we have a reasonable law that says, If you are going to come to America, we need to know you are going to be able to take care of yourself? You shouldn't be coming to America to get on a benefit program. We are not checking. Nobody is checking. Nobody is worried. So what will they do? They will get Uncle Sam to ask the taxpayers to send more money, and we will keep spending more. It is a bottomless pit, you know. We will just tax the rich. How about that? Because shouldn't the rich pay more because somebody immigrated to America and their income was low? And so we will just give them money. Do you know they did the same thing, the Department of Agriculture, with people who entered the country? They had a soap opera series of videos, and this is what they did: A lady speaks to another lady and she says something about food stamps. The other lady says, Well, my husband has a good job. I don't need food stamps. That is the first scene. The first lady says, Well, you don't understand. After two or three of these videos, the first lady convinces the second lady that she should ask for these benefits when she said she didn't want them. She was a lady of pride and dignity. She didn't think she had to have this and wasn't asking for it. But our government overcame her resistance. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was promoting this and paid money to buy these ads: Don't worry, we will ask the American people to send more money. But we won't ask you to send more, we will ask the rich to send more money. I remember years ago George Wallace used to want to tax the power company. He always wanted to tax the power companies. I was looking at my electric bill the other day and they list your charges, and one of them is the State tax. So they taxed the power company, and the power company passes it on to the person who buys the electricity. Give me a break. A tax on the economy is a tax on the economy. It is a weak argument that you can have an unlimited amount of money by taxing the rich. At some point it becomes not correct, not fair, and not right if the money is being thrown away on Solyndras and A-123 battery companies that go bankrupt. But nobody worries about it: Send more money. We are having abuses in the SNAP program, and I proposed an amendment that would eliminate an abusive part of the food stamp program a year ago. In 2001, we spent $20 billion a year on SNAP. Last year, we spent $80 billion. It has gone up, from 20 to 80, four times. We identified a categorical eligibility gimmick that was allowing people to get food stamps who did not qualify and should not have received them. I said, Let's close that loophole. Over 10 years we were projected to spend $800 billion on the food stamp program. This would have reduced it by 11, so we would have been spending $789 billion instead of $800 billion. And do you know what they said? Sessions wants to take food out of the mouths of babies. People are going to starve. He is uncompassionate. He is unkind. He wants to chop the budget so we can hurt people. It was voted down. And we had reports showing that this was an abusive practice that should have been fixed. Now we want to ask the American people, Send more money. We want to tax you more. Well, what about the abuse in the food stamp program? There is no abuse. The Department of Agriculture said we have less fraud than we have ever had in history. And I used to prosecute that as a Federal prosecutor. I know there is fraud in there. We established without any doubt that their claim that they have minimal fraud is only in the computer part of the program. Nobody is checking to see if somebody who qualified for any of these government programs later gets a job and doesn't meet the qualifications. They still are getting benefits all over the country, unless they self-report. All kinds of things such as this are going on. No one is checking to see if somebody goes into two food stamp offices, two other benefit offices of various kinds and asks for them under different names at each place and produces some sort of ID. There is all kinds of abuse in this system and I hear it all the time. Most people who get food stamps need it, they qualify for it, and they would get it under any kind of reasonable reform that would occur. But to suggest that we aren't wasting money through practices that allow unqualified individuals to gain access to multiple programs of this kind is a mistake. It absolutely happens every day. I tried cases to a jury of stores selling food stamps, manipulating the program, dealing with corrupt individuals who brought the food stamps in to sell because they had obtained them fraudulently and never needed the food at all. This idea that there is no fraud in this program is ludicrous. That is what the leaders of the Department of Agriculture are saying: We have no problem. It is OK. Just send us more money. We will keep expanding and growing every year--maybe double the thing again, I guess. These are the kinds of things that I believe this budget does not address. This budget allows spending to continue at its current rate, it allows the debt to continue at its current rate. Spending goes up and taxes go up. That is what this budget does. Spending goes up and taxes go up and the deficit is not reduced. I hope that somehow we will come to our senses, go back home, and talk to our constituents. We will listen to them when they plead with us to do something about the debt course we are on. They tell us they are disgusted with the way things are going in Washington, and we say: We cannot do anything about it. They said there is not a problem. You don't understand the challenge we face. We really have to have more money. That is what we have to have. We can't get by on the money we have been having. We have to increase the money you give us. Do you know that if we increase spending every year 3.4 percent--and these figures are not disputed--if we increase spending each year 3.4 percent, we could balance the budget? The problem is that our spending is increasing at 5.4 percent. It is hard to believe that difference would cause as many billion dollars in debt as it does, but it does. Each year, we add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt. In fact, the last 4 years we have averaged adding $1,100 billion to the debt each year. As those dollars are added to the debt, we pay interest on them, and interest is surging. We are going to find, according to the CBO, on the course we are on and on the course we would stay on if this budget passes, that we would not do anything different than where we are today, which means we would be paying about $800 billion in 1 year in interest. The road bill is $40 billion, education is about $100 billion--it is going to crowd out spending for every agency in our government. For research and development--we are just going to keep raising taxes now? When we talk about a $650 billion tax increase in January this year on the rich, that passed. That went through. That will be $65 billion a year in extra revenue. I am saying to you that the Congressional Budget Office tells us that in 10 years from now, we will be paying $800 billion a year in interest. You are not going to tax the rich out of that. It is just not going to happen. We are at a point where the debate today and the last week in the Budget Committee has put us in a position to confront the choices we have. Forgive me if I am passionate about this. We have waited 4 years to even see a budget brought to the floor when the law of the United States of America says a budget should be brought every year to the floor and every year before the committee and the President is required to produce a budget every year. For the first time since the Budget Act has been passed, the President has not produced a budget this year. But the Senate has begun to act, so I guess we are supposed to be happy for that. And I am happy for that, but I think we would be a lot better off, the country would be a lot better off--we may be in a better position to reach some sort of compromise on some of the great issues had we been publicly wrestling with these issues for the last 4 years instead of sweeping them under the table. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased to yield. Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 933

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