i've never deiced. i've never experienced any of that." imagine the chilling effect of those words on the families of those who died in that crash. many people in my state rely on regional jets to connect them to each other and to the world. as i have said before, passengers should be as safe on a regional carrier going from minneapolis to bimigi, as they should be on a boeing 767 flying from los angeles to new york. this legislation will help us do just that. in particular, the bill will require the f.a.a. to adopt new rules on pilot fatigue, rules that haven't been updated since the 1950's. and the bill will boost pilot training, requiring that pilots meet certain standards before being allowed in the cockpit. so we won't have to hear those words again, senator dorgan, i have never seen icing conditions, i have never de-iced, i have never experienced any of that. in short, this legislation will

help raise the safety standards for regional jets and pilots and ensure one level of safety for all commercial aircraft in this country. and the thing that i most remember from these hearings is that there is an argument -- that they aren't arguing that regional flights are more difficult than the passengers flights. they land and land and land and have shorter flights. it is actually more tiring and have a better chance of encountering bad weather conditions. we should have one level of safety for all commercial aircraft in this country. madam president, recent safety incidences have not only highlighted concerns with regional airlines but with the major carriers as well. in 2008, we learned that some major carriers had kept flying aircraft in need of necessary repairs and that the f.a.a. may have actually known about it. the disclosure of these safety lapses led to the thousands of flight cancellations. these safety lapses and cancellations raised questions about the f.a.a.'s ability to enforce our safety laws and regulations. what we learned was troubling.

the department of transportation's inspector general described a -- quote -- overly collaborative relationship, end quote, between f.a.a. management and the airlines that they regulated. to help recalibrate the balance between the f.a.a. and the carriers, senator snowe and i introduced the aviation safety enhancement act to ensure that the f.a.a. does more than just trust that the airlines comply with all federal safety regulations. in particular, the legislation which has been incorporated into the f.a.a. re-authorization bill we're now considering puts a stop to the so-called reinvolving door between the f.a.a. and the carriers by requiring a cooling off period for f.a.a. inspectors before they can work for the airlines and interact with the f.a.a. it also establishes a whistleblower office in the f.a.a. and creates a roving national review board that will travel around to various f.a.a. inspection offices to conduct safety reviews and unannounced audits.

these unannounced safety audits are important. you know, i tend to straighten up my house a bit before i know my mother-in-law is coming over, and that's why i know that if you have an unannounced visit, you might have a different result than an announced visit, and these unannounced safety audits will be very important to make sure that things are in order, that facilities are in order and help ensure that the carriers remain focused on safety and that the f.a.a. remains true to its mission, to protect the american flying public. madam president, we also need to pass this f.a.a. re-authorization bill because it would put a passenger bill of rights into law. the need for a passenger bill of rights was made clear to me and other minnesotans last summer. just ask link christian. on august 7, link was aboard continental flight 2816, a flight from houston intercontinental to minneapolis minneapolis-st. paul when it was redirected to the rochester airport in rochester, minnesota,

due to bad weather. it landed just after midnight and passengers weren't allowed off the plane until 6:00 a.m. the next day. midnight until 6:00 a.m. the passengers described the experience as a nightmare, saying that they weren't given any food or drinks during the wait, things smelled, there were babies on the plane. it's like common sense had flown out the window but the windows weren't open. no passengers should have to go through what link and the other passengers aboard continental flight 2816 went through, forceed to remain on the tarmac for sick hours without food in an increasingly uncomfortable cabin atmosphere and denied the opportunity to deplane when the airport was only yards away. so the f.a.a. re-authorization bill we're considering today helps ensure that we don't have any more stories like christian's. i appreciate secretary lahood's leadership on this issue already, but we should be putting this in law. in particular, the bill would require that airlines provide passengers with food, water, and adequate rest rooms during a delay. the passenger bill of rights

would also require airlines to return to the gate once the plane has sat on the ground for three hours or 3.5 hours if the pilot thinks the plane will take off before that time. finally, madam president, this bill helps upgrade our air traffic control system to the next generation or nextgen system of air traffic control technologies. you know, we focused a lot lately on roads and bridges, which i know coming from minnesota where the bridge fell down in the middle of a summer day are critical and important parts of our nation's infrastructure, but our national aviation infrastructure is just as important. the current air traffic control technology developed in the 1950's and used by the f.a.a. today is based on outdated technology that relies on ground-based radar systems, voice communications, and fragmented weather forecasts. with nextgen, a system that uses satellites rather than ground-based radar, both pilots and controllers will have the benefit of virtual maps, up to date weather reports, and other

real-time information. the result -- a more efficient use of our airspace, safer skies and less congested airports. that's something we should all be able to support. and so in this, we make sure that nextgen is a national priority by giving it the resources and the attention it needs to get the program up and running. madam president, the aviation system is too crucial a piece of our nation's infrastructure and too important to our nation's economy to let the system's problems go unaddressed. this bill modernizes our air traffic control system, our air transport system. it puts in that passenger bill of rights. it does something about pilot safety and training and all the things that we know need to get done here, and it helps to ensure that our system is, in fact, the safest in the world. we have waited too long to pass this bill, madam president, but now is the time when the rubber

meets the runway. it is time to pass the f.a.a. re-authorization, and i urge my colleagues to support this bill. thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: madam president, i would just briefly like to comment about the prior amendment that has been offered as an alternative, a side by side or a cover amendment to the sessions-mccaskill bill that would take the budget limits that passed by this congress and make those more difficult to violate by creating a two-thirds vote for it. i would just say a couple of things about the pryor amendment. i think it's not good and we should not vote for it, and it portends to have good motives and maybe it does have good motives, but, in fact, it would

allow $62 billion more in spending over three years than the mccaskill-sessions amendment. that it would instruct this deficit commission to propose tax increases and entitlement cuts to pay for increases in discretionary spending. the deficit commission was not meant for raising taxes and cutting entitlements to pay for new discretionary spending increases. the whole purpose of that was to figure out a way to deal with the surging entitlements that are going out of control and to contain their growth, and how are we going to do that? we're going to do it two ways primarily. i suppose they will propose some sort of tax increases to

increase taxes or increase social security withholding or increase medicare withholding, and they will cut medicare and social security benefits. that's what real life is. but this would instruct the commission to cut entitlement benefits, medicare and social security, to increase taxes and use it to fund more discretionary spending. and that is not good, and people should not vote for an amendment that would do that. we're going to have to wrestle with the entitlement commission. it has not binding authority. it's a recommendation to us. maybe they will have some recommendations we can all support. but it's not going to be fun, it's not going to be easy. there is no free lunch. nothing comes from nothing.

somebody will pay to fix entitlements. and they are at the present time in surplus and the surplus that they are producing from the revenue from social security withholding and medicare withholding, that is being spent for discretionary spending. so to raise their income for those accounts and to cut spending in those accounts to allow even more spending on the discretionary side i think would be very unwise. perhaps that's not what was intended, but that's what appears to me to be pretty plainly what is going on in this amendment. and secondly, the council -- republican counsel on the budget committee has advised that the amendment would not only abandon the two-thirds requirement that senator mccaskill and i are

proposing to violate the budget, but it actually would eliminate the point of order that currently requires 60 votes to violate the budget. so if somebody proposes a spending amount that violates the budget, any senator can object and it would take 60 votes to waive the budget to allow this extra spending to occur. the way we are reading this, that it would dramatically weaken the existing law and eliminate this poird -- this point of order that would even require 60 votes. and that has not proven to be a very effective tool, and the two-thirds vote would be better. so, madam president, i thank you for the opportunity to share these remarks and urge our colleagues to resis the

democratic leadership's injunctions and pressures to vote against the sessions-mccaskill bill. i don't -- 18 democrats have already voted for it. it's a bipartisan bill. we have worked at it together in a good way. it has the ability to take a significant but not dramatic but solid step in the right direction, and i'm disappointed that we are now proposing an alternative amendment that will not be effective, and the leadership on the democratic side are opposing it. senator reid and senator durbin said fine, you can vote for it if you like or we're going to vote for it, do what you want, senators, it would pass like that, but it's their leadership decision that's put us in a difficult position and make it more difficult for us to get 60 votes. i hope that we can, but it may not occur. i thank the chair and would yield the floor.

mrs. gillibrand: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mrs. gillibrand: i rise today to talk about the f.a.a. re-authorization bill that has been debated all morning that is being discussed. i want to thank chairman rockefeller, chairman dorgan, ranking members hutchison, demint for their hard work on this very critical looking. i share the concerns that were raised by chairman dorgan as he spoke on the floor about the need to advance this legislation and implement a number of these vital improvements to the safety and security of our entire aviation system. mr. president -- madam president, on the night of february 12, 2009, continental flight 3407 operated by colgan air departed newark airport bound for buffalo, new york. the 45 passengers and five crew members were just a few miles

from the airport when a series of events resulting in the death of all aboard as well as a father on the ground whose home was the unfortunate final resting place of flight 3407. over this last year, i have gotten to know many of the families of the victims of this crash. they are a constant presence here in washington, working to improve safety conditions so that others are spared from the horror and loss that they have experienced. sitting in my office last spring as the national transportation safety board began to release information about the crash, i discussed with the families the tremendous value of their advocacy. for decades, the system has been slow to change, and in the meantime innocent lives like their loved ones' have been lost. we discussed the possibility of seizing on this legislation as a vehicle for change to bring

accountability and transparency to the system, to strengthen the training requirements and push forward achieving not just one level of safety but a higher level of safety. that conversation began a year-long campaign by the families who on their own dime have been here at every aviation safety hearing, both in the senate and in the house, and have frequented senators' offices with the steadfast determination to turn this tragedy into the clarion call for change. madam president, we must remember the people who we lost in the buffalo crash -- an expecting mother, a community health advocate, a young couple in love, an international human rights leader, a second year law student. these were our mothers, our fathers, our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters taken so suddenly their passions and their dreams left for those closest to them to now honor and

pursue. beverly eckert died in the crash. she was a national leader who took her personal tragedy of losing her husband on september 11 and became a leading advocate for the 9/11 families. she was object her -- on her way to buffalo that night to celebrate her husband's birthday with her family and to honor a student at kaneshis high school with a scholarship named after her husband. jerry nywood was a noted jazz musician, rochester native and graduate at the eastman school at the university of buffalo. jerry was on his way to buffalo to join his long time friend and grammy winner chuck mangione in concert with the buffalo philharmonic orchestra. madam president, the details that surround this tragedy of flight 3407 have been well documented, well debated in these halls. we know that for the two days prior to that night, the captain who had a history of training failures had not slept in a bed, commuting from his home in

florida. we know that the copilot who complained of being ill during that trip had also not slept in a bed the night before, commuted from her home in seattle with a stop in memphis to her duty station at laguardia. madam president, i don't know of many jobs, especially those where people's lives are on the line, that these can be done under such stressful circumstances. although not specifically addressed in this underlying bill, the issue of commuting and duty time is but one of the factors that came together to result in this tragedy. working with my colleague, senator schumer, we have advanced legislation that would raise the minimum standards for new commercial pilots. a version of this proposal which was endorsed by the families of flight 3407 has been secured in this underlying legislation. the new standards would increase the minimum flight hours for commercial hires from the current 250 hiewrs to 800 -- 250

hours to 800 hours for copilots. apart from more flight time experience, these new regulations would increase the quality of that training, not just the quantity. the proposal requires the administrator of the f.a.a. to engage in rule making that requires beyond eight hours minimum pilots must demonstrate effective operation of aircraft in multipilot conditions, in adverse weather conditions, including icing conditions, as was the case here on flight 3407. high altitude operations and standards of cockpit professionalism and operations in part of the airline industry. a major concern that i share with the families is that oftentimes, when left to their own, the f.a.a. has a poor track record in acting on updating regulations. this legislation will give the f.a.a. until the end of next year to enact these new regulations of more stringent

set of regulations that will become the across the board standard. also, included in this bill is the crux of the flight 3407 memorial act, my legislation that will require the f.a.a. to report back to congress on all new safety recommendations issued. time and time again, the f.a.a. has failed to enhance training requirements and other safety measures when they have been recommended. the version of the reporting requirements that i secured in the underlying bill will not only require that the f.a.a. respond to the ntsb recommendations but let the american people know what actions they are taking and the time line by which those actions will be made. this will ensure that the voices of the families who have suffered such grave loss are not only heard but responded to.

instituting this level of oversight is critical as we look to assure that the families of flight 3409 and -- 3407 and all americans who travel by air that those responsible for acting on the recommendations of safety actions are not simply filing those recommendations away in a filing cabinet never to see the light of day but that they are listening and they are implemented so we have safer standards and procedure -- procedures. madam president, i am very grateful for the work of the commerce committee and the leadership for bringing this important bill forward the steps taken in this legislation begin to address the culture of inaction that helped to contribute to the crash just outside buffalo. it is time to learn the lessons of the past, change the culture of inaction and make air travel safer for all american families.

we owe it to those families who lost loved mefer to forget and to raise the serious concerns raised over the last year. i look forward to seeing these improvements contained in this cric legislation. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: madam president, before she leaves the floor, let me say that the -- the families of the victims of the colgan crash, the tragedy that occurred just about a year ago now, the families have been unrelenting in coming to the congress, appearing at every single hearing, meeting with members of congress saying we want these changes. and i just wanted to say that i know the families know but new yorkers should know the work that senator gillibrand has done and senator schumer as well to try to include in this legislation, the f.a.a. reauthorization act, some very needed changes, safety changes, that resulted from what we learned in investigating that accident. senator gillibrand talked about the fact that two people entered the cockpit that evening of a

commercial plane and then a number of people, 45 people, entered from another door and filled that commercial airplane and set off at night in bad weather with icing conditions and the two people in the cockpit, the person flying the left side, the captain hadn't slept in a bed tore two nights, the -- for two night, the copilot hadn't slept in a bed the night before. and she had, as senator gillibrand added, deadheaded from seattle, washington, where she lived, to go to her workplace in laguardia. this is a person who was paid $23,000 a year in salary, deadheading across the country to get to her duty station, not feeling particularly well, sitting in the crew lounge, where there is no bed. the point is, we have just learned that is the fatigue issue and the commuting issue. we learned about training issues in that cockpit with the stick push or the stick shake and other things, icing conditions. so i just wanted to say, we have

learned so much from that tragedy. our hearts go out to the victims of the crash and, yes, the pilot and copilot lost their lives as well and our hearts go out to their families. but important for us is to learn from this. and the diligence of senator gillibrand and senator schumer especially, and i would say especially the witness exhibited by the families of the victims over all of these months, has been extraordinarily important in putting in this bill some very needed safety changes. so i -- i thank senator gillibrand for her diligence. mr. gillibrand: i thank the chairman. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. pryor: madam president, i'd like to just speak on my amendment here for a few minutes. really somewhat in response to senator sessions but really more to just ask my colleagues to please consider voting for the pryor amendment. this reminds me of a conversation i had a few years ago with a friend of mine in arkansas and he's kind of a

member of the deficits don't matter club. and he just -- this is probably six years ago, i was a pretty new senator here and he -- he just -- i said, look, we have to start to get this thing turned around, some of the, you know, policies that we've done here just are not good, not sustainable for the country. and i mean, he told me back then that deficits don't matter. and where i disagree with him or i disagree with others like that, i said look, any time any of us walk in to a bank or some other financial institution and want to borrow money, the first question they ask is, how are you going to pay it back? that's what they want to know, how are you going to pa pay it k if the problem we've had around here for years now is that we have no plan to pay this money back, none. we have no plan to pay this money back and that's why we're just pushing it off down the

road to where, you know, we don't have to make the hard decisions. but i want to tell you right now, our children and grandchildren will -- do not appreciate what we are doing to them. we have to take responsibility for us living beyond our means. and the way i look at this is that america for too long, we have lived beyond our means. our government has done that. corporate america has done that. there's too much debt in corporate america. we've seen that over the last year and a half. and also individuals and families have done that. we've done that on just a personal basis with too much debt. and we all need to take responsibility, we all need to manage that and manage our way out of that situation. and my amendment basically, as much as anything, it communicates the -- to the american public, it communicates to the global economy, it communicates to all the economists and all these experts on wall street and these other places all around the world, it

communicates that we're capable of making these difficult decisions and that we are willing to make the hard calls in order to get this done. and i know that one of the criticisms that we're going to have on the pryor amendment is, well, it may lead to raising taxes. and certainly i hope it doesn't. but we have to be willing in this chamber and in that chamber down the hall and at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, we have to be willing to make these hard choices, these hard calls. that's what we call leadership. and that's what we call democracy. people elect us to come to washington to make difficult calls. the easiest thing that we can do is to -- to be fiscally irresponsible. it's like in our own personal house, hey, i'd love to have a bass boat, you know? i'd love to buy a new car every year. i'd love to have a lake house. but i can't afford those things.

in this nation, we've got tone the point where we can't afford to have it all -- gotten to the point where we can't afford to have it all. and the pryor amendment really gets us back in the zone where we can manage this fiscal picture that we have. and hopefully what we can do is over the next 10, 12, 15 years, however long it's going to take, we can actually get back to surplus and make a significant dent in paying off the national debt. i just think we have to do that, and i think it's imperative that we start now. and that's what the pryor amendment is b. and really, ther amendment is about. and, really, the biggest advantage over the mccaskill amendment, and again, i have respect for the two senators, they've been work on this for a long time, but i think the limitation of their amendment and really the big short fall there is that it only deals with discretionary spending and that is a -- as i showed you earlier in the pie charts, that's a very small piece of the fiscal pie.

we need to put it all on the table and we need to show the american public that we're serious. we need to show them that we are willing to take this on, that we have the discipline it requires to restore fiscal responsibility here in this government, that we can reduce the deficit and that we can return our nation once again back to a fiscally sound path. and that's really what this issue's about today, and i would very strongly encourage members on both sides of the aisle to look at the pryor amendment. i'd encourage to you vote for mine. i think it's a more comprehensive approach than senator sessions and senator mccaskill. like i said, i voted for that one twice before in previous iterations of it. it's changed a little bit. but i did vote for it before, but i've just come to the conclusion that we need a comprehensive solution. we need to put it all on the table and we need to show the leadership, this -- this country

is crying out for leadership. we need to show the leadership on this issue and show people that we're serious and we're willing to do what it takes in order to get this done. mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: madam president, we're on the f.a.a. reauthorization bill, and let me just -- i want to comment on t the -- my colleague from arkansas's discussion but i'll do that briefly. i did want to say before that, however, we really threaten to lose this bill. we've been on the floor now five days. we've got a number of amendments. we're going to vote at 2:00 today on a couple of amendments that are -- they're properly filed and -- but they have nothing to do with the underlying bill. we have some other amendments still waiting that have nothing to do with the underlying bill. and then we have this issue of slot rules and perimeter rules with national airport, which is unbelievably complicated. i think we have eight amendmen amendments. and my hope is that we can convince people not to offer those amendments, we'll try to deal with them in conference because the house has a couple of provisions. but if -- if we don't complete

this bill today, after five days, i mean, i worry very much we'll never get back to it. and once again, the issues of aviation safety and airport improvement funds and all of those issues will be left at the starting gate. we've extended this 11 times. rather than reauthorize the f.a.a. bill, we've extended it 11 times. now we finally have legislation that deals with aviation safety, which is so unbelievably important, and a a passengers' bill -- and a passengers' bill of rights, and the a.i.p. improvement funds and so on. let's get this done today. i urge my colleagues to come. if you have amendments to offer, let's offer them. let me ju -- let me just say, senator pryor has offered an amendment. one of my colleagues say it is really just a cover amendment, not really very serious. well, first of all, that's unfair to senator pryor. his amendment is not only serious, it is so much better than the amendment that was filed that's been described as a

baby step here today. you know, it's okay to take baby steps, i suppose, but we don't exactly face baby challenges. we've got unbelievable fiscal challenges. it shouldn't surprise anybody that we face these unbelievable challenges. 10 years ago we had a budget surplus in this country, a budget surplus. and president george bush said, you know, i want very large tax cuts, the bulk of which will go to the wealthiest americans, and some of us said "no." i said "no." well, katie bar the door. it happened. and it's -- it accounts for about 50% of the current deficit, as a matter of fact, going forward. the loss of that revenue. and so then we had a recession, then we had a 9/11 attack, we had a war against terrorism, a war in afghanistan, and a war in iraq and now back in stan. -- and now back in afghanistan. by the way, none of that was paid for. all paid for with emergency money stuck on top of the

federal debt. there's no question how serious it is. but when we do address this, let's address it in a way that really intends to grab this problem and begins to fix the problem. my colleague seems to suggest -- one of them spoke this morning -- let's clean house and, by the way, we'll only do the smallest room. doesn't make any sense to me. senator pryor has offered an amendment that says, let's look at all of these areas. i know why it is the smallest room. the minute you talk about taxes, some people here have an apoplectic seizure. how about asking some people who aren't paying their fair share of taxes to pay t what about asking those paying a 15% tax rate, earning the highest in the land to start paying what the rest of the people are paying. is that a tax increase? i guess for somebody that makes $300 million a month or $10 million a day, and that person, who incidentally who was the highest income earner running a

hedge fund in 2008, that person not only got $10 million a day in income, but because of the generosity of this chamber and others gets to pay a 15% rate, the lowest income tax rate. warren buffet has written an op-ed piece. god bless him. i like warren buffet. i have known him for some years. one of the world's richest men. one of the world's richest people. and they did a little survey in his office in omaha, nebraska, and of the people who work in that office of warren buffet's, if you take a look at the taxes paid, income taxes and payroll taxes, the lowest tax rate paid in that office was by one of the world's richest people, warren buffet. and a higher tax rate is paid by his receptionist than is paid by him. now, think of that. perhaps -- and, by the way,

warren buffet is the first to say, that's not fair, that's not right. you need to straighten that out. under what we're going to vote on under the sessions-mccaskill amendment, that would be trouble if you decided to ask those folks to pay their fair share. not a tax increase to ask others to pay what most of the american people pay. if you want all the benefits america has to offer, how about meeting the responsibilities to your country? so, that's a lengthy way of saying, senator pryor has offered an amendment that say, let's lookality everythin look . let's take a look at domestic discretionary and tighten our belt o. look at all of it. look at entitlements, do it all. and do it in a serious way with a seriousness of purpose that says to the people who are looking to the future of this country, we're going to get this -- we're going to get this under

control. we're going to seize this defendant and debt problem and tame it because we don't have a choice. if we don't restab some confidence in the future among the -- if we don't reestablish some confidence in the future among the american people, this economy will not recover. i briefly taught economics in college. and i used to teach that this is all about confidence. if people are confident, they do things that are expansive to the economy: buy a suit, buy a car, take a trip. when they are not confident about they, their families, when they're not confident about that, they do exactly the opposite. they retract. they delay the purchase. and that contracts the economy. so we need to do some things that will give the american people some confidence that we're not going to stay on this path. this path is unsustainable and it requires us to look at every aspect of fiscal policy, domestic policy, and find way to tame these deficits.

so, i strongly support the amendment by the senator from arkansas, yet i think it disserves that amendment to call it a cover amendment. it is an amendment with a much more serious purpose than the other sessions, the sessions-mccaskill amendment. i would hope that the senate will see fit to support the amendment offered today by senator pryor from arkansas. i yield the floor. mr. kyl: madam president? the presiding officer: the republican whip. mr. kyl: thank you, madam president. unless my colleague from arkansas wants to respond, i'll go ahead then. thank you. first of all, let me comment on the suggestion by the senator from north dakota that we need to move on with this legislation. i agree with that, and it could be concluded this week, i would assume. on the other hand, the matter that relates to the perimeter rule and slots at airports and so on, while every bit as complicated as my colleague suggested it is is also very

much in need of resolution. and one way or another, we're going to have to get that resolved on this bill. i'm hoping that after a meeting that will convene in a little less than an hour from now, a compromise can be achieved on that such that we can move forward and get something adopted. but we're not going to finish that bill, i suspect, until that important issue is dealt w i'm going to refrain from talking further about that, in the hopes that there is a compromise that we can support. therefore it won't take a great deal of time. mr. dorgan: senator kyl, would you yield for a question? we were able to get that bill out of the commerce committee precisely because we did not deal with the slot rule. i understand there's an appetite on slots and perimeters to deal with it. the only way we'll get an f.a.a. reauthorization bill done is if we get out of the senate and get into conference somehow. that's the dilemma. if we get involved in a lengthy discussion and debate with multiple amendments on slolts and perimeters, we may never get an f.a.a. bill off the floor of the senate.

so we'll never have the opportunity to get all the other things that relate to that bill. and i would say that it seems to me that we could, in conference, even as it goes to conference, work on a solution that would resolve some of the issues the senator mentioned. mr. kyl: well, madam president, i certainly appreciate the sentiment of my colleague, and i know the bill -- the underlying bill -- is important to get done. these perimeter rule revisions are important to get done, too. and our fear is that unless there is some action, that it won't be resolved, as it hasn't been in the past. and dwrot has to be a lot of amendments or a huge amount of debate. i do think we need the opportunity to have a vote or two on a couple of these amendments. and if they don't prevail, then so be it. but i think that is an issue , i would just say, that we're going to have to deal with one way or the other. what i'd like to do is change the subject just a little bit here and talk about the proposals that have been made by senator sessions and by senator

pryor in a different context. we just got the word from the congressional budget office that the new cost of the legislation on health care is going to be over $940 billion. each iteration of this bill has seen an increase in the cost, and this is striking because, as we know, even though the congressional budget office has had to take the legislative language, as it's been given to them in providing the price tag for it and, therefore, alleges that it won't put us in deficit. the driewj of ththe truths of tt will. if you assume savings that won't exist and so on, then you can project a budget-neutral bill. but i think most objective observers have ago knowledged that the bill will be -- have acknowledged that the bill will be far out of balance and the

$940 billion price tag will not be paid for by the various taxes and spending reductions that are ostensibly a part of the bill. there is nearly a half a trillion dollars in medicare cuts, for example. most people think that's very unrealistic. we've never been able to find that much waste, fraud, and abuse in the past, and i think it is going to be hard to find it in the future. so you can't assume that we're going to save all of that money. now, it's true that this new bill will also raise taxes. there are over 13 new taxes in the bill, and it supposedly raises over a half a trillion in taxes. that includes 0 on seniors, the chronically ill, and on the very drugs and devices that help us when we're sick. i wonder how long those taxes are going to last? bottom line is we're going to be adding to the deficit under this legislation or paying a lot more in taxes than do today. and the irony is that we're not

even solving the core problem that we were -- that we started out to try to solve, which was to reduce the cost of health care premiums. c.b.o., the congressional budget office, confirms over and over again that premiums will continue to rise. and they say in the individual market, this bill will cause premiums to soar by 10% to 13% in the year 2016 because the government is going to force patients to buy benefit packages with coverage that they may not need or want. and, according to lewin and asoarkts, the premiums will go up even more. and a third study, oliver wyman and associateds, have projected that the prices will exceed 50% increases in my state of arizona. 72% increase in premiums as a result of this legislation. that's almost incompresensable and it is wrong. the irony is that the increases

are going to be paid by small businesses who are asking to hire more people. it is going to be paid for by young families and individuals who are forced to buy insurance that they don't believe that they need right now. right now they have relatively low premiums because they have relatively low health care needs. so the bill will raise the cost of insurance for many americans, and then through new mangedses force everyone -- and then through new mandates, force everyone to buy a new policy, not just any policy but one that's been written here in washington, d.c. it adds a new entitlement that we can't afford. my point is not to go through all the things that are wrong with the health care bill but because we now know -- or we believe the bill is going to be voted on in the house of representatives perhaps as early as sunday and we now have the new score here, the biggest score yet of almost $1 trillion, i think it is worth talking in the context of the amendments that are on the floor here to try to deal with escalating spending here in the united states.

during his campaign, president obama made almost a fetish out of saying that he'd fix the way washington works and ther workse no more business as usual. there's been arm twisting and backroom deals and sweetheart deals that end up buying the votes they need to pass the legislation but add dramatically to the costs, as well as the unfairness because certain provisions of the bill are made inapplicable to certain favored constituencies. now, i've always thought in the bill was such a great idea, why would members come down here and exempt their own stilt stits from the ally-- ally-- exempt their own constituents from the applications of the bill. medicare advantage is enjoyed by a great many seniors who are on medicare, about 330,000 in my own state of arizona. and their benefits are going to be dramatically decreased you

understand the bill. well, our colleague from florida heard an earful from his senior citizens in florida who said, don't cut our benefits. he said, okay, we'll grandfather you and some folks in some other states. but my folks don't get grandfathered. how is that fair? how is that right? let me just run through a couple of these other special deals. because unfortunately not everybody gets the advantage of these special deals. there was the so-called louisiana purchase, $300 million. i don't know the page, by the way, of the new bill, but in the old bill it is section 2006, page 242, line 14, if you're interested. the gatorade grandfathers medicaid patients to the dune of about $25 billion to $30 billion from if the costs of -- or,

rather, from the effects of reducing their medicare advantage benefits. now, there are some other states that get specific benefits as a result of medicaid patients that are added to the rolls. vermont, $6 million, mass marks $500 million. there are three targeted fmap provisions, bonuses for verntle maine, and nebraska. vermont gets a $2.2 increase for six years for the entire program. maine gets a .5% increase for three years. nebraska got a 100% fmap increase for newly eligibles forever. that was this particular deal. under the disproportionate payment section, hawaii is alone in among the states that gets an extension. michigan and connecticut get a special benefit under section 508 so that their hospitals have an toption benefit -- an option to benefit under that section if it means higher payments. this was also done in previous legislation.

montana, south dakota, north dakota, and wyoming, they get a special deal. an amendment that adds a percent to the hospital wage index for those states. and there are other states that qualify but would not benefit because they're already above the one-point wage index value. it also establishes a 1.0 practice expense floor for a nis those particular states -- for a physician in those particular states. one of my colleagues -- got a benefit for his constituents in libby, montana. medicare advantage for those individuals. the e.p.a. has announced that there's a public health emergency at a superfund site there so they get a special advantage. it's interesting that while the nebraska cornhuskers kickback got a lot of attention, two other benefits for nebraska entities did not. nebraska bluecross blueshield and michigan bluecross blueshield and also mutual of omaha get special benefits.

so two in nebraska and one in michigan, they get a carveout. one of them gets a carveout from the insurance fee for medigap policies and the other insurance fee paid to these two particular companies. connecticut hospital, senator dodd from connecticut took credit for getting $100 million for a hospital in his state. i could go on and on. the point, madam president, is that the process by which the legislation has been put together as well as its substance is what has caused the american people to have an extraordinarily low opinion of congress. and the latest trick, the so-called scheme to deem the legislation that the senate passed, passed without a vote -- in other words, passing a law without ever voting on it -- is just the latest of the chicanery that appears to be engaged in,

in the house of representatives now, in order to get around the senate bill, which, as the speaker said, her members don't like and don't want to vote o. and i would ask unanimous consent to put into the record at this point an editorial from this morning from one of my hometown newspapers, the arizona republic, which discusses what they call the end run by democrats as a travesty and they discuss this so-called scheme to deem in the editorial. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander alexander: would r from arizona ask a question? mr. kyl: yes, and i was about to get to my final point of which the senator from tennessee is expert, having the federal government take over student loans. but yes, i will yield. mr. alexander alexander: i'll sd listen to his explanation on the other issue, but i heard you mention the new -- the news this morning that the new bill, which

we haven't seen and which suddenly we're, of course, as is usually the case, we have to rush and pass it over the weekend before we read it, is going to save the government money. now, i don't think very many americans believe, but my question is this. i wonder if the senator knows whether this comprehensive health care bill, which is going to save the government money, not run up the deficit, includes the amount of money it costs the government to pay doctors to serve medicare patients. if -- and if it does not include that amount, which i believe i heard the representative from wisconsin say it was $371 billion in the president's budget over ten years works that not be like asking the congressional budget office to tell you the cost of a horse farm without the horses. and can -- can the senator from

arizona imagine a comprehensive medical -- a comprehensive health care program that does not include the costs of paying doctors to serve medicare patients. and if it does not, does that not clearly mean that the bill, just that one provision, will guarantee that it will increase the federal deficit. mr. kyl: madam president, my colleague from tennessee is exactly correct. just that one item alone. and, of course, it is part of medicare. you have to pay doctors to take care of you in medicare, and if you don't include the cost of that, then obviously you're not identifying the true costs of the legislation. and just that item alone would be enough to knock it out of balance. and i didn't even get in to all of the double counting and the other ways in which they try to game the system so that it makes it look like you've saved money but you really haven't. one of our friends, steven moore, i heard, had this analogy. gee, this is a great deal.

you cover an additional 30 million people and you save money. gee, he says, at that rate, we should cover everybody in china. we could really reduce the deficit. well, i think it makes the point. the american people have broken the code here. we're not going to save money by adding more people to the rolls. that may be a good idea. it may be that we should subsidize people, but let's acknowledge the true cost. and that gets back to the amendment of our colleague from alabama here, the amendment that's pending on the floor, he says we've got to stop spending so much so let's do something very modest, let's just put a cap using last year's budget -- i mean, we're not talking about cutting way back, we're not cutting into muscle or bone or anything like that, we're just saying okay, if it was good enough for 2010, let's just stop there, let's have a little hold, let's have a little pause here before we add a whole lot more money to the deficit. you know, the state -- my state of arizona has had to cut well over a billion dollars out of its budget -- i think it's closer to $2 billion -- and they are really cutting significant

elements that the state has paid for in the past. the city representatives were in seeing us yesterday and last week the county representatives. they're all having to dramatically cut what they provide in the way of government services. but we here at the federal government, we just keep right on going as if there were no problem at all. and that's why the amendment that's pending -- and i guess we're going to vote on it in about an hour -- the amendment by senators mccaskill and sessions, is one that we need to support and to vote against any other amendments that appear to try to provide savings but, in fact, don't. i'll just close here, because i see my colleague on the floor, i -- the last thing i just wanted to mention was the latest gimmick to get support for this health care legislation, adding something that has nothing to do with health. it's the takeover of the federal government of the student loan program. now, a lot of folks in this country have gotten student loans for their kids to go to college, and it's a process that's worked. it's federally guaranteed so

banks are able to make those loans at a relatively low rate of interest and it's a good deal for kids that want to go to college. well, the obama administration, which has taken over car companies, taken over other insurance companies, now wants to take over health care, has taken over partially banks, now wants to take over student loans. and it's been made then part of this legislation. we -- we don't know for sure exactly how because we haven't seen the bill yet, but allegedly it's made a part of this legislation. and my colleague from tennessee has been very good at pointing out that actually it's going to cost people more money because the government gets to borrow money at 2.8% interest and then it's going to loan it out at 6.8% interest, take the difference in the two and pay for additional government programs. to me, though, one of the most pernicious things is that after july, you're not going to be able to pick the lender that best fits your needs or your kids' needs to go to college. you get to go to a federal

bureaucrat who's going to decide that for you. and instead of some -- something like 3,000 different places where you can go to get this, i think there are going to be four call centers. good luck. i mean, if you think it's slow down at the motor vehicle division or the post office, good luck trying to get a loan for your kid now to go to college. as my colleague, senator alexander, wrote in "the washington post" -- and i quote -- "you'll work longer to pay off your student thrown help pay for someone -- loan to help pay for someone else's education and to help your u.s. representative's education." this is a bad idea. and to try to fold this into the health care legislation i think is a doubly bad idea. and the bottom line is that our house democratic colleagues, who are now being very strongly pressured to vote for this health care legislation, are not going to be able to fix any of this. because when the bill comes over here to the senate and they supposedly have put the fixes in it, the reality is that every one of those things that's subject to a point of order, it will be stricken from the bill on a point of order. some things can be amended, of

course, so the house is going to have to deal with the bill at least one more time if, in fact, they -- they pass it this weekend. the senate is not going to bail them out, as some of them apparently think maybe the case. so i just throw that note of caution to my colleagues in the house who may be thinking of supporting this bill on the grounds that the senate is going to clean it up. mr. sessions: madam president, will the senator yield for a question? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: senator kyl, you've worked on these issues for many years, you're one of the leaders, you're the leader -- assistant republican leader and the leader i in the finance committee, but isn't it true that we've known for some time we're losing doctors who -- who are declining to do medicare work and that if we don't take action, they will have a dramatic 20%-plus cut in their pay? anevery yearpay?

and that every year we've known that can't happen and so we've found the money to put back into that. and that one of the president's announced purposes of health care reform was to fix this problem. i understand from your conversation with senator alexander that that problem has not been fixed in the bill at all and that when -- number one. and then, of course, when you've figured out how much the big costs, it doesn't reflect that we've got to have, under the new estimates, $300 billion or so more. and so if they're claiming the bill is going to create a surplus of $130 billion, really you would have $200 billion or so committe deficit just on ther fix alone. is that correct? mr. kyl: madam president, my colleague is exactly correct and the math is correct as well. it's have ver very disappointin, because most of the doctors i've spoken with are afraid of this

legislation. they're very afraid of what it will do in their practices and the way that they'll be able to deal with their patients. and they're also afraid because they can see this continued downward pressure on the reimbursements that they recei receive. and, frankly, a lot of them are saying we're just not going to be able to take medicare patients in the future. in my own state of arizona, in fact, the mayo clinic has already announced that at two or three of its facilities, it's not going to be taking new medicare patients. so that is one of the things that should be fixed in this health care bill, it's not fixed. and what really disappoints me is that even though the medical association has urged that they take out a very pernicious amendment that deals with specialty hospitals, basically cuts specialty hospitals off in the future, and the a.m.a. has fought very hard to allow specialty hospitals to exist, but that's not going to get fixed in this bill. and even though they have sought to be excluded from the medicare cuts that are in the medicare commission here that's

supposedly going to save $250 billion or so, that hasn't been fingsed. -- fixed. and even though they need to have the basic reimbursement section, the so-called s.g.r. fixed, and as my colleague just pointed out, it's not fixed in the legislation. what's disappointing to me is three of the most critical elements of this bill, the american medical association, because of the effect it will have on the treatment of their patients, that they are still toying with the idea of supporting the legislation when the vast majority of physicians in the country, in my opinion, do not support the legislation. and, again, it's primarily because of the effect that they think this will have on their patients. so i would just close, madam president, by saying -- supply sessions: could i ask one more question of the distinguished senator? mr. sessions: the way this new benefit is funded, as i understand it, is through a $500 billion cut to medicare and increased medicare taxes.

isn't it -- wouldn't it be the correct thing for policy-makers like us to take that money first and strengthen medicare and pay the doctors that we owe instead of starting an entirely new program, leaving the doctors unpaid and raiding medicare benefits? mr. kyl: madam president, i'll conclude by saying, absolutely, yes. and this is one of the good ideas that republicans had. rather than creating a new entitlement, taking money from medicare to fund that new entitlement, the savings that we believe we can achieve in medicare should be applied to keeping medicare solvent for another 17 years or whatever amount of time this money could provide. and then if we are going to expend money, let's use it to pay the hard-working physicians and all of the other providers, the r.n.'s and the folks in the hospital and everybody else who we want there to take care of us when we get sick.

let's make sure that that money is available there and that we have some kind of permanent resolution of this problem so that we don't have to come back and try to fix it every year. those are just some of the things that we believe should be done rather than to scrap the whole system that we have, replace it with this new government-operated ba behemothd end up providing enormous new taxes without cutting the premiums and, in fact, allowing the premiums to go up even more than they would have otherwise. other than that, it's a nifty yesterday, and of course i'm being facetious, madam president. the health care bill is not, in my opinion, a good idea and my last point here was simply to urge my colleagues in the house to appreciate the fact that the senate is not going to bail them out by cleaning up the senate bill, which we already passed here, and they shouldn't be voting for this legislation under the false assumption that somehow we are going to make all of those changes in the senate

bill. mr. brown: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: madam presint, i ask unanimous consent to address the house as if in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: and i ask unanimous consent that following my remarks on health care, senator tester will also be -- take the floor to talk about health care. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, madam president. i just don't know where to start. i listened to senator kyl. i really do like personally and respect. but i just hear so much. of course it is not just senator kyl -- it is almost all my colleagues on the other side of the aisle -- who have just engaged in scare tactics. first you try to scare the middle class and scare people that have parents that are older by talking about death panels. well, that didn't work. nobody believed that. well, some people believed t but most rational people didn't believe t then they try to scare

people by saying it is going to be taken away. then they try to scare senior citizens by saying we're going to cut medicare. now this is almost funny. they're trying to scare house members. these poor, innocent house members who can't figure things out on their own. we need senate republicans to tell them all about these house rules, senate rules and reconciliation. and it is a little bit funny but again it is not funny because it really is standing in the way of what we need to do for the american people. i am particularly amused -- again probably wrong choice of words -- but amused when my republican colleagues talk about cutting medicare. just look at the history of this. i mean, they -- they -- they -- they've built careers trying to destroy medicare. i've been around here since 1965, by a long shovment but i've sure read a lot about 1965. the presiding officer knows this history, and she's talked to people in charlotte and winsto

winston-salem. and i've talked to people about this, that medicare in 1965 the republicans used the same arguments. they thought that medicare would be a government takeover. can't do that. they thought that medicare would be socialism. can't do that. the people that organize an opposition to medicare -- then the john burke society, now the tea party -- made all of these claims about medicare, as the tea party is doing today, about this health care bill. you know, it wasn't true. doesn't matter it wasn't true. they said that the government crate is going to get -- they said that the government bureaucrat is going to get between you and your health care. it didn't happen. in 1965 half of america's seniors had no health insurance. today 1% of america's seniors have no health insurance. but it didn't just end in 1965 when republicans in large numbers this these same insurance company interest groups, i might add, the republicans' most important

benefactor is the insurance industry -- that's why they're coming to the floor acting like they're defending seniors, acting like they're defending the middle class, acting like they're defending the poor, acting like they're defending health care. they're defending the insurance companies. just like they defend the oil companies on energy legislation. just like they, they, they, they help defend the drug k-7s. just like they defend the dhaps send jobs overseas. that's why they're against trade agreements. that's why they're against -- that's why they always support the oil industry and climate change and everything else. that's why they always support the drug companies, the insurance companies. they're they are biggest benefactors. that's who they play to. they don't say that on the floor. "i'm against this bill because the insurance companies ..." no, they try to scare urban constituents and rural constituents and suburban constituents. but it just doesn't wash.

now they brought in the student loan bill that we've got to protect middle-class, woking-class students so they can get student loans. no, they want to protect the banks. this is about, should we give direct loans to college students or should we let the banks skim off, skim off, skim off and leave some of the money? and then they have the nerve to say, the money that we save on this will be put back into the government bureaucracy. no, the money we save by saying to the banks no more skimming off student loans, no more taking your cut, giving worse service and higher interest rates, that money goes for pell grants, so the money that we take back from the banks, the decade of george bush subsidies to the banks, are instead going to students so they can afford to go to college. but back to the health care issue itself, mr. president, i -- i -- just one other comment. i hear my colleagues just so liberally, if i could use that word to define them, quote lou n

and associates. they come to the floordz and say, lewin and associates says in this bill -- well, lewin and associates is owned by united healthcare, which is one of the biggest insurance companies in the country. so quoting lewin and associates on health care is like quoting the oil companies on energy legislation or climate change or quoting the drug companies on the medicare giveaway to the drug companies. united healthcare got them and, sorry, that's just the way it is. let me talk. mr. president, with all of this, let's talk about -- let's, let's -- let's stop the scare tactics. let's take a deep breath. let's look what the this is really about. what this bill is really about is helping people to -- who have

lost their insurance, who have had insurance and found out it wasn't much good because of what the insurance companies did to them, as senator tester knows -- he has people in billings and in hellen in a and in whitefish who because of preexisting condition, they lost their djourns or they got sick and then they are i willness was so expensive, the insurance company, we don't want to insure them anymore, and cut them off. i just want to share -- and then i'll turn it over to senator tester -- i want to share some of the letters i get. this is what this is about. they can talk about tax increases -- they're wrong about it, they kind of make up some stuff. they can talk about budget-busting legislation. i am a little curious about their saying that because the congressional budget office, which we really kind of agree to -- whither a moderate democrat like senator carper or a conservative senator like senator kyl, we all agree the congressional budget office is

pretty much reliable, they're not partisan, they don't lie to us. the congressional budget office says this actually pays for itself and then some. with all of that debate, let's -- why does this really matter? this really matters because we have constituents in wilmington, in chicago, and in butte, as i do in mansfield and youngstown and toledo, who are -- who thought they had good health insurance and then they get sick and they find out they didn't. i've read letters on this floor since july from people who a year ago, if you'd asked them, my health insurance is pretty good. then they found out it wang because they really needed it. i want to share three quick letters. this tells the story of why this is important. forget the political sierksd forget the accusations, forget the charges, forget the countercharges, forget the philosophy. we need to help people. this bill does it. gwen from claremont county.

her disawrt a recent college graduate. "my 22-year-old daughter just grad waited. she's working full-time as a waitress. her employer won't give her health insurance. probably can't afford to. she can't stay on my policy because she's no longer in college. she takes no prescriptions. she is a healthy young person. one insurance company offered her a policy for $750 a month. aim teacher, my husband has been unemployed for one year. we cannot afford it. my present insurance system decides who can have health insurance and at what price. you know what this bill does, mr. president? this bill says, these pages sitting in front of us, they're not in college. they go to college, they come home, can't find a job with insurance. most people can't this age. they're 232, 4, they come home from college, got no insurance. our bill say, you can go on your insurance plan -- you can go on your parents' insurance plan

until you're 26. that takes care that have problem. that's barely debatable. that makes sense for republicans. it makes sense for democrats. second letter, tammy, another conservative rural county. the other one was a conservative suburban county. this is a conservative rural county. tammy writes about her best friend who died in january i frm conserve cal cancer. she worked her way out of low-income housing into her first home. when she couldn't afford health insurance, she was able to roll enroll her children in medicare. by the time my best friend could afford health insurance and went to a doctor, was to too late. she learned she had conserve it will cancer spreading -- cervical cancer spreading through her body. a woman with breast cancer is 40% less likely to die than a woman with health insurance.

conservatives say people don't want government involved. conservatives say, they just go to the emergency room. they'll get care. if you have breast cancer, they all take care of you right before you die or before you have an episode. if you are a chronic as matter iefnlgt if you have diabetes, they won't take care of new an emergency room unless you have an insulin attack or unless you have a terrible situation with your asthma or you can't breathe. but they're not going it help you maintain your health so you don't end up in the emergency room. that's when this bill is all about. this bill prevents situations like tammy's friend, pure and simple. last letter. thomas from cincinnati. writing about his brother jim who's imn in hospice care after being diagnosed with lung and brain cancer in less than a year ago. his brother jim doesn't have much longer to live. he wanted his story told to anyone who would listen. doesn't have health insurance, can't afford the cost of cancer

treatment. "my dying brother is an example and the countless stories you hear from others is why we need protection from the health insurance industry." this is an industry. i have a lot of insurance companies in my state. i don't hate insurance companies. to compete with each other, they've got to have a business model. the business model is okay, if senator carper and senator tester and i run an insurance company, you know what we all do? we hire a bunch of bureaucrats to keep people from buying insurance that might be expensive. you know, if you're sick, you are sick and you're not, well, i don't want to insure you, you're sick, you'll cost too much. affect my bottom line. then they hire a bunch of bureaucrats on the other end for people who have insurance plans and deny their claims. so this is a business model wher you don't insure people who are sick and you try to slough off people who get sick, whom you insure. that's the way you make a lot of

money. if you don't do that you go out of business. so i don't have any problems with insurance executives -- their paid too much, but, i don't have any problem with what they do except their business mod 8 forces them to do this. i think they'd come to us and say, senator carper, senator tester, senator brown, tour for bailing us out from doing bad things. you're going to set new rules so we can't do that anymore. it's outrageous that we have a system. er would eight only country in the world that does this. a lot of countries have private insurance companies running their health care system but they're private, not-for-profit companies. they're not companies that pay their executives $11 million for a the c.e.o. a year. why do we want to ensure a system where for-profit companies keep people from buying insurance if they're sick and deny their care -- i mean, keep them out if they might get sick, deny care for them if they

do get sick. it doesn't serve the public interest. that's why this is so important. i yield the floor. *7. mr. tester: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: thank you, mr. president. i was wondering if the senator from ohio would yield to just a few questions. one of the previous speakers, senator brown, talked about president obama taking over our health care system with government health care. in the senate bill that we passed, is there government health care in that bill? mr. brown: mr. president, senator tester there -- there's already medicare. that seems to work for a lot of people. medicaid. there's something -- you got military bases in your state, as i do, right, pat? , one of the greatest health care bases in the country. they have tricare. this isn't a takeover. this still loves lots of government involvement. mr. tester: and medicare and the v.a. and tricare and those

kinds of things. as far as the government taking over the health care system, is there anything that would create anything different than we have now? mr. brown: not that i see. mr. tester: exactly. how about health care costs overall. do you see those health care costs if we do nothing declining or going up? mr. brown: yes, they keep talk about our bill will -- health care costs will go up. health care costs are going to go up a lot faster. they've doubled in the last seven years and are going to double again if we do nothing in the election soirks seven. who's going to pay for that? mr. tester: exactly. how about insurance companies. if we do nothing, is there going to be any accountability for health insurance companies in this country? mr. brown: if you count accountability, still allowing them to cut people off for pre-existing condition, no, it allows them to keep abusing the system the way they have. mr. tester: what happens to medicare? if we do nothing, where is medicare headed? mr. brown: it's more and more expensive. if you follow what some of my colleagues want to do, they want to privatize it further.

mr. tester: so isn't it a fair statement that doing nothing is not an option here? mr. brown: to me, it's not. clearly, if we do nothing, small business is going to get creamed, taxpayers are getting hurt, and most importantly patients are hurt. mr. tester: thank you, sir. i appreciate your comments. i rise today, mr. president, with some startling news from the state of montana, and i don't think it's singular to the state of montana. it's news that drives home the need to get a handle on america's health care problem. being a senator is a tough job, but it isn't the toughest job i ever had. the toughest job i had was serving on the school board back in big sandy, montana. i also am a former teacher. as a former school board member and a former teacher, i appreciate the long, hard, often thankless hours that teachers put in. to say that they are not the highest paid profession would be an understatement. so, mr. president, i was shocked when i heard about the bad news hitting teachers all across montana. this week, my staff and i spoke to folks like the ones in alpga

ypsilanti district in billings, montana. employees there just received word that their health insurance rates were going up, and i mean way up. normally, a big rate hike might be 10% or 20%. sometimes we hear folks getting slammed for 30% or 40%. but the folks at allegian, their rates are skyrocketing this year by 69%. you think that's bad? talk to the folks in hinsdale or seko, montana. they just found out their rates are going up, too, by more than 70%. then in the nashua school district, rates are going up by 72%. the rate given to those employees who purchase family insurance, they are going up by 83%. let me repeat that, mr. president. health insurance rates are going up by 83% in one year. for those in congress who think nothing is the best option when

it comes to health care, i have one question -- how much more of their paychecks are montanans supposed to fork over before congress finally reforms our broken health care system? the folks i am talking about don't belong to any big nationwide corporate insurance system. they are not paying for anyone's big million dollar salaries or lobbyists or advertisements. it's just the cost of health care going through the roof that is breaking these montana families. for those in congress who say that the american people don't want or need reform, let them talk to the folks that i have talked to like the teachers seeing these rate increases, like the montanans being forced to sell their family farms and ranches because of medical bills. like the montana small business owners who can't afford to insure their employees. on christmas eve, mr. president, i stood in this chamber and cast a vote to keep government out of health care, to cut the national deficit, to hold insurance companies accountable, to

strengthen medicare and to slow the rise of health care costs. i'm very proud of that vote. now this week, after months of listening, debating and voting, congress has a chance to work together to get something done. if congress does nothing, we know what will happen. medicare will go bust, the costs will continue to break montana's families and this country and no one will hold insurance companies accountable. and year after year, hard-working montanans will continue seeing more of their hard-earned paychecks eaten up by health care costs. i'm not in the do-nothing camp, especially when hard-working montana families are trying to make ends meet with 83% rate hikes. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: thank you. we're in full mode here on health care reform, and i'm --

i'm going to stick to that subject here this afternoon. i have heard my colleagues just say really a couple of things that i'm going to emphasize but i'm going to have a different take on some of this as well. in the last, gosh, week, i should have been writing down what some of my constituents in delaware have said to me about health care, their concerns about our legislation that we may or may not pass, but among the things i have heard are we have the best health care system in the world, why mess with it? i have heard concerns that what we're going to do is going to be government run, it will be government funded and the government doesn't do anything well. i have heard concerns about the size of our budget deficit and how this is just going to add to those budget deficits and make them worse. i have heard folks who express concerns about we're going to be robbing medicare to provide health care to illegal aliens

and other folks who are unworthy. we'll set up death panels and that kind of thing. i have heard concerns about abortion on demand and using tax dollars to pay for that. i have heard that we are not going to do anything on medical malpractice reform and we ought to do something. i have heard a lot about process, process, how we're going to use the process of reconciliation, the house might use a process called deeming in order to pass health care reform legislation. let me just kind of take these one at a time. do we have the best health care system in the world? sadly, we don't. did we ever? i'm not sure that we ever did, but we do not have the best today. we have the most expensive. a couple weeks ago, i was -- i hosted a bunch of exchange students from all over the world, including japan. we talked about a lot of issues that they raised with me. one of the issues we talked about was health care systems, what ours is like, what theirs

is like. there were some kids there from japan. in japan, they spend about half of what we do as a percentage of their gross domestic product. they spend about 8% of their g.d.p. for health care. we spend 16% or almost 17%. they get better results. it's not even close. any objective measure, they get better results. they cover everybody. we have 40 million or 45 million people that we don't cover. just think about that. they spend 8% of g.d.p., we spend twice that much. they get better results than we do. they cover everybody. we have a lot of people who are not covered. my thinking in reflecting on that is the japanese are smart people, but they can't be that smart and we can't be that dumb. we could do a lot better than what we're doing. does it have to be government run or government funded? we actually have a system in this country which is government run and government funded and it's called v.a.

the v.a. system -- i'm a veteran, a navy veteran, and i -- the v.a. system is a great system. not inexpensive, but it's a great system for our veterans. but the closest thing to a government-run system is v.a. you look around the world at other health care delivery systems, the one that's sort of government run, government funded where the government pays for stuff, you show up and you get care and you're provided for by government doctors, government nurses is great britain. we're not interested in doing that here. we're not interested in making the rest of our health care delivery system look like the v.a. what we're going to try to do here is borrow from something that works, and that is creating large purchasing pools, much like we have for federal employees, including all of us, federal retirees, all of our dependents, a large purchasing pool of about eight million people. we only get to choose from really for-profit health insurance products. a lot of companies want to sell their goods to us, their

products to us. we have very low administrative costs because you have eight million people in a purchasing pool, can you drive down your administrative costs. the role of government i think is to row the boat, not steer the boat. i think those were the words of david osborne. row the boat, not steer the boat. the role of government is to do what lincoln said. lincoln said the government should do for the people what they cannot do for themselves. what we propose to do in our legislation is to replicate what works, to take this idea of a large purchasing pool and to say to every state we want you to create a large purchasing pool. we're going to call them an exchange. an exchange in the military, go to the exchange, we're going to go someplace on base to buy something. we'll talk about an exchange where people will go over the internet to buy their health insurance. who can do it? small businesses, individuals, families, people with coverage, without coverage, and they will have a bunch of products to choose from, health insurance products. they won't be government funded or government run, but they will be -- they will have a lot of

choices. the idea there is to get the kind of competition in each of those state exchanges that we enjoy in the federal employee health benefit plan. there are some who say we ought to be able to sell or buy health insurance across state lines. i'm, frankly, sympathetic to that argument. what we do in our legislation is to say oh, use delaware as an example. our neighboring states include maryland, pennsylvania, and new jersey. currently, we cannot buy health insurance products that are sold in new jersey or maryland or pennsylvania, but under this legislation if delaware would already into an interstate compact with maryland or new jersey or pennsylvania or all the above, we would create a large purchasing pool, a regional exchange, a regional purchasing pool with millions of people in it to help drive down administrative costs, and insurance that would be sold in any of those four states could be sold across state lines. increasing the number of options, increasing consumer choice and i think increasing competition that will benefit not the insurance companies but consumers.

a little side note here. one of the beauties we have with a large purchasing pool, the one we're in, the federal employee health benefit plan, our administrative costs are 3% of premium dollars. 3% of premium dollars. if we were to go on the outside and try to buy for our families small business health insurance, we wouldn't pay 3% administrative costs. we might say 33% but not 3%. what we want to do is replicate what works. large purchasing pools work. the ability to sell across interstate lines work. the idea of having a lot of options for consumers works. in fact, even to take it one step further, among the health insurance plans that we can choose from as members of congress or federal employees, federal retirees or dependents are their multistate plans, almost like national health insurance plans, and these will be offered on the exchanges. people who are buying the health insurance, whether it's my state or illinois or alabama or any other state in the future will be able to choose from among some of the same plans that members of congress can choose.

another of the concerns that has been raised that has already been addressed here by a previous speaker, but i want to mention it again. that is we're going to further blow up the national debt. the national debt in the first eight years of the last decade from 2001-2008, we literally ran up as much new debt in those eight years as we did in the entire first roughly 208 years of our nation's history. and we are literally adding to that every day. it's enormous concern to me and i know it is to our presiding officer and to others. as it turns out, the referee for us when we pass legislation, whether it's tax legislation or whether it's spending legislation, the referee for us is the congressional budget office. it's not democratic, it's not republican. if i want to cut taxes or raise taxes, if i want to raise spending or cut spending, i have to go to c.b.o., congressional budget office, and ask them to really tell us what the estimate is, what it will actually do to the deficit going forward. whenever we have tried to offer different approaches on health

care reform legislation, we have had to go to the congressional budget office and say what's going to be the impact on the budget? what's going to be the impact on the deficits going forward? and they have dutifully for months now been scoring the different approaches, and the approaches that we're going to be voting on -- we have already voted on here in the senate for the most part, but in the house i think will be taken up this weekend. the congressional budget office has announced this morning that the legislation when you put it all together does not increase budget deficits. it actually -- they are saying it lowers budget deficits. i think the first -- the next ten years by almost almost $140 billion. $140 billion deficit reduction over the next ten years. the real question in my mind is what does it do for the ten years after that? for the ten years after that, the congressional budget office says the deficit would be reduced over those ten years by as much as $1.2 trillion. think about that. now, it's hard to estimate with

any great accuracy what we're going to do over the next 20 years, but my friends, i would much rather be looking at estimates that say deficits down by $138 billion in the first ten years, the deficit is down by by $120 trillion in the next ten years. i would rather look at the arrow going that way than the arrow going the other way. think about it, though. i think what c.b.o. is telling us is that the budget savings in what will be this final combined legislation will save more money, reduce the deficit by more than either the house or the senate bill. this legislation will cover more people. 95% of the people in our country than either the house or senate bill. and they also add it would make insurance more affordable for -- for a lot of people. better quality health care, better coverage for a lot of people. another concern that we have had , mr. president, is that what we're going to do is to somehow

going to badly damage medicare. medicare as we know has run out of money. it's estimated to run out of money in seven or eight years. i believe this legislation would pretty much double the life of the medicare trust fund. not forever, but it will double it. again, that's a step -- actually, a pretty big step in the right direction. we need to do more. we'll be coming back to this latehi appointed deficit panel comes back with a recommendation. some of my senior citizens said i'm concerned you will be taking money out of the trust fund and reducing services to us. what we are doing is we're trying to say to the medicare advantage programs, there have been in some cases way more money than can i think be substantiated or supported, that they are going to be getting less money. and they don't like that and it's not for all medicare advantage programs. but the ones that get the highest premium dollars and the most support from the taxpayers, they're going to get less money in the future.

other concerns about medicare, though, one of my concerns is we don't do a very good job with primary health care in this country. we've got a lot of people never get a physical in their life. they never get an annual physical. i became a navy midshipman at ohio state and when i was 17 years old, i think every year of my life since then i've gotten a physical. i was in the navy for about 27 years, all in. but even now i get an annual physical. and i know my colleagues do as well. we've got a lot of people never get a physical in their life. and a few years ago when we adopted a medicare prescription drug program, we said, medicare recipients should at least get one physical, one physical in their life. and now in folks under current law, when they turn 65, they join medicare, they're eligible, they get one physical, one physical under the medicare program. that's it. if they live another 40 years, they don't get another physical provided for by medicare. the legislation that we're going to pass, every year a person who's eligible for medicare will be eligible for a -- a physical.

that's the kind of preventive care and prevention that we need to -- to do. the medicare prescription drug program, if you happen to be poor, it's a really good program. if you happen to use a whole lot of medicines, expensive medicines, a pretty good program. if you happen to be somewhere inbetween, it's not such a great program because of the so-called doughnut hole and people on medicare, their prescription drug costs exceed $2,500 a year up to about $5,500 a year, medicare doesn't pay for any of that, doesn't pay for any of that. and under the legislation that's before us, medicare will dramatically increase its participation and support for prescription drug costs for the people that run in that area, between $2,500 and $5,500 in pru costs. they call it filling the doughnut hole and i think we're going to fill it completely. but one of the problems with our health care system is doctors are doing what we used to call in naval aviation, trying to protect their 6:00, cover their

6:00, protect themselves from lawsuits. and they provide more tests, more visit, more m.r.i.'s, more everything, more lab tests, you name it just in order to reduce the likelihood they're going to be sued. i don't blame them. but it -- but it runs up the tab for -- for health care, the cost of defensive medicine. and we need to do something about trying to figure out what works to reduce medical malpractice, the incidence of medical malpractice, what works to reduce the incidence of defensive medicine, and what works to improve outcomes. while we reduce medical malpractice lawsuits, while we reduce defensive medicine, how can we do that and still improve outcomes. as it turns out, the states -- there's 50 of them as we know -- some of them are pretty good laboratories of democracy. and as an old governor, i like the ideas to look to the states and see what's working. i just want to mention a couple of things. let's say the presiding officer were my doctor. at the university of michigan, if he does a procedure on me, i don't like it and he botches it and the outcome is bad for me

and he knows he screwed up, in michigan, they provide an opportunity for the doctor and the patient to have a chance to just to meet in private, for the doctor to apologize, to offer a financial settlement to the patient, and if the patients accept it -- they either can or they can't -- but do you know what it does? it reduces by almost 50% th incidence of medical malpractice lawsuits. most of the offers are accepted and most of the patients feel it's a pretty good thing. the conversation that takes place between a doctor and a patient can never be used in a court of law against the doctor. that works. we have, we call them certification panels that are exist not guilty a number of states. they're a little bit -- existing in a number of states. they're a little bit different from state to state. but for example, dr. burris, stiewlly senatoactually senatort patient carper here, in one he performs a procedure on me, i don't like it, i want to sue him, but before i go to court, i have to go to a certification panel. some of them have the trite say

you don't have a case, that's it, you're out. others say you can go forward, but if you lose, you'll pay the doctors' legal fees. other says, well, you bring -- others say well, you bring your case to the certification panel. if they say you don't have a case, you can still go forward. but what it does -- and that's the approach in my state -- but it's literally cut by 40% medical malpractice lawsuits. those are kinds of things -- other ideas. we have bankruptcy courts and other judges are bankruptcy courts. how about health courts where the judges are medical specialists? another idea that i think has a lot of virtue is we call it safe harbors. a doctor does, again, a doctor working with a patient does everything he or she should have done or a nurse or a hospital, given the symptoms i was showing, giving my medical history and all, does everything by the book, everything that should have been done, and the idea of providing a safe harbor from lawsuits, or at least a rebuttable presumption, for that doctor. those are all ideas that -- that are working in different places around the crlt.

maybe around the world but -- around the country. maybe around the world but especially around the country. let's figure out which of those work best to reduce medical malpractice lawsuits, to reduce the incidence of defensive exphedz to improve outcomes -- medicine, and to improve caughtcomes. and there's money in the legislation before us to figure out which one of those programs work best and try to replicate those all over the country. the last point or two i want to make, one of those is sometimes, you know, where -- if we really don't have the best medical system in the world and we actually do have the most expensive and we don't get the best outcomes and we can sort of get by that argument, if we can get by the argument that what we're trying to do is set up a government-funded, government-run system, if we can get by the idea that, no, we really aren't exploding the deficits, we're actually going to reduce them $130 billion roughly in ten years, if we get by the dwhrad we're really not going to -- the idea that we're

really not going to steal money from the medicare program, and pay for abortions and pay for illegal aliens, and if we get by the fact that we're not going to do anything about medical malpractice or the incidence of defensive medicine, well, what t do we argue about? well, what we can argue about is process. what we can argue about is process. and we're having a big argument about that today. and there's a process called reconciliation. i won't get into all the details but it's basically we used at the end of the budget process to -- we use it to reduce deficits. it's pretty much focus odd deficits, either raise -- focused on deficits, either raise revenues or cut spending in order to reconcile the budget deficit, to make it smaller. it sometimes is used to pass major legislation. when the rerpz were in the majority -- republicans were in the majority here, we used to to pack the children's health insurance program. when the republicans were in the majority, we used it to provide for major tax cuts adopted

during the presidentsive george w. bush. -- the presidency of george w. bush. those were all adopted during reconciliation. and i think maybe 20, 22 times since 1980 or so, reconciliation has been used to pass significant legislation. 16 out of the 22 times were when our republican friends were in the majority. not democrats but republicans. and we didn't hear criticism of using reconciliation as an approach for those on those times. let me just say, i objected when the idea was raised of using reconciliation to pass comprehensive health care. i didn't like that idea. it's the wrong thing to do. we end up with legislative swiss cheese because it's hard to legislate through the reconciliation process, prevention, primary care, health insurance reform. and the process doesn't lend itself to the health care reform legislation. so we put a procedure along regular order here and passed, unfortunately on a partisan basis, 60-40, passed health care legislation last -- at

christmastime. and i must say, one of my great regrets here is that we didn't pass a bipartisan, but we would have had a better bill if it would have been a bipartisan bill. but it is what it is. now over in the house they're trying to determine whether or not to deem through some kind of rules committee, that the bill is passed. where did they get the idea? well, they got the idea from when the republicans were in the majority, i think in the previous congresses, and it worked a number of times for them so maybe the house democrats will use that as well. it's an old saying that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. well, in this case, i think we see for better or for worse some of our democrats trying to emulate what our republican colleagues have done in past -- in past congresses. one last point on focusing on what works. i took a day, i went to ohio state and spent some years of my life, wonderful years of my life in ohio, and twoint cleveland a time or -- went to cleveland a time or two. went back to cleveland last year. i went back to cleveland clinic. the cleveland clinic.

i've been hearing a lot about how the cleveland clinic and the mayo clinic andguisinger health care system in pennsylvania, kaiser health care in intermountain california, and intermountain in utah, that these are better to provide better health care, better outcomes for less money. i wassing intrigued by that and i went to visit cleveland clinic, spent a day with them. and do you know what i found out? i found out that the health care delivery system at cleveland clinic, mayo clinic, geisinger, intermountain, they have a loft things in common. first of all, their doctors and nurses are on sal rim. they're not out there on as free agencies. they're all on salary. especially at the cleveland clinic. second, they focus primary care. third, they focus on prevention. they focus on wellness. all the patients have electronic health records. they coordinate their care. they focus on diseases like

diabetes, cancer, heart, pulmonary, and they treat them in a holistic way. they coordinate the care in the delivery, in those places. and they get a better result for less money. and they've been able to go to high-koss areas, like mayo went down to florida, to provide health care down there in a high-cost area, and they replicated what they do up in minnesota. and part of what we do in our legislation is to incentivize other health care dhiferry systems in our country -- delivery systems in our country, other than the ones i've mentioned, to learn from what works. to lower health care costs and provide better outcomes. in minnesota, through mayo, through cleveland clinic, ggeisinger in pennsylvania, and so forth. let me close, if i can. i was invited to come by and have dinner at the delaware agricultural dinner about a month ago in dover.

annual event. probably have those kinds of things in illinois or north dakota. i know they have them in north dakota and in alabama as well. and i got there, people had already gone through the buffet line and talking a little bit about -- i went over to the buffet line to get my food and a guy came up to me and he said to me, don't vote for any health care. don't vote for any health care. and i said, why? and he mentioned some of the arguments i've raised here before. and i thought about that and i went back down and sat down and i was eating my dinner and later in the program they introduced me to speak. and when i spoke to the audience tonight, i said i know some of you aren't for doing anything this health care because you've heard the arguments, it's going to blow up the deficit, death panels, you name it, all this stuff. and i said, let me just -- you raise food, you're farmers. you're pretty good at t. too good at it because too many people in our country are

overweight. instead of talking about health care, let's talk about food. let's put it in a food context. what if we lived in a country where we pay twice as much for food as every other nation. twice as much. what if we lived in a country where the food was not as good. in fact, it was so bad it was unhealthy for us. what if we lived in a country where 40 million people went to bed every night hungry? what if we lived in a country where tens of thousands of people year -- people died every year because of starvation? what if we lived in a country where our goods and services, our products that we're selling in the marketplace in the world costs way more money, our cars cost $1,500 or $2,000 more than they do than cars they build in japan because of the cost of food in our country? what if the rest of us paid more money for our food, maybe $1,000 or more for our food per year, to go out and provide food for other people who couldn't have anything to eat.

-- to eat? well, that's pretty much the situation we're in, in this crlt. not witthis -- in this country. not with respect to food but with respect to health care. we can do better than this. the legislation, if we passed it, that's before the congress, before the senate and the house, if we pass it, it will not be perfect. but it's sure going to be better than our living in a nation where we pay twice as much for health care as any other advanced nation, where they get better results and they cover just about everybody and we don't. they can't be that smart and we can't be that dumb. and hopefully not just with this legislation but what may flow from it, we prove on it in the years to come, we'll show just how smart we've become. thank you so much. i yield back. mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: mr. president? mr. schumer: will the senator yield for a question? mr. dorgan: first let me make a unanimous consent request. i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the

senate. they have the approval majority ask minority leaders. i ask consent that these requests be agreed to and the requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. sessions: mr. president? mr. schumer: might i ask the senator from alabama a question. how much time do you intend to use? mr. sessions: mr. president, i think seven minutes. mr. schumer: mr. president, could i make a unanimous consent request that immediately after the senator from alabama speaks, i be recognized for five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, it is so ordered. the senator from alabama is recognized. mr. sessions: i am pleased to listen to the remarks by my good friend and most respected member of the senate, senator carper, about his analysis of the health care reform bill that's before us, and i would say i disagree on a number of areas. first is i disagree that we don't have to -- that we do not

have the best medical care in the world. yes, we have people that are overweight. we have a higher homicide rate. we have other problems that affect health. but if you are treated, you get the basic -- the best health care all over, even in rural areas of alabama you get well-trained physicians and nurses who can give you first-rate care. and i reject that. but i do agree we pay too much. and hopefully that would have been a basis for a bipartisan agreement as to how we can execute some changes that would help bring down that cost and create a more effective health care system. i certainly think we should go in that direction. but i do think it's important that the american people feel

like that the process is legitimate. the president said, i guess on his interview yesterday -- i saw it this morning -- basically, i don't care what the price is. just do it, house. you can deem a piece of legislation that's not a part of the bill, apparently, and just make it law by deeming it without actually putting it up for a vote or amendment or a process that's historic. and they say, well, the a been done before. well, i think what i'm hearing from my states is, i don't care what you've been doing before. we expect you guys to honestly bring up legislation, honestly vote on it, and not sneak it through in the dead of night without people having a chance to read it, without fully knowing what it means. and that's a legitimate request and demand from the american people that i'm hearing, and i think it's true all over the country. and you get in even in massachusetts, senator brown

said, this is so no good. and i'm running against it. if you elect me as the senator from massachusetts, i am going to vote "no." and he was elected by a big margin, in a stunning development. and the american people aren't happy about it. but i want to take a minute to talk about -- and this is very important -- that the speaker today just a few hours ago rei reiterated that this legislation would create surplus. now, if it's going to insure 30 million more americans, if it's going to close the doughnut hole, and it's going to do all these things, chow that be? the american -- how can that be? the american people are dubious, at best, about that. but they say the c.b.o. says so. and with all due respect to my colleague from delaware, with all due respect, that is not

what c.b.o. says. they have misrepresented c.b.o.'s statement. in one of the more dramatic flimflammeries in history, i would submit. i wrote them before our vote on december 24 and got the letter back that explained the details of it and how it was that this would appear to be one thing when it's rulely another. -- when it's really another. and i want to point that out right now. this was a subsequent letter from them on january 22 of this year. when asked about how to analyze the cost of this bill, i am eight quog from a letter -- i'm quoting from a letter to me, jeff sessions, from the congressional budget office, greg elmendorf. he says, "thus, the act's effects on the rest of the budget, other than the cash

flows from the hospital trust fund" -- that's the medicare trust fund -- "would amount to a net increase in the federal deficits of $226 billion over the same period." a net increase in the deficit. he goes on to say, "thus, the resources to redeem government bonds in the medicare trust fund and thereby pay for medicare benefits in some future year will have to be generated from taxes or other government income or government borrowing in that year." he goes on to say, quote, "unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the medicare trust fund savings under the ppaca" -- that's this health care reform bill -- "would be used to pay for other spending and therefore would not enhance the ability of a government to pay for future

medicare benefit." close quote. goes on to say, "therefore, enacting the ppaca," the health care reform," would increase debt held by the government accounts more than it would decrease debt held by the public and would increase gross federal debt." now here we have the speaker of the house taking the floor again, repeating what the president, other colleagues are saying, that somehow this is creating a surplus. it is not. let me tell you why. and how they do it. maybe i can take just a minute to do that. right before our vote in the senate on december 21, president obama said -- quote -- "and med medicare will be stronger and its solvency extended for nearly a decade." same statement he says, "the congressional budget office now reports this this bill will

reduce our deficit by $132 billion over the first decade." that's basically the number they were using this morning, basically the number that's been referred t on the floor earlier today. this is how it's done and why that is a total misrepresentation of the ultimate significance of what we're doing here. and this chart does it. so what happens? with regard to the medicare account, we are increasing medicare taxes. that brings more money into medicare. if this bill passes, everybody of the upper-income medicare payers will pay more money. so it is going to increase taxes. and, secondly, there's been a substantial reduction in medicare benefits in this account. so therefore it creates a savings, right? you increase taxes into medicare, you cut medicare

expenses, medicare looks to be in better shape. and that's true. if we use the money to maintain medicare. if we use the money canadian by seniors all over this country so that when we -- if we use the money paid in by seniors all over this country so that when theto strengthenmedicare, what g with it? we're shifting it over to the treasury. so congress can spend it on a new health care bill. well, so obviously you got a problem there. and how do you get money out? have you heard people refer to the medicare trust fund? there really is one and a social security trust fund. there really is one. there are bonds out there. social security holds them in west virginia. so the surplus in medicare is given to the treasury, but what's not mentioned, because it

is an internal debt is an i.o.u. to medicare, a bond back to medicare. and the u.s. treasury owes the medicare for the money they borrow. and medicare is headin heading o default. and so what's going to happen? they're going to call the notes. they're going to call the i.o.u.'s and take it money back. what's going to happen to the u.s. treasury? what that happens -- i would ask unanimous consent to have two additional minutes. mr. schumer: well, mr. -- the presiding officer: thrawcts that the other senator will get five minutes and we are going to move at 2:00 to a vote. mr. sessions: well, i am entitled. mr. dorgan: mr. president, i would be required to object. we have a -- by unanimous consent, previously ordered, we have a 2:00 vote and the senator from new york has asked for five minutes. so i'm going to object. mr. sessions: it may appear that this money can be spent twice as mr. elmendorf said. but the truth is you can't spend

the money twice. it's increasing the debt and there's no doubt about t i would yield the floor. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york is recognized. mr. schumer: thank you, mr. president. i would like to start by saying how much i admire the family members of the victims of colgan air fliest 3407. they are an amazing group of people. they've advocated tirelessly for a year making numerous trips to capital hill all in honor of their beloved loved ones that lost their lives on the buffalo-bound flight from noshing airport. they have done this in a way with intelligence, with focus, and given their overwhelming grief at least as far as i witnessed, no anger, which was amazing to meevment i'm sure when they go home at night, there's a hole in their hearts. and it would be quite human for many of them to be angry. but they have channeled all of that into an amazingly well-focused attempt that now is on the edge of success to make

our commuter flights safer. we all remember the night over a year ago now when flight 3407 crashed and claimed 50 lierves. it is a tragic remind their our nation's aviation industry is not immune to tragic accidents. last month the ntsb issued its final conclusions on the cause of the flight failure. the conclusion, though not surprising, based on the reports we have heard for almost a year now, is still heartbreaking. the ntsb determined the probable cause of the accident was "the cap tans response to the stick shaker which led to an aerodynamic stall from which the plane did not recover." that's a heart-wrernlging conclusion to hear because it means the accident was entirely avoidable. the senate commerce committee has included numerous important provisions, safety provisions,

in the f.a.a. bill. and i'm especially grateful to all the members of the committee, particularly the chair, senator rockefeller, and the committee chair, senator dorgan, in helping us obtain an amendment that i offered thalt require all -- that will require all flight crewmembers to have more flying experience before they can be hired by an airline such as colgan air. the pilot can be hired by a regional carrier with as little as 250 flight hours. the amendment will require that pilots have at least 800 hours of flying experience and that will have to be obtained in adverse flying conditions. senator dorgan, as i mentioned, was instrumental in helping make safety goalts of 3407's family members a reality. i thank him and senator rockefeller and their staff for their hard work and leadership,

not only on the crewmember experience but on the f.a.a. bill as a whole. and i'd like to thank all the cosponsors of the original a.t.p. bill nor their support, senators gillibrand, lieberman, case can icy, collins, snowe, are issue and americaly. we believe that everyone flying a plane, both pilot and copilot should have proper training and experience to handle adverse flying conditions. ntsb concluded that the pilot and copilots' poor training was evident from the start of the flight when they incorrectly entered air speeds in the air crafts computer system. when the q-4's air speed dipped to a low level, they are reactions were of shock and couldn't fusion, not of problem-solving. when the stick pusher activated so the pilot could cokes the airplane out of a stawcialg he pulled back instead of pushing forward. his copilot didn't recognize or correct any of his mistakes. it is unacceptable that a passenger on a regional carrier

fly in less capable hands than a passenger on a larger commercial carrier where hiring standards are considerably higher. that's why passage of the if f.a.a. bill is of utmost importance in the senate. we need to bring all commercial air strafl to the same level of safety -- travel to the same level of safety. the families of flight 3407's victims have been almost saintly. i don't say it lightly. they've taken this tragedy and turned it into this moment, a moment where we are on the verge of making critical reforms in the airline -- in airline safety that are long overdue. if we pass this bill, we'll make changes in airline safety that will impact the country for decades to come. thedjourn dhai these families have traveled has been too long and too hard to stop now. in conclusion, mr. chairman -- mr. president, i can never say enough how humbled i am by the work of all of 3407's family members.

it is a tribute to their loved ones' blieive lives that they continue to come to washington to advocate for aviation safety and i'm humbled to help in their cause. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided fryer a vote in relation to the sessions-mccaskill amendment number 3453. who yields time? the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. dorgan: mr. president, i ask the quorum call be vacated. the presiding officer: the senator is recognized. the senator from missouri. mrs. mccaskill: mr. president, there are people in this body who will say vote for the side by side because it does more. it doesn't. 50 votes to waive. everybody would love to go after mandatory spending. we don't have the will to go after discretionary spending. it's a joke that anybody thinks that this body is ready to take on mandatory spending. this is a very baby step to control growth by 1% beginning next year for three years. when you look at what state governments are doing and local governments are doing and what america's households are doing and we can't control growth, 1% for three years, we're not cutting nothing. we're cutting nothing. everybody in the country is cutting, but here where we print

money. this is a reasonable approach. if we cannot take this baby step, then we have got to admit to the american people we do not get what they are going through, we are completely out of touch. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii is recognized. mr. inouye: mr. president, the senate has already rejected this flawed plan twice in the last two months, and this amendment hasn't gotten any better in the intervening time. mr. president, if we adopt the sessions caps, we will have to gut the president's agenda for discretionary spending, including education, jobs and homeland security. this amendment still fails to address the real causes of our deficit and national debt. it is far less than the

president had requested, and i urge my colleagues to once again vote no. mr. president, i raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 306 of the congrsionaludge act of 1974. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: mr. president, how much time is left on this? the presiding officer: all time mr. sessions: pursuant to section 904 of the congressional budget act of 1974 and section 4-g-3 of the statutory pay as you go act of 2010, i move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of my amendment and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerkil call the roll.

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote?

e presiding officer: on this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 39. three-fifths of the senators chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. the point of order is sustained, and the amendment falls. there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the pryor amendment, amendment number 3548. mr. pryor: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas is recognized. mr. pryor: mr. president -- the presiding officer: could we have order in the chamber, please. senators, could we have order in the chamber, please. senators, could we please have order in the chamber.

the senator from arkansas is recognized. pry thank you, mr. president. i would ask my colleagues -- mr. pryor: thank you, mr. president. i would ask my colleagues to look at my amendment. it reduces discretionary spending caps a $77 billion relative to president obama's budget in 2011, 2012, and 20136789 it alsories the fiscal commission to find an additional $77 billion to reduce the deficit. it moves the vote from 67 back to 60 under our normal senate rules t also increases the chances of a bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction, and we need that around here. we need a bipartisan agreement on deficit reduction, and this reduction is actually -- actually could reduce $13 billion more in deficit reduction than what the sessions-mccaskill amendment does. so, as much as i respect and appreciate all the work that senator sessions and senator mccaskill did, i would certainly appreciate people voting for the pryor amendment. thank you, mr. president.

mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama is recognized. mr. sessions: mr. president, while we were within one vote of a bipartisan legislation to help contain a little bit the growth in spending, allow the growth but not quite as much growth, senator pryor's amendment absolutely is the wrong thing. it is a budget-busting amendment. it allows the congress or the appropriating committees to spend $62 billion more than the president's budget allows. it busts the budget. second, it instructs the deficit commission to propose tax -- the presiding officer: the senator will suspend. senators, please can we have order in the senate. please. thank you, senators. mr. sessions: thank you. it instructs the deficit commission to propose tax increases and entitlement cuts to fund increases in

discretionary spending. that's no what the commission is supposed to be about. try to get our entitlements back on sound footing, not to create money to spend on some new program. i urge my colleagues to vote "no." it's not the right thing to do. and i would make a budget point of order, mr. chairman, that the pending amendment contains matter within the jurisdiction of the committee on the budget. therefore, i raise a point of order against the amendment under section 306 of the congressional budget act of 1974. the presiding officer: senator from arkansas is recognized. mr. pryor: the waiver professions of the applicable budget provisions at 4-g-3, i move to waive all applicable sections of those act and applicable budget resolutionings for purposes of the pending amendment and i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there

a efficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or to change their vote? if not, on this vote the yeas are 27. the nays are 70. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. the point of order is sustained, and the amendment falls. the republican leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i'm going to proceed for a few moments on my leader time. the presiding officer: without objection. the republican leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, democratic leaders in the house say they're giddy because of the c.b.o.'s estimate of their spending bill. that's what you call trying to get out in front of the news. because if you look at the details, if you look under the hood, you'll see this latest bill is even more painful than

the senate bill that democrats over in the house are afraid to take a vote on. democratic leaders are bragging about this bill's impact on the deficit. they say it reduces the deficit by $130 billion over ten years. the more important question is: how do they get there? they get there with even higher taxes and even deeper medicare cuts than the first senate bill. let me say that again. this second bill that's coming along has got even deeper medicare cuts and even higher taxes than the first senate bill that over in the house they don't want to seem to want to have a recorded vote on. let's start with the medicare cuts. the senate bill that speaker pelosi said democrats are so afraid to take a vote on originally cut medicare by $465 billion. that's the original senate-passed bill on christmas eve. the latest bill increases those

cuts by $60 billion more. the senate bill that the democrats over in the house are so afraid to take a vote on raises taxes by $494 billion. $494 billion. the second bill coming along increases taxes by at least $150 billion on top -- on top -- of the $494 billion original tax increase. so if you were worried about raising taxes in the middle of a recession, this bill raises taxes even more. if you were worried about cutting medicare for seniors, this bill cuts it even more. so here's how washington works: democrats want to spend trillions of dollars on this bill in order to save $130

billion, one week after voting to add nearly that much to the deficit in a single vote. if democrats are giddy about this c.b.o. score, then they must get a kick out of higher taxes and medicare cuts. because that's what this bill will mean: even higher taxes and deeper medicare cuts than the original senate bill. and if wavering democrats needed any more evidence that this bill is actually worse than the senate bill, they got it from the chairman of the budget committee just this afternoon. if our democratic friends in the house were counting on the senate to fix the original senate bill that they don't want to vote for because it's so bad, i wouldn't count on the senate. the budget committee chairman over here is already warning that if that reconciliation bill

comes over to the senate, it will have to go back to the house once again for changes. so don't count on us to fix this bill for you, i would say to my democratic friends in the house. don't count on us. republicans have been saying for nearly a year now that this bill is unsalvageable. the latest c.b.o. score proves our point. i would suggest the president not scrap his trip to indonesia. he should scrap this bill and start over on a bill that americans can embrace and that lawmakers from both parties will actually be proud to vote for. taking a bill that house democrats are too embarrassed to vote for, adding more than $150 billion in new taxes, and slashing $60 billion more from our seniors' medicare and keeping sweetheart deals may

make some washington democrats giddy, but that's not reform. mr. prident, yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. inhofe: mr. president, the regular order? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. inhofe: the regular order of amendment number 3475. the presiding officer: that is the regular order. the senator has the right to call for the regular order. mr. inhofe: all right. i call up second-degree amendment number 3549 and ask for its immediate csiration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. inhofe, proposes

amendment numbered 3549 to amendment number 3475. in lieu of the votes to be inserted, insert the following: title "help" act, section 1, "help" act, a, short title. this title may be cited as the honest expenditure -- mr. inhofe: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the bill. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. inhofe: this is a fairly simple bill, mr. president. i have talked on the floor several times about this bill, as i've made very clear before, and there's no sense debating it now, i have been opposed to some of the moratoria we've been talking about on earmarks because, number one, they don't save any money if you kill an earmark. and, number two, it's something i have serious problems with in terms of of our oath of office. we raise our hands, as the senator from north dakota knows, and swear to uphold the constitution of the united states of america. if we say that we are

disenfranchising ourselves from our article 1, section 9, of the constitution, which is very clearly the responsibility of the legislative branch to pass -- or to introduce authorization bills and appropriations bills. this bill, i do have some cosponsors on this, quite a few cosponsors on this. it is a proposal that would freeze discretionary spending at the 2008 level. here's the reason i'm doing this: president obama and some of his, the democrats proposed that they would freeze the nonsecurity discretionary spending at 2010 levels. well, the problem i have with that is this is after it's already been increased by 20%. so kind of big deal. you increase it by 20%, and then you freeze it. what i'm doing is taking the same, same interpretation or same definition of the

nonsecurity. this would exempt defense, homeland security, state and homeland security functions of energy. so it's the same language in the obama proposal but i'm taking it back to 2008. this would have the effect over a period of time, over a ten-year budget cycle of reducing the amount by about just under $1 trillion. , nine-some billion dollars. with that, i would like to have this considered. i would inquire of the chair if i'm now in the queue or what the status of this would be at this time. the presiding officer: it is now a pending amendment, senator. it is now a pending amendment. mr. inhofe: all right. i yield e mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota is

recognized. mr. dorgan: mr. president, that is the pending amendment. we have other amendments that have been filed, properly filed, and we're hoping that we have additional votes this afternoon. what we hope to do is complete this bill this afternoon, but we have a number of issues that i think are being resolved in meetings off the floor. it's now 3:00, and i know that the majority leader would very much like to complete this bill. this is the fifth day that we've been on the floor trying to pass an f.a.a. reauthorization bill that should have been passed 11 times previously but was extended 11 successive times. this deals with commercial aviation safety, airport improvement, infrastructure improvement, a passenger's bill of rights; so many important things. some have said, well, this won't get done this year either. after five days on the floor of the united states senate, i remain with some hope that we can get this done if we get a bit of cooperation from our colleagues who have amendments to come over and offer them, and

we'll have votes on them and the senate will make decisions, and we'll have a final vote on this bill. this bill should not be controversial. it's bipartisan. it came out of the commerce committee with support from republicans and democrats. so we ought not have controversy here on the floor of the senate about whether we will get this bill completed. i know that one of the issues that remains unresolved at this point are amendments dealing with what are called the slot rules at national airport and the perimeter rule. kind of a complicated set of rules with respect to how many slots are allowed for takeoffs and landings at national airport per hour and also how far those airplanes can fly, because there was been some limitations with respect to the per ri perimeter. there are fewer nonstop flights from washington national. most flights coast to coast happen from dulles airport in this region. so there are amendments on the slots and the perimeter rule

with respect to national airport. i hope that we can get this resolved. we decided not to address that in the commerce committee because it is very controversial and it is an open issue when we go to conference with the house because the house does address it. so the best approach, in my judgment, would be for those who wish to offer amendments on the slot and perimeter rules to withhold those amendments here and we'll reach an agreement somehow when we go to conference on how we'll create the senate position in terms of what we want to do with the house on these issues. it is an open issue and undoubtedly we can resolve it in conference. but if we have eight amendments on slot rules and perimeter rules here and debate them for a few more days, this bill may very well be a casualty of time. after five days, i think the majority leader feels appropriately -- and i feel and i know senator hutchison and others feel as well -- that we want to get this bill done

today. we hope if people have amendments they will come down and offer them and debate them. if they have amendments that they don't exactly have to offer, i hope some epi epiphany would occur that would suggest to them that they don't have to come down and offer them. i make a point of order that a quorum is not rent's present. ren.the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. dorgan: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota is recognized. mr. dorgan: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: while we are waiting for colleagues to come and offer amendments to the underlying bill, let me speak in morning business for as much time ace may consume. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: and i will relinquish the floor if colleagues come to the floor and wish to offer amendments to the f.a.a. bill. that's what i would prefer happen at the moment.

but i want to visit in morning business about a piece of legislation that i and senator mike enzi from wyoming have worked on now for some long while. it has 38 cosponsors, 38 senators cosponsored -- republicans and democrats -- and it deals with the question of travel to cuba. as you know, what we have at the moment and have had since 1962, a prohibition on the american people's ability to travel to the country of cuba. cuba rests about 90 miles off of our shore, and we have obviously had massive disagreements with the castro regime for many years. and in order to punish the castro regime, we have restricted the rights of the american people to travel. the american people -- we can travel unimpeded to many other countries. we can travel to communist china. we can travel to vietnam, a communist country. we can travel to north korea, if you can get a visa to get in.

no restrictions there. the american people just can't travel to cuba. and let me describe the absurdity of this and -- which leads senator enzi and i to offer this legislation. we have not offered it on the underlying bill here today, but we will offer it on an authorization bill in the near future. with 38 cosponsors, we feel like this bill would pass the senate with some ease. let me just point out that the new york philharmonic ork tra is the oldest orchestra in america founded in 1842. it is one of our most renowned cultural ambassadors around the world. in 1959, it played in communist russia, played in moscow, the new york philharmonic. well, obviously it's been elsewhere as well. the new york philharmonic has

played music in vietnam in 2009. the new york philharmonic has played music in korea. by the way, if anybody has a chance to go to youtube or go to the internet and take a look at the reaction of the north koreans, north korea to the new york philharmonic playing music in north korea, it was extraordinary. it's quite a cultural experience for our country to send this philharmonic orchestra to those countries. the only -- the only place where they weren't able to play was havana, cuba, october, 2009. that had to be canceled. now, think of that. the new york philharmonic was able to go and play music in moscow at the height of the cold war, in north korea, in vietnam, but it wasn't able to play in havana, cuba. why? well, we have had now for, i believe, ten presidencies an embargo in place -- these are

the ten presidents -- an embargo in place that not only embargoes the movement of goods to cuba but also punishes the american people by saying you can't travel to cuba, and that's what senator enzi and i and 38 other senators wish to say is inappropriate, we want to lift those travel restrictions. i understand the castro government has impeded and restricted the freedoms of the cuban people. i understand this country has no use for the castro government. i have no use for the castro government. i want the cuban people to be free. i think the most likely approach to freedom for the cuban people is to allow them to hear other voices other than just the castro government. opening up cuba to travel by americans, it seems to me, will provide those other voices. now, mr. president, here's what we have." criminal penalties for violating the sanctions of travel to cuba ." ten years in prison, $1 million

in corporate fines, $250,000 for individuals. let me just show you a few people who have run afoul of the law. this is joan scott. joan scott went to cuba. she went to cuba with a church group to distribute free bibles in cuba in the rural areas. free bibles, distributing free bibles in cuba. she got back to our country, and guess what? our country sent her a letter because she was honest and said she had been in cuba distributing bibles, and she got a letter saying we're fining you you $10,000. we fine an american citizen citizen $10,000 for going to cuba to distribute free bibles? that's unbelievable, but it's not just joan scott. here is another joan. this is joan slote. i have met both of these women, by the way. joan slote is in her mid 70's there. she was a senior olympian. bicycles, as you can tell by the poster, she is a bicyclist.

she joined a canadian cycle group to go ride bicycle in cuba. came back and found out that her government was going to levy a a $10,000 fine. and then, by the way, decided to try to attach her social security payments because she hadn't responded because she had gone to her son's side who was suffering from brain cancer and didn't get the mail. so this woman for bicycling in cuba was told that she should pay her government $10,000 in fines. this is sergeant lazo, carlos lazo. we actually had a vote about carlos lazo on the floor of the senate, an amendment i offered one day. he went to iraq to fight for our country, went to iraq to fight. won a bronze medal fighting for america in iraq. came back to this country. his children, by the way, who were still living in cuba, young children, one of them was sick. sergeant lazo wanted to go to cuba to visit his sick child. having won a bronze medal on the

battlefield of iraq, he was told by his government you have no right to visit your sick child in cuba. unbelievable. so that's what we have is this restriction on travel to cuba. and senator enzi and i believe that it's past the time, long past the time to eliminate it. stop punishing the american people by restricting their right to travel. the last chart i have is a photograph of an airplane that flies around distributing television signals into the country of cuba. we have spent a quarter of a billion dollars in our country sending television signals that the cuban people can't see because they are routinely blocked by the cuban government, so we -- we send television signals to the cuban people to tell them how wonderful freedom is. of course they know that by listening to miami radio stations. but we send television signals that are blocked, so starting at

3:00 in the morning until 7:00 a.m., we send television signals to the cuban people that no one watches. we have spent a quarter of a billion dollars doing it, and i have tried to eliminate that expenditure time and time again and have been unsuccessful. you talk about government waste. government waste even has cosponsorship here in the united states senate on this issue. the point is very simple. senator enzi and i and many other republicans and democrats in the united states senate believe we ought to stop punishing the american people. now, many years ago, we also had a complete embargo on all -- all shipments and goods to cuba which included food and medicine, which i felt was immoral, so i and then-senator ashcroft sponsored a resolution that passed the congress, became law that opened up just a bit this embargo to say you can sell food into the cuban marketplaces and ship medicine into the cuban marketplace. you can do that, but it has to be paid for in cash and you

can't run the cash through an american bank. so running these transactions through european banks for cash, our farmers now have sold a substantial amount of commodities in the cuban marketplace. just as the canadian farmers have always done, the european farmers have always done. so just that little change in the embargo, opening up opportunities to sell food and medicine into the cuban marketplace was a significant step. but i think this embargo has been an unbelievable failure through ten presidencies, and i think it's time for us to decide the best way to promote freedom in cuba -- and i think 38 of us believe this here in the senate, having cosponsored the legislation, and many more would vote for it -- the best way to promote freedom is to stop punishing the american people, stop restricting travel. the castro government will have a very difficult time if an onslaught of americans go to travel in cuba and cubans hear other voices other than the

castro government. again, we have tried to address this issue of travel for a long, long while. i woue who are engaged in this would hang their head with some shame that we're tracking down -- spending our time tracking down someone who is under suspicion of taking a vacation in cuba so that we can levy a $10,000 fine. what an absurd contradiction for a country that measures its health and freedom. what an absurd contradiction. we have something down at the treasury department called office of foreign asset control. ofac has as its principal mission trying to shut down the flow of money to terrorist organizations. that's what they are supposed to be doing. the fact is they have got a miami office, and for one part of the last decade, they spent 60% of their money trying to track american citizens who are suspected of vacationing in cuba. again, are we daft? have we lost all sense?

it doesn't make any sense to me at all. we had a couple of colleagues in the newspaper the other day in the senate encouraging people not to go -- there was a trip going to cuba that was described in the paper. i believe they have a license with which to go. some colleagues were encouraging people not to go. you know, with respect to china, for example, a communist country, we have always said that constructive engagement through trade and travel is what will lead towards greater human rights in china. that has always been the belief of this country. it's the way we deal with china. it's the way we deal with vietnam. it's the way we would deal with north korea if they would allow americans in because we don't restrict the american right to travel to north korea, to vietnam, to china. only to cuba. and some of us believe that it is an archaic, absurd contradiction for our country to continue doing this. and i ho chi minh perhaps -- and i hope perhaps in the name of sergeant lazo, perhaps joan

scott or any number of others. i didn't mention the young man whose father died -- from the state of washington. his father died. he had been previously a minister at a church in cuba. this young man when his father died and was cremated, took the ashes to cuba to distribute the ashes on the grounds of the church that his father served in cuba. and he did, he did that. that was his father's last wish. when he came back to this country, he was tracked by his government and levied a fine. that is not what this government ought to be doing. so if the congress can and will pass the amendment senator enzi and i have constructed, which has wide support here in the senate, i think we will have done something that is important. having said all that, i expect there will be things written tomorrow by those who watch these to say that this amendment is somehow sympathetic to the cuban government. it is not.

that's an absurd proposition. it's not sympathetic to anything except sympathetic to freedom for the american people. let's stop punishing the american people for others' transgressions. the fact is the american people ought to have the right to travel where they wish, where they choose, and they generally do with this exception. if they travel to cuba, what is happening is the office of foreign asset control, which one would expect is tracking osama bin laden and other known terrorists and tracking their finances to try to shut down the financing of terrorism, what is likely to happen is ofac is diverting its attention to see if they can't nab a couple of americans who went to take a vacation in cuba. this country is better than that and we can do better than that by passing the legislation i and senator enzi have authored. mr. president, i yield the floor. and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut is recognized. mr. dodd: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the call of the quomple be resippedded.

resipped -- quorum be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. dodd: i realize we're getting towards the close of the end of the week and members will be heading off to their respective districts and states for the weekend and be coming back on monday or tuesday, and i wanted to take a couple of minutes because next week we'll be entering a markup on the senate banking committee of the financial regulatory reform effort that we've been involve in now for -- involved in now for about two years. it was two years ago this past weekend that the collapse of bear stearns occurred in 2008. not that that was the beginning of the problems, that was merely the evidence of how deep the problems were. and, of course, the events that unfolded throughout 2008 only confirmed what was happening in march was the beginning of a near collapse, total collapse of the financial system of this country. during those years, we have had -- the last two years, countless hearings and meetings gathering information from all sorts of sources both here, as

well as around the country, to determine what best steps we could take to see to it that country would never again face the kind of near collapse of our financial system to see to it that the tools would thereby so that when the next emergency arose, as it surely will, one degree or another, that the next generation will have the tools necessary to avoid the economic system sort of spinning out of control as it did over these last two years. and, thirdly, to make sure that in our efforts to plug the gaps that create the problems in the first instance and the tools to deal with future ones, we weren't going to strangle the financial system of our nation so that we could not create jobs, have credit flow capital move so that our nation could again prosper economically. the relationship between our financial system and economic growth are inseparable. without a strong and dependable, secure, safe financial system,

the idea of economic growth in our country is, of course, a fiction. so we have a deep and serious challenge as we have had over these past two years to reform a system that really hasn't been reformed since the 1930's. there have been various new regulators that have been added, additional restrictions imposed at one time or another, but not the kind of comprehensive view that i think the country expects in light of the events that unfolded in the last couple of years. as chairman of the committee in the last 36 months, since i became chairman in 2007, we tried to respond to this issue. first in 2007 by focusing on the root cause of the problem. that was, of course, the mortgage lending market. where mortgages were going out the door from lending institutions that the borrowers did not understand and could never afford and the lenders knew that at the time and, as a result, we began to see the collapse of our economy when

those mortgages were again securitized and sold to investors only to discover that, of course, these mortgages were worth a lot less than the rating agencies claimed they were that wasn't a minor problem. we now have seven million people in this country that have had their homes in foreclosure. many of them, if not most of them, will lose their homes as a result of what happened. the unemployment rate has cost 8.5 million people their jobs in this country and in certain parts of our nation, the unemployment rates hoover around 8%. there are signs that the economy may be recovering in certain levels. tell that to someone who lost their job today, lost their retirement income, lost their homes, lost that sense of self-worth annual ewe, that you can never put a price tag on, but is essential for our nation's sense of optimism and strength in these difficult, difficult days. over all of -- for all of those

reasons, mr. president, we tried to plug in the loopholes, the gaps, providing the tools for the future and creating a system that will allow our economy to grow and prosper once again. there are four major areas of the bill that i talked about. one is for once and for all to end the notion that any financial entity never could become so complicated, so interconnected, so big, that it has an implicit guarantee that the taxpayers of this country are going to bail it out when it begins to fail -- or fails. the $700 billion paycheck the american people wrote in order to stablize our financial institutions in the fall of 2008 should never, ever, ever happen again. in the bill that i crafted, along with my colleagues, democrats and republicans, we believe achieves that goal. i owe a special thanks -- a very special thanks to two of our colleagues, a democrat and a republican who have worked over

many, many weeks, mr. president, to try to do exactly what i've described doing for you, than is to shut down the possibility that the american taxpayer will ever again be asked to write that kind of a paycheck -- that kind of check. my thanks to mark warner from virginia, a new member of this body, a one who before this life a governor of virginia, worked in the financial services arena of our country an knows it well. his partner in this was bob corker of tennessee, another new member of this chamber. served as mayor of chattanooga, tennessee, who understands these issues. the two of them have worked, along with the treasury department and others, thech listened to an awful lot of people in crafting -- awful lot of people in crafting title 1 and title 2 of the bill dealing with systematic risk and too big

to fail. i offered a discussion draft for our consideration. and since that time we have modified that bill substantially as a result of the input and suggestions of senators warner and corker, and others, i might add, not exclusively, but they've been the leaders on this issue. earlier we had an independent agency with rule writing authority to address systematic risk. we created a treasury-led council. senator shelby of alabama, the ranking republican made those suggestions. those are different from what existed in november. it's a stronger provision. it makes more sense. working with senator corker and senator warner, we have included his and senator warner's ideas with respect to the powers of the council to act as an early warning signal in the establishment of a new office of financial research at the treasury department to standardize, collect, and

analyze financial data to inform the work of the council. it's a very worthwhile suggestion. we've also taken senator corker and senator warner's ideas on ending, as i said, too big to tail. we have a process in place for placing financial -- failing financial companies into receivership and liquidating them unless they can go into bankruptcy. under senator shelby's request we have this available for any failing financial firm, not just those previously subject to heightened regulation. the fed's emergency lending authority has also been changed. at senator shelby's request we have significantly cut back on the fed's use of its emergency lending authority. the so-called 13-3 section under the fed rules. no longer can the federal reserve bang bail out a company -- bank bail out a company like a.i.g., which is what they did. instead the fed must create

board programs and only where the fed can lend against good collateral. mr. president, we've made a host of other changes including in the area of credit rating agencies, audits of the federal reserve, federal governance changes, securitization, prudential supervision to protect the banking system, and on and on, mr. president, of modifications of the november discussion draft to what i offered last monday as this new proposal. the last thing i would do is claim perfection. trying to put together a bill that reflects the various ideas of your colleagues necessary to garner the necessary support in order to move from the committee to the floor of this chamber for further consideration is not easy. what i've tried to do is maintain these principles of eliminating too big to fail, setting up that systematic risk radar operation so we have far more early warnings of the kinds of looming problems that could

threatening pen our economy and -- threaten our economy and the financial system in this nation and others. this bill does that in a very strong way. again, i thank my colleagues, both democrats and republicans, for their contributions that are not reflected in the bill that i proposed on monday. and it will be the subject of our markup of this bill beginning on monday -- late monday afternoon, monday -- early monday evening. we made other changes as well, mr. president. in november i offered a proposal to create a freestanding consumer protection agency. i thought it made sense to do so. but there were suggestions that have come from my colleagues here, both democrats an republicans, to place that agency, renting space, nothing more than that, really, at the federal reserve. there's a good reason for doing that, in my view, in terms of the budgetary authority and how we fund the operations. but i insisted on have four

major principles associated with consumer protection. i remind my colleagues, mr. president, never, ever before have we had a focused operation in this nation that was dedicated to protecting the users of financial services. we've all read about toyota and the problems with its breaking -- braking system. i'm not here to characterize the legitimacy or accuracy of those complaints. but, mr. president, what is not in doubt is that there is an agency of government today which exists which allows a consumer of a bad product, like an automobile or an appliance or food they eat to be able to register that complaint and be able to get redress so that other consumers would not be adversely affected by a bad product, a consumer product, something you buy, something you use, something you eat, something you drive, something you manipulate. what we've never had in this country, mr. president, is a

counterparty to that kind of protection when it comes to mortgage you buy, the credit card you engage in, the loan that you make, the check you deposit, the insurance policy you buy or the stock you purchase. this country deserves in the 21st century to be able to say to consumers of financial products, there's a place where we can offer some protection for those who might abuse you in the process as happened in this most recent crisis. we tried to do it in a responsible way because we recognize that there can be a conflict. i'm not competent this happens as frequently as some might suggest, but if there is a conflict between the safety and soundness rules of a financial institution and the consumer protection of those who are the purchasers or users of financial services, we have now changed the proposal i offered on money. this new proposal has our consumer protection agency renting space, if you will, at the federal reserve, but it is

independent in its rule making. it's independent in its examination and its ability to have a -- an enforcement of those financial institutions that have assets, particularly on examination enforcement above $10 million. which means it will go after the largest institutions and the marketers of these financial products. those principles of having an appointed director confirmed by the united states senate, having an independent source of funding are now all reflected in this bill with the changes we have made. there are other changes as well. or the first time, mr. president, large financial companies will be subject to federal examination enforcement as well. this means that for the first time community banks will see their nonbank competitors examined and regulated on a level playing field as well. small banks have a legitimate complaint, mr. president, that

they've been subjected to regulation, but the nonbanks are not. and that's unfair. nonbanks also dispense financial products. and the users are the purchasers of those products ought to have the same degree of protection. our bill that we presented on monday does that. there will be no assessments on small banks or large banks or nonbanks. the federal reserve will pay the freight of this agency. concerns have been raised that somehow consumer protection will create safety and soundness. and i already suggested to you we have a mechanism here that i think will ease or eliminate any concerns people have about any potential conflict that could possibly occur. the point i wanted to make, mr. president, in these two areas, one on too big to fail, systematic risk councils, looking at the consumer protection area. i've been listening carefully to my colleagues, all 22, democrats and republicans, on the committee. we've had over 50 hearings alone, i believe is the number,

this past year on the subject matter. since november four months have gone by with ideas brought to the table and reflected in this bill i offer for consideration on monday. and beginning on monday of next week, we'll begin the process of doing what we do here in this institution of the united states senate, we'll begin the so-called markup of a bill. where we sit around, all 23 of us, and try to narrow the differences that may exist as we try come forthwith a product for the full consideration of this senate. i'm looking forward to the amendments that will be filed by noon tomorrow. give us the weekend to analyze those amendments. many of which we'll be able to accept to improve the bill. others may be differences that we cannot resolve in the markup of the committee. but i've assured my good friend from alabama, the ranking republican on the committee, senator shelby, that i'm determined to get a bill, to do it in an orderly fashion, to have a markup for the subject matter that is so important to all americans, be done in a

civil fashion as we craft these ideas to try to make a difference and to see to it that we never again see our country face the kind of near brink of disaster that we came close to accomplishing as a result of the gaps that we have in the financial regulatory system. so, mr. president, i thank my colleagues for indulging me these few minutes to share with you some of the changes that have occurred since november in the draft that we offered. there are many many more that i have not gone into in these few minutes that are reflected in the proposal. it is a balanced bill. one that is designed to be fair and clear. one that will give us better lines of authority reflecting the changes that have occurred in our country over many years. allowing for greater, i think, since of confidence then certain things will be done. one of thes that believe made -- the senator from alabama made the suggestion. up to now, mr. president, the new york fed, a very important regional federal bank, the chair

of that bank has always been chosen by the very banks that the new york fed regulates. under that proposal now, the h*ed of that -- the head of that new york fed will be chosen by the president of the united states and be confirmed by the united states senate. that's a major change. i know it may not seem to much by others, but imagine the inherent potential contradiction that the very people you're charged with regulating decide who the regulator is going to be. this bill changes that, along with many other suggestions. again, that one came from my friend from alabama, and i thank him for it, along with many other ideas that are reflected in this bill. i know we have our tk-frpbss and we -- differences, and we haven't resolved all of them. but that's the business and that's why we're here to resolve differences. i'm confident we can do that and that we'll end up in the next number of weeks with a financial reform package that will enjoy broad-based support here in the united states senate, work with our colleagues in the other body and offer to the president for his signature the first major

comprehensive reform of financial services institutions since the great depression. the task is a huge one. it's daunting in many ways. the bill is almost 1,400 pages long, madam president, but it's a reflection of weeks and months of work. it's not something crafted over last weekend and thrown together. it's a reflection of hours and hours and hours of consultation among democrats and republicans, stakeholders, advisors and other people who bring a great deal of wealth and knowledge to this debate and discussion. and so i felt the time had come to lay down a product and asked my colleagues to react to it, to ask those who are knowledgeable about these issues to examine it and for us to get about the business we were sent here to do, and that is to change laws where they need changing, to strengthen regulators where they need strengthening, to create oversight and regulation where it's missing so we can have the kind of renewed confidence and

optimism in our economic steufpl. that's been my goal at the outset. it's my goal at the presentation of that bill. and it's my confidence that my colleagues will embrace this as well when we have the chance to cast ourinal votes on this product. with that, madam president, i note the absence o quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: i ask consent the quorum call be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. tkob mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent the time until 4:15 p.m. be equally divided and controlled in the usual form and that at 4:15 p.m. the senate proceed to vote in relation to the following amendments in the order listed, that prior to each vote there be tpwao minutes of debate -- two minutes of debate equally divided and controlled in the usual form that the second vote in the sequence be a ten-minute vote. inhofe amendment 3549, mccain amendment 3475. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i yield the floor and i make a point of order that a quorum is not present. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: the senator from oklahoma wants to say a word about his amendment. the presiding officer: the quorum call is in progrs. mr. dorgan: i ask the quorum call be vacated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, the two amendments we vote on at 4:15, i think following that i think we have 17 amendments en bloc that have been agreed to by both sides.

we can't yet get them here to have them voted on because of objection. but by and large they have been agreed upon by both sides. and then i think following that, the issue of the slot rules and perimeter, if we can find a way to resolve that, we should be able to finish the bill this afternoon. if not, if there are some who insist they intend to offer amendments that are going to be problematic, we probably will not be able to finish this bill. this bill is about aviation safety. it's about modernization, passenger bill of rights. i hope we'll have some cooperation by senators. this is the fifth day we've been on the floor with this bill. some minimum cooperation will allow us to g this done today, and i hope that will be the case. mr. inhofe: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: madam president, in five minutes we'll be voting on an amendment i have. i've explained this amendment several times.

i first introduced it as s. 3095, the honest expenditure and limitation program act of 2010. let me say what it is. we'll be voting, if this goes down, on the mccain amendment, another amendment just like we voted on before. there's an honest difference of opinion on this, but what i thought would be appropriate is since we'll be voting very likely on another earmark amendment, and since we all understand -- i don't think anyone is going to question the fact that defeating an earmark doesn't save a nickel, that if we have an alternative out there that does really mean something, this would be our chance to vote on it. what i'd like to do is just briefly explain, as i have done several times before, what the amendment is that we'll be voting on in just a few minutes. some time ago president obama came out with his program where he said -- in fact, it was during the state of the union, i

believe, that i plan to freeze non-defense discretionary spending at the 2010 levels. and a lot of people applauded, believing that to be some type of a gesture that was a conservative gesture and that would reduce spending when in fact it didn't. he's talking about the 2010 levels. so, that's after one year it has been raised, increased by 20%. what he was saying is we're going to raise the non-defense discretionary spending by 20% and then freeze it. well, rather than to raise it by 20% and freeze it, the real fiscally responsible thing to do is to go ahead and freeze it at the previous level. quite often we've heard president obama say what he inherited from the previous administration. i always hasten to say that, yes, there were some deficits during the bush administration, but the deficits in the first year of the obama

administration, for about $1.5 trillion, is more than the last five years collectively of president george w. bush. and so i think it's important for people to understand that. we have an unsustainable debt we're looking at. you're looking at someone here who has 20 kids and grandkids. at that's not going to bother me. it is the next generation coming down. we can't continue to do that. i thought it is a nice gesture. a lot of people think you can eliminate earmarks. that has nothing to do with it. you don't save a nickel. but you do with this. if you would pass this amendment, we would be able to effectively reduce the expenditures over a ten-year budget cycle of just under $1 trillion. so what we're trying to do is have a freeze discretionary spending at 2008 levels for all nonsecurity appropriations. word it the same way that president obama's effort was worded.

the only difference is that we use the 2008 efforts, 2008 spend level. we have a lot of cosponsors to this. i would just hope people would seriously consider if they really want to reduce spending, this is your chance to do it. with that, i yield the floor. i believe -- parliamentary inquiry? i understand that we have a vote that's going to be 4:15; is that correct? the presiding officer: there are two minutes now evenly divided on the senator's amendment. mr. inhofe: all right. well, i'll go ahead and repeat my two minutes. this bill -- this amendment is something that would really reduce expenditures, really do something about the deficit. and i know there are a lot of my democratic friends and republican friends alike who would like a chance to do this. i know there's a feel-good vote coming up on earmarks, but that

doesn't really reduce anything in terms of expenditures. if you vote on an earmark and you defeat the earmark, it doesn't cut the amount of money, but the underlying bill will go back to some bureaucracy -- it can be the department of interior, it can be department of environmental protection agency. then an unelected bureaucrat would be making that decision. it was interesting the other day when on a three-part series, sean hannity had on his program. 103 earmarks. i read all of these on the floor. the interesting thing what they all had in common was that not one of those earmarks was a congressional earmark. they were all bureaucratic earmarks. that's where a problem is, not the congressional earmarks. so, i'm going to urge my friends to support a real effort, sincere effort, and an effective effort to reduce government spending by voting for my

amendmentamendment. mr. dorgan: madam president, i'll yield back the time. the pending amendment -- i make a point that the pending amendment deals with matters within the budget committee's jurisdiction. i raise a point of order that it violates the congressional budget act of 1974. mr. inhofe: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: pursuant to section 904, section 4-3-g of the statutory act of 2010, i move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutions for the purpose of my amendment and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: sufficient you have? -- is there a sufficient second? there appears to b the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

e presing officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or wishing to change their vote? hearing none, on this vote the yeas are 41, the nays are 56. 3/5 of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. the point of order is sustained and the amendment falls.

there are now two minutes evenly divided. before a vote with respect to the mccain amendment. the presiding officer: who yields time? mr. mccain: thank you, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: madam president, it's a very -- the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: it's a very complicated and complex and difficult amendment to understand. replace moratorium on all earmarks in years in which there is a deficit. i yield the rest of my time. the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: madam president, the reason i introduceth

amendment, the previous amendment, was that's something that really would do something about the runaway spending, the deficit that we have. it would have had the effect of reducing in a ten-year period just under a trillion dollars. this doesn't work. i know everyone thinks they want to jump on the bandwagon on earmark reform, but there is not any earmark that if you kill it, it saves one nickel. to me, it's deceptive to the public. then for those people on this side of the aisle, i would only say that if you really want to give president obama that much more money to deal with, this is your opportunity to do it, because if you kill an earmark, it goes back into the bureaucracies and that's where he will have the choice. you know, the other night when we had the 102 earmarks that the hannity show talked about, not one was a congressional earmark. so i don't think the votes are going to change, but nonetheless, nothing will be saved by this. i yield back.

the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: