Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Floor Speech: America can't become a bad investment
As delivered on July 6, 2011
Madam President, I rise to follow the comments of my colleague from Colorado in emphasizing the sense of urgency -- the sense of frustration and of deep concern that I know many of us feel in the Senate of the United States.
On the Fourth of July, as I went up and down the State of Delaware to different parades and picnics and gatherings, I had the opportunity to meet with and talk to thousands of Delawareans. Over and over I would go up to men who were wearing hats that showed that they served, whether in the Korean War, the Vietnam War or the second World War and thanked them for their service. Repeatedly I would hear the same thing back: “We've done our job. We hope you'll do yours.”
When I was elected in 2010 to serve here in the United States, I heard the same message from the folks across Delaware that I just heard Senator Udall reflect from the people of Colorado: Help the private sector create good jobs, deal with the deficit and debt, and do it in a bipartisan and responsible way. And I am gravely concerned that we are on the verge of the most predictable financial crisis in modern American history as we slowly grind toward the predicted deficit – excuse me, the predicted default on America’s mortgage on August 2nd.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has warned us since the beginning of this year, with the letter that he sent us on January 6 -- with repeated testimony before various committees of the Senate. We have gone well past the May 16 deadline and the Department of the Treasury is now using extraordinary measures to prevent us from defaulting on America's commitments.
I have heard other analogies used, but they are mistaken. This is not about cutting up the credit cards or ending the blank check for our current president. This is about whether we will continue to meet the commitments America has already made. Whether we will continue to make the payments that we're already committed to -- for our troops in the field, for contractors who are providing military supplies and equipment, for our federal workforce, and for all the different programs and benefits the senators spoke before me mentioned. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and others.
We cannot afford the consequences of default. One study says we would lose 640,000 jobs. More than half a million Americans needlessly thrown out of work, just because of a foolish game of chicken. The cost of home mortgages to car loans to increases in the daily cost of living will go up needlessly if we simply fail to uphold the tradition of meeting our commitments as a nation.
I'm here to say today that we cannot afford to have America become a bad investment.
The best thing that we can do going forward is to restore certainty in our markets, to put some confidence back in the American economy, to make certain that the international community continues to regard us as the safest and best investment in the world and the way to do that is to come together in a bipartisan way around a big deal, around $4 trillion in savings at least.
The senator from Colorado went in some detail into the bipartisan debt and deficit commission chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson -- the Democrat former chief of staff and the Republican former Senator from Wyoming -- and the 11 members of that commission, members of this body -- currently serving senators, Republican and Democrat, who came together around a plan that would make $4 trillion in savings over the next decade. I think we should do no less than that. And I think the plan that we should be working on in detail now should include all four major areas where we have to have savings.
Reductions in discretionary domestic spending. Reform to our entitlement programs. Reductions in Pentagon spending, and increases in federal revenue through tax reform. All four of these have to be on the table. In my view, our values ask no less than that.
As we work through a recovery, we need to continue to invest in education, in infrastructure, in innovation; but we also need to responsibly put together a bipartisan path that will take on the sacred cows of this institution and of America’s tax code.
Just three weeks ago we had more than 70 senators cast votes to end the $6 billion in needless annual ethanol subsidies. I hope that was an opening door towards a recognition that on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers of this Congress, we need to be willing to make the tough votes, even though they will upset treasured constituencies, even though they will end up causing us potential political harm, to reduce reckless federal spending, whether through the tax code or unsustainable federal programs.
In the end, Mr. President, I simply wanted to come to the floor today and add my voice to many of my colleagues’ on both sides of the aisle who are expressing our grave concern as the clock ticks away and as the hours left to August 2nd shrink, we need to come together.
What Americans have done for generations is sacrificed. What legislators need to do now is compromise. There are, in front of us reasonable, solid, bipartisan proposals that have been available to us since March and that this body and our leadership need to be willing to make responsible compromises to make happen.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.