the assets of these firms were worth before they sold them off. treasury wanted no funds. my guess is that at the end of the day, on the one hand you're protecting taxpayers more fully. on the other hand you're not. but my guess is that the senator from virginia, the senator from connecticut might drop that in about five minutes. not that the senator from virginia is actually add -- advocating. he's trying to solve something else. that's something in about five minutes could be solved. so i do think that what senator warner has said is true. that is that the rhetoric around this, an issue that could be dealt with literally in about five minutes, is probably overheated. and the fact is that what we need to do is figure out a way to focus on this issue in an

intelligent way. i think that as the senator from virginia mentioned, people on both extremes want to make sure that if a large institution in this company fails, it's just like the small institutions in this country. they go out of business. i think we're united on that. are there some flaws that exist? yes. did the bill get a little sideways at the end? yes. but do people understand the way we can deal with this in an intelligent, thoughtful way and fix that? yes. i wonder if the senator from virginia would wish to not maybe get into specifics but agree there are some flaws that need to be corrected, but we know what they are and they can be corrected pretty quickly; can they not? mr. warner: mr. president? let me just acknowledge that we may -- the senator from tennessee and i may differ slightly on how large some of the things the treasury and fdic put in at the end, because

clearly one of the things that i think the senator from tennessee, we can very quickly get into the weeds, but they are important in this, the so-called 133 authority of the fed would no longer be used for specific institutions. but the ability to help supplement around a liquidity crisis so we don't have firms move from a liquidity crisis into a solvency crisis was an important tool but perhaps misused in the past in terms of targeted at specific firms. there are certain other aspects that i believe can be corrected. but the overriding point, i think senator corker and i both want to make, is i think we put together, at least in title 1 and title 2 -- but good work done in other parts of the bill -- but too big to fail, resolution. we've put the framework in place that while some on both ends of the political extremes may be attacking, the overwhelming

response has been this is a good framework. like any piece of legislation, it needs some fine-tuning, but the fine-tuning ought to be preserving this framework, perhaps moving back from some of the pieces the fdic and treasury put in place. but we can get there. and this is too important to allow this piece of legislation to be drawn by the aisle that separates this body into republican and democratic camps. we need to put a piece of legislation and a solution in place that sets the financial framework and predictability for the next century. and i think we've gone a long way towards doing it. mr. corker: mr. president, i'm going to speak for 60 more seconds and stop. i want to thank the senator from florida and the senator from montana for allowing me to do this. i think i want to be clear and say we've had a great partnership. numbers of us have. some of the claims in this bill about preserving too big to fail are legitimate because of some changes that occurred about ten

days before the bill came to committee -- maybe a week. but the fact is they can be very easily fixed. i think we all know how to fix them. and they can be fixed very, very quickly. the prefunding issue is an issue that to me is a legitimate debate. if it needs to go to zero -- the framework, as senator warner talked about, still is intact, still works exactly the same way. i think the debate as to whether you want to absolutely make sure taxpayers are protected or not, but if people think this prefund is something that looks like a bailout, let's drop it. let's get rid of it. let's end it. let's let borrowing capacity at the fdic be the only avenue. my point is that these are all, in the scope of things, they're being made into really, really big things when in essence, a couple of semi thoughtful people

could solve these things in just a few moments and we could move on to other aspects of the bill that do need to be corrected. the one place i think the senator from virginia and i might differ more greatly is i do think there are other issues in this bill that create problems that need to be resolved. and i hope the spirit that we've shown with each other will emanate on both sides of the aisle. i think it will. and that we'll work through those too and end up with a very good bill. and i thank you for the time, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida is recognized. mr. lemieux: mr. president, i rise to speak today on this extenders bill that we will vote on here on a point of order that i will make in just a few minutes. and the purpose of this point of order is this: not too long ago in this congress we passed legislation called paygo. and what paygo is supposed to

mean is that we will pay as we go in this congress, that when we create a new program, we extend a current program, that we will pay for it, that we will not continue to borrow against our children's future. now, i was here in the united states senate when we had that debate. it was a debate that came down to a purely party-line decision. i am new to this body, and i wanted to vote for this because i believe that paygo might actually be something that limits the out-of-control spending of washington. i talked to my colleagues, and some of my colleagues who have been around longer than i did said, look, senator, it's not really going to do anything. they're just going to move to waive it every time it comes to effect. they're not the going to play by the rules. they're not going to pay for things as they go. it's cover. i wanted to vote for it. i struggled with it. in the end i did not vote for it. and here we are, just a few

months, two months past february 12, when the president signed this pay-as-you-go legislation. only 19 days after that we waived it on a bill very similar to this. and now we're going to seek to waive this legislation again to spend $19 billion and put it on the tab of our children or our grandchildren. let's talk about what this bill is. it would extend unemployment compensation and it would extend cobra, which is health care benefits for people who lose their job. if we were to vote on this and pay for it, i think 100 senators would vote for it. shortly before the recess for the holiday break, there was an agreement in this chamber between republicans and democrats that we would find the money to pay for this so that we wouldn't have to put it on the backs of our children, so that we wouldn't have to borrow the

money from china, so that we wouldn't have to increase our growing debt and deficit. our national debt now nearly $13 trillion. it's gone up $1 trillion in the short time that i've been here in the united states senate. to give you reference on that, it took until 1980, from the founding of this country until 1980 for us to amass our first $1 trillion in debt. the system of spending is unsustainable. i spoke on the floor this morning about it. but don't just take my word for it. take ben bernanke, the chairman of the federal reserve, who testified today before the joint economic committee of congress and said this government must begin to make difficult choices to address its deficits and warned that postponing them will only make them more difficult. so here today we're going to spend another $19 billion and put it off on our children, and they'll have to pay for it because we're going to have to

borrow this money. now, we're not supposed to be able to waive this rule, this legislation unless it's an emergency. this is no emergency, and that is the basis of my point of order that i will make here in just a few minutes. what is an emergency? well, most of us think it is what myrrh yam webster says it is: an unforeseen combination of circumstances resulting in a state that calls for immediate action. an unforeseen combination of circumstances. has it been unforeseen that we were going to have to extend unemployment compensation? is it unforeseen that we were going to have to extend cobra? of course it's not. we knew that we were going to have to do this, but there is an unwillingness in this congress to pay for things -- there is a willingness to put the debt upon our children and our grandchildren.

the budget act of 1974 that we operate under says that an emergency is necessary, essential or vital, sudden, quick coming into being and not i woulding up over time, urgent, pressing, compelling, unforeseen, unpredictable, not permanent, temporary in nature. none of those requirements are met by this attempt to waive the pay-as-you-go requirements. why do we have paygo if we're just going to waive it eve time we think we need to spend more money? mr. president, this is no emergency. this is part and parcel of the problem that we have in washington of continuing to spend in an unsustainable way. and when five years or ten years from now we're in the same situation that greece is in, when we have failed this country for our children, when we have $900 billion in interest payments alone in 2020 on our

current course, which will not allow us to spend money on anything else because that plus mandatory spending will be all there is in the budget, when our economic system fails because we failed to make the decisions to control our spending, you'll know why. because of decisions that are being made today, in 2010, in april; decisions to add another $19 billion to our national debt. so, mr. president, with that, i will yield the floor and i will reserve my right to speak shortly before the vote is calledt 12:30. the presiding officer: the senator from montana is recognized. mr. baucus: pursuant to the previous order, i have a modification to my amendment at the desk and i so modify my amendment. the presiding officer: the amendment is so modified. mr. baucus: shortly the senate will vote on the motion to waive the budget acts for the consideration of my amendment and this important bill to extend unemployment insurance

benefits and other vital safety net programs. we need to waive the budget act to allow this bill to move forward. we need to waive the budget act for the people in our country who depend on unemployment insurance benefits. we need to waive the budget act for people like montanans from whom i've heard. like so many of my colleagues who have heard from their own constituents about the need. we need to waive the budget act for bonnie. who is bonnie? bonnie lost her job in property management last year. she had been scraping by, especially scraping by on unemployment benefits ever since. bonnie has already sacrificed a lot, but she is still falling behind on her rent. she's unable to afford many necessities. unemployment benefits help her get by from day to day, but she's falling behind.

we need to have waive the budget act for people like richard from boseman. unemployment insurance helped keep richard afloat as he searches for a job. get this: so far richard has applied for more than 150 jobs. can you believe that, mr. president? he's applied for 150 different jobs and has had only two temporary part-time positions to show for that effort. though his financial situation is grim, it would be even more so without unemployment benefits. we need to waive the budget act for people like the single father from missoula, montana. he's been out of work for weeks. he exhausted his state benefits and is now receiving federal extended benefits. he recently called the montana insurance claims processing center for additional help because he does not know he can take care of his daughters. unemployment benefits help these montanans pay the bills. unemployment benefits help these

montanans and millions of americans who through no fault of their own have fallen victim to this great recession. the average unemployment benefit is $335 a week. these days $335 only stretches so far. benefits have hrapsd for 200 -- lapsed for 200,000 americans. why? because we didn't extend the law. because the law expired a few days ago. benefits for at least 200,000 americans have lapsed. if we do not pass this bill this week, another 200,000 americans could lose their benefits. responding to recessions is the very definition of an emergency. responding to this kind of need is why the budget act built in motions to waive the budget. that's why the act is written that way. the the budget act needs to have flexibility to address truly unusual circumstances like today's economy.

extending unemployment insurance benefits is a good investment to make now. it's an investment in our economy. unemployment benefits help our unemployed neighbors. and in helping our neighbors, unemployment benefits help to keep open the neighborhood grocery store and neighborhood gas station. in helping our unemployed neighbors, unemployment benefits also help keep houses out of foreclosure. and in helping our unemployed neighbors, unemployment benefits also help our economy. the nonpartisan congressional budget office says extending benefits would have one of the largest effects on economic output and unemployment per dollar spent compared to any other action we could take. c.b.o. says for each dollar spent, increasing aid to the unemployed could increase the gross domestic product by up to $1.90. that's two to one for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits, that could increase

gross domestic product by $1.90. it's 2-1 benefits you get. households receiving unemployment benefits spend their benefits he right away. they don't save them. they spend them. that spurs demand for goods and services, boosts production and leads businesss to hire more employees. some critics insist that emergency spending to digress the recession is busting the budget. some critics blame emergency spending in the recovery act for the huge budget deficits we face today. it is clear we do need to address our nation's fiscal circumstances. of course we do. we are currently laboring, i might say, mr. president, to reach an agreed-upon package of offsets to pay for much of the long-term extension in unemployment insurance as well as other programs that the senate passed on march 10. on a larger level, we also need to balance the nation's revenues and outlays. the president's fiscal

commission will begin its work a week from tuesday. we will need to think about fundamental tax reform as part of that exercise and we'll need to make sure that we get a dollar's worth of value for every taxpayer dollar that the government spends. but let me set the record straight, emergency spending like this bill and the recovery act is responsible for only a small share of the deficit, a very small share of the deficit. in fact, the cost of the recovery act is projected to be less than 10% of the total deficit legacy over the next ten years. less than 10%. 10%. i have a chart behind me that tells the story. the majority of the deficit that we will face over the next ten years stems from inherited policies. that's the bar on the left we've inherited. tax cuts enacted under the previous administration, the wars in afghanistan and iraq and the economic downturn itself

explain nearly $11 trillion of our deficit over the next ten years. these policies were enacted before the current administration and before this congress. and because these policies were not paid for, we're now facing huge deficits. unemployment benefits are not the cause of the deficit. clearly this chart shows that. unemployment benefits are not the cause of the deficit. we should not balance the budget on the backs of the unemployed, people who are out of work through no fault of their own. right now it's essential that we pass a temporary extension of unemployment benefits. it is essential that we help americans put food on the table. it's essential to pay the bills while they continue to look for work. we have to waive the budget act for bonnie and others in the same situation. for example, richard from boseman, montana. let us extend this vital lifeline for a single father

from missoula. in this great recession let us waive the budget act to enact this temporary extension of unemployment insurance for hundreds of thousands of americans who are struggling through no fault -fl their own just -- fault of their own just to get by. it is true, mr. president, that we soon we must very significantly address our budget deficits. and the real test will be the degree to which this country, the president, the congress, buckle down and start to reduce the budget deficits during times of prosperity. that is, after we get out of this recession and when unemployment levels start to reach acceptable lower levels. that's when we're going to be facing the true test of whether we reduce the budget deficits. and i'm saying, mr. president, that that's our responsibility to do so. we should let unemployment benefits extend. we shouldn't have to pay for those now but soon, when the unemployment rate falls when country comes out of recession, then it's up to us to go the extra mile to make sure we, in a very responsible way, start to

address these huge deficits. because it is true that when we do, then it will keep interest rates low, other countries will have more confidence in the united states. i dare say they have confidence now but they'll have even more confidence. and i very much expect and i hope that -- that this body will exercise that -- that effort responsibly and to begin to tackle those huge deficits. but now is not the time but soon, mr. president, we will face the time and it is not now. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum and ask consent that time under the quorum be charged equally against both sides. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. lemieux: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from florida is recognized. mr. lemieux: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. lemieux: i want to thank my colleague, the chairman of the senate finance committee, and appreciate his good comments about the need for this body to enter into a discussion about fiscal discipline. i offered legislation today to have a requirement that w we wod have a debate every year to talk about bringing back spending to 2007 levels, prior to the stimulus, prior to the recession, certainly at a time when this country had a much better economy than now. and if i ask floridians if they could live off what they had in 2007, i suspect the same would be true for montanans, they'd be happy to have that much money. so whatever the architecture is, whatever the discipline is, we need to get into that because our budget deficit and debt is cascading out of control. now, i disagree with my colleague from montana that we can wait until the recession is

over. now, while i am optimistic that we will be soon turning the corner, times are very tough in my home state, and i don't know if its going to be next year or the year after or the year after that that we're really out of this recession. we have the worst unemployment that we've had since we've been keeping records in florida, 12.2%. so i don't know that we can wa wait, especially when we hear the chairman of the federal reserve today say we must act now. you know, just recently, we were in a situation where bonds went out to issue and the "wall street journal" reported that the yield rate that the federal government had to offer on those bonds, the interest rate was more than warren buffett had to offer. warren buffett, in a sense, was a better investment than the united states. well, why is that? it's because the world is beginning to view that the united states can't manage its financial markets, it can't manage its debt. places like brazil have had their stock market increase 100% in the last year because they're

now seen as a better investment than this country. so, mr. president, we can't wa wait. we can't wait six months from now, a year from now, two years from now. in fact, perhaps the time has already gone too far. so i make this point of order today, pursuant to section 4-g of the statutory pay-as-you-go act of 2010. i raise the point of order -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. the presiding officeroh, sorry. mr. lemieux: raise the point of order against the emergency designation in the pending substitute amendment and note, mr. president, this is not a budget point of order, it doesn't kill this provision, it just requires that it be paid for by the end of the year. everybody's for extending unemployment compensation. everyone's for paying for cobra. the point is, pay for it. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: does the senator wish to raise the point of order? mr. lemieux: i raised the point of order, mr. president.

i will repeat, mr. president, pursuant to section 4-g of the statutory pay-as-you-go act of 2010, i raise a point of order against the emergency designation provision in the pending substitute amendment. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus baucus: pursuant to n 904 of the congressional budget act and section 4-g-3 of the staff toe pay-as-you-go act, i move to -- statutory pay-as-you-go act, i move to wave all applicable provisions of that acts and applicable budget regulars liewtionz for the consideration of pending amendment 4721, as modified, and the underlying bill. and i ask for the yeas and nays on the motion to waive. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there is, there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered. mr. baucus: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. baucus: i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the question is on the motion to waive. the yeas and nays were previously ordered. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or to change their vote? seeing none, on this vote the

yeas are 58. the nays are 40. three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. the emergencyesignation is stricken. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i enter a motion to reconsider. the presiding officer: the motion is entered. mr. reid: madam president, with the consent of the minority, i suggest that we go into a period of morning business for one hour and at 2:00 we go back on this bill. as soon as senator coburn comes, he indicated that chairman baucus will be around 2:15, he will be ready to offer his first amendment. if there's any procedural issues -- which there shouldn't be because this simply was, this point of order was not well taken. so if there's anything that we need to do, staff will be working on that. procedurally we can get to him.

but we all know the point we want to be is at 2:15 to be back on the bill, and senator coburn will be offering his first amendment. i would ask that -- unanimous consent we go into a period of morning business until 2:00, and at that time we go back on the bill, and that senator coburn be recognized for offering an amendment at 2:15. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the majority leader. mr. reid: i would ask that during the time of morning business, the senator and his colleagues be allowed to enter into a colloquy during this period of time. the presiding officer: without objection. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: madam president, i appreciate the opportunity to get back into morning business. i and a number of my freshman

sophomore colleagues have come back to the floor. we came to the floor during the throes of the health care debate to raise the issue that while we are enormously proud to be members of the united states senate and respect the tradition of the senate, something seems a little strange when 15 months into this president's administration we still have approaching 100 nominees that have not been voted up or down so they can serve in these terribly important positions to make sure we get our country headed back on the right path. our colleagues are coming back today very briefly to reraise these issues. we're going to come back on a regular basis to have senators who have concerns to come to the floor, make cases for the nominee, they be voted up or down. 15 months into the administration, as a former c.e.o. in business, a former governor, this president ought to have his team in place so we can move forward to get our country back on the right path. i'd like to first of all ask --

i know this is an issue a number of us raised over time. i'd like to call on my good friend, my colleague, the senator from minnesota, to make a few moments. ms. klobuchar: thank you very much, senator warner. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: as a member of the judiciary committee i have seen what's going on here. we get these nominations through our committee and then they vanish into thin air. you look at the numbers with what's going on here. you've got a situation where president bush had 100 circuit and district court kweurpgss during the first -- court confirmations during the first two years of his president. today president obama has only 18. there are literally dozens of nominees awaiting. why does this matter? we can spend the morning supporting out numbers -- spouting out numbers and talking about the differences between the months. why does it matter? this is about a drug dealer who doesn't get prosecuted, someone running a drug ring because there is not a judge or prosecutor to bring a case in

front of. i know because i was a prosecutor running an office of 400 people and i saw what would happen if we didn't have enough judges. or it's about a felon in possession of a gun and you can't bring his case up because you've got such a heavy duty queue of cases going on and you can't get the criminals off the streets. this is about a very complicated white-collar crime like you've seen with that bernie madoff case or a recent case we had in minnesota, a lengthy trial involving a gun that got 50-year sentence. if we don't have the kwrupblgs to hahn -- the judges to handle those cases, these criminals are going to be out there rampantly committing crimes. that is what this is about. i would say this before i turn it over to my colleague, the senator from, president bush had 1 hundred circuit and district court nominations during the first two years of his presidency. today president obama has 18. if we're going to hit this 100 number and get 82 more judges confirmed we're going to have to do nearly three per week.

we're here to say, the new members of the senate, we're here to say let's get this done because justice delayed is justice denied. thank you, madam president. i turn this over to senator shaheen of new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: thank you very much, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: i'm here to join my colleagues to raise our concerns about what is undoubtedly a deliberate attempt to keep president obama's nominees from getting through the senate and taking over their jobs regardless of whether they're court justices or whether they're from -- the director of the office of violence against women. i was on this floor a couple of months ago because the director of the office of violence against women who was from new hampshire had been held up for two months after she was unanimously approved in the committee. she was held up not because it had anything to do with her qualifications but because somebody objected to something

else, who knows what, because the the person who objected never had to tell why they were objecting. and that's the situation that we're in now. we've got 94 nominees being held up by the other side of the aisle, and they're not telling us why they're holding up these nominees, and they don't have to come forward and allow a vote. it's time now for us to move forward on the judiciary nominees, to move forward on all of those 94 nominees and get a vote and keep government moving. mr. warner: i thank my khraoerbgs the senator from new hampshire -- i thank my colleague, the senator from new hampshire. i know someone who feels the most passionate about these and a number of other issues, my colleague, the senator from vermont. senator, you want to speak on this issue.

mr. sanders: thank you very much. i think most americans understand that in the senate and government in general honest people have honest differences of opinion, be and you debate the issues. you represent your constituencies. you take a vote and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. but i think there is a growing anger and frustration in this country when a lot of what takes place here on the floor has nothing to do with an honest debate on the issues, but simply obstructionism and obstructionism and obstructionism. the american people, i think, have a hard time understanding when you have well-qualified nominees for judicial positions, when some of these nominees have gotten out of committee with unanimous or almost unanimous support, and yet it takes month after month after month to get these nominees approved so that they can go and do their jobs. añ -- and the issue, i think the senator from minnesota did a moment ago, is justice delayed is justice denied. we've got some daipgous people

out -- we've got some dangerous people out there who should be tried and, if found guilty, should be sent to jail. we have ordinary citizens who have claims before court and they want their day in court and right now they can't get that day because the courts are backed up because we don't have enough judges. so, madam president, i hope very much that we can move -- get moving and do what has to be done and that is appoint these judges. and i hope we can get an up-and-down vote on that. thank you. and i would yield the floor. mr. warner: i thank the colleague, the senator from vermont, for again reraising the issue on additional gentlewoman. there are other administrative nominees. i'd now like to ask my friend, one of the newest members of the senate, who also comes from a different business, as i came from the telecom business, comes from a different business. the senator from minnesota. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota.

mr. franken: thank you, madam president. i'm going to tie together the judicial nominees and the administrative nominees. now, you heard from my colleag colleague, senator klobuchar from minnesota, talk about how president bush had at this point about a hundred nominees confirmed and like 18 for -- judges for -- for president obama. and the judges that have been reported out of committee are waiting twice as long, more than twice as long as during the bush administration. now, i've heard my colleagues on the other side say, well, the president isn't nominating judges as fast as president bush did. well, first of all, you'd think if that were the case, they'd have to wait less time because there's fewer of them. but here's the reason that he

has been nominating fewer, because they're holding up chris schrader from the office of legal policy at d.o.j. he's the guy who vets nominees for judgeships. he was reported out of the judiciary committee in july of 2009. and we couldn't get him a vote on the floor. then he was carried over -- he wasn't carried over. the republicans objected to that so now he's been renominated again earlier this year, reported out again, and we can't get a vote on him. well, he's the guy that helps the president vet the people for the judgeships. so i don't want to hear complaints really from my friends on the other side about the pace of the judgeships being nominated when they're holding up the guy who helps the president vet the judgeships.

now, this is a perversion of the filibuster. the whole point of the filibuster was our founders said the senate was the saucer to cool the passions of the coffee from the coffee cup. right? and we wanted to prevent the tyranny of the majority. this isn't about that, not when you're holding somebody up and then when you have the vote it's 96-0. that has nothing to do with what the purpose of the filibuster is. do you know what this is? this is running out the clock. this is used to stop business before the senate. and the american people ought to be incensed about this. because what this is doing is slowing down anything from getting done on jobs, on wall street reform, on energy.

that's what this is about. this is about not letting this president, this congress achieve anything. this is about obstructionism. i yield my time back to the senator from virginia. not that i have any time to yield. but whatever i have. mr. warner: i thank my colleague frofrom minnesota. we had a case in point, judicial nominee, a nominee who was filibustered and then she was confirmed 99-0. again, i respect the traditions of the senate but something is broken. i'd like to now ask my colleague, the senator from colorado, who is actively out asking the people of colorado to hire him for his position, and i know he hears the frustration they express about why can't you get things done. so i'd ask my friend, the senator from colorado, to comment on this issue. mr. bennet: thank you. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, very much. thank you, senator warner, and everybody else that's here today. there is not a person in this chamber, i guarantee you, that does not go home at the end of the week and hear from the

people of their state, democrats, republicans or unaffiliated voters, "what in the world are you guys doing back there?" "what's with all the political games that everybody's playing?" "why can't people act in a bipartisan way?" and i think that it's important to say that we're talking about a bunch of nominations that actually have broad bipartisan support. most of these nominations passed out of committee by voice vote and certainly on a bipartisan basis. and as the senator from virginia was just saying, there is instance after instance where there's been delay, delay, delay only to see somebody pass 97-0 or 98-0. that's not really about bipartisan -- or partisanship. that's not really about republican versus democrat. to me, what that's about is washington is completely out of touch with the real world. the real world doesn't act this

way. the real world doesn't use rules to make excuses for not getting our work done. the real world doesn't say, we're frightened to debate these issues. the real world doesn't take people that are qualified for their job and prepared to serve this country as an enormously difficult time in our history and say, let's put it off until next week or the week after that or the week after that. nobody here is saying we shouldn't have a vote. nobody here is saying we shouldn't have a debate. what we're saying is the american people deserve better than -- by the way, you know, madam president, people may not know this. in this institution, it's actually possible to put a hold on somebody and not say who you are. i don't know, as the governor of the commonwealth of virginia, how you could have ever gotten anything done if that were the case. it's possible to put a hold on somebody in this institution and

never explain why you did it. you don't know what the issue is. that's why we need to have this debate and move forward. everybody in this chamber has an obligation, whether they're democrat or a republican, to look at the merits of the nominees and to vote their conscience on those nominees. but the current state affairs is one that the american people are enor uenormously frustrated wit. they want a sensible conversation about the policy choices we face as a country and i think they want an understand to the political game. it's pour that we're all here. i hope there are others that will join news the days ahead. and i thank the senator from virginia for organizing this this morning. mr. warner: thank you, senator. and again this should not fall down on partisan lines. we welcome those senators on the other side of the aisle who are frustrated by this process, want to bring -- while respecting the traditions of the senate -- want to bring a little rationality

back to this process. i want to ask my friend from delaware, while he's new freshman senator, has served in this institution longer than most of us, has watched the transformation of this institution, so, senator kaufman, i'd although love to have your comments. mr. kaufman: look, one thing hasn't changed -- the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. kaufman: excuse me. some things have changed. came here in 1973 working for now-vice president biden and back then if you asked the american people what do they most dislike about walkers they'd say -- about washington, they'd say, partisan bickering. my basic reaction, i have sea said to people that today what looks like a lot of partisanship, basically senators like each other. this is not about people not liking each other. there isn't anybody on the republican side of the aisle that i don't have a positive relationship with and feel good about.

what i say is there is a difference of issues. but i do have a hard time when it comes to judicial nominations, especially on the rationale. because it isn't a matter of issues. these are not judges -- we have differences about some judges. but the vast majority of judges that are still being held are judges which we all agree are competent judges. so why is it that they're not being passed out? and especially when you talk about the two areas that most americans are so concerned about. one is th that we deal with crie and we deal with in a quick manner, people are given a fair trial. if they're guilty, they're put in jail. all americans agree with that. to do that, one of the key choke points for success the judges. we need the judges to be passed in order to deal with criesm the other one is, because the only business side. if you are a business american, you need certainty.

you need the ability to know if you have a dispute, you can go and get it handled in the court, and that you get prompt action. that's what everybody wants. it really isn't as important if you win but that you get an answer. when you have these vacancies on the district court and circuit court, that holds up thongs. and the final thing is, there was always differences of opinion. starting about the 1980's, the judges became like a football. it just became a football. and it was like when i hear the old wars -- the hatfields and the mccoys. who was the first senator to hold up judges and when did it snap and our judge did this and did you that and we did this. i understand it's time for us to put that behind us. i think it is time to naught behind us. when it comes to these judges where we know there is agreement. i will defend the right of the

minority to hold up judges that they don't think are competent. i think that's fine. when you have judges that passed with 95 -- we had three judges in a row that passed with unanimous votes of the congress -- of the snavment what i'm saying, it's time to put that behind us. the american people are looking to us to behave in a bipartisan manner. again, we're going to have partisan difference on some judges but on judges where there is bipartisan agreement, the american people are just stymied to understand why it is in washington we're behaving this way. i call on my colleagues to work together and see if we can't get these judges passed. and i thank the leader and i thank the -- my friend from virginia. mr. warner: i thank the senator from delaware for his perspective and experience. while many of my colleagues are talking about this related to judges, we have, as the senator from minnesota said, members of the d.o.j. are held up. we have a very qualified and talented individual, mr. brenner, who is up for the

international affairs. i know my colleague from maryland whriek to speak on this issue. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. mr. cardin: i would like to thank senator warner for taking this time to bring to the attention of our colleagues a very serious problem. one of the most fundamental responsibilities for a member of the senate is to advise and consent on the president's nominations. and there are literally hundreds of appointments that are going to require our confirmation, more than that. thousands actually, that we have to confirm. that's our responsibility is to take the appointments that the president has given us, evaluate them and then to act, either to confirm or not confirm. and the american people depend upon these individuals being in office to perform the services that they need, whether it is the services that come forward in the department of treasury in dealing with the economic issues of this nation, the regulatory functions that are important to

protect consumers in america, to be able to give those who have been wronged and opportunity in our judicial system to have courts that can handle their dockets in a timely way. all of that is dependent on the united states senate carrying out its responsibility to advise and consent, to take up the nominations of the president. so look what's happened in this congress, because i think -- let me point out the district court judges. district court judges are the judges that hear the overwhelming number of cases. if you have a problem, you go to the federal courts, you're going to go to the district court. that's wher where 99% of the cas are going to be heard. in 22350 when george bush became president -- in 2002, when george bush became president, when 35 of his district court appointments were confirmed by this time. they waited on average 13 days after being reported out by the judiciary committee for confirmation votes on the floor of the united states senate. and on this date there were no further pending district court appointments that required the

confirmation of the senate. we acted on every one of them. now let's take a look at the current situation. this senate has only confirmed 11 of president obama's district court nominations, and they waited, on average, 43 days. well, mr. president, there are 17 district court nominations who have been reported out by the judiciary committee, most of these have been reported out by voice vote, by unanimous vote, no controversial all with most of these nominations and they have been pend, on average, 46 days. well, mr. president, this is an intentional action by the republicans to block the ability of president obama to place -- his responsibility, the appointees either in the courts on in his administration. and that's just wrong. if you have a disagreement, let's debate it. and if there is a legitimate concern, let's talk about t but that's not what's happening heemple the people of maryland,

the people around this nation reasonable care denied essential services because of a partisan strategy to block this body from considering timely the appointments by the president. and that's just wrong. it's time that we bring an end to it. it's time the democrats and republicans worked together in the best interests o of the american people. with that, i would yield back my time. mr. warner: again, we want to be respectful of is no senate traditions. but it seems at this time we need a little bit of a rational process. we need to be able to explain back to the american folks why we're not getting stuff done and why part of the reason we're not getting stuff done is the president doesn't have his team in plasms the judges aren't in place. a lost time is being wasted on the senate floor with needless filibusters. there is another freshman senator that i had a number of conversations with, my good friend from north carolina. it is a little bit different from the way you operated as a

state senator in raleigh, north carolina smed the senator from north carolina. mrs. hagan: thank you for helping us come together to talk about this issue because it is of critical, critical importance. in north carolina we have two justices now coming before this body for the circuit court. they were heard before the judiciary committee back in january. ready to go. however, once again, the individual who is to vet justices has not been heard, chris schrader. we need to bring him up. although both of these judges, judge winn, and judge diaz have come oust judiciary committee, are signature here waiting to come up for a vote, they are behind in the queue from all the others who have come forward. my colleague, republican senator burr, is in total agreement with both of these nominees. we need to bring them forward for a vote. the interesting fact here, too, is one of these positions have

been open since 1994. you talk about justice delayed is justice denied. it is high time that this body have an opportunity to vote, to put forward judge diaz and judge winn to represent our state on the fourth circuit court of appeals. thank you. mr. warner: i thank the senator from north carolina for her comments and, again, recognizing some of the judges she's talking about have got bipartisan support. if this was a very of partisanship, a question of qualifications it ought to be legitimately questioned and debated. but i know there are other colleagues showing a little by the of transformation. having freshman senators speak is part of that. i would like to call on my good friend from pennsylvania to add his er techive. you have some appointees there who have been pending. mr. casey: i thank the senator

for having us tbawk something fundamental. you've heard the number of days when you compare this administration to the prior administration, the number of days it takes to confirm a judge on the appellate or district court. i think it is important for people to realize that we're not talking about saying that they on the other side should be voting for all of our judges, or they should be endorsing them, even though of this when they've come throughout judiciary committee, we've had tremendous bipartisan votes on a lot of these judges. here's what a lot of the american people i think don't understand: they can understand that when senators are making their niendz minds up about how to vote son a particular nominee to be on the district court or the appeals court that we might have a difference of opinion as it relates to judicial philosophy, for example. or the experience of that particular individual. or their character, their act to serve with integrity. all of those basic consideration

that we have to weigh and i think by extension the american people weigh when they're deciding whether or not someone is fit to serve on a district or appellate court. all of those considerations are considerations that democrats and republicans will weigh. but you can't do that unless you can get a vote, unless we can put a nominee in front of the united states senate for an up-or-down vote based upon their record, based upon their views and their philosophy. but this idea of obstructing purely for political reasons, sometimes to slow down the president's agenda for no good reason, sometimes to bottle up things here in the senate, makes no sense at all. so why don't our colleagues want these candidates, these nominees for various positions in our system of justice to go before the u.s. senate, to have an up-or-down vote and then we can have a garrett as part of that about their qualification -- we can have a debate as part of

that about their qualifications. we can do that. but this idea of obstructing or political and partisan reasons makes no sense to us, and i'm sure it makes no sense to the american people. and with that, i would yield the floor. mr. warner: madam president, i think you hear from senator casey, from all of us, is frustration. folks h.o.v. who'v who've got le complaints, they ought to bring those complaints to the floor and we ought to debate them. while want to be respectful of senate traditions, i think allowing the process to go along without using the existing rules to try to force us to confront these issues scwiews doesn't make any sense -- just doesn't make any sense when our country faces enormous challenges. i would like to call on my good friend from colorado, while served in the other body, obviously a longtime family tradition of public service. i know the folks in colorado are sometimes scratching their heads

about the rules we operate under in this body. mr. udall: i thank senator warner for his leadership and for convening for of us today. i did want to touch on the concerns of the people of colorado in respect to the discussion we're having today. look, whe one of the fundamental roles of the united states senate is to advise and consent the president of the united states. we don't have a chance because of the slow-down tactics that have been utilized when it comes to awful these important nominees. we ought to have a debat chanceo debate on the floor of the senate. we may find that some judges don't pass muster. but they deserve an up-or-down vote. theals not happening. i noted that some of my colleagues pointed out two cases where judge thompson from rhode island for months she was

stalled on the executive calendar. there was no reason. when she was finally brought to the floor, a 98-0 vote, unanimous vote. what was the problem? why couldn't she be confirmed earlier? judge keenan from your state, we will to have a cloture vote in order to bring her to the floor. four months -- 99-0 she was approved. there was no objection expressed. this is senseless. this is absurd. in colorado, we've had two vacancies on our district court for many, many months going on years now. those judges are appealing to senator bennet to get two more judges as reenforcements. that docket can be considered. those district court judges are not being moved on to the floor of the united states senate. we can advise and hopefully consent. we have a federal attorney we need to see confirmed.

that has shown no movement as well. for me, this is the senate not keeping faith with the people of the united states. i know we can do better. i know that the american people look here to washington right now and wonder why we're behaving like children. children have an excuse, don't they? they're children. we're not. we have greater responsibilities. i hope we can set aside our differences here, bring these nominees across the board to the floor, have an up-or-down vote. i would suggest perhaps we ought to bring a bloc of nominees and ask for unanimous consent. they have all been vetted. the president needs to have a full complement of people in his administration to do the work of the american people. again, i want to thank you, senator warner. we're going to continue to beat these drums until these nominees have a chance to be voted upon. this is crucial to me, the

challenges our country face right here today. mr. warner: i thank the senator for his comments. he has, i think, great perspective on this issue. part of what you're raising -- and we want to be considered rules and tradition by today -- this many freshman and sophomore senators saying this process seems to be broken. we want to urge our colleagues on the other side that we're not going to let business as usual go on. we want to give them appropriate notice, no attempt to ambush on a process here. a number of us are saying enough. we owe it to this body. we owe it to the folks across the country. i know somebody who'sdom this floor regularly to -- who's come to this floor regularly to talk about the needs of health care and a number of other issues. he has got a number of issues facing him in the great state of ohio. i would like to ask senator brown if he would like to speak. mr. brown: i appreciate the work you're doing.

i came to the senate three and a half years ago. i'm personally not a lawyer. i obviously never sat as a judge. but i understand the custom here is that typically the party -- if there's a senator from a state in the same party as the president, that senator makes a submission, an idea to the president for a federal judgeship, for a district federal judgeship, and normally the president will accept that. my senior senator, my senior colleague in ohio is a republican. but rather than block him out of the appointment process and the confirmation process, i asked him to join with phaoerbgs and we put -- with me, and we put a committee together for the northern district in ohio for a judge, a judge vacancy, and there were two, one in the northern district and we did one in the southern district. we had a panel of, i believe, 17 people. the northern district panel was actually a majority of republican. i'm a democrat. the president is obviously a democrat. the southern district is

majority democratic, barely. and they did lengthy interviews of about 20 potential judges each, federal judges, one in the northern district, one in the southern district. these interviews, these are people that are active in their community, the people doing the interviewing. they did two or three full days taking time off work, donating their time. then they submitted to meet top three candidates in the northern and southern district. i interviewed event three of them. i chose whom i thought would be the best judge, federal judge, federal district judge. i then spoke with senator voinovich. he signed off on them. both of them were submitted to the president who in turn submitted them to the judiciary committee, to the senate and the judiciary committee. the senate judiciary committee voted overwhelmingly for each of them. yet, they still haven't come to a vote on the senate floor. i mean, i couldn't have done this more bipartisanly and fairly to make it happen. i know senator voinovich would like to move on these judges. he has signed off on each.

he approved them. the day he announced them, he and i shared a statement, a statement he put out. it was quotations from both of us that thaoers important people -- that these are important judgeships and we have the right people. as senator hagan said, from north carolina, you don't fill these -- justice delayed is justice denied. there are backlogs in the northern district and the southern district. we've got these two ready to be voted on -- it could be today. we could do the unanimous consent request that the senator from colorado suggested. there are now two new vacancies in ohio and we're going to start the process again. it just doesn't make sense that we know president obama's district court nominees waited twice as long as president bush's nominees to be confirmed as being favorably reported by the judiciary committee. i ask, in addition to the other judges who have been vetted by a whole process by the president, from the local senator, state senator, to the f.b.i., to the

president, to the senate judiciary committee. now it's time for a vote. most of these will be unanimous or close to t. i think there will be overwhelming support for judge pearson and judge black. they have proven that they are ready to go. they would be good judges. both are u.s. magistrates now so they have gone through another vetting process in their previous jobs. we just shouldn't keep waiting. i hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will decide let's just accept this. let's move on. we've got so many other things to do. delay and obstructionism of judges are wrong. we need to move forward. i thank senator warner for his leadership on this issue. mr. warner: i thank the senator from ohio. a lot of my colleagues have spent time talking about skwrurpblgs. this -- about judges. this goes way beyond judges. a senator who has been a leader on this issue, the senator from montana, has come to this floor on other occasions by himself to talk about other nominees that the president has put forward.

and my understanding some of these nominees are held up because of toegtsly unrelated issues. i don't know about folks in montana, but folks in virginia say what do canadian tobacco laws have to do with a nominee that have nothing to do with canada or montana? i would like the senator from montana to speak to this issue. senator tester. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: thank you for the recognition. i want to thank senator warner for his leadership and his ability to see through the fog that's been created here in the senate. everybody -- madam president, you know i'm a farmer. most of the folks in this body know that i'm a farmer. i have been my entire life. and one of the things that farmers really can't deal with is idle hands. when there's work to be done, you roll it up and you get after

it, and you get the work done. in montana right now, it's planting season. the folks there that are in agriculture, as with small businesses and working families, but in agriculture particularly, they're looking at either getting ready right now or they're actually in the field putting seeds in the ground because the work is there; it has to be done. you have an opportunity to do it. you do it. it's planting season in the united states senate all the time, whether it's creating jobs or turning the economy around or fixing health care or what it may be, we have important work to do. folks on the other side of the aisle, i guess they're watching the clouds go by, because the fact is it's time to go to work. obstructionism is not something that takes a lot of skill, but getting things done requires hard work, and it's time to get things done.

these judicial appointments we have to do right now in the senate are critically important. they're critically important for this country. they're critically important for the process to work, and they're being held up for literally no reason whatsoever. just because they can be held up. let me give you a quick statistic, because we always compare what goes on in past administrations. i can tell you that the first two years of the bush presidency, he had 100 circuit and district court nominations confirmed. today president obama has had 18 over two years in. this is idle work. idle hands get nothing done. it's time to go to work in the senate. it is time to quit the obstructionism. and it's time to put the government back on the side of the people. thank you, senator warner. mr. warner: i thank the senator from montana and in full disclosure may say i may try to use that line about idle hands and planting season in the senate in some speech later, in a speech later this afternoon.

i know we've been joined by one more of my freshman colleagues, who may not have grown up as a farmer but understands equally as well the importance of this body getting the work of the people done. that is my good friend senator buries. burris -- senator burris. burris burris thank you -- senator burris: at a time we're trying to solve problems for the people in america, we find ourselves stymied, especially in the third branch of our government. mr. burris: the upcoming vacancy on the supreme court has started a lot of talk across the nation despite the fact that we don't even have a nominee yet. let's just forget about that. we must still focus on a number of more immediate judicial nominations, and my republican

friends continue to delay and obstruct. and for what reason? i have no idea. in my home state of illinois, senator warner, there are currently five judicial vacancies, two in the central part of the state and three in the northern part. that's where, of course we've got chicago, and the caseload is just tremendous on those current judges that are there and all the delays and the time. everyone wonders why it takes so long to bring something to trial. that is because the judges over there are overworked and the numbers need to be at least brought up to par with the requirements called for. illinois is not alone. this is happening all over the country, senator warner. and so the numbers are such that we have all of these nominees that have been nominated, some of them cleared the committees unanimously, or some of the other judges that did get confirmed, we had to go through cloture. they cleared the committees, and

there were blockages, but when we got the vote on them, 99-0. that is just uncalled for. we must do what we can in order to make sure that the judicial process is not being delayed. that's our third branch of government. that's where justice is rendered for individuals who have violated any of the federal laws. our republican friends are holding them up. they're blocking these important nominations and stopping the senate from performing its constitutional duty to advise and consent. we cannot consent because of the delays that they're making. as a foreman attorney general of my state, i have -- as a former attorney general of my state, i have a deep understanding of how this obstructionism brings the justice system to a standstill. and justice denied -- justice delayed is justice denied. let me get the reverse of it. it is inexcusable, madam president. i urge my republican colleagues

to stop blocking these qualified nominees, stop plague political games at the expense -- stop playing political games at the expense of our court system, the third branch of our government, and let's bring all of these nominees to a vote. thank you, mr. president. mr. warner: i'd like to thank my friend, the senator from illinois. i think we've had more than a dozen senators speak this afternoon. i appreciate all of them coming out with relative short notice. we raised these issues before we went on recess. we want to be respectful not only of traditions, but our colleagues on the other side. we recognize, as the senator from colorado has said, that are rules that allow us to ask consent to bring these folks up. in future days and weeks we will use those rules to try to urge the kind of full-fledged debate not just on the judicial nominees. i think as a foreman c.e.o. of business, there are a host --

part of a management team this president needs to get in place or have in place. i thank the president, madam president, for the time we've had today to share. again, i'd encourage my friends and colleagues on the other side, let's get this fixed. let's make sure we can get back to the substantive debates that are so important around financial re-regulation, energy, jobs the american people deserve d demand. with that, madam president, i yield the floorabsee of a quoru. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. burris: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. burris: may iequest that the quorum call be suspended? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burris: may i speak, madam president, as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. burris: thank you, madam president. madam president, in 1790, secretary of state thomas jefferson became the first government official to perform the essential duties laid out in

article 1, section 2, of the united states constitution. he oversaw a team of marshals who fanned out across all 13 united states to conduct a very first u.s. census. in those days, it took quite a long time to get an accurate account and certify the results. but in many ways, that first census laid the cornerstone of our democracy. it codified the principle that our system of government depends upon the accurate representation of the people. even today that accurate -- that's exactly what the census is called for and what the census is all about. it determines the size of the house of representatives and ensures that congressional districts, electoral votes are

distributed accurately. it helps target federal funding for schools, hospitals, community centers, infrastructure projects and a whole host of other programs. in short, madam president, it helps our government work the way it's intended in each community, so everyone's voice can be heard. it's about nothing less than those who we are as a country. it's about enfranchisement and civic duty and ensuring the success of the american system of self-government. that's why our constitution mandates that the census takes place every ten years. that's why 220 years after thomas jefferson started this tradition, we are once again asking all americans to stand up and be counted. we're

asking all americans to stand up and be counted. madam president, our country has grown by leaps and bounds since jefferson's times. making sure we get an accurate count can be a -- an accomplished process -- a complicated process but it's never been more important, especially for low-income and minority communities which are in the greatest need for the resources that will be allocated based on the census. the problem is that many of these communities also have low participation rates so they're often undercounted and receive less funding than they deserve. that's why we need to make special effort to reach out to these communities. we need to let everyone know how important it is to participate so that we can get a clear, accurate snapshot of who is actually in america.

fortunately, unlike the jefferson days, the 2010 census will not take several months to complete. as a matter of fact, it will take only about 10 minutes to complete the form. this year's form is the shortest one in history. filling out the form will be quick and easy but it will tak take -- it will make, madam president, a world of difference. so i would ask my fellow americans to join me in doing their civic duty, as required by the constitution. take 10 minutes to fill out and return this census form. it will be the most productive 10 minutes of the decade. it will make your vote count for more on election day. and it will make sure hospitals, fire departments, the police departments are up to the task

of serving our community -- of your community. and it will secure adequate funding for your roads, your bridges, rail lines and other important infrastructure, and it will help us reaffirm the unwavering commitment shared by all americans to a representative government, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, madam president, a government that would be in the best interests of not only civic this great country but serving the world. madam president, i yield the floor and sugst the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. brown: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio is recognized. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. brown: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for no more than five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: mr. president, i rise as a result of the resolution offered earlier today commemorating the tragic deaths of so many polish leader leader, especially the death of tomas merta, who was the minister of culture in poland. i worked with him a couple of times over the last 25 years in the early 1990's.

he was a very young man and is still in his 20's. and he worked with ohio state's mershan's center where i worked and helping his country's government transition from communism to democracy. and we worked on everything from curriculum writing to teaching to training teachers. and i worked with him again in the -- when i was a member of congress, i went back -- this time in ukraine -- and he helped us train ukrainian -- ukrainian teachers, help write curriculum and help the teachers teach government courses on civic education in kiev. so tomas merts, graduate of warsaw university, got a ph.d. his whole career was all about love of country, all about

democracy, all about doing the right thing. new england the 1990's and since he was a prolific writer. he wrote articles about democracy, helping -- articles about teaching democracy, articles about building democracy, and he was so important to this country. he was one of the young leaders, the youngest leaders that was killed on this terrible, terrible, tragic flight. he had a terrific future. he feels the secretary of state, the minutthe minister of cultur. we will all miss him. tomas -- his nick name was -- it's like thomas and tommy. he was a father of -- was a husband, was a devoted husband, the father of three daughters. i last saw him several years ago in kiev and i saw s so appreciat he did. [speaking polish] tomas and some

of his friends taught me some polish. i must admit i read it but the pronunciation he helped me with, he and aletsia and others in poland. i am so sad about his loss, so sad for his country, so sad for his wife and his three beautiful daughters, and i know that that country will mourn his loss as it mourns the loss of so many other polish patriots. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. brown: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. coburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. coburn: i ask that the quorum call be vishtd. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. under the previous order, morning business is closed. and the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 4851. the snrr oklahoma is recognized. mr. coburn: thank you, mr. president. if anybody has been watching the senate today, there was a point of order made that the spending

that we're going to pass to pay for unemployment insurance extension of benefits and benefits for health insurance for those people in terms of buying through their former employers as well as the sustainable growth rate formula failed to be overridden, and we'll have another vote on that because the majority side was missing one member, and they will eventually win on that. what that says is that we're once again back to the point where we refuse to make the hard choices to pay for things that we need to do today by eliminating things that are not as important. an the point of order was on the fact that it's an emergency, so therefore we can say "timeout." but those that voted to override

it fail-to-ed to recognize the -- failed to recognize the other major emergency that's happening in our country. we have $12.8 trillion worth of debt as of today. we're going to add another $1.4 trillion to $1.5 trillion this year, this calendar year, that the increase in the cost of that debt over the last 12 months will require an additional -- next year, $125 billion worth of expenditures. and there has to come a point in time when we grow to the responsibility that's been given to us. and that's, make hard choices. it's very easy to pass the unemployment insurance bill by just charging it to our children. and the majority leader has graciously agreed to give me an opportunity to offer three different ways to pay for that. and i'm going to put those out today. one amendment now which we'll vote on, another amendment

later, and then a third amendment later. and most of the ideas for cutting the spending, quite frankly, have come from my colleagues on the other side. and many of them you've already voted for. so it's going to be an interesting exercise today, and the majority leader also spoke to me before lunch saying that it didn't matter because i was going to lose anyway. and that sends a signal, is that the leadership of our senate today says we don't have to pay for things. now prior to leaving here, we had agreed on a compromise of tax loophole closures that would have paid for this for a period of 30 days. and the bill we voted on back then was for 30 days. we have now a bill before us, identical bill but just for 60 days. it's going to cost $18.2 billion. that's what the c.b.o. said it's going to score. so the question i have to ask for my colleagues: is it

morally right for us to steal that money from our children's future or make hard choices about wasteful spending today? and the choices really aren't hard other than in our stubbornness is that we don't want to agree to it. when businesses are taken over, when a larger business buys a smaller business, the first thing they do is become great cash managers of the business. great cash managers. in other words, they make surety money for the business is always working for the business. so if there's excess cash lying around in accounts, what they do is take that money and reduce whatever outstanding debts that they have or forego borrowing money and use that money in a more efficacious and serious

marine. the -- manner. the amendment i'm offering will do the same, is at the end of last year the federal government had on its books money that it had borrowed but had not spent of $676 billion. that's what's sitting in accounts of money that we had borrowed that isn't being utilized efficiently. at the end of next year, at the end of fiscal 2011, by the o.m.b., they estimate it will be a $614 billion. well, that's almost half of the debt that we're going to borrow this year. so this first amendment, which i will call up in a moment, simply says let the administration utilize its executive prerogatives, and instead of us borrowing $18.2 billion from our children and then paying interest on that -- and, oh by the way, the interest on that

$18.2 billion that will go on in perpetuity because we're not retiring any debt, is about $90 million a year. pardon me -- $900 million a year, almost $1 billion a year. so why would we borrow money when we have money sitting that's not being utilized effectively and pay almost $900 million every year from now on, why would we borrow again next year an extra $1 billion to pay for the money we're going to borrow to fund this program? and let me give an example of where this money lies. in our own accounts to run the

legislature, we have $1,450,000,000,00 just sitting there. it was sitting a $1.8 billion at the end of last year. so we're keeping that money in the bank not using it. the department of agriculture, $20 billion, estimated in 2011 to have $12 billion sitting in an account that we're paying interest on that's not being utilized, not obligated for anything at the time, unobligated. actually, what all these figures show when you total them up, the $614 billion, is that we're sending money so fast to agencies they can't spend it. in other words, we're throwing money at the agencies far faster

than they can spend it, and it would be wise and prudent of us to send less money, still with the same rules, still with the same instructions, and utilize their money better. the chairman of the house appropriations committee, congressman obey, has already agreed to do that on a summer jobs program in certain accounts. so the idea behind this amendment is to take some of the $1 trillion that's sitting in accounts that is not obligated -- in other words, it won't be utilized this year, won't be utilized for at least two years -- and utilize that rather than charge our children. and i've used madeleine's picture a lot, but i don't think you can overutilize this picture. this little girl was caught on the street outside of washington

protesting. now obviously her parents put her up to it, but her parents are pretty astute. at the time she's wearing a sign that says "i'm already $38,300 in debt, and i only own a dollhouse." at the end of this fiscal year she's going to be $45,000 in debt and she still only owns a dollhouse. why would we want to add to that? why do we want to do that? this bill adds $500 for every man, woman, and child in this country. so why wouldn't we want to not charge it to them and utilize what we have in excess now, in efficient use of the cash balances that we have to pay for something that we all agree we want to pay for but the disagreement is over whether we should steal it from our children or actually make hard choices. these aren't even hard choices. these are easy choices.

we were told when we came to an agreement prior to the april recess that the reason this wasn't acceptable in the house is they didn't want to set the precedent to start paying for things when we're spending money. well, i would put forth that the american people are ready for us to start doing that. they're ready for us to start making tough choices. they think we need to make tough choices. and when we're spending out of every dollar we spend we're borrowing 43 cents against the future that,'s what happened last year. it will actually be higher this year. maybe not. burr somewhere around 43 cents out of every dollar the federal government spends is borrowed. should we at any time -- is there a time that we should stop and pause and say maybe a review

is in order of our priorities, looking at the priorities of the federal government. and i know that builds a lot of resistance in this body. but what i would like for somebody to tell me is when is that time? is it when the chinese won't buy our bonds anymore? do we wait for the firestorm to come where we're at critical mass and then the choices are limited and few? or do we start making the proper decisions now and live up to the authority that has been given to us and the responsibility? you know, there's a saying that says the easiest thing in the world is to spend somebody else's money. i also think it's the most addictive thing in the world. and i think that we can see that. it doesn't matter whether it's republicans who are in charge or democrats in charge, we've not seen the kind of behavior in congress that's going to get our country out of the financial problems that we face.

so in terms of a almost $4 trillion budget, $18 billion doesn't seem like a lot. but if you keep doing that every 60 days, in a year you've done over $120 billion that you're going to add to the debt. and then our kids are going to get to pay it back, but they're going to get to pay it back on compounded interest. the interesting thing i find is what the o.m.b. and the c.b.o. all agree to. actually c.b.o. came out with the latest numbers. we're going to borrow $9.8 trillion if we don't change things over the next nine years. and fully 50% of that is going to be borrowed money to pay interest on the money we've already borrowed. so shouldn't we do what is right for the unemployed but also what is right for the madeleines of this world in terms of protecting their future?

mr. president, i'd like to call up amendment number 3723. and ask for its consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn, proposes an amendment numbered 3723. at the end of the bill, insert the following: section rescission of unspent and -- mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent the bill be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: so the question is this: here's a fairly painless way, just better efficient management of the moneys that we have, of paying for this needed program without charging it to our children. we don't have to go to the bond market to borrow more money. we don't have to incur an

additional $900 million a year in debt. tremendous benefit to those that follow us. the question is: whether he will we decide to start being responsible? i'm going to be offering two other amendments if this one is not agreed to. it will give specific choices. and you wait to see. in other words, nothing is less important than unemployment insurance. said the other way, everything is more important. in other words, we can't cut anything to pay for unemployment insurance. well, let's talk about that for a minute. just through competitive bidding, if we had mandatory

competitive bidding in the federal government -- mandatory. in other words, we're not going to buy things that aren't competitively bid -- we would save $62 billion a year. but we've got sweetheart deals out the gazoo. we have earmarks that have noncompetitive bidding. we have contracts that the government does without competitive bidding. we could save $62 billion a year just in instituting competitive bidding. here's some examples: recently reported that the defense department awards no-bid work to small contracts for repairs at military bases costing taxpayers $148 million more than if they were competed for. that's in one year. just on repair contracts. that's just on repair of small items on military bases. we can save $148 million a year.

federal funds were spent by the state of wisconsin, $48.5 million on two spanish-made passenger trains. no competitive bid. federal funds going to wisconsin, no competitive bids. the legal services contract at a corporation, 37 out of the 38 consultant contracts had not been competitively bid. department of interior inspector general issued a report on contracting within the department of interior. total savings, $44.5 million. had they used competitive bidding. and if you go through all the agencies, what you come up with is a potential savings of billions and billions and billions of dollars. as a matter of fact, enough to extend this same bill for seven months, just if we use competitive bidding. but that isn't going to be considered important. it's going to be too important to do that, so we'll just borrow

the money from our children. let's look at ourselves. in 2010, the legislative branch received $4.7 billion in discretionary funding, a 6% increase over last year. you know many other people who got those kind of increases, that work in small business, private enterprise in a down economy? just last year and this year alone, every day without this bill, we're adding $4.3 billion to our debt a day. is that an emergency? i think that's the real emergency. is that we are absolutely stealing opportunity from our children and grandchildren.

when members of the senate or the house don't utilize all their funds, and i average turn in back about $600,000 a year, that money doesn't go back to the treasury. it gets consumed in other areas of the legislative branch. so there is a disinisincentive r members to be efficient with the dollars they're allotted as they represent their individual states. we ought to change that. there ought to be a reward. there ought to be an incentive to be efficient. we ought to change it to where whatever we turn back goes to retire the debt, not goes back in to spend on something that's not a priority. if you look at the department of agriculture, which one of my amendments will have some recommended eliminations, there's hundreds of millions of

dollars that are wasted every year. but when we offer an amendment that's going to have a program that both the bush administration and the obama administration has recommended being removed, we're going to have people saying, oh, no, you can't do that. because maybe a thousand people or 1,500 people want that gravy train when we have 10 million people unemployed. so we're going to keep the gravy train for the small numbers and borrow the money from our children and grandchildren to take care of unemployment benefits. in 2009, the department of agriculture made errors in payments, overpaid by $4.2 billion in that year alone. think about that. it's just the department of agriculture.

should we not eliminate that to pay for unemployment insurance or should we borrow from our children? which is it we should do? we should make the hard choice and force the department of agriculture to clean up its act? or should we borrow the money from our kids. it's just a lot easier to borrow it from our kids then we don't have to work. oh, by the way, we don't get any of the complaints from the administration that you're making our job too hard, let alone the fact that they're not efficient and oftentimes not effective. in 2008, the agriculture department had 7,000 different employees attend conferences around this country. $22 million of expenditures in 2005 alone.

the usda is worked among the four worst agencies in paying its travel credit bills on time as a matter of fact, they get charged interest because they can't even pay their bills on time. 10% of their travel cards are in delinquent status. they have embezzlement cases on their credit cards. but have we done the work to clean that up? no. have we gone after the $4.5 billion in overpayments? no. $4.5 billion a year for 10 years is $45 billion. just cleaning one aspect of improper payments at only the department of agriculture will pay for this bill for four months. but we won't do the hard work. we do the easy work. and the easy work is to put the credit card into the machine and not think about how that's going to steal opportunity and potential from those that follow

us. wandepartment of defense. everybody says, well, you can't go after the department of defense. and my question is: why not? they're the only federal government agency that can't even come close to an audit anywhere. we can't even audit their books, they're in such a mess. but what we do know is that we can save at least $36.5 billion from the department of defense by tught in competitive bidding, by making college on not management changes that every small business in this country runs on and the practices are there. but it hasn't been changed.

we haven't insisted it be changed. we haven't limited funding in areas that are noncritical to our troops to force the department of defense to come up and save this $36.5 billion. you know, 10% to 15% of everything that's spent in the pentagon is wasted. why wouldn't we go after that? because somebody will accuse us of not supporting our troops. well, who are our troops? what are they fighting for? they're fighting for the future for their kids and our country. and yet we refuse to look where the payments can be made in a way that are more efficient and eliminating of waste and fraud, institution of competitive bidding so that we're not borrowing $18.2 billion against our kids and grandkids. why do we refuse to do that? is it too hard? do we love our jobs so much that we love our jobs more than our children and our grandchildren?

i don't think that's the case. i think the case is that we're focusing on the wrong emergency. the emergency in front of us is that in 2020, we're going to have a debt-to-g.d.p. ratio of 90% to 100%. every economist in the world will agree that that will suppress our potential growth by at least 2% a year. so we become in a downward spiral. when you have that kind of debt to g.d.p., what happens is the debt service, the money that pays the interest, is not available to investment in capital equipment to grow jobs, to improve efficiencies, to expand our nation's economic base 789 and we're adding to that problem by being irresponsible in terms of paying for an $18.2 billion program.

over the past four years, i've identified in the federal government waste, fraud, abuse and duplication in excess of $350 billion a year. and when i bring those amendments to the floor, they get voted down not because they disagree with them but because we don't have the political will to make the hard choices. the congress in a historic move passed a health care bill that's going to continue to allow $150 billion in fraud a year to come out of medicare and medicaid. committee didn't do anything to fix it. there's no significant changes in the health care bill that will address a source of $150 billion in losses. why? because it's too hard? kids aren't important? we are at a turning point in our country like we're never been

before. we have never been walking into a financial situation that will totally limit our ability to get out of a situation. we can come out of this recession, but if we don't change the trajectory of the way we spend money and put the government back within the limited role that the constitution says it is to have, then the future will not only be economically not bright but from a standpoint of liberty, not bright. and i've told my colleagues, we're going to have this on every bill that comes before the senate. it doesn't matter if it's a supplemental spending bill for the war. we ought to be paying for it. and rather than borrowing from our kids, we ought to be paying for it. we ought to be making the hard choices about what's not as important as supporting our

troops rather than charging the extra funding to our grandkids. so we're going to go through at least three cycles of votes on every bill that comes to the floor that is not paid for, that will add to the debt. i'm not going to serve my last year in the senate and say that i didn't do everything i could to try to put us back on track. and so when we vote that this is an emergency and we don't have to pay for it, we're not hurting us, you're not hurting tom coburn, you're hurting the generations that follow us. it would be different if we had an efficient, effective, well-run federal government that was within the bounds of what the constitution said we were supposed to be doing. but we're not anywhere close to that. and there is so much fraud, so much waste, so many well-connected goodies going to the well-endowed and well healed in this country because they've -- well-heeled in this country because they've got a connection politically, and we

need to clean it out. everything ought to be competitively bid. there's no reason for it not to be competitively bid. and to pass up that $65 billion a year because we don't do it? you know, there's another thing we do. we spend $8 billion a year maintaining properties that the federal government doesn't want. think about that. and for three years i've tried to get through a real property reform and can't get it through. and we either need to tear these structures down so we have to quit spending money on them or is them, but we shouldn't continue to spend $8 billion a year on buildings and properties that we don't need. we haven't done a thing to solve that problem. in the last three years. and i've got a bookful of further examples. just think about this. we want people to go into math, engineering, science and technology. everybody agrees with that. we know if we can get -- get our

younger students going into that, that's where they're going to have the greatest benefit of having a wonderful living and utilizing those skills. the federal government has 105 different programs through six different agencies to incentivize math, engineering, science, and technology. the administrative costs for 105 different programs is ridiculo ridiculous. and not one of them has a metric on it of whether it's working. so every time somebody raises the issue, some senator comes and creates another new program and we pass it and we never look at what we're doing already. we don't eliminate things that aren't effective. we don't put metrics on it to say we're going to look at this every year. if it's not working, we're going to get rid of it or we're going to fix it. we're not going to create another program. yet we have 105 different programs. in the month of september -- december, my staff found 640

separate instances just like that where we have duplication of programs across government agencies. and in the last debt limit extension, we passed one of my amendments that said the g.a.o. must report to us a government-wide assessment of all of the duplications in all the programs, because congress doesn't know it. we don't know what's out there. and so we see another problem. it doesn't matter that we may have 105 programs working on it. we go create another one. that's called incompetence and it's also called laziness. just inside the department of education, just inside, there's 230 duplicative programs and $10 billion in waste, fraud, and mismanagement at the department of education.

230. why? because we refuse to do the hard work of oversight? so when we vote on this amendment, what we're going to be voting on is whether or not we have the courage to start making choices. if you vote to defeat this amendment, what you're saying is you lack the courage to do the hard work to pay for something out of waste today and mismanagement of federal funds and you think that the madeleines of this world ought to pay for that lack of integrity and lack of hard work. and there's not another reason for it. we're going to hear why you shouldn't vote for this. we're going to hear why it's going to be hard if we take $18.2 billion of cash out of the management accounts of all these agencies. you know, it is just going to

be, out of what's there, about 3% of the cash that's sitting idle. about 3% of what will be idle in 2011. what's idle this year, it will be less than 3%. it will be about 2.5%. and yet we're going to vote it down. we're going to vote it down because we can't more about making a political point than doing the hard work of getting our country back on track. and we don't have forever to get our country back on track. you know, if we get to 90% to 100% of our g.d.p., the job of making these decisions becomes three and four and five and six and seven times more difficult because we will have less grow growth. and we have a precarious economy right now. it's coming out of a recession.

we want that growth to boom. we want those jobs to be creat created. when we borrow more money, we're putting a brake on that. so if we can utilize the money that we already have, we get the stimulatory effect of getting people unemployment insurance that buys necessities of life but we're not adding to the de debt, which depresses the economy. mr. president, i'll close for right now on this amendment, and i will at the time that is agreeable to the majority leader ask for the yeas and nays, and notice the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, we seem to be muddling along here with a short-term extensions, incremental stimulus bills to deal with a failure, i would say, of this congress to

decide what we're going to do about unemployment insurance and physicians' pay and things of that matter that are in this bill. i believe this is an important discussion. i really do, and i'm worried about where we are. this legislation before us today would add another $18.1 billion to the national debt. just like that, another $18 billion. oddly, that's almost the same amount of money that was tacked on to the defense bill last year. and i produced a chart about it and demonstrated what happens when we get into that mode of appropriating when we forget what our budget is -- that we

treat everything as an emergency and we just ignore our budget and spend. and the truth is this cannot continue. every witness we've had at the budget committee, every one, two-thirds of them usually called by our democratic leader, usually about a third are republicans' witnesses. but they've all said our spending and our debt is at an unsustainable rate. and they didn't mean that lightly. what they meant is it's unsustainable. we cannot continue to spend like this and to borrow this amount of money on top of $800 billion that's now being spent that we appropriated last year. $800 billion. every penny of that $800 billion

is borrowed because we don't have the money. we're already in debt to fund another $800 billion in stimulus. you have to, of course, borrow that. i think a lot of people haven't understood it. people tell me, when i'm in my state, that they're shocked, stunned and worried about our spending. they know we're spending too much, but i don't think they know how much we actually are spending and how much we're adding to our debt. and it can threaten the future viability of the american economy for short-term benefit. and i would just remind my colleagues that the history of stimulating an economy with borrowed money has not been too good. if it is, japan would have a booming economy today. they have been trying this year after year, and it's not worked

for them. we were told that we would have unemployment rate that would stop at 8% if we would just pass this $800 billion and borrow the money and spend it today and stimulate the economy. and it sounds so good it, sounds so tempting. but i didn't believe it was an appropriate allocation of that much money, number one. and, number two, that the money that we were being asked to spend was going to be spent in ways that would not stimulate the economy and create jobs. and i cited here before the vote an op-ed in the "wall street journal" by gary becker, a from the university of chicago.

and mr. becker said that in his opinion, the bill fell far short of being the kind of stimulative spending that would create jobs and help this economy bounce back. and, therefore, he had to oppose it. he's in his 70's. he's just sharing his experience. he had another person that participated with him in the research that led him to that recommendation. and was mr. becker proven right or not? a great tragedy, the biggest tragedy with the stimulus package was how little stimulus we got. i mean, if you spend $800 billion, there's so much that can be done with that, it's just breath taking. the alabama general fund budget for the entire state, including state government and state troopers and all of that is less

than $2 billion. $800 billion? that's huge. so, i'm worried about what we're doing here. at the time the legislation passed, the stimulus package had added so much to our debt, the congressional budget office, the director hired by our democratic majority and their good people in that office, and they try to do a good job. they've got some economists who i think have been successful in years past of predicting things, they said, yes, if you spend $800 billion in the next two to three years, you'll have an economic period, they didn't predict a lot, but they predicted some benefit. but you know what they said over

10 years? they said over 10 years that this economic spending, this borrowing to spend would actually weaken the economy and the total growth over 10 years would be less than if we didn't pass the stimulus package at all. and it does appear if they were in error, their error was we didn't get as much growth as they predicted in the short run. but when you spend $800 billion you're going to get some benefit, some economically, but we just haven't gotten what we need. it was not crafted in that way. it was a bill that said that it was going to fix crumbling infrastructure, and what happened? we spent less than 4% of this money on bridges and roads.

so we're spending it mostly on social spending, we spent it on state aid. we spent it on a lot of different things. but at least when you build a road, you've got a highway that's there and it will be there for another 50 or 100 years in making the nation more productive and efficient. but this other kind of spending has produced so little so far. so i express my concern about that. and all of this is where we are. so point is simply this, that the spending track we're on is unsustainable because in 2008 our total public debt wa was $5.8 trillion. it's more than that if you consider the gross debt, the internal debt. but this is what's held by private investors from around the world and in the united states. $5.8 trillion. by 2013 it will double to

1.8 trillion, by 2019 it will be $17.3 trillion. there is no plan to pay it down, in 2019 we're talking of $20 trillion a year. we're not close to moving to a balanced budget much less paying down this debt. well, where does the money come from? as i said, we borrowed that and this chart shows what the borrowing costs are. when you borrow money, people pay you interest. or you pay them ton the money they -- on the money that you give them. they loan you money, you pay the rent on the money. they don't give you money for no good reason. well, in 2009, we pai paid $187 billion in interest that one year. remember, alabama's general fund budget is $2 billion, federal highway bill a year or so ago

was $40 billion. this we spent $187 billion, almost five times the highway bill. but look what happens in 2020 after we spent all this money and run up our debt. $840 billion. in interest payment in one year that exceeds the defense bill, it exceeds any other bill in our -- in our budget. it's a stunning number. and this is the congressional budget office office numbers based on the president's budget. surely something will intervene. we'll elect somebody in this senate probably who will say no to this. but the american people are getting hot about it. people are going to wonder why they're no longer here if they keep up with this kind of stuff. so they say don't worry about this, it's just $18 billion. an after the $800 billion

the $800 billion, $18 billion may look small. let me show you what i demonstrated previously wha what $18 billion when you cheat or you add and bust the budget by just one $18 billion expenditure. so last -- in 2010, we slipped another $18 billion on the defense bill on the appropriation bill and added it to the debt. and people said, don't worry, just $18 billion. but it goes into the baseline. it goes into your basic funding of the government and so what happens next year when you say, okay, we're not going to spend this $18 billion? they say you're cutting spending. we can't do that. you can't cut spending. because -- and -- and, besides, we need an increase in spending. inflation was 2%. we need at least 2%.

the state department got a 30% increase in funding this year, the environmental protection agency got a 30% increase in funding. but look at that. what if you do it another year? you come up with another $18 billion. you got around the budget. you declare it an emergency event and you spend another $18. it's not just $18 billion, because you've got $18 billion in the first baseline. you add another to it and that year it costs the taxpayer taxpayers $36 billion. let's say the next year, 2013, so now you're adding $18 billion to $36 billion and it's $54 billion in your baseline. you add another budget gimmick to add $18 billion, you end up with $72 billion that year. this is how we get out of control. and you end up over tha that $18 billion when it goes into the baseline and we don't understand how it occurred,

really, it increases our spending to a degree that we shouldn't do. so that ends up, if you add it up, $990 billion from a an $18 billion a year gimmick. manipulation, a violation of the budget. so what i want to say to you is, that this bill before us today violates the budget and it's for unemployment compensation. it's for other things that are not emergencies. they really are part of our governmental operation that needs to be paid for. and, luckily, we have some money to pay for it. we've got it in unspent stimulus package, we've got some opportunities that our democratic colleagues have said that they could take money from in the past and if we put all those together, we could pay for

this, fund this bill, and without having to borrow it all. and so i guess -- i'm at a point where i'm not inclined to go along with this anymore. i think the american people are of the same mind. what we've got to do is we've got to lead and we've got to be responsible like our governors. they're having to face challenges. our mayors, they're having to face challenges. they're making tough decisions, but not us. we spend more, not less. we are spending more. and i -- i believe that we've done enough. we've gone beyond what's logical and reasonable. we're at the realm of reckless and dangerous and it's time for us to begin to have a national

discussion in this country and in this congress about just how much we can borrow to spend today to make our life better today and shift that debt to future. and the reason that c.b.o. said that the $800 billion wouldn't advance the economy over 10 years, but actually would hurt the economy over 10 years, the reason is you crowd out -- you take $800 billion that the government borrows and it's not available for private people who need to go out an borrow money. it's -- and borrowed money. it already belongs to the government. it crowds out, the government says, private borrowing. also we have the interest on it that we have to carry and pay every year. that's a burden on every generation, every young person after us will carry that interest burden. and it hurts them and makes them less able to prosper and to have economic growth. so it's a moral question, how

much can we afford to benefit ourselves this very day and shift it to our children and to what extent do we need to be responsible? i think it's time to get responsible. so reluctantly i feel an obligation to vote no for this legislation. i would yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i stand in strong support of the comments of my distinguished colleague from alabama. of course i agree with virtually every single member of the united states senate that these program -- programs need to be extended. but i also agree with many members here and the huge majority of the american people that we need to pay for it and we just can't keep running up the deficit like it had no consequence to us and our economy and our children and

grandchildren. the american people get it, mr. president. certainly my constituents in louisiana get it. they say, of course, you need to extend necessary programs, and, of course, you can't just run up the deficit to do it every two months. $18 billion, the distinguished senator from alabama has used the figure over and over, and he's right. $18 billion. but it's $18 billion for two months of extension. so we're supposed to come back every two months and just put another $18 on our kids and grandkids' tab? $108 billion over a year of increasing deficit and debt that is already at historic levels? that's crazy. now, mr. president, we can do better. we can meet both of those

commonsense objectives of the american people. we can extend necessary programs and we can do it in a way that doesn't add to deficit and debt. we have several ways to do that. we have a menu of proposals. we'll have votes a little later on about doing that. in fact, before the recess, we had discussions on the floor of the senate and we had come to agreement here in the senate about an extension without increasing deficit and debt. unfortunately, it was rejected by the speaker of the house. so it's not like this goal of achieving both of those important objectives is impossible. it's absolutely possible. and many different members have laid out how to get there. so let's follow the common sense of the american people. let's follow the common sense of folks all across louisiana who

say, of course you need to extend necessary programs. and of course you can't just add to deficit and debt every month, every two months that you need to do this, $18 billion a pop pop, $108 billion. that's a good part of a trillion dollars over one year. now, mr. president, i want to focus on a particular part of this package that is particularly galling, quite frankly, for someone like me from louisiana. a tiny part of this overall bill is extending the national flood insurance program. again, i hope everyone agrees we need to extend the national flood insurance program. i certainly agree with that. i've certainly fought for that. it's about 1% of this bill. and you know what percent it is of the debt increase of the deficit increase?

it's a zero percent of that because that extension doesn't even increase deficit or debt in any way. so it shouldn't be held up by this debate in any way, shape, or form. so a necessary program, 1% of the bill in terms of dollar figures, zero deficit and debt increase. zero impact on that central issue. so, mr. president, why can't we at least come together and extend that necessary program immediately and not have that held up at all? it never should have been held up before the recess. it shouldn't be held up now. and there's a simple way to fix that. and the simple way is to take that portion of the bill out to extend it without -- to extend it immediately. i don't think there is any opposition to the underlying

extension of the program. zero impact on deficit and debt. so there's no reason for it to be caught up in this other debate. so with that in mind, mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 3203. that's a bill i have introduced that extends the national flood insurance program for the same amount of time as this underlying bill but does it separately, and i ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. baucus: reserving the right to object. i might note the senator seeks to take up and pass one of the specific provisions in the underlying bill. that's section 7 of the underlying bill. and since the senator seems to be endorsing a part of the underlying bill in the pending baucus amendment, i might ask the senator to amend his

request, provide for the passage of all of the underlying bill and the pending baucus amendment. mr. vitter: i will be happy to do that in a version that is paid for, incorporating the very sensible, commonsense objections that have been offered to pay for all of this extension, so i would be happy to amend my request in that manner if the senator would agree to it. mr. baucus: so the senator is not willing to amend his request for passage of all the underlying bill? mr. vitter: not if it increases the deficit. not if it increases deficit and debt $108 billion a year, no, sir, i'm not and the american people aren't, and the american people are getting fed up with it! mr. baucus: mr. president, i'm constrained to object. mr. vitter: retaking my time. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. vitter: retaking my time, mr. president, the suggestion was pretty simple. there is one element of this bill, which is a necessary

program for all of the united states, particularly for flood-prone areas. it is 1% of the overall bill, but it is 0% of the deficit and debt increase. it has no impact on deficit and debt, so the suggestion was pretty simple, why don't we take that out? why have that stalled because of this broader debate. let's take that out and pass it. there should be no objection to that. everybody is for the program. it doesn't increase the deficit and debt. fortunately, there is objection from the democratic chairman. i hope we have given the chairman and other members of the majority the detailed proposal. it is, as the chairman said, taking section 7 out and passing it separately because it has no deficit and debt impact. i would urge the chairman and others to look at that and to

hopefully degree to that because i -- i heard the objection. i don't understand the basis for the objection, and i would be happy to hear the basis for the objection because i just don't understand it. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, the senator from louisiana supports part of the bill. i just ask the senator to broaden his mind and support all of the bill. that way we could get this -- mr. vitter: reclaiming my time, sort of like the louisiana purchase with health care reform. let's put one sweetener in the bill to pass something really bad, $108 billion debt increase over a year. let's take one hostage, including folks who are held hostage, who need this insurance to pass a debt increase that big because -- because otherwise that's a stinker. i get it.

i've seen that deal played out over and over again, including with the louisiana purchase for health care reform. i'm not taking that offer, mr. chairman, no offense. i hope you'll reconsider my very reasonable proposal. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the following staff be allowed floor privileges during the consideration of the pending bill -- randy osenberg, claire green and dusty stevens. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president, there are a number of reasons to oppose the amendment offered by the senator from oklahoma. first, it would reverse the considered judgment of the congress as expressed through

the annual appropriations process. congress has spoken on appropriations that are -- that are authorized and obligated, and his amendment would reverse that considered judgment, and i will defer, frankly, to the chairman of the appropriations committee to address these concerns in greater detail when he arrives on the floor. second, the house of representatives has made clear that it views unemployment insurance and other provisions of this bill as emergency provisions. the house has made clear that it would send the bill back to us again if we adopted the amendments by the senator from oklahoma, and that is clear. i have had conversations that it would be clear it would be sent back. that would needlessly delay much-needed aid to the people who are receiving unemployment insurance benefits. let's not forget, mr. president, there are many people, 200,000 in fact are not receiving benefits because we let the authorization -- the legislation expire.

it's expired. 200,000 a people a day who are entitled to unemployment insurance payments are not getting them today. if we send them back to the house today, it will be further delay. it won't be long before that knuckleball of 200,000 will double to $400,000. that's just playing games with the lives of unemployed americans. third and perhaps most dramatically, the amendment would delegate powers to rescind rescind $20 billion to the unelected director of the office of management and budget. this would be a breath-taking abdication of congress' power of the purse. in the federalist papers, the power of the purse is described as the most singular power to protect the rights of a free people. we should not quickly surrender that power, and the senator's amendment would surrender the power to the tune of of $20 billion. the senator's amendment would give the director of the office of management and budget a blank check. it would give him the tower to

protect whatever unobligated balances he should choose. this is truly the sweeping grant of power and it's truly a dramatic surrender of that power. the senator from oklahoma talked about the budget deficits, and i agree, we do as a nation need to address the budget deficit. as a rhetorical question, he asked, quote, when is the time to make the challenges to balance the budget? the senator answered the question as if the answer were self-evident, but the answer is not self-evident. a wise person once said for every complicated, difficult question, there is usually a very simple answer. it's usually not true. this is an example of that maxim at work. a simple answer in this case could be to require the government to balance the budget every year, year in and year out. that's pretty simple.

that answer, even though it sounds nice, would be wrong. the nation should balance the budget over the course of the business cycle. we should spend in recession and exercise more discipline when we're -- when the country is very prosperous to get the budget under control, but the nation should not attempt to balance the budget in the grips of recession. why is that? that's because in a recession, business slows down. people actually pay less tax revenue to the government. and in a recession, spending on automatic stabilizer programs automatically increase, like unemployment benefits, like food stamps, many others. that's what should happen during the recession. to do otherwise would be economically disastrous. to try to balance the budget in the grips of recession would mean raising taxes or cutting

spending even more than is automatically occurring. that would reduce the demand in the economy this would further slow economic growth and put even more people out of work. so most reputable economists would say you should not try to balance the budget in a recession. there is pretty broad agreement on that point, mr. president, among reputable economists. so that's why it does not make sense to try to balance the budget this year. yes, we should balance the budget over the business cycle, but we should not try to raise taxes and cut spending even more to balance the budget right now. and that's why it does not make sense to spend money on unemployment insurance benefits as an emergency matter. -- it does make sense to spend money on unemployment insurance benefits as an emergency matter. as the nonpartisan congressional budget office has said, spending

on unemployment insurance benefits is one of the most effective things that congress can do to increase economic growth. it's one of the most effective things that we can do to save and create jobs. for every dollar that we spend on unemployment insurance benefits, the congressional budget office says that economic growth is increased by up to to $1.90. it's almost 2-1 return on our investment. that's a pretty sound investment. and that's the economic reason why it makes sense to spend now on unemployment insurance benefits and to balance the budget over a longer period. but even more compelling is the human reason. the human reason is people like the single dad in missoula, montana, who depends on the extra unemployment insurance benefits to support his daughters to put food on the table. we called the montana

unemployment office and we learned that this fellow said that he honestly did not know how he is going to make ends meet without these benefits. mr. president, the senate should not be playing games with the lives of people like this man and his daughters in missoula and all the other men and women around the country who desperately depend upon unemployment payments to make ends meet. congress should not balance the budget on the backs of the unemployed. and that's why we must reject amendments like these. that is why we should pass the underlying bill. mr. president, i note the senator from hawaii is here, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. inouye: we are debating the same rescission amendment -- mr. akaka: we are debating the same rescission amendment on

first blush, but in fact it is not. i think that we members of the senate need to understand that this amendment is irresponsible governing and causes harm to our national and international security and especially to our economy. members on the other side of the aisle have frequently criticized the majority party asking them to look at measures that they have not had a chance to thoroughly read or comprehend, but that is certainly what members are being asked to do today. mr. president, it is irresponsible to vote in support of this amendment that indiscriminately cuts cuts $20 billion from discretionary projects and services that we do not know what programs are impacted by such significant acts. on january 27 of this year, i spoke at some length about an

almost identical amendment offered by the senator from oklahoma, and again on march 3 about an almost identical amendment offered by the junior senator from kentucky. today it is the junior senator from oklahoma's turn to offer the amendment again. mr. speaker, i would like to take a few moments to remind my colleagues of why they voted against this amendment twice already and why i hope they will again choose to vote against the financially irresponsible and harmful amendment. mr. president, the majority of unobligated balances are not eligible for rescission under this amendment because they are, in fact, mandatory funds. mr. inouye: second, because of the small amount of unobligated funding eligible for rescission, this amendment indiscriminately rescinds prior year unobligated

funding from certain critical programs that would jeopardize our national defense and our homeland security. i've mentioned this before but need to mention it again because nothing has changed between january and march and today. while we cannot say with certainty which programs are impacted by this amendment -- because it doesn't single out anything -- here are some of the expected impacts based on current discretionary unobligated balances that are available. for example, we require the department of defense to budget up front for all costs required to procure military equipment such as ships or aircraft. and, mr. president, i think all of us here are aware that it takes several years to complete construction of a battleship, of

a carrier or a frigate. even a tugboat. for shipbuilding specifically, funds provided to the department of defense are available for obligation for five years. rescinding unobligated funds now could require the navy to cancel contracts for ships under construction and lay off thousands of workers across the nation's shipyards. in terms of our veterans that have returned from war or that have fought bravely in past wars, this amendment could impact the construction of new hospitals by the veterans administration. it takes a few years to build a hospital. the veterans administration requests full funding for construction project in the first year. as a result, the v.a. has 43,

mr. president, 43 active major construction projects at various stages of completion totaling over $1.6 billion in unobligated balances and this could be wiped out. over 49,000 construction jobs would be terminated with the loss of that funding, further delaying critical services to our brave men and women who have served. and we made a solemn promise to them. rescinding unobligated balances in the department of homeland security could stop the construction of the coast guard national security cutter and would receive funding for the purchase of explosive detection systems. mr. inouye: rescinding unobligated balances in noaa, national office of atmospheric administration, could create a

minimum six months' gap of coverage for the geostationary weather satellite system which focuses directly over the united states and constantly and accurately monitors storm conditions over -- and over 200 employees would lose their jobs. the senator from oklahoma argues that if funding is not spent immediately then it is not necessarily. this reasoning is irresponsible when it comes to overseeing our taxpayers' dollars and the capitalization of large projects like ships, hospitals, and satellites. i'm certain everyone in this chamber knows that a ship is not built in a year and i hope everyone knows that a hospital is not built and equipped in a year. and i hope that everyone knows that satellites are not built

and launched every year. in addition to the potential impact on large procurements, this amendment could impact the funding of programs that congress voted on and agreed to just a few months ago. the impact of these cuts could have significant consequences for many critical services, such as h.u.d.'s programs providing affordable housing to our nation's low-income citizens. we had a great debate over that here. or funding for climate change research or funding to purchase explosive detection equipment for our airports. mr. president, this is a bad amendment with bad consequences and it is time for us members of this senate to act responsibly. we have a well-established process for funding the federal government.

if involves the budget committee that sets our allocation -- it involves the budget committee that sets our allocation. it involves the consideration and approval by the senate and every appropriation bill. and i can assure my colleagues in this chamber that the appropriations committee takes this responsibility seriously and every agency budget is reviewed and oversight provided throughout the year. each year the appropriations committee recommends rescissions of funds that are not needed, but those rescissions, mr. president, are based on detailed oversight and understanding of the programs, not indiscriminate action like this amendment. mr. president, this amendment is not based on careful review and would harm many worthwhile programs and fails to meet the test of proper oversight.

therefore, mr. president, i urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. and i yield the floor. i move to table the amendment. and ask for the yeas and nays. i've been asked to rescind the call for the vote. the presiding officer: the motion is withdrawn. mr. inouye: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: ask that the quorum call dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: and i send to the desk a modification to the pending amendment. i ask for its consideration. the presiding officer: the senator has a right to modify his amendment at this time. and the amendment is so modified. mr. coburn: thank you. and i am ready for a vote any time the chairman of the finance committee is ready. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, i move to table the coburn amendment and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: any senators wishing to vote or change their vote?

if not, the ayes are 51. the nays are 46. the motion to table is agree to. without objection. the leader. mr. reid: we are not in a

quorum call; is that right? the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. reid: mr. president, the manager of this bill is going to ask consent in just a minute -- the presiding officer: order. mr. reid: the republican leader and i have discussed this vote that will take place at 5:45 if consent is granted. we're going to keep the vote open for awhile. there are a number of things that people have to do this evening. one senator, because of a funeral of his best friend, is going to be getting here late. we'll keep the vote open until he returns from the funeral. everyone knows that. i've spoken to the republican leader and he's fine with that. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana.

mr. baucus: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that at 5:45 p.m. today the motion to proceed to the motion to consider the vote by which the budget act was not waived be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be agreed to and the senate proceed to a vote on the baucus motion to waive all applicable budget acts points of order. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. baucus: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. baucus: mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call: