Mr. RUBIO. I was witness a few minutes ago to an interesting and informative exchange and wanted to comment on that briefly. Both the leader and the senior Senator from New York had some comments that I think are important in the context of what is being discussed here today. But I wanted to come to the floor today because we have been getting a lot of phone calls and letters from people back home who are wondering--people--what this is all about. These are folks who are out working every day and raising a family and running their businesses. They want to understand what the debate here is about. They get the gist of it, that there is this debt limit fight, and that Congress, if it does not do anything, may not be able to pay some bills beginning August 2.
But what is behind all of this? The best way to explain it to people is to equate it to the lives of real people in the real world.
Every single one of us as adults has a credit rating. In essence, there are two or three companies out there that basically rate you as an individual. What they do is give you a credit rating that determines, No. 1, whether you are willing to pay back; and, No. 2, whether you have the money to pay people back. Based on that you get something called a credit score. People are familiar with that. Every time you try to go lease or buy a car or buy a house or anything on credit, they are going to run your credit. It is going to tell them: This is John Smith, this is so-and-so, and this is his credit rating. Based on that, people will decide whether to lend you money.
Countries have credit ratings too. It is based on two things. No. 1 is your history of paying people back; and, No. 2, on your ability to pay them back in the future.
There are three major companies in the world that give credit ratings to countries--three major companies. What those companies are saying right now is we are looking at America and we are worried. We are worried about two things. They are worried about this debt limit issue, and the fact that if the debt limit is not raised, they are going to downgrade us because we are going to miss payments on this, that, or the other. They are worried about that.
But they are a lot more worried about something else. It is not our willingness to pay back, it is our ability to pay back people who lend money to the United States.
Let me read you some of the quotes. This is from Moody's, which is one of the top ones. They write: ``If the government avoids default, we will likely affirm America's AAA rating.''
America has the highest credit rating in the world right now that you can possibly get. They say: If we avoid default, they will likely affirm our AAA rating, but they will still assign us on something called a negative outlook, unless there is--this is the money line--``a substantial and credible budget agreement to cut the deficit.''
What they are basically saying is, if you raise the debt limit, you may temporarily avoid being downgraded, but ultimately we are still putting you on a watchlist and we ultimately are still going to downgrade you unless we have a substantial and credible budget agreement to cut the deficit.
What does that mean? They go on to elaborate. They say: The agreement should include a deficit trajectory--basically a path of deficits--that leads to stabilization and ultimately a decline in your deficit, particularly in how much money you owe compared to how big your economy is.
That is what they want to see, a plan in place that shows how we stop growing the deficit and then how we start reducing it. That is what they are saying. Then they actually talk about specific numbers. They have said, their analysts have said we think $1.5 trillion of cuts this year--over the next 10 years--is a plan that is too little. We think $4 trillion might be enough. That is from Moody's.
Standard & Poor's, the other rating company, wrote very clearly that even if the parties--meaning Republicans and Democrats--agree to raise the debt limit, it may not be enough to avoid downgrade.
That is the second credit house. They are saying: Even if you raise the debt limit, we may still downgrade you. In order to avoid a downgrade, you need a plan that reduces annual budget deficits by at least $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
We hear the $4 trillion number again. This is the second rating company basically saying: Yes, the debt limit is a problem. What we are worried about is, do you have a plan to deal with the debt and the deficit?
Then the third major company, called Fitch, wrote that they are looking for an agreement on credible fiscal consolidation strategy in order to secure America's top credit rating, a triple A.
So the three major houses' rating which is what this is all about at the end of the day, because if our credit rating goes down, interest payments go up on everything from your mortgage, to your car, but, more importantly, on America's debt, which means we are going to have borrow more money to pay the interest on the debt we already owe.
So we cannot allow our credit rating to go down. The three major companies that give us our credit rating are all saying the same. Here is what they are saying in plain English: The debt limit is a problem, but it is the least of your problems. Your bigger problem is the debt. If all you do is pass an increase to the debt limit and it does not come with a serious, credible, substantial plan to deal with the debt, you are in big trouble.
I would submit to you that the biggest issue facing us on this issue is not the debt limit. The debt limit is actually the easiest issue. That is one vote away from being raised. Our biggest issue is the debt, and the fact is that as we speak, there is no plan in place to begin to do anything about it. Our credit is in danger because of this. That is what we should be focused on like a laser.
What will a substantial plan look like? Let's take it from the words of these credit companies: It has to stabilize deficits and begin to show how the deficits come down. We know that $1.5 trillion in cuts is not enough. We know that $4 trillion might be enough.
This is what we need to do. How do you do this? How do you get there? It is not rocket science. It is a pretty simple mix of two things that have to happen. The first thing you have to do is you have to stop spending money at the rate you are spending. You cannot keep spending more money than you have. If you are in debt and you keep borrowing a lot more money than you take in especially, it is only going to get worse. So you have got to control the amount of money you spend. Also what you have got to do is generate more money for government.
So if you can do those two things, if you can control how much you spend and you can generate more money for government, and you can do both things at the same time, that is how you dig yourself out of this. The debate we should be having here is how do you accomplish that.
On the do-not-spend side, we have two choices: You can either trust that future Congresses will do what virtually no Congress in the history of this Nation has ever done; that is, control themselves. And I say this when Republicans were in charge, Democrats were in charge; they have never been able to control spending. If you let politicians spend money they do not have, they will spend it, I do not care who is in charge. That is what history teaches us. So we can either trust that somehow in the
future Congress will not do that or we can put into law limits on their ability to do that.
That is why I am for things such as a spending cap and a balanced budget amendment, because I think if you do not have restrictions in place, it is not going to happen. Almost every State in the country has a balanced budget amendment. I come from a State where there is a balanced budget amendment.
I assure you, I do not care who is in charge or how conservative they claim to be. If you do not have laws in place that keep politicians from spending money they are borrowing, they will borrow the money and spend it. History will back that up.
The second is, how do you generate more money for this controlled government? That is the crux of the debate we are having today. Some of my colleagues believe the way you do it is you raise taxes, especially on rich people. To some people this may sound appealing. Here is the problem. It does not raise nearly enough money, if you could even collect it. It does not raise nearly enough money.
From the only tax plans I have seen put out there by the administration and some of my colleagues here on the other side of the aisle, it adds up to less than 10 days' worth of deficit spending. We do know, however, that these increases in taxes could kill jobs.
The other way you can generate more revenue for government--and it is the way I think we should do it--is to grow your economy. You get more people back to work, and so now more people are paying taxes. You get people who are working to make more money because their businesses are doing better and so they are paying more taxes. The government uses that money not to grow government, it uses that money to pay down its debt and control itself. How do you create more jobs and economic growth? You do it by encouraging people, not in this building but outside this building, to start businesses or grow existing businesses.
If you ask those people--not economists, not people on Wall Street, not journalists, not professors, not politicians--if you ask people to create jobs: What would it take for you to start creating jobs again, what they are looking for is a tax system that is fair and regulations they can comply with and then get out of the way and they will do what Americans have always done. Those are our ideas.
Here is the problem. Even as we stand here today, there are few plans on the table to do it. I have watched the President give press conferences. I have watched the President give speeches. I have yet to see a plan from the President. With all due respect to my colleagues in the other party in the Senate, I have not seen a plan from them either. They are the majority party. They control this Chamber. They control the Senate. I have not seen a plan from them.
A moment ago we heard this talk about we have to compromise. It is hard to compromise when the other side does not have a plan. What do you compromise on? Where is your plan? You cannot compromise if only one person is offering plans. There is only one plan that has been voted on by any House to deal with this issue, and it is the one we are on right now--cut, cap, and balance.
I would submit if you do not like cut, cap, and balance, if you do not think we need to cut spending, cap spending, and balance our budget, then show us your alternative. Or maybe you do believe we do need to cut, cap, and balance, but you do not like the way this bill cuts spending, caps spending, and balances spending. Fine. Offer your version of cut, cap, and balance. Let's proceed to this bill. Let's get on this bill the House has passed. If you do not like it, change it. You have got the votes here to do it. If you have got a better idea, bring this bill up and amend it and put your ideas on it.
But how could you ask for compromise? How could you scold Republicans in the House for refusing to compromise if you do not have a plan of your own?
How can a person compromise if they don't have any ideas of their own? It is not a fair thing to say.
So I urge the leadership of the Senate and the President of the United States to offer their ideas on paper--put their ideas on paper and offer them so we can begin to work on this concept of compromise they have offered.
We cannot compromise and negotiate with people who will not offer a plan. Why don't we vote to proceed to cut, cap, and balance--proceed to this bill so we can debate it and they can offer their ideas on this bill. This is the perfect opportunity to do it. Stop negotiating in the media and through press conferences and start doing it on the Senate floor, which is what the people sent us to do. I hope that is what will happen.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.