Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I value the Senator's views on these issues so much. I recall when the Senator chaired the Joint Economic Committee, the Select Committee of the House and Senate. He was our chairman. Since then he has been known as one of the authoritative voices on our economy, as well as Senate business. I guess I would first say that I am very intrigued by your legislation. It sounds as though it is something that is exactly what we need. I don't, I guess, want to be in a political tit for tat, but I remember and recall the Senator from Utah opposing the stimulus package that was on the floor and voting against that and raising concerns about it. I think the general concern most often raised was one that Nobel Prize Laureate Gary Becker raised: It wasn't one that creates jobs. I guess I would ask, based on the Senator's experience in the Senate, the amount of money that went into that bill--the purpose was supposed to be to create jobs--give us your honest evaluation of how well it has performed.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Utah for those thoughts. What a tragedy that is. I don't think people realize how much $800 billion is. So the Senator's legislation would be far less expensive and would immediately help small businesses create jobs without a government bureaucracy telling them what to do. Is that fair to say?

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I appreciate the remarks of the junior Senator from Massachusetts. He has come off the campaign trail, where he talked to thousands and thousands of people all over his State and heard from, I would guess, millions from around the country. We should listen to some of the things he is telling us because it strikes me that we, too often in this body, are a bit insulated, and we fail to see that people are asking us to make some changes in what we do when we think we have to continue to operate the way we have been operating. But that is not what I am hearing at my townhall meetings. I don't know that anybody in this body, if they are listening in their townhall meetings, are hearing business as usual is what the people want us to do. What I am hearing is a great concern and expression of regret, and in some cases frustration and anger, over the amount of money we are spending and how recklessly we are doing it. I guess that is what I am here to talk about. The bill Senator Claire McCaskill and I are offering is a bipartisan bill. It had quite a bit of Democratic support last time. We came within just a few votes of reaching 60 votes and passing it, and I am hopeful today, with the alterations we have made, it will appeal to some of my Democratic colleagues and they will be able to support it now. I believe it will take quite a positive step in how we fund our government and how much debt we run up. In the 1990s, an idea was placed into law that said the budgets we pass should have statutory language and should be made a part of statutory law. So we did that in the 1990s. We began to see, shortly after the passage of that, a containment of the surge and growth in spending. The growth was far more modest and, as a result, by the end of the 1990s we had a surplus. President Clinton claimed great credit for that. I think sometimes he fails to recall the Congress acted, and ultimately it is Congress that has the power of the purse. No money can be spent that we don't authorize and appropriate. Nothing can be spent by the President or any other Cabinet person that Congress hasn't authorized and appropriated to be spent. Those are the facts. This legislation would put what we call caps or limits on discretionary spending. That does not include entitlement spending, so not counting Social Security and Medicare and those kind of things. It is the discretionary accounts we have in the Senate. This amendment would put some limits on them--the limits we chose for the fiscal year 2011 through fiscal year 2014. This is the 2010 budget resolution we are now under, which was passed by our Democratic majority and supported by the President of the United States. It is his projections and our projections--the Congress's projections--for spending growth in the next 4 years. The budget resolution we passed allows for a 2- percent increase per year in both defense and nondefense spending. The caps in the amendment are exactly those we voted for in last year's budget. Currently, we are not standing firm with the budgets we pass. We know that is a problem for us and we need to discipline ourselves. We have learned that from 1991 through 2002, the statutory caps on spending helped us contain spending. We did not surge discretionary spending as much as had been the case earlier. When it ended in 2002, the spending started back up again. Not only did it start up, it has now reached a level of growth the likes of which the country has never seen before. Last year, our total deficit for the year was $1,400 billion. This year it is going to be $1,400 billion or $1,500 billion when we end. We have never had anything like this before. How much we are spending and how little we are paying for what we spend is a stunning development. This legislation would not impact the bills that have already passed. Some say: Well, you might try to contain the stimulus bill we passed. No, that has already passed and wouldn't be covered. None of the other bills that have passed would be covered. Indeed, as part of our discussion with our colleagues in the Senate about their concerns with the legislation the last time we voted on it--a few weeks ago--we exempted this year, and we are spending pretty substantially this year--well above our budget. So we had people say: Well, Jeff, I am concerned about this year. I want to spend more this year. But next year we have to get this house in order. Well, we are well into this year already, so my decision would be: OK, that is a request I will accept, and Senator McCaskill agreed. So now we are asking that this limit be placed beginning next fiscal year, instead of this fiscal year. It is very similar to the plan proposed by President Obama in his State of the Union Message and his fiscal year 2011 budget. In fact, President Obama actually went further in saying he wanted to see a freeze on a lot of these accounts. Our bill would allow a 1-percent to 2-percent increase in spending in these accounts. He is saying a freeze would be better. So, Jeff, are you saying you want to spend more than the President? No. I think we should try, and I would be supportive of trying to maintain the freeze the President suggested. But I would say, based on our history and what we have seen from statutory caps, if we pass caps with this 1- to 2-percent increase, then we might be able to at least stay within that because last year our increases were 8 percent or more in spending. We all know we have to do better, and our budget says we will do better. So this amendment would give some strength to that. The legislation specifies spending for defense and nondefense programs consistent with the budget resolution. It contains a $10 billion-per-year emergency fund, which fits in with the budget resolution. We have set aside $10 billion this year, and we should do at least that amount each year to ensure we have resources available if a genuine emergency arises and we need to respond to an emergency. So we would set that aside. This amendment requires a two-thirds vote of 67 Senators to waive the annual caps or the emergency $10 billion fund. That is stronger than we have had before. We have had a 60-vote cap. But we know we are spending at a very reckless rate. Contrary to what people say, we have had bipartisan support for all kinds of emergency spending, and there is usually 90 or 100 votes for hurricanes, earthquakes or similar things. At any rate, we think the 67 votes would say to this Senate that we are serious and there should be a legitimate reason that can be defended to waive the budget to spend more money. Also, it would say why don't we find money elsewhere within our budget, through efficiencies and other ideas, to contain that growth in spending and pay for some of it first before we send it to the credit card and add it to the debt? This amendment does not apply the caps to spending for any military action. I know Senator Inouye and others have raised the question will it deny soldiers in the field support. The caps would not apply to any military action in which the Congress has provided a declaration of war or authorization to utilize military force. That is, I think, the appropriate way to handle it. This amendment would be exempting those kinds of situations. This is similar to what the President has called for and what Congress did throughout the 1990s with bipartisan support. This amendment has been evaluated by some of the best budget minds in America, independent groups that are respected. These experts understand the nature and problems of our Congress and how we tend to break our budgets instead of staying within them. They are terribly concerned about our spending; they are issuing reports, and many of them have endorsed us. One of the best known groups is the Concord Coalition. They endorse the amendment. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that includes former OMB, Office of Management and Budget, officials and Congressional Budget Office officials. They work together for responsible Federal budgets, and they support it. Citizens Against Government Waste; the National Taxpayers Union; the Heritage Foundation; Alice Rivlin, who was the first head of the Congressional Budget Office and was the head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton and is now a Brookings Institute senior fellow--she supports it. As does Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the CBO under President Bush, who has spoken out on these issues. This amendment is supported by a majority of the members of the Senate Budget Committee the last time it was considered, and it gives the Budget Committee more ability to make sure their budget is not abridged and broken. What about some questions and answers? Will this bill prevent the Federal Government from responding to legitimate purchases? The answer is no, it will not. We have $10 billion set aside anyway; it is set aside right upfront. The amount is included in our budget resolution from last year and that money can be utilized for any emergency. Second, the emergency appropriations, for example after the 9/11 attack; the 2004 tsunami; Hurricane Katrina--all passed with overwhelming support in the Senate, 93-votes-plus each and every time. So this is far above the 67 votes. Not a single emergency natural disaster bill since the emergency designation was created in 1990--and there have been quite a few--has gotten less than 67 votes. To say it will deny us the right to respond to a legitimate emergency is incorrect. Question: Would the Sessions-McCaskill bill prevent Congress from funding the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan? As I said, this threshold of 67 votes would not apply in cases ``of the defense budget authority if Congress declared war or authorizes the use of force.'' In addition, all emergency war supplementals for the global war on terrorism have received far more than 67 votes anyway. Question: Would the Sessions-McCaskill bill prevent Congress from caring for veterans? That has been raised a good bit. The fiscal year 2010 budget resolution incorporates significant increases in funding for veterans, an 11-percent increase in fiscal year 2010, which built on large increases in fiscal years 2008 and 2009. In addition, a significant amount of veterans spending is mandatory. Entitlements and mandatory spending would not even be covered by this, just as Social Security and Medicare is not covered by it. Veterans programs have always enjoyed wide support in the Senate and I don't think there is any doubt that legitimate concerns for veterans would be properly addressed. It should be paid for whenever possible but, if we cannot do that, if we have a crisis for our veterans, I have no doubt there will be 67 votes to take care of the veterans' needs. In fact, the emergency supplemental for veterans' health care that came up in 2005 received 99 votes. Veterans funding, I think most of our Members believe, ought to displace less priority items. There is a myth out there that the sponsors are saying this will balance the budget by focusing on nondefense discretionary spending and this is a small part of the budget. It is not the biggest part of the budget. And it is not going to balance the budget in itself. But the facts are this. First, the amendment caps growth in both defense and nondefense discretionary spending. Second, the sponsors have never claimed the amendment would balance the budget. We have to do a lot more than this. The President himself estimates that his 3-year freeze he proposed--spending not related to defense or veterans or foreign affairs--would result in a $250 billion savings over 10 years and that is real money. This legislation has the potential to save hundreds of billions of dollars. If the choice is between 8 and 10-percent increases, as we have had in the last couple of years, and the 2-percent or so increase that would be allowed under this budget, it would save a lot more than $250 billion over a period of time. I want to say how much I appreciate the support and leadership by Senator McCaskill on this matter. When we voted before, all Republicans but 1 and 17 Democrats voted for the legislation. I expect there is at least one more vote with our new Senator from Massachusetts. We have changed it to apply to next year and not this year. That should attract more support. I am hopeful that we could pass this. I think it would send a message to our colleagues and to those who appropriate the money here, that we are serious about staying within the budget limits. We are saying to the President, not only do we support you but we are going to create a mechanism where it is going to be harder to spend more than you proposed. We will send a message to the financial markets, which are wondering what we are doing here. If you read the financial pages, people make statements on Wall Street that indicate they have no confidence we are going to reverse the trend we are on. In fact, the trend is so stunning it puts us on the road to tripling the national debt in 10 years--from 2008 with $5.8 billion in public debt held by people all over the world, including governments such as China, to 2013 with $11 trillion, to 2019 with $17 trillion--doubling in 5 years, tripling in 10 years. I think we can do better. There is a lot of blame to go around and all of us deserve some of it. But we are in a position where I think we can make a difference today. This legislation, I believe, is a good step and would send a message throughout the world, to the financial markets, that Congress is beginning to take firm steps that would contain the growth of spending. I am pleased to see my colleague from Missouri here. She has been a champion on this and integrity in spending in all areas. She challenges waste, fraud, and abuse. She understands more than most in our body that the money we have extracted from the American taxpayer should be spent very carefully in order to guarantee we get a quality benefit from it. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennet.) Without objection, it is so ordered. Amendment No. 3337

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we have been talking about having a bipartisan effort to rein in spending and some of the things that we can do in that regard. So I am pleased to share a few thoughts today on the legislation that my Democratic colleague, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and I have offered that would ensure that we show some fiscal discipline in our spending habits. It is not a dramatic change in what we should be doing and what I think we can do, but I think it is an action that would send a message to the financial markets in the world that we are beginning to get the message from our constituents that this recklessness and this kind of spending cannot continue. Our legislation received bipartisan support last time. Fifty-six Senators voted for it, which is a pretty good number. But you do need to get 60 votes to pass the legislation. I think this time, with our new colleague from Massachusetts, we might be at 57 or 58, and at this point, I think others may be evaluating whether this is the kind of action they would like to support. Let me take a minute or two to explain what our legislation attempts to do, how it can work, how it has worked in the past, and why this step is important. It would set a much firmer cap on spending. It would make it more difficult to enact spending levels that violate the budget. I wish to explain why it is something Members of both parties can support. What we are talking about is moving beyond the budget caps that are only good for 1 year and take those budget caps, extend them for 4 years and make them statutory. It is not something that can't be changed. If there is an emergency, we can vote to change them. In fact, Congress can, with 60 votes, eliminate the whole statute and write a new statute, if we believe it is too severe. So Congress clearly would have the ability to act, if it chooses, to get around these limits on spending. Back in the early 1990s, legislation was passed that put a statutory cap on spending. I have a chart I will show. It is kind of upside down in a way. This shows the deficits in the early 1990s. This is when we passed the legislation, the statutory cap on spending. The deficits went down until we hit surplus for 4 years in the late 1990s, early 2000. Then this statutory cap expired. That is when deficits started going up, and they are continuing to rise. Last year's deficit was three times this amount from the year before--three times that amount--one thousand four hundred billion in debt last year, and it is expected to be one thousand five hundred billion in deficit this year, for 1 year. This is an unsustainable path. This is a proven technique to gain control of spending. Why it was allowed to expire and not extended in 2002, I do not know. I know a number of people argued that it should be kept, and it was not. Secondly, what is the cap? What would it be? The limit we would place on spending would be the amount President Obama asked for in his budget. It is 1 to 2 percent in the spending accounts. If you went above that, you would have to have a serious bipartisan vote of two- thirds to break that cap the President has set as the proper goal. Parenthetically, since the President submitted that budget, he has indicated he wishes to see a freeze on spending, on nondefense discretionary accounts, a flat freeze. I would be supportive of that. I would support the President in that. First, if we can get a hard limit on the 1 to 2-percent increase, we believe we will have done something worthwhile. How would this work? If somebody came in and proposed spending levels that exceeded the specific budgetary limits as set by President Obama's budget, it could only be surpassed by waiving the statutory cap. That takes a two-thirds vote. This would have some teeth to it. We have gone back and checked. For the last 30 years and every time there has been an emergency, such an as an earthquake, an ice storm or a hurricane, the Congress has waived the budget and enacted emergency legislation with 90 votes, 100 votes, high 70 votes every single time. It is unlikely that we would see a genuine emergency not being promptly funded with emergency spending, if the Nation has to do that. I don't think that is a problem. What we are saying is, when we have legislation come up that is not paid for, that is not accounted for, a person would be able to make a budget point of order and say: You should not have expended moneys at more than a 1-percent or 2-percent increase in this budget account, and I make a budget point of order. It would take a two-thirds vote of the Senate to waive it. It gives some real teeth to the President's budget, the same kind of teeth President Clinton had during his time in office, his or the congressional budget that was actually passed by the Senate and the House. That budget was enforceable. When it was enforceable, we achieved a surplus. Let's be frank. It will be more difficult today to achieve a budget surplus than in the 1990s. We have a lot of different factors at work here. One of them is that the deficit is so much larger, and we have some real problems getting there. But we have to begin. You say: Well, you have a budget. Why is this a problem? Why can't you use your budget point of order and stop spending and contain it through a rate close to inflation and lower rates than we have seen in the past? It didn't work last year. This chart is the 2010 base increases in the year we are in today, the fiscal year 2010. It shows you how spending has increased. The chart I have does not include the breathtakingly huge $800 billion stimulus bill. Each one of these accounts got money out of that bill. I haven't even included those amounts. But look what we did the year we are in. The budget had levels below this, but eventually this is what we passed: Foreign operations, foreign aid, State Department got a 32.8-percent increase. Interior Department got a 16.6-percent increase. CJS, Commerce-Justice-State, is a 12.3-percent increase. THUD, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, received a 23-percent increase. Agriculture received a 14.5-percent increase. Defense, the lowest one, received a 4.1-percent increase. All of these are well above the inflation rate. What I am saying is, this is unsustainable. Every witness we have had at the Budget Committee hearing, Democrats and Republicans, Brookings and Heritage Foundation, all of them are saying: This is an unsustainable course. It has the potential to threaten our economy and our political future. One of the witnesses recently said: When you run up debts, such as we are doing today, and you get to the very top of the amount of debt this Nation can carry--and we are heading to that direction--bad things can happen quickly, unanticipated. You have a serious collapse in Greece. The New York Times today reports real instability with regard to the Brits and their debt. If you think Greece has an impact on our economy because of their reckless spending, the British economy is far larger and would have an even greater impact. We are not far behind. In fact, in some ways we are ahead of the Brits in the amount of money we are spending and the amount of debt we are accumulating. We are threatening our economy, if we don't watch it, in a way that we can't anticipate. There were some private prognosticators who predicted the dramatic events of 2007 and 2008, when we had the Wall Street collapse and the financial collapse. Some people saw the balloon that was rising and predicted bad things would happen. But none of our leaders did. Mr. Bernanke is supposed to be so great and they brag about him. If he is so smart, where was he when all that happened? Our people are suffering today because of bad decisions. I have a simple view. That is, nothing comes from nothing, and nothing ever could. Everything you take today, somebody has paid for and bought. If you don't have the money today and you grasp something of value, somebody is paying for it. In our case, we are borrowing the money. We can do better. We did better in the 1990s. We are not going to be able to slash spending in record amounts, but in some of our accounts, we absolutely could eliminate spending. Some of the government programs have been independently evaluated as being not worth the money we are spending on them. They should be ended. We should not be spending money on a program that doesn't produce a return worthy of the investment we are putting into it. Even if we call it a jobs bill, if we are going to help people have jobs, if it doesn't produce jobs, how can we spend money on it? We need to be more vigorous in analyzing it. Please look at this amendment. A few more votes and we could have a bipartisan statement that we are going to stick by the budget we passed, the budget President Obama submitted. If the President comes in and helps us and we battle for it, maybe we can spend less than even this legislation would control. We could even reduce spending in certain accounts. I hope that is possible. This isn't the final word, but it would send a message to the world, to Wall Street, and to our constituents that we hear their concerns. We are going to take firm steps. We are not going to be waltzing in here every week or two with some other bill that is not paid for and treating it as an emergency and increasing our debt. I see Senator Bunning. A lot of people didn't understand what it was he objected to with regard to the bill containing unemployment insurance. The legislation that came up essentially declared that this was an emergency, that we are going to spend another $10 billion on top of the budget amounts, and the budget would not apply to it. Every bit of that would have to be financed by borrowing on the world market. Senator Bunning said: I am willing to support an unemployment insurance extension, but I wish to start paying for it for a change and end this cycle of increasing debt and the ease by which we go about it. We are in a big battle right now. Let me say a bipartisan word about my legislation. Because there is so much intensity this year about our spending, Senator McCaskill and I have altered the legislation from the one we voted on a few weeks ago that got 56 votes, 17 Democrats voting for it. We have altered it so it begins next year. So we will have this fight this year and each bill will have its own battle. We will have our own votes over it, but it only applies to next year. I think that is a good-faith way to reach-out to our colleagues and say: Let's at least do that. Let's at least take the caps that we put in place as part of our budget, as part of President Obama's budget, and let's put them into effect. We will start it next year. If we go above that and somebody has an idea of going above it, it won't be so easy. It will take a two-thirds vote to do so. So if you don't believe we ought to make it tougher to bust the budget, don't vote for it. But if you believe, as I think most constituents believe, we are showing too little fiscal discipline, then you should vote for it. It would give us a proven ability to contain spending and get us beginning on the right track. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, after all we have done to work with the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he still complains. I am amazed. This nominee seems to be a solid nominee. The President has due deference on nominees, and I think she should be confirmed and I will support her. But President Bush's nominees, for example, to the circuit courts, waited an average of 350 days from nomination to confirmation. And that was just the average. President Obama's circuit nominees have been confirmed, on average, 100 days faster. Indeed, some of President Bush's nominees to the circuit courts even received a hearing, despite being highly qualified and highly rated nominees. The majority of President Bush's first nominees waited years for confirmation--the first group he put up. But besides that, as I told the chairman, I hope to end the tit-for- tats on this issue. He is having a good record of moving nominees who are good, and the ones who are opposed on this side will be vigorously opposed. But this nominee is qualified, and I support the nominee and urge my colleagues to do so. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, today I pay tribute to COL Robert L. Howard. Colonel Howard grew up in Opelika, AL, and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1956 at age 17. He retired as a full Colonel in 1992 after 36 years service. After retiring, Howard worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs. During Vietnam, he served in the U.S. Army Special Forces, Green Berets, and spent most of his five tours in the secret Military Assistance Command Vietnam Studies and Observations Group, also known as Special Operations Group, which ran classified cross-border operations into Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. These men carried out some of the most daring and dangerous missions ever conducted by the U.S. military. The understrength 60-man recon company at Kontum in which he served was the Vietnam war's most highly decorated unit of its size with five Medals of Honor. It was for his actions while serving on a mission to rescue a fellow soldier in Cambodia that he was submitted for the third time for the Medal of Honor for his extraordinary heroism. Colonel Howard was a sergeant first class in the Army's Special Forces on Dec. 30, 1968, when he rallied a badly shot-up platoon against an estimated 250 enemy troops. Despite being unable to walk because of injuries, he coordinated a counterattack while aiding the wounded and was the last man to board a helicopter, according to military records. He served five tours in Vietnam and is the only soldier in our Nation's history to be nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor three times for three separate actions within a 13-month period. He received a direct appointment from master sergeant to first lieutenant in 1969 and was awarded the Medal of Honor by President Richard M. Nixon at the White House in 1971. His other awards for valor include two awards of the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, the Defense Superior Service Medal, four awards of the Legion of Merit, four Bronze Star Medals and eight Purple Hearts. He was wounded 14 times while serving in Vietnam. Colonel Howard, 70, died at a hospice in Waco, where he had been for about 3 weeks, suffering from pancreatic cancer. He was buried in Arlington on February 22, 2010. Colonel Howard is survived by his son, Army SGT Robert Howard, Jr., and daughters Melissa Gentsch, Rosslyn Howard, and Denicia Howard; and four grandchildren. I was also pleased to meet his brother Steve Howard, 6 years younger, who also volunteered at age 17. In an annual event, Steve was able to serve with his brother on one of his tours in Vietnam. It was wonderfully clear to one how much affection and respect Steve had for his big brother. So, Madam President, it is my honor to pay tribute to this great Alabamian and, most of all, this great American. He, like so many today, went into harm's way, a courageous patriot, to effect the decided military positions of the United States. It is on the actions of such men that our liberty and prosperity depend. I am humbled to have the opportunity to express my appreciation for Colonel Howard's heroic and superb service to this country.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, there is always an easy way to get something done in this body, and that is to spend money and not pay for it. And I am sure that gets a lot of Democratic votes and they could just pass this bill right through the body. I am sure our House Members, the majority in the House, will just pass this legislation and we will just add $10 billion more to the debt. That is what we are talking about. Is this necessary? Senator Bunning has made a number of suggestions about how this bill could be paid for. But it is not a question of delaying it, in my view; it is just simply a question of not wanting to use any of our existing moneys to pay for the extension of unemployment insurance. If we don't do that, if we don't pay for it, as we in the Senate are wont to say, then where does the money come from? We borrow it. There is an interesting article in the Washington Times today, a front-page article talking about how much of our debt China owns. They say they own a good bit more of it than we have understood, that a lot of their money goes through other institutions, and then they buy U.S. Treasury bills, and really the amount owned by China is larger than we expect. Well, so be it. I don't know what that number is. But it is not healthy for the United States of America to incur the amount of debt we are now incurring. It is not healthy. Just a few weeks ago, this very Senate, our Democratic majority, with great pride, passed the pay-go legislation saying that if we have additional expenditures, we will pay for it unless, of course, we deem it an emergency and we get a supermajority and then we don't have to pay for it. Well, here we are just a few weeks later. We want to spend some more money to help out on unemployment insurance. I think that is a worthy goal, and I think it is something we need to do. But where do you get the money? I would suggest several places. Senator Bunning has a place that I think my Democratic colleagues have supported--a tax credit account. I would say that has possibilities. I know he has also supported out of the unspent stimulus money--that could be a source of it. But all of these things apparently are just being rejected. Why are they being rejected? I assume it is because my colleagues want to spend that money on something else, an additional new spending program that is not clear to us at this time; otherwise, why would there be an objection to it? So I think the thing that has come to my mind is we can't keep going on like this. We really can't. We just had a hearing in the Budget Committee. The witnesses--most of them were Democratically called witnesses, but every single one of them said we are on an unsustainable financial course. We are spending more money than we are taking in at an unprecedented amount each year and we cannot sustain it. At some point, we have to decide if we are going to stop. At some point, we are going to have to decide, just like our families, our cities, our counties, our States; they are having to decide they don't have the money, and they either can't borrow more or they don't want to borrow more. And they actually, amazingly, may even reduce spending for a while. Do you think those counties and cities and States are no longer going to exist? Will they fall off the face of the planet? Senator Bunning has been around a long time. He knows that is not so. Every day, businesses are having to cut back. Families are cutting back. We can't cut back at all, but we continue to expend greater and greater amounts. The basic budget for this year has discretionary spending, nonmandatory spending, which goes up about 10 percent. On top of that is the $800 billion stimulus package. All that is debt. The $800 billion, we had none of it in our accounts or our banks. We had to borrow it. Every penny of that we pay interest on. This will be $10 billion more. Well, it is just $10 billion. After $800 billion, that is not very much, is it? Oh, yes, it is. Ten billion dollars is more than Alabama's State budget, and we are an average-sized State, about 4 or 5 million people. That is bigger than our State budget. So one little whip--and Senator Durbin, who is so eloquent, said: Well, we just need to pass it right now. We do not need to be talking about paying for it. If you say we want to pay for it, that might take an extra day to get the paperwork worked out with the House of Representatives. Somehow it is Senator Bunning's fault that he has actually been asked to give his consent that this body would increase our debt by $10 billion and let this bill pass. Senator Bunning says: I am not going to do it. You asked my consent. I am a Member of the Senate. I have a right to give that consent. If I have a right to give it, I have a right to withhold it, and I am going to withhold it unless you pay for this bill. So I do not think that is anything that should subject him to criticism. Oh, yes, it slowed down the plan. The plan was all greased. We were going to zip this right through, pop another $10 billion to the Nation's debt, and claim we have solved all our problems, at least for the moment. But that is not a healthy approach. I think it is a healthy approach for someone with the gumption to stand and question what we are doing, to say: You have asked for my consent for something, I do not believe in it, and I am not going to give it. I think it is time for us to get on a more sound financial footing. I just wish to say to Senator Bunning, I respect the Senator's view on that. A lot of people do. I think it is interesting our colleagues like to quote letters from people in Kentucky, talking about that they are suffering as a result of unemployment and that is so painful. But I am sure you got letters, as I have got letters. In my townhall meetings, people are coming up to me and saying: Are you people losing your minds? How much money do you think you can continue to spend? Time and time again, I hear that. Go through the airports: Keep fighting. Hold the line. Do not give in. They are not talking about adding another $10 billion to the debt because we will not even slow down long enough to figure out how to pay for it. That is not what my constituents are telling me. I am sure they are not telling Senator Bunning that. So I think this is a big deal. So when are we going to end this process? When does it stop? I say the time to begin to stop is now. I am going to be supportive of Senator Bunning in his plan. I feel this matter is getting out of hand. As I explained the other night, I serve on the Budget Committee. The budget numbers are not in dispute. The budget proposed by President Obama, a 10-year budget, analyzed over 10 years by the Congressional Budget Office, would conclude this: Last year we paid, in 1 year, interest on our debt of $170 billion. According to the Congressional Budget Office, because we are tripling the national debt at the rate we are going, in 10 years the amount of interest we will pay on the debt is $799 billion. I think the American people understand this is unacceptable. They do not need an accountant or an economist or a bureaucrat to tell them this is an unsustainable path. They know it is. They have known it is for some time. Some people say: Well, this is just a populist revival. They do not understand. We understand better. You have to borrow, borrow, borrow to make our economy go back. Well, what an individual from Alabama told me today out in the hall was the same thing a constituent told me a few weeks ago back in Evergreen. It is, you cannot borrow your way out of debt. You cannot borrow your way out of debt. This is a fundamental principle of life. We seem to have lost sight of it. So we are on a path that is unsustainable. We see what has happened in Greece. It is destabilizing the entire European Union or it threatens it. We have seen other countries get in the same kind of trouble. Our country is not very far behind. Moody's is already talking about downgrading our debt rating, the amount of money you have to pay to get insurance against credit, against default against the U.S. government has tripled in the last few years. These are people who do this stuff for a profit. People are worried. So I would say to my friends and colleagues, it is not that complicated. We simply have to stop spending so much money. We have to stop spending so much money. We cannot do everything we would like to do. We do not have the money. Most people understand that in their lives, and most of our local governments understand that. But we in the Senate think we know better. I would just say, with regard to the small business taxes and some of the things that probably would be somewhat helpful in creating economic growth, I am so disappointed we did not include more of that in the bill we passed when this stimulus bill passed. I remember coming to the floor quoting--right before the final vote--a major op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by a Nobel Prize laureate, Gary Becker, who said: This bill you are considering in the Senate does not have sufficient stimulative impact. He thought it would be much less than $1 per $1 in, and you should get well above $1 in a good stimulus package. He warned it was not going to be a job creator. Senator McCain had a better bill, at half the cost, $400 billion, targeted for jobs, targeted for economic growth, not a welfare bill, a stimulative bill, voted down by the Democratic majority. Senator Thune offered an amendment similar to the one Paul Ryan and others in the House of Representatives had put together, about half the cost of the bill we passed that would score, according to Christina Romer, President Obama's Chief Economic Adviser--her model of how you score these things would have created twice as many jobs for half as much money as this monstrosity we passed--others passed. My wife reminds me, do not say ``we'' when you voted against it. So this is what we are now in. We have thrown out 400 or so billion, $400 billion not yet spent. It is not getting the impact we wanted. That is so tragic. For everybody who is unemployed today, they need to wonder why this Congress insisted on passing legislation we were warned would not be effective in creating jobs, which is the key to our economic growth and prosperity. So I would say: I know good people can disagree. Some people think that when we are in a recession, we should keep spending, no matter how long, no matter how much, and somehow this will make us come out of it. But when you are creating an $800 billion-a-year interest payment, you realize it does not work that way. If that was the way it worked, why did we not spend $1.6 trillion in the stimulus package instead of $800 billion? Why did we not spend $1,600 billion in stimulus rather than 800? Because obviously that is a philosophy that has its limits. I thank the Chair and I yield the floor. I am proud to support the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have at the desk amendment No. 3337. I ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is the Sessions-McCaskill amendment, offered with Senator McCaskill, my colleague from Missouri. It is a bipartisan amendment, and it is one that I think is very important. I hope my colleagues will give it serious consideration. We have close to enough votes to make it law. I am absolutely convinced it is one thing that will work to reduce the surging deficits in our country. The week before last, I traveled my State of Alabama--25 stops, 6 days of travel. People continually expressed to me their concern about the financial future of our country. They want us to do something about it. I heard some of my colleagues express things like: This is just populist anger. It will pass off. We need to keep a cool head here. We don't really have to change how we do business. Things are going to work out somehow, someway, although nothing in the numbers show that. Mr. Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said last week in his testimony before Congress that our path is unsustainable. That is not the first time he said that. Virtually every economist who has opined in the last 6 months or more on our economy has said our spending levels are unsustainable and threaten the viability of our country's economic system. It is very troubling. We all know that, and we do not need to go into a whole lot of discussion about it. The gross debt of our country has grown to approximately $12 trillion--the highest in our Nation's history. Some of this is internal debt. We owe Social Security and Medicare and other trust funds that may be in surplus. But we also owe trillions on the public debt--the amount of debt this country owes outside the government. Within 5 years our public debt will double, and in 10 years the public debt will triple. I will show a chart on that point before I go into the details of it. One of the consequences of the public debt is that we pay interest and we have to get nations or individuals to loan us their money by buying our Treasury bills, bonds and notes. When they give us their money, this is not free. We have to pay them interest on all of the debt we run up. This bill that is on the floor today will add to the debt again because it is not paid for. This chart is what we get in stunning numbers. It shows that in 2009, interest on the public debt--the debt we owe to people outside our government--was $187 billion. The Congressional Budget Office scores it based on the 10-year budget President Obama submitted to us. If his budget is in effect for 10 years, the deficit would go up every single year. The debt will continue to go up every single year, and in the outyears the annual deficits will approach $1 trillion each year. The interest on the debt in 1 year would be $799 billion. That is well above the current defense budget. Aid to education is $50 billion or $60 billion. State and Federal aid to highways last year and the year before last was $40 billion. Mr. President, $800 billion in interest in 1 year? It is a stunning number, a breathtaking number. It is going to crowd out all kinds of plans some of my spending colleagues would like to effectuate in future years because we are not going to have the money or else we are going to inflate the currency and damage this economy in a most systemic way. This disturbing trend of higher and higher deficits and deficit spending shows no sign of stopping. As of September 30, the end of our fiscal year, we finished with a record $1.4 trillion deficit. That is more than three times the highest deficit we have ever had. It is projected that as of September 30 of this year we will have a $1.4 trillion or $1.5 trillion deficit this year, which would be the highest ever again in consecutive years. It is stunning. We cannot continue to spend the way we are spending. Between 1990 and 2002, however, Congress took some steps that actually worked to help get us out of a spiral of spending deficits. It was successful. What we did was we passed statutory caps on discretionary spending only, not Social Security, Medicare and those kinds of programs. We kept it to 1 to 2 percent growth each year. As this chart shows, these caps led to a surplus. The chart is upside down really. These are the surplus years. These are the deficit years. During these years, we begin to show a decline in deficits, all the way to the surpluses. When it expired, it jumped up again. This looks like a high deficit, and it was a very high deficit in 2004. That was about the highest, at that point $400 billion. I just made the point that this past fiscal year, it was $1,400 billion and next year it is going to be $1,500 billion. We lost some discipline when we allowed those statutory caps or spending levels to be breached and go away. This amendment Senator McCaskill and I have offered both restores and strengthens the procedures that were proven to work in the 1990s. It would create 4-year discretionary spending caps or limits, and it would set those limits at the level of the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution Congress passed last year. Last year, we passed a budget resolution, not 10 years as proposed by President Obama but 5 years. It is currently in effect. One of the things you learn around here is the only part of the budget that has any teeth is the year you are in. The discretionary spending on the omnibus bill that covered half the appropriations bills contained an increase of 12 percent. We are not doing a very good job at that. The budget has no teeth in these outer years. The amendment proposes, though, a fairly responsible spending increase of 2 percent or so a year over these 4 years. One could say: Senator Sessions, your State is cutting its budget. My State is having to reduce its budget. My city is reducing its budget. My county is reducing its budget. My family is reducing our budget. Why can't you guys reduce the budget? And the answer is, we can, of course. Some have suggested and the President has suggested that we should have a freeze on the budget, which I would support. But I am just saying to my colleagues, last year our discretionary spending accounts had double digit increases; if we pass this amendment so that we have a statutory limit of 1 to 2 percent increases for the next 4 years and it is subject to a two-thirds vote point of order in the Congress if there is a proposal to go above that on the basis of some emergency need, I think we will have a much better chance of making the kinds of tough decisions to contain this ever-growing spending level than we have been doing in the last several years. The Omnibus appropriations bill that passed last year increased Federal spending 12 percent in 1 year. That is a lot. At 7 percent, your money will double in 10 years. At 12 percent, the spending in those accounts would double in 6 or 7 years, no doubt about it, unless something is done about those trends. I think this legislation Senator McCaskill and I have offered will get us there. I was pleased to see that 17 Democratic Senators voted for the bill because I think there is a growing bipartisan consensus that we can do better. A 2-percent containment in the growth of spending will not cause the United States to sink into the ocean. We are still going to exist. The American people are still going to have a government in Washington. There are still going to be bureaucrats here to take care of us if we just have a 2-percent growth in the discretionary account instead of 12 or whatever that number was last year. I note that the President suggested freezing some of the accounts. Though there are some very significant gimmicks in it that make it much less tight than it would appear from his State of the Union Address, it still indicates that the President himself knows we have to reduce our spending, and in some of these accounts we could easily freeze them with no damage to our Nation. I salute him for that. This bill would create spending limits, not based on what Jeff Sessions says the limit should be, but these are the limits in the President's budget, that first 5 years of it that he proposed and that Congress passed last year. We would be simply saying this would be a hard limit on how much we can spend. Now if we need to spend more than that on an emergency, we would have to have strong support in the Congress to create an emergency designation to spend above that. We have been able to do that many times in the past when a true emergency arrived. Some say: Jeff, you are focusing too much on the discretionary spending. Entitlements are bigger--Social Security, Medicare, those kind of things--and they are a bigger problem than discretionary spending. Well, there are three reasons we have to act on discretionary spending. One is that while entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, are large, they actually have a net surplus right now. In fact, Congress raided $137 billion from Social Security in fiscal year 2009 to pay for other things, such as the $800 billion stimulus package that we passed--that Congress passed--last year. Of course, a $137 billion Social Security surplus won't pay for the Congress's $800 billion stimulus package, so where did the rest of the money come from? We borrowed it on the world market, on which we are paying interest. And what about the Social Security surplus; is that free money? No, it is not, because Social Security is heading to default. When we take the Social Security surplus into the U.S. Treasury and spend it on increasing discretionary spending by 12 percent, we give them back a debt instrument, an IOU--a Treasury bond. I am told they are in some location in West Virginia. I am sure the chairman of the committee knows that but I want to go out and see them. They have notes out there, Treasury bills, evidencing the debt of the U.S. Treasury to the Social Security Administration. As soon as Social Security goes into deficit, it is going to call those notes. So it does not make much difference whether you borrowed it from Social Security or you borrowed it from the public. The interest rates are very similar, too. The government pays interest to Social Security and Medicare, when Medicare has a surplus. It is projected that Congress will raid another $90 billion in 2010-- this year we are in--to pay for things such as this omnibus bill that is on the floor: for increased transportation and HUD funding, which went up 23 percent; create more funding for the State and foreign operations accounts, which went up 33 percent this year, for a record $1.4 trillion deficit last year, and a projected $1.4-plus trillion for fiscal year 2010. All of that was driven not by deficits in Medicare and Social Security but from a discretionary spending account. Our appropriators are always saying the problem is all Social Security and Medicare. But the truth is, almost without exception, we have had surpluses in those accounts and we are spending that to supplement our general fund spending. We give evidence of debt back to our seniors from Medicare and Social Security, which the actuaries tell us, without any doubt, will soon be in deficit. We are going to call those notes, and the Treasury will have to come up with it. So there is no free lunch. Nothing comes from nothing. If you spend money you don't have, you borrow it from somewhere. You can print money, I suppose, and devalue the currency. But everybody has the value, and the money in their pocket is devalued. It is the same as a tax. There is no way to do this in a free way. We have been irresponsible, and I think the American people are correct. When I go to townhall meetings, what can I tell them? Oh, we didn't do anything wrong. The Senate and the House, we have been handling your money fine, my fellow Alabamian. We have done great. Don't complain. Don't get mad. You will get over it. We have an $800 billion interest payment coming up in 2019 and our children and grandchildren are going to pay that. Yet when Senator Bunning asks that unemployment insurance be paid for out of this unspent $800 billion stimulus and not add it to the debt, which our grandchildren will pay, he was able to say with some personal conviction--with 42 grandchildren--that he wasn't going to vote for it, and he didn't. He didn't support it and he didn't agree to let it pass without an objection. He said we should have paid for it, and we could have paid for it out of the stimulus. Another reason I think we need to focus on discretionary spending is because, unlike the entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, discretionary spending has overhead. There is some, but really very little overhead in Social Security and Medicare. And we can do better. I know Chairman Baucus has worked on Medicare overhead. I don't know how much can be squeezed out of Social Security overhead; not a lot, because most of it is that check that goes out to seniors, who count on it every month. But there is overhead in discretionary spending--all the things we spend our money on. Trust me, I have been in the Federal Government; I have worked there. I know it can be made more efficient. This past year, we increased spending on the Department of the Interior and EPA by 17 percent total. I think the EPA account went up 33 percent. In 1 year they got a 33-percent increase in their budget. And by the by, this does not include any of the $800 billion stimulus funds that were allocated--about half of which has gone out. It doesn't include that. EPA got money out of that, Interior got money out of that, highways got money out of that--large amounts. We are seeing unprecedented increases in spending in these accounts. Consider the Department of Agriculture. I remember people criticized President Bush for spending too much money on Agriculture. If you look at his Agriculture budget over the 8 years he was President, it averaged less than a 2-percent increase. Last year, our Agriculture budget--not counting the stimulus package, which sent a large amount to Agriculture--increased 15 percent. I always try to support the Agriculture budget, but I could not support that. That would double the entire agriculture spending in, what, 5 years, at compounded increases. It is not responsible. We have to do better. The American people, I think, are upset. This recent CNN poll asked a tough question of the voters in America: Which of the following comes closer to your view of the budget deficit--the government should run a deficit if necessary when the country is in a recession and at war, or the government should balance the budget even when the country is in a recession and is at war? Sixty-seven percent said balance the budget, you guys. Because they have heard these excuses before. They have heard all of it before. What they are seeing is red ink as far as the eye can see, with record deficits above anything we have ever seen. That is what I am hearing when I go out and talk to my constituents. And frankly, I am glad I don't have to defend having voted for this stimulus package. I am glad I don't have to defend the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, and $182 billion going to AIG. They sold off one of their most profitable companies, or are talking about it, I saw in the paper today, and they are going to bring in $35 billion. They are going to use a chunk of that to pay down some of that $182 billion debt. But if they keep selling off what they have, how will they have any money to pay the rest of it? I think they are not going to pay the rest of it. Finally, I will add that spending billions, adding billions to the baseline budget, makes a big difference. I made this chart for the DOD appropriations bill. It is an interesting little chart. I hope my colleague can pay a little attention to this weird, fine print chart. It shows what happens when there was gimmicked up on the bill an $18 billion add-on, all unpaid for. There was $18 billion added to the Defense bill. If this gets in as baseline spending, which is what it tends to do, then next year when you advertise how much you increase the Defense bill, you have this $18 billion in and it adds up, so that next year it is not just $18 billion, it is the $18 billion additional money that is in the baseline from the previous year and then you add another $18 billion. Let's say, hypothetically, you jack it up each year by $18 billion, and the net deficit is $36 billion; and then next it is $36 billion plus $18 billion; and the next year it is $54 billion plus $18 billion; and the next year it is $72 billion plus $18 billion. You carry that out to the tenth year, and it is $162 billion plus $18 billion, or $180 billion extra for the Defense budget in 1 year, which is about $990 billion over 10 years. So an $18 billion addition, or failure to contain the growth in a discretionary account, has tremendous ramifications over the years. It is this kind of psychology that has led us into this mess. Some of our appropriators and others in this Congress, I think, have felt a thrill if they can beat the limit on their account. If they have been given an account, and they get $80 billion or $100 billion to spend they can figure a way to gimmick it up $18 billion or $5 billion or $7 billion, and they can maneuver it through and then tell you when the bill hits the floor: Well, if you don't vote for it, Sessions, you are against agriculture and people back home are going to attack you because you voted against agriculture. And I say: Well, Mr. Senator, you put too much money in there. I can't vote for it; there is too big an increase. Therefore, you are either for agriculture or you are against agriculture. What they said to Senator Bunning down here the other night, when he said unemployment insurance should be paid for, was: You are against unemployment insurance. You do not want people to have any unemployment insurance. That was absolutely false. They repeated it over and over and over again. But he stood like a solid rock and he didn't give in. He said: I am not agreeing to it because you could pay for it, and it is increasing the debt on my 42 grandchildren. He didn't agree to it. Well, every now and then somebody stands up in this Senate and says: I have had enough. I am not going to say yes this time. I respect him for the courage he showed. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is a bipartisan group in DC, issued a report not long ago that said that freezing all nonwar-related discretionary spending next year could save us $60 billion in 1 year, and it will set up a new baseline that would save us--as this chart which creates a new baseline mentality shows--$600 billion over 10 years. That is a lot. Even in Washington, $600 billion is real money. On the other hand, the committee stated that if we allow discretionary spending to grow at the projected rate of GDP growth instead of inflation, it would cost us $1.7 trillion more over the next 10 years. This is a nonbiased group. I don't think anybody would fundamentally disagree with that. So it does make a difference how much money we spend on every single account, on every single funding in an appropriations bill that comes through this Senate. Can we get bipartisan support for having a tougher line and containing spending? I think the answer is absolutely we can. Why is there a conflict? The simple fact is the 5-year binding caps that were passed in 1990 had broad bipartisan support. In fact, a number of currently serving Republicans voted for them and 10 of our currently serving Democratic Senators did also, including Senator Reid, our Democratic leader, and Senator Inouye, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee. He voted for them in the 1990s. If we think this through, we have every reason to believe we can get there. The 5-year spending cap that passed in the 1990 budget deal had even stronger bipartisan support. It passed again in 1997. I know Senator Baucus was here then, and it passed 85 to 15, with 44 currently serving Senators supporting it, and 26 of them were Democrats. Senators Reid, Durbin, Conrad, and Inouye all voted for them. If we could do it in 1990, and again in 1997, there is no reason we cannot do it now. In fact, I and my staff have met with numerous groups across the political spectrum, including the Brookings Institute, the Committee for Responsible Federal Government, the Urban Institute, the Progressive Policy Institute, the Concord Coalition, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--everybody we met with has said getting a handle on discretionary spending is essential. Although AARP, the Association of Retired Persons, initially expressed opposition to the amendment, I believe we have addressed their concerns. Their chief concern was that we would not separate defense and nondefense spending, which would let the defense spending raid nondefense accounts. However, we have separated them, so that is not a danger. Of course, one criticism some might give to the bill is that it raises the threshold for waiving--breaking the spending limits from 60 Senate votes to 67 Senate votes, and they say that is just too restrictive. But we have to raise this threshold because we have a 60- vote situation now and we have been able to muster 60 votes to pass every kind of possible emergency bill, and some of those clearly were not emergencies. It takes 67 votes in this Chamber to make a change to the Senate Journal, but we can max out the Senate's credit card with 60 votes. Something doesn't seem right about that. I think, with the seriousness of our situation, this would be a good step. Furthermore, the fiscal year 2010 budget resolution already accounted for about $10 billion per year in emergency spending, which we have allowed to remain in this amendment. Any emergencies for which that is inadequate should be able to receive the support of 67 Senators--if we have an emergency. In fact, all the disaster relief emergencies, those kinds of emergencies since the emergency designation was created in 1990 to try to contain spending, have received support of more than 67 Senators. Isn't that interesting? All of our emergency designations for hurricanes and earthquakes and fires and storms and the like have received more than 67 votes. So I think it is just not a good argument to say we can't respond to a legitimate emergency. The prospect of massive Federal spending is hurting jobs and growth. In a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Stanford University economics professor Michael Boskin stated: The explosion of spending, deficits and debt foreshadows even higher prospective taxes on work, saving, investment and employment. That not only will damage our economic future but is harming jobs and growth now. China and other countries may not be able to keep financing our debt in the future even if they would like to--which I really think they won't. Professor Allan Meltzer, a well-known scholar on the Federal Reserve and monetary policy, noted in a column in the Wall Street Journal that our current and projected deficits are too large relative to current and prospective world savings to rely on other countries being able to finance them for the next 10 years. In other words, there may not be enough surplus money in the world to buy these debt instruments we are going to have to issue. In fact, a recent Washington Times editorial entitled ``Spending to a Depression'' notes that, since China and other countries are trying to reduce their holdings of dollars, we will have to rely more and more on U.S. banks to buy our bonds, which will decrease capital available for lending to businesses. On an airplane today, coming back from Alabama, I read an article that made reference to the fact that when the Federal Government puts out this much money and interest rates become higher than they have been. They are currently extraordinarily low, and banks are now buying Treasury securities at 3.6 or 3.7 percent interest for 10-year Treasury notes. Instead of loaning to local businesses, banks can get the money from the Fed at less than 1 percent and they can buy a Federal Government debt instrument for 3.5 or 4 percent and not have to loan it to some businessperson who might be a higher risk. We are crowding out resources necessary for economic growth. This is a reality. In a Budget Committee hearing on budget reform on November 10, former Comptroller of the Currency and GAO head David Walker testified that by 2040, 30 years from now, we will have to double taxes just to keep up with current commitments. Can you imagine that? The way we are spending, we are going to have to double taxes in 30 years. He stated that in 12 years, interest will be the single biggest line item in the entire budget, even assuming interest rates do not change from today's low rates. But they are going to go up. Everybody knows that. Some are predicting the kinds of interest rates we had in the late 1970s. I truly hope that does not occur, but many people believe we do not have any idea how high interest rates could surge when the whole world, including Europe and other places, is spending money it does not have and attempting to borrow in the marketplace to have that happen. Mr. Walker also said that deficits are the public's largest concern by 20 points, in opinion polls. In a Financial Times editorial in May of last year, Mr. Walker warned that the United States is in danger of losing its triple-A credit rating. Moody's made that clear. Moody's stated that the United States is in danger of losing its triple-A credit rating. Pierre Cailleteau, the chief economist at Moody's, stated that, unlike several years ago, ``Now the question of a potential downgrade of the U.S. is not inconceivable.'' Under the most pessimistic scenario put forth by Moody's, the United States could lose its top rating in 2013--3 years from now. I was very pleased we had strong bipartisan support for the amendment previously. By allowing us not to apply these budget limits we passed last year to the current year, it gives some relief to our Members of the Senate who complain that next year we will start cutting spending but we should not this year. We will give a little bit there, although it will mean we will not save as much money for sure. But I really believe we need to pass this legislation. I truly hope we can. We only need three or four more votes to make it a reality. I count now, with the ones who voted for it before and a new Senator in the body, we will have 57 votes. We need 60. The situation has not gotten any better, and I am hoping my colleagues will look at it afresh and that we might be able to reach that number. It will make a difference. It made a difference in the 1990s and led to an actual surplus. I believe it could help us again this time. We have much more serious problems this time. We have more challenges this time. But it could make a very significant difference in our spending level. It would really be a statement to the entire financial world that we are beginning to take some steps and that next year we are not going to have 12 percent increases in spending for discretionary accounts but we are going to hold it to the 1- or 2-percent increase level. I think that might have some psychological improvement in our entire financial condition. I apologize to the fine chairman of the Finance Committee for taking this long, but I really believe it is an important issue. I am so hopeful we are getting close to getting the votes to take this positive step. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, did the Senator make a budget point of order?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. The Senator from Illinois is very eloquent in his advocacy. But I think he is avoiding the question posed by Senator Bunning, who simply says he is prepared tonight to fund the programs that you wish, to have them go forward. As I understand it, is it not true he said that if you take this $10 billion, I think it is, that is required to fund this program, and you fund it out of the $400 billion unspent from the stimulus--a large part of it was supposed to be for this very purpose--that he would let the bill go tonight; that what he objects to is not doing that, and which, in effect, means--does it mean that the debt will be increased again tonight by another $10 billion.

Mr. SESSIONS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. SESSIONS. We are well aware that the Democrats have a sizable majority in this body, and if the Democratic leadership, including yourself, is committed to not paying for this and taking care of this appropriation by borrowing additional money from the world on which we pay interest, then it is likely to be a futile act to have this vote. He is asking you to step to the plate, as I understand it, is he not, and say: Join with me and let's pay for it, either through the stimulus or some other way, and let's not keep adding debt because that is what the American people are asking. And I ask you, are you not hearing that from your constituents?

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator from Illinois for allowing me to ask those questions. I think the Senator from Kentucky is speaking on behalf of the conscience of a lot of Americans, a majority of Americans, if they heard this debate. He is doing it as a matter of principle. I know he has no desire to see people not receive unemployment compensation. He is willing to support that. He simply is saying that enough is enough.

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

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair, and I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to share a few thoughts on a matter of concern; that is, our national security and the procedure by which we are handling people we arrest who are attacking this country. It will be a bit of a follow-on to what Senator Bond of Missouri had to say. I disagree with my distinguished colleague, Senator Durbin, the assistant Democratic leader in the Senate. He is a member of the Judiciary Committee. I think he is wrong about that. I serve on the Judiciary Committee, too, and I would like to share a few thoughts. First, there has been a full-scale attempt to assert that President Bush tried most of the terrorists or terrorism-related cases that developed over the years in the normal civilian courts. That is true to some degree. I notice that in the 195 cases Senator Durbin said were tried in the Federal courts, he counted the Unabomber and Terry Nichols, one of the ones who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building. There is a big distinction: The Unabomber was not officially at war with the United States, had not declared war on the United States as al-Qaida has, and the United States had not declared war on him or on Terry Nichols, who was unknown, I suppose, to anybody at the time he committed that crime and was tried. A lot of the other cases deal with such things as aiding a terrorist by providing money to some terrorist organization that supports terrorism, violating various complex Federal laws, and they are tried in Federal courts. They are American citizens, and they are tried here. That is the reason some of the cases that have been cited were tried in Federal court. Another reason of significant import that cases were tried in Federal court rather than in military commissions was not because President Bush and his staff desired it but because we ended up with full-scale challenges of the military commissions as they were set up originally after 9/11. It took some time to get them set up. They were challenged. The U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a number of procedures conducted in the military commissions did not meet constitutional muster, did not comply with international agreements that the United States was a party to, and they said: You have to stop. So the military revamped what it was doing. The Congress passed the Detainee Act to legitimize the military commission trials and make sure it complied with the Supreme Court so we could get on with it. We had some 5,700 people in Guantanamo. It was never the plan of the Bush administration, ever, to try those people in civilian courts. In fact, Congress appropriated the money. We built courtrooms with video cameras and security at the Guantanamo base and prison. We had them set up so trials could be conducted, press people could come and see the trials, subject to national security questions that may arise, and do those trials in that fashion. But after President Obama got elected, he directed that Attorney General Holder evaluate whether we should do that anymore or not. First, he stopped them--he issued an order to stop it--and then he asked that a review be conducted. Mr. Holder conducted a review and he decided, and that report was, it would be presumed the people being held in Guantanamo--many of whom, most of whom were captured on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places in that area of the world--would be tried in civilian courts. This was an absolute reversal of that. Last year, I offered legislation that was passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President that said, if you are part of al- Qaida, you are presumed to be at war with the United States, and it is not necessary, in a military commission trial, to put on all kinds of testimony, take weeks to prove we are at war with al-Qaida. That is simply already a fact; we have declared war. Congress has authorized the use of military force against al-Qaida, and they are attacking us. That is what war is. So John Brennan, the President's Deputy National Security Adviser, which apparently in this administration is a pretty big position--I guess these kind of personal Presidential staff people are what you make of them--has been very public. He has made a series of statements which demonstrate this administration has learned no lessons from their mishandling of the Christmas Day bomber--Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab--who was captured on Christmas Day, attempting to blow up a plane. Not only did Mr. Abdulmutallab have recent intimate knowledge of terrorist operations in Yemen, but, in fact, he came directly from Yemen, having been provided a bomb by al-Qaida, as they claimed credit for and apparently he has acknowledged. He was an operative of al-Qaida. He had no legal claim to protections of the American criminal justice system, in any case. Even if he had been a citizen of the United States, which he was not a citizen, he had no right to be tried in civilian court in the United States because he was an agent and an operative and an unlawful combatant directly connected with al-Qaida. So this is a big deal. This is a matter that has to be analyzed and thought through, and I am concerned the administration is not listening. The combination of these factors about his background made his capture a unique intelligence opportunity--one of the most important opportunities since 9/11 because al-Qaida had moved a large part of its operation to Yemen, using it as a training base. We did not know enough about it. It is very important we learn everything we can about how they are operating in Yemen, who the leaders are, and how they could be attacked and neutralized. So the decision to treat him as a civilian was very wrong. The Department of Justice immediately began to treat him as a common criminal being investigated by the FBI. They gave him his rights after 50 minutes. In truth, colleagues, as a prosecutor myself, he should have been given his rights, probably--normally, you would expect them immediately. There may be some exceptions that could have allowed this not to occur immediately, but, normally, when a civilian is arrested and you ask him a single question, that individual who is in custody is entitled to Miranda rights then. Miranda rights are not just that you have a right to remain silent. Miranda rights say you have a right to remain silent, and we will appoint you a lawyer. You have a right to have one, and we will appoint you one if you don't have the money. People tend to clam up when they are told that. So they offered him an attorney and did not treat him as the rare intelligence asset he was. That decision, it is indisputable, I truly believe--and this is not politics we are talking about--jeopardized the kind of fresh, timely intelligence that saves lives and prevents further attacks on the homeland of our country. Mr. Brennan says one of the reasons the administration classified Abdulmutallab as a civilian was because he was captured on U.S. soil. This comment is truly startling and makes no sense. As Deputy National Security Adviser to the President, Mr. Brennan ought to be aware that because Abdulmutallab is an al-Qaida operative, he is an unprivileged enemy belligerent--in our common, more current definition of the term-- and, thus, he is automatically eligible for a military trial. Indeed, the amendment I offered last year to the Military Commissions Act would permit this administration to do this without even having to reestablish the obvious: that al-Qaida is at war with the United States. So for the President, Mr. Holder or Mr. Brennan to persist in arguing that the law or past precedent somehow justified their treatment of Abdulmutallab as an ordinary criminal is wrong. But Mr. Brennan has gone further than simply confusing the law. He has confused reality. In his recent op-ed in USA Today, he defiantly declares the administration made the right call on Abdulmutallab and that providing captured terrorists with civilian due process, civilian lawyers, and the right to remain silent has no negative impact on our ability to gather intelligence. I dispute that. That is totally illogical. I don't know how many cases Mr. Brennan has prosecuted--not many. I prosecuted thousands; supervised them and tried them myself--but there is no doubt that you lose intelligence when you appoint a person a lawyer and tell them they have a right to remain silent. We are virtually the only country in the world that does this. It is not considered a constitutional right. It is something the court thought would be a good idea, to keep people from being abused by police, and so they set up this rule. It is not part of fundamental due process. It wasn't even a rule until 50 years ago. We never did that. Canada doesn't do it, France doesn't, Germany or Italy. We don't have to give them. Mr. Brennan says: ``There is little difference between military and civilian custody other than an interrogator with a uniform.'' Not so. He argues: ``The suspect gets access to a lawyer and the interrogation rules are nearly identical.'' That is absolutely false. I have been disappointed at the response the Attorney General has given to members of our committee, but when the National Security Adviser says something such as that--and I confronted him with it in a hearing earlier and he persists in making that kind of statement. Mr. Brennan has also said previously that ``there are no downsides or upsides in particular cases'' and that because we are a nation of laws, criminal courts are the preferred venue. Not so--at least that this is a preferred venue. We are a nation of laws, and our laws and international law allow for the trial of unlawful combatants in military commissions. Attorney General Holder admitted that himself in a hearing when answering questions asked of him. I said: Mr. Holder, the decision to try these people in civilian court rather than military commissions is a policy decision, and basically he said yes to that. It is not required under our law. I can tell you--and not with speculation and it is not a theory but a fact--that criminal defendants will routinely stop talking and providing information when you give them Miranda and appoint them a lawyer. The first thing a lawyer is going to do, even in a case such as this, is to advise his client not to make any more statements, if he has made any. If he says he wants a lawyer, the questioning must stop until one is produced. That is what it means to try a person in civilian court. It is different. You better believe terrorists who are trained to exploit our system will do everything in their power to use that system against us, if we let them. When Khalid Shaikh Mohammed--mastermind of the 9/11 attack, that so horrible day--was captured, he immediately asked for a lawyer. He already knew. But he wasn't given one. Instead, he was interrogated at length over a period of time as a military combatant. These interrogations revealed critically important information that helped foil other attacks that could have been levied against the United States. When Abdulmutallab was questioned, he was questioned for only 50 minutes before being given a lawyer, and then he stopped talking. So we are told: Weeks later, he started talking again. Don't worry, Jeff. Quit complaining. Five weeks later, now he has started talking. We got his daddy to come in, and maybe we can do a plea bargain with him or something and he will talk. Well, you can do that if they are in military custody. That is not only done in civilian custody, No. 1. No. 2, what did they have to promise him to get him to provide information? Did they promise him leniency? Did his lawyer demand it? Did his lawyer demand a written plea agreement before he allowed him to speak? That is what will happen in most cases. I don't know what happened in this one. But we are not talking about just this case. We are talking about the policy of whether it is better to treat somebody as an unlawful combatant if they come from al-Qaida or in a civilian trial in America. Fresh, immediate intelligence is awfully valuable many times, and it can grow stale very quickly, although other intelligence can be extremely important, even if the person you have captured waits 6 months to give it to you. You just never know. But the truth is, the more intelligence, the sooner obtained, enhances our national security. Things that are unnecessary, that are not required by law, that delay the obtaining of intelligence and delay the amount you get is damaging to our national security. So that is the policy question we are dealing with--this decision to put vitally important intelligence at great jeopardy. Nevertheless, Mr. Brennan insists that military interrogations are the same as those provided to civilians. But when a civilian asks that the interrogation stop, it must stop at that moment. This is not true in the military situation. Well, let me back up a little bit. A person apprehended on the battlefield, a prisoner of war, who is a lawful combatant, wearing a uniform, fighting the United States in a lawful manner, according to the laws of war, cannot be excessively interrogated, cannot be tried for any crime but can be held until the war is over, whether it is 1 year or 10 years. That is the law of the world and the law of the United States. But if they are unlawful combatants, as these malicious, devious, murdering al-Qaida thugs are--they do not wear a uniform, they do not comply with the laws of war, they attack innocent civilians deliberately to spread terror--they are in violation of the rules of war.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I withhold--noting the absence of a quorum request.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to share a few thoughts on the nomination of Judge Joseph A. Greenaway to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on which I think we will be voting later today. I look forward to supporting his nomination. He has a good record as a district court judge. I think almost all of my colleagues, if not all, will support him. But I wish to take a moment to correct the record regarding some allegations that have been made by my Democratic colleagues regarding the processing of this nomination. Sometimes we have controversial nominees, such as Mr. Becker. And if anyone would care to listen to Senator Enzi's comments, they will see why there are legitimate concerns about that nomination. Some of the nominees are not controversial and should move forward at a steady pace for confirmation in the Senate. Most of the nominations that have been submitted for positions in the Federal Government in the Department of Justice and on the Federal courts have moved forward rapidly without controversy. If one is controversial, the Senate should take its time and give full consideration of it. Last week my colleague from New Jersey accused the Republicans of ``objecting'' every time the majority leader tried to schedule a vote on Judge Greenaway. I have to say my colleagues are seriously misinformed and I am not happy to be unfairly criticized for holding up the nomination. Let me explain exactly what happened. As Chairman Leahy has acknowledged, the majority leader, Senator Reid, did not seek Republican consent to proceed with this nomination on the floor of the Senate until 2 weeks ago, and that was late on a Friday afternoon. The Republicans were able to clear the nomination and allow it to move forward with a modest time agreement before a final vote and allow the kind of discussion that we are having today. Ironically, the Judiciary Committee, however, was not even able to process Judge Greenaway's nomination to move forward with it, which was submitted to the Senate in June by President Obama. President Obama submitted the nomination in June, but the committee could not move forward with a vote until September. Why was that? The reason was one of the home State Democratic Senators down here complaining failed to send in their blue slip. Senator Leahy is not going to move a nominee without the consent of the home State Senators--and I respect him for that. He is the Democratic chairman of the committee, but he has a policy, as his predecessors all had, that he is going to give the home State Senators the opportunity to approve a nominee before he even has a hearing in committee. The nominee was delayed 4 months by a failure of the home State Senators--or at least one of them--to acknowledge their approval by returning what we refer to as a blue slip. After that occurred, the committee promptly moved forward with a hearing and unanimously voted for Judge Greenaway's nomination in October. Today is the time the majority leader has chosen as the time he desired to bring it up for a vote. He could have brought it up in October, November, December, or January. He chose to bring it up now. I am not one who thinks it is my fault that it has not been brought up. The same thing happened to Judge Beverly Martin to the Eleventh Circuit. She was unanimously approved by the committee and had the support of her home State Senators. Months went by before she got her vote. It was unanimous to confirm her. It wasn't anybody's fault but the Democratic leadership's fault. My colleagues always complain about holding up nominees, and they themselves are not moving them in an expeditious manner. Sometimes the President is slow to make nominations. As a result, we get complaints that it is the Republicans' fault. It is just not. If we have an objection--a serious objection--that should be respected, we should state it, and we should bring it to the floor and discuss the nomination, as is occurring with Mr. Becker. Compare that to the unreasonable delays of judicial nominations that President Bush sought. For example, Shalom Stone was nominated for this very seat. The reason it is vacant and the reason it is being filled today is because Shalom Stone was blocked. Stone was nominated in July of 2007 and was basically pocket-filibustered by the Democratic majority. He never received a hearing in committee. He never even received a hearing in committee. His nomination, therefore, lapsed at the end of President Bush's term. That is how Judge Greenaway was nominated. On average, President Bush's circuit nominees waited nearly a year for confirmation--a year on average for circuit court nominees. As for Judge Greenaway, he, like many of President Obama's nominees, I am pleased to say, has openly rejected the empathy standard. In his response to a followup question, Judge Greenaway stated this about the controversial empathy standard: Empathy cannot play a role in a judge's consideration of a case or in determining what the law means. I have told lawyers who appear before me that as a human being, I may have empathy for their client, but as a judge, I have none because that is not my job. The pure exercise of empathy in decisionmaking would lead to unsound and inconsistent decisions. That is a solid statement of what I think most judges believe, Republicans and Democrats alike. But, unfortunately, it is not the philosophy stated by the President of the United States when he said he was going to look for empathy in nominees to the bench. Empathy is contrary to the oath a judge takes, which states: I . . . do solemnly swear that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me . . . That is the oath they take to be impartial. We need judges who are honorable, intelligent, capable, and who understand their role to enforce the laws as written and to be impartial as they carry out that duty. People talk about their backgrounds, their experiences--what are they saying? They are saying that my background, my ethnicity, my religion, my rural or urban environment allows me to see things in a way that may be different and, therefore, I am empowered to bring those ideas, concepts, and philosophies to my decisionmaking process, which I suggest is very much akin to saying I believe I can bring my biases to the decisionmaking process. They are directly contrary to the American ideal of an impartial judge, a neutral umpire who calls balls and strikes without regard for which team they are for or not for. These are lifetime appointments. We look at these nominations carefully. These nominees must demonstrate they will follow the plain meaning of the law and not allow their own personal biases and prejudices to influence their decisionmaking process. Based on his testimony at the hearing, his assurances and answers to followup questions, I believe Judge Greenaway will do that. I am proud to support him as I have supported most of President Obama's nominees. But we do have a responsibility to analyze these nominees' records, to hold fair and rigorous hearings, to ask for additional time, if that is necessary, to ensure each nominee is given the scrutiny that Congress is required to give before the elevation to a lifetime appointment by which they are no longer subject to review by the people of our country. We allow them to be an independent branch, but we have to insist that they be independent and objective as they render their opinions. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on rollcall 20, I voted ``no.'' It was my intention to vote ``aye.'' Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to change my vote as it will not affect the outcome.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, a number of things of importance have happened with regard to our financial condition over a period of years. Actually, this week the President, in his State of the Union Address, made some reference to the seriousness of our financial condition. I think his comments were far too weak, and he insufficiently advised the American people of how serious our condition is. Yesterday, in the Budget Committee, Mr. Elmendorf, who is the CBO Director selected by our Democratic majority in the Congress and whom I think tries his best to do the right thing day after day and give us the right numbers to make our plans upon, told us a lot of things that were very troubling. He was just repeating that the dire predictions and dire assessments they have made previously, which are, if anything, on track and getting worse. They haven't misjudged the numbers and how bad our debt is increasing, but, in fact, if anything, they may have underestimated them. I will just quote one thing in his statement to us yesterday. He talked about analyzing the American debt or how much money we owe as a percentage of the size of our economy--as a percentage of GDP, gross domestic product. That is one way economists like to look at it. He pointed out that the numbers might look a little better, but there are a number of things that are on the table that are likely to occur. I think he is exactly correct about that; if those things occur then the situation realistically is even worse. He analyzed if the tax cuts were made permanent and if the alternative minimum tax is indexed for inflation. The President proposed to make some of the tax cuts permanent, and Members of Congress are reluctant to see taxes increase substantially, which will occur if the tax cuts aren't extended but are allowed to expire. Each year we address the alternative minimum tax because it is falling ferociously on middle-income Americans, and disproportionately on families with children. Every year, we indexed it and fixed it so it doesn't impact so many people, but for 1 year only. But when the CBO tries to predict the budget deficit, they have been assuming that the AMT would go back to its high rate, and we would have more income coming in because we are taking these increased taxes from American families. However, instead of fixing it permanently, which would score a loss of revenue over 10 years, we only fix it 1 year, and the CBO has to assume based on what the law is that it would not be fixed again and that these taxes will be imposed on Middle America and we will have more revenue and make the budget numbers look better. But I don't think we are going to not fix AMT. Frankly, we may not be able to 100 percent fix it, in my view, but that is what the votes have been each year, to fix it 100 percent. He notes that if annual appropriations keep up with the increasing gross domestic product, as they have over the last 20 years, which is about where increases in spending has fallen, the deficit in 2020 would be historically large as a percentage of GDP, and the annual deficit would be large as a percentage of GDP. Then he said: The debt held by the public would equal nearly 100 percent of GDP. This is a level of debt that most economists say has the ability to create instability and a lack of confidence in the United States Government and it would have adverse economic ramifications throughout our economy. In other words, once the Nation reaches this high of a level of debt, we have a very serious problem, and it is very difficult to extract yourself from the cliff with those kinds of huge deficits. I think the President should have talked about that in real detail. He did say on the discretionary accounts, which amount to about 18 percent of our budget, he would like to have a freeze, and he made some exceptions and said that freeze wouldn't be this year, though. Instead, it would be next year because that is the way things work, and I wish to talk about that for a minute. I think our Congress needs to be more serious about it, and the President needs to be more serious about it. Senator McCaskill, my Democratic colleague, and I offered an amendment yesterday that was voted on, and I think 17 Democrats joined with all but one Republican to vote for it, and it would have helped. It would have said the budget we passed--which I will explain to my colleagues how we violate it--the budget we passed that allows the 1 percent to 2 percent increase in discretionary spending accounts would be enforced. In other words, there would be a cap on our spending. So we put in this amendment that we offered the actual dollar amounts in the budget we passed last year--or basically the Democrats passed last year--and we wouldn't go above that. It would take a two-thirds vote to go above those top line numbers. That would work. This was done in 1990 and in 1997. They had statutory caps, not just budget caps, and those statutory caps led to a consistent reduction in annual deficits to the point that by the late 1990s we were in surplus for 4 years from 1998 through 2001. We had surpluses for the first time in decades. Then we allowed the statutory caps to expire and we got back on this spending track that has put us in this deficit situation that exceeds anything we have ever done before in the history of the American Republic; nothing close to it, except World War II. But when the war ended, we promptly got back on the right track and brought the economy back into sound shape. I don't see us heading in that direction. It is going to take bold leadership. We received 56 votes to put these statutory caps in, but it took 60, so it is not the law. I am disappointed about that. If you want to know the truth, I think the leadership in the Senate didn't mind how many voted for it, as long as it wasn't 60, because it crimps their style. The President, during his State of the Union Address, made some confusing statements about his commitment and the depth of it to dealing with the problem. He gave some lipservice to the freeze, which I think I am going to support, and I will back him on that all I can. I hope he can do that. However, there were other things that were contrary to a freeze. For example, he said we were going to take money from the Wall Street bailout, the TARP money as we call it, and he said: I am proposing that we take $30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need. Well, that sounds OK, except that is $30 billion more. Well, we took it from the TARP money that they paid back, so that doesn't count. That doesn't count? It does count. At the budget hearing yesterday, Senator Gregg, the ranking Republican and former chairman of the Budget Committee, who is an expert on this and very respected, asked this question of Mr. Elmendorf. The budget Chairman: There has been a lot of talk about the fact that the TARP money is available to spend somewhere else. First, the law doesn't allow that. Parenthetically, I would note that Senator Gregg put in the language. He foresaw that when the banks paid back the money they were given as part of this financial bailout, it shouldn't be used as a slush fund to spend. He wrote it in there. So he said: First, the law doesn't allow that. It is supposed to reduce the debt. But I want to clarify the fact that there is no TARP money. All of this money has to be borrowed, right? Every cent of the TARP money is borrowed from China or somebody else, right? Mr. Elmendorf answered: There is just one pool of government money and everything else is sort of accounting treatments to keep track of various purposes. But, yes, if more is spent through the TARP, that is just more that's spent and more that's borrowed, and more that goes to the Federal debt. So there is no free money in the TARP repayments. We borrowed the money, every penny of it, to give to those banks. When they pay it back, we have a debt to pay down. That is what we were supposed to do. That is what Senator Gregg put in the bill. Now they claim they have some free money paid back by the banks, and we can just spend it. That is what the President said, and it is not accurate. That is wrong, and it doesn't prove to me that he understands he has to fight every day over every billion dollars to contain the natural tendency of this body to spend. Mr. President, I point out that even though the President talked about a freeze, he talked about $30 billion for banks, not big banks, but this free money he apparently suggests has now appeared as a result of the repayment of the loans they got in the financial bailout. Some of the banks didn't even want the loans. They forced them to take it, basically. Some have been told they should not pay it back. They don't want them to pay it back, when the banks are ready to pay it back. At any rate, some of that is paid back. We borrowed the money to give it to them. When it is paid back, it is not extra, free money. We always assumed that most of this money would eventually be paid back. I point out as to how big a need it is to spend $30 billion out of this money for community banks instead of big banks, to give small businesses credit. Well, what did the community banks say? They don't want the TARP. According to the Christian Science Monitor yesterday, the headline is: ``Community Bankers to Obama on TARP: Thanks, But No Thanks.'' Community bankers say they have plenty of money now. That isn't the problem with loaning money. It says: ``The whole TARP program is perceived as a misadventure by the public,'' says Dennis Jacobe, chief economist for Gallup, Inc. in Washington. ``I think it is greatly disliked.'' Now we are getting the money back from the big banks, and now the other bankers said they don't need it. Also, as we talk about money, the President is proposing a second stimulus package. The first one passed was scored at $787 billion, the largest expenditure in the history of the American Republic--a breathtaking amount of money, so large that most people have not been able, in any realistic way, to apprehend how large it is. I just point out that the State of Alabama, one-fiftieth of the Nation, an average-size State with over 4 million people--our budget, the general fund, is about $2 billion. Senator Warner was Governor of Virginia and did a fabulous job and was well respected for his work. I am sure they didn't have a $100 billion budget. I don't know what it was, but it is a lot less than that. We spent over $700 billion on one vote on one day, out the door, and every penny of it was borrowed because we were already in debt. So if you spend more money, you have to borrow it. However, now it is not $787 billion. Based on some of the entitlement language we put into the bill, it is now at $862 billion. Some people said they would not vote for a bill over $800 billion, so they got it under. In truth, surreptitiously, they put in guaranteed benefits for certain programs, and those have now claimed the money, and it is over $800 billion. I think it is $862 billion. That is a pretty big overrun--$75 billion. Just like that. We didn't vote on it really. Now we have stimulus II. This is what the President said: Now the House has passed a jobs bill that includes some of these steps [referring to clean energy and high-speed rail]. As the first order of business this year, I urge the Senate to do the same. . . . I thought we had a freeze on spending. Let me tell you what the House's so-called jobs bill does. It costs $150 billion. Spending. Another $150 billion in spending, with $28 billion for highways, and about $2.5 billion for railroads, and $2 billion for clean energy. Well, if I recall, we were told that the $787 billion stimulus bill was designed for what primary purpose? Jobs and to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. They talked about roads and bridges that have fallen in and interstates getting old and needing all this work. Do you remember that? That is how the bill was sold by this administration. I don't want to be just partisan carping, but that is what they told us. Amazingly, less than 4 percent of the stimulus bill that we passed-- the $787 billion package--went to highways and infrastructure, less than 4 percent. I complained about that. I remember making speeches on it because jobs are created when you build a highway. At least you have something permanent that benefits the Nation--perhaps replacing a bridge that you are going to have to replace anyway, and you get a benefit for everybody from improving our infrastructure, although that is not a philosophy that will always stand us in good stead. We were trying to create jobs, and at least we should have focused on infrastructure. Now they are coming back with $150 billion more--$28 billion for highways and $2.5 billion for railroads. That is not good management of money. That is not good spending. The President went on to say this: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the independent organization that both parties have cited as the official scorekeeper for Congress, our approach would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades. He is talking about the health care bill that did not pass. He said it would bring down the deficit by as much as $1 trillion. That is not accurate. The CBO on December 19 of last year, trying to get out these scores as fast as they could, said it would cut the deficit by roughly $1 trillion. Then they revised it 1 day later. The official score was that it would reduce the deficit about half that amount. As I explained on the floor, that is a product of miscalculation-- deliberate miscalculation. Let me explain. The way they get this score in the first 10 years, for example, is they said it would create a surplus of $132 billion if we would pass this health care bill. Isn't that great? You add 20 million people to the rolls, give many of them subsidized health care, and you are going to reduce the costs and you are going to save money. That is a pretty good deal if you can get it. But, of course, you cannot get something for nothing. Nothing comes from nothing. What happened was, Medicare scored that if you cut Medicare benefits, as the administration proposed, and you increase Medicare taxes, as they proposed, you create extra money in Medicare and you extend the life of Medicare. Medicare is going into bankruptcy, but this would extend the life of it. That is an honest and correct score. The Congressional Budget Office utilizes what it calls the unified budget. They score the whole budget as to how it comes out. The amount of money is increased to the government through Medicare, and they score that as a gain. Since the health care bill would not take effect or pay benefits until 4 or 5 years later--although the taxes increase now--then over 10 years, it would create a surplus of $132 billion. Sound good? But I read the small print of the CBO letter and the small print of the Medicare letter. The Medicare Chief Actuary told us that if you raise taxes and you cut spending in Medicare, it will extend the life of Medicare. But he had a parenthetical line in there. He said: Of course, you cannot simultaneously use the Medicare savings to fund a new program and claim it does both. You would be spending the money twice. How logical is that? But that is what they did. He used this phrase: ``Although the conventions of accounting might suggest.'' What he is saying is, Medicare scores the money. They scored it accurately. Mr. Elmendorf and CBO score it as a unified budget. They said you have more money for Medicare and spending in the first 10 years of the health care plan--it is less than that--so you have a net surplus, right? Looks good. Sounds good. But that is not so because there is a bond, a debt instrument from the U.S. Treasury back to the Medicare Trust Fund. As soon as Medicare starts going into deficit again, they are going to cash in those bonds and the government is going to have to then borrow the money on the open market. According to the CBO, it would not increase the deficit but it would increase the debt of America. When we raised the debt limit yesterday-- and my colleagues voted to do so--the internal debt between the Treasury and Medicare, counts as part of the Nation's debt. It is an internal debt. It is not scored the same way. But sooner or later, when Social Security and Medicare start cashing in and claiming their money, the U.S. Treasury has to do something. What they are going to do and what they have been doing is convert those debt instruments and go out and sell bonds in the marketplace. Whatever the interest rate, they have to pay to China, individuals in the United States, and others who buy those Treasury bills. We are selling so many of them it is no doubt going to drive up the interest rate. These numbers are not real. My concern and my criticism of the President's address is not that he said we ought to have a freeze. I salute that, and I will support that. But he did not indicate the severity of the crisis we are in. Two years ago, President Bush's last year, he had a $460 billion deficit which I think at that time was the highest deficit since World War II. It spiked up as a result of increased spending and the recession we are in. Last year, the debt was $1.4 trillion, 1,400 billion dollars, three times what it was. And this year the projected deficit is going to be almost the same, according to Mr. Elmendorf's report. It continues this way, unfortunately, throughout the decade and will average, based on the planned expenditures and revenues as set forth by the Obama administration's budget, almost $1 trillion a year in deficits. This is why experts are repeatedly telling us it is unsustainable. We will be maintaining deficits twice as large as anything we have ever seen for the next decade. Let me show what it means in one area that I think all of us can understand. When you borrow money, you pay interest on it. Each year, the interest we pay on the debt is one of the biggest line items in the whole budget. If the debt goes up from $5.7 trillion in 2008 to $17 trillion in 2019, which is what they project will happen, the interest rate is going to go up. It will go up even more than that. It will go up more. Interest rates are extraordinarily low as a result of the economic slowdown. They are going to go up, and they are going to hit us in the book. Here is what CBO says will happen. In 2009, we paid $200 billion in interest on the debt. In 2019, they project we will pay $799 billion. They project an increase in rates and an increase in debt--a tripling of debt and an increase in interest rates--which leads to four times as much interest being paid over that period of time. Frankly, it does not include some other factors in there also. I have to say to my colleagues, I am sorry we did not pass the statutory cap we offered this week. But I was encouraged by so many of our Democratic colleagues who saw fit to support it. I think it is indicating there is a recognition in this body that we are going to have to do some tough things. We cannot keep spending like this. There is always some excuse for it. We cannot continue it. Think about this. The Federal Highway Program a few years ago, before we had the stimulus package, was about $40 billion a year. Federal aid to education is about $40 billion a year. Other programs are in that range. It gives you a picture of what kind of dollars we are talking about. But if you add $600 billion in increased interest payments over this next decade, in 1 year $600 billion more, this is going to crowd out spending for all kinds of programs that we wish to fund. We are going to be in a dilemma. How much more can we borrow--100 percent of GDP? More?--without destabilizing our currency or cutting spending? And it is going to crowd out spending on items we need to be spending money on. It is going to be crowded out by the interest payment which will exceed all expenditures in the budget, well above the defense budget even, the largest expenditure. This is a stunning path we are on. Mr. Elmendorf reconfirmed it yesterday in his testimony before the Budget Committee. I am worried about it. The American people are worried about it. I don't think they know it is as bad as it is, but they know it is not good. They know there is no free lunch. They know nothing comes from nothing, and that we have to pay for what we do around here. We cannot continue to borrow, borrow, borrow, stimulate today and maybe 1 day in the future we will get around to paying it. I offer to you, in 2019, there is no plan to pay down a dime of the debt. It is just to pay the interest on the debt. In 2019, we will add $1 trillion more to the debt of America. It is going up almost $1 trillion a year, and these are outyears, according to CBO analysis. Nothing is perfect that far out. It could be better; it could be worse. They are not projecting a recession in the outyears; they are projecting steady economic growth. It could be worse. We have to do better. This is not a matter that is going away. The American people instinctively have it right. They are telling us in rallies and tea parties: You guys have to do better. You are being irresponsible. I think they are fundamentally correct. They have every right to be upset with us. We can do better. We must do better. And I hope we will. Mr. President, I thank you for the opportunity to make these remarks. It is something we are going to have to continue to work on. We cannot continue this path. If we put our mind to it, we can fix this situation. It is not a challenge beyond our capacity. But make no mistake, financially I doubt we have ever been in a situation that requires as much clarity and as much determination as is going to be required over the next decade, and some painful decisions are going to have to be made. They are going to have to be made. That means containing spending and resisting the temptation to create more and more new programs that inevitably cost more than they were projected to when they started. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.