Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

Mr. President, my good friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Toomey, and I had an amendment that we put forth several weeks ago back in the time when we did not know for sure whether sequestration was going to become a reality. We have some comments to make about that.

I will be yielding to the Senator from Pennsylvania in a moment, but I first want to make an observation here, that anytime a bureaucracy is forced to cut, they will find the one thing the people of America want most and that is what they will cut. There is no better example of this than the FAA. I went around with them for quite some time on the pilots bill of rights last summer. We were able to get something done. But I know they are a very powerful agency. There is no question about that.

To give you an example of that, the FAA began furloughing traffic controllers--and others too--on April 21. This is what is interesting, and you have to pay attention to this. The cuts that were going to come to the FAA through sequestration amounted to 5 percent of the FAA's budget to bring it down to 2010 levels.

The FAA operations budget has grown by 109 percent since 1996. That has more than doubled since 1996.

On April 22, the first day after furlough took effect, over 400 flights were cancelled and nearly 7,000 flights were delayed. That, my good friends, is a way of making people miserable to bring them around to their way of thinking that somehow there is not enough fat in a bureaucracy that has more than doubled in the last 15 years that they have to take these drastic steps. The FAA has the flexibility to reduce the costs, but they have not attempted to do that.

As I said, very clearly, in 1996, the FAA's operating budget was $4.6 billion. In 2012, the operation budget was $9.7 billion. I don't know off the top of my head of another bureaucracy that has grown that much in that period of time. The FAA operations budget has increased by $5.1 billion over 14 years. That is 109 percent.

The furloughs of the air traffic controllers are expected to save only $200 million. I wish I had a chart here to show you what a small percentage that $200 million is of the increase of $5.1 billion over 14 years. I think it is very important that we talk about that in light of some of the things we are trying to do with sequestration. That was the FAA.

Unfortunately, it is our defense system that has been taking all the hits. Here we have the defense at 18 percent of the budget and they are taking 50 percent of the hits. This is after the President through his programs has knocked down spending levels by $487 billion over this 10-year period, and sequestration would be another $ 1/2 trillion--which in the mind and the statements of the Secretary of the Defense at that time, Secretary Panetta, would be devastating, to use his words. So that is where we are right now.

When the majority leader last night introduced an amendment that would transfer the overseas contingency operations funds from the fiscal years of 2014, 2015, and 2016 to offset the sequester impacts in the current year, I think this is not implementable because he uses future appropriations to offset current year spending. It is also dangerous to continue to hollow out our military.

A couple days ago I talked about how we are comparable today in the hollow force we are approaching to what we were in the 1970s and the 1990s. Now it could actually be worse. In one of the hearings we had, one of the chiefs of the military made the statement that this would not be just as bad--it would be worse.

That is what we are faced with right now. I think we need to look very carefully and make sure we do not allow our warfighters--every time you cut their money out of the OCO account, that increases risk. Increasing risk increases lives lost. That is how serious this is.

Now back to our amendment we put together some time ago. This was back before March 1, which was when the realization appeared that sequestration was going to be a reality, and it was this: If the whole purpose of sequestration is to save money out of the budget, and if you come along with something that says: We will live with the top line that is dictated by sequestration but we would ask that the chiefs of the services be allowed to make those decisions as to where the cuts would be. I had occasion to call all five service chiefs, and it has been reaffirmed in the last 2 weeks by them in public hearings that if they could take this top line that would be so devastating to their service--and this was the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force. If they could determine where some of that was, would it be less devastating, No. 1? No. 2, would you be able to do it? The answer was yes and yes.

I think the Senator from Pennsylvania and I had a very good idea, and we are here today to talk about that.

With that, I yield for my friend from Pennsylvania.

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