Tuesday, January 24, 2012

U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
Floor Statement on the Budget

   Mr. ISAKSON. We are back. Tonight, I understand, the Presiding Officer and I will be sitting together at the State of the Union event, which I am pleased to do. It is always a historic and seminal moment in our legislative process when the President of the United States talks about and lays out his plans for the future.
   From watching this morning on television and from reading some of the accounts of what is thought will be said tonight--I don't know what is going to be said yet--one of the overriding themes is going to be that of fairness. I think that is an important point for us to focus on in a second, particularly with regard to our spending, our debt, and our deficit, about what is fair to the American people.
   Last night--and I brought some notes--I did a telephone townhall meeting back to Georgia. We had thousands of people listening in on the call. I was able to take 17 questions in the course of an hour and one of the questions was from Fred in Barnesville, GA. Fred is a small businessperson. He asked this question: Senator, you were a small businessman; I am a small businessman. We had to operate within a budget. Why is it the U.S. Government doesn't have a budget? I think today is the 1,000th day we have been operating without a budget.
   That was a fair question. So if we want to talk about fairness for a minute, my contribution to fairness is going to be: What is fair to the American people, the American businessman, the American employer, the American employee? Let's think about it for a second.
   A budget is a guide by which we try to live under. It is an appropriation of our priorities for the future based on what we think we will need to accomplish our goals. But if we are without a budget, then we have the tendency to do what America has done over the last 3 years; that is, exponentially increase its debt and its deficit. What that has done is put a pall on the recovery and a pall on the economy.
   I would suggest the fairest thing we can do in the Congress and the fairest thing the administration can do is to see to it that we have a budget submitted, that it come to the floor of the House and Senate, that it be adopted, and then, more important, that we change our pace around here and live within that budget.
   I have some suggestions as to how we do that, but first and foremost I urge the White House to submit a budget this year. I understand, from this morning's announcements, it will be delayed until February 13. That is fine with me. But the quicker we get it to us, the better we are. Then, let the Budget Committees of the House and Senate act, and let us end up with a framework--not just for 1 year but, as the Presiding Officer knows, for 10 years--because we forecast out those budgets and those complications of those budgets for 10 years.
   But we have a broken system. We also have a broken will to do what is most important for the American people when it comes to spending their money. I wish to suggest how we change our habits and become a fairer legislative body and a fairer governing body for the American people.
   Senator Jeanne Shaheen and I introduced a bill 1 year ago called the biennial budget. It amends the Budget Control Act of the United States of America and changes the way we do business. It portends that, in the future, instead of appropriating and budgeting for 1 year, we will do it in 2-year cycles, and we will always do our appropriating and our budgeting in the odd-numbered years so, in the even-numbered year of reelection, we are doing oversight and fiscal responsibility.
   I think everybody in this room will admit we make an effort at oversight, to a certain extent, but practically speaking not near the oversight the American people have to do.
   It is ironic that our country, our people, our families, our retirees, our business folks, our employees the last 4 years of the recession have sat around their kitchen table lots of times. They reprioritized what they could afford and what they couldn't. They reallocated their resources to take care of their family and their children and they have been frugal and they have been conservative because they have to. They can't deficit spend. They can't borrow themselves into oblivion. They can't print the money and they can't write the checks. Don't you think the government of the people who are having to do that ought to have to at least live under the same set of circumstances?
   We need for this room to become a big kitchen table, big enough for 100 people of good will to sit down together. We need a White House that will submit a budget we can then argue about and set the priorities of this country and try and put a governor on what we are spending, try and put some type of accountability for where we are going, try and forecast into the future what it is the American people can expect of all of us.
   So when tonight the President talks about fairness, I hope one of his quotes will be: It is only fair to expect me, the President, to submit a budget to the Congress, and it is only fair for me, the President, to expect the Congress to act on that budget--because, after all, everything else flows from that. In the absence of budget responsibility, budget restrictions, budget projections, and a calculus for the future, we are spending without any governor or guide. It is akin to trying to drive from here to Alaska without a roadmap. I couldn't get there. I would probably have a wreck. I would probably run off the road because we don't know where we are going and we don't know how we are getting there.
   Unfortunately, of all the institutions in America, there is only one that doesn't know where it is going and how it is getting there, and that happens to be the government of the United States of America.
   So my message, this day of the State of the Union and this statement of fairness, let's be fair to the American people. Let's ask of ourselves what they are having to ask
   of themselves because of high deficits and high debt. Those living on fixed incomes are seeing interest rates of 0.25 percent--almost negligible. Markets have been flat in terms of investment. Real estate values are down 33 percent nationwide. I saw last night in Tampa, where the Presidential debate was, it is 52 percent. The worst it got post-1929 was 31 percent.
   We have the most significant, serious financial crisis in the history of the United States of America, and it is impacting our families and our people.
   So let's ask of ourselves, let's ask of our President what every American family has had to ask of itself--sit around our kitchen table and budget and prioritize. I would submit Senator Shaheen and I have a roadmap that works for process. It says do it in 2-year cycles, so we are committed to spending in 1 year and we are committed to savings, efficiency, accountability, and repealing out-of-date programs the other year.
   Wouldn't it be a great change in the body of politics for you and for I to be campaigning in even-numbered years, talking about what we are looking to save and cut, rather than what we are going to do to bring home the bacon?
   I think the day of bacon coming home reckoning is here, and it is time for the next bacon to be brought home to be a sound budget and fiscal policy for the people of the United States of America.