Establishing the Commission on Freedom of Information Act Processing Delays

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCAIN. Well, I will tell you what. I will be glad to engage in a short colloquy with the Senator from Illinois, if he would like.

Does the Senator from Illinois believe we are close to an agreement?

Mr. DURBIN. I hope so.

Mr. McCAIN. Does the Senator from Illinois agree that, most likely, that agreement will not have an increase in taxes associated with it, at least in the short term?

Mr. DURBIN. I hope not.

Mr. McCAIN. You hope so?

Mr. DURBIN. I hope there is revenue included in any agreement.

Mr. McCAIN. Well, everything I have heard is that the agreement does not
have tax increases in it. Has the Senator heard differently, being in the leadership?

Mr. DURBIN. I honestly am not party to this. But I can tell the Senator, as the Gang of 6 and fiscal commission, we believe everything should be under consideration to reduce our national debt.

Mr. McCAIN. So I assume that would also mean the Senator from Illinois would advocate another stimulus package?

Mr. DURBIN. I wish to make sure we have some stimulus to the economy to create jobs and help those out of work find work with training and education.

Mr. McCAIN. So one would have to assume that the Senator from Illinois believes the last stimulus package was successful, which was, counting interest, over $1 trillion. The Senator from Illinois and others who advocated the stimulus package and the administration said: If we pass this, unemployment will be a maximum of 8 percent. This will stimulate our economy and create jobs.

Do you know what the Senator from Illinois and others are saying now? It was not enough, that it was not enough, that we didn't spend enough, that we didn't make the deficit larger. Because certainly nothing in the stimulus package was paid for. So I hope the Senator from Illinois understands--the American people understand--that just spending more money has failed and failed miserably.

When we look at the latest news, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the New York Times, that our economy is staggering back into a situation of stagnation, and the response--I will be glad to let the Senator respond. The answer on the other side is: Well, let's have some more spending and let's raise taxes. Let's take some more money out of the taxpayers' pockets in the form of spending more money--their money. It is not the administration's money. It is not the money of the Senator from Illinois. It is the people's money. Take some more money of theirs--and this is the Nobel Prize--well, I will not--anyway. Take more money and taxes and more out of the taxpayers' pockets, and that will be the answer to our problems.

I will be glad to hear the response of the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DURBIN. First, I wish to thank my colleague from Arizona. For those who are witnessing this, this is almost a debate in the Senate. It rarely happens. I thank the Senator for coming to the floor.

Mr. McCAIN. May I say that rather than having the Senator use all our time, I thought I would engage in a colloquy.

Mr. DURBIN. Well, I enjoy doing this and I thank the Senator.

Mr. McCAIN. Go ahead, please.

Mr. DURBIN. First, during the course of the Senator's Presidential campaign, Mark Zandi, his economist, helped him formulate some positions. His opinion of President Obama's stimulus is, it stopped a precipitous decline in our economy. Did it achieve all we had hoped for? No.

Mr. McCAIN. If I could interrupt on that particular point, Mr. Zandi was one of many advisers to my campaign. The key adviser was Douglas Holtz-Akin, who is, as you know, former head of the CBO--the Senator knows him well--who had no brief whatsoever for that proposal.

Please go ahead.

Mr. DURBIN. The second point I would like to ask the Senator from Arizona, I think one of the real bedrock beliefs among Republicans is that if we cut taxes, particularly on the wealthiest people in America, the economy will prosper. We hear that over and over.

Didn't we try that experiment under President George W. Bush? Didn't the debt of the United States double under the President and he left a shambles behind him, 2.3 million jobs lost in the first 3 months of President Obama's administration because of this failed economic policy which the Senator continues to espouse; that if we cut taxes on the rich, America is going to get wealthier. Haven't we tried it? Where are the jobs?

Mr. McCAIN. If I could take a little trip down memory lane with my friend from Illinois, whom I had the great privilege many years ago--I don't know if I should mention the 1982 election. He and I came to the House of Representatives together, and he might recall that one of his own, then a Democratic Congressman from Texas, got together with President Reagan and guess what we did. We cut taxes. Guess what. We had one of the strongest recoveries in recent history of this country because we didn't start spending and add spending without paying for them.

I would say to the Senator from Illinois, he is correct; the spending that went on in the previous administration was not acceptable and led to the deficit. But I would also say, speaking for myself, I voted against the Medicare Part D because it was not paid for. I voted against the earmark and porkbarrel spendings which were abundant as every appropriations bill came to the floor and dramatically increased spending in the worst way, wasteful and corrupt way, I will say. I am proud that at least some of us said: If we don't stop this spending and get it under control, then we are going to face a serious problem.

But I would also mention, and the Senator has seen the chart, it has gotten a lot worse--a lot worse--since the last election. You can't keep up B-I-O-B. You can't keep up Blame It On Bush.

Go ahead.

Mr. DURBIN. I would like to respond to my colleague from Arizona, through the Chair.

Does he recall what happened with the Reagan tax cuts? Because what happened was we tripled the national debt during that period of time, and President Reagan came to Congress 18 times to extend the debt ceiling. He holds the record.

So to argue the Reagan tax cuts led to great long-term prosperity is seriously in doubt, if we are going to use the deficit as a measure.

Mr. McCAIN. If I could say we believed and Reagan believed that cutting tax cuts would restore our economy, which was in the tank, thanks to the practice of the previous administration before him. Reagan presided over probably one of the greatest job-creation periods in the history of this country. Those are numbers that I would be glad to insert into the Record.

Compare that with what has happened since this administration took office, with the promise that if we passed ObamaCare, if we passed TARP, if we passed all these others, the economy would then be restored and grow.

Again, it is hard for my dear friend from Illinois to refute the fact that it was categorically stated that if we passed the stimulus package, unemployment would be at a maximum of 8 percent.

Unemployment today is 9.2 percent, and if we look at any indicator, whether it be housing starts, whether it be the deficit, whether it be unemployed, whatever it is, it has gotten worse since the stimulus package was passed rather than better.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator would yield for a question.

Mr. McCAIN. I would be glad to just hear the Senator's comment.

Mr. DURBIN. I am going to give the Senator a chance to speak again.

Does the Senator believe that defaulting on our national debt for the first time in our history, which has been the threat looming over us from the House Republicans and others for a long period, is good for America's economy?

One of his colleagues on the floor from the State of Pennsylvania has come in and said: Listen, defaulting on the debt is not that big a deal. It can be, in his words, ``easily managed.'' Does the Senator from Arizona agree with that thinking?

Mr. McCAIN. As the Senator may know, I came to the floor a couple days ago and made the comment that the Senator from Illinois and I are in agreement.

Point No. 1, we can prioritize--and every economist that I know literally would agree. We can prioritize for a while where we want what remaining money that is left. But the message we send to the world--not just our markets but to the world--that the United States of America is going to default on its debts is a totally unacceptable scenario and beneath a great nation. We are in agreement, No. 1.

Mr. DURBIN. Amen.

Mr. McCAIN. No. 2 is that to insist that any agreement is based on the passage through the Senate of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as I said before, is not fair to the American people because the terrible obstructionists on the Senator's side of the aisle, the terrible people, their flawed philosophical views about the future of America is not going to allow us to get 20 additional votes from the Senator's side, assuming you get all 47, since it required 67 votes to pass a balanced budget amendment because of the Constitution.

I think it was not only a wrong assessment; I think it is not fair to the American people to say we can pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution through the Senate at this time. Maybe after the Senator is defeated in the next election and we get rid of a lot of--maybe that will happen. But certainly let's not tell the American people that is a possibility because I think it raises their expectations in a way that is not fair to them and, frankly, detracts from what I think is being done as we speak between the leaders, the President, Democratic leaders and Republican leaders, which is in a very short timeframe.

Go ahead.

Mr. DURBIN. I would just say it pains me to say I agree with the Senator from Arizona, but I do.

We both feel threatening the debt ceiling is not in the best interests of the United States and both of us feel that holding out the threat that if we don't pass a constitutional amendment, we can't let the economy continue is not a good-faith bargain. I wish Senator Byrd were here to respond to that particular suggestion.

As for my prospects in the next election, I thank the Senator from Arizona for campaigning against me last time. When he did, I almost got 60 percent of the vote in Illinois. So I welcome the Senator back to the land of Lincoln anytime he would like to come.

Mr. McCAIN. I would love to come out. As I saw, I did so well in the Presidential campaign in the land of Lincoln, I am not surprised I had such a dramatic impact on the election of the Senator from Illinois as well.

Could I just say, I think this kind of discussion is important, No. 1.

No. 2 is, we should have this national debate on other forums besides just the Sunday show, and perhaps the floor of the Senate is the best place to do that. I wish to continue to engage with the Senator from Illinois, but I hope this agreement will assure the American people that we will meet our obligations, that we will meet our obligations not only physically but fiscally but also meet our obligations to them to govern--to govern--because they did send to us here to govern. I think the Senator from Illinois would agree with me.

The last approval rating of Congress I saw, both sides of the aisle, was about 16 percent; and I have yet to encounter anyone in that 16-percent category in my travels back to my State.

By the way, I would like to note the presence of the Budget Committee chairman, Senator Conrad, who I think has made enormous good-faith efforts to reach an agreement on some of these issues, and I thank him for his work. I wish to assure him his reward will be in heaven, not here on Earth.

Mr. DURBIN. I would also like to thank the Senator from Arizona for the few minutes we shared on the floor. I hope more Members would do this rather than just taking turns giving speeches. These exchanges, even when we disagree, are valuable.

But I agree completely with the Senator from Arizona. At the end of the day, we cannot allow our economy to lapse into this default. It would be devastating to a lot of innocent families and businesses across America and will cost us dearly in terms of our national debt. So let us hope we can find this bipartisan agreement that people are working on, even at this moment, and I hope we can do that soon.

Incidentally, I wanted to say for the Record former Senator Alan Simpson, whom I came to know even better on the Bowles-Simpson commission, said:

Ronald Reagan raised taxes 11 times in his administration. I was here. I was here. I knew him better than anybody in the room. He was a dear friend and a total realist as to politics.

Mr. McCAIN. Could I remind the Senator from Illinois that, in retrospect, the one thing President Reagan said he regretted--and he regretted it--was the agreement that was made with the Democratic leadership that we would cut spending by $3 and increase taxes by $1 for every cut in spending. That was the ironclad agreement. Guess what happened. We increased taxes. The fact is, we raised taxes and did not cut spending, and that was in direct violation of the commitment he got from the Democratic leadership.

I yield the floor.

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