Tax Extenders Act of 2009

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURR. Mr. President, there is an amendment pending by Senator Sanders to offer a $250 stipend to seniors, veterans, and those disabled to replace the lack of a cost-of-living increase, a COLA increase. As we are all aware, the formulas that drive the cost-of-living increase are predominantly affected by inflation. With the lack of inflation, seniors, veterans, and the disabled did not receive a cost-of-living increase for this year.

Senator Sanders' amendment is very clear. He wants to provide a $250 stipend. That has broad-based support within the Senate body, but I think it is responsible to say that to do this, we should pay for it. To do this, we should not print more money, borrow that money just to provide a $250 check. I think most of our Nation's seniors, veterans, and disabled would agree with that statement.

To ignore the fact that we are not paying for it would be to say that we are going to pass this stipend on to our children and our grandchildren; that we are going to take the money we are going to borrow and the debt and the obligation for that debt and we are going to pass it generationally down. As a parent of a 25-year-old and a 24-year-old, I do not think they deserve it. At some point, I hope they are both going to have children, and I do not think their children deserve for me to shove this down. And I think most Members of the Senate probably agree that it is time we start paying for it.

How does this get back? Senator Sanders makes this an emergency declaration to spend. We have a lot of priorities, and there is probably not a priority that does not deserve us to pay for it, to find somewhere where we have prioritized and decided, here is how we are going to pay for it, versus to continue to go out and borrow.

Let me remind my colleagues, we have the largest debt we have ever had. It continues to climb every day. Of every dollar we spend, we borrow 43 cents. Over the next 10 years, right now our country is obligated at $5 trillion in interest payments. That is trillion with a ``t.'' I am reminded that the most popular bumper sticker in Washington today is ``Don't tell Congress what comes after a trillion.'' I am not sure we know yet. At the rate we are going, we are going to find out. Do you know who is going to be saddled with that debt? It is going to be our children and our grandchildren. Nobody wants to leave our seniors, our veterans, and the disabled without the means they need to live. But I think even the people who are the recipients of these checks would look at us and say: Pay for it; don't put it on my grandchildren or my great grandchildren.

My amendment No. 3390 is very simple. It says this: Pay for the $250 stipend and use the unobligated stimulus money, the money we have already appropriated. We cannot borrow it twice; we can only borrow it once. Use the unobligated stimulus money, a little over $14 billion--I think it is about $14.4 billion--to pay for the stipend. Let's do the COLA, but let's, in fact, make sure that COLA is paid for. The amendment is almost identical to Senator Sanders' amendment which provides the emergency benefit; it just pays for it.

I don't think there is anything unreasonable on that. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the Sanders amendment to be at 12.7 billion. I understand the Sanders amendment was modified, so that might be slightly higher. Millions of seniors and veterans are struggling on fixed incomes in this troubled economy. This amendment also provides them the ability to get through those tough times but it also gives them the comfort of looking at their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren and saying: I am not a burden on you because this was paid for. We accounted for it.

Senator Bunning came to the floor yesterday--I think we were talking about $10 billion yesterday--and he said: How can a country this great not find a way to pay for $10 billion? Well, we didn't. And as that makes its way through, we are going to borrow that $10 billion, and that $10 billion is going to equate to $10 billion of interest payments over the next 10 years. Let me say that again. What we did yesterday is going to compute to $10 billion worth of interest payments over the next 10 years. No payment down of principal, just an obligation of interest on the debt.

Maybe some are smart enough here to tell me exactly what the interest rates are going to be in the open marketplace as we finance our debt 3 years, 5 years, 10 years down the road. I don't think it is going to be where it is today. There is every indication it is going higher. So when I state the number $5 trillion over the next 10 years, you have to understand that is a static interest rate that we have applied to it. It is 3.45, is the projection of the Congressional Budget Office. And they have said if it averages at this point, then we are going to, as a nation, owe $5 trillion, if we didn't borrow another dime. Well, not only do we continue to borrow money, but the likelihood is, with the economic conditions and with the fragile nature of the international economy, anybody who buys our debt, anybody who loans us their money is probably going to want to require more than 3.45 percent to take the risk. When countries such as Greece are on the precipice of default, it drives the international market up. It drives the cost of risk up. It will drive the cost of our risk up. What is $5 trillion today--we might not borrow another dime--may end up being next week, next month, next year $10 trillion over 5 years, just with the change in interest rate; just with what it costs us to go out and attract somebody to loan us this money.

I think I have given us a best-case scenario of saying we owe $5 trillion in the next 10 years. Excuse me, $5 trillion plus 10 more billion that we spent last night. The question is: Today, are we going to add another $14 billion to it? That is the decision in front of the Congress. My amendment, No. 3390, provides a $250 stipend. What it does that the Sanders amendment doesn't do, is it pays for it. It assures every recipient--senior, veteran, disabled person--that they are not putting the obligation of their check on their grandchildren and their great grandchildren; that we are taking the responsibility now to fund that.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I will take my minute to simply say my amendment does exactly what the Sanders amendment does. It provides a $250 stipend to seniors, veterans, the disabled who did not receive a cost-of-living increase because the inflation formula did not provide one this year. The difference between mine and Sanders is novel--I actually pay for the $14 billion we are paying out to seniors, veterans, and the disabled. I am saying to every recipient of a check, we are not going to bill this to your children and grandchildren, we are going to pay for it now with money that is unobligated but already appropriated by the Congress. I think this is a reasonable approach. I think every Member should support it. We should be pleased we are doing a stipend to seniors, but we should sleep well tonight because we paid for it.

I yield the floor.

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