than $1,000 for the average family and credit card interest would go up by $250. why is it, you ask? because the interest you pay on just about every loan you have, whether it's a house or a car or college tuition, it's based on the interest rates the treasury pays, and if that interest rate rises, as it would in a default, so does the interest rate on just about everything else. new mexicans can't afford that. america can't afford that. and it is to prevent new mexico families from these repercussions that i will vote for this legislation. but that's the only reason, because to be frank, almost everything else about this deal stinks, and it stinks to high

heaven. as my friend, the good senator from vermont, said yesterday, this package is grotesquely unfair and bad economic policy. while i firmly believe we must take steps to rein in our deficit, this package is far from the ideal way to do so. i hear every day from new mexicans about the need to rebuild our economy. we should be investing in innovation and infrastructure and creating new jobs, but we don't do that with this deal. instead of cutting excess and investing wisely in programs that create jobs, this package will mean fewer dollars for job training, for education programs and housing, hampering our ability to create a long-term recovery. poll after poll shows a majority of americans support shared sacrifice in this recovery. unfortunately, this package also

falls woefully short on that count, while we did manage to protect important programs like social security, medicare, medicaid and nutrition assistance programs, there are still many, many important programs that will be on the chopping block. initiatives like housing assistance, help for small businesses and rural economic development programs, just to name a few. this all the while the tax cuts for the wealthiest americans and large corporations remain untouched. this package is what happens when idealogues bent on nationalizing their extreme agendas get their way. the fracture that we have seen among republicans in the house over these last few months has much broader effect than just in that chamber. their staunch refusal to compromise at the expense of struggling families has pushed

this debate and our nation to the brink. instead of having a frank conversation about how we can repair our economy and reach a simple compromise, we have been forced to vote today to avoid default. with this plan, we get nowhere near the heart of our economic problems. instead, we kick the can down the road a couple of years. all the while, the problem continues to grow, impeding our recovery and crippling our economic competitiveness. once this vote is taken and the immediate crisis has passed, it will be all too easy to stick our heads back in the sand and pretend everything is okay. i rise today to say this -- everything is not okay, and it won't be okay until we have the courage and leadership to institute tax reform. not just trimming around the edges or rearranging the numbers

to create the illusion of savings when, in fact, nothing has changed. i'm talking about substantive tax reform that is the result of a national conversation about our priorities as a society. we have the opportunity to do just that with the commission being created by this plan, but it will take guts and leadership and hard choices. our national deficit is a burden that drags us down competitively and requires serious negotiations, not just concessions to those who see this as a political opportunity to push their personal agendas. we must all come to the table and do what is best for our nation. i see the senator from florida is here, and so -- and i know he's a wise gentleman that has much to say to us, and so with that, madam president, i would yield the floor. thank you.

mr. nelson: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: again, i say to my colleague from new mexico what a fine senator he is, as is the senator presiding. what a privilege it is to serve with the likes of the both of you. and indeed, the members of this body, they are just extraordinary individuals, and we have all -- we have anguished with what we have been through as the clock was constantly

ticking down to midnight tonight, and knowing the consequences. this senator always had the feeling that it was going to work out, that we were going to reach agreement, and interestingly, the financial markets had that same feeling as well because the financial markets never did go off of a cliff. even -- even the asian financial markets felt the same thing as we were coming out of the weekend. and so, even though we in this capital city of our nation have gone back and forth over ways to cut this public debt, here we are, and we have an agreement.

members of this body as well as the other one down at the other end of the united states capitol clearly are sincere in their differences. but i think what you're seeing in the overwhelming vote yesterday in the house of representatives, that most of the members agree that gridlock doesn't do anything to help the country, and especially the economy. and so, we got this compromise plan in front of us, and later today one of two things will be true. either we will have done what is in the best interest of the american people or we will have failed. and i think overwhelmingly what we are going to do when we vote at noon today, i think it could

be as much as 75 votes of this 100-member united states senate that will vote in favor of this package. i think not only is it obvious that this package is the way to avoid default, but it starts us on the path of getting serious about what we have to do. more than $2 trillion bringing down the deficit over the course of the next ten years, and that's according to the congressional budget office, it's going to cut about half of that now, and it leaves the rest of it up to a supercommittee of 12 members, half from the house

of representatives, half from the senate. each of those halfs appointed by the respected leaders of the chambers. and so it is possible that they will deadlock, but i think with the concern about the financial precipice that we have been teetering on, i think that supercommittee is going to come up with a significant deficit reduction. they've got a target of about an additional $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. but they're not limited to that. and everything's on the table. so what they could do -- and this is a moment that if we can seize it, it would be tremendous

, and that is we can do major tax reform. now, is anybody happy with the existing tax code as it is? and, you know we talk about all of these tax loopholes. the technical term is tax expenditures. what they are are special interest tax preferences for individual special interests, and it blows your mind to realize that they will cost $14 trillion over the next ten years. well, why should this special interest have a tax preference and this one have a tax preference, and yet we find it difficult as we go through the harangues here in our debate on what is the level of the tax

bracket taxation on ordinary people. you know what you can do? and the supercommittee can do this. they can take a lot of those tax preferences, $14 trillion, they can take only 15% or 20% of those away, and by utilizing that revenue, you could simplify the tax code into three tax brackets for individuals and you could lower everybody's tax in that income bracket. and you could lower the corporate income tax. now, that's a real possibility that this supercommittee could do. and, of course, they could give instructions back to the ways and means committee in the house

and the finance committee in the senate, and then you start to do reform as well as bringing down the national annual deficit. and so, the backup, if this super committee fails to agree, then there are a series of spending cuts that automatically happen. you know, this agreement also calls for a vote on a balanced budget. i voted for balanced budget constitutional amendments in the past, and we're going to have another opportunity to vote for one. i assume we're going to have a vote for two different versions. and the version that's being offered by senator yew tall --

udall is the one that i intend to vote for. so, here we are with a plan that is not a perfect plan. it clearly avoids default. but all of us agree that what it does do is that government spending must be cut, that the public debt must be reduced. otherwise, our economy will not recover, and america will no longer be in good standing around the world. that's the bottom line. so, i often quoted, it's actually from the book of isaiah, in which the lord is speaking to the people, and he says, "come let us reason

together." isn't that so true here. and was it not avoided for so long where reasonable people of goodwill -- and every one of these senators is a person of goodwill. if we can get out of our ideological rigidity and out of our momentary excessive partisanship, then as the good book says, come let us reason together. and i think that that's what we've done. when we pass this -- and it will be an overwhelming vote in about two hours -- and the president can sign it into law, then we can turn our attention back to the economy and creating jobs

which we so desperately need to bring us out of this recession that has been lingering far too long. madam president, thank you for this opportunity. and, madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i understand that we are alternating. the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. levin: kweuld that after the senator from -- i would request that after the senator from kentucky, who is here to speak -- in that case, i believe i was here on the floor before the senator from kentucky, so i will proceed. madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: madam president, to say that the legislation before us is not ideal is truly an

understatement. the notion that our deficit problem can be solved solely by cutting spending flies in the face of our experience when in fact unwise tax cuts for the wealthy and egregious tax loopholes are significant culprits in our fiscal crisis. i believe too many republicans are influenced by an ideology so extreme that it promised to wreak economic havoc if it did not get their way. no additional revenues became the battle cry, an approach that prevents the balanced deficit reduction that the american people rightly support. the result is that this legislation incorporates some policies that are profoundly unfair to middle-income americans. so seen in isolation, madam president, this is not a good bill. but no public policy exists in a

vacuum. despite its many flaws, this legislation must pass. and let me explain why. while there will be a number of negative consequences as a result of this bill's passage, there will be more dire consequences if it fails to pass. the choice here is between a faulty piece of legislation on the one hand and severe damage to our economy and even greater joblessness on the other. the choice we face now, today, with this vote is whether to accept a flawed bill or to watch the united states, the globe's preeminent economic power, default on its obligations to senior citizens, students and veterans as well as to those who have invested in our country by the purchase of our bonds and our treasury notes. we've taken many steps in the past three years to try to

restart job creation in this country. those efforts would come undone if the crisis that would follow -- in a crisis that would follow our failure to pass this bill. one of the things that is right about this legislation is that it avoids a misguided demand that we have another round of crisis and negotiation over this issue in just a few short months. a short-term increase to the debt limit is house republican -- as house republicans demanded would have led to a down grading of the federal government's rating. we simply cannot put the american people and the american economy through that again. despite this bill's imbalance in focusing solely on spending cuts, it does contain a mechanism that can force acceptance of what our republican colleagues have

refused to accept. the reality that revenue must be a part of real deficit reduction and that fair and effective deficit-reduction efforts require shared sacrifice. 2011 is the year of unbalanced spending cuts. 2012 must be a year of shared sacrifice, one in which the president uses the bully pulpit to lead the nation to accept the notion that everyone, including surely the wealthy, must play a role in reducing deficits. democrats have repeatedly emphasized this point. it is a simple fact that among the largest factors contributing to our deficits is the bush tax cuts, tax cuts that greatly increased the growth of the gap between the wealthiest among us

and working families. today median household income, the income of the typical american household, is lower than it was in the mid-1990's, and yet the wealthiest americans not only do extremely well, they are doing better and better all the time. a few decades ago the wealthiest 1% of all americans took in 10% of all income. today it's 24%. these numbers are not abrasions nor -- aberrations nor actions of a free market. they reflect policy choices, and too often the choice has been to pay lip service to the middle class while driving income inequality to levels not seen in 80 years in this country. the failure to ask all americans to join in the sacrifices required to reduce our deficit flies in the face of logic and fairness and threatens to increase the growing gap between

upper-income and middle-income families. democrats have proposed commonsense steps to address the failure to include more revenue and to promote shared sacrifice. we proposed restoration of the 39.6% tax bracket for the wealthiest americans who make nearly $400,000 a year or more. most democrats support the end of tax breaks for the massively profitable oil companies. we seek to close loopholes that now allow tax dodgers to hide income and assets in overseas tax havens to avoid the taxes that they rightly owe and to end tax breaks that let highly paid hedge fund managers enjoy a lower income tax rate than the rate that their employees pay. so far, too many have denied the need for these changes, that there is a chance at least that

this legislation may finally force consideration of added revenues, added fairness to the tax code and the shared sacrifice that is so missing from the cuts in the legislation before us. now, why is that? under this legislation, we will face a stark choice. we must agree before the end of this year to deficit reduction of at least $1.2 trillion over ten years or stand by as an automatic budget cut kicks in to accomplish that goal. a bipartisan joint committee of 12 members of congress will meet and develop a deficit reduction plan that avoids those automatic cuts. that joint committee will have broad powers to review an propose changes to spending and to the tax code and to add revenue. revenues will finally be back on the table where they have always

belonged. now, meeting that $1.2 trillion goal is not going to be easy but it is achievable. achievable, that is, if those who so far have been unwilling to compromise can recognize that revenue must be part of the equation. nobody should be eager for the automatic cuts that would otherwise take effect. many of those cuts would be unacceptably painful and damaging, but the very idea of those automatic cuts is that they are so unacceptable that few of us will want to see them enacted, and most of us will be willing to compromise in order to avoid them. congress used this approach once before. in 1985, we passed gramm-rudman-hollings which set forth specific deficit targets and required compromise if those targets were not met. the framework for today's legislation is based on that

model. as one of the authors of the gramm-rudman-hollings act put it, senator gramm, -- quote -- "it was never the objective of gramm-rudman to trigger this sequester. the objective of gramm-rudman was to have the threat of the sequester force compromise and action." close quote. and it did. for example, in 1990, when facing the possibility of unacceptable cuts in defense and other important programs, president bush and bipartisan leaders in congress adopted a balanced deficit reduction plan that included significant new revenues. the damocles sword of the gramm-rudman-hollings deficit reduction act was the reason for that outcome. i believe that any plan from the bipartisan committee that fails

the test of balance will have no chance of passage in the united states senate. that means that members of the committee must truly be willing to lead, to put aside partisanship and rigid ideology if we are to avoid triggering unacceptable cuts. success also is going to require presidential leadership and stronger use of his bully pulpit. democrats have demonstrated that we are willing to put forward serious deficit reduction proposals, plans that include painful cuts to important priorities. with a vote to approve this bill, which we must, it is my hope that we have reached the high tide of an ideological movement that has sought to hold tax cuts for the wealthy sacred while imposing increasingly draconian cuts on american

families and threatened economic calamity if that movement did not get its way. the era of slashing programs that help middle-class americans with no shared sacrifice by the wealthiest among us, that era must end and give way to an era in which fairness and balance guide our efforts. passing this legislation today hopefully will drive us to make that transition. i thank the chair and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. hatch: would the senator yield? mr. paul: sure. mr. hatch: i would ask unanimous consent i be permitted to give my remarks immediately following the senator from kentucky. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: madam president, america will not default on her debt today. in fact, there was really never any doubt that america would pay

her bills, but mark my words, america will default. america will default not by not paying its bills, not by not raising the debt ceiling, but we will default in a more insidious way. america will default by increasingly paying our bills with money that is worth less and less each year. a nation pays for its debt in three ways. we can either tax people, we can borrow the money or we can simply print the money. they all have repercussions. we are approaching our borrowing limit as a nation. we now owe china over a trillion dollars. we owe japan nearly a trillion dollars. we even owe mexico. as we reach our borrowing limit, interest rates will rise, and the prices in the stores will rise. you're already seeing this in your grocery stores. you're already seeing this in your gas prices.

they are not rising de novo out of nothing. your prices are rising because the value of your dollar is falling. the value of your dollar is falling because they are printing up money to pay for this exorbitant debt. in 2008, we went through a banking crisis and we doubled the monetary supply in four months. doubling the money supply in four months. we bought things. the federal reserve bought toxic assets. they bought bad car loans and bad home loans. where once upon a time your dollar was backed by gold, your dollar is now backed by toxic assets. not a very comforting thought. many pundits are arguing that the tea party has won this battle. they misunderstand the debate. this battle isn't about winners and losers. it's about the future of our country. it's about saving ourselves from

ourselves. we are headed towards ruin if we continue on this path of spending money we don't have. for decades, america has lived beyond her means. a nation that lives beyond her means will eventually live beneath her means. that day is coming. a day of reckoning looms. that day was never august 2. that day is when the dollar teeters and falls from its perch. that day is when prices soar. that day is when unemployment and a declining standard of living foment discontent and unrest in the street. as erskine bowles put it, there has been no more predictable crisis in our history. we have been given all the warning signs. it comes and this deal will not escape the facts that are looming for us. the president thinks that w