In the news lately, you may be hearing about what economists have been calling the coming “Fiscal Cliff.” Unless Congress acts, on January 1, 2013, every American will experience a perfect storm of unprecedented tax increases and significant cuts to spending across the board, on everything from defense to Medicare. Most of the pain will be felt on the revenue side of the ledger, with a whopping $500 billion in tax increases in just one year alone. Tax rates in every bracket will increase, and some credits and deductions, like the child tax credit and student loan interest deduction, will be significantly reduced or eliminated. Spending would only be reduced by $150 billion in comparison.
This week, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the economic impact of doing nothing to address this massive tax increase will be significant. In fact, if Congress fails to act before January 1, they estimate the American economy would actually shrink by 1.3% in the first half of 2013. This means that we would throw our economy back into recession just by poor budget policy alone. Knowing this, it is unacceptable that we are kicking the can until after the election.
In this time of economic difficulty, raising taxes on American families and job creators is not an option if we want to put people back to work and put our nation back on the track to fiscal sanity. One step in the right direction would be to enact a fiscally responsible budget for the federal government, but Senate Democrats have not passed a budget in over 3 years. Also, last week, I joined other Senators in sending a letter to Majority Leader Reid urging him to allow the Senate to act quickly to prevent our economy from reaching the “fiscal cliff.” His response was less than encouraging, but I remain convinced that unless action is taken soon we could do serious damage to our economy and the American people that could have devastating, long-term effects.
Today, the Senate passed the FDA user fee bill (S. 3187), and I was happy that it included provisions that enhance oversight at the FDA so that life-saving drugs and medical devices may reach the patients who need them as quickly as possible. Recent GAO reports have indicated that there is an opportunity to improve FDA’s accountability for meeting user fee performance goals so that Americans have access to the latest, most-effective medical breakthroughs.
The FDA user fee bill included an amendment that I co-sponsored along with Senator Tom Coburn to require FDA to conduct an independent management review of all of its drug review and approval processes. This provision was included in the PATIENTS’ FDA Act, legislation I introduced earlier this year with Dr. Coburn. This amendment would provide for an outside, independent entity to assess the drug review and approval processes at FDA to increase efficiency and timeliness of drug reviews at the agency. Just last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report stating that not all FDA employees were evaluated on their role in meeting negotiated user fee performance goals to ensure timeliness in the medical product review process. We owe it to patients to ensure that FDA’s pathways and processes allow for the latest safe and effective breakthrough therapies to reach patients as soon as possible, and this amendment will inform FDA and Congress about how to improve efficiency in the entire drug review and approval process.
In addition to this amendment, I am pleased that language I authored with Sen. Bennet was included in the bill earlier this week that seeks to establish a framework for a uniform, national traceability system to help ensure the integrity and security of the pharmaceutical drug supply chain. To read more about that amendment, click here.
In case you missed it this morning, be sure to listen to my interview with Jerri Jameson here.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jerri Jameson: Good morning, Senator. How are you today?
Sen. Burr: Good morning, Jerri. Greetings from our nation’s capital.
Jameson: I hope it’s looking better there than it is here.
Burr: Well, the weather’s looking fine.
Jameson: I wasn’t really talking the weather.
Burr: From the standpoint of actually getting something done, you’ve probably got a better chance to do it in Asheville or anywhere else in the world than you do right here.
Jameson: Well the General Assembly is back in session, so I was kind of trying to compare Washington to Raleigh at this point. But let’s get right back to Washington, because it’s got to be pretty frustrating with the Senate voting, actually surprisingly, unanimously yesterday against the President’s budget proposal. A couple of votes on Republican alternatives, also none of those passing. I guess to start, Senator, I can’t really even recall when was the last time the Senate passed a budget. Do you?
Burr: It’s been about 1100 and some days now since a budget was passed. You know, this is like a business being run without some type of roadmap as to where they’re going to go on sales or costs. They’d be bankrupt, and I think that’s the destiny of the United States if, in fact, the Congress doesn’t live up to its constitutional responsibility that it produce a budget every year.
Jameson: Well, I mean, how can we expect to really get the economy moving in the right direction at a pace that we need it to move when we can’t get a budget passed, when we don’t know where we’re at?
Burr: Well, I think it’s highly unlikely and I think it’s why the opinion of members of Congress and the institution as a whole is at the lowest point ever in the period that it’s been really checked. The reality is that we’ve still got 8.1% of the American people that are unemployed, probably more like 18%. We’ve got the smallest work force since we’ve recorded that number. That’s the least amount of people working in America. So even though we’ve seen unemployment numbers go down, we’ve seen the work force reduced, which means there’s more people out there who could work but have just chosen not to pursue it. This is an alarming number.
Jameson: Yeah, it absolutely is. I want to talk though, just for a minute, specifically, a little bit more about the budget. 99-0 unanimously against the President’s budget in a Democrat-led Senate. What are the sticking points? What was the opposition to specifically?
Burr: The budget was totally unreasonable. It didn’t balance. It had a $1 trillion deficit every year for 10 years. It increased the debt of this country to a level that would be unsustainable halfway through it. I think it’s just irresponsible that any Administration, regardless of what the party affiliation was, would produce a blueprint like that for America. In this particular case, 53 Democrats, they’re still in the majority, chose not to support their President’s budget.
Jameson: Right. Well in a related kind of topic, the automatic discretionary spending cuts that were instituted by last year’s debt ceiling agreement, those are supposed to start going into effect. But the House last week passed a bill to cancel it. Senate Leader Harry Reid’s indicated the Senate will likely not take it up. The President, of course, has threatened a veto on it. What needs to be done with this?
Burr: Well, Jerri, we need to cut spending, and part of the Budget Control Act was, and it did it automatically, was to reduce the growth of spending by $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The first of that is to begin with January 2013. What the vote House did was it assigned committees the responsibility to go in and identify where those cuts are made versus just for across the board cuts. I think that many of us believe, and our military leaders have said, if these are applied to us, we won’t be able to fulfill our mission. So we’d like to look at areas that we can reform, areas where we can eliminate duplications, areas where we can reduce the size and cost of the federal government, versus the size and the cost of our military at a time that, quite honestly, we’ve got more conflicts, potential conflicts, in the world than we’ve ever had at one time. The reality is that in the House they determined that the committees were the best place to identify those savings. What Harry Reid has said is that the Senate doesn’t want to participate in that. We’d rather go through the election with this being a debated point, and whatever changes, if any, we make, we’d like to make in the lame duck session. Well let me just remind you of something that you know and your listeners know. The same amount of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the same every year. The reality is the lame duck session is not going to be 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 months long this year. It’s going to be the period in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There’s only so much we can do in that period of time. Every tax policy that we have on the books today expires at the end of December. If the Congress doesn’t act, there’s going to be a massive tax increase on the American people. We’ve got the sequestration of $1.2 trillion. That happens if we don’t act before December 31. There are a number of things that have to happen before the end of this year, or quite honestly, the inaction of Congress could be the thing that send the U.S. economy back into recession.
Jameson: Speaking of action or inaction by Congress, the student loan interest rates going up July 1 from 3.4% to 6.8%. You voted against basically allowing the debate to continue on that. Where are we at with that? What’s going on with this?
Burr: A dispute over whether it’s going to be paid for or not.
Jameson: Right.
Burr: You know, we’re sitting here talking about budgets and the lack of one. We’re sitting here talking about sequestration and taking $1.2 trillion out of spending over 10 years. Here we’re making a concession to a program that I fully agree with. As a matter of fact, I never thought that it should go up to 6.8%. It was the President’s budget that had the number of 6.8% interest. So he produces a budget that says we’re going to charge 6.8%, and here’s how much money we’re going to make off of it, and then he turns around and says this shouldn’t be raised. That shows the inconsistency of the budget that he produced just 2 months ago. The reality is that it should be at 3.4%, it should be paid for, the difference between that and the 6.8%, and at some point between now and the time that expires, it will be renewed. We will come up with savings for it, and the political game that we’ve seen going for the past 45 days will sort of drift into the sunset.
Jameson: Alright, Senator. We have about a minute and a half left. President Obama last week, of course, coming out in support of same sex marriage. Some are saying that’s hurting him here in North Carolina and that what went blue for the presidency in 2008 is going to go back red. I know you thought it was going to go red anyway, but do you think that that stance is hurting him?
Burr: Well I think the President’s position has hurt himself in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, probably in Michigan, Iowa, maybe Missouri. I think this is inconsistent with what people in those states certainly believe should be the definition of marriage. That’s not to say that any state couldn’t have other accommodations for couples. But I think we’re already beginning to see it in the numbers. This week, a poll in North Carolina – Romney 51%, the President 43%. 18% of the Democrats in North Carolina have already said I’m not going to support the President for reelection. It’s trends like that that can be devastating to a candidate and to a campaign. I think what we’re going to see is we’re going to see more of that as we get up to what has been up to this point been described as the battleground states. You might recognize that all the states I mentioned, with the exception of Michigan, are considered battleground states in this presidential election. So I would expect this White House to re-tool their theme for what they’re going to run on in the fall. I’m not sure today what that’s going to be, but I don’t think it’s going to be on same-sex marriage, I don’t think it’s going to be on class warfare, it can’t be on national defense. All of sudden they’re whittling down to a very small basket of items they might run on, and I think the American people have expressed what their concern is. It’s about the economy and jobs.
Jameson: Alright, Senator. In closing, do you have anything to say?
Burr: Well, Jerri, I’d only say this. This weekend the G8 will meet in Washington, they’ll move onto a NATO meeting in Chicago. The world is to some degree in crisis right now, not only from a standpoint of threats but also the economic crisis in Europe. We’ve lived most of our life not believing that what happens somewhere else in the world affects us. We learned in 2007 that when we had a financial crisis the rest of the world felt it. If Europe does go into as deep of a crisis as they seem to be headed for, we’re going to feel it here at home. It’s going to affect our economy, it’s going to affect employment. It’s time we get the policies in place that lift our economy up, but also help to lift the rest of the world up. And that’s not a loan or a bailout of them. It’s making sure that we re-start this global economy in a way that first and foremost Americans go back to work.
Jameson: Well how does what happened at J.P. Morgan Chase relate to what you’re saying here? Are more banking regulations necessary? Or was that a fluke?
Burr: Well I think it was a fluke and I think if you dig down deep, what they did, everybody does. They made a bad bet. In our free market system, when you make a bad bet, you pay. It’s shareholders that are going to pay for it at J.P. Morgan, one of the best-run banks that are out there with one of the most dynamic and smart leaders that exists in the industry. The reaction from Washington was let’s tighten down on regulations. Let’s make it tougher if not impossible for these to happen. Pretty soon, banks aren’t going to have enough revenue streams to actually stay in business. The concern is, with a tight lending policy today, what happens when we don’t have lenders out there? Are we going to borrow it from the federal government? I don’t think so because we don’t have the money.
Jameson: I was going to say where’s the federal government going to get it?
Burr: And pretty soon, to quote my good friend Senator Coburn from Oklahoma, pretty soon the rest of the world’s going to realize, they’re not going to lend us the money.
Jameson: Major concern. Alright, Senator Burr. Thank you as usual for being our guest. We look forward to the next time.
Burr: Jerri, look forward to it. Thanks. Have a great day.
[read more]Marines, sailors, and their families who lived and worked at Camp Lejeune from the 1950s to 1980s were exposed to known human carcinogens TCE, Benzene, and Vinyl Chloride in their tap water. Tragically, a significant portion of the people living on base during these years suffered severe health consequences, and many have lost their lives. There is sufficient scientific evidence to associate the water contamination at Camp Lejeune to illness, and it is time for the Department of Defense (DoD) to adequately address this issue and care for those who are suffering as a result.
In a report released on May 2, 2012, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) called on DoD to develop procedures that will enable them to better identify and address potential health risks from past toxic exposures. For one, they recommended that DoD create a policy that outlines instances when it is appropriate to request a new health assessment. As was the case with the exposure at Camp Lejeune, installations often may not become aware of past exposures until long after the initial health assessment took place, and the DoD must have clear guidance as to when they should request an additional health assessment. In addition, DoD should establish concrete guidelines for determining what actions they should take to identify and address any adverse health effects from past exposures at military bases.
I am disappointed that DoD has publicly dismissed GAO's advice, which would yield enhanced care for our nation's military. Whether they are willing to admit it or not, DoD has a responsibility to care for the victims of water contamination at Camp Lejeune, and they must revise their policies to provide that care. Our military and their families have sacrificed so much for our country already, and they should not be forced to suffer more due to DoD's unwillingness to change what clearly is not working.
You may read the GAO report here: http://bit.ly/KitMo2
[read more]Yesterday marked the three year anniversary since the Democrat-controlled Senate last passed a budget, despite the fact that the House has done its duty and sent budgets to the Senate for consideration. This is simply inexcusable.
American families understand what needs to be done; they are making sacrifices in order to make ends meet amidst a weakened economy, yet the federal government refuses to lead by example. It is imperative that we rein in spending, eliminate duplicative and wasteful functions of government, and pass a budget in order to restore our economy and reduce our massive federal deficit. The government has accumulated $4.5 trillion in new debt since the Senate last passed a budget, and this will be an additional burden weighing down future generations and hampering our economic recovery. We must create an environment in which people may succeed, businesses may grow and people’s dreams of a better tomorrow may become realities. This starts by passing a budget and getting our economy back on track.
[read more]I am proud to congratulate Remington Arms, a North Carolina company headquartered in Madison, on being selected to provide the U.S. Military with up to 120,000 M4/M4A1 carbines. These rifles are the primary individual combat weapon used by our military forces, and entrusting their development to a reliable manufacturer with a proven record of excellence like Remington is a boon for the company, the local economy, and the U.S. Armed Forces.
Founded in 1816, Remington manufactures firearms and sporting goods supplies for recreational, military, and law enforcement purposes. The company is one of the largest producers of rifles and shotguns in America, and ships its goods within the United States and to 55 other countries worldwide.
[read more]In case you missed it this morning, be sure to listen to Senator Burr discuss Israel, Syria, the 2012 presidential race and other news of the day with Jerri Jameson here: http://bit.ly/JomjXK.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jerri Jameson: Online with me now, calling in from Washington, we have Senator Richard Burr. Good morning, sir. How are you today?
Senator Burr: Good morning, Jerri. Greetings from Washington.
Jameson: Well, thank you. I was just doing a story on the Secret Service, with the agents that are being well, booted out basically, and things like that. What is the tenor like in Washington right now? We’ve got the Colombia prostitution scandal, we’ve got the General Services Administration. How are things there?
Burr: Well, you know, things weren’t well before this last incident. That continues to shake people’s confidence in government. And I think it’s proof once again that government’s become too big, too expensive, and unable to supervise it. Congress lacks the will to do the oversight, and now we’re starting to get into issues that deal with the security of a President, and I would suggest the security of a country while we have an ever-more threatening world around us. It’s time we buckle down up here and start doing what we’re supposed to be doing and quit the political charades that I think have really consumed every week for the past 6 – 8 months.
Jameson: Alright, I do want to address the spending and budget and things like that. But, right now, you mention the security of the United States and the security of the world, and there’s a whole lot going on right now. I mean, Israel says it may strike Iran and that it did not agree during last weekend’s nuclear talks not to. Where do we stand on that? Obviously we want diplomacy, but I mean, that could be a major concern if that happens.
Burr: Well Jerri, Israel is a sovereign country. Just like we would expect to protect our homeland, we can’t criticize them for a commitment to protect theirs. So that’s a daily issue that we watch. Clearly the Israelis have every intent, if diplomacy fails, of taking care of it, even if it’s only to delay the nuclear proliferation in Iran. Just 10 days ago I came back from the borders of Syria, I was in Turkey, South Korea before the missile launch, then China…There are beginning to be so many potential hot spots in the world that it’s almost humanly impossible to get first-hand information and as pertinent information just simply because there are so many of them now.
Jameson: Well now that you came back from the Syria area, I know some are saying we should be more involved. I believe Senator McCain has said that we should arm the opposition troops and things like that even more so. The ceasefire of course went into effect, but there are reports that there is still fighting going on. Do we need to be more involved there?
Burr: Well, I think that’s the question that this Administration needs to answer. We can independently voice what we think, but ultimately this is an Administration decision. It’s odd to me that we were so quick to follow the events of Libya and to jump in when the Europeans saw genocide in Yugoslavia, they begged the United States to come. Well, what I see in Syria today is genocide, a government that just randomly slaughters its people. I don’t think that we, the Europeans, the Asians or anybody in the world should sit idly by and watch that happen.
Jameson: You talk also about the missile launches in North Korea, specifically, and of course we are concerned that it is for nuclear reasons. India just launched a missile and said it would give it the capacity to hit major Chinese cities to counter China’s dominance. Is there a concern there of aggression on Indian’s part?
Burr: Oh, I think there’s a concern of escalation everywhere in the world, as we continue to have a debate that will last for probably two years about our future in Afghanistan. One of the things the American people need begin to focus on is asking the question, when we leave Afghanistan, what happens in Pakistan and Iran? When we’re no longer a force that attracts the attention in the region, does that open up the door for Pakistan to then look back at India and for that conflict to flare up? There’s reasons for every decision that the United States makes. Not all of them are obvious to begin with, but ultimately I think that our global policy has to be to try to extend stability in as many places in the world as we possibly can, and sometimes that has a cost.
Jameson: Well it certainly isn’t the world of our grandparents and their grandparents, is it sir?
Burr: No it’s not. And I remember one day in an illness by dad looking up at me and he said, “I fought a war so you wouldn’t have to go through these things.” I received the last Honor Flight from North Carolina yesterday morning. That means that every World War II veteran, regardless of where they are geographically, that expressed an interest to come has now been flown to Washington and seen their memorial that was erected in their honor aof their sacrifice. I said to this group of World War II veterans, men and women, it’s because of your sacrifice that I have the privilege to serve in the United States Senate. So we make sacrifices today, and I saw many of them last night and I saw many of them last as the Wounded Warrior bike ride started. I kicked that off for them. I can’t explain to parents or to service members exactly what it’s for, I just know that generations from now they will look at the sacrifices made today, and our liberties and our freedoms will be in tact because of that.
Jameson: So we only have about 2 minutes left. I wanted to touch on obviously, that Senator Rick Santorum withdrew, Speaker Newt Gingrich is still running as is Congressman Ron Paul, but you are endorsing Governor Mitt Romney now for the GOP candidacy. Can you explain why you are going with Gov. Romney?
Burr: Sure, I think Gov. Romney has the skill set that America needs right now to 1. Get us financially back in the right groove from the standpoint of our desire to spend and the fact that we’ve got so much debt and 2. Gov. Romney has created jobs, unlike the current President. What we need right now is somebody who can control the growth of spending and who can massively get this economy re-started so that we can re-employ those people who are looking for work. Jerri, it’s going to take those two things to become fiscally sustainable in this country. In an absence of that, we don’t even need to talk about who the next President would be because it would be disastrous what we would hand over to them. I’m very confident that Gov. Romney can handle the task in front of him. Again, I think he’s got the skill set at a particular time that’s perfect for the job, and I’m going to do everything that I can to tirelessly go around the country and try to promote his election.
Jameson: Okay, 30 seconds. Anything you’d like to add in closing?
Burr: Well, Jerri, we’re at a challenging time, but as I’ve said before to you and to your listeners, this is the greatest country in the world. We can overcome anything. It’s just that we have to realize that the American people have to pitch in. And as we talk about austerities, we talk about cutting the size of government and cutting spending, it means we’re all going to have to participate in that. It means we’ve got to be brave enough to go out and change programs that don’t work, eliminate things that don’t work, replace them with things that do work. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to make sure that we’re getting a value for the taxpayer’s dollar.
This weekend the United States set a new world record, but it is not a good one. As of yesterday, the United States officially became the country with the highest corporate tax rate in the world. With a tax rate of 39.2%, we are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to attracting and keeping businesses and investments here at home. People trying to start or expand businesses and create jobs will look to other countries to do so because the return on their investment stands to be much greater in a country with a lower corporate tax rate.
In this difficult economy, we need to do everything we can to encourage job growth here in American rather than force it abroad. We need to provide American businesses with the opportunity to grow, to expand into new markets, and to remain competitive in the global marketplace, but a corporate tax rate of almost 40% will deter a lot of these businesses from ever getting off the ground.