Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act of 2010--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the World Economic Forum recently published its global competitiveness survey. It shows that the competitiveness of the United States has declined from first place in the world to fourth place since President Obama took office in January.

What is the main reason for this decline? Too much debt and too much spending. There are other reasons, but that is the primary one they cited. I would suggest that the proposals to drive up the cost of energy by regulation and cap and tax--supposedly to create green jobs--are another form of anticompetitiveness that hurts our productivity as a nation. A study of Spain, which has some of the most powerful alternative energy proposals and has taken some of the most dramatic action, has shown that even though there are green jobs created, the overall rise in the cost of energy in Spain has cost that nation more jobs than were created by the green activities.

According to the Washington Post, a senior economist at the World Economic Forum said:

It was government debt and the country's overall economic outlook that pushed the United States down.

The article goes on to note:

Government debt affects a country's competitiveness by limiting its ability to respond to crises or to make infrastructure and other investments that could boost future productivity. It may also lead to higher interest rates.

I would note also that the EU has a corporate tax rate of 19 percent, whereas the United States has a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, and that costs jobs in America. I talked to a CEO recently who said that 200 Alabama jobs were lost because of the higher corporate tax rate in the United States. We cannot sustain that.

How high is our debt today? It is $13.6 trillion or $44,000 for every man, woman, and child in America, and it is 93 percent of our gross domestic product, which is significant because a famous study produced earlier this year by economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart demonstrated that economic growth slows substantially--it reduces GDP growth by 1 percent--when debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP. We are already over that. And when our economy is only growing at 1.6 percent--as it was in the second quarter--an extra 1 percent is a lot when you are talking about growth. They talk about a new normal where we may be showing only 1, 2, 3 percent growth for years to come. So if you lose a percent based on debt, that is very damaging to the American economy. Well, do we have a plan to reduce it? Have we taken any steps? Actually, the President's budget makes the problem worse. It shows that the gross debt by 2019 would go to $23 trillion--106 percent of GDP.

Look at this chart on interest payments. It is so stunning that I think every American needs to examine it. It reflects the analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, our professional budget office that serves us, the leadership of which is hired by the Democratic majority. They are good people, and this is what they have calculated. In 2009, the interest we paid on all the debt in this country was $187 billion. By 2020, they calculate that the 1 year's interest payment would be $916 billion--almost $1 trillion. This is a stunning figure. Last year, the baseline budget--or at least 2 years ago--on highways was about $40 billion. I think the spending on education totally is about $100 billion.

So we are talking about $900 billion in interest now because the public debt will triple from last year to 2019 under the budget submitted by the President. You would think we would be talking about that in Congress and we would be dealing with a budget and plans to try to bring that under control, would you not? Surprisingly, we haven't had any real discussion about the budget this year. Indeed, we haven't debated the budget on the floor of the Senate at all. This will be the first year since the modern budget process was created in 1974 that Congress has not even considered a budget. It was not brought up. It has not even been produced here.

Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question on that point?

Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased. I see my colleague from Mississippi is here.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.

Mr. WICKER. Let me make sure the people within the sound of our voices tonight understand this. For the first time in the history of the modern-day Budget Act, the Congress has not even brought forward a budget plan to be debated, much less amended and voted on by the elected representatives of the people; is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. That is correct.

Mr. WICKER. And this is astonishing in light of what the Senator has pointed out with regard to where we are going on payment of interest on the national debt. Anytime we are paying interest, that is money that can't be used for highways, for infrastructure. If someone wanted to try a stimulus for small businesses by cutting their taxes, that is money that is not available to us for that purpose.

I wonder whether the Senator would like to talk about his particular plan, a bipartisan plan, that at least attacks the exponential growth we have had in discretionary spending. I think the Senator has a plan with the Senator from Missouri that would attack this issue at the discretionary level, virtually freeze domestic discretionary spending, and, at least for that small part of the budget, give us some relief; is that correct?

Mr. SESSIONS. That is correct, and I thank my colleague for mentioning that.

Senator Claire McCaskill, my Democratic colleague from Missouri, and I have offered legislation that would essentially take the budget that was submitted last year, which had a 5-year number. The first-year numbers were not very good.

I will show some of the spending increases last year in our baseline accounts. I know my colleagues will find this hard to believe because it is so stunning, but the State Department and Foreign Operations got a 32-percent increase in baseline spending last year. EPA got a 35-percent increase. Commerce, Science, Justice, that is, the Commerce Department and the Justice Department, received 12.3 percent. The Treasury-HUD number was 23 percent; Agriculture, 8; and Defense, 4.1.

So we have been spending rapidly, but the budget called for less spending this year and next year and the next year. It was a 5-year budget. So we asked our colleagues: Let's, on a bipartisan basis, pass legislation very similar to what was passed in the 1990s. That really was a critical act in achieving a balanced budget in the late 1990s, and this action would say that if you went above that spending level, which is basically projected to be 1 percent or so, it would take a two-thirds vote of the Congress. This would help us maintain spending, wouldn't my colleague agree, if we had a two-thirds vote?

Mr. WICKER. If the Senator would continue to yield, I would say that I think it would certainly be a start. And I daresay that if Senator Sessions and I were the sole deciders on this issue, we might find a way to cut spending even further. But on a bipartisan basis, we ought to at least be able to say: Mr. President, let's bring to the floor for discussion a proposal that would virtually freeze domestic discretionary spending for 1 year.

I would commend to my colleagues a letter dated July of this year from every Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee pointing out, No. 1, the enormity of the Federal debt and the problem and direct threat it poses to national security; the need for a long-term plan; the fact that the committee is compelled, outside of a budget because we didn't even get a chance to debate one, to come up with a top-line number; pointing out the Sessions-McCaskill legislation that would essentially freeze nondefense spending, and, importantly, every Republican on the Appropriations Committee said we were committed to that number. I think that as the American people begin to look at us, particularly as we move toward this crucial vote on November 2, it is important for them to understand that Republican appropriators have made that commitment and made it in writing as long ago as July of this year.

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, I think that is important to note, and I would further note that every single Republican supported the McCaskill-Sessions amendment, but also 18 Democrats supported that. I believe that if we had the leadership just say yes instead of no, it would pass easily. It would be a healthy thing because it would send a message to the financial markets worldwide that we at least have some fiscal discipline, and it would be very
unlikely that spending would go above this level if we had a two-thirds supermajority point of order to object to spending over that level.

I would note that the amendment is supported by a number of bipartisan groups, including the Concord Coalition, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the National Taxpayers Union, the Heritage Foundation, former Congressional Budget Office and OMB Director Alice Rivlin--she served under President Clinton--and former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin. So this is a bipartisan piece of legislation that would bring us to a point that, I believe, we can say to the world that we are going to stand by the numbers the President gave us last year--not Republican numbers but the President's numbers.

Remember, the baseline budget increases are already there. So I think what we are really going to have to do--when we really get a budget and get some new leadership and get committed after this election, when we get a spanking by the American people--is to get budget numbers based on the 2008 spending levels. It will not bankrupt us. The country is not going to sink into the ocean. If we went back to the 2008 levels, the 2007 levels, and then had some modest increases based on inflation rates, we would see an even larger improvement in our financial situation and be more competitive.

Mr. WICKER. If the Senator would yield one more time--I know we are limited on time--some other people are scheduled at the top of the hour, but I think this is very important.

We were spending an enormous sum of money in fiscal year 2008. I do believe that in this crisis we have, we can get back to that level and make do. That is so important in light of what this Congress and this administration have done to the national debt in 3 short fiscal years. Last year, this government added $1.4 trillion to the national debt. That is $1.4 trillion we spent here in Washington that we didn't have. This year, it will be almost that much--$1.34 trillion. And if things don't change, the national deficit, which will add to the debt, the next fiscal year will be $1.42 trillion. It is a crisis. We need to address it, and this legislation is a start.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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