Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the Republican leader for his efforts in this regard. I know for a fact that Senator McConnell and the leadership on our side hoped and believed it was possible to take advantage of the opportunity of the discussion over raising the debt limit to create a major alteration in our plan of spending in this country. It has been disappointing to not have been met halfway in that regard. When Senator McConnell was told the White House's plan included only a $2 billion cut next year in spending, I found it stunning. Our deficit this fiscal year will have added $1,500 billion to our debt. We are going to save $2 billion next year? This is not acceptable, and I am disappointed. I appreciate the Republican leader's efforts in that regard. I would note, as to the discussion about that the war is causing our deficit, it has been expensive over 10 years. The war on terrorism, Iraq, and Afghanistan together have cost about $1.5 trillion. This next year, we are projecting a little over $100 billion to be spent. So I will just say that the amount of the deficit this one year will equal the cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars over 10 years. The deficit this year is $1,500 billion. The cost of the war this year is about $150 billion. It is about 10 percent of the deficit we are running this year. Although we hope to bring those numbers down and are already projecting next year those numbers to come down to closer to $100 billion from $150 billion, the cause of our deficit is not the war. It represents about 10 percent of the total deficit we are running this year. That is just a fact. That is what the numbers show. One of the few things mandated for Congress to do every year is to pass a budget. According to the Congressional Budget Act, contained in the U.S. Code, signed into law in 1974, the Senate Budget Committee must produce a budget resolution by April 1 and adopt a conference agreement on that budget by April 15. Furthermore, a budget must include total levels of spending, expected revenue, and deficits for no less than 5 years, and frequently we do 10-year budgets. Once a budget is in place, Congress is prohibited from passing legislation with spending that exceeds the levels that were in the budget--sort of like we do in our homes. In essence, a budget is both a concrete plan for the future, and an enforcement mechanism to help us stay within the limits we set, and to ensure honest accounting. One of these enforcement mechanisms in the Budget Act as set forth in the code is a prohibition against the consideration of any appropriations bills in the absence of a budget. We should not move forward with spending bills until we have established a budget. How simple is that? That is why we are supposed to have it done by April 15, because the appropriations bills come along afterwards. This is the essence of good government. We should not spend taxpayer dollars without a plan for how to officially allocate the dollars and in a way that maximizes the effectiveness of our spending and minimizes waste and abuse and fraud. We have too much of that in our government. This point of order--and there is a point of order in the code-- contained in section 303(c) of the Congressional Budget Act, once that point of order is raised, the legislation in question cannot move forward unless a majority of the Senators vote to waive the budget requirement that taxpayer money should not be appropriated without a budget--without a plan. This is what the law dictates. I believe this is our responsibility as legislators and as Senators. This is what the organizational structure of this very Senate requires, and this is the duty the Democrat-led Senate has refused to fulfill for 805 days. Senate Democrats have failed to adopt a budget in more than 2 years, and this year they have refused to even produce a budget for public review. They claim they have one. They claim it does some good things, and they leak portions of it to the public and spin it as being a positive document. But when asked to produce it, they do not do so. When asked to have hearings on it, they do not do so. If they are proud of it, if it will sustain public scrutiny, why do they not bring it forward? I have never imagined that I would serve 2 years in the Senate and now be ranking member of the Budget Committee, and we would not have a budget even presented. Today we are scheduled to vote on a motion to proceed to the Military Construction appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012, beginning October 1 of this year. Regardless of my feelings about the legislation or my high admiration for those who have worked on it, I think I have a responsibility, a duty, as ranking member of the Budget Committee during this time of extreme fiscal danger, the greatest debt we have ever seen, to oppose cloture on this measure and to raise the 303(c) point of order should cloture be invoked. My objection does not mean I do not support the bill. To any who would suggest otherwise, let me say that this action is at its core a defense of our men and women in uniform. No one understands duty better than those who wear the uniform, and it is our duty to write a budget that sets priorities and ensures the needs of our troops are met. The military is a priority of the highest order. To protect that priority, we must have a budget, especially in these challenging economic times. The Senate has failed those in uniform if it chooses political expedience over drafting a budget that includes a military spending plan. How can we protect the military from unwise cuts if spending plans are not even made public? The only area of government significantly cut in the unseen Democratic budget proposal that I have referred to previously--that I have called a ``phantom budget''--appears to be the Pentagon's. If we take the numbers that were leaked from their budget plan, it calls for $900 billion in cuts to the Pentagon, to the government, to the military. Well, if this is their plan we ought to know it. So I do not want to hear people say that I am objecting to the Military Construction bill because I do not appreciate the military, while the Democratic majority, who is producing this Military Construction bill, claim they have a budget that hammers the Defense Department by $900 billion. Indeed, while that appears to be the plan, the budget submitted by President Obama earlier this year--not one produced by the Senate Democrats but the President's own budget--calls for a 9.5-percent increase in the Energy Department, a 10.5-percent increase for the Education Department, a 10.5-percent increase for the State Department, and a 60-percent increase for high-speed rail and the Transportation budget without money to fund it. While they are proposing major cuts in defense, we have major plans on the table to increase spending next year when we are, again, going to run a $1 trillion-plus deficit. The authors of the Congressional Budget Act likely did not contemplate a future in which the governing party believes budgets are no longer necessary. That seems to be the case today. That is why I am also bringing forward legislation that will raise a 303(c) point of order threshold to 60 votes--no appropriations without a budget unless 60 Senators choose to waive that requirement. That is in the law. We sometimes put requirements in the law. We do not have very good enforcement mechanisms. The danger we face from continuing to operate this government without a clear, concrete budget is simply too great. Admiral Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that our Nation's debt is the gravest of all national security threats we face. It is so. We are reaching a point where our economy could enter into a financial crisis as a result of our national debt. We owe it to the extraordinary men and women who serve this country to defend at home the way of life they have defended abroad. That means the Senate must confront the debt problem that threatens us with economic disaster. Already, as economists Rogoff and Reinhart demonstrated, we are losing at least 1 million jobs a year as a result of our high debt, which is now 95 percent of GDP and soon to be 100 percent of GDP. In just a little over 2 months our Nation's gross debt will be as large as our entire economy and growing larger. This year we will take in $2.2 trillion, but we will spend $3.7 trillion. By the end of the first 3 years of the Obama administration, we will have accumulated $5 trillion in gross debt--new debt. Over the next 10 years we are projected to spend $46 trillion, adding another $13 trillion to our national debt. That is 13,000 billion. The President proposed saving $2 billion next year. He proposes we increase taxes on corporate jets that over 10 years would save $3 billion, while he has a budget submitted to the Senate that would increase the debt by $13,000 billion over the next 10 years. I do not defend corporate jets. We can eliminate that as far as I am concerned and change our whole tax structure, which needs simplifying and more integrity and more effectiveness in it. But that is not a responsible way for a leader to suggest that we are going to fix our debt problems--by changing the corporate tax rate for jets. No nation can sustain this level of debt, nor can any nation ever raise enough taxes to cover this level of spending. The course we are on is not merely unsustainable, it is unimaginable. The American people have every right to be angry with their Congress. We are sitting here running a government and borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. They should be furious with us. It is unacceptable. It is unexplainable. We spend and borrow all we can. That is the fact. There is only one sound answer: control spending and grow the economy, not tax it into submission. For Americans to regain prosperity, Washington must regain discipline. Hiking taxes to bail out the Washington spenders who have put us in debt by increasing domestic nondefense spending in the last 2 years--not war, not Social Security, I am talking about general expenditures of our government have gone up 24 percent in the last 2 years. They have run up huge debts, and now they want the American people to pay more so they can continue to spend at this irresponsible level. I say no to that. I am not for that. Since the Democratic-led Senate last passed a budget, we have spent $7.3 trillion and increased the debt by $3.2 trillion. When President Obama took office the public debt of the United States was about $5.7 trillion. In 3 years we have added close to $4 trillion in debt. In 4 years President Obama's debt that he will have run up at this rate will be larger than the debt that has been accumulated in the entire history of America. We are on an unsustainable course. This fiscal abandon has brought us to the brink of the debt ceiling that we have. We have a limit on how much debt we can run up statutorily. Yet, still, the Senate Democrats will not produce a budget, and the White House will not put together an honest plan with real spending cuts that they will stand behind and let people analyze and score. Just more gimmicks, tricks, and games. That is not acceptable. That is why we are in this fix today. Majority Leader Reid actually declared it would be ``foolish'' to have a budget--``foolish'' to have a budget. Would you tell a family who is having difficulty with their finances it is foolish to have a budget? Would you declare to a family who is running up credit card debt and 40 percent of what they are spending is put on a credit card every month that they should not have a budget? The United States Code requires us to have a budget by April 15. It is easy to claim deficit reduction as a priority, but if our leaders were actually to put a plan on paper it would become all too clear that their real desire is for larger taxes and only meager cuts to spending. That is the truth. That will not get the job done. Numbers do not lie. Their rhetoric creates the appearance of savings, but those savings do not exist when you look at the numbers carefully. But while the White House and Senate Democrats may think their strategy is clever, I do not think the American people should be amused. I do not think the American people are amused. Until the majority, who asked for the responsibility to lead this Senate--that is what they wanted. They have it. Until they allow this Chamber to adopt a badly needed budget, I am going to continue to raise points of order on appropriations bills. Now more than ever, we should fulfill our legal duties, not shirk them. More than ever today we should. We were not elected to preside over the financial decline of this country. We were not elected to shut down the committees, deny them the right to function, to shut down debate or cede our constitutional responsibility to secret meetings and closed-door proceedings. The debt limit is not only about fulfilling our obligation to creditors, it is about fulfilling our obligation to the all of the people we serve, good Americans. We owe them a Senate that works, that works openly and tirelessly on their behalf, which casts votes on these important matters and has to respond and be accountable to the American people. We owe the people an honest, competent, limited, efficient government. We owe them a Senate that is worthy of their faith and trust. We are not there. We are not fulfilling that responsibility. Therefore, I expect that I will object and raise a budget point of order against movement to the Military Construction bill. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from South Dakota is an experienced member of the Budget Committee and a member of the leadership on the Republican side in the Senate. Isn't it true that we had more interest from Members wanting to join the Budget Committee this year, particularly new Members who had gotten elected and talked to their constituents about their fear of America's debt and they wanted to be on the Budget Committee, and only a few could be selected out of the group who wanted to be on it? What has been the Senator's observation as to how they have reacted to the fact that no budget has been presented; that the committee has never met or even marked up and held hearings as the United States Code requires? Maybe the Senator can share how they feel about this.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy with my Republican colleagues.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank Senator Klobuchar. She is a valuable Member of the Senate, and she mentioned some savings or additional revenue from tax increases--some were $10 billion, one was $8 billion, and I think one was $3 billion. I would just say that over 10 years, that is how much those changes would raise. I would recall for all my colleagues that we unwisely spent $847 billion on a stimulus package that produced little income, and we are paying interest on that of about $27 billion to $30 billion a year. It adds up as the years go by, every year, just the interest on that one single expenditure. We have now gone 804 days without a budget in this body. During that time, this country has spent $7.3 trillion. That is $7,300 billion. We have paid in interest on the money we have borrowed $439 billion just in that period of time we haven't had a budget. Interest on our debt is $439 billion in 804 days. And we have accumulated, during this time, an additional $3.2 trillion in debt. During the past 2 years, under the super Democratic majority here in the Senate and in the House--60 Democratic Senators and the President's leadership--the discretionary nondefense spending went up 24 percent, and the President proposes in his budget next year to increase the Education Department, the State Department, the Energy Department, and the Transportation Department double-digit increases again, when this year 40 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. I am glad my colleagues can be with me now. I see Senator Johnson is here. He is a member of the Budget Committee. We had more people want to get on the Budget Committee this year, the new Senators who were recently elected. Senator Johnson was one of the few to be selected. And they hope to make a difference and to confront the problems we face. Senator Johnson is a successful businessman. He just joined the Senate last year. How has the Senator felt to date about the process?

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask my colleague, Senator Lee from Utah who just joined us, his late father was Solicitor General of the United States and law school dean, and we are glad that Senator Lee has put a lot of effort in drafting a constitutional amendment, the good lawyer that he is, that would make a difference for our country. Maybe the Senator would share his thoughts about his observations as a new Senator on how things are going and why he believes a constitutional amendment, as Senator Wicker from Mississippi said, would be helpful for our country and help put us on a sound path for the future.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Lee for his leadership and hard work on that. It is not an easy thing to draft something that people would all agree with, but I think all the Republicans have signed on to that, and we are happy for that, and I believe this is not an impossible dream. When I came to the Senate in 1997, we had a vote on the balanced budget amendment. It fell one vote short. We got 66; it required 67. How much better off would we have been today, how much less debt would we have placed on our children and grandchildren had that amendment been passed then? I do think it is time for a national discussion again on this issue and to make that change, and would wish to point out something about the debt we now have. The unemployment rate came in disappointingly with only 18,000 jobs created last month, in June. We look to have 150,000 just to stay level. Unemployment went up. Economic growth in the first quarter was expected to be much higher than it came in. I think the first number was 1.8. Maybe it has been revised to 2 percent. The Rogoff-Reinhart study has studied debt defaults in countries all over the world for eight centuries, a highly respected study. Secretary Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, said it is an excellent study and in some ways it underestimates the risk. This study says when your debt reaches 90 percent of the economy, 90 percent of the gross domestic product, it pulls down economic growth by 1 percent to 2 percent. We are now at 95 percent debt to GDP. We will be at 100 percent of debt to GDP by the end of this year. I believe our growth could have been 3 percent instead of 2 percent the first quarter. And 1 percent growth, according to Obama White House's economic adviser Christina Romer amounts to 1 million jobs created. So I believe we have lost 1 million jobs that could have been created, we have lost additional tax revenue and growth and prosperity that would help us deal with our debt because of the debt. You see, you can't keep borrowing. Maybe when we get our GDP was 30 percent--maybe that is what it was when Senator Wicker probably came to Congress and now we are at 100 percent. Our debt is as large as the entire productivity of our economy, and economists tell us it is pulling down our growth and it is costing jobs. Americans are not working today because of debt, and what we hear is, Don't worry about it; debts don't matter. Senator Wicker has been here in the House and in the Senate. Has the Senator seen the situation in which our financial crisis, short term and long term, systemically is more severe than it is today?

Mr. SESSIONS. Senator Johnson, as I recognized, is a businessman. President Clinton recently said we need to reduce our corporate tax rate. I was on a TV show with Senator Bill Nelson, my good Democratic colleague, who said we ought to reduce some of these tax expenditures, as some call them. My understanding was we could use that to help get our rates down so we are more competitive worldwide and create more jobs. I guess my question is, if you simplify the Tax Code and you eliminate gimmicks, should the money be applied, as President Clinton suggested, to reducing our rates so we are more competitive or should they be used to subsidize more spending by Washington?

Mr. SESSIONS. I would say that I do believe we are at a national crisis with our debt. I believe it endangers the Nation, because Erskine Bowles, who chaired the Debt Commission appointed by President Obama, has told us that we are facing an economic crisis as a result of the debt in written testimony to the Budget Committee, and he warned that we have to change our course. I certainly believe that is true; and I believe the Rogoff and Reinhart study, affirmed by Secretary Geithner, is correct, that it is already pulling down our growth. I am worried about the future of our country. Maybe Senator Lee will wrap up for us. He just finished a campaign, talking to hundreds of thousands of people in his State. What is the Senator's perception of what we need to be doing at this point in time?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator. Madam President, I would cite that the interest factor my colleague mentioned is very real. This year we are expected to pay $240 billion in interest. How much is that? That is just a number. The amount of money that we spend under the Federal Highway Program is $40 billion. The amount of money we spend on Federal aid to education is $100 billion. This year we are paying $240 billion. However, under the budget that was submitted to the Congress by the President--the Democratic Senate has never brought one forward on their own--that budget added $13 trillion more to the debt, and the Congressional Budget Office, our nonpartisan accountants, has calculated what the interest payment would be in the 10th year of that 10-year budget. It has concluded the interest payment that year would be $940 billion. That is larger than Medicare, it is larger than Medicaid, it is larger than Social Security, it is larger than the defense budget. These numbers are incredibly large and we cannot--as a gentleman told me at a townhall meeting--borrow our way out of debt. We cannot keep spending. It is dragging down our economic growth right now. It is costing jobs right now. There are some people who say we do not have enough jobs; we need to spend more. Where are we going to get that money? Borrow that money. We are already borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Can we afford to borrow more to try to get a sugar high, keep growth artificially growing now? I think we just have to be mature, grownup, and realize we are going to have to work our way out of this fix. We can do it if we create stability and soundness in our economy. If we do this right we can create a system in which we can have growth. Our business community is hanging in there. They are doing pretty well. They are holding up, but we have to create jobs. We have to have more job growth and more growth in the entire economy. That is what we need. I do believe the debt is a weight on us. It is a burden that is reducing growth, and we must have that to pull our way out of this crisis. I am glad to see the President has joined in the discussions, but I have to say I think he has moved from the budget he submitted just a few months ago, which was the most irresponsible budget ever submitted to Congress calling for more taxes, more spending, and more debt. In other words, over the period of 10 years his budget laid out that taxes would go up, the spending would go up more than the taxes, and the deficit would go up more than the current path we are on. It made it worse. We cannot do that. When that budget was brought to the floor--I brought it to the floor--and we got a vote, it failed 97 to 0. I am glad the President is working now. Together we have to somehow develop a strategy to put us on a course so all Americans and the business community in our country and the world financial community will say: Boy, the United States is getting their act together. They are making the right decisions. They are on a sound course now. Maybe that is where we need to put our money instead of some other place because they are on the right path. Right now it is very dangerous. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the situation involving the need for a budget and the situation involving the need to raise the debt limit for the United States is getting more and more crucial, it seems, by the hour. I have been a firm and consistent critic of this idea that has been developing the last several years in the Congress that a few people meet in closed, secret meetings and somehow reach a decision that I am supposed to assume is good and decent and ought to be confirmed by a vote here in the Senate. I feel that there are 100 Senators--and some a lot smarter and more capable than I--but I feel a personal sense of obligation and duty to ensure that when I vote on an important piece of legislation my constituents care about, that I know what is in it and that I understand what is in it, and it is hard to know. When you have a bill that comes out that proposes to have changes in the trillions of dollars, involving Federal spending for a decade, in a budget or some other fashion, it requires us to be careful about that. So I would express again my dissatisfaction and belief that this Senate--not the House--has failed in its duty to participate in an open process concerning our budget. The House of Representatives did. The Republican House promised to have open hearings. They had a bill on the floor--a budget. They passed it within the time required--by April 15. It completely changed the debt trajectory of America and put us on sound footing. It reduced spending by $6 trillion--not $2 trillion but $6 trillion--and it didn't raise taxes on the American people. In fact, it reduced taxes in a way they felt would engender better economic growth, which is the best way to engender more tax revenue--having more people make more money and pay more taxes. So I really believe the House fulfilled their constitutional duty. In the Senate, we have now gone well over 800 days without a budget. We didn't have a budget when our Democratic colleagues had 60 Senators--the highest number one party has had in probably 70, 80 years, maybe longer. They didn't pass a budget. You can pass a budget with 51 votes--with the Vice President, 50 votes. It is a simple majority. It is an expedited procedure. Budgets have been passed when parties have only had one-vote majorities in the Senate. So I would say it is odd that we have gone 2 years without a budget, but it is not odd--in part because of having no budget--that we have seen the largest surges of debt the Nation has ever seen. President Bush was criticized for running up debt. He had, in 1 year--his last year--a $450 billion deficit, and he was roundly criticized for that. Some of that was TARP money, which they scored as monies spent, and it was properly and accurately scored. So it came out to $450 billion. The year before, it was a $160 billion deficit. President Obama's first budget deficit was $1,200 billion. His next budget was $1,300 billion. This year's budget, by September 30, is projected to be around $1,500 billion. We haven't had a budget. Is anything connected there? So I want to say, first of all, one of the ways you act responsibly is when you do it out in front of the people. I noticed at the press conference today that President Obama, when asked about some of these matters, pushed back and said: Well, we want to have an agreement right now. We don't want to wait any later, close to the election. He was basically saying--it is pretty clear, really, and I am not exaggerating anything--when you get close to the election, Senators and Congressmen don't like to vote for more debt and they do not like to vote for more taxes. What is wrong with that? The American people don't want debt. They do not want taxes. They want us to bring this government under control. But what is being suggested is, oh, it is politics. There is something corrupt politically if you believe you shouldn't bail out the big spenders in Washington by taking more money from hard-working Americans and taking it out of the private sector to give to the public sector that has mismanaged the money they have. Some might say: Well, Jeff, we have these big deficits because you all cut taxes. We haven't cut taxes in years. President Bush cut taxes with revenues much higher today than when those taxes were cut. We have gone into an economic decline, and this recession has reduced our income. That is true. It is not so much the rate of taxes. It is the rate of profit. It is the rate of income. It is the rate of money people are being paid, so they do not have as much money and they are not paying as much in taxes. Now, we can run around and find everybody who is left with money and try to tax them, but at some point that begins to be self- defeating. So I guess I am trying to raise the point, How did we get here? Well, there is another way we got here with these huge deficits we have. In the Keynesian philosophy of economics, we had a big spending bill called a stimulus bill. I opposed it. I remember reading a piece by the Nobel laureate, Professor Becker, from the University of Chicago, not long before the vote saying it was not going to create jobs; that it was not sufficiently stimulative to be a good stimulus bill, in fact, in his mind, as a Nobel Prize-winning economist. And that is exactly what happened. It didn't create jobs. It went to social programs, it went to State aid, and it went to things other than the infrastructure that we were told it was going for. Only 4 percent of that money went to roads and bridges--4 percent out of $850 billion. Every penny borrowed will be to create or to stimulate jobs, they said. We are going to redo our infrastructure, they said. It was not done that way. It was social spending overwhelmingly, and it didn't create growth in the economy. Another reason we have the debt is because the baseline spending has surged under the Democratic leadership and President Obama. Defense Department has gone up 3 or so percent the last couple of years in spending. Nondefense discretionary spending--the things we do such as energy programs and road programs and aid and grants and things we like to spend around here--went up 24 percent in 2 years. We were having a drop off in income, a drop off in tax revenue, and we increased spending dramatically. We never had 10, 12 percent increases in spending per year. But hold your hat. The budget the President submitted to us in February of this year--several months ago--proposed increases for the Education Department of 10.5 percent, proposed increases for the State Department of 10.5 percent, with 9.5 percent for the Energy Department and a 60- percent increase for transportation--the high-speed rail projects. But we don't have the money. All of that would have been borrowed. We couldn't sustain flat spending without borrowing money, we are so far in debt. Forty cents of every dollar we spend today is borrowed. So I have been a big critic of this scheme to meet behind closed doors and not tell the rest of the Congress or the American people what we are doing and to plop down on the floor of the Senate some proposed deal that we have to sign at the eleventh hour or the government is going to shut down. Why haven't we been talking about this? They talked about it in the House. They voted on it. They reduced spending $6 trillion. In the phantom budget that has been talked about by our Democratic colleagues, one they never produced so it could actually be accounted for, they are claiming it would reduce spending $2 trillion and are patting themselves on the back about how great they are. But when you take out the interest savings that occur, it is only $1.4 trillion in actual reduction of spending and it is a 2.7-percent, we estimate, increase in taxes. Senator Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, does a good job. He is a smart man. I think he understands the threat America faces. I thought he did, although this phantom secret budget that they just leak out descriptions of whenever it is convenient has not impressed me. Really, it just hasn't been impressive. Is it a vision? Is it a specter of some kind of a budget that nobody can ever grasp their hands around, and it is only what the people who are holding it close to their vest say it is and all the rest of us have to accept that? I don't think so. I have become very uneasy about what we hear in this city of Washington about plans and policy. When President Obama announced his budget, it was the most irresponsible budget this country has ever been presented with by a President. I don't think anybody can dispute that. I am prepared to defend that against anybody who says so. It increased spending, it increased taxes. Over a decade, it increased taxes and increased spending and made the deficit worse than if we hadn't done anything, at a time when the Nation should have been working from January until today figuring out how to bring this government under control and contain the growth in spending and contain the debt. This is what he said, and his budget director in our committee said--Mr. Lew--that: Our budget calls on us to live within our means and pay down the debt. The Congressional Budget Office scored the budget. They analyzed it over 10 years. The lowest single annual deficit that was occurring during that time was $750 billion, the lowest deficit, almost half again higher than President Bush's highest deficit. And it starts going up in the outyears 8, 9, and 10--to over $1 trillion in the 10th year annual deficit. Interest on that debt that would be accrued by such an irresponsible budget would go from around $200 billion last year, $240- some-odd billion this year, to $930 billion in 2021. That would be larger than Medicare, larger than Social Security, larger than the defense budget including the war--much larger than those. So interest is a danger. Senator Conrad talked this afternoon about his phantom budget, and he told us a lot of things he wanted us to know about it, and he articulated it in a way that made you think that it is not such a bad idea. But we have real numbers people. Just like President Obama said his budget was going to pay down the debt and cause us to live within our means when it had no deficit lower than $740 billion--he said it is a blueprint. He said it is a framework. But he didn't say it was a budget because it is not a budget. A budget is a document that can be read, ascertained, evaluated, and scored. So they leak it to the Washington Post--not to Members or colleagues of the Senate here--they leak to the Washington Post some of the good things he wanted to get out, and then they talk about some of the good things here today. Forgive me if I am not impressed. If it is such a good budget, why don't you print it out and propose it to us? That is what the House of Representatives did. They are prepared to defend their budget. Senator Conrad said this: that he thought it could play a part in this big deal the President is talking about to change our debt trajectory in a positive way. Well, those words are good words, just like the President's statement that he had a budget that was going to cause us to live within our means and pay down our debt. That is what he said. That is what his budget director said. Well, you can say things, but it doesn't make them true. I can say I don't have a desk in my hand, but I have a desk in my hand, reality being what it is. So that was not a good budget he submitted, and I am worried about this phantom budget we are hearing about today. The way we calculate this phantom budget and the things that have been released about it, it would raise taxes as much as $2.8 trillion and cut spending about 4 percent over the 10 years--this is a 10-year budget--at a time when we are projected to add, under the President's plan, $13 trillion to our national debt. So we are going to reduce the debt by 4 percent from $13 trillion--an utterly unsustainable figure. The House budget would cut discretionary spending $6 trillion. The Toomey plan would have cut spending $8 trillion. Senator Conrad actually said on the Senate floor that his budget-- which raises taxes, as I indicated--would reduce taxes by $700 billion. He said it would reduce taxes by $700 billion. Now, how is this accounting--this trick, I will suggest--accomplished? Well, to get to that number, he is obviously comparing it to a CBO baseline which assumes that every single tax rate from the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that has been in place now almost a decade is going to expire and all those rates go up. So he is saying that if he keeps a few of them from going up, he has cut taxes. Only in Washington can you raise taxes dramatically, change the tax rates that have been in place for a decade, see taxes go up dramatically, and call that a tax cut. By the way, baseline is very important. We don't know what baseline the chairman of the Budget Committee is using. He understands it very well. He is one of the most knowledgeable, capable Members of our body, and he understands these well. I believe the phrase he used was that it is a plausible baseline--a plausible baseline. Well, let me tell you the baseline we should use. The baseline, when you talk about whether spending increases or whether spending decreases, should be what you are spending today. If you are spending $100 billion today and if you spend $102 billion, you have spent $2 billion more. If you spend $98 billion, you are spending $2 billion less, right? Well, what they do in Washington and the reason this country is so close to bankruptcy is they assume growth rates, baseline growth rates. Then when you reduce the baseline growth rate, and it is going up $10 billion next year and you reduce that increase to $9 billion, you claim you cut spending by $1 billion and it went up $9 billion. Now, that is the kind of logic that has put us in the difficult position we are in. So I have decided and told my staff on the Budget Committee that when we get numbers, we are going to compare them to the only thing that is solid, and that is a level baseline--does it go up or does it go down? In fact, the Ryan House budget that cut $6 trillion still increases spending. It is not a real cut. So you do have to figure out how much you are talking about and what baseline you are using to know what the numbers are. The best way to do that and the most objective way to do that is to use a flatline number and see whether we are up or down, and then we can communicate. But if you get to choose your baseline--and CBO has one, the President has another one, and it looks as though the Senate Democrats have chosen another one they call a plausible baseline. I don't know what that means. The debt commission that had their recommendation for reducing debt chose another baseline. It makes it confusing, and it makes it harder to understand. So when you talk about a budget that is supposed to really make a difference in our economy and you propose $2 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts and suggest this is the kind of thing you are working with the President on in their negotiations, maybe we can begin to understand why the Members of the House and the Members of the Senate who have been in these meetings have been walking out of these meetings and saying: All they want to do is raise taxes. The President himself said several months ago that he thought $3 of spending cuts and $1 of tax increases would be a good mix. But what we are hearing today is $2 of tax increases to $1 of spending cuts. That is not acceptable and has no chance of passage. And if the American people have time to read that kind of legislation and find out that is what is in it, they are not going to be happy with anybody that supports it, in my view. So perhaps that is the reason they want to wait until the eleventh hour, claim the country is about to shut down, and try to force it through. As the President suggested, you don't want to get it too close to the election when people might remember what you did to them. Goodness gracious, they talk about a $900 billion cut in the Defense Department. That is part of their plan too. Well, let me just tell you how that gimmick works. You propose a $900 billion cut in the Defense Department and you know that almost 20 percent cut is not going to become law, but you go out and tell the public you saved $900 billion and you plan to cut it from the Defense Department, and you can't cut that much money from the Defense Department. So no wonder our retiring fine Senator Joe Lieberman, after the Democratic discussion of this, was moved to say he was worried about what such a budget would do to our national security. Well, he should be. I have been on the Armed Services Committee. I don't deny that the military has to tighten its belt. Just like every other department in this government, it may even have to take a real reduction in spending. But we are not going to have an 18-percent, 20-percent reduction. Are we going to have our men and women who place their lives on the line for us have to pay for profligacy in Washington? I don't think so. Mr. President, I would ask Majority Leader Reid, who I believe is the strategist in the Senate who told our chairman, Senator Conrad, that he should not bring up a budget--I think Senator Conrad and I were prepared to bring up a budget. He was working on one. His staff was working on one. We were within days of a markup. He was going to produce a budget, and those of us on the Republican side had amendments to offer, and we were preparing for a debate, and they decided all of a sudden not to have a markup. Later, Senator Reid said it would be foolish to produce a budget. I would say it would be foolish for the Congress of the United States to take a paycheck to operate the way we are operating when 40 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. That is unthinkable. How did we get in this position where we are spending $3,700 billion and taking in only $2,200 billion and all the difference is borrowed? Finally--this is important--a lot of us have heard these numbers but it has not resonated with us about how important they are. Professors Rogoff and Reinhart have written a book called ``This Time It's Different,'' studying eight centuries of sovereign governmental default on their debts, the kind of thing Greece is going through today. They have analyzed how it happens and the consequences. They chose the name because they said that every time politicians ran up debt in their country to high levels and caused a crisis, they said: It will not happen to us. This time it is different. We are different from those other countries that went belly up. Then it happens just like that, savagely, immediately, like the financial crisis that hit us in 2007- 2008. What they concluded in further study was something else. Not only when you get your debt too high do you run the risk of a financial crisis, but your debt slows your economic growth and the countries that have debts that equal 90 percent of the economy--I see my good friend, Senator Reid. He has the toughest job in Washington and I am not making it any easier for him. It will be good for him to hear this. I think he knows it. But they have concluded when your total American debt reaches 90 percent of our economy, our GDP, and goes above that, it pulls down your economic growth by 1 percent. CBO now is scoring our growth to come in at .9 percent below what it otherwise would be because of our debt. The first quarter we had 2 percent economic growth. If we had 3 percent economic growth that would be a 50-percent increase in growth. If we had 1 percent greater increase in growth that would amount to, according to the White House economic team some time ago, an increase of 1 million jobs in America. What I am saying is we erroneously state too often, I think, that the question is about our children and grandchildren. I truly believe the sluggish growth and the very weak job numbers we have been having are the result of carrying too much debt. We have to start reducing that debt even if it is painful for us to do so. I hope our colleagues will produce a budget that will actually change the numbers. I am not confident that will happen. Failing that I do hope, Mr. Leader, and I say this to my leader, too, that if a bill is brought forth in the Senate we have at least 7 days to consider it before we are asked to vote on it. I believe it will take that long to properly evaluate it. I see the majority leader here. It is always a pleasure to work with him. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I just want to say we have in this colloquy Senator Blunt, who was the second ranking Republican leader in the House and who has dealt with these issues for many years. We are so glad to have him in the Senate--and Senator Johnson, a new Senator, passionate and concerned about the future of America, both of them. I think the American people should be proud of the service they have rendered. We have to change. I believe we can, and we are going to keep fighting toward that end. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, while the Senator is still here, I recall--Senator Cornyn is a member of the Budget Committee and knowledgeable about these issues--that we have had one budget actually presented to the Senate, and that was the President's budget. It was scored by the Congressional Budget Office, which shows that under the President's budget, the debt of the United States would increase by $13 trillion in 10 years. I do not know if the Senator is aware, but I would ask him is he aware of how much additional revenue would come to the government if the President's proposal on corporate jet taxation were to be imposed, and would that make a difference in the $13,000 trillion that would be added to the debt in the next 10 years?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to enter into a colloquy with my Republican colleagues for up to 30 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. If Senator Cornyn could join us, we would be pleased. Mr. President, the debt situation we are in today is the most serious our Nation has ever faced. A lot of people do not understand it and do not understand how serious it is. Even after World War II, we had growth. We had the baby boomers just coming of age, we had more young people and fewer older people, and the situation was more positive than it is today, even though we had debt after the war. That is just a fact. I have tried to look at the creation of a budget that would balance in 10 years, bring us into balance in 10 years. It is hard to do. It absolutely can be done. It takes some real effort, but it can be done. We can do it, and we have to do it. But President Obama, during his years as President, is on track to have four consecutive trillion- dollar deficits--the highest deficit we have had previously was the $450 billion deficit that President Bush had. We have had $1.2 trillion and $1.3 trillion. This September 30, when the fiscal year ends, it is estimated to be $1.5 trillion for 2011. We take in $2.2 trillion, we are spending $3.7 trillion, and 40 cents of every dollar we spend this year is borrowed. It is an unsustainable course. President Obama appointed a deficit commission. He appointed Erskine Bowles, a former Chief of Staff of President Clinton, as co-chair. He also chose Alan Simpson, a former Republican Senator. They submitted a statement to the Budget Committee that this country faces the most predictable economic crisis in its history. We have to act, they told us. They were asked when could this crisis happen. Mr. Bowles said it could happen within 2 years--not for our children and grandchildren; he said 2 years, maybe a little sooner or maybe a little later. Alan Simpson popped up and said he thought it could be 1 year; in other words, some sort of economic crisis like we had in 2007 and 2008 or something that could put our economy in a tailspin. It is that serious. The debt trajectory path we are on is unsustainable. Tomorrow, I have to say, will mark the 800th day this Senate has not had a budget. We are borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar we spend, and we have gone this long without a budget. There is no plan, apparently, to present one. The chairman of the Budget Committee, on which I am ranking Republican, tells us he has one, and he talked to his colleagues and they have agreed on it. But it remains secret. The Congressional Budget Act explicitly says we should have a budget by April 15. It says the committee should report a budget resolution on April 1. Well, we have not had a markup. Apparently, there is no plan to have one. We are just going to wait and see if secret negotiations can produce something. That is not acceptable at a time in which the debt is the primary threat to the health, security, and welfare of our Nation, and there is no doubt about it. Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the greatest threat to our national security is our debt. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a very similar statement. They are exactly right. There is no dispute about it. We have had nothing on the floor of the Senate except a resolution saying we should tax the rich--a sense of the Senate, that has no power, no binding authority, no numbers, not how much we are going to attack the rich. We are in serious condition. I think the American people, if they understood how little has been done in this body this year on the most important issue facing this country, would be even more dissatisfied with the U.S. Congress than they are--more dissatisfied at least with the Senate. I knew the Senator from Missouri before, who is not new to Congress. He was a Republican whip in the House of Representatives. The House has passed a budget this year--an honest budget that changes the debt trajectory of America in a solid way, and it would put us on a new path for prosperity. Everybody doesn't have to agree with everything in it, but they met their responsibility by April 15. It is great to be here with Senator Blunt. We are so pleased to have him in the Senate. I ask him if he would share his thoughts at this time about this situation.

Mr. SESSIONS. To my knowledge, at no time since I have been here did the Senate not attempt to pass a budget. In the last 2 years, even when our Democratic colleagues had 60 votes--the largest majority in recent memory in the Senate--they only attempted to bring a budget to the floor once. Last year a budget did go to committee. It was marked up by Senator Conrad. It came to the floor, but the majority leader decided not to bring it up. This year, it seems that Senator Conrad was told not to have a markup, not to even produce a budget in committee. It seems to me to indicate a lack of willingness to lead because-- would the Senator not agree?--a budget sets the priorities, demonstrates the vision for the future of the country and what we should spend, what we should tax, and how much debt we can afford to run up. Those are fundamental responsibilities. How would he evaluate the fact that tomorrow we are 800 days without a budget? What does that say about the leadership we have seen in the Senate?

Mr. SESSIONS. Before the Senator shares his thoughts about the appropriations process from his extensive experience in the leadership of the Congress, just briefly, I want to make sure the American people and our colleagues know what happened. I see our newly elected colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Ron Johnson. He won election, you could say, in an upset--a popular, big victory. He campaigned all over his State and talked about the issues we are talking about today. As a new Member of the Senate, I would love to hear Senator Johnson's comments about where he thinks we are today.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, let me just note that we had a sense-of-the- Senate resolution on the floor, and we had a cloture vote on it that I think everybody voted to go to the bill. That is what the leader wanted to do. We go to the bill. But it is really nothing because if it passes it has no impact and makes no change whatsoever. It basically says we should tax the rich more. Well, we can debate these issues, but I will just note that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, which is an organization for the development of world businesses has concluded that the United States has the most progressive tax system in the world. We always thought the Europeans were more hostile to wealth and more socialistic than we were, but that is their analysis. As Senator Blunt said, how much more do we want them to pay? Maybe they should pay more. Let's debate it and let's talk about it. But that is not going to fix our problems. Senator Johnson was a successful businessman, an accountant. I have seen his work. I am so glad he is on the Budget Committee. I guess he and Senator Enzi are the only accountants around here, and we are glad the Senator is here. I have seen his work. He actually adds up numbers and makes spending charts. He showed me one this morning, trying to figure out a way to change America. But my first question is--the Senator was a successful businessman and he had never been a politician before, so why did the Senator run?

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that I be given 1 additional minute.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I understand that President Obama has summoned certain congressional leaders to the White House tomorrow to discuss spending, debt and deficits, and the debt limit we now operate under. The President has summoned congressional leaders to the White House on at least eight different occasions in recent weeks to discuss budget and debt issues, not including the private talks involving Vice President Biden. Yet with only weeks to go before the debt limit deadline--we are told August 2--secret discussions have failed to produce any grand bargain. Talk is not an action. I do think that is a problem the President has. He thinks making a speech or having an announcement is something that actually involves changing course in America and it has some effect, when it is pretty clear it does not. We have had lots of talks and we have heard lots of speeches, so I think we should stop paying attention to these private talks, from which no details emerge and no public discussion is heard. We are getting much too close to the point at which it will be too late to involve the public and allow Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty on spending and taxes. In remarks yesterday, the President said, ``To truly solve our debt problem, we need to take on spending and domestic programs and defense programs and entitlement programs.'' Well, I agree. Yet the only plan he has put forward proposed increases in his spending for next year in the budget he submitted. He submitted a budget earlier this year. He made a speech backing away from it a little bit but not a lot, because his speech, when we carefully tried to study it, did not do much to change what the trajectory is in his budget. But this is what the budget calls for next year that we are supposed to be working on now and are not. This budget proposes to increase spending in 2012, beginning October 1, 2012--well, the inflation rate is projected to be 1.3 percent. It may be a little higher than that. Defense called for a 4.3-percent increase in spending. The Energy Department called for an 8.9-percent increase in spending, that big bureaucracy that is trying to make sure we block production of American energy. It proposes for the State Department a 9.3-percent increase in spending, and the Education Department a 13-percent increase in spending, at a time this country is in incredibly difficult straits. We are having double-digit increases. Then in the Transportation Department, he proposes a 62.4-percent increase. Do we really need to have high-speed rail within walking distance of 80 percent of all Americans? We do not have the money to do that. Most of the high-speed rails are not working--are not paying for themselves around the world. They can work in certain highly congested areas in good locations, perhaps. This idea that we are going to have a massive national interlocking system of maybe $700 billion of high- speed rail is not realistic in the short term. But his budget called for a 62-percent increase. We asked where the money would come from. They said it is a tax. What kind of tax? Well, it is not a gas tax. So I called it the ``not gas tax tax.'' What tax then do you propose, Mr. Secretary, before the Budget Committee? Well, we will talk with Congress about that. Well, the Congressional Budget Office, which is required to analyze expenditures against revenues, said that is not a proposal of revenue, and they scored that as all expenditures without any revenue, because we are not going to pass a big tax to increase this kind of spending. Give me a break. If we do, we ought to use some of the money to pay down the debt, not continue to surge spending in this fashion. I wish again to point out that President Bush in his last year in office had the largest deficit I believe the country had had in recent modern times. The largest he had was $450 billion. That was large. It was roundly criticized. It included a lot of the TARP money that they threw in at the last minute. But what about President Obama's first year? That was $1.2 trillion in deficit. The second year: $1.3 billion. And this year, it is projected around $1.5 trillion, going into 2011, ending September 30. Then September 12, he has got these kinds of increases. What kind of responsible behavior is that? For the President of the United States to say that we need to truly solve our deficit problems, we need to take on spending in domestic programs and defense programs and entitlement programs, and this is what we get as a proposal, to increase spending at double-digit rates, basically. I mean what is this? There is no proposal whatsoever to deal with entitlements. Those long-term unsustainable programs threaten the future of our country economically. Indeed, we are in more trouble right now than a lot of people realize from our debt situation. So the only plan the President put forward, as I said, is increasing these expenditures and not confronting entitlement programs at all. And when the House Members passed a far-reaching, historic, honest, fact- based budget that would have actually changed the debt trajectory of our country over a period of years, it was considered to be tough, but even it did not balance within 10 years. We are in a deep hole. It is hard to balance this budget. The House proposed that and they laid out a plan, after 10 years, altering Medicare so that it would help put Medicare back on a sound basis. All of it was slammed by the President of the United States. He even had a speech at the White House and invited Congressman Ryan, who is the brilliant chairman of the House Budget Committee, and had him sit right in front of him, and then he slammed his bill. Congressman Ryan had courage and integrity and he produced an honest budget that would have made a difference for America. Would we have agreed with everything in it? Of course not. But he didn't deserve to be hammered by the President of the United States. To begin to change the debt trajectory we are on, we need to cut at least $6 trillion of spending over 10 years. That is not enough, but we need to do that. If we do that, it will make a huge difference. Just $1.5 trillion or $2 trillion in cuts will not be enough. It will not be enough. The President's budget, which he submitted in December--the only budget we have gotten from the Democratic side--would increase the debt by $13 trillion, and $2 trillion in spending cuts is not enough. We are long past the point when the President needs to share his vision with the country and admit that he cannot keep up this spending rate. His budget was a failure to confront the reality that we don't have the money to keep up unsustainable spending. According to Bloomberg News, Democratic officials claim that a deal will have to be reached between July 15 and July 22 ``in order to write a bill and comply with congressional rules requiring advance publication before consideration.'' In other words, we have as little as 3 days to see the legislation. I have proposed legislation that says we ought to have 7 days to consider this historic piece of legislation that would raise the debt ceiling. We want to see how much change in spending the bill would mandate. In other words, if we are going to raise the debt ceiling, because we have limited how much debt America can approve--Congress has--and to keep borrowing--we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend--if we keep borrowing, we have to raise it. What we, and the American people, are saying is we don't like raising it, but if we do, you better show us that you have changed your ways and you are not continuing this reckless spending, when we don't have the money. Every bit of that increase is borrowed. We can't continue that. I truly believe that Congress needs to assert its role, step up and accept responsibility for the crisis we are in and begin to develop the procedures openly and publicly and get us out of this fix. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to just briefly say that the matter of the merits of the Libya resolution the majority leader wants to move to is not something I am addressing at this point. It is a significant issue, and good Senators can disagree about that, but the reason we are here this week is because 46 Senators from the Republican side objected to the Memorial Day recess, because we have done nothing on the budget, and were clearly going to object again when it came to the Fourth of July because we have the debt ceiling issue that we are told creates an emergency by August 2. We haven't passed a budget in 797 days. The Democratic majority has not even brought one to the floor in that time. The country is spending itself into decline and damaging our future. We know that. It has been talked about for months. We have had no discussion in the Budget Committee, of which I am ranking member, about marking up any kind of budget this year. The Budget Act in the United States Code says we should pass the budget by April 15. So the objection I and others had to going home and recessing this week was not in order to discuss the Libya resolution; it was to get to work now to confront the financial situation we are in. We are not going to be serving our constituents well if some sort of secret agreement comes to fruition and a bill is plopped down on the Senate floor on August 1 that has to be passed by August 2. That is not responsible. It is not acceptable. Even the President understands that. Last week, he said this: And so there's no point in procrastinating. There's no point in putting it off. We've got to get this done. And if by the end of this week, we have not seen substantial progress, then I think members of Congress need to understand we are going to start having to cancel things and stay here until we get it done. He is talking about spending--debt, the debt ceiling, the limit on the amount of money the U.S. Government can borrow. That is what he said last week. And that is what we have been saying for over a month. Regardless of how one feels about the Libya resolution, that is not what we need to be doing this week. The letter we wrote to Senator Reid concerning the Memorial Day recess said this. This was a month ago. Until a budget plan is made public, and until that plan is scheduled for committee action, on what basis can the Senate justify returning home for a 1-week vacation and recess when our spending and debt continue to spiral dangerously out of control? That is what we said then and it remains true now. This Congress is acting in an irresponsible manner and it is not healthy for us. I am beginning to wonder if the Senate is, in fact, beginning to lose its reason for being. Are we supposed to just sit here and wait for two, three, four, or five people to meet in secret and then tell us at the eleventh hour that we have to pass a bill? Is that legislating? Is that what Congress should do? We certainly are in violation of the Budget Act, which says a budget should be marked up in the Budget Committee by April 1 and passed by April 15. We haven't even called one up, and we haven't passed one in 797 days. I recall, as we make the decision on our vote today, what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen said recently, which is that the greatest threat to our national security is the debt. That is what he said. The President has not asked for a Libyan resolution. It is not something he cares about, apparently. He hasn't asked for it. He doesn't consider it important. I will tell you one thing we have to do: We have to fulfill our responsibility as a Congress, as the people who control the purse. That is our ultimate constitutional responsibility. We are not fulfilling it and, therefore, I urge my colleagues not to move to the Libyan resolution but to send a message to our Democratic leadership that we insist on moving toward solving the financial crisis this Nation faces. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Thune so much for his comments, and that of Senator Johanns. They are raising a fundamental question. We have never, ever been in a financial situation in our country that is as systemically deeply dangerous as we are today. You go through a war and you borrow a lot of money. You go through a recession, maybe your debt goes up some. We are systemically in a recession, but we are also in long-term projections of a dangerous surging level of debt, as your chart shows. Last year the Democratic majority moved a budget out of committee. Senator Thune is a member of that committee, and remembers that debate. Senator Reid declared that he wasn't going to bring it up. It was never brought up on the floor of the Senate or even debated. This year, apparently the majority leader decided once again we would not have a budget, and directed that the Budget Committee not even mark up a budget. So we have not even commenced work on a budget this year. Indeed, the majority leader said it was foolish for the country to have a budget this year, which is stunning, since during the 792 days we have been without a budget the debt of the United States has increased some $3.2 trillion. It is a stunning thing. So, yes, I believe that history shows in the past, and based on the real crisis we face in the future, there has never been a more important time for us to do what so many States do: Have a balanced budget amendment that requires us each year to balance that budget. I believe this is the right thing for us, and it would be so much better for our country. Senator Johanns is here, and he talked about executive leadership. You and Senator Thune were talking about how dangerous the debt path we are on is, how much greater it was in Nebraska's situation. Alabama has had to cut spending. But we are not cutting spending at all here. We haven't been. We have been increasing spending here. I wanted to ask you a serious question. Do you feel that the first responsibility of a Chief Executive of the United States, the President, would be to honestly tell the American people that this is not just a political dust-up, but that we are facing a very serious debt crisis that could actually put us into an economic tailspin again, knock us down again, and the debt numbers we are seeing will look even worse? Do you feel he has that responsibility, and do you feel it has been met?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator, the former Governor for those comments. I do believe it is difficult for Congress to ask the American people to make sacrifices if the President does not acknowledge clearly and articulately the deep crisis we are in and why those sacrifices have to be made. It is not that we want to; it is because we do not have the money and we have to make some changes in what we do. That is why a number of us called on Majority Leader Reid to not recess next week. Let's stay and do something about the debt. I understand we may now be staying next week, but I am not at all sure that the plan is to deal with anything involving the greatest threat to our Nation, which is our debt. Apparently, they want to talk about other issues. That was not what drove the concern. It was not about a patent bill--much as I would like to see it passed. That was not what we were concerned about when we said we need to be in next week. It is because, by the end of this month, maybe the first of August, we will see a monumental bill of some kind produced by the Democratic majority in the Senate, brought out here, and we are going to be asked to vote for it in a matter of hours, being told every minute that the country is about to sink into oblivion if we don't sign it and vote for it, not knowing fully what is in it, not fully having studied it, the American people not knowing what is in it. That is wrong policy. We object to that. I believe the regular order in this Senate should be conducted, that we ought to have a proposal brought forth so it can be amended, so it can be analyzed, so it can be accounted for. How much taxes are going to be raised by the President? What taxes does he propose to raise? What does Senator Reid want to do? Let's see those numbers and let's debate them and let's have amendments. That is why we need to be here next week, not to deal with a patent bill or some other legislation. That is why we called for it and I am prepared to work and I believe our colleagues are, but it needs to be on something significant. The history of our Congress and the surging debt crisis we face is so significant that we have to have a balanced budget constitutional amendment. We almost passed that before. It would have been so much better had we done so. Let's do it this time and change the course of our country. Nothing clears the mind so well as the absence of alternatives. When Senators and Congressmen have no alternative but to live within their means, they will figure out a way to do it. But if we can find an alternative, history tells us too often we will, and we will act irresponsibly. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Johnson for his leadership on this issue. As the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, I share my colleagues' disappointment that we have not functioned. It is good to see Senator Ayotte and Senator Johnson, who are members of that committee. We worked hard to get prepared some weeks ago on the assumption that the Senate would meet its statutorily required duty; that is, to produce a budget. I am holding up title 2, section 632 of the United States Code, and it is the Budget Act. It requires that the Congress annually produce a budget. We have now gone 792 days without a budget. The first line of the act is: On or before April 15 of each year, Congress shall complete action on a concurrent resolution on the budget for the fiscal year beginning October 1 for the next fiscal year. We haven't done that. It also says we should meet by April 1. Senator Conrad, our Budget chairman, Democratic chairman and able, experienced chairman, was prepared to go forward. It is pretty clear to me that the majority leader decided we shouldn't have a budget process. Last year, the Budget Committee produced a budget out of committee, but the majority leader failed to bring it up for vote on the floor. As the leader, he has the power generally to control that fact and was able to do so. This year, he said it would be foolish to have a budget; and, basically, we would not even meet in committee to have a budget. So we are facing the most serious systemic debt crisis in our Nation's history. The numbers are so serious and our path is so unacceptable that it is clearly the No. 1 issue of our time. The Chairman of President Obama's debt commission gave a written statement to the Budget Committee that said this Nation has never faced a more predictable economic crisis. When asked, Erskine Bowles, President Clinton's Chief of Staff, said it could be 2 years, a little before, a little after. What I am saying is, these individuals, particularly the ones who just finished a campaign, traveled all over their State, talked to hundreds of thousands, millions of people in their State, got a feel for it. They are bringing new vitality and new insight into what is happening, and what is happening is nothing. Six months have gone by, and we have not had any hearings, we have not had any votes on the floor. We haven't seen any legislation. So I think this is an unacceptable method. I think it undermines the classic constitutional duty of Congress to appropriate money and deal with taxes. It is our responsibility. But have you observed mayors who say: I am not going to present a budget to city council. I am going to let them decide. Do you see Governors not presenting budgets to the State legislatures and then fight for what they believe in? Look what is happening with Governor Christie, Governor Cuomo in New York, Governor Brown in California, Governor Bentley in Alabama. It helps to have that one single person elected to represent everybody, to provide some impetus, and it is astounding to me that we haven't seen that from the majority leader in the Senate or from the President. He submitted a budget but then backed away from it and it was voted down 97 to 0 on the floor just a few weeks ago, but it was never seriously considered. So what are we looking to do? We are heading to a time where we may be asked in a few hours to vote on a monumental multitrillion-dollar deal to raise the debt limit of the United States. What will be in it? Will we be changing the trajectory of our Nation or will it be business as usual? We are not going to have time to review it. That should be on the floor now. People should be standing and casting votes right now. How much do you want to increase taxes? Do you? Which ones? How much do you want to cut? Where? Let's have the vote down here. That is what we should be doing. I think it will help the American people understand how serious our problem is, and what it will take to get out of it. It is much more serious and our problem is greater than most people realize. I thank my colleagues for their good comments and the enthusiasm they have brought and the passion they have brought to this critical issue.