BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BENNET. Madam President, like you, I have heard a lot of loose talk over the past months invoking the Founding Fathers--loose talk to underscore an expedient argument about what they would be doing if they were legislating today. But the way our Founders are often used is as a caricature to distort history for the benefit of partisan and narrow interests.
To hear some people talk about it, you would think the Founders were engaged in a process of dismantling a country rather than building one. That version of events is not only wrong but it also thoroughly diminishes the founding generation's extraordinary accomplishments and the lessons we should draw from them.
Our Founders met enormous challenges with great courage and sacrifice to start a country around an ideal. In the same vein, our modern history has been characterized by meeting great challenges with distinct qualities. We are hard working. We meet our challenges by refusing to allow their complexities or attendant political difficulty to lead us toward accepting failure as an option. We are inclusive. We meet our great challenges by meeting them as one, by crafting solutions that involve buy-in, participation, and sacrifice from all parts of the political landscape, and the American people.
We act with courage. We meet our great challenges when, and only when, the leaders of the day have the courage to decide they will be the ones who meet those challenges, that they will transcend the short-term incentives and political imperatives of their time to do something of greater importance.
These traits have enabled us to end a Civil War, overcome the Great Depression, and march toward civil rights. But they have also allowed us to do smaller and still very important things such as work together in the 1980s to protect and preserve Social Security.
Today, that honorable past and the sacrifice it entailed has been hijacked to protect and defend narrow interest group politics and tax loopholes.
Our tax and regulatory codes are backward, facing in a way that is straining our recession-battered middle class and failing to drive innovation in our economy. As a result, middle-class income continues to fall, the gap between rich and poor grows wider, and all of us wait for a 20th-century economy to produce 21st-century jobs. That wait will be in vain.
It will particularly be in vain for those of our citizens unlucky enough to be born poor and who therefore stand a 9 in 100 chance of ever graduating from college in the United States of America in the year 2011. That is because year after year we have torn each other up so much on issue after issue, because of the smallness we have exhibited in the face of what our big challenges are, and now we find ourselves at a crisis point without a politics capable of even addressing the kinds of challenges we face each year, let alone a generational crisis like our deficit and debt.
I have come to the floor for months arguing for the need for a comprehensive approach to addressing our deficits and debt. What Colorado wants is nothing more than what this country has seen from past generations of leaders in past times of crisis. As I have said over and over, what people in red parts of the State and what people in blue parts of the State want is a solution that materially addresses the problem. They know we are not going to fix it overnight, but they want it materially addressed. They want a demonstration that we are all in it together, that everybody has something to contribute to solving the problem. They emphatically want it to be bipartisan because they don't believe in an either-party-going-it-alone approach when it comes to our debt and our deficit.
I add a corollary to that, which is that we need to assure our capital markets that the paper they bought is actually worth what they paid for it.
It was in the spirit of getting together on a solution like that my colleague, Senator Mike Johanns, and I wrote a letter to the President. Sixty-four Members of the Senate--evenly divided between both parties--signed onto an approach that called for entitlement reform, tax reform, and discretionary spending cuts. The math compels this answer. The economy needs this certainty. Colorado and the country want this result. It should achieve the $4.5 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years and should have a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases. That is what the Bowles-Simpson Commission recommended.
Our political system seems intent on thwarting an approach supported by Senators in both parties. Both parties seem willing to submit to that flawed system's perverse incentives.
While I am convinced that many in this body and the House would actually like to make this deal, these interests distort the conversation into a partisan war and rip it apart from the inside.
On one side, some advocate for no changes to the Medicare Program; on the other, for no changes to revenue. Yet these are among the two biggest drivers of our long-term debt--and everybody knows it.
Only in Washington could people pretend that significant deficit reduction could be accomplished while ignoring the two biggest fiscal challenges we face. I am a former school superintendent, and what that tells me is that Washington has a severe math problem. We are in need of remediation.
When it comes to a solution on the debt, the contrast between Washington's dysfunction and Colorado's common sense could not be clearer. Yesterday, I had a call with Colorado business leaders who spanned the ideological spectrum--both Democrats and Republicans--to talk about our deficit and debt. Despite their differing party affiliations, there was clearly a consensus that everything needed to be on the table when it comes to the debt--including both tax revenue and entitlement changes. But somehow this common sense gets lost in the current debate.
If changes to entitlements are off the table, we as leaders will fail. If changes in revenue are off the table, we as leaders will fail.
I turn to the American people watching this debate with worry or disgust and say: If challenges to our ideological beliefs or to the politics that historically define our debate are off the table, then as a generation we cannot meet the challenges we face, and we are not going to be able to support the aspirations we have for our kids and our grandkids.
This is about courage: courage on the part of Democrats who know refusing to touch Medicare is an argument we could win, but the price of winning that argument may be losing America's ability to pay its bills; courage on the part of Republicans who know revenues are unpopular but who secretly understand that we can't simply cut our way out of this budget hole.
And in a moment of such crisis, this should be the least Americans can expect of us.
During the worst recession since the Great Depression, Madam President, it was my privilege to spend the last 2 1/2 years traveling my State while we were going through this horrible economic turmoil. Americans and Coloradans have made gut-wrenching decisions in their personal lives--about where to send their children to school, how and where to live, what medicines they can afford, and what medicines they might hope to live without. Local officials have been held accountable to citizens for the decisions they have had to make. Yet Congress has struggled to reflect the ideals and aspirations of the people we represent.
This DC political culture serves special interests but it doesn't even register the needs of Coloradans. No business would sacrifice the economic interests of its shareholders, because the ones that do are gone. No mayors in Colorado would threaten their bond rating for political ideology--not one. It wouldn't occur to one of them to threaten their credit rating, because mothers, fathers, taxpayers, and everyday citizens would have their heads, and rightfully so. I think the difference is that no special interest stands between a Colorado local government official and the people he or she represents.
Having served in local government, I have to say what often seems to be an unattainable standard for a high officeholder is simply life in the real world for the rest of us. Last week, we came to Washington to cast a series of inconsequential votes. But by the end of the week, some of us were encouraged by the talk coming from the President and the Speaker.
My friend John McCain came to the floor pushing the need for a breakout strategy, referenced a Wall Street Journal editorial that called for a far more comprehensive and far-reaching plan. But now we learn a comprehensive deal feels once again out of reach. We are told we will have to settle for something small that one more time kicks the can down the road; that taxes and entitlements are just too hard for Washington politics.
I may not have spent enough time here to see through these political games. This may all be part of an elaborate strategy to get to yes. But I shudder--I shudder--when I wonder what investors, our creditors, and the American people think of this political game of chicken. Unlike Congress, they do not conduct their business with winks and nods, and they solve their problems before they become insurmountable.
All of which brings me back to our Founders and the political leadership of other generations past that made these enormous and difficult decisions. As for us, we have chosen to put them off time after time, and now we are at an inflection point where we need to get this done. We have a $1.5 trillion deficit and almost $15 trillion in debt. Revenue is at a 60-year low and spending is at over a 60-year high. And we have the path to begin to bridge this. The Simpson-Bowles commission has given us that path forward.
I am the first to say--and I should say--this debt is something we all own. I voted for things that contributed to it, as have all of my colleagues, and of all the things that comprise the debt, there is something each member of our great Nation wants or needs. We all share in the responsibility for how we arrived at this point.
So to be clear, if anybody thinks this is merely an attack on the institution, we need to understand this massive debt is something for which we are all responsible. Those who voted to fight the wars and to pass the tax cuts did so as a reflection of what they believed was a moment of truth. These decisions were not made in a vacuum. We got here because we aspire to be a society that is better than our competitors. We are all responsible. We are all responsible for the crisis that looms. But the inflection point we have reached has led to a different mandate, a different moment of truth. The American people are asking us to lead.
This is a country of patriots, of incredibly courageous people who take on challenges little and big every day. I have tremendous respect for my colleagues and for this institution, and I am well aware that until about 6 months ago I had never even been elected dogcatcher. So I recognize how much I have to learn. But clearly--clearly--we are not living up to the standard of courage that past generations of leaders and every generation of ordinary Americans have set for us. Congress is certainly not living up to the standard the people of Colorado and of this country expect from us.
I wonder if maybe we have looked at this the wrong way. The President has put entitlement cuts on the table, and that is the right thing to do. I encourage him to do more.
As for the question of revenue, I will tell any politician that this is not the time to be wedded to the status quo. There is nothing magical about current revenue levels, about our Tax Code, or about all the loopholes and special interest perks that we account for only by borrowing more and more money.
But there is something else important to mention, which is also lost in the debate. We have waged two long and costly wars. I don't want to re-litigate today the wisdom of going to war. My colleagues in the Senate and House--many of whom are still here in the Congress--had to cast difficult votes to send our young men and women into harm's way. But regardless of your position for or against, Congress ultimately made a decision to layer those costs on top of our current budget. We did this instead of accounting for them as part of our annual expenses. That was the decision that Congress made, and it began our slide from surplus to deficit.
So for a moment let us separate the costs of these wars from the important and robust debate we are having about entitlement spending--Medicare, Social Security, and our discretionary programs--and resolve a threshold question, or maybe two: Are we, as a generation, going to pay for these wars or are we going to continue to borrow from foreign governments and stick our kids with the bill? Are we even willing to make just a down payment on their incremental costs? Because that is what we are talking about.
The amount outlined by the Debt and Deficit Commission--$785 billion in tax reform--which, by the way, would lead to lower rates, doesn't even cover the incremental expense of the war commitments we have made. But it would be a good start. Are we willing to walk away from this moment and say we put the burden of fighting and dying in these wars on our sons and daughters, and at the same time leave the burden of paying it to our grandchildren?
And, after all, are we really willing to threaten the full faith and credit of the United States by failing to raise the debt ceiling for debts we already owe? This is not like cutting up your credit card. This is like getting your mortgage this month and saying, I'm not going to pay it because I spent my money somewhere else. Are we really willing to do that by failing to act comprehensively against our debt at a moment of global fragility in the capital markets? Would we risk all of this just for politics?
Interestingly enough, in their wisdom, the Founders understood and anticipated this very problem. They had a spirited debate about whether the Federal Government should have what they called "a general power of taxation'' or whether we should have a system of "internal and external taxation''--a system where the States could impose taxes but the Federal Government would be limited to collecting its revenue through duties on imports.
Ultimately, the Founders resolved the question in favor of the general power of taxation for the exact reasons that are staring us in the face today. So rather than talk about the Founders, I actually want to read what they said on this subject, in the hopes it will give us some guidance. Let me quote from Federalist No. 30. I apologize for the length, Madam President, but, as always, their words impoverish our own.
If the opinions of those who contend for the distinction [between internal and external taxation] were to be received as evidence of truth, one would be led to conclude that there was some known point in the economy of national affairs at which it would be safe to stop and say: Thus far the ends of public happiness will be promoted by supplying the wants of government, and all beyond this is unworthy of our care or anxiety.
They went on to say:
Let us attend to what would be the effects of this situation in the very first war in which we should happen to be engaged. We will presume, for argument's sake, that the revenue arising from the impost duties answers the purposes of a provision for the public debt and of a peace establishment for the Union. Thus circumstanced, a war breaks out. What would be the probable conduct of the government in such an emergency? Taught by experience that proper dependence could not be placed on the success of requisitions, unable by its own authority to lay hold of fresh resources, and urged by considerations of national danger, would it not be driven to the expedient of diverting the funds already appropriated from their proper objects to the defense of the state? It is not easy to see how a step of this kind could be avoided; and if it should be taken, it is evident that it would prove the destruction of public credit at the very moment it was becoming essential to the public safety. To imagine that such a credit crisis might be dispensed with, would be the extreme of infatuation. In the modern system of war, nations the most wealthy are obliged to have recourse to large loans. A country so little opulent as ours must feel this necessity in a much stronger degree. But who would lend to a government that prefaced its overtures for borrowing by an act which demonstrated that no reliance could be placed on the steadiness of its measures for paying? The loans it might be able to procure would be as limited in their extent as burdensome in their conditions. They would be made upon the same principles that usurers commonly lend to bankrupt and fraudulent debtors, with a sparing hand and enormous premiums.
I am going to paraphrase that in a minute. But it is almost as though Alexander Hamilton, who wrote these words in 1787, were sitting here today. And from the bottom of my heart, I wish he were. He closed the Federalist Paper No. 30 with an admonition to ideologues, writing that:
..... [s]uch men must behold the actual situation of their country with painful solicitude, and deprecate the evils which ambition or revenge might, with too much facility, inflict upon it.
As we have at other times in our history, we experienced the kind of evils that Hamilton anticipated on 9/11. We responded. And now, at this extraordinary time, it is left for us to get our house in order.
In truth, these are small decisions, when we consider them in the context of what our Founders faced. Their greatness is measured by the large task they took on and conquered. Ours is merely a junction between our own institutional impulse toward fecklessness and our individual love for our country and for our kids. When faced with similar decisions, families cut back; they sacrifice. And now we must do the same. Now, to paraphrase Hamilton, the last thing we need to do now is act in a way that jacks up our interest rates.
The 100 of us who are here in the Senate didn't create the system in which we operate. None of us decided it would be fun to have special interest groups scoring our every move or lobbyists hounding us about this or that tiny little provision or television channels reducing everything we do and say to a story line of endless minute conflict. And look, I understand what the incentives are here. It is possible we could fail and get away with blaming somebody else. It is possible cutting off our nose to spite our face could be a smart political move in this insane system. But there is a reason we venerate the Founders and Lincoln and the great legislative and executive figures of the last century. They were great not only because of what history threw at them, but because of the way they threw themselves at history.
They raised their hands. They showed real courage not only when they had to but when they didn't. They made themselves of use.
The Founders were practical people--dare I say it, Madam President, practical politicians searching for an ideal that became the United States of America, and they created in their practicality what Lincoln called the last, best hope of Earth. Think of that. Think of our actual history, not a cartoon, and imagine that we stumble, not because the Founders in their time failed to form a union but because in our time we failed to act as one.
Madam President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.