Sen. Hutchison's Senate Floor Speech Emphasizes Need to Address Debt Crisis and Produce a Budget

Press Release

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) today spoke on the Senate floor, urging her colleagues to address the nation's debt ceiling crisis and emphasizing the need for the Senate to produce a budget.

Below is a transcript of her remarks, or to watch the video, click here.

Sen. Hutchison's Floor Remarks:
Mr. President, as of now, we are scheduled to vote on a motion to proceed to Senate Joint Resolution 20 regarding Libya.

Mr. President, we have been called into session, having made plans to spend this week in our states, meeting with constituents, as we try to do at least once a month. But we have been called back in because there is a budget crisis in this country, because we have a debt ceiling of over $14 trillion that is getting ready to be hit, and we need to focus on that and that alone during this week.

We have been talking about it. We have been talking around it. And honestly Mr. President, we don't seem to be making much progress.

If we're going to do anything this week, we should be talking about how we are going to address this issue. This is what is on the minds of the people of our country today.

I have been home over the weekend -- just got back -- and everyone I talked to is scared to death about this debt, about what is going to happen.

People think there does need to be significant change, reform, a different way of doing business than just borrowing and borrowing and borrowing.

They are also concerned about hitting the debt ceiling. And they are wondering what in the heck are we going to do.

So now we are back here in session because of that crisis, and somehow we're talking about Libya.

Now, Libya is important. It is important because there are American troops there, part of a coalition that had been put there by the President without really consulting Congress. And now there is a resolution which, frankly, I could not support. I will not give the president authority to continue this.

I think we need a full and fair debate on that. But now is not the time to be doing that when we are four weeks away from a potential debt crisis that could affect people in our country right now, people who depend on our government to function, as well as our global standing.

So let's talk about what we could do.

What we could do is produce a budget. It has been 797 days or so since the Senate has passed a budget resolution. So we haven't set the level of spending and the priorities for spending, which is our constitutional responsibility. It is Congress' responsibility to pass a budget. We haven't passed a budget in more than two years.

Now, we have got to do that because we're coming on about three months from the end of a fiscal year.

We should be passing appropriations bills that are based on a budget. But we don't have a budget.

And, I would say let's go back to basics. When you have a big problem, you go back to the basics. And the basics are a budget. If we can agree on a budget -- and heck, I think we all agree that if we get one on the floor, there are going to be a lot of amendments to a budget resolution.

Let's get started.

Let's use this week to produce a budget resolution and let's start having the amendments about spending levels, about spending priorities.

That will be a way that we can start the process of determining if we can, in fact, lift the debt ceiling. Because there are significant cuts in the spending in this country that would show the rest of the world that is holding our debt, as well as the American people who are living with this government and holding part of the debt, that we're serious. That we are going to get our financial house in order. And we're going to do it with a budget resolution that cuts spending and sets priorities, like every family and every business in this country are required to do, and most states, by the way, are required to do it as well.

A few don't, and we see them sort of ambling over toward the b-word, bankruptcy, and that's not a possibility. That is not a possibility for this country. And we need to take the reins right now to assure that the world knows we are not going to handle our fiscal responsibilities by continuing to borrow when we know we don't have the revenue coming in to pay for all of these programs.

So, Mr. President, I'm going to vote against cloture today. I'm going to vote against cloture along with, I know, many people for different reasons. Some people are voting against cloture because they don't think we ought to be giving the President the authority to continue going into another country's civil war when we have commitments in Afghanistan and Iraq, when we are over-deploying our troops, when we are spending money that we are having to borrow, when we are taking the lion's share of this responsibility for our allies.

This is not the time, in my opinion, to be giving that kind of authority to the president.

But above that, we are here because there is a crisis upon which I think we have a united view of the goal, and that is to put our fiscal house in order. But we're not united in the United States Senate about how to do it.

So let's have that debate this week. Let's have that debate that says we should be spending more or we should be spending less, that we should be taxing more or taxing less. Because we've got real disagreements on that. I'm the spend less, tax less group, but there are views that are differing. Let's put it out there and start the debate because if we have a budget resolution, then everything can be solved from there. If we have a budget resolution that we can agree is the right amount of spending for the debt crisis we're in, then we will know the way forward to dealing with the debt crisis.

That's a real possibility, and that's what we ought to be talking about.

I will not support cloture on a motion to proceed to a Libya agreement that the President can continue the United States involvement.

I think we need to deal with the crisis that Congress has a say in. Certainly Congress had a say in producing it, and we are the ones responsible to the American people for solving the problem that has been created.

So Mr. President, I urge my colleagues not to vote for cloture on the motion to proceed on the Libya resolution and instead, turn to the budget, put a budget resolution out, and for the first time in more than two years we can begin the walk together to solve this problem by passing a budget resolution that will lower spending, hopefully keep taxes low so that our fragile economy can continue on the path toward improvement rather than putting obstacles in place that would have businesses feel confident to hire people, and get this unemployment rate of over 9 percent off the books.

That would be the answer for this week, in my opinion, and I hope that the Majority Leader will turn to the budget. Let's solve the crisis at hand. I think that's why we're in session this week.

Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.

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