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Floor Speech

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Mr. ROMNEY. Madam President, I rise today to talk about two problems that are related. These two problems have been spoken about for I think virtually decades here in this Chamber and across the political spectrum.

One relates to preserving our extraordinary entitlement programs-- Social Security, Medicare, our highway trust fund, and the like. These programs are very much under threat because within 13 years, each of these trust funds, each of these programs will face insolvency.

The other problem I want to talk about is the massive overspending, the deficit and the debt we have. That is something which Republicans and Democrats have been speaking about for a long time, although speaking about it less frequently as of late.

These two problems are related because two-thirds of our spending at the Federal level is automatic. It is associated with our entitlement programs. So let me start with the debt.

When I was running for President and when I had the chance also to run for the Senate, the No. 1 issue among the people in my State was the issue of whether we would stop spending more money than we take in. We took in about $3 trillion last year in tax revenue, but we spent about $4 trillion.

There are some people who have decided to stop thinking about the deficit, to stop worrying about the debt, but as the debt reaches almost $23 trillion, it is beginning to be a real issue. I don't think we are about to face a failed auction where people won't be willing to buy our debt. We are, after all, the reserve currency of the world, and people want to have American dollars. But I am concerned that the interest is beginning to have an enormous impact on our capacity to meet our priorities.

Last year we spent almost $300 billion on interest on the Federal debt, and over time, this debt, as we add to it year after year after year, is going to mean that the burden of interest payments on the American people will get larger and larger.

There is a small group of people who say: Well, this isn't a problem because interest rates are so low.

Well, it is not a problem until it becomes a problem, because if interest rates start creeping up at some point, it can become an extraordinary burden on the American people.

If we are sending hundreds of billions of dollars to people like the Chinese, when they use those dollars to confront our military, we have a real problem leading the free world.

The issue is, how come we can't deal with the debt and the deficits, and why haven't we been able to do so? There has been effort to talk about that, even though more recently it has been kind of quiet. It relates, of course, to what I started to speak about, which are our trust funds, with Medicare, with Social Security, our retirement programs. Social Security, the disability program, as well as the highway trust funds--these are scheduled to run out of money within 13 years.

To deal with this issue, Senator Joe Manchin, Senator Todd Young, Senator Doug Jones, Senator Kyrsten Sinema, and I have proposed something called the TRUST Act. It is designed to save the trust funds associated with these major programs. It is designed to make sure we have a process for finally getting balance in Social Security--both trust funds in Social Security, as well as Medicare, as well as the highway trust fund.

This is an effort that has been undertaken in the past unsuccessfully, and a lot of people say that it can't be done now. But it has to be done now. If it is not done now, the burden that will fall on our seniors eventually will become extraordinary. And the burden that will fall on the next generation, as they don't know whether Social Security and Medicare be can be depended upon, is unthinkable.

The approach that Senator Manchin and these other Senators and I have taken is pretty straightforward. We are not laying out a specific plan to change these programs. Instead, we have laid out a process for modernizing these programs.

For each one of these trust funds, our bill proposes that the leaders--Republicans and Democrats--in both Chambers, House and Senate, put together a rescue committee. For each trust fund, there will be a rescue committee that goes to work to see if, on a bipartisan, bicameral basis, we can come up with a solution to get these trust funds on a solvent basis for at least 75 years.

That is an effort that will be successful only if both parties agree. If we do get that agreement in any one or each one of these different rescue committees, on a privileged basis, their recommendation, their proposal, their bill will be brought to the floor of the House and Senate and voted upon.

On that basis, we have a process for actually resolving the insolvency issue that faces Social Security, Medicare, and the highway trust fund. We also have a pathway to finally get our budget balanced and end the extraordinary growth in our debt and the burden the interest payments are having on the American people today and in the future.

I look forward to hearing from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I hope we get great support from people who are willing to sponsor this effort to be part of these rescue committees, to go to work to resolve the impending challenges that we have in these trust funds and in our overall financial status.

I mentioned the names of the Senators I have been working with to put together this TRUST Act. I also want to mention a number of Congresspeople who are helping out and our cosponsors, original cosponsors: Mike Gallagher, Ed Case, and Ben McAdams. Again, Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate--together, I think we can finally save these essential programs.

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