“This needs to be a real discussion, a real negotiation when we agree on how we can re-open the government, reduce our debt and help our economy grow.”
Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso’s speech.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) previewed tomorrow’s meeting between Republican Senators and President Obama about reopening the government and dealing with the debt limit. Barrasso called on the President to actually negotiate with Republicans and not just use tomorrow’s meeting as another photo op.
Excerpts of his remarks:
“I appreciate the comments by the distinguished Chair of the Appropriations Committee. As she said, she’s ready to meet, ready to negotiate, ready to compromise, ready to work together.
“I come today, to say that tomorrow Republican Senators are finally going to get a chance to talk with President Obama about reopening the government and dealing with the debt that this nation has and dealing with the debt limit.
“Until very recently, President Obama has been far more interested in speaking with the press, than in actually speaking with Republicans.
“So we had this invitation to the White House, and then this morning in the Washington Post, what the Administration says on the front page article, continues over to page four, it says the White House ‘emphasized that Obama will not be negotiating.’
“We have the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee who said ‘ready to meet, to negotiate, to compromise’ and the President of the United States says, the White House says that Obama will not be negotiating.
“So the question is, why are we going over to the White House in the first place if the President is not interested in negotiating?
“Is it just to give him a photo op?
“I went to meetings like that during the health care debate more than three years ago.
“The President at the time would invite Republicans to a meeting, and then he would reject every idea that we would offer.
“If he had been more willing to accept Republican ideas, negotiate then, we would have had a bipartisan health reform bill that was accepted by the American people. Instead of a law that continues to have more people opposed than in favor of.
“And that’s going to be my message to the President tomorrow morning when we meet.
“This needs to be a real discussion, a real negotiation when we agree on how we can re-open the government, reduce our debt and help our economy grow.
“This is the sixth time in five years that the President Obama has requested an increase in the debt ceiling.
“So how much is he asking for? According to the Majority Leader I understand it’s a trillion dollars and to extend between now and until after the 2014 election.
“Well that’s an incredible amount of money and just trying to figure out how much money that is, it’s over a million dollars every minute between now and fourteen months from now.
“The President needs to realize that’s unsustainable.
“We have a $17 trillion debt—it’s a debt on the back of our children and our grandchildren when we have families all across the country that have aspirations, anxieties, and anger about even the idea of their children and grandchildren will be able to get careers, get jobs.
“If we as a nation are going to incur more debt, we also have to find real savings.
“We cannot continue to increase our credit card debt, another new credit card after the President has maxed out the last one and just send that bill to the American people.
“It is time to set priorities.
“We want to get moving on real solutions – not just to our short-term problems, but the long-term issues that face us as a nation as we try to work together in governing this nation.
“The House of Representatives has passed 12 individual continuing resolutions.
“These bills would open up many different parts of the government right now – things that we all agree should be kept operating.
“The House voted to pay for things like FEMA, Head Start, the National Institutes of Health, open our national parks.
“Those bills have been sent to the Senate—they have been sitting without any action at all.
“Now, here in the Senate, I know a lot of Democrats are saying they support these functions.
“The Majority Leader continues to object to votes on these bills.
“History supports bipartisan actions of the House—and not the stonewalling of the President and the Democrat leadership of the Senate.
“In the middle of the last government shutdown, Congress passed – and President Clinton signed—laws to allow a wide variety of specific programs to function.
“It’s a precedent that we should be following today.
“Now the President also keeps saying that he won’t negotiate on the debt limit.
“He tries to make people believe that never before has Congress included ‘issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt,’ this is the President’s quote, into its negotiations over the debt limit.
“Now again, the facts are not on the President’s side.
“Even the fact-checker at the Washington Post gave the President four Pinocchio’s on that claim—essentially saying it was completely untrue.
“Negotiations have actually occurred many times on the debt limit.
“From 1978 until 2013, the debt limit has been raised 53 times.
“Of those votes, the debt ceiling increase was linked to something else more than half the time.
“So more than half of debt limit increase votes since 1978 carried other provisions that were not as the President claims ‘clean’ increases.
“Now, the President wants to ignore that history. The President wants to pretend that raising the debt limit is something that has to be done without any deliberations, negotiations, dissent, and on his terms alone.
“He says he will not negotiate at all.
“Well, it’s strange to be coming from his mouth because that’s a very different position that came out of his mouth when he was Senator Obama—and that wasn’t that many years ago.
“In 2006, Senator Obama voted against a debt limit increase because he said it was a sign that Washington can’t pay its bills.
“Senator Obama complained that the federal debt had increased by $5 trillion in five years.
Well under President Obama, Washington’s debt has grown by more than $6 trillion in four years.
“Senator Obama said, ‘The more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money,’ he said, ‘the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.’
“Under President Obama, foreign holdings of federal debt have increased by 82 percent.
“Senator Obama said that, ‘Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.’
“He said at the time, ‘America has a debt problem, and a failure of leadership.’
“A debt problem – and a failure of leadership.
“Well, President Obama is now asking for his sixth increase in debt in less than five years. Why is this then not a ‘debt problem’ and a ‘failure of leadership?’
“Senator Obama was right to say at the time we have a debt problem.
“President Obama should remember what made him say that in 2006, and do something about it in now.
“He should join Republicans willing to talk about real entitlement reform as part of negotiations over raising the debt ceiling.
“He should be willing and anxious to talk about his health care law and how it’s going to become a major factor driving Washington’s debt even higher in the future, if we don’t replace it with responsible reforms today.
“The President should embrace the bipartisan continuing resolutions passed by the House as a way of reopening as much of the government as possible, while we have responsible and reasonable discussions, deliberations, and negotiations.
“President Obama should stop posturing, stop playing games, and stop punishing the American people as he has been doing under this current government shutdown.”
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