puts a higher priority on selling chemicals than on the health of infants, and i am stunned by this. this was but a small step forward, a simple movement to ban b.p.a. in baby bottles and sippy cups, a simple move to protect children. all it did was ban b.p.a. in baby bottles and sippy cups until the f.d.a.'s expedited safety assessment could be revised. the chemical lobby came in at the 11th hour opposing this ban, which is something that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had agreed to. and now, because of this, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are pulling their support. my goodness, this is so simple. how can anybody put a priority

on selling chemicals above the health of infants? major manufacturers and retailers are already phasing out b.p.a. from their food and bench products for children, so why should this be stopped? the products used to give food and drink to children all have safe alternative b.p.a. packaging available. at least 14 manufacturers have already taken action against b.p.a., and here they are. avent, born free, disney first years, evenflo, gerber, dr. brown's, green to grow, kleen kanteen, medala, nuby sippy cups, munchkin, playtex, think baby, well baby. all are taking b.p.a.

voluntarily out of their baby bottles but we can't get did into a simple bill. retailers are taking action not to sell these products with b.p.a. in them. c.v.s., kmart, kroger, rite aid, safeway, sears, toys "r" us and babies "r" us, walmart, weeing mans foods, and whole foods have already taken this action. at this point, seven states have moved to enact laws banning b.p.a. from children's products. connecticut, maryland, minnesota, new york, vermont, washington, wisconsin, chicago -- which isn't the state some

might wish it were, but it's a city. but those entities have already taken action, and california is just a few votes short of taking this action, and i hope will come back this next legislative session and take it. also -- oh, i said vermont and washington. bills are also pending in illinois, maine, massachusetts, missouri, pennsylvania, and washington, d.c., and numerous companies are marketing b.p.a.-free products. other countries are moving forward. canada declared b.p.a. toxic and banned it from all baby bottles and sippy cups. denmark and france also have national bans on b.p.a. in certain products. so here's the point: the problem has been recognized, and steps are being taken by countries, states, companies,

and retailers. yet the chemical lobby in this country is keeping this amendment out of the food safety bill. why? why? only one reason: because the chemical companies want to make money to the long eflt point they can by -- to the longest point they can by selling a chemical which is parntsly very dangerous, and i will develop the danger argument in a moment. their restains to accept this -- their resistance to accept this very small proposal -- mr. president, we have compromised in the negotiations with senator enzi. the bill that senator schumer and i introduced was much more comprehensive, but we're down to just the three things i mentioned earlier. this is a food safety issue, and it profoundly affects children's health. over 75 advocacy organizations

representing 40 million americans support this amendment. and i would ask unanimous consent that the list be added following my remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. feinstein: thank you. but some in the industry are fighting tooth and nail to make sure b.p.a. remains a staple in the american diet and even for children. because of this opposition, it appears that i have no option to move this amendment forward. again, i've tried for a year and a half. six months of negotiation. i can put a hold on the bill, stop it, and make a fuss, as some others have done over other issues. or i can wait to fight another day by allowing this food safety bill to go forward while continuing to build the case against b.p.a. and that latter is what i intend to do, beginning now. so this battle may be lost, but

rest assured, i don't intend to quit. i have a deep abiding exern regarding the -- concern regarding the presence of toxins and chemicals with no testing in all kinds of products and all kinds of solutions that leach into people with no testing. there is no precautionary standard in this country when it comes to chemicals. you have to prove that a chemical is harmful before that chemical can be banned. the evidence against b.p.a. is mounting and especially its harmful effects on babies and children who are still developing. b.p.a. -- here's -- now here's the argument. here's what b.p.a. is. it's a synthetic estrogen. it is a hormone disrupter. it interferes with how the

hormones work in the body. and this chemical is used in thousands of consumer products. it's used to harden plastics, line tin cans, and even make c.d.'s. it's even used to coat airline tickets and grocery store receipts. it is one of the most per advicive chemicals in -- pervasive chemicals in modern life. as with so many other chemicals in consumer products, b.p.a. has been added to our products without knowing whether it is safe or not. alternatives exist because concern has been growing about the harmful impact. the chemical industry has tried to quiet criticism by reassuring consumers that b.p.a. is safe and that more research still needs to be done. well, mr. president, that argument simply doesn't hold

water. over 200 scientific studies show that exposure to b.p.a., particularly during prenatal development and early u earlly , are linked to a wide range of health effects later in life. and because of their smaller size and stage of development, babies and children are particularly at risk from these harmful impacts. now what do these include? increased risk of breast and prostate cancer, genital abnormalities in males, infertility in men, sexual dysfunction, early puberty in girls, metabolic disorders such as insulin-resistant type-2 diabetes and obesity, and behavioral problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity

disorder, adhd. industry continues to insist that b.p.a. is not harmful, but one study shows us why we should be skeptical about research coming from chemical companies. in 2006, the journal "environmental research" published an article comparing the results of government-funded studies on b.p.a. to b.p.a. studies funded by industry. the difference is stark. 92% of the government-funded studies found that exposure to b.p.a. caused health problems. overwhelmingly, government studies found harm. none of the industry studies identified health problems as a result of b.p.a. exposure. not one. that's 92% of the government studies and not one of the

industry studies. so i ask, how can this be? clearly, serious questions are raised about the validity of the chemical industry's studies. the results also illustrate why our nation's regulatory agencies should not and cannot solely -- or rely sol solely on chemical companies to conduct research into their own products. and consumers are worried about b.p.a. they are pushing in states for restrictions and bans. over 72 organizations -- over 75 organizations, as i've said, that represent 40 million americans, support getting b.p.a. out of food passaging for children -- packaging for children. support comes from national groups such as the blue-green alliance, consumer's union, breast cancer fund, national w.i.c., and united steelworkers

of america. state groups such as alaska community action on toxics, california environmental rights alliance, environment illinois, the tennessee environmental council, and the massachusetts breast cancer coalition back this amendment. the broad coalition of environmental and consumer advocates know b.p.a. is not good for our babies. i want to underscore the importance and the urgency of withdrawing b.p.a. from baby products. well who have known and respected organizations and federal agencies have expressed concern about b.p.a. the president's cancer annual report -- excuse me, the president's cancer panel annual report released in april of this year concluded that there is a growing -- there is growing

evidence of a link between b.p.a. and several diseases, such as cancer. the panel recommended using b.p.a.-free containers to limit chemical exposure. a 2008 study by the american medical association suggested links between exposure to b.p.a. and diabetes, heart disease, and liver problems in humans. the national health and nutrition examination survey linked b.p.a. in high concentrations to cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes. in addition to the over 200 scientific studies showing low-dose exposure to b.p.a. is linked to adverse health effects, there are a number of studies that link b.p.a. and other environmental toxins to early-on set puberty and other hormonal change.

this is serious. this emphasizes how detrimental this chemical can be during development. and i'd like to discuss three of these studies. the endocrine society comprised of over 14,000 members from more than 100 countries published a scientific statement in 2009 expressing concern for the adverse health impacts of endocrine-disrupting chemicals like b.p.a. and they listed adverse health impacts, infertility, high roid problems, obesity, and cancer. a study published in "environmental health perspectives," studied 715 men ages 20 to 74 years old and found that men who had high levels of b.p.a. in their bodies also had higher levels of tess

testosterone. this study demonstrates that higher b.p.a. levels in the body are associated with altered hormone levels. a study in the journal of "pediatrics" in september 2010 demonstrated that puberty in girls is occurring even earlier by ages 7 and 8. the researchers studied 1,239 girls in 2004 and 2008. so there was follow-up. in cincinnati, east harlem, and san francisco. they found that at age 8, 18% of kaw kay shan girls, 43% of african-american girls, and 31% of hispanic girls had signs of puberty.

that's at 8 years old. the researchers suspected that environmental chemicals like b.p.a. could influence the onset of puberty. now, early puberty can cause a host of problems later on in life. such as increased railt rates of breast cancer, lower self-esteem, eating disorders and certainly depression. given these conclusions, it is really critical that we act and protect just the most vulnerable: our infants and toddlers, from this chemical. how are they benefitting by having a baby bottle or a cup that they sip from that is coated with b.p.a.? how is that bottle any better? how is that cup any better? in fact, it isn't. and yet, the chemical council

puts their needs to sell these chemicals above all these 200 studies, all of the science that's emerging and won't even say just in case this is true, yes, i agree with you, we should protect our young and our youngest. and they won't do even that. there were other parts of our bill, it's the stuff coats tin cans. i no longer buy tin cans because of it. my family, i've asked them not to buy things in tin cans. buy them in glass. you don't have to worry about b.p.a. that lines the cans because is also a shelf extender, the life of the commodity inside the can is extended because the can itself is coated in b.p.a.

so this amendment doesn't do cans, it doesn't do containers. it just does baby bottles and sippy cups just for infants, just for toddlers. and the chemical council says no. and i guess the other side of the aisle bows. so i'm amazed. b.p.a. has been linked to developmental disorders, cancer, cardiovascular complications and diabetes by credible scientific bodies. the evidence that b.p.a. is unacceptably dangerous is mounting, yet it remains in thousands of household and food products. so in an effort to reach a bipartisan compromise -- which we did do last night -- the amendment wol only -- that i wanted, would only restrict the use of b.p.a. in baby bottles

and sippy cups because as the science shows, babies and young children are the most susceptible to the harmful effects of this toxic chemical. and this amendment would have ensured that all babies, in whatever state they happen to be or wherever they buy their baby bottles, are safe. and we can't even do this in a food safety bill. it would have ensured that parents no longer have to wonder whether or not the products they buy for their babies will harm them now or later in life. and i have on my blackberry a picture of a new grandchild born earlier today, a little boy by the name of benjamin. so even if you're a grandparent like me, this is so relevant. i mean, if we can't take care of our babies, what can we take

care of in this country? so, despite the loss of this amendment, the american people can still vote with their pocketbooks by refusing to buy products tainted with b.p.a. ask the question in your grocery store. go where they are not sold. buy the products that do not use b.p.a. so public knowledge and awareness is important. in 2008, as part of the consumer product safety improvement act, congress accepted my proposal to ban phalynx and president bush signed it. it is a plasticizing chemical and used in children's toys. it had been shown that phalynx like b.p.a. are linked to a

variety of health problems in young children. i was proud to lead that fight and protect children from these chemicals. and, ladies and gentlemen and members, i truly believe that the unrestricted use of chemicals in products, whether they be makeup for women, lotions that go on bodies coatings in cans, coverings of plastic, soft tphers and hardeners of chemicals that leak into food are a problem. and that when you do a food safety bill, you ought to consider some of this. not even this baby step to protect babies is going to be taken. so, i very much regret it, but the battle is joined. and once i start, i do not stop. so i thank the floor. we will fight another day. thank you, mr. president.

mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i ask that i be permitted to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: mr. president, i rise to talk about a very important health issue, sickle cell disease, that highlights the tremendous progress the scientific community has made over the years. this is a timely opportunity to bring up sickle cell disease because this month marks the 100th anniversary of its discovery. on november 16 and november 17, the national institutes of health will host a research symposium on sickle cell disease to commemorate the accomplishments of the scientists and clinicians over the past century. the symposium named after the scientist who discovered the gene, dr. james b. henrick will bring to maryland more than 30 experts from around the world to discuss sickle cell disease research and treatment. sickle cell disease is an

inherited blood disorder in which red blood cells contain an abnormal type of hemoglobin and frequently sick on a sickle or crescent shape. these defective blood cells can block small blood vessels which can in turn lead to tissue damage or stroke. a common complication of this condition is severe pain in the limbs, chest, abdomen and back. other complications are anemia, jaundice, severe infection and spleen, kidney and liver damage. life expectancy for sickle cell patients is shortened with studies reporting an average life expectancy of 42 years for male and 48 for female. sickle cell disease occurs commonly in people of african descent, although individuals of middle eastern, mediterranean, central and south american and asian american heritage can inherit the disease as well. about one in 12 african-americans carry the gene for sickle cell disease and one in 400 americans have had the

full-blown disease. it is estimated that over 80,000 americans have sickle cell disease, with about 2,000 babies born with the disease each year. sickle cell disease can result in tremendous personal difficulties. natasha thomas is a 36-year-old african-american woman from baltimore, maryland. she considers herself fortunate to have access to quality care. despite some setbacks, she was able to complete middle school, high school and college, and she has been working consistently for 15 years. she has had employers who allow her to take leave when she has sickle cell pain crisis. natasha admits that most of the people she knows with sickle cell disease are not as fortunate as she is. even though she has access to specialized care, natasha is hospitalized at least once a year with paralyzing pain. in the hospital, she has to undergo i.v. therapy with fluids and narcotic pain medicine. natasha is grateful for the maryland medical assistance program which provided her with the necessary resources to get

through difficult financial times when her conditions flare up. she admits if she didn't have coverage with specialized care, she would have had much more pain and needed to receive blood transfusions. sickle cell disease is not a new phenomenon. people have been living with the disease for thousands of years. but in the last century, there have been remarkable advancements in diagnosis and treatment of sickle cell disease. i'm proud to say that scientists from maryland have played an important role in advancing sickle cell disease research. dr. morton goldberg, former head of the wilmer eye institute in baltimore, is considered the world's foremost expert in diagnosis and treatment of eye disease due to sickle cell disease. dr. jim casilla and robert broski, both from johns hopkins, have made great strides in preventing stroke in young children and searching for cures through stem cell transplants respectfully. improvements in sickle cell

treatment have led to increased life expack tansy from 14 in 1975 -- expectancy. there were 240 ongoing or recently completed n.i.h.-funded trials giving better diagnosis or treatment of the disease. under the leadership of its director, the n.i.h. is poised to continue pushing the envelope for scientific innovations for find ago cure for sickle cell disease. despite all of these technology advances, sickle cell disease remains a significant problem. the annual cost of medicare for nearly 80,000 individuals with sickle cell disease in the united states exceeds $1.1 billion. the average cost of care per month per patient is nearly $2,000. studies show for an average patient with sickle cell disease reaching age 45, the total costs are estimated to reach $950,000. what's worrisome is that the additional costs associated with

reduced quality of life, uncompensated care, lost productivity and premature mortality pushes the cost well beyond $1 million per patient. the enormous cost of this underscores the importance of finding a safe cure for sickle cell disease. we're finding the research in this unconscious and conscious racial bias adversely affect the availability of resources for research, delivery of care and improvement of that care. i particularly am concerned because there is a significant gap in funding for more publicized but less prevalent diseases as compared to sickle cell disease. the gap in funding was first addressed in 1970 by dr. robert scott when he published the landmark articles in the "new england journal of medicine" and the "journal of the american medical association." dr. scott's articles spurred congressional hearings that led to the passage of the first major legislation concerning sickle cell disease treatment, the national sickle cell anemia

control act in 1972. since passage of that act, a number of research grants for sickle cell disease has risen by a factor of ten. despite increased research dollars for sickle cell disease, the major advances of treatment, important gaps still exist in the equity of federal fungal occasions and the provision of highly qualified clinical care. the disparity in funding sickle cell disease in the private sector is even more pronounced than it is in the federal government. besides our moral obligation to ensure that patients receive appropriate care, there is also an economic argument. research showing the high proportion of sickle cell disease costs associated with in-patient hospitalization suggest that interventions that reduce complications such as pain crisis could be cost saving. we have made significant progress towards broadening coverage for all americans, but in the united states department of health of human services must

ensure that the implementation of health policy as it pertains to sickle cell disease is done with emphasis on high-quality, equitable care. we need to make sure that the standard of care is available to all and that guide lines through the primary care centers caring for patients with sickle cell disease. with the recent codification of the office of minority health at the department of health and human services, we can assure that our investment is producing new knowledge in a balanced -- in a balanced but a similarly robust commitment to universal diffusion of this knowledge. this way, all patients will reap the full benefit of our investment in research. in addition to sickle cell disease, the office of minority health will help us address many other issues pertaining to health disparity. health disparities and health care delivery system are a huge issue. health disparities are differences in health along social, economic, racial or ethnic lines. many disparities exist in our country.

let's look at the disparity through the lens of life expectancy. the life expectancy for african-americans is 5.3 years lower than whites. education also affects life expectancy. individuals with college education can expect to live on average six years longer than people who have never graduated high school. and life expectancy of people over 400% of the federal poverty level is on average seven years longer than those at or below the federal poverty level. these differences are stark, and we need to have a strategy to deal with them. we need to know how we can reach out to the minority communities to deal with their special needs. in addition to codifying the office of minority health, the recently enacted health care reform bill supports a network of minority health offices located within h.h.s., and it elevated the national center of minority health and health disparities in new hampshire from a center to an institute. the office of minority health will be essential for addressing health disparities in america by monitoring health status, health

care trends and quality of care among minority patients and elevating the success of minority health programs and initiatives. over the next year, i plan to return to the senate floor to highlight how we as a nation and the office of minority health in particular can tackle health disparities. through a series of presentations, i hope to raise the awareness about the health disparity issues in our country, and i hope to direct our attention to the proper implementation of the affordable care act so that the full potential of this legislation can be realized. i am proud of the progress that we have made with the health care reform legislation. i'm proud of the creation of the office of minority health. on this 100th anniversary of the discovery of sickle cell disease, i commend the scientific and medical communities for their contributions to diagnostic and treatment of this important condition. with that, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that my entire statement will appear in the record along with three charts that are attached. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. cardin: and i would suggest the -- i would yield -- i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk shall call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: are we presently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: yes, we are. mr. whitehouse: may i ask that the quorum call be lifted? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: may i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business for perhaps 15 minutes? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you. mr. president, i come to the floor today to speak about the

legislation that will be required in order to bolster our nation's cyber defenses and to protect our nation's intellectual property from piracy and from theft. in the course of my work on the intelligence and judiciary committees, it has become all too clear that our laws have not kept pace with the amazing technological developments that we've seen in information technologies over the past 15 or 20 years. earlier this year i had the privilege of chairing the intelligence committee's bipartisan cyber task force along with my distinguished colleague, senator snowe and senator mikulski, who made vital contributions and were great teammates in that effort. we spent six months conducting a thorough review of the threat and the posture of the united states for countering it. based on that review and my work

on the senate judiciary committee, i've identified six areas in which there are overarching problems with the current statutory framework for protecting our country. the first is a really basic one, and that is the current law does not adequately facilitate or encourage public awareness about cyber threats. the government keeps the damage that we are sustaining from cyber attacks secret because it's classified. the private sector keeps the damage that they're sustaining from cyber attacks secret so as not to look bad to customers, to regulators, and to investors. and the net result of that is that the american public gets left in the dark. we do not even have a good public understanding of how

extensive and sophisticated these cyber forces arrayed against america are. between the efforts of the foreign governments and international organized crime, we are a long, long way from the problem of hackers in the basement. it is a big operation that has been mounted against us. and i'd like to be able to describe it more fully, but it is both unhelpfully and unnecessarily classified. and so, i can't even talk about that. but, americans are sadly uninformed about the extent of the risk and the extent of the capacity that is being used against us. if americans understood the threat and the vital role that they themselves can play in protecting themselves and the country, i think we'd all be more likely to engage in the

cyber equivalent of routine maintenance. people would understand and they would support legislative changes which we need to protect our intellectual property and our national infrastructure. one of the principal findings of our cyber task force was that most cyber threats, literally the vast majority of cyber threats can be countered readily if americans simply allowed automatic updates to their computer software, ran up-to-date antivirus programs and exercised reasonable vigilance when surfing the web and opening e-mails. we need far more reporting from the government and the private sector to let americans know what is really happening out there on the wild, wild web. disclosures can be anonymized where necessary to protect

national security or protect national business interests, but basic facts, putting americans on notice of the extent of the present danger and harm need to be disclosed. second, we need beyond just public information to create a structure of rights and responsibilities for the public, consumers, technology companies, software manufacturers and internet service providers are all able to take appropriate roles for us to maintain those basic levels of cyber security. the notion that the internet is an open highway with toll takers who have no responsibility for what comes down the highway, no responsibility no matter how menacing, no responsibility no matter how piratical, no responsibility no matter how dangerous can no longer be valid. we protect each other on our

physical highways with basic rules of the road. we need a similar code for the information highway. australia's i.s.p.'s have negotiate add cyber security code of conduct, and i.s.p. tphofs compliance with the code -- in compliance with the code can display a trust mark. that is one way of skphroerbgs but one way -- exploring, but one way or another there needs to be a code of conduct for safe travel on the information highway as there is on our geographic highways. third, we need to better empower our private sector to defend itself. when an industry comes together against cyber attackers to circle the wagons, to share information and to engage in a common defense against those cyber attackers, we should help and not hinder that private-sector effort. legal barriers to broader information sharing among private-sector entities and

between the private sector and government must be lowered. i believe that we can encourage cyber security in this way, common defense within the private sector, without undermining other areas of public policy. but it's not going to be a simple task, and we'll have to work our way through it because those other areas of public policy are serious areas. antitrust protection, the safeguarding of intellectual property, protecting legal privileges, liability concerns, and even national security concerns in those areas where the government may be asked to share classified information. bear in mind that there are three levels of threat. as i've said, the vast majority of our cyber vulnerabilities can be cured by simple patches and off the shelf technology. that's the lowest level. follow simple basic procedures and we can rid ourselves of most of the attacking.

the next is a more sophisticated set of threats that requires really the best efforts of the private sector to defend against. those private-sector efforts are becoming increasingly sophisticated and capable. and as to those types of attacks, the private sector can handle them alone, and particularly so if we have empowered praoeuflt sector's -- private sectors industry by industry to engage in more common defense and information sharing. the most sophisticated threats and attacks, however, will require action by our government. the notion that we can leave our nation's cyber defense entirely to the private sector is no longer valid. this brings us to a fourth question, the increasingly important issue of cyber 9/11. when the c.i.o. of a local bank

or electric utility is overwhelmed by a cyberattack, who do you call? and under what terms does the government respond? right now the answers to those questions are dangerously vague. the electronic communications privacy act, or ecpa, is a vitally important statute. in 1986, 25 years arcs chairman patrick leahy worked hard to establish statutory privacy protections in a domain where constitutional privacy protections were weak. it is an enduring legislative accomplishment and we must preserve its core principles. since ecpa was enacted, however, the threat has dramatically changed. imagine how technology has changed in 25 years. it is no longer true that private firms are capable of defending their networks from

sophisticated thieves and spies on their own. as we found in the cyber task force, there is now a subset of threats that cannot be countered without bringing to bear the united states government's unique authorities and capabilities. there always need to be strong privacy protections for americans against government. but we do let firemen into our house when it is on fire and the police can come into our house when there is a burglary. and a similar principle should apply to criminals and cyber attacks when private capabilities are overwhelmed. there is one more step and here's where it gets a little bit more tricky. you call 911 and the police or ambulance rushes right over. but in cyber security, by the time you call cyber 911, it may be too late. attacks in cyberspace happen in

light speed as fast as electrons flow. not all the risks and harms that imperil americans can be averted by action after the fact. some attacks are actually already there in our networks lying in wait for the signal to activate. we, as a country, are naked and vulnerable to some forms of attack if we have not predeployed our defenses. and because the viruses and cyberattacks nodes can travel in the text portion of messages, we have to sort out a difficult question: whether and if so how and when the government can scan for dangerous viruses and attack signals. in medieval times communities

protected their core infrastructure from raiders by locating the well, the grainery, the treasury inside castle walls. not everything needs the same level of protection in cyberspace, but we need to sort out what does need that kind of protection, what the castle walls should look like, who gets allowed to reside inside the walls and what are the rules? that leads to the question of a dot-secure domain. i mentioned this before, but i'd like to highlight it as an option for improving cybersecurity of critical infrastructure of our country. recently general alexander, director of the n.s.a. and commander of u.s. cybercom

echoed this. a former director of national intelligence is also an advocate of such a domain for critical i ask unanimous consent. -- infrastructure. this doesn't have to be complicated or mandatory. the most important part of a.-com domain, you could satisfy consent under the fourth amendment search requirements for the government's defenses to do their work within that domain. their work of screening for attack signals, bot-nets and viruses. critical infrastructure sites could bid for permission to protect themselves within th the dot-secured domain and be allowed in if it could be shown that the lives and safety of americans would be protected by allowing them entry. core elements of our electric

grid, of our financial transportation and communication infrastructure would be obvious candidates. but we simply cannot leave that core infrastructure on which the life and death of americans depends without better security. fifth, we must significantly strengthen law enforcement against cybercrooks, there is no better determent of cyber crime than a long stretch in prison. we need to put more cybercrooks behind bars. it is not for want of ingenuity that there aren't more cybercrooks behind bars. during my work on the cybertask force i received a number of briefs and intelligence reports on cybercrime. the f.b.i. and department of justice have real success stories untheir belt such as the -- under their belt. our agencies are beginning to work together better and better

over the lines of turf division that separate them. the problem is that the criminals are also ingenious and they are greedy and they are successful and they are astoundingly well funded. again, we're not talking about hackers in the basement. we are talking about substantial criminal enterprise with enormous sums of money at their disposal and at stake. many enterprises appear to work hand in hand with foreign governments, which puts even greater assets for attack at their disposal. the architecture of the internet favors offense over defense. technologically it is easier for a savvy criminal to attack a network and to hide their trail than it is for a savvy defender to block an attack and trace it back to the criminal. we are not playing on a level

playing field against cybercriminals. that is a problem not easily overcome. what we can overcome, however are the gaps, the weaknesses, the outdated strategies and inadequate resources in our legal and investigative processes. one example, the most dangerous cyber criminals are usually located overseas. to identify, investigate and ultimately prosecute those criminals under traditional law enforcement authorities, we have to rely on complex international processes and treaties. established decades ago that are far too slow for the modern cybercrime environment. we need to resource and focus criminal investigation and prosecution at a level commensurate with the fact -- the fact that we are now -- america is now on the losing end of what is probably the biggest transfer of wealth through theft

and piracy in human history. i'll say that again. we are at the losing end of what is probably the biggest transfer of wealth through theft and piracy in human history. i'm pleased that in fy 2010, the f.b.i. received an additional 260 cybersecurity analysis and investigative positions. d.o.j.'s computer crime and intellectual property section has not received new resources in five years. with the f.b.i. poised to ramp up the investigatory actions, i'm concerned the d.o.j. may need resources to keep up. six, we need clear rules of engagement for our government to deal with foreign threats. that is, unfortunately, a discussion for another day since so much of this area is now deeply classified, but here is

one example. can we adapt traditional doctrines of deterrents to cyber attacks when we may not know for sure which country or nonstate actor carried out the attack. if you can't attribute, how can you deter? and with respect to any policy of deterrence, how can it stand on rules of engagement that the attacker does not know of? so not only do we need to establish clear rules of engagement, we need to establish and disclose clear rules of engagement if any policy of deterrence is to be effective in cyberspace. timely, as we go about the six tasks, the -- finally, as we go about the six tasks, the government must be as transparent as possible with the

american people. i doubt that the obama administration would violate civil liberties. but on principle, i firmly and strongly believe that maximum transparency to the public and rigorous congressional oversight are essential. we have to go about this right. i look forward to working with my senate colleagues and with the administration as the congress moves towards comprehensive cyber security legislation to protect our country before a great cyber attack should befall us. let me close my remarks by saying this, the most somber question we need to face is resilience. first, resilience of governance, how do we maintain command and control, run 911, operate fema,

deploy local police and fire services, and activate and direct the national guard if all of our systems are down? second, resilience of society. how do we make sure that people have confidence during a prolonged attack that food, water, warmth, and shelter will remain available? because the internet supports so many interdependent systems, a massive or prolonged attack could cascade across sectors compromising or take over our communication systems, our financial systems, our utility grid, and the transportation and delivery of the basic necessities of american life. and, third, our american resilience as individuals. think about it.

your power is out and has been for a week. your phone is silent. your laptop is dark. you have no access to your bank account. no store is accepting credit cards. indeed, the corner store has closed its doors and the owner is sitting inside with a shotgun to protect against looters. gasoline supply is rationed with national guard soldiers keeping order at the pumps. your children are cold and hungry and scared. how then do you behave? i leave this last question, our resilience as a government, as a society, and as individuals to another day, but i mention it to highlight the potentially

catastrophic nature of a concerted and prolonged cyber attack. again, such an attack could cascade across multiple sectors and could interrupt all of the different necessity that's we rely on. -- necessities that we rely on. when your power's down, it's an inconvenience, but you can usually call somebody on the phone. now your phone is out, so you can go to the lap top and try to e-mail somebody, but there's no signal on your laptop any longer. you need cash, you go to the a.t.m., it is down. the bank isn't open because a run would take place against its cash assets given the fact that it can no longer reliably, electronically let its customers know what their bank account balances are.

we are up against a very significant threat here and i hope that some of the guide posts that i've laid out will be helpful in designing the necessary legislation that we need to put in place to empower our country, to successfully defend against these sorts of attacks. i thank the presiding officer and i yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

mr. whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent the pending quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 366, s. 1421. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 1421, to amend section 42 of title 18, united states code, to prohibit the importation and shipment of certain species of carp. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table with no intervening act or debate and the bill be placed in the appropriate place in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of senate resolution 681 submitted

earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 681, designating the week of november 15-19, 2010, as global entrepreneurship week, u.s.a. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, that the preamble be agreed to, that the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and any statements related to the resolutions be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. on thursday, november 18. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. that following any leader remarks, there be a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees with the republicans

controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. following morning business, the senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s. 510, the f.d.a. food safety modernization act postcloture, and the senate recess from 12:30 until 3:00 p.m., with the time during any recess adjournment or period of morning business counting postcloture. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, the postcloture debate time on the motion to proceed to the food safety bill will expire late tomorrow afternoon. in the meantime, we will continue to work on an agreement to consider amendments to the bill. we would like to reach an agreement so that we can complete action on this important legislation this week. if there is no further -- and i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the

senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, may i request that the pending quorum call be vitiated? the presiding officer: without objection. the senate will receive a message from the house of representatives. >> mr. president, a message from the house of representatives. the clerk: mr. president? the presiding officer: madam clerk. the clerk: i have been directed by the house of representatives to inform the senate the house has passed a concurrent resolution providing for a conditional adjournment of the house of representatives and a conditional recess or adjournment of the senate in which the concurrence of the senate is requested. the presiding officer: the message will be received.

the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i understand that there are two bills at the desk, and i ask for their first reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: a bill to authorize a cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain alien students who are long-term united states residents and who entered the united states as children, and for other purposes. s. 3963, a bill to authorize the cancellation of removal and adjustment of status of certain alien students who are long-term united states residents and who entered the united states as children, and for other purposes. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, i now ask for a second reading en bloc and i object to my own request en bloc. the presiding officer: an

objection is heard. the bills will be head for the second time on the next legislative day. mr. whitehouse: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the the presiding officer: the

former republican senate budget committee chairman pete domenici and former democratic white house and congressional budget office director alice rivlin unveiled their plan today for reducing the national debt nearly $5.9 trillion from 21,232,020. the newseum in washington hostess 55 minute event. >> good morning. on behalf of my friends and fellow cofounders of the bipartisan policy center,

senator bob dole and senator howard aker, i would like to thank you for joining us. unfortunately they could not be here but i know how pleased they are with the work of this task force and our gathering this morning. if we can learn anything from the results of the elections earlier this month, it is that the american people are anxious and frustrated with the state of the economy and with our mounting public debt. our economy and our future as a strong prosperous nation are threatened by the prospect of soaring deficits and debt in the coming years. the debt and deficits that will be driven by the aging of the population, the continuing growth in health care costs in the reluctance of policy make is to reduce spending or raise revenues to cover the costs of public programs. we are running the risk of a dead growing far larger than the economy itself, forcing the nation to borrow huge sums of

money. this will increase our dependence on foreign leaders and lenders and starved vital social and defense programs, raise the roots of economic crisis and weaken our economy and our nation in the long run. we cannot leave this legacy for future generations. that we all know that we have talked about this problem for long enough. now is the time for action, and that his wife we are here today. after months of meetings and negotiations, the bipartisan policy center's debt reduction task force today is releasing its landmark report, restoring america's future, to chart a new course to rebuild our economy, to reduce and stabilize our dad and to retake control of our destiny. the task force a bipartisan group of former white house and cabinet officials former senate and house members, former

governors and mayors and business and labor leaders forged this plan by working together. they place all options on the table from steep spending cuts to significant new tax increases and develop a consensus plan that they can now support. of course the choices they made were not easy. and the choices of the president, the congress and the american people will have to make is not easy either. reducing the nation's debt and restoring our future will require sacrifices on everyone's part. but it can be done. as the task force has demonstrated by its work. this plan would not be possible without the leadership of the task force is to co-chairs, senator pete domenici and dr. alice rivlin both of whom i am honored to call my friends. it is in my good fortune to work with alice, both alice in several capacities and of course peter of course peter is a

colleague and one of the foremost fiscal experts in the senate. remember it was president clinton when the alice as his budget director who worked tirelessly for months with pete and other republicans and democrats to balance the budget for the first time in nearly 30 years and to start us on a path of straight budget surpluses that began in 1998. i can think of no two individuals better suited to try this debate forward in the months ahead. with that, i will now turn it over to pete. >> well, first let me thank you and thank the center for sponsoring this effort. we are here because the bipartisan policy center talk -- thought this was a big enough problem to take on support and i want to thank jason, jason -- areas. he is present and once this got

going they did not spare any effort to get it done. and here it is today. it is before the american people. first i want to again thank all of you for being here this morning and i think that we have something very important to present to you and the american people. the american people and america faces a quiet killer, a quiet killer that is eating away at the foundations of america. let me repeat. we confront a quiet killer that is eating away at the foundations of america, and that is the growing deficits and the debt that comes with multiple years of deficits. as admiral mike mullen said earlier this year, and i want everybody to understand that we operated on this basis, that our national debt is the most serious threat to america's national security, so for those who ask, must the military

sacrifice also? the answer is everybody must sacrifice and every part of government must share in this sacrifice so that this quiet killer will not by us alive before we can have a chance to fix what is our doings, our task force recognized to twin problems. one was the lingering high joblessness and the poor economic growth that comes with it and at the same time, the highest debt this nation has ever run, two realities into responses. so the task force has been the prudent and powerful thing in responding to these two realities. first, we recommend, and they want everybody to understand that this has not been recommended publicly as part of the solution to this recession problem, but we did it because

we solve the problem of how to make sure we didn't exacerbate the debt. we proposed a one-year tax holiday on the social security payments due from over 140 million american workers, men and women and their employers. they will keep 6.2% of the payroll each and every payroll check that is issued for one year. and if you are ingested, that means that our people will have $650 billion to spend or save in that year. now, we did that because, as the second part of one package, we put together -- we put together a package of debt reduction programs which alice will go over with you and the tax changes in tax increases, the sum total of which permits us to say the economy can begin to grow and at the same time, a

bill will have been passed that will curtail the expenditures of our country, reform the tax code which will be explained to you by one of our most ardent supporters of the tax reform, frank keating. he will follow wants them to do that. i want everybody to understand that this is a total plan. it does the job. if this were adopted, turn to legislation adopted, the silent killer that is they are harboring, waiting, eating away at america's well, we are getting poorer day by day, what will happen is that killer will go and in its place will come growth and prosperity and for the next two or three decades the debt will be under control. i think that is a tremendous achievement and i am so pleased that this bipartisan group of men and women from all walks of life with big experiences of their own and business and for government decided it was big

enough for them to come to meetings from far away, and to work many, many days and many evenings to put this package together. and in the end, some disagreed with parts of it that nobody chose to say as a totality, as a whole proposal, nobody chose to say they voted no. i think that is a testimonial to the moderation and moderate nature of this package. it is not extreme, but i want to close by saying it will not be done if there are not sufficient leaders in america to pursue it. our members are leaders. they will pursue it, but we need you on that, we need the president of the united states to lead with reference to this plan and he could look at it with his experts and see if he would choose to be a leader openly and publicly in getting this job done. in closing i want to say,

although my cochairmen alice, dr. alice rivlin and i, have had issues and problems of a serious nature as we did our job during our lives, but nothing, nothing that we have ever done comes close to the tsunami that is part of the economic problem we have. it is an economic disaster awaiting someday, sometime in the not so distant future. it must be fixed or we are leading america go to seat. we won't be a leader any longer if we don't fix this and i only pray that the people will respond without having to see the results of the debt. if they want to wait around and see us fail, see our money be botched it all the things that can happen, if they want to wait that long, then this won't work. if they want to accept the responsibility of the problem which is an american problem, does not democrat or republican,

the debt belongs to everybody now. it is our destiny to fix it. with that, i'm pleased to announce that we are going to next to go, although dr. rivlin is going to explain the whole thing, we have one of our members who is on a very tight schedule and we want him to speak, so if you will, appear. i want to introduce to you -- this is the former governor of the state of oklahoma and he now works with the life insurance people of america and the world. thank you, frank. i want to say not only thanks for today but thankless for your great input and those that joined you in reforming the tax code of america and i hope you tell them how it is going to work. thank you all. [applause] >> as senator domenici said this is a consensus document but that does not mean all of us agree with every bit. for me, concerned as a citizen about the long-term retirement

insolvency, the fragility of our savings, i had different views about how all of the should be put together but they are two statistics that frighten me. it should right now of us as americans. first by the year 2020 a trillion dollars a year of tax revenues will have to be used for the purpose of paying on the debt. secondly by 2025 all of the revenues coming into uncle sam will go solely for medicare medicaid, social security and interest on the debt. everything else family cannot be funded mostly must we do something very dramatic. for me as a conservative what is dramatic in terms of encouraging growth and opportunity? that is fundamental reform of the tax code and what we propose here is to reduce the tax rates, not only corporate that individual tax rates, from what will be 39.6% arguably in january 227%. 15% and 27% will be the two tax rates so the corporate rate will

go from 35 to 27. that should stimulate overseas investment in sales, the individual rate from 39.6 to the high-end of 27 which should stimulate individual decisions that have nothing to do with the tax code and everything to do with what we as individual family members and business owners think are best for our families and businesses. this is significant. we are amending their proposed amended code keeping mortgage interest abduction and charitable contributions as a tax credit eliminating other exceptions than benefits, deductions and the like so we can have two simple rates. people can make decisions for what is does for them and not what is best because of the tax code. in order to reduce the spending and the debt and give the budget effectively in balance except for interest by 2012, and to dramatically reduce the debt to 60% of gdp and hopefully lower it, we propose a national sales tax, a debt reduction sales tax

of 6.5% for that purpose. alice and others of my colleagues will talk about this but i think for growth and opportunity purposes and to get rid of the debt and deficits, to avoid the long-term fiscal insanity of spending more than you have kern, spending more than comes in, these are the right things to do and for me as a conservative i didn't win every battle but for me as a conservative much of this is excellent public policy. [applause] >> before we go into more details of the plan, and we wanted to introduce the members of this great group here, and some of them are here. for which we are very grateful

and some of them came from a great distance. some couldn't be here, but we appreciate their input as well. so, we have governor jim blanchard from the great state of michigan and also a former ambassador, who has been very helpful on this. we have sheila burke, professor and longtime senate staffer who has made a major contribution. we have bob kamel from deloitte and touche, a longtime -- lots of business experience that he brought to the table. we have henry cisneros, my former colleague in the clinton administration, also a former mayor of san antonio and very

distinguished contributor. we have carlos gutierrez, also a former cabinet member in a different administration, but ran the congress department and has come from a long distance just to be here this morning, and we have really appreciate that. we have bill hoagland. bill has the distinction of having worked both for me and pete domenici, longer for pete, at the senate budget committee and the senate energy committee, now with cigna insurance, but is made a great contribution. frank keating you have party met karen kerrigan, who runs a small business organization and has had major input from the small business site and other sites to

this report. joe met eric. joe was the committee for economic development but also worked in the government and on the hill in the administration on the hill and is an excellent economist. and, we have bill novelli, bill right here, a former head of aarp. now a professor. he is going to talk a little bit about our social security provisions in a minute. let me mention the people who are not here today, whose contributions have been also major. bob bixby of the concorde coalition, len burman of syracuse university and the tax policy center, maya macguineas

of the committee for responsible federal budget, and that is what we think this is, donald merron, who has worked a long time and budgets and worked in the government and is now a consultant. edward mcelroy, who has been a longtime member, or leader, of the teachers unions and had major input to this report. mark mauriello, -- we have to mayors actually, a former mayor. mark is one of them, former mayor of new orleans and tony williams, former mayor of this very city and a former colleague of mine. >> let me just say for everybody will know, alice, dr. rivlin and

i last night when they met together to conclude our work, she made a statement that this was the most important activity that she had taken in her long career. she said a different but i think that is what she said. i want to say the same and it could not have been so without the kind of people that it is introduced. they understood that everything was on the table and they also understood that the future of their country was on the table. each one of them, as you can tell, had a lot to do. they wanted to make sure that we provided something very positive that we can grow and at the same time get our debt under control and i want to say to them, it was a pleasure working with you and to see you react the way you did when we needed the votes and you come to consensus is really something that says to america, this can be solved by bipartisan

input. if leaders want to and they decide, it is better to save the country and to save their political future. they want to make that decision it will be sold. thank you ellis. i hope you will explain our plan to everyone. thank you. >> i'm going to briefly explain what is in the plan, and then we want to take your questions. so you can see a short lady over the podium. i have never fallen off one of these yet. [laughter] >> don't fall off it. >> as senator domenici said, in introducing this plan, we were really concerned about two challenges, accelerating the recovery, which is an absolute necessity if we are going to have a prosperous country in the

future and restraining the explosion of debt, avoiding a debt crisis that could throw us into a much worse recession than the one we are slowly climbing out of now. so, we propose a package to attack these twin challenges. the first is a payroll tax holiday for one year, both sides of the payroll tax employer and employee, which pete has spoken about. we think that would have an immediate impact. it would put money in the paychecks of all wage earners in america, and it would be a significant boost to the economy. we also believe that our deficit reduction plan should be phased in slowly, and we have done that so that it doesn't derail the recovery. we are proposing a very drastic

tax reform, which frank keating has talked to you about. i am very proud of this. i think it is a very interesting programs -- progress piece of legislation as it became legislation and it would give us a slightly more progressive tax system all together than we have now and definitely simpler and more progrowth. the progressivity comes from what we have done with the income tax, namely getting rid of almost all the deductions and exclusions, specially the exclusion of employer paid health benefits, but retaining the ones we thought that were really important in a much better form, converting the

mortgage interest and affection to a credit, similar action on the charitable deduction, and improving the current income tax credit with a wage credit and also a child credit. we do have a broad-based consumption tax as frank keating has said, at 6.5 rate, which we think is a moderate rate, and we think the package as a whole has to be seen as a whole, would he progrowth, pro-savings and investment and somewhat less pro-consumption. then, on the spending side, we have held discretionary spending for four years at a dollar

freeze. that means no more money. the priorities of the country and they are very important priorities government must meet with appropriated spending have to be fit under a hard cap, and that means we are going to have to do less with some of the things that are duplicative or out loaded ord no longer of highest priority. similarly on the defense side, a hard freeze for five years, and we believe that we can have a more efficient and more effective military if we force the pentagon to look at its priorities, as secretary gates has been doing, and to rethink exactly what america is doing in the world. on the health care side, and this is the most important part

of the budget for the long run. we have two parts to our recommendation. in the shorter run, meaning between now and 2018, we reinforced the cost reductions that are in the recently passed health reform. we would raise the part b. premium on medicare so it covers more of the cost of that program we would recommend tort reform which was not recommended in health reform, which we think can help avoid defensive medicine. but our biggest proposal is to transition medicare to a premium support program, beginning in 2018. and that we see as a way of

controlling the rising cost of health care and medicare in particular, and we would control it at no greater than the growth of the economy plus 1%. health care has growing faster than that. we think between now and 2018 that we can figure out ways that it can grow at a more moderate rate, and the way we propose to do that is to give medicare recipients a choice. they could stay in traditional medicare, but if the cost of traditional medicare went up faster than the growth of the economy plus 1%, they would have to pay for the privilege of being in the traditional program the other option would be to go to a medicare exchange and

choose among health plans, managed care plans, that would compete on the exchange. we believe that this competition would likely reduce the growth of cost and improve the quality. it would depend on the exchange being well-organized and putting out a lot of information about the cost and the outcome of alternative plans. we have other reforms in the package, civilian and military retirement, agricultural benefits and finally, social security. i am going to turn to bill novelli to talk about the social security plan, but before he does let me say one other thing. we do have process reform in the report as well to enforce all of

this, and we think those are extremely important. let me turn to build so he can talk about social security. >> before you speak if i could just make one comment. i would like to make sure that everybody understands, when we say to the american people we want our country to grow and they want people to be put back to work, we have reduced the taxes from all the working people and their employers up to one year by putting into effect this holiday. at the same time, we expect a package, including that would include a reduction in the debt that are provided in this plan. you can't do one without the other. you can't choose the tax cut and not do the other because you will just exacerbate the debt. so when you take your package, including the new tax that we

will put in the sales tax for debt or process, you put the two together and you have a dramatic reduction in the debt that hounds the american people in the meantime they would have received this tax holiday, which we think is one thing that is going to make economy take notice and move. so the two go together as alice has told us many times, not one but both together. the restraint and reform and a new tax to go along with it so that you get both growth and debt reduction. that is the twin. thank you for letting me impose on your time. >> good morning everyone. i'm bill novelli and as you know, i have worked on issues

regarding older americans and their families for many years. and i am committed to addressing our fiscal crisis and ways that also achieves adequate retirement security for today's and tomorrow's older generations. and that is what our plan will do. the plan we are putting forward today will strengthen social security so that they can pay benefits in a fair and equitable way for the next 75 years and beyond. and it will do so while protecting america's most vulnerable seniors. now here is what the plan would do. it gradually raises the amount of wages subject to payroll taxes, which is now at $106,800. that is the top. over the next 38 years, to reach the 1983 targeted at covering 90% of all wages. next, our plan changes the

calculation of annual cost-of-living adjustments or call's, for social security benefits so that it more accurately reflects inflation. now that is a technical change that would be applied to all programs with colas, including the indexing of the tax brackets. our plan also slightly reduces the growth in benefits for approximately the top 25% of beneficiaries as compared to current law. they plan raises the minimum benefit for long-term, low wage earners and it protects the most vulnerable seniors with a modest benefit increase and also beginning in 20203, it indexes the benefit formula to take into account increases in life expectancy. we have to take into account longevity. and it requires the social security administration to ensure that early retirees

understand that they are choosing to receive a lower monthly benefit when they do retire early. now these changes are designed to increase the incentive to work longer while not raising the full retirement or the early retirement age. and finally, the plan makes social security universal. it makes it a universal system by covering newly-hired state and local government workers beginning in 2020. so in summary, this plan make social security solvent and it makes it a system that our children and our grandchildren can depend on while helping to strengthen our nation's overall economic health and security. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, bill. >> thanks a lot though, now we are pleased to entertain questions, both of us and we

have commissioners and also experts. our staff is led by chuck, sitting in the front row and we have a really technical question that we are going to to chuck. >> any questions? does the media have any questions? can you identify yourself, please? >> scott for npr. can you talk about your goal in the tax overhaul portion? were you aiming for revenue neutral, revenue process and then obviously growth as well? >> we were aiming for revenue positives and we do achieve that and the combination of the reform of those income taxes and a consumption tax. you need a number? chuck will find this a number.

>> we to restrain the programs of government by more than the revenues and posed. in other words it is more than 50/50. there are more on the cut side sides in the tax increase i'd. >> much of the revenue increase comes not only from the consumption tax but also from eliminating or changing the form of the tax expenditures under both income taxes. >> while we are waiting for this, i want to say i recall mr. secretary, secretary gutierrez, the head of the corporation before he came here, he flew in from where he attended the dedication of the george bush institute and he called me and said i have to go there but i will fly back to be present. that is the way these people have helped us all along. making sacrifices. the reason i bring it up is because there is no way for this plan to get implemented unless

everybody agrees that they will sacrifice, much as we did to win the second world war and everybody got involved. this is going to be something like that, a big tough for. >> we have another question over here. >> colin clarke with -- does your proposed freeze nondefense spending include a freeze on operational costs? >> it does not include the operational costs, the war costs. those are outside. we expect those to come down. >> is that what you mean by the word operational? is that what you mean? we take that out and assume it is not going to be what it is now, so we will have to take a good look. yes, maam. >> lori montgomery with the "washington post." the criticism that you hear about these plans from your party, senator domenici, is we can't let taxes go up this much

without cutting spending more so my question is, why didn't you cut spending more? >> well, we cut spending a lot and what we want is we want something that can be voted for by not just the democrats but republicans also and if we cut more, then obviously we have something that a lot of people can't support. i personally think it cuts discretionary more than the two phrases that we had would do a very big injustice, to put programs that are necessary, and they want to remind by people that are worried about that, that in all events as you look at this plan, that cuts in programs exceed the revenues that come in all the way up and down and that is a pretty good test. we started thinking we could do two-thirds to cuts in programs and one third revenues but you should see what the cuts look like when you do that. nobody would be for it so we we

had moderated and come up with a moderate document to get what we need. but it will solve the problem of the debt. we want to be waiting for moody to write down our promissory notes. that won't happen if we do this plan and we can grow again and prosper. >> let a come back to the number question. it depends which period you are looking at. in the period from 2012 to 2020, the total of revenue increases would he $2,000,000,000,000.188 billion. and the spending policy cuts would be slightly more than that, 2,000,000,000,733. if you go out further, the ratios shift and if you look at

a longer period like 2012 to 2040, we have more spending cuts than revenue increases. these numbers are in your packets, and they exclude the debt savings which are of course huge. >> sheila you might hold that up. you see there is a simple graph in there that shows what comes in and what goes out, expenditures and revenues. you can see, and those are on the table and you can get one that explains it better than we can. >> a question over here in the back. >> john with bna. can you go through a little bit how the trust funds would be held harmless even with a payroll tax holiday, how that would work? >> , simply the trust fund would be reimbursed for the lost revenues from general revenues over a ten-year period.

>> so, you could not do what we choose to recommend if you did not have something like our tax package, because we have an adequate tax receipt coming in to repay the trust fund for what came out in that year that be gave -- holiday. i have certain -- trouble with certain words and holiday somehow sticks in my brain. >> is never had a holiday so he doesn't know. >> such a wonderful word. i have to forget something else. so anyway that is the answer. anybody else? >> to questions. your two biggest savings in health care is that taxing employee health benefits and the medicare support. can you talk about what is the political feasibility particularly with bill novelli

sitting up there from aarp, what is the likelihood, what is the message and how do you get this through? >> well i'm glad you brought that up because part of the tax reform, but we also regarded as part of the health reform, it is our gradually phasing out and eliminating the exclusion of employer paid benefits from income under the income tax. and that has been controversial, but certainly economists and political folks of the right and left think this is the right thing to do as long as you don't do it too fast. the idea was recognized in health reform in the form of the cadillac tax. we regard this as a better version, a substitute for the cadillac tax. from the point of view of health

reform, it is to discourage people from having overly generous health plans that don't have car sharing and encourage overuse of medical system. economists including this one think that the effect of that would be to increase wages over time at the expense of benefits. you have a larger component of your compensation in wages. and that gives you more revenue. if that is true, and i think it is, that gives you more revenue in the social security system and in the regular tax system. >> with regard to comment about aarp and political feasibility, couple of quick things. number one, i am speaking as a member of this task force and as

a citizen. number two, i look forward to sitting down with aarp and my colleagues here and going over every one one of these in detai, every one of these items in detail and number three my experience with aarp over the years is that older people really understand the importance of their children and their grandchildren having a secure future. the way i see this, think there's a lot of political feasibility if we can engage the public, but can help them to understand that senator domenici said, how really extremist problem is. and i think we can do that. >> let me come back to the second part of your question though. i didn't say anything about converting medicare to premium support. we believe that is feasible and that it is a way of controlling the growth of cost, both because the competition on a medicare exchange would give us more

efficient medical care and because the government could control the rate of increase of the subsidies over the total program including those who didn't want to go to the exchange and wanted to stay in traditional medicare, would grow no faster. >> i would like to make a point and hopefully we will decide how many more questions in terms of time but i want to make a point that i fail to do in my opening remarks. i am asked and alice's ask and i'm sure the members of our task force is asked, can this really be done? my answer is twofold, twofold. this is a package and we can't cherry-pick and pick one piece and not another. you will end up doing one of two things. you will either create a debt that we can afford or you will leave unanswered questions after you finish your work bertko so,

we must do the whole package. i would say there is something brewing over and the government of the united states called the bill to extend the debt, the debt limit, and the debt limit cries out and the last election seems to indicate that the american people would cry out through it. it says if you want to increase the debt limit, why don't you fix the debt? so i would submit that is an opportunity to take a package like our package and submit it and i would submit to the president of the united states if he doesn't get a good package out of his people that are recommended and i'm not sure how that is going to go, he ought to be the leader anyway. we won the war because our president became the leader of the second world war of the troops and we need only one leader and we need him to get engaged in this. so what will happen is we have

to put this package together. the taxes, the reductions in expenditures, the other parts that are so exciting and say to our president and the american people, if you want to reduce that debt so you can vote for the extension of the debt limit, then let's be serious about a bill like this. >> you have had one. >> john with agropaul. senator you talk about this being a moderate plan. is that very radical to suggest a national sales tax, given current political realities? >> no, sir. i don't think so. what you have to do in our society, free as we are, you have to try to solve problems in ways that will work. we have a big problem. it cries out for big solutions

and what we have done is we have a sales tax that is as rod taste as you can get and as much a consumption tax as it is a sales tax or more. and regardless of the climate, the overriding climate is that america is in trouble. this silent killer is about to get us. we don't know when, but it behooves leaders to tell the truth and then to provide truthful solutions. we need something like this sales tax for the debt that we propose, or we cannot solve this problem and we just wait back until something really bad happens to this great country. >> i would characterize it as bold, not extreme. >> right, simple. >> senator, can you talk a bit about your assumptions on future

national growth? is a two-part question. what are your assumptions on the growth of the economy and secondly, what is your analysis of the impact of these changes on investor behavior business confidence and so on? is a dynamic? do you expect there to be greater confidence, more investments that take place? >> we started as almost all conversations, about the future of the budget, start with the generally accepted cbo baseline, which has moderate growth and it we expect that this package would accelerate growth, both in the near term and in the longer run because we think that the tax package is much more pro-growth, pro-investment and prose savings as well then the current tax code. but, we can't prove that and we

don't have numbers to go with that. >> but nobody can. people can say they know how but they don't know how so we just have to join the crowd on that. >> just because he is the camera doesn't mean he can't ask a question. >> i am dave michaels from the "dallas morning news." you take on a lot of the tax expenditures. why did you retain the ones that you did? and secondly what is the cost of the mortgage interest deduction converted to a credit, and then finally do you detect appetite in congress to follow through with a lot of the reforms you are proposing for expenditures? >> why did we protect -- while joe is looking at the numbers here, why did we protect the ones that we did? i think for pretty obvious

reasons. the home mortgage deduction has been an important to homeownership for a long time. it is not constructed in the best way. converting it to a credit at the 15% level, which is what we do, would be much more beneficial to low and moderate income homeowners and less at the top. and, as i read it, we have just been through a period and where we built too many high-end houses and there were many reasons for that, but the encouragement of the mortgage interest abduction was part of that. charity we also think is a worthy cause and should be retained, and then our child credit, that is a long-standing bang in the tax code, important

to families with children. we put it into a better form, and the current income tax credit also aids low-wage earners, essentially as a supplement to low wages. but, you have to have a file to get it, and that is pretty copper gated. under our new system, you wouldn't have to file. it would come right into your paycheck. your employer would know because he pays your wages, what wages you have would be a straight credit that would be figured in your paycheck. >> i will tell you, we are getting pretty long hair and i don't know who is in charge.

>> jay mcmichael with cnn. at the head had any conversations with members of congress about this package yet, specifically mr. boehner and mr. reid? >> let me say i haven't. >> he is not allowed to. >> i will and a little while. it is crazy, sounds crazy but it happens to be true. >> we have briefed many members of congress and their staff, and we have shared this plan with the simpson-bowles, the presidential commission of which i am a member, we have shared our plan. pete and i simpson-bowles. they are very grateful for the input and have said so, and we have shared the work as well because we thought we have a lot of good stuff here and people ought to see it and benefit from it.

>> the last question. >> where is the last question? speedway over here. >> hi, george taylor. i'm an attorney and free loans writer on economic issues. with the commission be open to an earlier start date for the commissioners spending freeze in 2011, because if you use 2011 you are freezing all the spending increases of the last two years. >> well, i think to say we would never be open to anything would be improper. but we did what we did because they wanted to make sure that what we were telling the public about this package, which first we have a holiday we want to take affects of the people and their employers, the working people and their employers would get this rebate because that is going to stimulate, regardless

of what people say about the government should not, we should have already dumbness but nobody could do it because they didn't have a way to pay for it. we do, once we have a package and put in the debt reduction tax. that is how we are able to pay for it so we can do both but we have to face in the caps on spending or we will have an adverse effect. we will have a bumping into each other instead of a lapse before one comes following on the other. >> let me respond this way. you can't exactly accelerate earlier than 2011. we are in 2011 already. but, if you look at what the effects of this hard freeze would need over time, it would bring us back to the spending levels in real terms that we had earlier. this is a very severe cuts over

several years, maybe to severe in both defense and discretionary spending, because it does not allow increases in response to inflation or economic growth or growth of the population or any of those things that drive spending up. >> the phrases not include the war and does not include the stimulus. >> the stimulus is phasing out anyway. >> thank you all very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> the senate voted today to move forward on food safety legislation. the measure approved by the senate, house education labor and pensions committee last year with net changes to food safety laws and expand the food and drug administrations enforcement powers. the senate is expected to work more on that tomorrow.

here's what republican senator chambliss had to say about the measure.mornin b >> i am an original co-sponsore. of s. 510, the bill we just a invoke cloture on, and as i saie before the boat i was going to oave to vote against cloture ant i would speak after the vote ass to why, because we are up against a timeline. i just wanted to take a minuterp to say that i regret still have to vote against cloture and now. the cloture has been invoked i guess we will go to the bill anl hopefully we can make the to necessary changes senate to improve this bill but frankly, s the bill that i originally cosponsored is not the bill thao has come to the floor today. som the material ways as late as this morning there were changesg being made, and i understandnder there are discussions going onsn right now that may even change it again. safety is an issue that is of

primary importance. we need to make sure that the food that is good in the retailr stores as well as in restauranta and every other l iocation in america is absolutely the safess that has always been are reputation that there are some t gaps in that food safety inspection program in the united we had today that have allowed some things to happen. we had a situation in georgia two years ago, where we foundome salmonella in some peanut butter hi a location in south georgia,w and manufacturing location, andt while fda have the authority toy go in and make an inspection, ws the way they actually inspected it was on a contract basis did through the georgia department of agriculture. they didn't have therc resources to do the real oversight that needed to be done, and here we had a company that had foundsalp salmonella in peanut butter with

their own inspections and theirt own product had been sent to their contractor, and salmonella was found to be positive but yet they didn't have to report that two fda.bill, and that has been changed in this billt' and it is gaps like that are important to see changed.e n what is aum problem to me right now on a number of things not the least of which is definition of what is a small farmer, which now has small farmers have been d granted an exemption and thated provision was changed as recently as this morning. morni i understand it is up foron agan discussion again now but the definition currently in the bill is that a small farmer is determined to be a farmer with gross receipts smaller than well, unfortunately or fortunately in my part of the te world, cotton today is selling

at a dollar and a half a tail, a dollar and a half a pound.ale -0 a bail was 500 pounds and it doesn't take much to reach $500,000 in gross receipts, just from the sale of cotton and that doesn't include peanuts and wheat and corn and whatever else may go along with it. whateve e so trying to put an arbitrary number like w that in saying tht if you have gross receipts in tt excess of that number, fda has r the authority to come on yourast farm.ho if you have less than that youie don't have the authority i think is not the proper way to go. thk that secondly with respect to thatset issue, even if they are exempt as a small farmer they still have the mandate of a huge amount of paperwork that has to go along with their productional on an annual basis.t's so, i don't know what is going to happen with respect to the amendment process. we have heard that there may bee a filling of the tree and there