Madam President, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate the House message to accompany S. 365. Madam President, as provided under the previous order, I now move to concur in the House amendment to S. 365. Madam President, Senator…
Madam President, I ask the Chair to lay before the Senate the House message to accompany S. 365.
Madam President, as provided under the previous order, I now move to concur in the House amendment to S. 365.
Madam President, Senator McConnell and I have completed our statements.
Mr. President, I would like to engage in a colloquy with my friend the Republican leader, with whom I worked in drafting the provisions of this bill creating a joint committee to address deficit reduction. We wrote a number of deadlines in the bill to guide the work of the joint committee. I wanted to discuss with my colleague the consequences of missing these deadlines.
Section 402(g) of the amendment before us makes clear that if the joint committee fails to meet the November 23 deadline to vote on the report and proposed language, or if the Congress fails to meet the December 23 deadline to pass the joint committee bill, then the joint committee bill will lose its privilege. It would cease to benefit from expedited procedures under this amendment.
But I also want to make clear that if the joint committee or Congress fails to meet other deadlines in the title creating the joint committee, then that failure would not lead to a loss of privilege. We attached special importance to the deadlines for the committee to vote and the Congress ultimately to act.
And so, I would like to inquire whether the Republican leader agrees with that assessment.
Mr. President, I would like to engage in a colloquy with my colleague the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Conrad, who worked with me as we drafted the joint committee language in this bill.
The compromise we are voting on today on the debt limit establishes the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to build on the more than $900 billion in up-front deficit reduction in the bill. The joint committee would work to achieve another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, for a total of $2.4 trillion. This important joint committee will be bicameral and bipartisan, with three members selected by each of the four congressional leaders, for a total of 12 members, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans. Importantly, their recommendations will be guaranteed an up-or-down vote on the floor of both the Senate and the House.
For this historic process to work, we felt it important that the joint committee be given maximum flexibility, with everything on the table--discretionary spending, entitlements and other mandatory spending, and tax reform. To accomplish this goal, the joint committee should similarly be given maximum flexibility in how it analyzes its work and how it determines that it has met the target of $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.
Mr. President, over the past year, we have had three distinguished bipartisan groups provide us with comprehensive deficit reduction packages. We had the President's Fiscal Commission, led by former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Senator Alan Simpson. We had the Bipartisan Policy Center's Debt Reduction Task Force, led by former Senator Pete Domenici and former CBO and OMB Director Alice Rivlin. And we just had the so-called Group of 6, a bipartisan group of Senators, including Senator Conrad, and Senators Warner, Chambliss, Durbin, Crapo, and Coburn. All three of these groups decided that given the comprehensive and complex nature of the work that they were doing, they needed to take advantage of the flexibility to measure the effects of their proposals against the most accurate benchmark possible. I believe that it is critical that the joint committee have the same flexibility to decide on and use the most appropriate baseline possible for its work.
I believe that the legislation that we will vote on today accomplishes that, most directly by mandating the joint committee to include a statement of deficit reduction as part of the legislation it must vote on. There are no conditions on that statement. But, obviously, the legislation will need to have bipartisan support to pass the House and Senate.
I wonder if the chairman of the Budget Committee would agree with my conclusion.
I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee, who is the Senate's expert on such matters.
Mr. President, the eyes of the American people and the world have been watching Washington very closely this past week. While they witnessed a lot of political wrangling, they also saw Congress make some historically important decisions and avert a default on our debt that has been so concerning to all of us for such a long period of time.
Our country was literally on the verge of a disaster. It was on the brink of a disaster. With 1 day left, we were able to get together and avert that disaster.
Now, this compromise that we have reached is not perfect.
Mr. President, could we have order, please.
I appreciate the kind words that my counterpart, Senator McConnell, has stated. I have gotten to know him and Speaker Boehner a lot better this past month or two, especially the Speaker. Even though I disagree vehemently with the direction the Speaker's legislation took, with no bipartisan support at all, it is not the product we have here. The product we have here is one of compromise.
Without trying to outline who the winners are, there is principally one winner throughout all this, and that is the American people. We settled for less than we wanted; so did my friend, the leader of the Republicans, settle for less than he wanted. But that is the way legislation works. That is the way compromise works. But I can't let go without responding to my friend, who boasted in his own way about the new Senators and new Members of Congress who came here.
I welcome them all. But a result of the tea party direction of this Congress the last few months has been very disconcerting and very unfair to the American people. It stopped us from arriving at a conclusion much earlier, and we must go forward.
Also, I recognize we have to do more. Of course, we need to do more, and that is why we have the joint committee set up that I will talk about in just a minute. The American people are not impressed with the no new revenue. The vast majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans think this arrangement we have just done is unfair because the richest of the rich have contributed nothing. The burden of what has taken place is on the middle class and the poor.
My friend talks about no new taxes. Mr. President, if their theory was right, with these huge taxes that took place during the Bush 8 years, the economy should be thriving. These tax cuts have not helped the economy. The loss of 8 million jobs during the Bush 8 years, two wars started, unfunded, all on borrowed money, these tax cuts all on borrowed money; if the tax cuts were so good, the economy should be thriving.
If we go back to the prior 8 years during President Clinton's administration, 23 million new jobs were created. We had, when President Bush took office, a surplus over 10 years of $7 trillion. That has evaporated, and now we are talking about a $14 trillion debt.
The compromise we reached is imperfect, and we are going to send legislation to the President today that will not only avert the default but make significant desperate reduction. Is it enough? I repeat, no, it is not enough. This legislation will provide our economy with the stability it desperately needs.
To assure Congress that we will continue working--and I said this yesterday, I say it again. I appreciate my friend, the Republican leader, putting his arms around the idea that I came up with to have this joint committee. They have worked in decades past. There is no reason it can't work now. There is no supermajority. Each leader will appoint 3, a committee of 12.
We need to do something because the trigger that kicks in is very difficult. We need to do this, and it has to be one that is fair. The American people demand fairness. It can't be more cuts to programs that have made this country what it is. There must be a sharing of sacrifice. It is unfair for billionaires and multimillionaires not to contribute to the arrangement that we have just made, but they are not.
My friends, the Republicans, held firm on no revenue, which is too bad. We need to have a fair approach to this joint committee, and I am confident we will do that. The one reason we are going to do that is because the trigger mechanism kicks in.
To this committee that is going to be appointed, the Members must have open minds. We have had too much talk the last few days, as early as this morning, Republican leaders in the Senate saying there will be no revenue. That is not going to happen; otherwise, the trigger is going to kick in. The only way we can arrive at a fair arrangement for the American people with this joint committee is to have equal sharing.
It is going to be painful. For each party, if they do the right thing, it is going to be painful because, to be fair, we have to move forward. There has to be equal spending cuts. There has to be some revenue that matches that.
The legislation that is going to be sent to the President today ends the standoff that ground the work of Washington to a halt this summer. So Congress must now return to its most important job: creating jobs.
Mr. President, there are things we can do to create jobs and we know that. We passed out of here quickly the patent bill: 27,000 jobs we are told that legislation will create. So we will move to that; the first time we get back after the summer break, we are going to move to the patent legislation. It is important we do that. There is other work we can do. There is legislation out there that should be bipartisan in nature that we can do. We have a highway bill that is due.
I have spoken to the chairman of the Finance Committee today, and there are ways we can fund that that should be in keeping with the bipartisan approach.
The important thing we have, Mr. President, with these infrastructure jobs we need so very much, is that for every $1 billion we spend in infrastructure, we create 47,500 high-paying jobs. A lot of other jobs spin off from that. Now, this isn't where you have $1 billion and you have all these Federal Government jobs. These are moneys that go to the private sector to build roads and bridges and dams. We need to do that, and we can do that. Clean energy jobs are changing the face of this Nation. We need to do that.
I am optimistic and hopeful that the spirit of compromise that has taken root in Washington the last several days will endure. I hope my Republican colleagues will join forces with Democrats when we get back to work and not be looking for winners in political parties. Let's start looking for winners with the American people.
We have made progress toward our goal of cutting the deficit spending that we have around here. This Nation still faces a jobs deficit as well. There is no issue more important to the American people than job creation. Until every American who chooses to work can find a job, our job is undone. So we are going to continue making jobs our No. 1 priority. We ask the Republicans to join us in this regard.
Adlai Stevenson once called politics ``the people's business, the most important business there is.'' It is time for Congress to get back to doing the people's business, creating jobs. Nothing is more important than that.
Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on my motion to concur.
Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.