Friday, April 8, 2011

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on Biennial Budgeting
Remarks as Delivered on the Senate Floor

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, before the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire leaves the floor, I want to commend her on a number of things, but most important is her hard work with me and many others on the biennial budget bill, which we hope will come to the floor in the future.

I want to comment, because this potential shutdown, which I hope doesn't happen--we have been speculating or asking the agencies to speculate on what this means. If you read yesterday's Washington Post, you saw that the only agency of the government that will work seamlessly through a shutdown, without any shortcoming or deficiencies, is veterans health care. That is because we biennially appropriate for that. The one thing that will be open during the shutdown is the one thing we do in the 2-year process rather than a hit-or-miss process like the current appropriations act.

So the distinguished Senator, who was Governor of her State that has a biennial appropriations process and has worked with it, knows what I know. If you can plan and make things predictable, you will save money and improve the quality of your service. I hope we can get this country to a position where we do biennially appropriate and can spend 1 of every 2 years doing oversight and find waste and find ways to do things better and less expensively.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. Will my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. ISAKSON. Yes.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. I appreciate the Senator's kind remarks. Doesn't the Senator think if we had that biennial budget process in place now, we would not be on the floor debating whether we are going to have a shutdown, and that we would have a budget process that was going forward? As he points out, we have next year to provide oversight and accountability on that budget, and we would have the dependability and certainty that businesses and the people of this country are looking for; isn't that right?

Mr. ISAKSON. There is no question that the Senator is correct. We are predictably unpredictable here. We need to be predictably predictable when it comes to the efficiencies we can bring about and how we spend our money. We need to do what people do, which is sit around their kitchen tables and prioritize what comes in and what goes out. And they balance their budgets. They have to. It is about time we have the same discipline the American people have.

I thank the distinguished Senator.

Mrs. SHAHEEN. I thank the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, in the South we have an old saying: If you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.

We are at that point. We accomplished some amazing things in the last 3, 4 weeks. I commend the House on the cuts that have taken place, but we ought to remember we are focusing on the minnow, when the big fish is on the horizon. There is only so much we can cut when 50 percent of a fiscal year is gone. People are talking about how little we are cutting out of small areas. That is because it is all there is to cut from. The cuts have demonstrated that we can begin to get our house in order. The big enchilada is coming up with the big 2012 budget.

I did a little research on what we have done in the last 3, 4 years. In the last 3 years, we spent all our money on omnibus appropriations, except one Defense appropriations act. In doing the research, we spent on average 4 days of debate on those three bills. We have had the small business bill on the floor for 12 days, and we haven't finished it yet. We spent 12 days on the small business reform bill, and we only spent an average of 4 days on spending over $10 trillion. It is time that we got the current agreement--and I understand there is one--on how much we cut done. If we have differences on policy, we can reserve them for debates on the 2012 appropriations act.

Let's get moving. Everybody here knows we have two big votes on the horizon. One is the pending debt ceiling vote at some time in May or June, and the other is the fiscal year 2012 appropriations. We will not get a second chance on those. The world markets are not going to give us another year to spend our money in a helter-skelter manner. We have the ability and the brain power, and we need the commitment in this body to spend money like the American people have to spend theirs. That is all they ask of us. We don't need to be extravagant, frivolous, and wasteful.

Another thing on the current, pending, looming possible shutdown is that it is absolutely crazy, when we have committed our sons and daughters to harm's way--right now, they are in three countries: Libya by the Air Force, Iraq, and Afghanistan. To put them in a position of accruing their income because we have shut down the government is just not right. It is not the right thing to do. We ought to debate these matters on the Senate floor with the government functioning.

I hope all of my colleagues will recognize that we are about to take defeat from the jaws of victory. We have won the battle on the short term with the cuts we needed. Let's get this short-term cut done, let's get the CR done, and then let's get to the kitchen table of the American people and get it done for fiscal year 2012 and the years ahead. We have to find out how to pay back over time $14 trillion. That is going to take a lot of commitment, work, and time. Let's get to it. Let's get the CR done. Let's come back next week and finish dotting the i's and crossing the t's and commit ourselves that the rest of the year is about America's future, it is about our children and grandchildren; it is about beginning to rein in expenses and spend our money accountably and predictably so the American people can expect of us what we always demand of them.

I yield the floor.