mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont is askgnized consent the call of the quorum be recognized. the idjection, it is so ordered. mr. leahy: mr. president, i see the distinguished republican leader on the floor. i'd ask consent that all time

remaining on either side be yielded back. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: and have the yeas and nays been requested on the nominee? the presiding officer: they have not. mr. leahy: i ask for the yeas and nays on the nominee. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. there is. the clerk will call the roll.

vote:

vote:

is the presiding officer: is there any senator wishing to vote or to change their vote? if not, the yeas are 97. the nays are zero. and the nomination is confirmed. e immediately notified of the senate's actions. under the previous order, the senate stands in recess

to consider several bills, one that lets charitable contributions to earthquake relief in haiti to be reported on 2009 tax returns. and tomorrow, work on a sure that deals with native-american water rights. follow the house live now on c-span. later this afternoon, from first lady michelle obama on childhood obesity and ways to prevented it. she will speak at u.s. conference of mayors meter

here in washington. we'll have it live 3:00 p.m. eastern on c c-span3 >> earlier today, senate minority leader mism mcconel says he doesn't expect

anymore votes on health in the senate until scott brown has been seated. scott brown won the special election shun massachusetts yesterday defeating state attorney general martha coakley. from the capitol, this is 20 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. slow news, huh? the people of massachusetts had an opportunity to speak yesterday, and they spoke rather loudly that they would like to see congress go in a different correction. direction. the massachusetts special election shun was unique in many ways. i was flying from kentucky

last day, a number of people on the plane brought up as they have in last few months can you the health care bill? most interesting came up to me i'm con went of yours but i'm married to a man from massachusetts. here he is. and she introduced me to him. we're going to massachusetts to vote for scott. they made a special trip to go to massachusetts so he could vote for scott brown. this was in many way as national referendum princely on the major issue we're wrestling with here in congress which is whether or not the government should take over 1/of our economy, slash medicare by half a trillion dollars, raise taxes by half a trillion dollars and drive insurance rates up for the most of the rest of our country and i think we heard a large and resounding message yesterday if one of the most, if not arguably the most liberal states in america. the people of massachusetts spoke and spoke loudly. one concern i know a imin of you had about the outcome of

this election would be whether the new senator would be seated. i'm convinced now that no gamesmanship will be played by the other side with regard to future votes in the senate. senator jim webb, made it clear he will not participate in any additional health care votes prior to senator brown being sworn in. and i noticed that elected officials in massachusetts who were principally responsible for certifying election after earlier saying take up to two weeks, indicated it could be as soon today. i don't believe the kind of thing we've seen on full diswith the corn husbander kick back, the louis purchase, the gator aide, drafting the bill behind closed doors, i think majority has got the message and no more gamesmanship here. no more lack of transparency. let's honor the wishes of the people of massachusetts

and move forward with policy. with our policy debates. with that, let me call on our, outstanding chairman of the national republican senatorial committee who played an important role in yesterday's victory, john cornyn. >> thanks. mitch. first and foremost i know we would all like to congratulate scott brown on an outstanding campaign he ran and won yesterday. there's no election that can be won without a good candidate, and one that understands the temper of the times, what people are concerned about and is able to deliver a message that responds effectively to their concerns and scott brown did it to near perfection. and what was the message that the people of massachusetts were sending? it is they are simply fed and tired of being shut out of the process. and what did they get

yesterday with electing scott brown? they got a seat at the table. that's what we've been wanting all year is a seat at the table where we can work together on a bipartisan basis to come up with solutions to the problems that confront our country. nothing more, nothing less. and so i hope that this will usher in a new era of transparency, and willingness to work together, rather than the sort of, special sweetheart deals cut behind closed doors that caused so many concern in the health care bill and elsewhere. and let me just say that the health care bill is a very important part of what was debated and decided yesterday in this election but it's not all that was decided. the american people sent a very clear message through the voters in massachusetts they're concerned about the spending and depth and the government intervention in their lives in ways that limits their freedoms and

opportunities in the future of their children and grandchildren. so i hope that message has been received. i hope that we'll be able to work together in the best interests of the american people and, again, let me congratulate scott brown on an outstanding victory and a wonderful campaign. >> any questions? >> senator cornyn, what will happen now with the debate as it moves forward? how does it change the game. democrats say they want to continue to go forward even if this happened. >> what i think is clear there will be no further action in the senate thanks to senator webb, until scott brown is sworn in. i can't speak for the house and there has been discussion obvious on the house side about whether or not they would simply take up the senate bill and pass it. i don't consider myself an expert on the house but i am

aware of one issue that could be very problematic for them and that's the issue of whether or not the taxpayers would pay for abortions. i know that the one republican in the house who voted for the bill initially is indicated he could not support the bill in the absence of a stupak language. my assumption is the author of the stupak amendment might have the trouble voting with it. voting for it. so i think there are a number of complications. but really it is an internal democratic matter about which none of us are great experts. >> senator mcconnell, what is the bottom line though? is the health care bill as we know it dead? >> i sure hope so. i sure hope so. what we ought to do as we said repeatedly through the month of december. as you know we were here every day. we ought to stop, and start over and go step by step to

concentrate on fixing the problem which is the rising costs and we laid out a series of things we thought would address the cost problem without having the government take over 1/6 of our economy. >> senator, given you're in the position in the fall -- what is democrats over the next ten months? >> look, there is no way to predict with certainty what the atmosphere will be ten months from now. we were elected to do the people's business and what we have been saying repeatedly, is that we would like to participate in the process of crafting solutions to america's problems. that opportunity was denied us on health care. you saw the result. the american people looked at an effort to jam the minority totally owd to, a minority totally opposed to it. and the measure ended up

lacking credibility with the american people. if they want to accomplish things around here, a better way to go is not to try jam us because they would have a big majority, but rather work on these issues with open mind and with a genuine bipartisan approach. those kinds of measures end up being kinds of thinks you can sell to the american people. >> you said that the people of massachusetts spoke loudly last night but, nowhere in senator, state senator brown's campaign did he use the word republican. last night in his victory speech he said it was a great victory for independents. do you think people of massachusetts specifically chose a republican last night? >> well, let me say that in my state, which is two to one democrats, i can't recall a single time in i race ever won where i put word republican in an ad. we have one of my favorite saying, my mother didn't raise any foolish children. if i'm running in massachusetts a republican and 12% of the massachusetts is republican, doesn't

strike me that's a smart way to campaign. so i give scott brown credit for running an intelligent campaign that obviously, he understood his state, a state in which three to one, three times more democrats than republicans and more independents than all the rest combined. i think, as he indicated in his speech last night, he was able to connect with the independent voters of massachusetts. and they wanted to send him to washington to do business differently, and i thought it was an inspired campaign. he obviously electrified the public and did something no republican has been able to accomplish in massachusetts since 1972. >> senator -- >> let me mention, something in response to that. you can't look what happened in massachusetts in isolation. look what happened in virginia, what happened in new jersey and what happened is that independents, the

very people who put together the winning coalition for barack obama and democrats and put them in power are fleeing in droves. and what that gives us, what that gave scott brown, is an opportunity, an opportunity to talk about the things that they were most concerned about, losing their jobs, losing their homes. they were concerned about health care because they saw it as a misplaced priority because, job was their number one priority. so what i think it gives us is a chance to continue that conversation with independents, without whom no candidate can win. and, i think it is a very clear trend and, scott brown in his campaign did a masterful job understanding his state, understanding the mood of the electorate and understanding what their priorities were and he spoke directly to that. that is why i think he was so successful. >> senator mcconnell you talked about new era of bipartisanship, most of the votes in the senate up until this point is pretty party

line and -- [inaudible] do you expect that dynamic to fundamental change? >> it is up to the majority. it is up to the majority. they chose to go left, you know, in my view they misread the electorate in 2008 and decided to pursue a largely dramatically left of center agenda. we have said repeatedly throughout last year and say again now, that we're prepared to meet them in the middle for truly bipartisan solutions to the problems american people sent us here to grapple with. >> does that mean you're willing to participate and have your party members participate in deficit reduction commission that president obama is expected to announce? >> it means we're open to discussing any of the issues that are before us. i'm not going to decide today what we're going to do in the future but as a general rule we have said from the very beginning we want to be a full partner. you may have more votes than

we do but if you do it all by yourself the public probably isn't going to buy it. i think that's been amply demonstrated back in 2009. maybe they will take this message and take a different approach. we'll have to wait and see. >> this morning, massachusetts notwithstanding, david axelrod said they fully intend to pursue president obama's full agenda. do you see this election as repud did i ages of big government, big spending agenda? >> well, as, senator-ebrown said last night, it sounded to me like, by 100,000 vote majority, and one of the most liberal states in america, that people said rather in a rather outspoken fashion with a high turnout, unusual high turnout in a special election in january, for goodness sake, they would like are us to go in a different direction. goodness i think that is about as clear a message i ever seen delivered in a

campaign, in an an election. >> if you get that opportunity and majority reaches out to are there incremental things in health care you'd like to see worked on together? >> we have said repeatedly what we thought ought to be done on health care. repeatedly. every day in the week, in december, and, we remain open to trying to do this right, to stop this effort. this is the wrong direction to go and to sit down together and try to go step by step to fix the problem that we all know exists in american health care which is cost. >> okay. >> ask you about reconciliation since there is -- [inaudible] most recent talk house can't pass the senate bill, which is a very high hurdle, they would pass some sort of fix to the bill using reconciliation. i wonder your, whether or not that is possible? separately can you tell us whether or not you will sport the commission by executive order? >> the reconciliation would

be extremely difficult because remember, anything that's more weighted towards policy, than towards budgetary activity is subject to byrd rule and has to get 60 votes to stay in the bill. large segments of any issue as policy-driven as health care would be knocked out under the byrd rule under reconciliation. it would be end up being swiss cheese event. went to the floor would come out looking like swiss cheese because the byrd rule. >> debt commission. >> on debt commission i think president proposed car without engine. i look at cynical act by the administration. basically they created, they're suggesting they create this vehicle which is executive order by definition partisan. whole purpose of the commission was to be bipartisan. it can't enforce itself because it doesn't have statutory structure. there is no way you can require a vote in the senate has 100 people who might stand in way of a vote or

exercise their rights to amend which basically undermines the purposes of the exercise. and you can't fast track it because the senate doesn't fast track things unless you have a statutory fast track framework. it is a nothing burger in my opinion. >> can you explain what you're planning on the epa preemption? and who have you been talking to in terms of other supporters for an amendment or a motion of disapproval? >> as you know, given the uc that we entered into end of december, before we went on recess, each side was allowed a series of amendments. i was to be allowed an opportunity to bring up amendment as related to the epa regulation of emissions. this is something that we have been trying to bring to the forefront now for months. we were denied the opportunity back in september to advance an amendment. we've got several different options, not the least of which is an amendment to the

debt limit we would to introduce today, according to uc. as you know i've also been pursuing a resolution of disapproval, a different mechanism. but either way, that, we choose to take and at this point in time my inclination is to proceed with the resolution of disapproval. i think that is a more clear path forward but either way, i think it is important that we demonstrate repeatedly that the prefered alternative when comes to regulating emissions in this country is to move through a legislative procedure, a legislative route that will allow for a balancing of how we, how we truly reduce our emissions in this country while at the same time ensuring we don't kick the economy in the head and further wound it.

we need to do this with balance. when we talk about climate legislation, that climate legislation should go through the legislative process, not through the epa and regulatory process. >> follow up on, senator mcconnell. in light of the election last night, do you see the climate energy it debate is probably dead for the year in light of senator graham still trying to work with kerry and lieberman on this? do you think efforts for cap-and-trade are dead for the year? >> i would say there is minimal enthusiasm to put it mildly for cap-and-trade but, again the majority leader sets the agenda and he will have to decide whether he wants to devote floor time in the senate to that proposal. >> follow-up. can you talk about the impact of yesterday, last night's election on president obama's nominees, specifically i'm thinking about -- it his nomination now dead. >> the nominations process around here is sometimes contentious, usually based

upon the nominee. that has been one of the most contentious nominees. senator, do you have anything on that? she has been one of our more contentious nominees. there have been a significant number my conference and i think at least some of the other side that have not felt she should go forward. as to how that will be resolved i couldn't tell you. >> senator mcconnell, what are you prepared to work with the democrats on? >> i'm sorry? >> what are you prepared to work with the democrats on? >> i think they're on the right track in afghanistan. i was just there. senator murkowski was with me last week. i the president is doing the right thing with the deployment of 30,000 additional troops in afghanistan. i believe this is a strategy that will work. he has assigned the sharp people we have to that theater. sharpest military people, sharpest cia, the sharpest aid, the sharpest state, the

most talented individuals we have available are all in afghanistan, and, focusing on pakistan as well. and i commend him for the decisions that he's made. i think he is off on the wrong track in couple of areas that are related to this, such as, suggesting a date certain that we might begin to draw down there which created a propaganda tool for the taliban. and there is also widespread confusion in the military about what our policy is with regard to interrogation and detention. very much confusion about that. having said that, i think the decision to go in there with a counter insurgency strategy is the right thing to do and i believe virtually every member of our conference supports it. okay, thanks a lot.

>> senate republicans from just after len ven eastern this morning in the u.s. capitol -- 11 eastern. about the same time in boston, massachusetts, senator-elect scott brown from his victory yesterday, bri, telling reporters he plans to visit washington on thursday, as courtesy call, saying he didn't expect to be sworn in that quickly. senator-elect scott brown earlier today from boston. about 10 minutes. >> good morning, everybody. i appreciate you take some time to come here. i would like to read a brief statement and then i'll take a few questions. i hope you all have had a good night's sleep. i know i certainly have not. and i said last night i'm proud of about the campaign that we ran. it was, we worked very, very hard, and we traveled throughout the state talking with people and, you know, asking about the issues that concern them and we couldn't

have done it without extraordinary effort by everybody, from the top to the bottom. it was a true grassroots effort and for that i'm very, very thankful. i would look forward to getting to work right away and try to deal with all the very important challenges we have before us. and as you know this morning, my campaign's legal council deliver ad request to the secretary galvin for an unofficial vote count, and, within that, the number of outstanding absentee ballots. i'm confident that it will show the margin of victory exceeds the amount of the outstanding absentee ballots. and since the election is not in doubt, i'm hopeful that the that will seat me on the basis of those unofficial returns. just as they did for ted kennedy in 1962 and more recently for niki tsongas, in 2007. so with that, i'm, very happy to take some questions. >> senator brown, secretary

of state's office has said that it -- [inaudible] seat you immediately. just wondering give us your reaction to that and talk about your plans and why you want to get down there so quickly. >> we will, we're going down tomorrow. i already spoken to senator kerry and kirk and congressman ma governor and whole host of other folks from the delegation. i think it is important that we hit the ground running because there are some very important issues are facing our country. i've always had, contrary, the campaign's over now. now we have to focus on solving problems. i've had freight working relationships with the great working relationships with the delegation and looking forward to getting down there as quickly as i can. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> you this is not a referendum on president obama but you did in a state he carried 26 points 14 months ago, run against the stimulus plan, against his health care plan, suggested he could be a little tougher

terrorism and also said there is too much spending and not enough bipartisanship in washington. if it is not a referendum on the president, is he and other democrats assess these results today what do you think the message of mass was? >> i think the message from traveling around the state, i've tried to obviously do some self-reflection analyzing why i'm standing before you today, and, really the number one thing i've heard that people are tired of the as usual. what does that mean? that means behind-the-scenes deal. the nebraska subsidizing of medicaid forever. things like that, have just drive people crazy. they want to make sure their elected officials are doing things in transparent manner and doing it with the best interest of our state and mine and the things that you just referred to, we have health care here. we have certainly a serious economic problems but, the first stimulus bill didn't work. they haven't created one new job. then you take expiring tax cuts. when you're talking about marriage penalty coming back

and child care tax credit being cut in half, those things that affect every person from rich to poor, pittsfield to boston and, there are financial issues at a time when people are having difficult time paying bills and going out. people and pundits, i will let them determine what this means in terms of the national race. but i think it is important to know that, the main thing that they want is good government back and to be part of the process. and i think they sent a very, very powerful message that business as usual will not be the way we do it. yes? >> [inaudible]. opposition to democrats bill was major part of your campaign. you said this morning you don't believe -- [inaudible] >> let me, i don't want to have you characterize what my strategy in the campaign was. it was, while the health care bill was certainly an issue, the issues that were

just referenced by your fellow journalist were issues, in people's minds. talking taxes and spending. terrorism and how we deal with the issues. health care proposal. are the more important things. however, we already have 98% of our people insured here. we know what we need to do to fix it. to have one size fits all plan that is being pushed nationally, it doesn't work. so what i have suggested and what i'm hoping to suggest because we have done it here, i have some experience, i voted for health care here, obviously i care very deeply about it, of it, is to let states tell the federal government, hey, this is what we would like to do. can we work with you in team effort? maybe incentivize us to do something better. model it like we have it or maybe up with something better so we can learn. . .

>> we haven't done that very well. we've always kind of thought about maybe washington first, or the party first. the thing i'm hearing all throughout the state is what about us? so thank you. yes, nice to see you. >> you ran as an independent. you were elected as an independent. what's first on your agenda?

>> i haven't had much sleep yet. that being said, when i go down to washington tomorrow, i will meet with the delegation, all of which are democrats, and i will certainly check in with the republican leadership. and senator mccain who is helpful right from the beginning. i think people need to get a chance to do a little bit of a transition, see what's on the agenda. i will look at each and every bill for its merits and how it affects our state. and iomega decision. to say am i going to do this or that, i think it's not appropriate right now. i would just appreciate an opportunity to at least get down there, open up an office, get a staff together and do my very best to continue with the independent. yes? >> what advice do have for senate majority leader harry reid on how to proceed with health care? do you need to go back to scratch? are there some things that are salvageable and as bill? >> i don't know if i will be giving him advice about it he is the senate president, -- i'm sorry, the majority leader.

he has his own way of doing things, and i don't want to influence that. but i think i can certainly offer guidance as to what we have done here and how we can maybe do it better that. yes? >> you talk so much about the campaign, how you will maintain it down there? people go down all the time say they will be independent and do when they get down there, they caucus every tuesday with the party. quite often they vote along party lines. what concrete are you going to do to maintain your independence? >> when you go to beacon hill, are you are going to change? then when i was running for state senate, when you get in the senate you're going to change. well, that's kind of older to be honest with you. i've been in the legislature, government for quite some time now. yes, we caucus. we have to caucus because we try to figure out what, in fact, happening. see if there's any issues you

want to be brought forth. does a lot of good information that we've had many joint called for does here in massachusetts. one of the things when you're talking about transparency and the ability to do things the right way, one thing i've always admired about them, without even blinking i said this so may times, even though we have five people, five republicans in the senate right now, we have had every opportunity to have full and fair discussion and agreement. we vetted joint caucuses. we come together on transportation, pension, ethic reforms that we've made some very i think super moves when it comes to the stem cell bill, you do, dealing with some of the budget issues. so there are times in massachusetts that we can come together that i am hopeful i will go down there, just like i always have, and of course i'm going to caucus with the party. that you ultimately find out what's going on. i've always made it very, very clear that i'm not beholden to

anybody that i've made that very clear. right here and then right here. >> john kerry took some shots at you during this campaign. have you had a mitigations with them as you will be working with him as well as others in the senate? >> he was one of the second or third people that i call that he was trying to do the same, look, i've had a great relationship with senator kerry. my daughter has a picture of the senator and her. i have great respect for what he has done that and i know politics, but the campaign is over. the thing i have been most appreciative of is the fact that people that i'm going to be working with are being very gracious. i dare say, okay, games over. let's get to work. >> congratulations on your winter of question about your view of the role as the republican poster boy for gop resurgence when you get down to washington. there's a big debate in your party about whether it should

adhere to conservative principle and be purist or open its arms more and build a party. some folks around the country might be suspicious of a republican for massachusetts. what's your advice for your parties to? i would let the political pundits determine what's happening in the larger scale. bottomland, i was asked the times what kind of republican i would be. i did know how to add to that, such as that i'm going to base got brown republican. maybe there's a new breed of republican come to washington. who will look to just solve problems. you know, i have always been that way. i've always -- you remember i supported clean elections that i believe very, very strongly that we are there to serve the people, and we're there to do a job. eye, like many others throughout the country, you know, when we are talking about so-and-so said in his book and so instead said

here, my response is, who cares? because we have terrorists who are trying to blow up our trains again planes and kill our family. we have people dying in afghanistan who are trying, our soldiers are trying to make sure we finish the job they're. we have very says economic problems. i like many of you say, what's up with that? we need to make sure we solve the problems. if i can bring that type of message to washington and create a dialogue that gets us back to the basics, i'm all for it. allison, did you have a question? >> barack obama, jfk, they started in the white house the day they were elected in the senate. do you think your presidential timber? >> listen, i don't want to be disrespectful, but i've had no sleep right now. i haven't even been down to washington yet. and i don't want to say that's a silly question, but i'm just so thankful for the support that

i've received from everybody. last night when i stayed and chuck everyone's hands who, you know, sweating and pushing. those are the people i want to go down and represent. to think of something hired again higher up. if you would've told me growing up a guy who's mom was on welfare and parents had a marital troubles, and i had some issues, you know, growing up. would be your skinny before you now i'm going to washington, d.c., are you kidding me? i don't know if you guys understand the. i know you hatchet job to do, i have a wife, and i respect those jobs. it's not only overwhelming but it is so -- i can't tell you how proud i am to be here standing before you all. and being, having an opportunity. that's my goal. other people may say he's going to do this, going to do that either listen to the. i'm not going to listen to them

now. yes, sir? [inaudible] >> as part of your minor part of your campaign, organization. today i were a different tab as the membership of the ieee, world's largest technical organization. one of the things your predecessor was famous for was constituent services, yet it was difficult for our organization representing more than 15000 of the top technical people in the community to get bored into his office. i'm hoping you would open your door to some of the people who are, what responsible both for building massachusetts, and to the leading technological state in the country. and i would hope that would be part of your commitment, and i would just like to say that. thank you. >> thank you, first of all and thank you for your involvement in your organization. as you know, i always open my door for everybody in the state house. regardless of whether i agree with their position or not.

the one thing, i have to be honest with you, running throughout the campaign, even people who said they would've voted for me, the one thing they said is thank you for running a great campaign. thank you for making it about the issues. thank you for not making it negative and bring it in the gutter. thank you for being accessible. i may not have agreed with you but the information you gave me was accurate and timely so i could make a better decision. i am from a big tent philosophy. regardless of the flies and the commercials and all that stuff, i haven't changed a bit. i'm the same person today. i woke up, i walk the dogs, i gave my daughter, you know, who was very emotional about going back to college out and just. i'm going to miss her very, very much. of course, i'm going to allow people to come in and talk to me. i am so excited to have that opportunity because i learn more and more and more about the wonderful part, type of this country. i took of the wonderful parts of the state. i will take one more question that alison?

[inaudible] -- put the brakes on the obama administration. and they said that a lot less by. do these years of as the senator who will go down as the 41st vote and put the brakes on the obama agenda? >> first of all, i had a great conversation with the president. i do know if i was able to share that with you last night that he called. he called right away, which i think it for. and we were talking and he said, i look forward to meeting you and have an opportunity to work with you. and he said i heard that you are open-minded and you are kind of an independent guy. i said, well, mr. president, i want to meet you to. you have a wonderful family that i have wonderful respect for your account is. and by the way, do you want me to bring the truck? i did say that. and he let. i did know igg1. i said, all kidding aside i do have a basketball player dog that i know you play a lot of daughter you pick your best and i will take her and will play two on two. regardless of we may not agree on something, but you have a sense of humor and you have to have a sense of humor about

politics. thank you. [inaudible] >> i said earlier, joe, i'm going down tomorrow as a courtesy call. and then i'm sure it will all work out. i have great trust in secretary and i think everybody knows that this is an overwhelming victory and they're looking for to it. thank you very much. [inaudible]

>> "the associated press" reported in a statement says that he is withdrawing because his nomination has become a lightning but for those with a political agenda. president obama tapped him to leave the tsa in september. again, he is withdrawing his nomination. artier today president obama signed an executive order telling federal agencies to take steps to prevent federal contractors who don't pay their taxes from receiving new government contracts. according to the government accountability office, thousands of federal contractors currently owe the government more than $5 billion in unpaid taxes. the president's comments run about five minutes. >> good morning, everybody. before i start, let me introduce

the folks behind the. obviously the vice president. in addition, we've got senator claire mccaskill, congressman ed towns, congressman brad ellsworth. we got douglas shulman, whose the commission of the irs, and jefrey zients, our chief performance officer of the united states. here in our nations capital there are a number of ways to advance the ideals and interests of the american people. often is done through congress. but it can also be done through what's called a presidential memorandum, a directive that i get to cabinet secretaries and federal government employees to change how our government works. in a few moments, i will issue one of these directives to help stop government contracts from going to companies that are seriously delinquent in their taxes. this is not simple a matter of signing a piece of paper or taking a bureaucratic act. by issuing this directive, all of us in washington will be required to be more responsible

stewards of your tax dollars. all across this country, there are people who meet their obligations each and everyday. you do your jobs. you support your family's. you pay the taxes you will, because it's a fundamental responsibility of citizenship. and yet somehow, it's become standard practice in washington to give contracts to companies that don't pay their taxes. studies by the government accountability office have identified tens of thousands of such a deadbeat companies that are being awarded government contracts. one company owner who owed over $1 million in taxes was paid over $1 million as a defense contractor. and instead of using that money to pay his back taxes, he chose to buy a boat, some cars, and a home abroad with his earnings. the total amount owed in unpaid taxes by companies like that is estimated at more than $5 billion.

now, in washington, $5 billion might not seem like a lot of money. but if we were to invest that money in education, it would be enough to cover the cost of annual college tuition for more than half a million students. if we were to invest in health care, it would be enough to cover 2.5 million children. if we were to invest in energy, it would be enough to weatherized more than half a million homes. in a time of great need, when our families and our nation are finding it necessary to tighten our belt and be more responsible with how we spend our money, we can't afford to waste taxpayer dollars. and we especially can't afford to let companies gamed the system. we need to make sure every tax dollar we spend is going to address our nation's urgent needs and to make a difference in the lives of our people. the status quo that is inefficient and it's wasteful. but the larger and more fundamental point is that it's wrong. it is simply wrong for companies

to take taxpayer dollars and not the taxpayers themselves. so we need to insist on the same sense of responsibility in washington that so many of you strive to uphold in your own life, and your own families, and in their own businesses. that's exactly what the memorandum i'd issuing today is meant to do. i'm directing my budget office, together with the treasury department and other federal agencies, to take steps to block contractors who are seriously delinquent in their taxes from receiving new government contracts. i'm also directing the irs to conduct a review of the overall accuracy of companies claims about half the liberties. we need to be sure that when a company says it is paying taxes, that company is, in fact, paying taxes. beyond the steps, i'm also calling on congress to build on the kind of legislation that senator mccaskill, congressman ellsworth, and chairman towns have introduced. and that i introduced when i was senator. legislation that will crack down on tax cheats by allowing the irs to share information about

tax delinquency with contracting officials. and by the way, when i introduced that senate bill, claire stood by me, and brad led the way in the house. further, my budget from last year proposed that if a company with lots of unpaid taxes receives a federal contract, the government ought to be able to pay taxpayers back in full before it's required to pay the contractors themselves. had also proposed that tax collection, on behalf of american taxpayers, should not be subject to long bureaucratic elite that it should be done for the. said congress did not act last year on this proposal, i am introducing it in this year's budget. and i once again urge congress to act on it. so the steps of directing today and the steps i'm calling on congress to take are just basic common sense steps. they're not going to eliminate all the ways or all the abuse in government contracting and one fell swoop. and going forward, we'll also have to do more to help contractors more accountable, not just what paying taxes, but

for paul and other laws as well, including employment and environmental laws. but the efforts i'm outlining today will scaleback waste and abuse. and it will help bring the values of american government and the values of america's companies in line with the values of the american people. so with that, i'm going to sign this memorandum. and i'm expecting our team to implement it as quickly as effectively as we can. there you go. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible

and we will be back at the white house in about 45 minutes. the briefing with robert gibbs scheduled for 2 p.m. eastern. will have live coverage on c-span3. also today, trump first lady michelle obama. she is taking before the u.s. conference of mayors meeting in washington. british prime minister gordon brown talked about government relief efforts in haiti and called for the creation of the u.n. reconstruction agency to respond more rapidly to future disasters. he also expressed hope the 5500 cadbury workers retain their jobs after a proposed takeover by kraft. nick clegg criticized rbs bankroll and funding that corbett do. from london early today. this is 30 minutes.

>> danny alexander. >> question one, mr. speaker. >> mr. speaker, i am sure the whole house will wish to join me in paying tribute to corporal league bronson and riflemen luke farmer for third battalion, the rival. they died in afghanistan this week and our thoughts are with their families and friends. at this very sad time. last night i read through the moving tribute of their fellow soldiers to emit bravery, selfishness and, roderick which they displayed serving their colleagues, the british people and the people of afghanistan. and they will not be forgotten. mr. speaker, all of us -- some of the poorest people in the world facing some of the most extreme hardships and manageable. and our thoughts and condolences go to those families also in the united kingdom have been directly affected by the tragedy. they must first define our support, and third we must help

with the government of haiti to get back lazy to be able to deliver reconstruction. mr. speaker, this morning i have been meeting with others in addition to duties of my house. i shall have further such meets today. >> i sure the prime minister's condolences to the two brave soldiers who lost their lives in afghanistan. and welcome the steps he's taken to support the people of haiti. mr. speaker, i also welcome the constitution of the broadband next generation fund, but 10 percent of the highland is going to be left out according to the government's consultation. and the rest is in the final third. despite enormous economic benefits to the fact is businesses can't wait. why does the prime minister think it acceptable to leave out 10 percent of the population overall and leave the rest of britain to the end of the queue of? >> mr. speaker, the whole purpose of the digital initiative is to include as much of the 19 as possible. and having fast broadband. that's why we're making available 1 billion pounds to businesses to be able to do so.

and that will mean that 95 percent of the population of the country will be guaranteed broadband and fast broadband very center in other areas we hope to make advances in the scottish circumstances in consultation with the scottish. and i hope you'll find over time we will be able to solve them. our program means that we will be one of the countries that will have the fastest broadband and more quickly than any other, and that will help develop large numbers of businesses in this country, and help unemployment continued to fall. >> doctor tony rice to? thank you, mr. speaker. sometime ago, the city minister, load mitre said he thought it was becoming too easy for good british companies to be taken over by foreign creditors. now that we have and outrage at cadbury, does my right honorable friend a great? >> mr. speaker, cabarets

employees, it is a very company for the future of this country. we are seeking assurance and have received information from kraft about the importance they attach to the cadbury workforce to the cadbury name, and the cadbury quality in the united kingdom. and we hope that the kraft corners will make sure that cadbury workers, the five and a half thousand, can retain their jobs and make sure that new investment goes into a product that is distinguished british and is sought throughout the world. so we will do everything we can to make sure that jobs and investment are maintained in britain. >> mr. david cameron? >> thank you, mr. speaker. i join the prime minister in paying tribute to corporal lay bronson and riflemen luke farmer. they died serving our country. we must honor the memory and we must look after their loved ones that they have left behind. everyone in the house and in the whole country has been touched by the scale of the tragedy in haiti. we can be proud of the british

response, the public donated generously, the members of the service to volunteer and the ngo's who are doing such a good job in haiti. does the prime minister agree that there will come a time when we should reflect on how britain and the international community can make the initial rush of effort even better, even faster, and even more effective? but more will the prime minister update us on the further action that britain is intended to take to assist the international relief efforts to? it is of course a matter of immediate action followed by an assessment as to what can be done, better in future and as i suggested two years ago, to have a reconstruction and stabilization that it is ready on tack to do with his pop is something the united nations must consider very serious and. as far as the relief to haiti is concerned, this is still unfolding tragedy requires, first of all, the firefighters and others to rescue people from under the rubble. that is happening wherever possible. it requires food and medical supplies and indeed, energy

resources to be brought into haiti. that is happening as well pick it requires the coordination of the medical services, and that is being done principally by the americans. but i can say also that we are sending a boat to help with the effort that it will be able to help unload supplies into haiti, and that is a decision that is being made this morning. at the same time, i've talked to president obama about what we can both do to help in the reconstruction of a government effort in hades so the government can take further control and decisions that are to be made in the country. and we have agreed that we will help rebuild the office of the interior, the treasury, and other areas where work can start so they sample government can perform. we have medics in haiti who are doing what they can to help. sadly, there is at least one british citizen who has died as result of the events in haiti. i fear that maybe for the desk once it is clear, the whole

damage that has been done, particularly in the united nations section of the port-au-prince that but we would do whatever we can to back the troops that the americans have sent and the medical supplies. >> mr. david cameron thank you, mr. speaker. it's not that three-man people have been affected, 2 million left destitute and parsa the country have lost half the bill is that as the prime minister has said, haiti will need help with everything, including its whole government. for many years to come. of course we all want to see this old republic of an itself but in the short and medium-term, can the prime minister tell us what consideration he's giving to supporting new joint structures through which the u.n. and the haitian government can start to rebuild basic services and government for a peoplehood suffered so much? >> first of all, the canadian government is organizing funding conference next week to make sure that the international allegations that should be made by countries are made. and i may save the union has

offered 400 million euros already as a result of the meeting that took place. i did talk to president obama about the very issues that he made when i spoke to him yesterday evening. and i also talked to the secretary-general of the united nations in some detail about this as well. it is important of course that the government of haiti is seen as a legitimate government. but it is also important that the united nations and of course, the principal providers, supplies the united states can work together to deliver the coordination that is necessary. president obama has explained to me that in addition to the military effort which is massive, 11000 troops have gone in, with their field medical hospitals and every other kind of equipment that is necessary to help people, there's also the civilian effort of usaid, which is working very, very hard in the region at the same time the work is being done by president clinton and president bush to coordinate the relief that is being given to people. all these things are designed to ensure that there is proper

coordination, but i agree with the leader of the opposition. there are lessons to be learned for the future that we have over 1000 groups of elite team ready to go to areas where reconstruction and stabilization is necessary. some of them are in afghanistan at the moment, but the world must at some point come to a decision that first of all, funding has got to be available to movie immediately where there is a disaster, and secondly, we need the signing of professionals who are able to go to where there is a disaster in future and that will require a reconstruction agency. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i'm grateful for the answer. there's great agreement on the need for early, slick and well organized response that i wanted her to a completely different subject here at home. the torture and appalling abuse of two children by 10 and 11 job boys in doncaster has shocked the whole country. later this week a serious case review will be produced but only a summary of it will be published. these dreadful events follow the death of seven children between

2004 and 2009 and doncaster. can the prime minister tells why so many warning signs were missed and white took so long for the government to step in? >> this is a matter that is in the courts at the moment but we are all agreed about the seriousness of this case, four to bush to be assaulted in this way. by two other children who were at that time in the care of foster parents, but who had a history of where there had been social services and other intervention to tie and deal with a problem that is one of the most tragic cases missing, and i do not want britain to be defined as the appalling violence and irresponsible and that has been shown to these youngsters by two other youngsters. it is therefore informed that we learn the lessons property from what has happened to that is what a serious case review is undertaken. it has been said and the nsbc has also been one of the organizations that is suggested this is the best course, that in the interest of people being

able to tell the truth about what has happened, the summer is what should be published. and that is what will happen, i believe by the end of this way. that serious case review will in my view will assure their have been flaws in the organizations, and i think it is therefore necessary with a new director of social services, with intervention already agreed by the secretary for children with fragile under the special measures, that we learn all the lessons that what has happened that i think for the publication of the abstract of the executive summary to the serious case review we cannot draw the conclusion that are necessary. what is clear that the protection and security of our children will always be at the foremost priority and we should take every action we can to protect them. >> mr. david cameron. >> thank you but i'm going to come on the issue of whether we should publish the record in full because i believe we should but if the prime minister wants to learn the lessons, clearly one of the most important lessons to learn and why did so much go wrong for so long before

we intervened? if you look at the catalogue of errors, seven children died between 2004 and 2009. there were five serious case against. one didn't appear for three years. and of course, in every case, only a summary was published. in 2007, over two years ago, a report talked about series failures in doncaster. and it took more than a year and the deaths of five more children, including three from abuse, before the government took over in 2090 doesn't this alone demonstrate that serious case reviews are not leading to the correct action being taken? >> mr. speaker, lordly look at this last year and brought forth recommendations that these recommendations are being adopted that he also recommended that the child safeguarding boards had to have an deep in the chairman and that is what has happened in doncaster that as far as the serious case review itself, i think we have to wait until we see the findings of that review.

and i would not want to prejudge -- i would not want to prejudge that. the reason why the whole review is not to be published is that we wish to protect the identity of the names of the children as much as anything else. i say before -- we've had this argument before. we've had this argument before that these negative summary is published. that allows us to draw the conclusions that the problem, if i may say so in doncaster is there were many action taken but they were the wrong actions. and they were the actions that were taken that were not to prove that we had children of violence that had to be separated from parents of violence at an early time to with that i believe will, in the serious case review summary. that will be published soon. and i think that conservatives should listen to some of the organizations on this matter. and to lord leavy himself, and wait for the publication of the evidence and then let us, by all means, have the debate that is necessary on what further measures we can take. we know that doncaster had to be intervened upon.

and we know also that acer's case review will reveal what has happened. >> the prime ministells us to wait for the publication of the review. the point is, the review is not going to be publishe on both sil publication. but isn't the art of tipping in favor? the fact is the publication of summary has not led to the action. in the case of baby peter, the summary was found to be completely inadequate that it wasn't worth the paper was written on. the prime minister should consider this, reviews into murders i mental-health patients are published in full. they manage to have the correct amount of anonymity. why do we treat murderers by mental-health patients more rigorously than torture and potentially killing and murder of children? >> mr. speaker, i'm sorry he's moving ahead on this point, because -- because -- every organization and children society that i know, every professional that i know has recommended that the best way of

proceeding is publishing a summary of a serious case review. the reason is to protect the anonymity of the children and to allow people to say things that they will then -- remember, the purpose of a serious case review is to learn lessons from what has happened. and that's why the summary is published when people are clear what lessons have to be learned. and i hope, i hope, i hope the opposition party will not stand isolated against all the professional advice in this field. and simply on the issue of whether we published the summary of the serious case review, make an issue of this when what we need to address are the lessons that have to be learned from doncaster. >> we're not going to learn the lessons properly unless we get the information out to the public. the prime minister says we should talk to professional. india indeed, my honorable friend spoke to the nsbc this point is that it's not black and white that there have been occasions when the executive

summary has provided a lack of clarity. a growing number of social workers, including the magazine, want to see these things published. the fact is, this is an appalling case of two children being dragged onto wasteland and tortured within an inch of their lives. it shook the whole conjugate he talks about the publication. let him just listen instead of consulting, listen to this important point that the bbc who have seen the report, they say the summer and the full report don't match up. are we in danger, are we in danger of having a cover up if we don't publish it in full? >> mr. speaker, the case is not yet completed. the serious case review has been late but has not been published. the summary will be published in the appropriate time. i have taken, as has secretary for children of the advice of lord leavy who did -- cases is the wrong advice but lord leavy is respected right across the country for the work is done.

i and the secretary of state for children are taking the advice of many children's societies and professional organizations of the matter. i think it's about to recognize that the issue here is what lessons we learned, how we learn this lesson is a matter for people not to look at the summit of the serious case review. i asked them to consider the anonymity of the children as an important issue, and also the freedom of children to say to the inquiry what they think is happening what they think has gone wrong. and these are important issues that i hope the opposition will consider. we went through this before on the baby. case and it was agreed then, it was agreed then that we would have the report from lord leavy. he made the recommendations about the serious case review. and i'm sorry that on an issue that we do not have a final verdict in the court, on an issue when do not have a some even published, he asked the acer is a detailed questions when he hasn't read the report either. >> shawn james. >> thank you, mr. speaker.

the child fund has been a wonderful. does the prime minister agree with me we have to do more to encourage more and more families to take up his offer, particularly the inconsistencies in my own constituency? >> over 4.8 million children now have a child trust on. no child. unfortunately conservative policy would take a child trust funds away from two thirds of the children who would be eligible in the future. middle-class family as well as people of the maas incomes need child trust fund so they can say for the future. i think the conservative party are out of touch with middle income britain. >> [shouting]. >> i would like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolences to the family and friends of corporal lee bronson and rifleman luke farmer from the third battalion, the rifles

that who tragically died was serving so bravely in afghanistan last week that i would like to thank the prime minister for what he said about the aid and relief effort in haiti. i know everyone is shocked to the core by the sheer scale and ferocity of this terrible disaster which has hit a country which was already crippled by such terrible poverty. i would like to return to the issue of. last month lord mandelson declared the government would mount a huge opposition to the kraft takeover of canada to why is it the royal bank of scotland which is owned by this government should now want to lend vast amounts of our money to kraft to fund their takeover? >> mr. speaker, if he's really suggesting that the government can step in and avoid any takeover that's taking place in this country just overnight, and then tell a bank that it's got to deprive a particular company of money by government dictate that is liberal principles have seen two of gone to the wall.

[laughter] [shouting] >> i think the prime minister for the little economics lecture, but there's a simple -- does a simple principle -- there's a simple principle at stake that there are tens and thousands of british companies crying out for the money to protect jobs. and instead, rbs wants to lend money to a multinational with a record of cutting jobs. when british taxpayers bailed out the banks, they would never have believed their money would not be used to put british people out of work. isn't that just plain wrong? [shouting] >> mr. speaker, to put the words liberal and principal together and seem very, very difficult. [laughter] >> i have to tell him, there is -- i have to tell them, there is no government that is doing more to try to protect jobs and increase jobs in this country. unemployment is falling today as

a result of the actions we have taken. if we had taken the advice of the liberal party, unemployment would be a great deal higher than it is now. he has got nothing to offer in the debate on the economy at all. >> order. the house really must calm down. we are making slow progress but i want to get down the order paper and i'm determined to do so. >> we propose an opportunity debate and vote on its recommendations within two months and that has elapsed. will my right honorable friend bring forward a debate very soon? and since he also said quite rightly, that this is entirely a matter for the house alone, will he also reassured that the house can vote on a free vote, both from the package as a whole and on each one of the main recommendations? >> well, mr. speaker, first of all i know he is a reformer and

wishes to see improvements in the way the house operates. and we are grateful to the committee chaired by, for welcoming bringing forward proposals for reforming the committee system. the government will make time available for a bit. the house will have an opportunity to decide on the committee's recommendations. the government wants the house to agree a way forward, and we will therefore propose exempting many of the committee's recommendations, including electing shares of select committee, electing members, scheduled non-government business and strengthening the role of back wages to hold the government accountable. >> thank you, mr. speaker. on monday sir michael publishes report based on the testimonies of 60 senior civil servants and what helped and he concluded that the prime minister comment is weak in the social and there's a strategic gap at its heart to india, there's a lack of a single coherent strategy of the common. y. in particular does he think

that one senior civil servant ministers have lost -- >> order. i think we have adrift. prime minister? >> he's going to have to do better than that. [laughter] >> i just have to say the report did not analyze the conservative way of making decisions on married couples allowances. and other issues that when he said it was going to be -- when he said he was going to be one new policy every day this year, i didn't realize it was one of policy and every day on married couples allowances mr. speaker, we are getting on with the business of government. that is why -- and that is why unemployment is falling today. that is what we took action to help small businesses. that is why we coordinated government action to help homeowners, and we're seeing the results of our action. the unfortunate thing is that conservatives oppose every

single measure that we have reformed. >> mr. speaker, today's employment figures are good news for my constituents and there are now almost 7000 fewer people unemployed than during the last tory recession. would this have happened if the government had simply let the recession take its course, and what more can the government do to help my constituents get back into work? >> tried to this government unemployment is not a price worth paying. and for this government, we have taken action so that any 80s recession, unemployment kept rising for five years. in this recession, we have taken action so that we can see unemployment falling. and we can see the action that is helping young people into work. it is interesting that the leader of the opposition is not asking me about the economy today. >> thank you, mr. speaker. the chilcot inquiry has heard the current prime minister was in the iraq war inner circle and

she refused he payments for our troops on the front line. will he confirm to the house that there is no impediment for him to seek a time to give evidence to the chilcott inquiry before the general election? >> mr. speaker, this is as i said a matter for the chilcot inquiry. i have written to sir john chilcot and i said to him, i am happy to give evidence at any time. that is a matter for the committee to decide. but i will take whatever advice he gives me about when he wishes me to appear. i am happy to give evidence on all the issues that he puts forward and happy to satisfy the public of this country about our government's commitment to the security of this country. >> mr. speaker, my friend would like to get married. at her boyfriend isn't so keen. i wonder if my honorable friend might be able to tell us, should the government give them some money, and if so, how much in order to tie the knot?

[laughter] >> mr. speaker, is the conservative party that is tied in knots. [laughter] >> i want to -- now that the shadow business secretary is with her, let me just tell the house what he has said about his married couples allowances i really don't think it's anything to do with politicians he said that when you get very. and most of the younger people i know don't seem very keen of it that my view of conservatives is that it's not for us to tell you what to do through the tax system. my wife didn't put up with me because i was given 150 by way of tax allows. this is social engineering, for gods sake. and when i joined the party we were in favor of a. from the shadow business secretary. [shouting]. >> order. order. order. order.

i'm sure the house wants to hear mr. mark. >> thank you very much, mr. speaker. the power company has just announced they will be closing their call center with a proposed loss of over 600 jobs. given that sadness, can the prime minister personally assure me that the business department, the job center plus network will do absolutely everything they can to assist my constituents and their families, and to help them find alternative employment, if that closure goes through? >> mr. speaker, i can assure him that the rapid response unit of the department of work and pensions and job center plus will be available to help his constituents if they are looking for jobs. i have to say to him that 300,000 people are leaving the unemployment register every month. party as a result of the action that job center plus is able to take. and we will be able to put to

the assistance of his constituents, not only advised but health and careers assistance. and in some cases work for others who are young people looking for jobs of the future that will do everything we can. i have to say to him, however, and i hope you will note that all these measures are opposed by the leader of the opposition. >> thank you, mr. speaker. is my right honorable friend unaware of the recent research done by the institute for fiscal on how to tackle poverty and help families? does he share their analysis that the best way to tackle a child poverty is through the child tax credits and not through policies advocated by the official opposition? >> mr. speaker, we have the conservative family document published today, and it doesn't mention that they wish to cut child tax credits away from large number of people. and it doesn't mention that they want to take the child trust fund a way from large numbers of people.

as for politics, mr. speaker, if you publish a document and you do not tell people what your policy really is, mr. speaker, mr. speaker, -- last week i said that shrek last week i said they should give up the posters and concentrate on policy. now that i've seen their policy, i've got to say they are just as well with her posters. [laughter] >> thank you, mr. speaker. can i ask the prime minister to look into the excessive delays within the home office for resolving the outstanding issues of funding for our company children's asylum seekers with all the financial consequences and possible implications for social cohesion? >> i will undertake to look at this very matter. he's talking about an issue that is obviously very serious for those people who are affected by that and families that i will look at it very carefully. >> number seven, mr. speaker, on the alternative vote.

>> i've given a commitment. the referendum will be held early in the next barnett for the people to decide whether they want to go to the alternative vote system. >> there is no such thing as a perfect electoral system, the alternative vote would mean that every member of parliament returned would have at least 50 percent of the electoral locally supporting them. it would also maintain and indeed strengthen the constituency link that is so vital for all members of parliament in the south. and like any proportional representation system. with the prime minister therefore consider whether he could trust members of this house and ultimately members of the public to have a series of discussion on electoral systems and consider what electoral system they should use to send people here? >> well, mr. speaker, this will be decide by members of the public in a referendum. i think the advantage of the alternative court system is that

it retained the constituency link which i believe is important. not just a mems of the house here but to the whole population. given the issues that have arisen about trust and politics, there is a case for every member of the sounds coming here with the support of more than 50 percent of the electors as a result of the alternative vote system to work. and i believe there is a case for a referendum on this issue and i believe those people who wish to see it reformed or which is a referendum on that basis. >> the 200 year old dam in my constituency which is an earthworks dam, containing the reservoir has started to leak. a recent engineer's report says that if it collapses there will be scores of lives lost, and a lasting affect on the west midlands as a region. a small district of lichfield hasn't got the funds to make the urgent repairs.

can the prime minister please use his best endeavors to ensure that this is taken financially over a much broader region? >> of course, sir, i will be happy to look at what he says on that very specific issue. but i do see is making the case for public expenditure. >> mr. speaker, on friday mp's and counselors of all parties are not historians. will be gathering to take forward plans to provide a permanent memorial, in 1915, and an act of outstanding courage that would be prime minister though i have written to him on this subject offer a message of support for our endeavors to mark for ever the gallantry of this truly local hero? >> i agree with him that a permanent memorial would be a great way of expressing, not only our debt to the people that he has mentioned, but are

continuing debt to all those who have served our country and have been honored for doing so anyway that they have shown bravery and demonstrated the greatest of courage. so i hope that his proposal can move forward and we will do everything that we can to get help. >> mr. speaker, would be prime minister introduced an annual limit on immigration? >> mr. speaker, was introduced as a points system on immigration and i believe that pointed system is act was starting to work. and i believe he will see from the announcement out of coming soon that the number of people we need to come to the country to meet skills that are needed in this country is being substantially reduced as a result of the skills that we are training and the people we are training in this country. so the points system is working in the way that those unskilled workers who are not needed to come to the country, and therefore cannot make a contribution to the economy, are not allowed into the country. >> order. host: our guest is bil,

are just out is the editor of something known as politifact and you put together what you call your obama to.scoroard. for promises made and what's happened with those promises pictures a look on screen of what you found in the past year. compromises, 33. promises broken, 14. first question.

how do you track these promises? >> we started -- guest: >> guest: we start out by defining what is a promise. wayzata, so something that obama during the campaign weighed what he guaranteed prospective action, or he said i will do something. and something that we decided was measurable. we felt it was important to fixing that were measurable. we found there were more than 500 promises that he made which is really a stunning number. big promises like reducing troops in iraq to very near promises like once he made to parents of children with autism. and then will we have done over the past year is track them, the staff has spent hours and hours searching the web, interviewing officials in the government interviewing advocacy groups to see how they have done.

we try to be as objective as possible in rating. and we said that a promise kept is obviously something where he has exceeded what he said he would do. we try to recognize that he is only one year into a four year term, and so still has three years to fulfill many of the promises. so that's why the number of promises broken at this point is at 14 or 15, because the guy still has three years in office. so we have many more promises. i think you noted roughly 90 promises are rated stalled. and those are promises that where there is no action, where we expect that -- where it's very likely that those promises could go broke in. but there is still the opportunity for progress. interestingly, on health care, a big topic this morning, 35 individual promises that he made during the campaign are affected by the health care bill.

so if they manage to pass it either, either pass the senate version by the house, or change their strategy in passive, those could go to promises kept that those could also go to promises broken. >> host: we will take your calls on the president's first year for the next 30, 45 minute period or so. there are the numbers that democrats, republicans and independent. how long have you been doing this? >> guest: it is run by the times and independent newspaper in florida, the largest newspaper in florida. we've been doing it since 2007. what we started off doing is not checking. we have two features on our site. the obama durant also the truth meter. what we do is fact check claims in american politics we started off doing the fact checking claims in a 2008 presidential campaign in august of 2007.

did that all the way through the primary. over the course of the campaign, check more than 750 claims, and rated them on our truth meter as true, mostly too, have to, very true, false or our lowest rating, pants on fire. the whole idea here is that there is a need i think in political journalism for an umpire, for a referendum for somebody who's going to end an objective way to sort out the truth for people and hold elected officials accountable or independent. we are nonpartisan. it is just great journalism. >> here are some of the details. established a credit card bill of rights. expand eligibility for the schip program. according to politifact, has several other points you. he gave a speech at a major islamic form in the first o of days of his administration that

he was a some presidential records that anti-workforce deployed a global climate change research and monitoring system. tell us more. >> guest: for promises kept involved in many cases things that president obama was able to do without the consent of congress. things he can do purely through executive power. so the latitude that you mentioned are things where he didn't need the approval of congress. he could fulfill that promise to give the speech in an islamic form. he spoke in turkey, and begin in egypt. he fulfilled many promises about putting emphasis within the executive branch on particular things. the first two that you mentioned promises kept, were ones where he needed the consent of congress to pass the children's health insurance program. you need congress to do that. and now i believe was the first bill he signed. a couple days after he took office. the same for the credit card bill of rights. those two actually represent

something of an exception in that they are also included a fair amount of bipartisan support. there was republican support for both of those bills. and of course, then as he got to the stimulus, there was much less republican support. >> host: before go to calls, ending the income tax for seniors making less than $50000 to about five days of public comment before signing bills. urging states to treat same-sex couples with full equality and the family and adoption laws. also, promises broken include creation of a 3000-dollar tax credit for companies that add jobs. and negotiating those health reform negotiations in public sessions televised by us here on c-span. tell us more about those. >> guest: a couple that you mention i think involve an area where obama has had difficulty, and that is transparency. he said a lot of things during the campaign, like that he would

open up the health care negotiations to c-span skimmers. that sounded good that does a great line on the campaign trail. but i think what's happened is he's gotten in office, he has realized they were forced to realize, that's not how washington traditionally has worked. difficult negotiations in washington have traditionally taken place behind closed doors, and that's how the health care bill began, with white house staffers meeting with the pharmaceutical industry, with other interests that would be affected by the bill. and cutting a deal. and so he has been forced as result of that, he has broken that promise that he would open that up. transparency is difficult. he has taken steps. if you talk to the open government groups, i think they are happy he has made progress. more progress than they saw under president bush. but still some of these, the summit site that you mention, that's one with the temptation of having a quick bill signing overrode his goal of having this cooling off period.

so transparency has been a difficult area. >> host: i'm sure the colors have a lot to say. lucy is a first on the line for democrats. >> caller: hi. president obama promised and he also ran on the fact that he was going to happen transparency in government. like you have just mentioned. that we were going to be able to see everything before it was passed. that the builder going to be smaller and more clear. but yet, and also that he was going to create jobs to get this economy going. my brother-in-law, and several of my family members, have lost jobs. they are still looking for jobs. my brother runs a small business and yet he's going to be hit with tons of taxes from small businesses and all kinds of regulations for small businesses. that's not transparency. that's not different government. that's not the new government like he promised. that is -- all that is is

socialism. . . host: bill adair? $ host: and hertz, massachusetts -- amherst, massachusetts. jeff, are you there? i thi >> host: jeff, are you there? i think we lost jeff. are you there pat? >> caller: good morning.

>> host: hi, you are on the republican line. go ahead. >> caller: i just wanted to say about one of obama's decisions to keep bernanke in office. this is a mistake being he's pretty much on the lines with bush's administration with paulson, you know, and paulson and bush when they came out and said we're in all kinds of trouble. we need the t.a.r.p. fund. in office, the ceo of goldman sachs. i think it's going to be part of his downfall. >> that's a little beyond our per view. we're in the fact checking business. i don't really know that i have anything to say to that. >> let me ask you what one of the earlier callers said. you mention transparency. you do touch on transparency and

the area of promises stalled. let's go through a couple of those. lifting the payroll tax cap on earnings above $250,000. there's transparency standards for military contracts. a promise that's stalled. tell us more about that. >> guest: well, we looked for action on that. we just didn't find anything. i think that's typical of the fact that we're talking about 500 promises, actually 503 promises is our total. that the administration, i think made some calculations that they could only pursue so many things at one time. many of the things that we have stalled, i think earlier, we talked about some of the promises that obama made about gay rights. those are stalled by, i think -- by a political calculation by the white house. they were just not going to pursue that in their first year. i think that with 500 promises, you have to figure out which

ones you are going to tackle first. >> host: you also add making white house communications public as a promise stalled. then moving on. ises stalled, providing the path for citizenship for undocumented immigrants and also calling for an appeal of don't ask, don't tell policy. what's the different between stalled and unpursued. >> guest: stalled represents no action. then we make a determination based on our research, is there still the possibility that there could be further action? if so, we'll keep it stalled. if it looks to us like it's not just going anywhere any time soon, wil rate it -- we'll rate it broken. the meter does move in both rexes, we have moved stalled to broken and broken to stalled. it's dynamic.

the whole idea gets to something that candidate obama said. you want you to hold me accountable. we said okay, we will. >> you said you started your work in 2007. we -- >> guest: we started the truth-o-meter in 2007. obviously we couldn't start it until we had a complete list of his campaign promises. after the election, our staffers who had done so much fact checking during the campaign spent two months going through campaign position papers, transcripts, speeches that obama had given and documenting all of the promises that he had made. >> host: what i was getting at, did you do any of the work under the last president in the final year? >> guest: boy, we get asked that a lot. i wish we had. we've created a wonderful resource now that going forward i hope will set the standard for how we hold president's

accountable. we didn't do it under bush or clinton. it didn't exist until 2007. i think we have a new form of journalism that harnesses the power of the web for a research tool. never before have journalist been able to get information on very specific things like this. but also for -- for the public to be able to come and see how he's doing on various promises. >> host: let's here from albany, georgia. hi. on the democrat line. >> caller: good morning. i'm joe collins. i was listening to the lady that called in saying that the promise that he's going to get jobs. but i feel like the president did not go out and just make people give you a job. you have to understand that we can't do that. he can only try as hard as he's doing to try to make it possible

to get jobs. but it's not like he can go out and just make people hire you and give you a job. >> host: any perspective there? >> something that's an important point. one of the things that we have fact checked on polotifact one of the claims about the stimulus bill and how many jobs have been saved or created. this is an interesting question. i guess to your point about the nature of stimulating an economy and trying to get businesses to create jobs. what obama has said repeatedly is numbers about how many jobs have been created or saved by the economic stimulus bill. we've been very skeptical of that. particularly because of the word save. that's a very difficult thing to measure, unless you can go to a school district, for example, as he's done and say that a school district because it got federal money was able to avoid the

layoffs of 200 teachers. unless you have that sort of specificity, the numbers that the white house has been using are really pretty fuzzy. >> host: san diego on the line. em you are on. sorry, didn't have the button up. go ahead. >> caller: hi, can you hear me? >> host: yes. go ahead. >> caller: i used to be an republican and now i'm an independent. >> host: what happened? why did you change? >> caller: it had to do with the bush administration beginning to change the law. i think that in order to sustain what they wanted to do. and i believe the rule of law is probably the most important thing that we have in this democracy. and there were some other things. what i wanted to do is talk to you about president obama. i think that generally speaking, he's doing a pretty good job. moseley because i lost a lot of money in this stock market.

and i know that we were headed not merely for depression, but for a worldwide collapse. i think that because of what they did, both at thened of the bush administration and president obama, they basically stopped the world from falling apart. so it feels in a way like nothing happened. and now people have kind of forgetten where we were. and i think the fact that people are now acting and asking for jobs, i think that the fact that we stayed at 10% as compared to where we could have gone are huge numbers. and so i just i want people to begin to call their senators and their congress people and say get to work for us. and not completely blame it on president obama. > host: thanks. >> guest: it's an interesting

question on how much is because of anything that the government does or doesn't do. and it's a tricky thing for us in the fact checking business at politifact. so many of the claims on both sides have to do with the impact of the economic stimulus, the impact of the t.a.r.p., and that's getting into a difficult area for us. >> host: bill adair, editor of polito. q. fact. he is washington chief. tracy, you are on the republican line. hi there. >> caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. and thank you for taking my call. >> host: you bet. >> caller: mr. adair, thank you for holding our elected officials, or at least the president accountable. i think that's what most americans are looking for. certainly the web makes that easier for the average person to check and see what's going on.

my question is how much do you think your web site and sights like it o fueling movements like the tea party movement? >> guest: well, that's an interesting question. i don't know that it's -- i don't know that it's fueling it. i think -- we think of ourself as sort of the referee. our goal is when somebody says something that's not true, we want to tell you about it. when somebody says something provocative, we want to tell you if it's true or not. our goal isn't to provide fuel. you could say any new site is fueling either side in american politics. our goal is to do something a little built different which is to sort it all for you and help you make sense of politics. we do that as objectively as we can by looking at claims by both sides and rating them on the truth-o-meter and by tracking the president's promises. >> host: isn't that what the

news media is supposed to be doing the whole time. what made you decide to do this? >> guest: i think we got scared. i think what happened in -- you know, the late '90s is i think the news media got afraid to say something was false for fear that people would say that we were bias. and so we had a tendency to false along the falsehoods without noting they were false. i think any political reporter that's honest with you would say they had quoted elected officials saying things that the reporters knew were not true. and i think -- what was important and the reason we created politolfact is we have this tremendous new opportunity with the web to create a whole new way that we tell people what's going on. it was time. i think it was time to start calling the balls and strikes.

you know, both sides get mad, both sides love us. it depends on the day and ruling. >> host: our guest is bill adair from polotofact. >> caller: good morning. i have a question for you. president obama ran on a platform of hope and change and a new fresh perspective in washington. i was wondering in your opinion if you feel that promises kept is a feeling of hope? i don't feel he's kept the feeling of hope alive. >> guest: that's interesting check. that goes beyond what we do in the fact checking business. we addressed it to an item that we published yesterday. we added a new promise. we had initially not included obama's promise to work in a

more bipartisan way. we felt like it wasn't as measurable as his other promises. we decided over the last few days we needed to rate that promise. we went back through many of the things he said in the campaign, that i think involved the hope that you mention. but his specific promise was that he would turn the page on the ugly partisanship of washington. we looked at that. then we looked at the votes in congress on his major initiative. although there were some bipartisan votes as i-ed on the children's health insurance program and the credit card bill of right. when you look at the really big thing, the stimulus bill and health care bill, it has been as partisan as ever. and this city is as divided as it's ever been. we have rated that promise stalled. now -- i'll leave it to my friends to sort out why that is. but undoubliedly, i think as you say -- undoubtedly, i think as

you say, the president has not delivered in bringing hope together. >> host: the independent line. >> caller: good morning. you know you're a little bit faster on the phone than you are on the tv. >> host: a little delay. go ahead. >> caller: i want to mention a little bit about the budget, the deficit. you hear the republicans talk about ronald reagan and what we did for the country. when we came into office, he tripled the national debt too. when his son took office, he didn't do anything for us. it took bill clinton, his whole eight years fighting with the republican congress and senate to balance the budget and have a budget surplus. when george bush took over, he gave all of that money away to old buddies, insurance

buddies,ing whatever. and he ran the deficit up again. and throwed it in obama's lap. >> host: thanks for your comment. anything you want to say? >> guest: actually we fact checked that the other day. there was a back and forth between david axelrod and karl rove who had the same role in the bush administration. we fact checked a claim by axelrod that said what you just said essentially. he gave the figures on what the obama -- what the bush administration inherited in terms of surplus or projected surplus and what it left. we gave him true or the truth-o-meter for that. i think he was off with one number that he used. i think it is important to give a perspective of history on a lot of these things. that's what we try to do on

politifact. a lot of times they will make claims about how it was and how it used to be done. >> host: union county, republican you are on with bill adair. >> caller: i'd like to say that the republicans and independents shouldn't stop at what happened at massachusetts. don't let your wind come out of your sail. there's a lot of work to be done. and i hope the tea party folks don't let themselves be co-oped by the republicans. because they need to remain truly independent. now, mr. adair, i'd like to see you bring the truth-o-meter back out on scott brown's campaign. because the media has been reporting that he never said said -- he never mentioned he was republican. so could you tell us honestly and fairly if his campaign ever mentioned he was a republican? you might have to do some work on that? >> host: interesting

question. >> guest: that's great. i had the same thought. i was watching msnbc. i thought we have to fact check that. so maybe we'll look into that today. one the things we do on politifact is try to look at some of the state rates. we launched politifact texas and we're going to try to do it other states. the whole idea is to take the meter to the state level and do more checking like martha coakley, and scott brown. it's my belief that every elected official in america should have to face the truth-o-meter. we also check the talk show host like glenn beck and rush limbaugh. you make a great suggestion. >> host: promises not yet rated including the directing of rebuilding effort from the white house after a a catastrophe,

also failing to elect a chief financial officer. >> guest: yeah, we left two promises open. only after a major domestic disaster can we really measure those? we chose last week as we were finishing up rating all of the promises not to rate those. we think we have to wait until there is an opportunity for the president to act in that case. >> host: and we'll show you polititfact top 10 promises. we'll take the last call. it's pam on the line. you're on with bill adair. go ahead. >> caller: yes, i'm interested in knowing how you rate president obama's performance so far with respect to his promises to curtail free trade and to address the problems we're having. because in my opinion i've been in business for 30 years here in

houston. i think that all of our financial problems have to do with those two issues. >> guest: boy, great question. i confess of the 503, those are -- i think we have a few on trade. i don't recall impactly how he's done on that. you can go to our web site and under obama-o-meter and click trade and see what we've done on that issue. >> host: anything else you want to say about the future of politifact. >> guest: we think there is a need to do this at the state level. our friends in austin have been doing that now. and it's been doing the race between senator kay and rick. we'd like to do it in other states, we're talking to some news organization in other states about doing that. i think every elected official in the country should face the

truth-o-meter. >> host: bill adair. thanks a lot for your time. >> the senate gaveling back in now to begin work on a measure that raised the federal debt. earlier today, they claimed beverly martin to be judge. they voted to haiti relief to be deducted on 2009 taxes. now to senate here on c-span 2.

the presiding officer: the senator from arizona is recognized. kyl cyme i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kyl: i further ask that i may be permitted to speak for as much time as i may consume. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. kyl: thank you, mr. president. it was exactly one year ago that barack obama was sworn in as president of the united states. he began by promising to launch a new era of responsibility, bipartisan, and transparency at home, and to improve america's standing abroad. that message appealed to the american people. the president came into office with high approval ratings, widespread support and meantty

of bipartisan goodwill in chamber. taking stock now a year later, it is apparent that the president has not delivered the change he promised. the president's approach to spending, debt, and big government has surprised and frustrated the american people. it's not what they bargained for. much of the legislation introduced by the majority has passed on party-line votes and without the transparency he promised. on this one-year anniversary, i want to talk specifically about the conflict between president obama's campaign promises and the policies he's promoted during his first year in office. despite his pledge to embrace fiscal responsibility, president obama's domestic agenda has reflected a belief that big government and massive spending are the keys to promoting economic growth. from car company bailouts to cash-for-clunkers, to a wasteful $1.2 billion stimulus bill that

failed to stop unemployment from topping 8%, as the administration said it would, federal spending has soared. so has the national debt. president obama said earlier this year that we can't keep on just borrowing from china. and that's true. so why does the president continue to advocate spending pon that we don't have and will have to borrow? whatever happened to his campaign promise of a net spending reduction? government spending grew by $705 billion in fiscal year 2009, an increase of 24% from 2008. and appropriations legislation enacted this year will increase spending by 8% more in 2010. america's 2009 federal deficit, which is the gap between total outlays and total revenue, made history -- and not in a good way. it exceeded $1.4 trillion, which is the highest amount in history and more than three times as large as the biggest annual

deficit during the previous administration. the record-breaking budget that president obama submitted to congress doubles the deficit in five years and triples it in 10. it also creates more debt than the combined debt of every president, from george washington all the way through george bush. there's no way to blame president bush for this situation. the total debt has reached an almost unimaginable sum, almost $12 trillion. this week the senate will take up an increase in the debt ceiling, which is the total amount of legal u.s. debt. that increase will come on the heels of a $290 billion increase in the debt ceiling that was passed late last year and another increase that was passed early in 2009 to accommodate the stimulus bill. interest payments on this debt are expected to reach $800 billion, just interest alone.

$8 billio00 billion per year byr 2019. clearly, we have not entered a new era of fiscal responsibility but, rather, quite the opposite. of course, the most expensive piece of legislation passed last year was the health care bill. the $2-plus trillion bill was hardly a work of fiscal responsibility or bipartisanship. it passed both bodies of congress a partisan vote. the legislation will create a massive new entitlement at a time when america cannot afford its existing entitlement programs. the bill is filled with deals for the special interests. president obama said they would be banned from doing business with his administration. last week the white house reached a deal with labor union leaders to exempt until 2018 unilateral health care plans from a -- union health care plans from a tax that will hit

many other americans. the bill also violates several key pledges that president obama made about health care reform. first, the pledge that it would be deficit-neutral. richard foster, the chief actuary for the centers for medicare and medicaid services, estimates that under the reform legislation, national health spending will rise by $222 billion over the next ten years, and the congressality budget office tells us that the senate bill double-counts the savings from certain medicare reforms. it uses certain funds to extend the solvency of medicare by nine years while exphul using those exact same funds to offset the cost of the bill. according to the congressional budget office -- and i quote -- "to describe the full amount as both improving the government's ability to pay future medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and, thus, overstate the

improvement of the government's fiscal situation." in short, this bill is not deficit-neutral. t-the president also pledged that middle-income families would not see their taxes raised. this is the second broken pledge. as the republicans have explained repeatedly, this bill is packed with taxes that will hit many middle-income americans, including seniors and the chronically ill. in fact the senate version contains a total of 12 new total taxes. the third broken pledge relates to costs. president obama said that his health care bill would reduce costs. it doesn't. costs for many families will actually increase, thanks to a litany of new federal requirements and mandates. this whole process has also shown that the president's professed commitment to transparency was nothing more than a campaign slogan. he promised at least seven times that the health care negotiations would be aired on c-span, as he put it, so the

american people can see what the choices are. but that didn't happen. as speaker pelosi reminded you the president promised a lot of things on the campaign trail. those who weren't invited to the democrats' secret negotiations did not know the details of the respective health care bills until just before each of them came up for a vote. and we're talking about bills that are more than -- excuse me, more than 2,000 pages long and contain hundreds of hidden provisions. even before the health care legislation is concluded, the president is proposing yet another spending bill, a second stimulus package. the stimulus bill -- they call it a jobs bill now -- that recently passed the house of representatives would cost taxpayers $260 billion more in deficit spending. i do not believe that the way to create jobs is to expand the size and expenditures of the federal government. i believe we must encourage growth in the private sector, not by taking money out but by

putting money back in. it's understandable and unfortunate that job creators may be nervous about economic conditions. the economy is still schicky. -- the economy is still shaky. and taxes loom on the horizon, the u.s. economy lost another 85,000 jobs in december. a former chief economist of the u.s. labor department urged the administration to press the reset button on economic policy. she urged the president not to raise taxes, scale back federal spending, focus on deficit reduction, and reject the new environmental regulations that will drive u.s. jobs overseas. i hope that in the coming year president obama will consider more sensible domestic policies so that we can rein in the out-of-control spending that has characterized his first year. this would truly be change we can believe in.

i'd also like to discuss the tension between rhetoric and reality in the president's foreign and national security policies. throughout the campaign, president obama pledged that he would improve america's reputation abroad and repair supposedly-damaged alliances. in september 2007, candidate obama said -- quote -- "america's standing has suffered. our alliances have been compromised by bluster. our credibility has been compromised." he said. so what has been the president's strategy for boosting america's standing? well, he's gone on an apology tour of sorts, the fundamental consequences of which, in the worlds of charles krauthammer, has been to effect kwreufpl undermine any claim america might have to world leadership. not only have these efforts

failed to yield positive results they have led the administration to shun several partners. president obama came into office hoping to negotiate a grand bargain over the iranian nuclear program, embraced a policy of engagement with the radical iranian theocracy. so far this policy has done nothing to stop iran from developing nuclear weapons and brutalizing its own people. but it did prevent the obama administration from offering robust support to the pro-democracy demonstrators who flooded the streets last summer to protest a stolen election. rather than embrace the protesters who were standing up for liberty and human rights, president obama initially said that he did not want to be seen as meddling in the iranian elections. by the way, those protesters are still out in the streets waging a courageous struggle for democracy in iran. despite all these u.s. efforts to engage iranian governmental officials, the negotiations over

iran's nuclear program have gone nowhere and the iranian president recently declared that iran will continue resisting international demands until the united states abolishes its own nuclear arsenal. we must remember that iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. a government that murders peaceful student democracy advocates -- excuse me -- activists. event over the past year have shown that the iranian regime is not a good-faith negotiator. now is the time to maximize leverage over iran through targeted sanctions. meanwhile, we must not take any options off the table if we hope to prevent an iranian nuclear weapon. the president's iran strategy was based on the idea that u.s. engagement would produce real concessions. well, that didn't work with tehran and hasn't worked with other countries as well, including moscow. despite u.s. diplomatic efforts the russian government continues to withhold support for strong u.n. sanctions against iran.

it continues to bully its democratic neighbors like georgia and poland and it continues to practice awe though tehran domestic policies. america's allies in eastern europe are getting nervous. president obama's cancellation of a planned missile defense system in poland and the czech republic and the manner in which it was executed gave the impression that the united states caved in to russian pressure. there are few regions in the world as volatile as the middle easement unfortunately the obama administration alienated our closest middle east ally -- israel -- by pushing it to adopt a comprehensive settlement freeze. as elliot abrams has written in the national review, the administration has managed to damage the u.s.-israel alliance, weaken palestinian authority president mahmoud abbas and produce massive policy failure. we want a just and lasting

solution to the israeli-palestinian conflict, but demanding unilateral concessions from the israeli government is no way to achieve it. as for latin america, it was highly regrettable that the u.s. imposed sanctions on honduras since the removal of former honduran president manual zalias was a constitutional justified act of democracy. a close ally of the venezualan leader, hugo chavez, the obama administration appears ready to recognize the validity of the elections. they should denounce his extra constitutional behavior. with regard to venezuela, the president's policy of engaging hugo chavez proved a failure, writing the weekly standard, costa rica's former ambassador to the united states says -- and i quote -- "if obama believed his personal charm and assurances of goodwill would be

sufficient to sway chavez and the castro brothers, he was mistaken. indeed, chavez responded to friendly u.s. overtures by continuing to suffocate venezualan tkrorbgs continuing to cooperate with iran and rush and continuing to harass neighboring democracies such as colombia where chavez funded vicious narco-terrorists. in an editorial last spring, "the washington post" noted -- quote -- "this may be the first time the united states has watched the systematic destruction of a latin american democracy in silence." end of quote. meanwhile, pending free trade agreements with u.s. allies in colombia, panama and south korea still have not been approved by this congress. that represents yet another foreign policy failure for the administration and i sincerely hope the president urges democratic leaders to take action on these agreements sometime this year, preferably soon. implementing these three trade agreements would provide a boost to the u.s. economy and would

also strengthen the u.s. position in two important regions of the world. i also hope the president resists the temptation to support protectionist measures that will hurt our economy and damage our foreign relations. in his first year the president signed a stimulus package containing protectionist buy america provision, agreed to discontinue a u.s.-mexico trucking program and imposed a tariff on chinese tires. these policies were economically foolish and they damaged america's credibility as a promoter of trade liberalization. finally a word about the administration's antiterror policies and its decision to increase the number of u.s. troops in afghanistan. i'm pleased that president obama has maintained many of the policies that were formulated by president bush, including the use of military commissions to try suspected terrorists. however, i'm disappointed that the president has decided not to use the military commission to try khalid sheikh mohammed, the

mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and several of his coconspirators. giving these terrorists a civilian trial in new york city will pose significant national security risks. among other things it will compromise u.s. intelligence-gathering methods. the administration has chosen to prosecute several other terrorists before a military commission. so why not khalid sheikh mohammed? why should the highest-ranking al qaeda leader captured since 9/11 be given a civilian trial while other al qaeda members are given military commission trials? the war against al qaeda is just that: a war. it is not a law enforcement matter. but announcing khalid sheikh mohammed and other senior al qaeda members will receive a civilian trial, the obama administration signaled terrorists belong in the u.s. criminal justice system. they do not. these men are enemy combatants waging war upon the united states. the terrorists scheduled to receive trials in new york city have been held in guantanamo bay

detention facility. when the president took office, he promised that guantanamo would be closed within a year. well, it's now a year later and gitmo is still open, as it should be. there is good reason that president obama has not yet been able to fulfill his pledge. closing gitmo is a bad idea. the process of removing those detainees who are still being held at gitmo will create a series of logistical problems and security threats to the american people. last month six gitmo detainees were sent back to their home country of yemen. just a few days later a nigerian man with throeufrpbgz a yemen-based terrorist organization attempted to blow up flight 253. the bombing attempt highlights the deadly threat posed by al qaeda's yemen affiliate. the administration wisely halted the transfer of gitmo detainees to yemen, but it seems intent to try the flight 253 bomber --

attempted bomber, i should say -- as a criminal defendant rather than an enemy combatant. that's deeply misguided for the reasons i've listed as well as the unnecessary difficulties it raises for our intelligence gathering. in hearings just this morning before the homeland security committee and the judiciary committee, there was testimony about the decision made with regard to this attempted christmas day bomber. and it appears that it was made by the f.b.i. locally in detroit and some high justice official yet unnamed. without going through all the intelligence groups that are given the responsibility under our laws to inter gatt enemy -- interrogate enemy combatants to achieve whatever intelligence gathering they can achieve during the questioning process, the first goal in fighting terrorists is to get good intelligence on them, and you can't do that when you read them their miranda rights and tell them they don't have to say anything more and that you'll

provide a lawyer for them. most important front in the war on terrorism, of course, remains the battle for afghanistan. several weeks ago the president announced that he would be deploying an additional 30,000 troops to finish the mission. i strongly support that decision, yet, i also worry that the president has set an artificial time line for withdrawing american forces and that that will impede our efforts. the president declared that withdrawal would begin no later than july of next year. i hope he's willing to embrace a more flexible time line. military decisions in afghanistan should be determined by conditions on the ground, not by the political climate in washington, d.c. mr. president, let me conclude by discussing briefly how domestic spending constrains u.s. global leadership. the u.s. commitment to afghanistan has been costly and it will continue to be costly, as has our effort in iraq. and that brings me to the connection between u.s. policies

here at home and what we are required to do abroad. while domestic policy is not written to influence foreign policy, it affects what we can spend on defense and security. president obama recently acknowledged the relationship between u.s. economic strength and u.s. global leadership when he said -- and i quote -- "our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. it pays for our military. it underwrites our diplomacy." and that o'absolutely true. our leadership is contingent on our prosperity and our ability to pay for a robust national defense. but massive amounts of new spending, new taxes and european-style government programs will weaken the u.s. economy and make it more difficult for us to exercise global military leadership. just look what happened last year. while $1.2 trillion was pumped into the stimulus bill and the majority in this chamber passed a $2.5 trillion government

takeover of health care, the defense budget was practically frozen. missile defense has been cut, and there's been a reduction in the number of interceptor in alaska that protect us from a potential north korean attack. so there has to be a balance in spending of scarce resources. there's a tipping point at which excessive social spending chokes economic growth and in turn weakens military power. european nations can get by with relatively low levels of defense spending and high social spending because for decades they have enjoyed the protection of america's security upl pwrel l.a. as mark -- umbrella. as mark stein writes sweden can be sweden because america is america. if we become more like europe, if entitlement programs begin to swallow our whole budget, will we still be able to afford the burdens of global military leadership? i submit that military decline is not an option for the united states. as former secretary of state

madeleine albright put it, we are the indispensable nation. that's what american exceptionalism means. it means that because of our unique history, our unique power and the unique appeal of our founding principles, america plays a very special role in global affairs. i fear that many of the policies adopted over the past year will make it harder for america to continue playing this special role. and i hope that during the year ahead the administration will pursue a more sensible and responsible course, as the american people have said time and time again that they want it to do. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. burris: the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized.

mr. burris:are we in morning business? the presiding officer: we are in morning business. mr. burris:thank you, mr. president. ever so often in the winding history of our country there is an entire generation that is raised to confront the challenges of the moment. ever so often there is a movement so powerful that it changes the course of history. and ever so often there is a visionary leader, a person with singular ideas who come along exactly the right time to harness the energy of a movement and capture the imagination of the generation. these are rare figures whose names are etched into our national conscienceness, whose memorials dot the landscape of our capital and whose words and actions help to redefine the

very fabric of our nation. mr. president, dr. martin luther king jr. was just such a leader. he rose to prominence as a key figure of the civil rights movement, but he came to transcend both the movement and the generation that brought him to national prominence. earlier this week, we came together as a nation to celebrate and commemorate the life and work of dr. king. this message of equality and fairness for all inspired the transformative civil rights era and continues to resound throughout the united states even today. a legacy of dr. king is ones that lives on through the service and goodwill of americans and communities all across the country. and dr. martin luther king jr.'s

day serves as an annual opportunity for people across the nation to give back and to volunteer to help those who are suffering. it was his generosity of spirit that defined dr. king's life and work. and by living out his sellless dedication to our fellow man, we can honor his vision and continue the work he left behind. mr. president, the fact that i stand before you today on the floor of the united states senate is proof of the endid youring legacy of -- enduring legacy of martin luther king. out of the chaos and violence of segregation, dr. king found the strength to speak of peace, hope, and righteousness. where many saw hate an resen resentment, dr. king saw an opportunity to build bridges, to

seek out the humanity of those on both sides and to appeal to the compassion that lives in each of us. there were some who lashed out with clenched fists. but although he knew he would be met with hostility, dr. king came to the table time and time again with arms outstretched. half a century ago most people could barely conceive of a world in which someone like me could address the highest lawmaking body in our land. few people could have dreamed that a day with a man with a mother from kansas and a father from kenya would be sworn in as the 44th president of the united states of america. i never thought i would live to see the day that i would see mr. obama as president of the

united states. but even 50 years ago when such america could barely dream of such a future, dr. king knew this day would come. his vision never faltered in spite of the dark days he witnessed and the tragic violence and eventually took his life. the march toward equality has been long. it began long before dr. king walked this earth and it will continue long after all of us are gone. so long as this great nation endures, dr. king's spirit will live on in our highest as aspirations. his voice rings through our history. although he did not live to see the promised land, his steadfast gaze still guide our every step and his booming voice sets the a

cadence of our march. and we know he will be waiting for us when we get there. in the future a monument to dr. king will rise on the national mall, just a short distance from the great building here of the united states chambers. he will stand shoulder toll showld with other -- shoulder toll shoulder with our giants in our history, washington, jefferson, lincoln and king. it is fitting this great leader should be memorialized alongside other americans who helped to build a more perfect union. as we observe dr. king jr.'s day earlier this week and as we continue to build this monument, it is my hope that we will keep his spirit alive in our hearts. our colleagues here in the senate, as dr. king might say, let us keep our feet on the march and our hands on the arc of history.

let us look to future with the same fierce urgency that he showed us for more than 40 years ago. let us compete -- complete this journey together, arm in arm, and make dr. martin luther king's dream a reality. mr. president, on another subject, i would like to address the matter that's impacting our hemisphere that is the country of haiti. in recent days we've all heard the tragic news and seen the shocking images of the earthquake that devastated the nation of haiti just last week. even today more than a week after the earthquake, the full measure of this catastrophe is difficult to ascertain. relief workers have only just begun to go out into the cities and towns that surround the

haitian capital. and we're starting to get initial reports from the outlying areas. the central infrastructure has been destroyed by the earthquake. shelter, food, and water in short supply. and it's nearly impossible to get aid to the people who most need it. but it is the human toll of this natural disaster that is truly the most horrifying. estimates have soared to include numbers as high as 200,000 people who may have died. and as many as three million who may be injured or homeless. mr. president, my thoughts an prayers are with all -- and prayers are with all those whose lives have been touched by this terrible tragedy who have died or who have been injured and those who cannot yet get in touch with their loved ones. i know my colleagues on both

sides of the aisle would join me in pledging steadfast support for the people of haiti in this time of crises. haiti is one of the poorest nations on earth, so this earthquake only compounded the challenges its people continue to face every day. there are shocking disparities between haiti and all other nations within the western hemisphere. and this tragedy has only widened the gap and exposed these disparities for all to see. that's why it is -- it's gratifying that in the wake of great calamity america has answered the call again. here we are, americans answering the call, mr. president. i commend president obama for his focus and timely humanitarian response to this situation and i applaud the excellent work of the volunteers, rescue workers, and military personnel who have been rushed to provide aid.

they continue to save lives an provide care for -- and provide care for those in need. and i will work with my colleagues here in the senate and with the administration to make sure these people have the tools an resources they -- and resources they need to be a part of the recovery. americans have already made a difference in the lives of many haitians. mr. president, we can and should do more. the humanitarian crisis of haiti is growing more desperately by the hour in spite of the best efforts by relief workers, aid is not arriving fast enough and thousands -- thousands of lives hang in the balance. that's why the american people have already responded in record numbers to -- to request for help. they realize that in many ways the haitian people are no different than ourselves. and while they're not our own

country -- countrymen, they are our neighbors in the world community and today they require our assistance and our help. the american supreme shown an extraordinary -- extraordinary capacity. volunteers continue to stream in the disaster area. here in washington, we must do everything we can to encourage people to keep giving and to make sure we can get supplies and assistance to those who need it the most. we must pledge ourselves to this humanitarian cause to the belief that in the aftermath of the great tragedy, we can help restore hope to the people of that beleaguered country. amid the rubble, we can help the people of haiti to rebuild their lives and their country. we can play a constructive part in the rebirth of this island nation, to chart a new course as they emerge from these trials

and hopefully regulate -- relegate the days of poverty to the past. so i ask my colleagues of this great body to join me in this pledge and to join the millions of americans who have already rallied to this cause. both individually and as a nation, we can make a difference. and in this situation, mr. president, we must make a difference because some of our brothers and sisters in that country of haiti are in dire needs of our assistance and help, which we have responded very aggressively and very favorably to help them. i thank, mr. president. i yieldhe absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. burris: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recogniz. mr. burris: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. burris: i ask unanimous consent that the period of morning business be extended until 3:45 with senators permitted to speak up to 10 minutes each with the time equally divided between the two leaders or their designee. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. burris: i ask consent that this quorum call be equally divided. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burris: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i come to the floor today to call attention to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in haiti and to the plight of the many haitian children who have been adopted by american families and are still waiting to be brought from the disaster to loving homes, to families that are waiting to welcome them. many have been waiting for a year, two years. many of the families in my state have actually gone to haiti and they have met these children. in the days immediately following the earthquake, the united states, number u.n., and other nations and organizations have moved to provide food and

water, medicine and clothing as well as international aid workers to assist in these disaster areas. the people of this country, the people all over the world have been extraordinarily generous. currently, thousands of american civilians as well as members of our federal agencies and armed forces are in haiti lending their hand to help the haitian people. unfortunately, though, the united states is doing much to save lives in haiti. lives continue to be lost. and, unfortunately, some of the most helpless of haiti's people -- its children -- are among those in most need of our help. i'm focusing on this issue, this small but important piece of our aid relief, because i've had so many families come to me from my state who are clutching photos of children that they are waiting to bring home. minnesota has one of the highest rates of international adoptions in the country. part of that is because we've had a strong tradition of aid,

of bringing people from somalia to our state and we've also had a strong tradition of reaching out for decades and adopting children from other countries. many of the families that i met with over the weekend have been able to confirm that their children are safe, and for that, they are so grateful. but they've also heard reports of off fan ages'sages that are not in the best shape, of not enough food and water. they know these children because so many have seen this before. and they know that these children weren't always getting adequate diets. on january 15 i wrote to secretary clinton and secretary napolitano urging them to use their authority under the immigration and nationality act to grant humanitarian parole to all u.s. families applying for entry to the u.s. on behalf of their prospective children during this period of emergency. i also spoke with secretary clinton and she was amazingly generous with her life and

sympathetic and working on this issue. i'm thankful that on monday, january 18, secretary napolitano announced her authorization of the use of humanitarian parole for orphans who are eligible for adoption in the united states. humanitarian parole is typically used sparingly in cases of compelling emergency, but as i note nad my lerks the magnitude of this disaster clearly warrants broader application of this policy. now there are details, and the details are important. how are these kids going to get to the united states so the paperwork can be processed here? there's been talk of a haven -- safe haven setup, but we haven't seen that happen. meanwhile, our families in minnesota are getting more desperate as they hear about the second quake today, as they hear about the problems from the people who are running the orphanages. this is what i'm talking about, mr. president. betsy, a minnesota resident, was widowed when her husband of 10 months was killed in the tragic

i-35-w bridge collapse. they had talked about having children. so betsy decided to adopt some children. she signed up to adopt kids in haiti. she just recently returned from celebrating their second birthday -- twins. that's who i'm talking about when i talk about someone who is awaiting the arile of these children in her home. another family -- and we have their picture here -- that i met with over the weekend, g dale rg two children. they were in the final stages and hoping to bring their kids home. they were told they were in the next batch of adoptions when they last visited before the earthquake hit. what is striking about this family is that ginger still signs all of her e-mails with blessings and they are still incredibly positive despite having their kids in this

orphanage. they're also stressing how they want us to help all families, not just theirs. when i met with them, another family was there who wasn't quite as far along with the process. they spent most of they are time talking about how this other family should have helped as well. -- should be helped as well. finally, dawn and lee sheldon. we have their photo as well. this is when they were in haiti. this is the two children they want to adopt that aren't with them yet. they're adopting two children and the conditions have been very bad at the particular orphanage where their two kids have been staying. this family has been glued to cnn, which has filmed at the orphanage, just looking to see these children's faces. while we talk legalities, mr. president, understandably -- but while we talk legalities, orphanagages are continuing to suffer lack of water, food, shelter. many orphanages have been totally or partially destroyed from the shocks in this quake.

there are did he seed personnel still lying near the children, and aid agencies are unable to take away all of the dead. the hardship that these orphans face is extreme. we must act now to bring them out from the unsanitary and potentially traumatizing situations they find themselves in. i am grateful for the quick work of secretary napolitano and secretary clinton. they are on the scene. they are doing the work. but we have to do everything we can to bring these children home. these orphanages, the ones that have not been damaged that are still functioning need the the beds, sadly, for other children. these children -- these children -- have homes to go home to, homes that are welcoming them, homes that consider them their children. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. i note note the absence of a qu. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from montana is

recognized. mr. baucus: mr. president, i suggest that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presidofficer: whout objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask consent to execute the order of december 22, 2009, with respect to hj res. 45. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. under the previous order the committee on finance is discharged of h.j. res. 45 and the senate will proceed to the joint resolution which the clerk will report. the clerk: house joint resolution 45 increasing the strach trilimit on the public -- statutory limit on the public debt. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: setor from montana. mr. baucus: pursuant to the previous order on behalf of the majority leader, i have a bs up. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from montana, mr. baucus, for mr. reidro amendment 3299. mr. baucus: i ask that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered.

mr. baucus: mr. president, pursuant to the previous order, i send an amendment to the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senator from montana, mr. baucus, proposes amendment 33mendont 3329. mr. baucus: i ask consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask consent that the following staff of mine be granted floor privileges during the consideration of the debt limit legislation, ian chemicallens, ivy english, zack peerson, greg sullivan and ashley sulky. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, ralph

emmerson enjoined and i quote him, pay every debt as if god wrote the bill. today we'll debate whether the united states will continue to pay its bills. we will debate whether the united states will continue to pay the interest that it owes on the money that it has borrowed. the spending laws that created the current national debt are behind us. the only question that remains is whether the government will honor its obligation to pay the bill. we've gone to the restaurant, we've eaten the meal, the waiter has delivered the check, and now the only question is whether we will pay the check. to state the question is to answer it, we simply must do so. we must pay the check for the bill -- for the restaurant, for the meal that we've eaten. the legislation before us would increase the limit on the amount of money that the u.s. treasury can borrow. if congress does not enact this legislation, and soon, then the

treasury will default on its debt for the first time in history. if congress does not enact this legislation, then the government would fail to pay benefits on a portion of social security recipients. the government would fail to pay benefits to a portion of the beneficiaries of all other federal programs. that would be unacceptable and plainly we must enact this legislation. when the federal budget runs a deficit, the united states treasury must borrow money to make up the difference or language around here, we call the shortfall. that shortfall results from laws enacted in the past. it spent money and it cut taxes. if we want to avoid the need to borrow, then congress and the president must enact laws that will cause the federal government to spend less money or raise more revenue in the future. simply preventing the treasury

from borrowing more money is not the solution. if congress does not allow the treasury to borrow more money, then the treasury will not have the money to pay its bills. the treasury has no legal authority to prioritize spending and pay only the most important bills. they don't have that authority. if the bills are due, they're due. the treasury does not even have a way to determine which are the most important bills. if the debt ceiling is not raised, the treasury would have to pay bills on a first-come, first-served basis. now, some of these bills would be interest payments on previously borrowed money. if the treasury does not pay these interest payments, then the federal government would default on its financial obligations. that would be the first time in the history of the country. and if that were to happen, financial entities would be afraid to loan the treasury money. they would charge astronomically higher interest rates.

this would only worsen our already high budget deficits. in some situations, financial entities would not loan us money at all. this could prevent the federal government from meeting all of its programmatic amendments. but the disastrous economic effects would go well beyond that. the price of treasury securities in the secondary markets would drop. this would cause an immense wealth loss for owners of assets in many other financial markets, and this in turn would cause untold damage in those markets and further worsen the recession. what's more, the value of the dollar would drop even further. this would increase inflation in the united states, and it could well end the dollar's role as reserve currency of the world. further exposing the american economy to global economic forces beyond our control. in addition to paying interest costs, the treasury pays many

other important bills. among those bills are social security benefits. if congress does not raise the debt limit, then social security benefits would have to compete for funding on a first-come, first-served basis with all other federal payments. if social security payments did not come up for funding first, then they would not be paid. clearly, we should not let this happen either. the conclusion is simple. we must raise the debt ceiling. federal budget deficits are at record highs. now, why is that so? the reasons are simple. we have been and still are in the deepest recession since the great depression, and we have been in an unprecedented financial crisis. the current administration inherited both of those problems. how have these problems contributed to record deficits, someone might ask. well, first the recession

directly affects the federal budget. the recession has caused revenues to fall to record lows. since 1970, the federal government has collected an average of 18% of the gross domestic product and tax revenues. that's since 1970. in 2009, however, revenues accounted for only 14.9% of g.d.p., a drop of more than 3%. meanwhile, the recession has required much greater amounts to be spent on unemployment benefits and on medicaid payments. second, congress has had to pass legislation to fight the recession. we need it to enact a large stimulus package to foster economic growth. the package that congress enacted provided stimulus and about $185 billion in fiscal year 2009, and it is estimated to provide stimulus of about about $400 billion in fiscal year 2010. this package has done some good. it's not perfect but it's done some good. it's helped. it helped prevent a deeper

recession. it has significantly increased economic growth. regrettably, the package has not produced enough jobs yet. the finance committee and other committees will be looking at additional options to increase job growth as soon as we could turn to them. but let's be clear. if congress had not enacted the stimulus package, then the country would be in a depression instead of a recession. the stimulus package was the right thing to do. third, as a result of the national crisis, the bush administration asked for and long gave legal authority under the troubled asset relief program, otherwise known as tarp. tarp gave the president authority to help the national institutions as well as the struggling automotive industry to weather the financial storm. the bush administration was using these authorities before the obama administration took office. so the recession and the financial crisis created needs in a in turn led to high

deficits and record borrowing. now, how do we reduce such commitments for the future? they are too high. we've got to stop. we have got to do something about all this. how do we avoid having to borrow such huge sums of money in the future? first, we have to fix our health care system. the current health care system has led to skyrocketing costs in medicare and medicaid. to recuse those -- reduce those costs for the long run, we need to pass comprehensive health care reform. that's the first step to get the excessive deficits under control, and that's exactly what we're doing. in late december, the senate passed health care reform, and according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, our health care reform bill reduced federal deficits by $132 billion in the first ten years. that is -- let me say it again. according to the c.b.o., this health care legislation will reduce federal deficits by

by $132 billion in the first ten years. not increase, but reduce. that helps. the bill would reduce federal deficits by $650 billion to to $1.3 trillion the second ten years. that is, the second ten years, there is a much greater reduction in deficit spending, according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office, a reduction between $650 billion to $1.3 trillion reduction in federal deficits in the second ten years. and this deficit reduction is likely to continue in subsequent decades. second, after we do all that, after we do all that we could do to increase job growth, we need to start working on deficit reduction for the coming decade and also subsequent decades. because the economy was in deep -- was in a deep recession and the financial markets were frozen, the government borrowed a lot of money. once the recession is over, we

have to reduce borrowing to a fiscally responsible level, and we should begin doing that as soon as we can. but in the meantime, we cannot allow the nation to default on its debt. we cannot allow benefits from programs like social security to be paid on a first-come, first-served basis. no one enjoys raising the debt limit, nobody. it's not something that's a lot of fun to do. no one enjoys paying debts either, but it is simply what we must do to honor our commitments. there were times when the senate has joined together in recognition that we have this obligation as a joint obligation. four times in the last 26 years, the senate has raised the debt limit by unanimous consent. let me repeat that. four times in the last 26 years, the senate has raised the debt limit by unanimous consent. the senate did so as recently as

1996 under a republican senate and a democratic president, and the senate did so by unanimous consent three times in the 1980's, twice under a democratic senate and republican president. it has been more than 17 years since the senate last divided strictly along party lines on a debt limit vote. we have raised the debt limit a dozen times since then. honoring the nation's obligations should not be a partisan matter, and usually it is not, and it has -- and it has until recently not been a practice of the minority in the senate to filibuster debt limit increases. under president george w. bush, the senate raised the debt limit four times with simple majorities, with fewer than 60 votes. the senate did so twice under president reagan as well. all but four sitting senators have voted for a debt limit increase at one time or another in their careers.

among sitting senators who have served in more than one congress, only one senator has never voted for a debt limit increase. so i call upon my colleagues to rise to the occasion, let us pay our debts. let us honor our obligations. let us allow the debt limit to be raised. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa is recognized. mr. grassley: thank you, mr. president. i think most of the people watching this debate, studying how congress works and how the federal government works, knows that there is a statutory limit on the amount of debt that can be issued by the federal government.

if the public doesn't know this, they are constantly reminded of it because from time to time we pass legislation that does what this legislation does -- increase the borrowing capacity of the federal government. right now, this legal limit stands at $12.394 trillion, and it applies to money borrowed from federal investors like banks and pension funds, as well as money borrowed from government programs like social security and medicare, and yes we ought to admit that a lot of the federal debt is owned by various foreign governments as well. i think the latest i saw in the case of china, maybe investing and holding about 8% of all the

federal debt, and then you have other countries as well, and this determination is made and a marked determination when the secretary of treasury goes to the market and say we want to borrow x number of dollars, and people bid on it and obviously we take it for the lowest interest rate we can get it, whatever individual or pension fund or foreign entity might want to take our debt for that interest, and that happens several times a year. the decision to increase the debt limit is never an easy one. in recent years, i have reluctantly supported increases in the debt limit on the grounds that congress must pay its bills. that's quite obvious. some countries like argentina decided from time to time they didn't want to pay their debt,

and they're paying the piper for making those unwarranted public decisions in those countries. we do not want to be in that shape. but congress sometimes and too often has been very irresponsible, and i'm going to get into some of this current irresponsibility, but at the same time i don't want to say that some other political party is entirely responsible over a period of decades for irresponsible spending, but i think it's reached a new height recently. so because of that, i will be voting no. sometimes deficits are unavoidable. people know about wars. the number one responsibility of the federal government is to provide for the national defense. when the protection of americans

or or a threat to our security, we meet that threat, and if that requires borrowing to do it, to expect the -- to protect the united states, we consider that justified. but you can't plan for wars. you can plan for peace by having a strong national defense, so wars is one reason. recessions is another. national disasters is another example. all of these can result in lower taxes and higher spending which produce bigger deficits that add to our federal debt. but sometimes deficits can be avoided. since the beginning of 2009, the majority in congress has approved a $787 billion stimulus bill, a $408 billion

supplemental appropriation bill, an additional $350 billion for the financial fallout or bailout, and most recently an omnibus appropriation bill that increased federal spending by 12% over the previous year's levels. and in my recent 21-county tour of southeast iowa, i used this most recent example as an example of how spending recently has gotten entirely beyond the commonsense view that midwesterners look at spending by government, because i pointed out how just one year ago today the new president sworn in, the previous president was president under a budget that was established for a five-month period of time.

that last budget under bush had spending at a 3% increase. but just as soon as the new majority came into power with a new president, that 3% increase was not enough. for the remaining seven months, it was jacked up to 9%. and then for the year we're in, the 12% that i just spoke about. so i think you've got to adopt a principle of spending that -- that has increase in expenditures related to the economic growth of the tax policies that provide the revenue to the federal government. and that doesn't have to be on a year-to-year basis, but over a long period of time, we ought to have that balance. in other words, without

increasing tax rates, with economic growth of the tax base, more money will come in -- come in to the federal treasury under the same tax rates. well, that growth in the -- in federal income coming in makes it possible to appropriate more money but it doesn't. it ought to be some relationship between the amount of money coming in and the expenditures made by the congress of the united states. now, those bills that i just referred to -- stimulus bill, omnibus appropriation bill and others -- i voted against every one of those bills on the grounds that we could not afford them. the fact that we are here this week facing yet another vote to increase the debt limit proves that that is true. many of my colleagues on the --

particularly on the other side of the aisle insist that it's not their fault. they continue to blame previous administrations for all fiscal problems. and i want to make it very clear, we in the majority party -- or we in the republican party got kicked out of a majority in 2006 because we lost fiscal integrity. i hope we're reestablishing that and i hope that in the process of reestablishing that, we can convince the people that had doubts about republicans that we can regain their trust. more recently, as i just indicated, it seems to me that a great deal of the current debt problem is related to irresponsible spending that has taken place near term.

but what do they target us with when they want to blame us for the deficit? they criticize the 2001 and 2000 year -- 2003 year tax cuts which they insist were excessive and unfair, and such criticism overlooks civil facts. first, you know, these were not republican tax cuts. both the house and senate had bipartisan support. second, the federal revenue quickly returned to historic averages following these tax cuts. so the other side were not -- so they were not, then, excessive relative to government's historic claim on revenue, and that historic claim, i suppose you can take any period of time

you want to, but in the post-kennedy period of time, it seems to me that -- that the average take of the economy that has come to the federal government in the way of taxes has been about 18% to 19%. and even including the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, it was -- those departmen cannot be consid excessive relative to the government's historic claim on revenue. in other words, what the government takes as opposed to what they leave in the pockets of now about 137 million tax filers in the united states. it is very important to remember that our tax code is not fully indexed to inflation and economic growth. thus, every year without a tax cut results in a small but not

insignificant tax increase or more revenue coming into the federal treasury without our actually changing rates. indeed, without the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, federal revenue would have risen well above that historic average of 18% to 19%. in fact, when we passed those tax cuts, it was very near 21%. now, third, critics insist that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts unfairly benefited the wealthy. again, critics are wrong, and i quote the congressional budget office. and around here, we don't question the congressional budget office. maybe you want to, but if you want to request them, it takes 60 votes to override their determination of something if there's a budget point of order.

so according to the congressional budget office, the bottom 90% of households pays the smallest share of federal taxes in nearly 30 years while the top 10% pays the largest share. when taxes are measured as a share of income, the bottom 90% of the households pays the lowest effective rates in nearly 30 years while the top 10% pays that historic average. and i don't think you can say it so many times but it never sinks in because people have their own ideas of how to show populism and it is to always hit the -- the wealthy of america. and from that standpoint, you've got to understand that that percentage of top income earne earners, if you compare what they're paying in to the federal

treasury now of what they were paying in even during the reagan years, you will find it's much, much higher percentage right at this point. now, in regard to what i just said about historical averages, the president obama's budget and the budget resolution adopted by the democratic majority in congress last year both called for the continuation of 70% to 80% of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. so you can bad-mouth those tax bills all you want to, but th the -- the new president, the new majority wants to maintain about 70%, 80% of them. so some of it's bad, yes, but you never hear that. it's all about the 2001 tax cuts being everything for the wealt wealthy. if these tax cuts were so excessive, then, an then and sor

then, why does the majority party support so much of that -- those tax cuts right this very day? the desire to blame our current predicament on the previous administration also overlooks two other facts. first, the democrats controlled a majority of the senate during the -- half of the previous administration, including its final two years, so i think it's very disingenuous for them to deny any responsibility for where we are today. second, when the new administration took office in 2009, it sent up a budget that proposed to increase the debt three times faster than the previous administration. and you know where that takes us to from the 40-year average? i talked about the 40-year average of the proportion of the g.n.p. that's coming in to the

federal treasury as far as taxes are concerned at 18% to 19%. take a 40-year average on what the percentage of -- of the debt, national debt is to gross national product and it's about 40%. and this is going to be reaching 80% to 0% under this budget -- 80% to 90% under this budget that was set up here in the previous year. the majority party essentially approved most of that very same budget so they have now signaled the intention to continue to increase the national debt at a record pace. finally, let me say a word about the health care bill adopted by the senate. rather than taking an incremental approach and by waiting for the results to see what works and what doesn't work, the majority wants to raise taxes and cut medicare to pay for a brand-new health care

entitlement program. but if they use all of the tax hikes, if they use all of the medicare cuts that they can support to pay for more spendi spending, how will they ever reduce the deficit? at what point will those who want to blame our current predicament on previous administrations take responsibility for actions that are taking place now? this week we have an opportunity to do that, and i'm glad we have a long fort discuss the -- a long period of time to discuss the deficit limit but, connected with it, a lot of policies that seem to be out of -- out of proportion to problems that we previously had. if they want to continue to vote for more deficit spending, i em that -- that they should vote to raise the debt

limit or take actions that would reduce the need for such a dramatic increase in the debt limit. i yield the floor and does the manager want me to suggest the absence of a quorum? i yield the floor. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, on another matter which is very topical and a tragic situation that's on the minds of americans and people all over the world today. i rise to share a few remarks involving the overwhelming disaster that has hit haiti. words do not begin to describe the extent of the disaster. thousands dead, more than a million homeless. just how bad it is. it's almost impossible to imagine. families continue to search and mourn for lost mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters.

earthquake may be the most leathal disaster to have ever occurred in the western hemisphere. and this is not a disaster in some distant shore. haiti is closer to florida, for example, than the distance from one end to the other of my state in montana. it's that close. i'm encouraged by the outpouring of help from around the world. many have flown to volunteer. others have helped through in-kind contributions -- cash. in fact, i've recently heard, mr. president, of the vast number of people responding on the internet, through their blackberry, their twitter to give contributions. it's a huge number. not individually large but so -- the total sum of the amount is a massive outpouring of support. americans have shown remarkable generosity. these are tough economic times but millions still want to give. this is the american spirit. it is who we are as americans.

amidst this destruction and great sorrow, there are stories that offer incredible hope. maxine fallon, a 23-year-old student, was buried for six days without food or water. she was buried deep in the rubble which was once her university. she sent text messages pleading for help. search-and-rescue team rescued her from the ruins of her cratered school. and since arriving, rescue teams have saved more than 75 victims from the rubble. as merpz, we rise to aid -- as americans, we rise to aid our friends and neighbors who are in need, and there are no people in greater need right now than the people of haiti. haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. 54% of the population live on less than a dollar a day. with so many struggling to survive, the earthquake's swift

destruction must be met with a response equally as forceful and rapid. i propose that we pass legislation as soon as possible called "the haiti assistance income tax incentive act," or simply the haiti act. the haiti act will allow u.s. taxpayers to make charitable contributions to haiti relief programs until march 1, 2010, and claim those contributions on their 2009 income tax returns. the proposal is similar to legislation that passed unanimously in 2005 following the tsunami disaster along the indian ocean. the haiti act is a bipartisan bill that i am introducing with senator grassley and several other senators. the same language passed the house of representatives earlier today. this is simple legislation that would make a big impact. it will make it a little easier for americans to contribute to the victims of the haiti disaster. frankly, most americans want to contribute anyway.

the american red cross, unicef united states fund raised about $ billion in deductions over a four-hour period while a "larry king live" special on haiti aired. while the relief and rebuilding effort in haiti will require billions, it will take a long time, and this legislation is an additional incentive for americans to contribute to that effort. as search and rescue efforts give way to rebuilding, these donations will ensure that our efforts will have a lasting impact. while we must do what we can to provide relief now, the people of haiti will need our help for many years to come. this is not just a one-week, one-month, several-month effort. trade programs like the "hope" and "hope 2" acts provide an opportunity to create new jobs in haiti's export sector. as the people of haiti work to rebuild what was destroyed, i'll continue to work to provide generous access to the u.s. market for products produced in haiti.

the suffering in haiti is hear heartbreaking. the generosity in response to the haiti earthquake is a reflection of the american spirit. today i stand with the people of haiti and i ask my colleagues in the senate to stand with me. let's pass the haiti act, and let's do everything we can to help those who've lost so much in this terrible disaster. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. gregg: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be set aside. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. gregg: mr. president, i'd ask unanimous consent that i be -- that i speak for up to ten minutes and that after my speaking that senator thune be recognized, unless the senator from montana has somebody in between that he wants to have speak. mr. baucus: mr. president, i reserve the right to ask that someone else speak following the senator from new hampshire, in case someone arrives on our side of the aisle, so we can -- mr. gregg: well, i would ask unanimous consent that the next member recognized on our side be senator thune. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. gregg: i want to thank senator thune for his courtesy. mr. president, i want to speak a little bit here on the debt

ceiling issue because it is critical, and it's critical because of the size. you know, we a as a nation are running up debt at a rate that we've never seen before in our history. the budget which we're presently functioning under will add approximately $1.4 trillion of debt from last year and potentially another $1.2 trillion next year, and under the budgets that were brought forward by the president, it looks like we're going to have $1 trillion of deficit every year for the next 10 years. that's -- that's an expansion of our debt at a rate that we've never seen before, except in the time of war. what's the implication of that? nobody really understands what $1 trillion is. i don't understand whadz i -- i don't understand what $1 trillion is. so i want to try to put it in

context. we know for a fact that certain nations get into trouble when they allow their debt to get so large that their economy doesn't have the capacity to pay it down in an orderly way. regretly, we're seeing that today in grease. there ar-- regrettably, we're seeing that today in greece. regritably, their sovereign debt has gotten so large that they're in a position where their capacity to pay it off is at risk and so the value of that debt -- it is adjusted by the marketplace and becomes much more expensive for those nations to borrow and at some point they can't borrow and they end up with what amounts to a national bankruptcy. that's never been a threat to us as a nation because we've always had a vibrant economy and because the dollar, ironically, is the currency of world reserve, we've been able to

basically, what's known as monetaryize our own debt. there's always been people out there willing to lend to us as a nation because we've always presumed that the united states, because of our resilience and economic strength, we'll always pay our debt. that's why treasuries are considered to be one of the safest investments in the world, or traditionally have been. that has been great strength of our nation, to have this sort of integrity to our currency and to our ability to repay our debt. but on the cot course that we're presently pursuing, all of that is going to be called into question, and called into question much sooner than we had expected, i suspect, or anybody had anticipated, who had looked at this objectively just two or three years ago. we know there are certain thresholds that generate huge

warning signs, where red flags go up and say, your nation is in trouble. a couple of those thresholds have actually been adopted by the european union, as they have looked at their membership and said, what is the proper deficit of an industrialized nation what is the proper public debt ratio to g.d.p. of an industrialized nation? you can't be a member of the european union if your deficits exceed 3% of g.d.p. and your debt exceeds 6% of your public debt g.d.p. well, our deficits are around 12% of g.d.p. right now. they'll hopefully go down. but there's no time in the next ten years where they're projected to fall below 5%. and our public debt is going to cross that 60% of g.d.p. threshold probably within the

next year. so argue ably, as i've said before on this floor, we would not be able to get into the european union if we wanted to, because we would not meet their standards for fiscal responsibility as a nation. that's pretty serious. what's even more serious is that there's no end to this in sight. we're looking at a deficit and a debt situation which continue to expand and become even more and more problematic for us as a nation, for as far as the eye can reasonably see. which for the purposes of this discussion around here is about ten years. we know that the public debt to g.d.p. ratio, under the president's budget as proposed last year, before this health care bill was taken up -- and i would argue that that health care bill is going to radically upset the debate issue in the next ten years -- the c.b.o.

will debate that point. but independent of that we know that under the debt budget as it is presently presented, the public debt is going to exceed 80% of g.d.p., 80% of g.d.p. by the year 2019. and in fact there are some estimates that say it will exceed 100% of g.d.p. before we hit 2020. those are intolerable situations. what's the practical implication of our adding that much debt through deficit spending over the next few years to our economy? a few things occur and they're undeniable. they will occur on the path that we're presently on. the first thing that will occur is it will be much harder for us to sell our debt because nations will start to say, we're buying our debt -- people around the world, including our own public, i would say, will start to say, can they really afford to pay

that? when they cross the 60% threshold and they start heading up to 80%, 90% of g.d.p. as the public debt ratio, can they really pay back their debt? people are going to wonder. i'm going to charge them a premium before i'll lend them any money. so the cost of interest will go up dramatically. it is projected that in the year 2019 interest on the public debt alone will exceed $800 million -- $800 billion a year. that's more being paid out in interest, which goes to people all over the world -- china, people in china, people in saudi arabia, you know, all over the worltd -- that interest will be higher than any other item of federal spending. what a waste of money that is. what a waste of money that is. what a misuse of money. all that money could be used for somebody constructive in the united states, building

infrastructure, building schools, assisting education, whatever, if you're going to spend it, why would you spend is it on interest? so we will be in a position where it will be harder for us to sell our debt. and actually we will probably get to a position fairly soon -- and i will i'm willing to bet on this -- i don't want be in the congress at the time -- that before the year 2020 we will have to take some radical step as a nation toured deal with our debt because -- as a nation in order to deal with our debt because if we allow it to go up under the present scenario, it is becomes unsustainable it's like a dog chasing its tail. can't pay down the debt of the the practical implications are you either inflate the economy and devalue the currency and that is a very hash thing to do to the american public because it devalues their savings and makes it harder for the economy to be productive. or, two, you radically raise

taxes to try to reach the obligations of the debt. and that also dramatically impacts the economy, makes us less productive, means less jobs will be created. either one of those scenarios -- and only one of those two scenarios or maybe a combination will occur if we continue on our present course -- means that the next generation will actually have a lower standard of living than our generation. it means that it'll be much more difficult for the next generation of americans to buy a house, send their kids to school, buy a car, to live the quality of lifestyle that we've had as a nation. in fact, it will be the first time in history if we stay on our present course that one generation has handed to another generation a lower standard of prosperity and quality of life. it's inexcusable to do that. it is unacceptable. nobody in this body who has a public responsibility to the next generation -- we all have that responsibility -- should do

that to our children. and so what are we going to do to address it? well, put very simply, we need to stop spending so much money. that's the bottom line. we need to stop spending so much money. urchedz the projections of this -- you under the projeksz of this -- under the projeksz of this budget as it is currently passed in this congress under my objection, everybody on my side's objection -- it is projected that we are going to be in a situation where, as i said, there will be $1 trillion deficits for as far as the eye can seism the size of the government spending will go from 20% of g.d.p. up to about 24%, 25% of g.d.p. if the health care bill is also passed. that will be the highest level of federal spending that has occurred in this government since world war ii. we've never had those types of levels of spending. and so it's not a revenue issue,

although right now it is a revenue issue because obviously the economy is in a recession. but in the long run it's reallied intreal --it's rulely . i would ask for two more minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. gregg: it is a spending issue. it is primarily a spending issue. the fact that we are spending a great deal more than we can afford as a nation on this government, and we have committed to a great deal more than we can afford. and so we need to do more on the spending side of the ledger. there are going to be a series of proposals brought forward by our side. senator thune is going to offer one in a minute. to try to get to this issue. they won't solve the whole problem but they will make significant steps down the road of restraining the spending and show we are starting to get serious about it. senator thune -- end tarp. end tarp. we don't need it anymore. we should take the dollars and put it towards debt reduction.

three is discretion spending -- so we're basically managing our discretionary side. resigned some of the stimulus spending that's going to occur after 2011. i know that senator coburn is going to suggest a series of owe rescissions. all of these are steps in the right direction. and so i think on our side of the aisle today, the philosophy is this: it is irresponsible to increase the debt ceiling if you don't do something responsible about addressing what's driving the debt ceiling, which is spending. so we're going to suggest a series of initiatives around here that we believe are responsible on the issue of controlling spending and i hope that those initiatives will be passed so that we can begin to put this country back on the road towards fiscal responsibility. mr. president, i yield the floor and, again, i would i want to thank the senator from south dakota for his courtesy and the senator from the other side.