The Fiscal Cliff | Spending

Sunday October 13, 2013 | Congressional Record Excerpts

Page:

S7440

The Budget Control Act allowed substantial

growth in spending. Instead of

growing $10 trillion over the next 10

years, we would have reduced the

growth of the budget to $8 trillion. It is

not really a cut over the 10-year period.

The President submitted a budget in

February of 2012, 6 months later, that

would spend $1 trillion over those cuts.

The Democratic budget that just

passed this year—the first time in 4

years—would have increased spending

by $1 trillion over those cuts. I am a

little bit uneasy because I think there

is an effort, and there will be an effort,

which is unacceptable, to deal with

those cuts—or to break the caps that

limit the growth of spending, which is

the right way to say it. Of course, there

are some cuts we need to make.

S7441

President Obama took office and rammed

through, with unanimous Democratic

support, a stimulus bill that added $1

trillion to the debt of the United

States—the biggest single spending bill

ever, and every penny of that borrowed

because we didn’t have any money. We

were already in debt. So we borrowed

$1 trillion to spend.

So for 5 consecutive years we will

have averaged over $1 trillion in deficits

per year. We have never been over

$500 billion a year before that, and $1

trillion is $1,000 billion. So President

Obama’s average in 5 years is unprecedented.

It is stunning. We have never,

ever seen such a debt accumulation in

such a rapid period of time. I think we

need to understand that. Our colleagues

continue to defend it and still

want to spend more, and their budget

would spend $1 trillion more that they

voted on and passed in this Congress.

They use the word ‘‘extreme’’ for

anybody who wants to reduce spending

and try to attack people who want to

reduce spending.

By what definition can we call what

we have been seeing for the last 5 years

a success? It is just not. That is the

problem. We have taxed more, we have

spent more, we have regulated more,

we have borrowed more, we have stimulated

more, and it hasn’t produced

solid growth. We have had the slowest

recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.

So this is the plan. Reduce wages

that results in an increase in unemployment,

more part-time jobs, more

regulations, and higher energy costs.

And we make that up how? Well, the

government will just borrow money

and subsidize people in need.

Senator Sessions State of Alabama