• Home
• About Amy
• Serving Minnesotans
• About Minnesota
• Issues/ Legislation
• Media Center
• Contact Amy
• FAQ

News Releases

Klobuchar: We Must Act Now to Confront Nation's Budget Deficit

January 22, 2010

Washington, DC – In a speech on the Senate floor today, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar urged her Senate colleagues to pass legislation aimed at addressing the nation’s long-term budget crisis. The Senate is currently debating the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act of 2010 which would establish a bipartisan commission of members of Congress and Administration officials who would make recommendations for substantial improvements to the government’s long-term fiscal imbalances.  Klobuchar, an original cosponsor of this legislation, joined a group of fourteen senators leading the efforts to advance this initiative in meeting with Vice President Joe Biden and other Administration officials on Thursday to push for their support of the commission.

“I believe it is time to change the way Washington works when it comes to our long-term fiscal outlook,” said Klobuchar in her speech.  “This legislation provides a path to restoring our financial stability by creating a bipartisan commission to reduce our spending.”

The bill establishes an 18-member commission comprised of ten majority party members and eight minority party members.  The commission would have bipartisan co-chairs.  It would consist primarily of currently serving members of Congress selected by Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders.  This means that the commission members would be directly accountable to the American people, and bipartisan leadership at the highest levels of the government would be responsible for the panel’s outcome.

The commission would review all aspects of the current and long-term financial conditions of the federal government.  Upon approval by the commission, recommendations would be submitted to the Congress after the 2010 elections and would be considered by Congress through an expedited process.

Importantly, the commission would take action on a bipartisan basis.  Broad bipartisan agreement would be required to move anything forward.  Fourteen of the 18 task force members would have to agree to report the recommendations.  The recommendations would be submitted to the Senate for an up-or-down vote.

Full text of Senator Klobuchar’s floor speech:

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of Amendment #3302, the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action offered by my colleague, Senator Conrad, and Senator Gregg.  I have been an early sponsor of this bill from the beginning, from when I first came to the Senate, and I want to thank them for their leadership on this issue.

Mr. President, under the previous administration, we saw the debt of the United States double. They were basically handed -- they were handed a budget surplus, and they turned it into an enormous budget deficit. Over the next eight years, sadly, with no work, if we do nothing, it is projected to double again. Long-term projections vary, but it is clear that this course is not the course that we want to take. Despite years of talk from both parties, little progress has been made, which is why I believe that to ensure the nation's future economic security, we need to establish a budget commission dedicated to examining this problem in detail and come up with recommendations to address the long-term fiscal challenges of this country.

I don't want just to have, Mr. President, a study that sits on a shelf. The American people deserve better than that. That's why I believe it is very important to have the statutory commission, with an up-and-down vote on the recommendations of the commission. It has worked before for Social Security, and I believe that it will work here. I really appreciate the administration's work on this. The proposal they have made to have a presidential appointed commission, that obviously is a viable alternative, but I think the better alternative is this one.

Mr. President, we can no longer afford to hide our heads in the sand hoping that the fiscal outlook will correct itself. We need to make changes and we need to act now in order to keep our debt from spiraling permanently out of control. Difficult fiscal decisions have been put off for too long. We need to make tough decisions now because we're spending too much and the path that we are on is unsustainable. This, of course, was made more difficult by the economic crisis that we faced last fall. On a bipartisan basis, we had to do something to make sure we shored up the credit markets, to make sure we ensured financial stability for our country. We had to invest in America, invest in jobs with targeted investment.

But now, Mr. President, we cannot keep going on this course that we're on.  Gross debt is likely to exceed 100% of GDP within the next few years, nearing levels not seen since the end of World War II.  Each citizen's share of today's debt is more than $38,000.  The prior administration, as I noted, ran up the federal debt to the point where today we are forced to spend over 8% of our budget simply to pay interest on the federal debt. In 2008, American taxpayers paid more than 50 billion dollars to our creditors in interest payments alone. That's money we're sending to other countries instead of spending it here in the United States. The more we spend to service our debts, the less we have for infrastructure investments, health care, energy, innovation, and other priorities that are so important to the American people. The threat that our debt poses to the economic security of the United States cannot be ignored. As this economic crisis has shown, credit can dry up overnight. With almost 70% of our debt financed by foreign countries and investors, our government literally can’t pay its bills without the help of China, our biggest creditor.

If faith in the American economy was to falter and foreign countries stopped extending credit, we would be faced with a host of bad choices. Even without crisis, many of these programs will be on the path to insolvency, and economic growth cannot make up the difference. These are issues that must be addressed. That is why it is so important that we step back and look at the long term: focus on this debt, at the same time knowing that we have to have a safety net for the people of this country. We looked at the health care bill. We'll see what we come up with now as we look at changes to that bill. The Senate bill actually saved $130 billion on the deficit in the first ten years, $1.3 trillion over the next ten years. That clearly has to be a piece of this reform as we look at the cost to the American people, how we can deliver health care more efficiently.

I believe it is time to change the way Washington works when it comes to our long-term fiscal outlook. It is not about being a Democrat, Mr. President. It's not about being a Republican, not about being an Independent. It's about guaranteeing that we get something done for the people of this country. This bipartisan fiscal task force provides a path to restoring our financial stability by creating a bipartisan commission to study our spending and make recommendations to effectively reduce that spending.

Now, when I first heard about this idea, I was at one of our bipartisan breakfasts. I just arrived in Washington. I thought why would you need a commission to do this?  Why can't the people in this body just do this?  I have realized a few things over the years. One, we haven't seen that kind of improvement. Two, we haven't been able to get the kind of bipartisan work going that I have seen.  Three, we have this idea of a commission that's worked in the past. So after being here for about a year, I decided, you know what?  This is not a bad idea. You can have experts work on this. You can come up with some ideas on a bipartisan basis for reducing spending, for bringing down our deficit, for bringing down the debt, and I’ve decided that this is the way to go because right now there is no movement on this at all in this body or in the House.

Now, this is how this task force would work. First, it would be compromised of 18 members from both political parties, 10 democrats and 8 republicans. 14 of the 10 task force members would have to report the recommendations to ensure the recommendations the task force makes to Congress have bipartisan support. In order to fast track the process, there is a set time frame under which the task force would make recommendations and a set time frame for ensuring that Congress would give them an up-or-down vote. This task force would not be used to force legislation through Congress. It would just force Congress to come to the table and make a decision.

Now, let me address one final point. Some are arguing that projections for the near term look so bleak that any talk of deficit and debt reduction should be sidelined. I disagree.  When times are good, it becomes much harder to tighten the purse strings. This crisis has brought the issue of the deficit to the forefront. The people of this country want it. They know that they have to watch their own checkbook. They know that they have to balance their own checkbook. They want to see Washington working on this. They understand we are in an economic crisis. They didn't cause this crisis. People on Wall Street making bad decisions, people in government allowing some things like subprime mortgages to go through are a lot of people that can be blamed for this. They understand that we not only have to work on this short-term issue of investment in our country and transportation, and that we had to do something to shore up the financial crisis so that our whole financial system wouldn't go down the tube. It's hard swallow. When people think about it, they get that.

But they also want to know the people that represent them are working on this debt for the long term: that we have a plan, that we're doing something to chisel away at this deficit, to bring it down. That's what they expect from us. They don't want to send all this money to China in interest. They want to be spending in the United States of America on roads and bridges, on their kids, on their families, and on their kids' educations. That's where they want to be spending this money, not on interest over in China. So, Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote for this bill. I understand it will be most likely coming up next week, I think it is. A very important effort going forward.

I commend the white house for the economic work they have done. There is a group of us that have been working on this bill and trying to get this through. I think it is very important not just for this year, but for the year to come. It is time to look past the next election, Mr. President, to the next generation.

Thank you.


###