Making Appropriations for Military Construction, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2012-Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

THE DEBT

Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today as a Member of the Senate--specifically, though, as a Senator from Wyoming because in Wyoming our families know they have to live within their means. Wyoming is a State that lives within its means. In Wyoming, our very constitution requires that our State live within its means.

Washington has a total debt now that is over $14 trillion and continues to climb every day. Wyoming's total debt is zero. How did Washington fail where Wyoming succeeded? Well, in Washington, this city overspends in Washington there is nothing really to stop it. In Wyoming, we live within our means because our constitution demands that we balance our budget every year. It is time for Washington to take a lesson from Wyoming and the other States that balance their budgets every year.

The President says, ``All of us agree that we should use this opportunity to do something meaningful on debt and deficits.'' Well, passing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is possibly the most meaningful thing we could do.

This city's finances are in disarray. Our Nation's finances are in disarray. It has been over 800 days since this body has passed a budget resolution. Since the last time a full budget was passed, our country has spent over $7 trillion, and $3.2 trillion of that was money we did not have.

Our total debt now is over $14 trillion. People say: How much money is that? The number is astonishingly large. Let's try to put it a little bit into perspective. Every day, Washington borrows over $4 billion. We borrowed over $4 billion yesterday, $4 billion today, and if someone will lend us the money, we will borrow over $4 billion tomorrow. That is over $2 million a minute, every minute. Every single day, Washington borrows enough money to buy tens of thousands of new homes. Every single hour, Washington borrows enough to buy nearly 2 million barrels of oil. Every single minute, Washington borrows enough to send 53 students to private college for a full year. Every single second, Washington borrows enough to buy two new automobiles. We paid over $200 billion last year in interest on the debt alone. The President talks about a tax on private jets. That is enough money--the interest alone--to buy over 200 private jets every day.

It is not enough to think about this in the large terms; you have to try to put it in terms that people understand. Because we are spending and borrowing so much money, it is difficult to put it into terms that people grasp and that they see. It is good to hear the President acknowledge that we have to stop making more than the minimum payments in order to pay off and deal with this incredible debt.

The President has also announced his willingness to make a deal that he says involves meaningful changes to Medicare, to Social Security, and to Medicaid. To his credit, the President has accepted that much of the problem with saving these programs springs from his own side of the aisle. He says, and I agree, that now is the time to do it.

The Associated Press quoted the President asking the most important question of all: ``If not now, when?'' Well, the clock is ticking. In just 13 years, Medicare will be bankrupt. We have to strengthen Medicare. In 25 years, the same will be true of Social Security. Unlike our debt limit, this is not a limit Congress can simply legislate away. We have to act now to prevent these programs from failing not just today's generation but future generations.

The Senate minority leader said: I commend the President for putting Social Security and Medicare on the table.

He is correct in doing that. So with the President seeing the light on so many issues, why are we still talking about finding a solution instead of actually getting one passed here in the Congress? Because, for all that he claims to understand, the President has still fallen back on the same tax-and-spend policies that made this economic situation worse. It is clear that the policies of this administration have taken a tough problem and may have made it worse. On the President's inauguration day, the unemployment rate in this country was just under 8 percent. Today, it is 9.2 percent. Every American child who is born today will owe roughly $45,000. Let's compare that to the day President Obama was inaugurated. Every child then owed roughly $35,000. So in just those short years, the debt on a child born in America, the debt they are born with has gone up from $35,000 to $45,000. These disturbing economic results are the direct result of the past 2 years of policies.

Liberals want to hold the U.S. credit rating hostage for more tax hikes, and the President is leading the charge. He is trying to push more tax hikes despite the very fact that even he has now said it is the worst time to raise taxes. Back in 2009, President Obama said: The last thing you want to do is raise taxes during a recession. So why, then, is he calling for $400 billion in tax increases today? And why is the Senate Budget Committee chairman trying to one-up the President by calling for $2 trillion? Well, of course, the President will not admit he wants to raise taxes. He likes to use wiggle words. He uses words such as ``revenue'' or the ``spending in the Tax Code'' instead. But when you translate this Washington doublespeak, it comes out ``higher taxes.''

With the spin exposed, liberals are trying another tack: They are trying to claim they will delay the tax increases until the economy recovers. They are not saying they are not going to raise taxes; they say: Let's put it off for a while. This week, the President showed what this really means. He said, ``Nobody is going to raise taxes right now.'' He said, ``We are talking about potentially 2013 and the outyears.'' So, in other words, this is not really about waiting until the economic recovery comes; it is about waiting until 2013, until after the President's reelection campaign.

More troubling still, the President has already signaled that he wants to spend more in the future. Our problem is not that we are taxed too little, it is that we spend too much. Yet the President wants to spend even more. At his press conference, he said he is only tackling our debt so we can be ``in a position to make the kind of investments I think are going to be necessary to win the future.'' When the President talks about investment, it is common knowledge that what he is talking about is spending.

Finally, for all his posturing about getting this done, now it is really the President who seems to want to kick the can down the road. His plan may cut trillions, but Washington would be able to take as long as 10 years to do it.

Minority Leader McConnell has already blown the liberal cover on these very cynical political bluffs. He said, ``The President has presented us with three choices: smoke and mirrors, tax hikes, or default.'' Well, Republicans choose none of the above.

As a doctor, I have taken the Hippocratic Oath. The oath says: Do no harm.

Raising taxes will harm our economy. Cutting spending at a snail's pace will do very little to help. We have to tackle our fiscal problems today. The first step toward solving these problems should be to pass an amendment to our Constitution requiring Washington to balance its budget.

A balanced budget amendment would require Washington to spend no more money than it takes in every year. Such an amendment would force Washington to live within its means as many States do and as families across the country do.

I come to the floor as cosponsor of the balanced budget amendment. As a matter of fact, every Republican in the Senate is a cosponsor of the balanced budget amendment, 47 Republican Senators. Every one is a cosponsor of the balanced budget amendment. We are united and will remain united. This is a commonsense approach, and it will show the American people that they can trust their government with their money once again because right now the American people have little confidence they are getting value for the money they send to Washington.

I believe we need to lead today, not defer leadership until tomorrow. Americans are courageous; they deserve a courageous government. That is why I know the American people overwhelmingly support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

The President said the other day that it is time to ``eat our peas.'' We all saw him on television saying it is time to ``eat our peas.'' I agree with another President, Ronald Reagan, who said it is time to ``starve the beast.'' The beast is Washington and the Washington wasteful spending that the American people are seeing every day.

Mr. President, Americans pay their debts. They want their country to do so too. It is time for Washington to listen. It is time for a balanced budget constitutional amendment, and then it is time to start paying off this massive debt.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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