The Debt Ceiling

Floor Speech

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Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I try to listen very carefully to folks at home. I would not quarrel with my friend from Alabama in saying that it is very clear to me--and it has been clear to me for a long time--that Missourians are very worried about spending in the Federal Government. In fact, my friend from Alabama and I started work on this before, if one can say--we were trying to cut spending before cutting spending was cool. He and I were working this floor for votes to try to do something about spending long before last November's election.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?

Mrs. McCASKILL. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Senator for recalling that event. I know the Senator continued working across the aisle on another proposal that has the potential to be more effective than even the one we worked on together last year. So I thank the Senator for being willing to work in a way that could be effective to do better.

Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Alabama. There is nothing wrong with walking across the aisle and finding common ground. Frankly, it is what I thought would be common when I came to the Senate. It is kind of what I learned in the history books; that it would be common.

I have been watching what is developing, knowing my folks at home want us to cut spending. I certainly have been part of wanting to cut spending. I have watched this debt ceiling approach. It is like watching a movie and watching a car driving along, and you are in a camera above it and you see what is ahead, and you see this cliff and you see this car driving toward this cliff, and you are thinking, as you start tensing--Oh, surely, you are not going to go over the cliff.

Well, they have an opportunity to avoid going over the cliff. They are not going to go over the cliff. We are not going to see these people die. They are not going to drive over that cliff. They are not going to knowingly drive over a cliff. I have been thinking for the last several weeks: There is no way people who are elected--because they love their country--are going to let the car go over the cliff. I have to tell my colleagues, I am worried.

What do we have to do to keep from going over the cliff? Make no mistake about it. It is a cliff. It is a historic moment for our country. Never before in the history of our country have the world markets been worried about whether the United States of America will pay its bills. Never has that happened before in our history. So what does it take?

Well, it is not complicated what it takes. It takes one basic ingredient: compromise. To keep from going over the cliff, all we have to do is compromise.

I will tell my colleagues, reading my mail and listening to phone calls that have come in on the answering machine--and I am going to take phone calls myself over the weekend--what Missourians are now saying: Please don't go over the cliff. Please compromise. I am confident that is what most Missourians want.

Compromises have already occurred--big compromises. Most of us on this side of the aisle believe the way we get at our long-term debt structure is a responsible approach that includes some revenues. I advocate cleaning out the goodies in the Tax Code so we can lower tax rates. I don't understand how we can vote to gut the Medicare Program and at the same time vote to continue writing checks to Big Oil. I cannot conceive how a Member votes that way. I cannot imagine I would vote to keep writing a taxpayer check to the most wealthy and profitable corporations in the history of the world at the same time I was voting to put Medicare on a voucher program. That would be saying to seniors, if they are 83 and they have three chronic illnesses, and they run out of Medicare coverage, they are on their own. I can't imagine doing that.

But we compromised. We compromised and said: OK, we will set revenues aside, for now. You will not vote for revenues, Republican Party. Members of the House in the Republican Party, you will not vote for revenues.

So we took revenues off the table. By the way, some people in my party were not happy with that. I got those phone calls: Why did you capitulate? Why did you give in? We gave in because we care about our country, and we don't want to go over the cliff. That is why we gave in. So we gave in on revenues.

The Republicans wanted us to cut spending by more than we raised the debt ceiling. It is a political thing we need to do, not required by the economics, but we have done that. So now we put revenues aside--compromise. We have said we are going to cut spending by more than the rise in the debt ceiling.

Now the only thing we have not compromised on, the only thing--which I think is, really, when we think about it--I didn't think, frankly, this may have been as big of a deal until I stand here today--is to do this again in 6 months, to leave this loaded gun on the table. We are going to leave this loaded gun on the table for our economy?

People can talk to small businesses right now and learn they are scared about what is going to happen next week. Will they be able to borrow money? Will people be able to afford to borrow money to buy cars? Will they be able to afford to borrow money to buy homes?

We talk about the economy going in a tailspin, and we want to keep that loaded gun on the table for another 6 months? There is no way we can provide the certainty in this kind of economic climate if we leave the loaded gun on the table.

So the only thing we have not agreed to that is in the Boehner plan--well, it depends on which plan it is. They keep changing it to try to get enough votes. I don't know what it is today. But the only thing we are not going to budge on is saying to this country and our business community and our job creators: We are going to kill job creation for sure for the next 6 months by telling you we want to repeat this ridiculous exercise in 6 months. We are not going to do that.

The irony is, the people who want us to do that are the people who have been preaching certainty: We have to have certainty. By the way, let's do this again in 6 months. We have to have certainty. It is important we do this again in 6 months.

I know the leader is working on trying to get a compromise today, and I am confident that before the day is over there will be some kind of compromise that will be before this body that we will have a chance to vote on.

I will tell my colleagues this: People will never hear me brag about refusing to compromise. Some of my colleagues from Missouri who serve in the House of Representatives are willing right now to brag about refusing to compromise. They are willing to say it is a good thing to go off the cliff. I will never brag about refusing to compromise because I don't think that is what we do here. When we look back in history, America's brightest moments usually happened around the table of compromise. The most difficult questions this country has wrestled with through the years, we have forged a way forward through compromise, and that is what we needed to. That is what we need tomorrow. That is what we need as we approach the edge of the cliff.

So my last message I will leave with my colleagues across the aisle is this: We have shown our willingness to compromise. Please show us yours. Please show us yours and allow us to vote. Allow us to vote on the compromise. If my colleagues don't want to vote for the compromise, then don't vote for it. But allow us a chance to vote for it. Is that too much to ask, just to allow us an opportunity to move to a vote, to avoid this country having a permanently diminished status in the world? I don't think that is too much to ask.

So let us vote, and if my colleagues can't compromise on the substance of the compromises that will be put forward, at least allow our voices to be heard by allowing a vote.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be equally divided.

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