Washington, D.C. – United States Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), today delivered on the Senate floor the following remarks on the need to preserve the automatic, across-the-board federal spending recession:

“I know that this is not a town that has ever been known for its long memory.  In fact, the recent warning bells rung about our deficits and debt have predictably faded into the background with all the attention on the rocky start to this fiscal year.

Just last month, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its long-term budget outlook.  Headlines and news stories associated with that release used words like “grim” and “gloomy” and raised alarm about our, quote, “long-term fiscal crisis.”

The very first line of that report reminds us that between 2009 and 2012, the U.S. government recorded the largest budget deficits – when compared to the size of the economy – in over a half century.

Reflecting on the current state of play, CBO noted that the federal debt currently stands at roughly three quarters of our gross domestic product (GDP).  More alarmingly, they predict that our federal debt will match the size of our economy, or be equal to one hundred percent of our GDP, by 2038.

I understand the temptation to just roll your eyes and politely suggest that those facts and figures are of more interest to the green-eye-shaded bean counters or to simply wave them off as last month’s news.  This is made all the easier when the administration says things like, quote: “we don’t have an urgent debt crisis” and when appropriations bills come to the floor at levels that make little sense given our fiscal realities.

Unfortunately, these facts and figures are only part of the story.  The CBO provides us insight into the impact these facts and figures will have on the economy and the federal budget deficit.  If the growth in our federal debt is left unchecked, we could eventually see a further drop in private investment. An increase in interest payments. A decrease in Congress’ flexibility. And, obviously, risk a fiscal crisis.

CBO notes that, quote: “the unsustainable nature of the federal government’s current tax and spending policies presents lawmakers and the public with difficult choices…To put the federal budget on a sustainable path for the long term, lawmakers would have to make significant changes to tax and spending policies,” end quote.

We all know that given our current environment, it’s difficult to do that.  It’s a struggle to get even routine spending measures on the president’s desk. This is not a conclusion that is easy to hear.

But within our dim current fiscal landscape and even dimmer outlook, there has been at least one bright spot.  In 2011, Congress agreed to and the president signed into law the Budget Control Act (BCA), which included statutory discretionary spending caps, as well as automatic across-the-board spending cuts for a failure to enact additional deficit reduction measures. 

Certainly trimming federal spending via the across-the-board sequestration cuts is an inelegant means of addressing our spending problem. It’s often referred to as a “blunt instrument.”  At a minimum, it’s a lazy way to legislate.  I believe I join a number of my colleagues when I say that I am open to providing additional flexibility, while staying within the budget caps, with respect to the sequester.  But, you simply cannot deny that locking in discretionary spending caps and enforcing them with automatic sequestration has yielded the most significant spending cuts we’ve seen in Congress in years.

As my colleague from Tennessee, recently came to the floor to highlight, two years ago discretionary spending stood at nearly one and a half trillion dollars.  Last year, under the BCA spending caps, that number dropped to just under a trillion dollars and this year, if no changes occur to the sequester-enforced spending cap, we’ll be at $967 billion.

A recent Wall Street Journal story entitled “The GOP’s Unheralded Victory on Spending” quoted the head of Americans for Tax Reform’s as concluding that we had, quote, “made a fundamental shift in the size of the government equation,” end quote.

While runaway spending on mandatory programs represents an ever-present budget issue that we have to get our arms around, the BCA spending caps and sequester have put real and meaningful downward pressure on discretionary spending that represents about a third of the federal budget.

My colleague from Kentucky, the minority leader, recently pointed out that the BCA that we passed two years ago, quote, “actually reduced government spending for two years in a row for the first time since the Korean War,” end quote.  And I agree with him when he urges that we not walk away from the spending reductions that we have already promised taxpayers.

Now, I have made no secret of the fact that I do not favor the strategy of tying the defunding of Obamacare to the current continuing resolution.  As the resulting shutdown drags on and there are more stories about the fight over funding for next year and then the coming debate on raising the debt ceiling, I find myself favoring this strategy even less.

It is entirely likely that sequester opponents will use the larger debate to push to undo the gains we’ve made on making meaningful spending cuts by abolishing the sequester or replacing it with meaningless savings, budget gimmicks, or even new taxes. 

Far from a conspiracy theory, in recent months there have already been calls for a two-year sequester hiatus.  I agree with Taxpayers for Common Sense when they say that, quote, “may be a convenient answer…but that is no way to get our fiscal house in order,” end quote.

It is my hope that we can find a way through this shutdown sooner rather than later.  It is also my hope that we can, at some point, have a real conversation about the long-term drivers of our crushing debt that underlie our need to regularly hike the debt ceiling.  In the meantime, and as this debate unfolds, I urge all my colleagues to resist any effort to undermine the sequester-enforced Budget Control Act spending caps.”

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