Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. There is a danger economically, is there not, and a danger to growth, which we need desperately, if we keep raising taxes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the Congressional Budget Act requires that Congress pass a budget by April 15. The Republican House has passed its budget. They stated their financial vision for the future in America. The Democratic Senate, however, has not passed a budget in 750 days. It has been 750 days since we have had a budget that passed the Senate. This year they haven't even brought a budget forward to committee to begin to mark up a budget as specifically required by the same statute. They have not even put forward a plan. The Democrats control the Senate. They campaigned for the majority and, as my wife says to me when I complain: You asked for the job. So we have the largest economy on Earth, and we are in the middle of a fiscal crisis. For the majority party to skip work on the Nation's budget is not something to be taken lightly. I ask my good friend, the Senator from Utah, the ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, my former chairman in the Judiciary Committee, if the American people were polled, how many does the Senator think would say the Senate should not pass a budget?

Mr. SESSIONS. One reason it is so important to have an honest, open budget process is that budgets are so easy to manipulate and spend. The President, in proposing a budget sometime ago, said his budget called on America to live within its means and ``not add more to the debt.'' That was the President's own statement. In fact, his budget doubles the debt in 10 years, producing annual deficits each year, the lowest of which never once fell below $748 billion. In fact, that would average almost $1 trillion a year and nowhere close to balancing. The CBO found numerous gimmicks when they analyzed the President's plan. They found that it contained another $2.3 trillion in deficits. It increased the deficit. The President delivered a speech promising $4 trillion in savings over 12 years. After his budget was ill-received by objective commentators all over the country, editorial boards, and in Congress, he made a speech and he promised $4 trillion in savings over 12 years. But the committee analysts on our staff revealed that this so-called framework actually worsens the budget in relation to the CBO baseline. Does the Senator from Utah believe the White House and the Democratic leaders in the Senate should produce an honest, concrete, fact-based budget on which we can rely?

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask Senator Hatch, for the people who may not understand, it is the chairman's responsibility to call a hearing and to begin a markup, and the minority is not able to call the committee into effect. So we do have to look to the chairman, and probably the chairman would operate in relation to the majority leader to call the committee into session; is that right?

Mr. SESSIONS. The budget is fundamentally a plan, a vision for the financial future of America. It is astounding that the party in the majority is not even prepared to say to the American people----

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I couldn't agree more. When the President submitted his budget, Mr. Erskine Bowles, whom the President asked to chair the fiscal commission that was supposed to come up with a plan to help us get out of this fix, said the President's budget is nowhere close to what is necessary to avoid our fiscal nightmare. That is what the co- chair of the President's commission said. So now we are looking to Congress. That is the President's proposal, but the Senate has to move forward a proposal. We cannot even go to conference and begin to work out a budget that both Houses can agree on until the Senate moves a budget forward.

Mr. SESSIONS. I agree. As a matter of fact, we have heard reports that the Democratic caucus is debating a budget in closed door caucus meetings, and they have done that at least twice. This is now 6 weeks after the committee deadline to bring forward a budget has passed. These reports indicate that in order to oblige the Senate's leading progressive, the Senator from Vermont, Senator Conrad has moved his budget further to the left, I think, than he probably desires. So we are told this budget now has more taxes than savings--raising taxes $2 trillion and possibly even $2.7 trillion, while cutting just $1.5 trillion in spending over 10 years. We will have to see it to know for sure. All we are hearing is news reports at this point. Even the President, in his speech, called for $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. Our analysis of his speech shows he did not do that. But that is what he said is the right approach. As a ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, what are the Senator's thoughts about how steep tax hikes would affect the economy? Would it be better to cut wasteful Washington spending or to raise taxes and continue the spending spree we have been on?

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, we cannot even have a discussion if a budget isn't brought up. I just had occasion to meet with the Finance Minister from Canada, and he told me they are bringing their corporate tax rate down to 15 percent or below. We are at 35 percent. We have the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. Wouldn't it be nice if we can tax more and get some more money? But as the Senator knows from his experience, if we have too high of tax rates, it drives investment out of America, drives jobs out of America, and companies are liable to want to move to Canada where they pay less taxes, creating jobs for them and not us. So there is a danger, is there not, economically?

Mr. SESSIONS. I think the Senator is right. This Senate is filled with remarkable people, but I think our colleagues on the other side are paralyzed, frankly, by the challenge of putting a plan on paper that can actually be examined, the numbers calculated, and ideas confronted. I think their problem is they are not able to produce a budget their caucus will support, that the American people will support, and that would actually get the job done. That is a difficult challenge. But if you want to be a leader, you have to meet that challenge.

Mr. SESSIONS. Democratic leaders and the President talk a lot about a balanced approach to reducing our deficit. We believe in that approach. The Senator from Utah has indicated that. But I ask the Senator, what is the more balanced approach? Is the plan that hikes taxes and grows the government or a plan that controls Washington spending and shifts the balance back to everyday Americans?

Mr. SESSIONS. This is true. It is dangerous to our country. We have gone 750 days without passing a budget in the Senate. I do believe if we took a poll of the American people, what percentage would one get if they were asked: Should the Congress of the United States, particularly at a time of great financial danger, have a budget? We will not have a budget unless the Senate acts. It is a question both of philosophy and economics. Philosophically, the American people do not want Washington to hike taxes on millions of Americans in order to fund its wasteful spending spree. Economically, the evidence shows cutting spending--not raising taxes--and we have done a number of studies on this--is the approach that consistently produces the best results time and time again. We need a budget based on facts. We need a budget to grow the economy, not the government. We need a budget that imposes real spending discipline on Washington. We need a budget without gimmicks or empty promises. We need a budget that is produced publicly and openly, allowing the American people full opportunity to see what is in it and to consider it. We need a budget that the American people deserve, an honest budget that spares our children from both the growing burden of debt and the growing burden of big government. We need a budget that ensures America will compete, creating jobs, lead, and thrive in the 21st century.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank Senator Hatch. I have enjoyed sharing these thoughts. I will note again that we are looking at a period in history in which our systemic debt problem is greater, I believe, than any time in our history. World War II was serious, but we could see our way out of it as soon as that war was over, and we bounced back rapidly. Every expert tells us it is not going to be easy to bounce back out of the systemic problems we have. We need to have leadership. To have gone this long, 750 days without a budget in the Senate. Last year we did not pass a budget, and there were 59 Democrats in the Senate. One may say: Don't be so partisan, Senator Sessions. We are calling their names this morning. We like our colleagues, but the truth is, when you have the majority, you have a responsibility. The responsibility at this point in history could not be greater than to produce a blueprint, a plan for the future, such as the House has done, that the American people can see: Does that solve our problems? Does it put us on the right path? I think the House bill does. We have yet to see anything out of the Senate that does. It is our responsibility in this body to pass legislation, because if we do not, we cannot conference with the House, and we can never get a budget passed. I thank Senator Hatch. I look forward to working with our colleagues. Maybe we can somehow break this logjam. The American people have a right to watch us and not be happy when we are not doing the kind of work necessary to put this country on a sound financial path. I 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, yesterday the Senate debated a bill to increase taxes on the production of oil and gas in the United States, as well as the tens of thousands of Americans that industry employs and really the millions of Americans it serves. We should have been debating a budget. In fact, the Senate has not passed a budget for 749 days. The majority decided to bring their bill to the floor yesterday in an effort, I think, to change some of the conversation from the problem at hand, which is our spending problem in Washington. Today we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Spending on domestic government agencies domestic nondefense government agencies in the past 2 years increased 24 percent. That does not count the $700 billion, almost $800 billion stimulus package. It was much more than that added to it. The Medicare trust fund will go bankrupt in 2024. The Social Security trust fund will be insolvent in 2036. In the past decade, our Nation's debt has increased from $5 trillion to $14 trillion. Despite the gravity of our situation, the majority has chosen to debate a bill to increase taxes on oil and gas, an industry that employs 170,000 Americans and a number in my State and added this past year 11,000 new jobs. Mr. President, $1.9 trillion in taxes has been generated by the industry since 1981. The Reid-Menendez bill would not have decreased prices at the pump but would have shipped more jobs overseas and resulted in the importation of more oil and gas. Whenever you tax something, you get less of it. Whenever you tax a refining process, you drive up the cost. It is just that simple. We are all aware that gas prices have doubled in the President's first 2 years in office. Raising taxes on energy companies operating in America would do nothing to help that situation. The real solution is for America to enact legislation that increases domestic American energy production from a variety of sources--oil, natural gas, nuclear--we need to do more on nuclear--hydroelectric, biofuels, coal and other sources of reliable energy that Americans can put to good use--our energy. Conservation is a very important factor and should play a very important role. America needs an energy policy that strengthens our national security, fosters economic growth, and protects the environment in a reasonable and cost-effective manner. Americans need affordable domestic energy. Regrettably, the Senate majority plan does not seem to be interested in that kind of energy policy. In April of this year--just last month, the United States imported 344 million barrels of oil from foreign sources. That is over 60 percent of the oil consumed in America. That means we sent $42.5 billion overseas in April alone to purchase the oil we import. Stated differently, last month alone the United States spent over $980,000 per minute on oil from foreign sources. That is almost $1 million a minute. This presents a significant risk to our national security, as so many have told us, as many of these dollars are going to nations that are not friendly to us. This also further exacerbates our Nation's trade balance. We import far more than we export, and our exports now are beginning to rise a little bit, but those gains are being more than offset by the importation of oil and the price of oil. The Reid-Menendez bill would have increased the price of energy in America, which, I have to say, seems to be the objective of the administration and some in this Senate. In September of 2008, Steven Chu told the Wall Street Journal in an interview: Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe. Dr. Chu is now the Secretary of Energy for the United States of America. He needs to be thinking about how to get the costs down and serve the constituency of America. I do not know what idea he has that we ought to be raising the cost of energy to the level in Europe. The Environmental Protection Agency, in fact, is enacting new regulations that will also drive up the cost of energy in a way that should never have happened, in my view. We have had some close votes on that issue. Hopefully, we will soon be able to pull back that effort. A study by the Affordable Power Alliance concluded that EPA's greenhouse gas regulations could increase the cost of gasoline by 50 percent, electricity by 50 percent, and natural gas by 75 percent over the next 20 years. That is a stunning figure. There is no doubt it will drive it up. The majority has yet to recognize the negative impact these tax increases and new EPA regulations will have on the economy. With gas prices up to $4 a gallon, from $2.75 in September--$4 from $2.75--this translates into a 5-percent cut in the average American's discretionary income just for the same amount of gas they are buying. This means less spending on home improvements, furniture, clothes, vacations--things people and families need. All that is eaten up by increased energy costs. In a way, it is a form of a stealth tax on the American people. Furthermore, increasing energy taxes will make doing business in the United States more expensive. As a result, jobs will go overseas. The rise in gas prices over the past two years has meant that a family paying $100 a month for gasoline will now pay over $140 a month for gasoline. If someone is paying $200 a month--and many are--they would pay $280 a month just because of a change in the gasoline price. Add it up. That is what it amounts to--$80 for a family who uses $200 a month in gasoline. Some argue raising taxes will help reduce our deficit, but the tax increases in the Reid-Menendez bill would have raised approximately $1.2 billion in 2012. With a projected deficit of over $1.6 trillion this year, the revenue produced from these taxes would be a drop in the bucket. Don't think it is going to balance our budget, that is for sure. Furthermore, the bill's sponsors claim the money would be used to reduce the deficit, but there is nothing in the bill that does that. Although the language sounds good, the language is essentially what we call a sense of the Senate and has no binding power. In the end, nothing in the bill could have been construed as mandating deficit reduction. It is simply a tax increase, plain and simple--tax and spend. As the majority tried yesterday to increase taxes on the energy industry, they ignored the convoluted tax system that is increasing and inhibiting job growth in America. The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world--39.5 percent. All the developed nations have been reducing their taxes. Only Japan has as high a corporate tax rate as we do, and they are reducing theirs. The Canadian Finance Minister, whom I had the chance to meet with last week, says Canada is bringing its tax rate down to below 15 percent. And we are taxing at 39.5 percent? Will that not cause a business to decide maybe to build their factory in Canada rather than in the United States and cost us much needed time?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 additional minute.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair. Mr. President, I believe the McConnell legislation, which has three components--one aimed at restoring American offshore production in the wake of the moratorium that has been imposed, a safety component aimed at preventing future incidents like the Deepwater Horizon, and an efficiency component aimed at streamlining the issuing of permits--is the right way to go. More production of American energy will help our country, our economy, and our people. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I want to share a few thoughts on a very important matter, the financial health of the United States. We had a nice meeting with the President earlier today. The Republican Senators virtually all were there, shared their thoughts, and the President responded. All in all it was a good exchange. Those are the kinds of meetings where I do not talk about what is said in detail and quote anyone. I was asked by a number of reporters what happened and what did you say about it. I guess my conclusion is that not much happened. No commitments were made that I could see, that indicated the President had made any change in the budget he had submitted or the speech he gave somewhat amending his budget a few weeks ago. He did not make any changes in the plan I am seeing out there. He was open, discussed it, maybe something will happen. What is the status of the Senate's business? This is the Senate. The Senate has serious responsibilities. The Budget Act was designed to ensure that Congress passes a budget, because it was learned over the years--it goes back to the 1970s--that a budget is important for a country. Families have them, businesses have them. You need a budget. Congress was having trouble passing a budget. So they passed the Budget Act that allowed a budget to become law without 60 votes in the Senate, but they could be passed with 50 votes. As we know, there are 54 Democrats in the Senate--and more, I guess, than that with Independents who caucus with the Democrats. So this is the situation we are in. The President complied with the Budget Act, a week late, by submitting his budget, and his budget failed to meet the requirements of our time to a very significant degree. Every witness we have had in our budget committee--I am the ranking Republican on it--has indicated and told us, many in great detail and with passion, we are on an unsustainable course; you cannot continue to borrow 40 cents of every dollar and try to fund a government borrowing that kind of money. We will hit a budget deficit this year of $1.5 trillion, the largest in the history of America. In 4 years, the President will have doubled the entire debt of the United States based on the trillion-dollar deficits he has had each year. So this is not an acceptable path for us to be on. We had hearings in the Budget Committee about the critical issues we face. We considered and had testimony from the fiscal commission that President Obama appointed--Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, we had Rivlin-Pete Domenici. Senator Domenici, retired now, was Budget chairman at one point in time in the Senate. Alice Rivlin, OMB Director for President Clinton, is a wizard herself with numbers. They proposed some real changes in the debt trajectory we are on. I thought after that, and based on the comments of Senator Conrad, our chairman, and the strong witnesses we heard who called on us to make significant changes in what we were doing that we would move forward with a budget that would be a good bit stronger than the one President Obama submitted. Indeed, President Obama's budget was not serious. President Obama's budget took the current spending line for 10 years, that the Congressional Budget Office said we are on, and it made it worse. It made the deficit worse, $2 trillion worse than the current plan we were on--totally unacceptable. He proposed in his budget increasing the Department of Education funding by 10.5 percent; increasing the Energy Department funding 9.5 percent; increasing State Department funding 10.5 percent; proposed increasing the Transportation Department 62 percent. In a time when inflation is 2 percent, we are having those kinds of increases and we say we are submitting a budget that recognizes we are on an unsustainable course and we have got to change. Well, it was unacceptable. I was very disappointed about it. I think even the man he appointed to head the debt commission, Erskine Bowles, said they have come nowhere close to what is necessary to avoid our fiscal nightmare. We were told by our Budget chairman, Senator Conrad, whom it has been a pleasure to work with, that we would have a budget markup beginning this Monday. He told us that last week. Well, it did not happen on Monday. Then maybe it was going to be Tuesday. Maybe it was going to be Wednesday. Then all of a sudden the President invited the Democrats over Wednesday and the Republicans to the White House Thursday and everything is off. I asked my staff, have we received a notice that we are going to have a Budget Committee hearing next week? The answer is no. So what do we say about that? The Budget Act says the Senate and the House should commence budget action April 1. We have not done that. It says a budget should be passed by April 15. The Senate has not done that. The Republican House has. The Republican House has proposed a historic budget. They have passed it. They passed it on time. It will reduce spending by about $6 trillion. That would actually reduce taxes also and get the rates down to help encourage more economic growth, and put us on a path to fiscal sanity, not only this decade, but in the decades to come, because it dealt with some of the exploding entitlement programs such as Medicare. What resulted from that? Well, Mr. Ryan, a brilliant young Congressman who has worked on budget issues for many years, is the most knowledgeable person probably in America about the details and the financial condition of America. They attacked him as though he did something wrong. The Democratic Senators and the President are spending their time attacking the one person who stood up and produced a budget that can be defended. He is prepared to defend it anywhere, anytime. He goes to townhall meetings. He has stood before the press. He has issued statements. He has explained what his budget is. It may not be perfect, but it is a change. It would put us on a path to financial stability. And what has the Senate done? Complained about his budget. Well, it is time this Senate produces a budget. Let me say this: Today, 743 days have passed since the Senate has passed a budget. Now, let me ask, if we took a poll of the American people, how many of the American people would say the Senate shouldn't pass a budget? We have a whole act that requires one to be passed and brought up and voted on. What happened last year? The Budget Committee did produce a budget. It came to the floor, and the Democratic leader, Senator Reid, just didn't have time to bring it up. Why? Well, you know, there is a vote-arama. We don't like vote-aramas. What is a vote- arama? Everybody gets to file an amendment, and Senators are supposed to vote. It has to be brought up and passed. It is passed by a simple majority. Why? Because we want to accelerate the debate and make sure a budget is passed because a nation that intends to be serious about its financial stability needs a budget, does it not? This began in the 1970s. So we are now beginning to wonder, will the committee even pass a budget? Is Senator Conrad not even going to have a committee markup and produce a budget? Is the Democratic Senate not even going to move one out of committee? At least it moved one out of committee last year. And if the committee does meet and does move a budget, is Senator Reid prepared to stand up, like Congressman Ryan, lay his budget down before the American people, and defend it before the world? Oh, well, we need to have talks. We have talks going on. The Vice President is having a meeting. The President is inviting everybody over. Why don't we move forward with our budget process, I ask? Why don't we? Well, why not? We read in one of our local newspapers that cover the Senate--I think it was The Hill--Senator Conrad had a hard time with his Democratic colleagues. His budget, which I very much was afraid wouldn't contain spending enough, but certainly I felt it would be better than the budget President Obama had submitted, was discussed with his Democratic colleagues last week in their conference, and it didn't go well, we are told. So this week he came back again, apparently, and produced another budget. According to the report, Senator Sanders--probably the most aggressive and articulate advocate for greater government spending and activism in the Senate--seemed to be very happy that he changed the budget, and it had $2 trillion in tax increases, they said, and $2 trillion in spending reductions. That is supposed to be balanced. But that is not what the debt commission said. The debt commission--which I didn't agree with, really--said we should have at least $3 worth of spending reduction for every $1 in tax increases. Then we have another report. I think it was in the CQ publication that does work around here and digs up information. They said it looks as if there are going to be fewer spending reductions. It looks as though it is going to be about $2 trillion in tax increases and only $1.5 trillion in reduced spending. So it is less than even 1-to-1. Well, I think if I were the majority leader, I wouldn't really feel comfortable about bringing such a budget as that before the American people and standing right down here and defending such a weak response to the fiscal crisis we are now in. Of course, that budget is irresponsible if that is so. I don't think the American people will be happy with it. I certainly will oppose it with all the strength in my body if that is the nature of it. Well, why don't you know, Sessions? Well, I haven't been told. We asked. The Republican members of the committee wrote the chairman and asked that any budget numbers that are produced be produced 72 hours in advance of the hearing so we can study it, offer amendments, or substitute as we choose to do. We have been basically told we will get the budget resolution the chairman intends to file the morning it starts. When we commence the hearing to mark up the budget, we will be getting the copy of what they propose to bring forward. We really think that is not a healthy way to do business on a matter this important. This period in history represents the most significant long-term threat to American financial stability that we have seen maybe ever. Sure, we had a tough time during World War II and the debt went up, but we could see, when the war was over, the strength of our workforce, and the economy grew. We came right out of that and got that situation under control quickly. But now we are in a situation in which our Nation is aging. The number of people working is down. The number of recipients of Medicare and Social Security is up. We have to figure out a way to honestly deal with that without in any way placing our seniors at risk and other people who benefit from government programs. It is going to take some change. It is first going to take change in wasteful Washington spending. All our discretionary spending needs to be looked at, and we also are going to have to look at the long-term prospects for our financial future, as our creditors--those who are loaning us this money we are borrowing--are getting uneasy. They are not too comfortable with what we are doing. I believe any President of any party who desires the mantle of a leader, desires to demonstrate a commitment to a firm footing for our financial future, should come forth with a plan as part of the budget process and lay it out so the American people can see it. I am becoming very concerned, once again, even though 743 days have passed since a budget has cleared this Senate, that we may not get one this year. What an event. That, to me, is unthinkable. How irresponsible could we be to go another year under these circumstances? For example, the Congressional Budget Office has analyzed the President's proposal for the future, and that scoring of the President's budget concludes a couple of things. Last year, the interest we paid on the money this Nation has borrowed was $200 billion. In 10 years, under the President's plan, the Congressional Budget Office said the amount of interest that would be paid in 1 year is $940 billion. That is bigger than the Defense Department. That is bigger than Medicare. It will be the largest single item in the entire budget. It is unthinkable. We get no benefit from that whatsoever except the money we borrowed to live off of. We are passing huge debts off to our grandchildren. The expert economists and financiers who testified before the Budget Committee said: Don't think you can just assume the problem falls on your grandchildren. They said we could have a crisis much sooner than that. Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson issued a statement to us when they testified that said we are facing the most predictable debt crisis in American history. We asked: Could we have an idea of when such a crisis could hit us? And Mr. Bowles, chosen by President Obama to head the commission, said 2 years, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later. Alan Simpson said: I think it could be 1 year. Well, we hope we don't have some new debt crisis. We hope the people who have been loaning us money don't get so nervous, as they have done in Greece, that our interest rate surge puts this economy in a dangerous condition and damages our country. I hope that is not happening within 2 years or 1 year. Wouldn't that be a disaster for us? How do we prevent it? We take action now that changes the debt trajectory of our country and sends a message to the whole world: We get it. We know we can't continue on this path, and we are changing. And the way our Congress and government is set up, the way that change occurs is through the adoption of a budget. I remain very disappointed that while the House has produced a historic budget on time--by April 15--we have not even begun to mark up a budget in the Senate. That is irresponsible. And we need to know and the American people need to know that the majority leader, if a budget is passed out of committee--and certainly it should be--will move it to the floor and bring it up for vote and amendment and debate, and then it goes to the House and conference, they hammer out the differences, and we adopt a budget that can help put this country on a sound financial path and avoid the kind of crisis so many experts have warned us could occur. I thank the Chair. I see my fabulous colleague, Senator Hatch, the ranking Republican member of the Finance Committee and my former chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I was honored to serve with him. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to be able to speak in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, a headline in the Hill today reads ``Budgets everywhere, but not [a single] one has votes to pass.'' Well, that is not exactly correct. In reality, there is only one budget that has been presented, publicly debated, worked on in committee, shared with the American people, and passed on the floor in one house, and that is the budget of the Republican House. Paul Ryan led the fight on that, and it is a courageous, serious budget that would restore fiscal sanity and prosperity to this Nation. It deals with our short-term funding crisis and the long-term ability of our financial system. We had another budget presented by President Obama. It was an irresponsible budget. The budget presented by the President to the Senate is about this thick. It is required by law that the President submit one every year. He has around 500 people in the budget office who help prepare that. That budget--analyzed by the CBO, our independent group of analysts--was found to not reduce the debt path we are on but to actually increase the debt over 10 years more than would occur based on the Congressional Budget Office baseline we are already on--substantially, $2 trillion more. It has tax increases in it too. This is not a responsible budget. It was never received responsibly in the Senate and not by the independent commentators. They all said it fails to do the job we have to do. I have to say, by contrast to the House, that there still is no Senate Democratic budget--a budget set up to be passed by a majority. The majority party always has the responsibility--and sometimes they meet it and sometimes not--to present a budget. No action has even been scheduled in the Budget Committee. No plan or resolution has been brought up for a vote. In fact, it has been 742 days since the Senate passed a budget--2 years. The Democratic-led Senate has missed the statutory deadline of April 15 to produce a budget for the second year in a row. In fact, as a statutory requirement, the committee is to start work on it by April 1. We have not begun it yet and it is mid- May. Is it any wonder that this country is in a financial crisis, that we are not containing spending, when we don't even have a budget and we didn't even bring one to the floor last year? Majority Leader Reid chose not to bring a budget to the floor for debate or to even attempt to pass a budget. We are in the middle of a fiscal crisis. There is no doubt that the single greatest threat to America at this point in time is the financial situation in which we find ourselves. This year, we will spend, by September 30--and we are moving on to that date--$3.7 trillion. We will bring in revenue of $2.2 trillion. Forty cents of every dollar we are spending this year is borrowed. It is an unsustainable path, as every expert has told us in the Budget Committee, where I am ranking Republican. We have heard witness after witness, Democratic and Republican, and the President's own debt commission tell us we are on an unsustainable path. Erskine Bowles, the man chosen by President Obama to head the fiscal commission the President established, told us--along with Alan Simpson, his cochairman--that this Nation has never faced a more predictable financial crisis. We are heading right to it. It is going to hammer us, our children, and our grandchildren. If we don't get off this course, the bond markets are going to revolt, and we are going to have a serious financial crisis of some kind that will not be good for this economy. When asked when such a crisis could occur, Mr. Bowles said 2 years, maybe a little less or a little more, and Alan Simpson said he thought it would be 1 year. These are independent people who love America. They are warning us to take action now. The President's budget simply doesn't get it. The American people are not happy with us. They think we are not meeting our responsibilities. Are they right? They hammered a lot of big spenders in the last election. Were they right? I totally believe they are right. I totally believe that. I am of the view that there is no way this country should be in the present debt situation. It should never, ever have happened. I opposed a lot of the spending. I would like to think I was more vigorous than most in warning against it. But I don't think I have done enough. There is no reason to borrow 40 cents out of every dollar we spend; it threatens our future. We will double the entire debt of our country in 4 years under this President's watch. When he leaves office, completes his 4-year term, he will have doubled the entire debt of America, and we are on a course that continues to be dangerous. As we know, Budget Committee Chairman Conrad has been meeting privately with his Democratic caucus--it has been in the press--to try to finally bring some sort of budget forward. The Democrats apparently have been unable to do so, from reports we see, because the big spenders in their caucus cannot support a plan that would actually get the job done and put us on a sound financial path, and they can't produce a plan that will withstand public scrutiny, apparently, and that the American people would support. So they have a difficult problem. This was shown, as reported in The Hill, because Chairman Conrad--who served on the debt commission and I believe fully understands the dangers this country faces--has repeatedly acknowledged that. I really respect Senator Conrad's insights into the challenges this country faces. Apparently, his proposal, which was going to be somewhat better than President Obama's, I assume, failed to win the support of his conference and of Senator Bernie Sanders, who is a gutsy Senator and is open about what he believes. But he has described himself as a Socialist and is the Senate's most powerful advocate for bigger government. He is a member of the Budget Committee. The reason Senator Sanders' vote became important is because the Democrats have apparently been working to pass a budget through committee without a Republican vote. They don't expect to get any Republican votes. The committee only has one more Democrat than Republicans, so the chairman needs Senator Sanders' vote if he wants to get the budget out of committee. Here is an excerpt from The Hill: Reid said Senator Conrad presented to the [Democratic] Caucus a 50/50 split when asked about the preferred ratio of spending cuts to tax increases. . . . Conrad has moved his budget proposal to the left in order to gain the support of Senator Bernie Sanders, an outspoken progressive on the budget panel. You know, ``progressive'' is a word they are using now for big government types. They want to take more money from the American people because they believe they know better how to spend it than the American people who earn it. They want to spread it around the way they want to spend it. This is a remarkable turn of events. It is particularly stunning because the President's budget--repudiated for its dramatic levels of spending and taxes--claimed there was a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes. ``We cut spending $3 for every $1 in tax hikes'' is what the President said. Chairman Conrad has indicated that would have been his choice. He praised that. He said he favored that same ratio. I don't think that is necessarily a good ratio. We need to reduce spending more than that. Taken literally, what this means is that Senator Conrad has, in a fundamental respect, moved his plan to the left of the President and the fiscal commission, which also proposed a plan that actually did reduce spending $3 for every $1 in tax increases or pretty close to that, pretty fairly, without gimmicks, and came close to achieving that. The President's budget was so gimmicked that it really didn't achieve $3 in spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. It did not. It wasn't correct for him to say that. It is important to note that the President and the fiscal commission use a baseline that assumes tax rates will go up. Fairly analyzed, those plans rely much more heavily on taxing than those ratios indicate, as I said, and I fear that the composition of this new Democratic budget proposal may not even meet the 50-50 plan. The others have it in terms of taxes and spending cuts. The merits of this 50-50 split between savings and taxes are both a question of philosophy and economics. Philosophically, the American people don't want Washington to continue raising taxes to pay for larger and larger spending. American families should not be punished for the sins and excesses of Washington. According to the CBO, we are going to spend $45 trillion over the next 10 years. The Senate Democratic plan, which no one is likely to see until after the committee meets--that is what we have been told, that we won't see it until it is plopped down at the beginning of the committee markup, where amendments are supposed to be offered soon thereafter--their own plan, at least from what we read about it, says it will cut or save just $2 trillion out of $45 trillion over the next 10 years. The American people know there is much more we can and must do to bring this government under control and to achieve real balance in this country. What kind of balance? Between raising taxes and cutting spending, 50-50? No. The balance we need is one that respects the American people, that reduces the growth in spending and wealth taken by Washington and allows it to be kept by the American people, who earn it. There is also a question of economics. Our committee has conducted an exhaustive survey of available research which conclusively shows that debt reduction plans that rely equally on saving money, reducing spending, and raising taxes are far less successful and result in far weaker economic growth than those plans that rely on cutting spending. We will release a white paper very soon that will share these findings with my colleagues and the country. It is very important that we understand this. What history is showing us is that when you reduce spending, you get more growth and prosperity than increasing spending and taxes. Here is one example of the many studies we analyzed. This is a Goldman Sachs study by analysts Ben Broadbent and Kevin Daly. The report resulted from a cross-national study of fiscal reform that: In a review of every major fiscal correction in the OECD-- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the world's major developed economies-- since 1975, we find that decisive budgetary adjustments that have focused on reducing government expenditure have (i) been successful in correcting fiscal imbalances; (ii) typically boosted economic growth; and (iii) resulted in significant bond and equity market outperformance. In other words, the stock market and the bond market improved, and both of those are a bit shaky now after some rebound. Tax driven-- ``Tax driven,'' that means tax increases-- fiscal adjustments, by contrast, typically fail to correct fiscal imbalances and are damaging for growth. That is the Goldman Sachs study. Half of our U.S. Treasury Department has been manned by people who served at one time or another at Goldman Sachs. They are not considered a rightwing group. That is what their analysts have said to us. The Democratic Senate, I believe, should heed the large body of research showing that spending cuts on a basic economic level work better than trying to drain more out of the economy by way of taxes. In other words, the Senate should produce a budget based on facts. They should produce a budget that grows the economy, that imposes real spending discipline on Washington. They should produce a budget without gimmicks and empty promises. They should produce this budget publicly, openly, and allow the American people to review and consider it before the committee meets in 72 hours, as my colleagues have pleaded with the chairman twice to do but he will not do. They should produce a budget the American people deserve--an honest budget that spares our children from both the growing burden of debt and the growing burden of an intrusive big government. I hope we can continue to have the opportunity to talk about this issue. It is right that the American people be engaged in it. I have to say, I feel as though we failed in our responsibility to conduct open hearings and markups on a budget. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to make a few remarks about the budget circumstances in which we find ourselves. Yesterday, we learned that the President has scheduled two summit meetings on the budget this week. The President will meet with Senate Democrats on Wednesday and Republicans on Thursday. By calling this summit, it would seem the President has effectively canceled this week's planned unveiling of a Democratic Senate budget in the Senate Budget Committee that was planned earlier. First it was going to be Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday. It looks as if maybe it will not be held this week at all. It might be that Senator Conrad could do that, but somehow, with this event occurring, he may not. Regardless of this new discussion period, it is my expectation and belief that the American people should be given a Senate budget plan so it can be examined and we can know what is in it and see what it is about. The American public deserves to know where our elected leaders stand. I hate to say that we have gone 700-plus days without a budget for the United States of America during a time of the greatest debt increase we have ever faced. We will have doubled the debt of the United States, I believe, by next year in 4 years. We will add $13 trillion to the debt over the 10 years presented by President Obama's budget that he sent to us in February. There have been all kinds of discussions and talks and a lot of speeches. The President created a fiscal commission. They came forward with a serious proposal that was worthy of real insight and study. They spent a lot of time on it. It did not go far enough, in my opinion, to reduce our surging growth in spending, but it was intellectually honest, and it offered us some very real suggestions about how we could do better. Then we started hearing that after the President's budget was submitted and it was received very badly--in fact, it was not helpful at all but actually made the debt trajectory we are on worse. We had a gang of six Senators who tried to work together to establish a budget plan that might work for us. They met in secret and had ideas. I was interested in what they had to say, but somehow that seems to have gone on the back burner. Then we had Vice President Biden. He is going to lead a discussion with House and Senate Republicans and Democrats, and he is going to work out something. Now, just yesterday, we heard that the President is going to have another meeting at the White House and talk to us. I hope it is not like the one to which he invited the House Budget Committee chairman, Paul Ryan, and criticized him, sitting right there in front of him, for producing what I think is a historic budget that would put us on a sound path if followed. Here we are. We have not gotten a plan or a commitment as to what this administration intends to advocate for. They submitted their budget. It was alleged to have reduced the deficit by $2 trillion, but when the Congressional Budget Office, our objective analyst, took the document they submitted and studied it in detail, they concluded it would add $2.7 trillion. In other words, it would create more debt over the next 10 years by $2.7 trillion than was projected to accrue without the budget. That is not what financial experts are telling us, that is not what economists and professors are telling us we need to do. It is unacceptable. That budget was criticized, and we hadn't heard much about it since. Well, the President, for a week or so, tried to propose that it would have us live within our means and help pay down the debt. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the lowest deficit in 10 years would be over $700 billion, and the President said this was going to have us living within our means? Apparently, desiring to back off that, the President made a speech and he said he is now going to save $4 trillion. Well, the budget staff--I am ranking Republican on the Budget Committee--looked at what he said in the speech and noticed a couple of things. We noticed the President had moved the budget period from 10 years to 12 years, and that made the numbers look a lot better compared to a 10-year savings plan. If we save a little each year and we go 12 years, it looks better than 10, when everybody was talking about 10. It is kind of a little gimmick, you see, to make the numbers look better. Then they incorrectly took credit for every dollar that was saved when the Republicans in the House negotiated with the Senate on the CR and reduced spending about $75 billion a year below what the President had asked for. They took credit for that. That was about $800 billion of the savings. The net result is, it was not any different than the budget plan he had proposed, except it took credit for the House reduction in spending. I have to say, the House Republicans--Paul Ryan--stood and faced the American people and revealed in advance the core of their plan. I attended one press conference in which Paul Ryan announced the budget he was moving forward with. He had a series of press briefings. He basically said: This is my plan and I am ready to hear any exceptions you have to it, I am prepared to answer your questions, and I am prepared to defend what it is we have done. It was an honest, direct, and responsible approach. The Ryan budget dealt with the long-term financial threats to America as well as the immediate. The numbers he proposed get us to the point where we can certainly say we are not on the same debt trajectory that put us in such great risk. I believe it is probably the most serious effort I have seen, in the 14 years I have been in the Senate, to address the significant fiscal challenges we face. We face not only a short-term problem, but we face a long-term, systemic problem. We have an aging population--people drawing more Social Security for longer periods and Medicare for longer periods. We have other entitlement programs. We have been spending extraordinarily. So all that has to be a part of our discussion about how to put this country on a sound path. Senator Conrad, our Democratic chairman, has done a good job in calling good witnesses. Every expert who has testified before the Budget Committee has told us the truth about the grim circumstances we find ourselves in. They have told us: If you don't act, we could have a debt crisis. They have told us the debt we have already accrued, and which continues to increase, is right now pulling down our economy; that our growth is not what it would be had we not incurred this much debt. It is uncontroversial that this much debt slows down the economy. When I asked Treasury Secretary Geithner, he agreed with the Rogoff- Reinhart study that says when debt reaches 90 percent of GDP it pulls down economic growth 1 percent. Secretary Geithner said: Yes, that is an excellent study, and I would add one more thing. He said: When we get that much debt, we run the risk of having a debt crisis that could throw us back into some sort of recession or financial problem such as we have had. That was President Obama's Secretary of the Treasury. We know we have a serious problem. We need to do something about it. The President submitted a budget that has basically been rejected. I can't imagine the Senate would bring it forward as the Senate Democratic budget. The House of Representatives, in accordance with the law and the timeframes of the Budget Act, has produced a budget, showed it publicly before they voted on it, and has defended it since. We haven't had one in the Senate. The Senate, by law, should have produced its budget and started its markup 6 weeks ago. The law says we are supposed to have passed a budget by April 15--tax day. We haven't even begun to mark it up. People are attempting, politically, to explain. The Democratic spinmasters are attempting to explain what it is all about. Why are we doing these things? Why hasn't a real budget been produced? They say Republicans are divided. They say: Oh, tea party people and Republicans are all divided. The Republican House has passed a budget. Where is the Democratic Senate? Who is divided? Why can't they produce a document? Why do we have to have the Vice President and the President having meetings and the President giving speeches? Why don't we see a real budget that the American people can see in advance and be able to evaluate and Senators standing, as we are paid to do, and casting votes for or against it? That is what we need to be doing. I don't agree with the fact that the President is leading. I wish I could say that. Maybe he will surprise us on Thursday with something. I hope so. But I don't sense any leadership at all, because the budget he produced will not do the job. That is the only one we have in the Senate at this point. Indeed, Mr. Erskine Bowles, the man the President chose to head his fiscal commission, said the President's budget came nowhere near doing what is necessary. Actually, what he said was the President's budget goes nowhere near where they will have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare. I am wondering what is happening. The American people get it. They sent a message in the elections last November. They sent 64 new Members to the House of Representatives, and every single one of them promised to do something about reckless spending in Washington. What about this budget the President has submitted to us? It is the only one we have in the Senate. The Senate Democratic leadership hasn't presented one. The President's budget called for a 10.5-percent increase in education, a 9.5-percent increase in energy, a 10.5-percent in the State Department's budget, and a 62-percent increase in the transportation budget. Well, we don't have the money. Forty cents of every $1 we spend is borrowed. That cannot be continued. We are on an unsustainable path. The American people know it. Every expert has told us. We know it. Where are our leaders in the Senate? Senator Conrad, apparently, made a presentation of his budget, and the Republicans have asked Senator Conrad to present it to us 72 hours before the committee meets. He said he is not going to do that. He made a presentation to the Democratic conference and, apparently, it didn't go well. Senator Conrad apparently proposed reducing spending more than they liked to hear. The Democratic leader, Senator Reid, was sort of critical, actually. He said it was a nice bunch of charts. Obviously, he wasn't happy. When are we going to see a budget? Are we going to go another 700 days? Are we not going to have a budget this year? The way things should work is like this: The Senate should come forward--the Democratic Senate, because they have the majority and we can pass a budget with a simple majority--and propose a budget that hopefully will get bipartisan support. If not, they stand and say what they believe in and how this budget reflects their vision for America. The House has done that. Then we go to conference committee. After it comes to the floor and is voted on, it goes to the conference committee and differences are worked out. Then it comes back and we have to vote on final passage of an agreed-upon budget. We have to have a budget. It is time for this country to begin to reverse the reckless trend we are on because we are placing our Nation at risk. Mr. Bowles and Senator Alan Simpson, when they testified before the Budget Committee, warned us we have to do something significant. In the written statement they both signed, they said we are facing the most predictable economic crisis in our history. When asked when that could occur, Mr. Bowles said 2 years, maybe. Alan Simpson said: I think maybe 1. We are not talking about our grandchildren. I am talking about now. What I would just say is, I think it is time for us to go back to regular order. We have tried a lot of different approaches to confront this crisis we face. It seems to me our leadership in the Senate is desperately seeking to avoid having to do what is responsible; that is, to stand and produce a budget. If they aren't prepared to stand before the American people and tell them how they think the country ought to be run and where the money ought to be spent and how much ought to be collected, then they are not leading, it seems to me. I am very disappointed in the President's leadership. He has been roundly criticized because the only proposal he has sent to us is irresponsible. It in no way comes close, as Mr. Bowles said, to doing what is necessary to avoid our fiscal nightmare, and that is the path we are headed toward. It is not a matter of dispute. We will not reach 10, 15 years down the road spending like we are because we will have a catastrophe before then. Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve, said he thought maybe some sort of compromise would be reached that would be good for the country. The only question, he said, was whether it would be before or after a debt crisis occurs. This was a few weeks ago that Alan Greenspan was saying this. It is a challenge for us and a challenge for the leadership in this Senate to come before the American people and produce their plan and seek support on the floor of the Senate. Let's debate it. Let's have amendments offered. Let's go to conference, and somehow, some way hammer out a budget that will put this country on a better path. We have no other choice. It is the defining moment for this Congress. We have no higher duty than to confront the dangerous fiscal path we are on.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his leadership on the Environment and Public Works Committee. I am pleased to be back on that committee with him. I share very much the substance of his views about the need to produce more oil and gas. It keeps money in the United States, creates jobs in the United States, and creates tax revenues for the United States. Offshore oil and gas in our gulf produces billions of dollars for States and the Federal Government. Why we would want to produce oil and gas off Brazil and not produce it off our shore I do not know. I thank my colleague.

Mr. SESSIONS

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

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes.