they represent virtually all sectors of our economy, all interests in the patent system, and they have not been uniform, as expected. but they know that the legislative process is one of compromise and accommodation, where possible, and it's been that way during the six years we've been at work on this bill. three major areas of concern emerged from the discussion. the america invents act addresses each one of them. first, there is significant concern about delays in pat tent application process. pat tent and trademark office, p.t.o., currently has a backlog of more than 700,000 unexamined patent applications. now, there are several reasons for this, not the least of which is the p.t.o. is overwhelmed with patent applications and doesn't have the resources necessary to get through that backlog.

the director of the p.t.o. obvious says that the next great invention that's going to drive our economic recovery may be waiting on a shelf waiting to be granted. our act will authorize the p.t.o. to set its fees. we want them to work through the backlog, we want them to be current. and i want to commend austin goodwills bee, the chair of the president's economic advisors. his speech on the importance of patent reform show that we need it to help america win the global competition and create jobs. we should be doing all we can to help the p.t.o. director. now, it makes no sense that it takes two years for an inventor to get an initial ruling on his or her patent application and another year or more to receive a patent. this during a time when technology changes sometimes by the hour, to say nothing by the

year, two years, three years. "the new york times" reporter edward wyatt notes that delays and inefficiency are more unanimous a nuisance for inventors. patent delays cost jobs. they slow the economy. they threaten the ability of american companies to compete with foreign businesses. and then there is a concern about the quality of patents that we've issued. just as high-quality patents are the key to innovation, low-quality patents are a drag on the economy. they provide monopoly rents over products and processes that were not invented. so when congress last overhauled the patent system in 1952 -- 1 1952, more than half a century ago -- p.t.o. received approximately 60,000 a patent applications.

in 200 9 it received more than 480,000. the america invents act will improve the quality of patents. the legislation makes a commonsense change that third parties can assist the p.t.o. examiners by providing relevant information. the bill also creates a new post-grant review process for patents that were recent lished to improve the quality of patents in the system, as recommended by the national academy of sciences. and the third concern is that as business competition has gone global, patent applicants are increasingly filing acomplailingses in the united states and other countries for protection of their inventions, these are inventors from around the world, our system puts our own american investors and businesses at a disadvantage. now, the filings system in the united states differs from that in other patent-issuing

jurisdictions that have first inventor filing systems. that causes confusion and inefficiencies. inefficiencies exist both in the application process and determining where priorities r i ask consent to place in the record at this time an editorial from today's "new york times," which calls the transition simpler and cheaper and should benefit the little guy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: so we have bipartisan legislation before us to help everyone from start-ups to small businesses to our largest cutting-edge companies. it is going to create jobs, it is going to mean improved products, and before my voice gives out, i say now is the time to create jobs at home. now is the time for congress to act on patent reform. we can actually accomplish something here and not add a

cent to the deficit. mr. president, i ask consent that my full statement be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: mr. president, 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 virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, i ask that the proceedings under the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. warner: mr. president, i rise today to add my voice to

the debate that has been going on in this chamber about spending proposals and how we get through the balance of this current fiscal year and ensure that we don't end up with a government shutdown and some of the repercussions thaltd come about from that. mr. president, i represent a state that has not only disproportionate share of federal employees but also has a large number of private-sector employees that rely upon predictability from the government. and, unfortunately, these kind of lurching from two-week extensions, we are not providing that predictability. mr. president, as you know, i strongly believe that this is a moment in time for this body and colleagues in the house and the president and others to come together regarding the question

of how we no longer simply look at our deficit and debt on a piecemeal basis but take it on on a comprehensive basis, as so many both elected officials and financial officials continue to make. as a matter of fact, mr. president, i came earlier today from testimony that was provided by former senator alan simpson and former presidential chief of staff erskine bowles about the consequences of our failure to act if we don't get our comprehensive deficit and debt under control. this is a problem that's not going to get easy. every day we fail to racquet, we add $4 billion -- every day we fail to act, we add $4 billion to our national debt. unfortunately, some of the proposals are coming -- particularly from the house at this point -- the house budget plan does nothing significant to

address our long-term deficit and debt issues. mr. president, i travel around virginia a lot. yesterday i was down with our colleague from georgia, senator chambliss, where we met with literally hundreds of business leaders from across central virginia, and their message was clear: no more games, no more showmanship, get something done. and that "somethin something tht done is a comprehensive approach to our nation's fiscal challenges. that will mean, yes, cutting down on spending. that will mean, as we will, making our tax code more efficient so american business can grow and compete. it will also mean at the same time recognizing if part of that tax reform effort adds revenues, because trying to deal with this problem on simply cutting or simply taxing will not be sufficient. instead, the focus -- the folks across virginia and i imagine

across montana are saying as we will, this is a moment in time we've got to put everything on the table and we've got to ensure that we actually provide a long-term solution. one of the things that has been most frustrating, as i've more listened to this current debate about c.r.'s and what we're going to do for the balance of this fiscal year, is that the debate has focused almost entirely on spending cuts proposed from the house on domestic discretionary spending. $60-plus billion that the house has celebrated all comes from that one narrow slice of the pie. domestic discretionary spending accounts for less than 12% of our federal spending. you cannot solve a $1.5 trillion current-year deficit or the over $14 trillion long-term debt

without going beyond that 12% of our budget. and what is particularly, i think -- particularly challenging to our colleagues is the fact that in every day we fail to act, we are seeing not only our debt grow, but we are seeing the amount of taxpayer dollars we have to spend to pay off current interest rates, current interest payments, continue to rise. as a matter of fact, its speactded that at some point -- it's expected at that some point over the next three or four year, the amount that we pay out of every dollar collected simply on interest -- simply on interest -- will exceed the 12% of our current spending on disom particular discretionary spending. so all of this current fight about these current cuts that are being proposed, all will be subsumed in interest payments

that we'll all have to make as americans. dollars that, quite candidly, don't go to build another school to make another investment, to build another road; calendars that are not recycled in this country, but increasingly are owned by folks abroad, increasingly by our bankers in asia and a disproportionate number from china. so, mr. president, when we have the chance to vote on h.r. 1 this afternoon, i will be voting "no." i will be voting "no" because i think this narrow focus on domestic discretio discretionarg will not get us to the point where we need to be in terms of long-term deficit reduction. let me point out where i think the house proposal is so shortsighted. one of the things that erskine bowles and alan simpson said today is there is no silver bullet in this challenge we've got in front of us. it is going to take significant spending cuts. it is going to take looking at

the revenue side through the aspects of tax reform. but those two things -- revenues and spending aloan -- won't get us out of this. the third leg is a growing economy. how do we grow an economy in a place where america while still is the world's leading economy does not drive the economy the way it did even 20 years ago? we saw 20 years ago where the world would have to wait on america to get its financial act together. the world is not waiting now. china, india, brazil, countries abroad are moving ahead. if we're going to remain competitive, we have got to remain to continue to invest smamplet the president has said that we got to make sure that we educate, invest in our infrastructure and be able to outinnovate. that means targeted research and development. unfortunately, the house proposal which not only focuses on domestic discretionary to the exclusion of other areas of

spending, but it also focuses these cuts on the remaining six to seven months of our fiscal year, takes a disproportionate whack out of these key areas where we must maintain certain levels of inv if -- of investmeninvestment. let me give you a couple of examples. i know the presiding officer comes from an energy-rich state. he also realizes that we've got to diversify our energy mix in this country and no longer be dependent upon foreign oil. one of the things that those of us who have hallowed the benefits of the internet over the last 20-plus years are quick to point out is that the internet came about because of initial government investment through arca. that led to the development of the networks that created the

internet, that spawned growth in this country. i believe -- i think many of our colleagues on both side of the aisle believe -- that we need a similar investment in the energy field. we will, that was created the arpa-e program at the department of n.r.c. if we move forward with the house budget proposal, that will cut $1 billion out of the kind of basic research we need to make sure that we've got a full portfolio of domestic energy sources: renewable energy sources. i for one believe that it also has to include conservation, nuclear, increased -- continued domestic soi oil and gas, coal - all of these have to be part of the mix. but we have to do them in a smarter and cleaner way. to cut $1 billion out that have kind of basic next-generation research and development, the same kind of research and development that in the i.t. field created the internet, would be shortsighted and i

think in most business folks' minds. another area: america, we have to get our electric costs under control. part of getting our health care costs under control i means continuing to unlock innovation. the chairman of the judiciary committee has been working on making sure that in the life sciences area america continues to lead in terms of innovation. well, where does that innovation come from in terms of government dollars be leveraged four, five and six times? that comes from investments in n.i.h. unfortunately, the house budget proposal cuts $1.3 billion from n.i.h. funding. well, if you're in stage two or stage three of the next generation cancer development drug, to have those kind of trials cut back, to have that kind of basic research cut back,

not only in terms of american economic growth but the personal toll it could take on folks who are desperately waiting for solutions to the disease i believe is again not a good policy choice at this moment. as we move forward as well, we have got to make sure that we outeducate our competitors. no one believes that america's future is going to be based on low-wage labor. it's going to be based on well-educated, innovative and well-trained work force. i think we've seen and one of the areas that this president has not gotten appropriate credit for is the fact that he has advanced forward dramatic education reform within his proposals. unfortunately, the house bill will cut $5 billion for the department of education and over over $1 billion from the head start program. when we're trying to look at our kids competing against kids from india and china, does it really

make sense at this point if we're going to grow our economy to slash education programs if we're going to have that well-trained work force? so, mr. president, i do believe that the house proposal is shortsighted. i believe it doesn't do anything to really take on the structural deficit that our country is facing. i will continue to work i know with the presiding officer and i think a growing number of members from both sides of the aisle, and our suggestion is to let's go ahead and take the good work that was put forward by the presidential debt and deficit commission as at least a starting point and put in place its consequences if we don't act. that we will not solve this issue, which is, i believe, the issue of the day. as chairman mike mullen said, the number one national security issue for this country, to get our deficit and debt under control. unless we can broaden this debate from the 12% of domestic discretionary to include, yes, defense spending, entitlement spending, tax reform, trying to make sure that everything's on

the table. the house approach does not do that. the house approach is shortsighted. the house approach will not allow us to grow our economy in the way we need. i would be voting against that proposal when it comes to the floor, but i look forward to working again with all of my colleagues to make sure that we get a true comprehensive deficit and debt reduction plan that this congress can vote on and put in action. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and i note 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 colorado. mr. udall: mr. president, i rise today -- the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. mr. udall: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. udall: thank you, mr. president. i appreciate your patience and forbearance. i rise today to speak on the legislation that's currently before the senate, the america invents act of 2011. i want to applaud the work of judiciary chairman leahy and ranking member grassley for working so hard to bring this complex, bipartisan legislation to the senate floor. as we work to rebuild our economy, get americans back to work and win the global economic race, we should all appreciate this effort to spur innovation and create jobs. patent reform is an important issue for colorado's economy and, of course, our national economy. high-tech innovators represent over 12,000 jobs in colorado, and they are an important part of our economic recovery. in addition, colorado has a

vibrant biotech, clean energy and aerospace set of industries. that's why i believe that getting patent reform right and achieving consensus on provisions like inner party's re-examination is so important. inner party's reexam is a proceeding at the patent office that allows the validity of a patent to be challenged in an administrative proceeding. these proceedings are intended to serve as a less expensive alternative to courtroom litigation and provide additional access to the expertise of the patent office on questions of patentability. it is often the preferred method of examination because a panel of experts are more likely to reach the correct decision on a technical question compared to a jury composed of lay people. mr. president, the inner party's process is not frequently used today because of procedural restrictions in the existing law. rather than expanding the opportunities to use the inner

party's re-examination process, the america invents act before us today imposes standards that are more restrictive than current law and are not supported by top high-tech innovators. we need a patent reform bill that is fair to america's innovative technology companies and all users of the patent system. now, by failing to provide any relief from the huge burden that abusive patent lawsuits impose on technology companies and instead reducing the protections in current law, i fear that this legislation will force these companies to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on frivolous lawsuits. these are dollars that would otherwise be used to employ engineers, produce and market new goods and services and help colorado and america win the global economic race. as this legislation moves to the house, we must work to achieve consensus on interparty's reexamination. while i do not believe that we have the right balance quite yet, i do believe that this bill is a good-faith effort to

improve our patent system and i'm going to support moving it forward because we cannot let job-creating patents to languish any longer. mr. president, as we all know, the patent office has an enormous backlog. it's truly normous. it's 700,000 applications understood a half million new applications of year. each of these pending applications will create on average 3 to 10 jobs but while these applications collect dust in america, other countries are getting a head start on technologies that can revolutionize the way we live. so i'm very pleased that the america invents act will address the funding challenges faced by the patent office. this legislation will allow the director of the patent office to set fees as necessary but it will also ensure that those fees stay at the patent office, all without any additional cost to taxpayers. this legislation will allow the director to finally clear the backlog and create needed jobs through own vaition -- through

innovation. it is my hope that the funding provisions in the america invents act stay in this legislation as it moves to the house. i'm also pleased that this legislation includes an amendment i cosponsored with senator bennet to establish additional satellite patent offices around the country. it is no secret that we believe that colorado is well situated to house a regional satellite patent office because of the combination of our rich and diverse innovative economy, our strong research universities, and the fact that colorado is a great place to live. now, i'm confident that colorado will be a competitive in the process of selecting these new satellite patent offices. so in the end, i believe that the america invents act goes a long way to help unleash america's innovative spirit but we need make sure that we don't make changes that could have unintended consequences for some of our most innovative companies. let's get patent reform right, let's move it forward, and let's continue working to make our patent system fair, efficient,

and supportive of innovators as we seek to compete in the global economy. mr. president, thank you for your attention. thank you for your interest in your own state of montana. and, mr. president, with that, i'll yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate stands in recess until 2:15 p.m.

association of business2:15 p.m. economics conference underway this week, this is about 45 minutes. this is about 45 minutes. >> good morning. my name is doug hamilton. i'm director of research at the peter g. petersen foundation as a long time budget geek it warms my heart to see such a large turnout to discuss issues about the budget so early this morning. the petersen foundation is proud sponsor of the national association of business economists and we commend the organizers for pulling together such a terrific program and for providing such a valuable

forum for economists in the business community, government, and think tanks and in the foundations to meet and share ideas. too often we work in separate communities but our nation's economic and budgetary challenges are becoming too great for us to remain isolated. we need to begin sharing ideas about how to solve these challenges and for those in the business community, we need your active participation, your engagement and your leadership on these issues. this morning's session on fiscal policy choices is especially timely. fiscal policymakers face difficult budgetary decisions but debate on fiscal policy is too often conflicted and confused. to help us understand our budgetary challenges and shed some light on the fiscal choices that we face, i'm delighted to introduce our next speaker douglas elmendorf, the director of the nonpartisan and independent, congressional budget office.

doug is the 8th director of cbo and has a distinguished career in economics and economic policy. before he came it cbo, doug was senior fellow at the brookings institution where he co, served as coeditor of the brookings papers on economic activity and director of the hamilton project. he is also been an assistant professor at harvard, principle analyst at cbo, senior economist at cea, deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the treasury and assistant director of the division of research and statistics at the fed. i've known doug now for almost 20 years and have long admired the professionalism and integrity that he has brought to his work. just a quick housekeeping note before we get started. we will handle questions and answers in the usual nabe fashion. we'll pass out cards for you to write your question who later we'll bring them to the podium. please give a warm round for doug elmendorf. [applause]

>> thank you, doug, for that kind introduction and very nice to be back here with the nabe. i'm going to offer four observations about the federal budget. some of them may be obvious to some of you. that's good. the more obvious these observations are to the more people, the better positioned we will be to tackle our bum sweat problems. i hope that even some of the points that are obvious to some of you, the specifics i offer will make the next 45 minutes worth your coming. let me just read through the four observations to start. then we'll go into them one at a time. first the gap between spending and revenues is likely to remain very large even after we return to normal economic conditions. second, fiscal policy can not be put on sustainable path just by eliminating

waste and inefficiency. instead the policy changes that are needed will significantly affect popular programs or people's tax payments or both. third, policymakers face difficult tradeoffs in deciding how quickly to implement policy changes that would reduce future budget deficits. and fourth, and i hope optimistically there is more focus in washington on federal budget problems today than there has been since the late 1990s. and that focus has led to a range of proposals for tackling the problems that we face. let me go through these now one by one. the most obvious observation i hope is that the gap between federal spending and federal revenues is likely to remain very large, even after the economy rofrsz -- recovers. it is worth confronting these numbers. cbo estimates that if current laws remain unchanged the budget deficit this career will be close to

$1.5 trillion or as shown on the chart, a little under 10% of gdp that would follow deficits of 10% and 8.9% of gdp in the past two years, representing the three largest deficits since 1945. as a result, the debt held by the public will jump from 40% of gdp at the end of fiscal year 2008, to about 70% at the end of this fiscal year. current laws remain unchanged as we assume for cbo baseline projections shown by the solid line, budget deficits would drop markedly over next few years as a share of out put. deficits would average about 3.5% of gdp from 2012 through 2021, totally nearly $7 trillion over the decade. as a result debt held by the public would reach about 77% of fdp in 2021. however that projection understates the budget deficits that would occur if

many policies currently in place were continued, rather than allowed to expire as scheduled in current law. suppose that three major aspects of current policy were continued during the coming decade? first, the higher 2011 exemption amount for alternative minimum tax was extended. along with amt tax brackets, indexed for inflation. second, the other major provisions in december's tax legislation that affected individual income taxes and estate and gift taxes were extended, rather than allowed to expire in january of 2013. and third, that medicare's payment rates for physician services were held constant rather than dropping sharply as scheduled under current law. all three of these policies have recently opinion extended. if they were extended permanently, deficits from 2012 through 2021 would average about 6% of gdp and would total nearly 12 trillion dollars.

debt held by the public in 2021 would rise to nearly 100% of fdp. the highest level since 1946. it is unusual for us to have a draw a chart act to the 19 '40s to find a comparable point to the data we're presenting. this is a case where we have to. i want to emphasize under these current policies federal indebtedness is heading into uncharted waters, waters that are unfamiliar to us and also unfamiliar to most other developed countries. this picture shows, compares the debt burden across countries. that is difficult to do precisely because countries are organized in different ways and present their data in different ways but we think this offers a fair reflection. current level of debt relative to fdp is not exceptional. but where our debt is headed is exceptional to truly unfamiliar territory. to be sure, debt in other

countries is also rising now. but it is unclear we should take much comfort from other country's fiscal challenges. instead, moving to unfamiliar territory for us and for other countries raises important risks. the second point i want to make is fiscal policy can not be put on a sustainable path simply by eliminating waste and inefficiency. the policy changes that are needed will significantly affect popular programs or people's tax payments or both. again this point is, i think obvious to budget experts but not, i fear, to many nonexperts. let me start with budget figures taken from the national income and product accounts, a little unusual for cbo we tend to focus on the unified budget but i think it is helpful in this case. these are shares of federal spending in the last fiscal year. nearly half of spending went to transfer payments to people, which is largest piece by far our social security and medicare.

other significant chunks went as grants to state and local governments or as much mr. s of goods and services for defense. the part of the government that people often think would be easiest to shrink, purchases of goods and services for non-defense, represents only 9% of total spending. moreover, of course it turns out that many people put a lot of value on individual elements of that spending which includes significant support for homeland security, the administration of justice, research on health, weather forecasts, food safety inspections, the operation of the national parks and much more. now let's look at the budget from a different perspective. the, line that is rising most rapidly from left to right is the outlays for just a handful of federal programs, social security, medicare, medicaid, other health programs, defense and net interest.

outlays for those programs alone will exceed revenues, assuming the continuation of the policies i discussed earlier, by 2016. and it will not look back. moreover there are proposals from the congress to limit federal spending to 18% of gdp, or 20% of gdp. the chart shows clearly that is possible but, only by tackling some of those key programs that are listed, even if everything else that the government does was eliminated, not just reduced but eliminate, spending on those programs alone exceeds 18% of gdp by the middle of the coming decade and reaches 20% of gdp by the end of the decade. that is worth understanding one very important factor underlying the upward slope is the aging of the population. the number of enrollees in social security and medicare by the end of the decade will be about one-third larger than the number of enrollees today.

also true that the cost of providing care to them through medicare will be much higher per person than it is today but just the sheer numbers of people as the leading edge of the baby boom generation becomes elgible for medicare this year, the number of people who will be served by these programs is rising quite rapidly. there are different perspectives to dig a little deeper look at competition significance of revenues and, not a baseline projection but projection assuming continuation of those policies i mentioned earlier. the gap between spending and revenues, that deficit at 6.6% of gdp, is larger than any category of spending, almost any category of revenues. to balance the budget, if that were the objective with this as a starting point would require a cut in spending of about one quarter. an increase in tax revenues of about one-third or a combination of those approaches. what does it mean to cut

spending by 1/4? that is bit more than total projected spending on social security. almost as much as combined spending on medicare medicaid and other health programs. much more than spending on defense. such a cut would be a bit larger than all other federal spending apart from net interest and categories i just mentioned explicitly. on the revenue side what would it mean to raise revenue by a third? that would be more than a tripling of revenue from the corporate income tax or substantial increase in the individual income tax revenue. notice i didn't say individual income tax rates. one can raise a good deal of revenue broading the tax base. cutting back on tax expenditures, spending that happens essentially through the tax code through special exclusions and deductions and credits of the sort that has been discussed quite a bit recently but it would require a substantial increase in tax revenues if one chose to do it on the tax side or at least part of it on the tax side of the budget. one might ask how we dealt with budgetary impact of

rising social security and medicare spending in the past few decades? the next slide tries to summarize that a pit. it shows spending in 1970 and 2007, just preceding the downturn, and then in 2021 under our baseline. you can see here that over the 37 years from 1970 to 2007, revenues were on net, not much different as a share of gdp of course there was a good deal of variation over time. total government, federal government outlays weren't much different either. what was substantially different was the burden of social security, medicare, medicaid payments that rose from 3.8 to 8.2% of gdp an increase of about four percentage points. how was that accommodated? the very next line shows the defense spending fell relative to gdp by amount equal to about four percentage points. other spending, didn't change much, relative to

gdp. so what happened over that period was we accommodate ad very large increase in the spending on those particular government programs through relative decline, relative to gdp decline in defense spending. thus, did not need to either adjust revenues as share of gdp, or have deficits significant share of gdp. but that pattern can't be repeated of that magnitude going forward. you can see the outlays for social security, medicare, medicaid and other health programs continuing to rise very rapidly. as i noted from both the aging of the population and rising health care costs. there is a vigorous debate how high defense spending should be but it is running between four and 5% of gdp and it's not going to happen for that to fall to 80% of gdp. so the -- 0% of gdp. the magnitude of budget room freed up in the past will

not be freed up going forward. thus, significantly reducing the deficits that are projected would require changes in revenues or spending that most people feel much more directly than they feel in changeses in defense spending. the point that concerns me particularly is that the set of numbers i've shown in the past few slides does not seem to be well-understood by most americans. on one level there is no reason they should focus on this issue. this is my change. they have other jobs. but some understanding is important for us to have an informed public debate. most polls show, upon casual inspection, most people are opposed to cuts in most forms of spending, except for those already actually quite small. more particularly many some of the polls seem to suggest that average person would like to have taxes be no larger a burden than they have been over the past decade. to make no changes in the rules governing most federal spending, particularly

benefit payments to older americans. and yet have the government not borrow very much money. a matter of arithmetic those objectives are not mutt wally compatible. you just can't have all three of these things at once. people that look at polls more carefully than i, said if you frame the question differently, if you say not just what would you like to cut spending on or raise revenue from, but instead say, as part of a package to put fiscal policy on a sustainable course, would you accept the following increases in revenues or reductions in spending? i'm told the people respond quite differently to that sort of question. i hope that's true because those are the sorts of changes that will be needed. the third observation i want to make policymakers face difficult tradeoffs deciding how quickly to implement policy changes that would reduce future budget deficits. now there are disadvantages of course of reducing deficits gradually rather than quickly. more gradual path would lead

to higher levels of government debt which would have several negative consequences. higher government debt would reduce the amount of u.s. savings devoted to productive capital investment, leading to lower out put and incomes in the long run that would otherwise be the case and making future generations worse off. secondly more debt requires greater federal spending on interest payments. with more revenue devoted to servicing the debt, larger changes in revenues and noninterest spending would be needed to make fiscal policy sustainable. a third, more debt gives policymakers less flexibility to respond to financial crises, recession, humanitarian crises, wars and other unexpected problems. and fourth, more debt increases the likelihood of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government's ability to manage its budget and the government would thus lose its ability to borrow at affordable interest rates.

at the same time, implementing major budgetary changes gradually would have some advantages. first it would possibly help older generations by defering the increases in taxes reductions in benefits they would otherwise face of the indeed a common feature proposal to change social security or medicare is to have those changes apply only to people under a certain age, to protect those who have retired or are near retirement. a second advantage of implementing major budgetary changes gradually to minimize the drag of spending cuts or tax increases on the economic expansion. during periods when the economy is substantial, unemployment and well as unused factories, offices and equipment, running a budget deficit usually increases out put and employment compared to what would otherwise occur with a balanced budget. therefore, cutting spending or raising taxes right now would probably lead to less output and employment in the short run even though it

would be good for the economy over time. and third, gradual adjustment gives families, businesses and state and local governments time to plan and adjust their own behavior. if policymakers chose to scale back benefit programs, cut government contracts, reduce grants to state and local governments or raise taxes, those would be affected would benefit from advance notice so they can alter their behavior accordingly. again, that is part of why most proposals to change social security and medicare exempt people who are above a certain age or viewed not having sufficient time to make those adjustments. now although there are tradeoffs in deciding how quickly to implement policy changes that would reduce future budget deficits, there are important benefits to deciding quickly what combination of increases in taxes or reductions in spending will be used to put fiscal policy on a sustainable path. most important, enacting

policy changes soon would allow for gradual implementation of those changes while still limiting further increases in federal debt and the negative consequences that would flow from those increases. in addition, enacting policy changes soon would probably provide some boost to economic activity by reducing uncertainty and holding down interest rates. a crucial distinction i'm trying to draw here is between the pace at which agreed-upon policy changes unfold for which there are tradeoffs regarding the speed, and the pace at which policy changes are agreed upon for which all the arguments that i know point to the benefits of faster agreement. the fourth observation i want to make there is more focus on washington today on federal budget problems than we have seen since the late 1990s that led to a range of proposals for tackling the problems. as you know, members of the bipartisan national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform created by the president

recently proposed a plan to narrow the budget gap. other groups and individuals have also released plans focusing on reducing the deficit. the plans are diverse. they reflect widely varying priors with very different emphasis on spending cuts or certain types of spending cuts and the amount and types of tax increases. however, the plans are also similar in some significant ways. they propose policy change in many cases that are large in magnitude and thus commensurate with scale of the problem. that are in many cases fairly well-specified and not just vague aspirations and in many cases would fundamentally alter the tax code and some of the activities of the government in a way that will be necessary to put policy on a sustainable path. i think the release of this collection of proposals, despite the diversity in the specifics of what they do, has really advanced the fiscal policy discussion

because it has focused more attention on the matter of how one should tackle the physical problems, not whether one should tackle the physical problems. still, it remains to be seen whether we as a nation are prepared to make the sorts of changes in policy that would be necessary in a timely way. thank you. i will stop there. i'm happy to take your questions. [applause] >> the first question, first question, the republicans are proposing $60 billion of immediate spending cuts. what would be the impact on employment and real gdp? >> by our estimates the

increases in spending and reductions in taxes in the recovery act of two years ago provided important boost to output and employment in this country, relative to what would have occurred in the as sense of those policies. correspondingly, we think that reductions in spending or increases in taxes over the next year would slow the growth of out put and employment relative to what would otherwise occur. those spending reductions and tax increases would have beneficial effects over the medium and long term because they would reduce the accumulation of federal debt but in the short term we think they would reduce the demand for goods and services in the economy, and under current circumstances, with the levels of unemployment and capacity utilization that we have, with the federal reserve having already reduced interest rates to essentially the zero lower bound, we think that the economy is constrained by a

lack of demand for goods and services and, that the changes that we're talking about in reducing spending or increasing taxes would reduce demand somewhat further. we have not estimated, we have not set out to estimate the magnitude of that effect. of course the economy is very large, even in its current straightened conditions. about $15 trillion of out put. reductions in spending of 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 or more billion dollars will be fairly small relative to the $15 trillion of gdp. so if we were to do quantitative estimate of the particular proposals, that the question is about, i don't think the effects would be large. it is also worth noting that the magnitudes of the congress's discussing, the mag tuds that -- magnitudes

congress set are not outlays this year. it is budget authority. it is the authority given to people running agencies in the government, to enter into commitments. the outlays that follow from those commitments follow with some lag. sometimes a very short lag. commitment to pay government employee like me a salary. that money goes out pretty quickly. sometimes with a long lag, a commitment to invest or not invest -- well, commitment to invest in some infrastructure building, highways or railroads, the money for that will be spent out over a longer period of time because of the many steps in the process that are involved. so when one hears about reductions of $60 billion or other numbers, those are really about the budget authority, the amount that congress actually determines. the outlay effects would be roughly comparable over time but not all at once. so the reduction out lies in

this fiscal year or this year or next year will be a good deal smaller than the total numbers being discussed which further reduces the scale of the effect compared with gdp. >> last year you indicated that cbo's macro models indicated the stimulus, arra had created or saved many jobs but that was there at a time when there was, but that was there when there was no empirical evidence to verify it. is there any evidence now? . .

>> it's not lookupable in a direct sense. there are different ways that different people have tried to infer the recovery track. some have looked at the timing of the rebound in economic activity or the composition of that rebound in late 2009 and in 2010 and have concluded from that that the recovery act provided important stimulus. we don't put much weight on that approach because there were so many factors affecting the economy over that period. some people have looked to the counts of jobs created. that certain people are required to report to the government. we, in fact, write a quarterly report on officially about those numbers. we don't put weight on those numbers because they exclude a whole range of indirect effects and don't necessarily capture

even the direct effects very well. some people have tried to infer the effects of the recovery act by noting just how bad the recovery turned out to be, than of course we and other people have expected. we don't put much weight on that approach because one does not know what would have happened in the absence of the recovery act. certainly the international experience with recessions that follow financial crises is they can be very deep and very prolonged. and it's difficult to know what would have happened in this case without government action. what we did instead was to look at a collection of evidence, accumulated by the economists over many years about the direct effects of certain sorts of tax changes and spending changes. and to combine that with models of the way that individual increases in spending or reductions in taxes can propagate through the economy and can propagate through the economy under a particular set of circumstances. the ones we faced in which

unemployment was quite high and monetary policy was constrained in its ability to provide further stimulus. in our assessment in early 2009, that evidence and from both many past policy changes and from the models of how those changes propagate through the economy -- in our judgment, that evidence supports the view the recovery act would have important effects on output and employment. now, the world has unfolded since that day of our first projection and we have been watching closely as everybody has. we don't think, unfortunately, you can draw much from the particular experience. and the reason is because, as i said, we don't know what else would have happened. i think this experience will lead to a large amount of economic research that will in future rounds of recessions and discussions of fiscal policy play a role just based on the

analysis that we conducted during past economic downturns. but that is research of a detailed nature using often microeconomic data the response of individual families and individual state and local governments that will take some time to do. and there has been a little bit of that that has happened already. the reports of the recovery act every quarter have an extensive appendix that reviews the literature including updates every quarter we do this for it has come out. there are bits of evidence about what has happened from this particular bit of fiscal policy. but nothing that we have seen that fundamentally changes the effects that we predicted to happen from the legislation when it was first enacted. >> what would the payroll rate need to be to cover social security and medicare expenditures? and how would this answer change if the cap on the payroll tax were eliminated?

>> those are good questions. i think neither which i have an answer to offhand. we have written -- we wrote last summer a report on the long-term budget outlook, and then we wrote later last year a report on more specialized focused report on social security. and in those reports one can look up the magnitude of the payroll tax change that would be needed. i think for social security alone, i believe that it would require a payroll tax increase in the order of 1.5 percentage points but i'm not sure about that and you can look up the facts on our website. medicare has a much, much larger imbalance and an imbalance that i think is much harder for analysts to get a good read on. when we talked with our panel of health advisors about how we should project medicare spending in 2020 but especially in 2040 or 2060, that's a question

they're really even willing to engage with it on. because there's so much uncertainty about how the health care system will evolve over the next few decades. very clearly the trajectory that we're on is not a trajectory that can be sustained but the ways in which the health care system will respond are very uncertain. so i think the estimates we've done on the long-term benefits of medicare should be taken with many grains of salt and if you read our report, i hope that comes through very clearly. we hope to focus on the next few decades and not on the very long term because of the tremendous uncertainty going out that far. the other thing i should say that when we look at fiscal policy we tend to look at it from the point of view of a unified federal budget. social security and medicare are very important parts but there's other important parts as well

and we look at the overall fiscal gap to put the overall budget on a fiscal path. i believe that is in the order of 5 or 6% that we've been doing of gdp. so it's a very large -- it's a very large gap. i think the specific question about what happens if one raises the payroll -- the taxable maximum, the cap on payroll tax revenue, i don't know offhand but there are estimates of that in a volume released last year on policy options for social security and that's one of 30 or 40 policies that we looked at. >> while your near term framework looks appropriate but the longer term framework is on the mix. what does cbo think of potential growth, for example, more and better education, smaller transfers to people, increases in estate tax rates and more infrastructure investment?

>> that's a very good question. in the modeling that we do in the near term as i suggested before, under the current circumstances, we think the economy's output is essentially constrained of a shortfall of demand and we know think in the median or long run. and we think constraint on the economy's output will be principally in the supply of the factors of production. that enable us to produce output and earned income and consume it and that means particularly the quantity of labor and the quality of labor that will be supplied, the amount of savings that will be done and the amount of capital that will be available. and technological factors, the innovation, the entrepreneurship and so on that bring the labor and capital together. during the modeling that we do with the effects of fiscal policy, 5, 10, 20 years from now we focus precisely on those sorts of factors. and we try very hard to model

the effects of changes in fiscal policy on the labor supply and the supply saving for capital investment. i think we're better at that for some aspects of the question than others. we model the effects of changes in tax rates, both taxes on labor and taxes on capital. and you can see this in a set of reports that we do. in testimony that i did last fall from the senate budget committee, we analyzed the economic effects of different ways of extending the expiring tax provisions, looked to the effects both in the near term, 2011, 2012, end of the decade, 2020 or so and then a few decades beyond that. and you can see, in fact, there we report different estimates of the longer term economic effects of the different assumptions of the response of people's work effort to changes in tax rate because that is one of the aspects of the economy that

economists are uncertain about. you can see, in fact, the role that the assumptions that the they talk about the responsiveness of people how it matters in the long-term economic effects. and you can see this in work we do. we do analysis of the president's budget each year that looks at the economic effects in the same way. we've done analysis of the roadmap that congressman paul ryan that looks at the economic effects over longer period. all of this that incorporates the certain things we talked about. is the issues about the quality of the work force based on money spent on education and training. we're not as good at capturing the effects of -- on the technology of the future from the government's support of research and development today. and we try to be explicit when we do the analyses that those are effects that we are not capturing in the numbers because we're not confident that we have

an analytically sound way of doing it. that is a cap in what we're doing. i think it's a gap founded in uncertainty in the profession as a whole. i don't think it's a weakness that's only ours but it is a weekness that we feel in the work that we do. >> we have two questions on health care that i think it makes sense to combine together. the is first how feasible are proposals to limit health care spending to gdp growth or gdp growth plus 1% seven and what are the most effective ways of cushing medicare, medicaid, and health care costs? [laughter] >> those are easy. it is certainly feasible to limit the federal government spending on health care, to limit the rate of growth of that spending to parameters that one might choose. one could do that, for example,

by establishing vouchers to medicare recipients and block grants to state and local governments through medicare and to increase those vouchers and those block grants at specified rates. and if we were to analyze proposals like that, we would build in those growth rates and one would see indeed, if one would pick growth rates if it was below growth rates under current policies, one would see budgetary savings. the challenge is to think about what happened to the health care system and to people seeking health care. and we don't know very well what would happen. and analysis of the sort that we have done, for example, in the roadmap proposal of congressman ryan in a proposal that congressman ryan put in the fiscal commission last year. the analysis we've done where we've taken those numbers on board and reported the budgetary

effects. we have taken pains to emphasize if one sends people into the health insurance market or the health care market with less money, significantly less money over time, it will be true under current law, that is likely to reduce the quantity or quality of care that they purchased and it is likely, almost certainly to shift risk to them regarding the changes -- regarding the possibilities of higher or lower costs for health care. one specified a number of growth rate for those payments than the government has perhaps reduced its exposure if one picks certain numbers and reduced its risk but that risk hasn't gone away. shifted itself. and to go it individuals who are families and to state and local governments, one has made them more aattentive to the costs of the care they are purchasing and that greater attentiveness, the

fact that they have under those proposals a much more of their own money at stake in their decisions about purchasing health insurance and health care is likely to make them much more attentive purchasers. it makes them confront some of the choices individually or at a state level that we are currently confronting in a national level which is what to spend money on and how to get the most for the dollars. an analysis we did with specific proposals we have had that what we show based on existing evidence that if people are more higher priced of health services they will in general consume less. and whether that would have a negative effect on their health is a little less clear. some evidence suggest it doesn't have much effect on people's health. they consume a certain amount

less. how does it play out in the health care system as a whole? certainly passes our understanding and i think passes the health analytical professions understanding is very difficult to know. on the second part of the question which is what are the best ways? well, as you know cbo does not make policy recommendations. i think we have a system today in which there's almost nobody who has both an incentive and the authority to make health decisions in -- health care decisions in a cost-sensitive way. people are understandably reluctant to let their insurance companies choose what health care they get. they're understandably reluctant to have government officials like me choose what health care they get. however, the individuals don't face the cost of additional

health services because most people have insurance that has -- in which only a small share of cost are bourne by them through deductible or copayments. one possible way of making them more sensitive to the cost of health services that we have a number of examples of in a volume we're releasing next week on options producing the deficit is to increase deductibs or copayments at least through government programs which the government controls directly perhaps to encourage those increases through changes in the tax treatment of privately provided health insurance. and in those ways to make people more sensitive to the prices of insurance -- of the care that they pay. even still, with any significant amount of insurance, people will not be sensitive to the costs of care that they get which is expensive -- for people who are getting a large amount of care and, of course, a large amount of total health care is people who are quite sick and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars

of care and they almost certainly remain insensitive to the incorrect meathal costs in that that situation and that leaves doctors as the only players in this situation to try to make cost-sensitive choices but, of course, from a doctor's point of view, doctors are naturally enthusiasts for the services they can provide. you ask me how much economic advice you need, i would say a great deal. and i think if i see a doctor i like the fact that my doctor is really interested in what he or she can do to help me. so doctors aren't perhaps the most natural people to make cost sensitive decisions either. and we end up with a system in which there's nobody who has an incentive to reduce spending and the authority to do so and that's the fundamental problem. i think all the methods that are being discussed in medicare, medicaid, other health programs amount to finding -- trying to give somebody a little more incentive, a little more latitude for making cost sensitive choices but it is a

really -- it is a true challenge. >> doug, i'd like to thank you for a very stimulating discussion. i'd like to thank all of you for your comments, questions, and interest in this issue. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> good morning, everybody i'm the managing director. and first of all, i'd like to thank you all for attending today. it's a very hot topic, very interesting topic and i'm sure we're going to have some interesting debate for you all. first of all, i'd like to give

you a very brief introduction to clarion. we're the largest independent event company in the u.k. operated around the world now as well. and within our business we have a growing portfolio of international events and security events and conferences. our largest event is dsci. defense and security equipment international. this takes place in alternative years and is the world's largest fully integrated triservice event covering, land, sea, air and increasingly security. we're just seven months away for the 2011 and we've got a host and exciting new developments in the show that we're introducing this year. and many of them have a u.s. focus from the u.s. forces and also for u.s. exports as well so please look in your press kits for those after the event. at this session i'll be here to answer any specific questions on that as is my american colleague

who's based in connecticut who's in the back of the room there. i'd also like to thank our cosponsors the press briefing. the navy league is a not-for-profit organization with more than 50,000 members spread across 250 councils worldwide. since its founding in 1902, the navy league's mission has been to educate the american people and their leaders about the importance of sea power to a maritime nation and also to support the men and women of the u.s. sea services. i very much appreciate their support today and i would like to recognize specifically the national president tim branch and also national executive director dale luby for putting it together. the united nations estimates that indian ocean piracy cost between 5 and $7 billion annually and though there are only a few attacks that make the news, they still occur on a

daily basis as was proved last month with the deaths of four american hostages. moreover, pirates have proved to be increasingly resilient, increasingly bold and adaptive refining their tactics by implementing training exercises, increasing manpower through youth-driven recruitment and the real question is, how can the global community meet this evolving threat as the attacks expand beyond the horn of africa and the ransom demands increase. looking at numbers as much as $238 million in 2010, which is roughly about $5.5 million per ship. to answer these questions about piracy we've assembled a panel of esteemed experts who deliver brief opening remarks and answer your questions so please be prepared for them. let me introduce all for of them. rear admiral mcknight to my right. terence has commanded numerous ships for their u.s. navy as

well as serving on multiple assignments on land of the office of the secretary of defense. assistant secretary of the navy and undersecretary of the navy. mcknight assumed his duties as commander expeditionary strike group 2 in september, 2007. also, mr. wadell and he was considerable service with nato, united nations and other coalition forces. he has commanded two ships and served as combat officer in the third. he now his his director of maritime strategy of the royal navy. on my left captain alexander martin is executive officer, the force reconnaissance company first marine expeditionary force. after three tours in iraq he served with the 15th marine expeditionary unit and worked in the middle eastern forces. last september captain martin led his assault to the pirate

vessel the magellan star resulting in the apprehension of nine somalian pirates and the hostages. we have rear admiral who is assistant commander for marine safety security and stewardship in may, 2010. he is responsible for developing and promulgating national marine safety, security, and environmental protection doctrine policy and regulation as well as ensuring policy alignment through the federal government and with international maritime partners. now, first of all, as i said we would like to hear briefly from each of our panelists before we take questions from the media and our guests here today. so first of all, can i ask for a brief introduction. >> good morning, thank you. thank you for having me here today. and thanks to the navy league for hosting this event. i want to give a little background first about myself. i stood up the combined task force 151 in january, 2009.

and this was as a result of the increasingly piracy in the gulf of aden. the united states navy decided we had to come out in the forefront sxaikt a call from admiral courtney and he said, you know, get on a airplane and get out here and stand up to the task force. that was the good news. >> we stood up to the task force. i had my command on the uss san antonio. i had a british ship and a danish ship and they were prepared for what we faced. two things that were significant about this, first of all, it was coalition task force. i mean, we go out here in the modern world today and we get -- hear a lot of complaints that we fight, you know, it's the united states is the master sea power but we went out there as the task force and today when i talk about it, i said it's a

microcosm of what admiral mullen said is the 1,000 ship navy. we've got anywhere from 25 to 30 nations out there right now fighting piracy. the other significant thing is that the united nations is firmly behind it. there were two u.n. security resolutions, 1846 which basically said -- gave us all necessary means to fight piracy in the somali basin and also resolution 1851 which deplores all acts of piracy so this was pretty significant. we have a coalition out there that's willing and we have the united nations that's firmly behind us. so it's pretty significant that these task force are out there and they're fighting the pirates and they're doing a pretty significant job. a lot has been in the press in the last couple of weeks in saying that the task force are ineffective. well, i think you need to come back on that and say there's two significant things that you have to realize. the area itself it's 1.1 million

square miles of ocean. that's three times the size of the gulf of mexico. so if we say if we have 25 warships are out there and you can do the math and say they're ineffective it's kind of like saying that there's crime in washington, d.c., and the d.c. police department is not effective. they're very effective out there. it's just the problem it's a vast -- it's a vast ocean. and now that they've expanded to the indian ocean, it compounds the problem significantly. so i think the task force are very effective out there and are doing a great job. the other thing that i would like to close, the maritime community also has taken, you know, significant responsibility out there and some of the things that they've -- that they've done to deter piracy, whether it's increase speed, the stay in the transit lane and basically take on the responsibility combatant piracy. lastly, the thing that everybody asks and i'm sure it will be asked today, how do we solve the problem?

well, sure we could go into somalia and start wiping out people here but who are the pirates? each of them don't have a patch on their eye and say i'm a pirate. one day these people are pirates. next day they are smuggling drugs or they are fishermen or smuggling people so it's a very complicated problem. the big issue that always address is the legal system. when i was out there, we captured anywhere between -- between 30 and 50 suspected pirates but we had very little opportunity to get them prosecuted. if they were going after a u.s. flagged vessel like the uss spacious mersd alabama that the u.s. has jurisdiction. but if it's a panamanian flagged vessel and the u.s., you know, stops the piracy and goes back to the nation state and said do you want prosecute them, most of the people we just don't want to deal with it. so there's the dog catching the car. what do you do with the pirates?

it's a very complicated issue. and i'll be glad to take on your questions after the rest of the panel speaks. thank you. >> that's quite a number of points raised already. obviously, a very complex issue. >> thanks, tim. i certainly appreciate the opportunity to be here today to provide perhaps an international perspective, but a number of key themes that the admiral has just indicated. the importance of the coalition environment, the importance of bringing the capabilities of several nations abroad and tackling a truly international problem that is piracy. it affects all of us. you might think that it's a foreign issue and it's on the other side of the planet that it shouldn't effect us with any fact imports coming from canada or indeed the continent, the problem that occurs abroad affects all of us here at home so the importance of actually deploying forces to try to deal

with the problem. one of the things we, of course, note in dealing with the problem, it's expanding at the same time. as was the admiral just indicated, it spread across the entire indian ocean right up with the shoreline with india. we've seen significant spikes in some of the attacks. originally in the gulf in aden and we cannot put enough hard power and ships at the problem when you think of the sheer geography and the scale that the pirates are working in some some of their adaptive techniques where we're looking at them taking mother ships they take cargo and shipping boats and they use them to their advantage. it allows persistence, further distance offshore and allows them the opportunity to not only use that platform to extend their range and capabilities but they also sometimes use the crew to assist in some of their attacks. we're seeing a change in some of their tactics and procedures. when i went over to the gulf of

aden in the fall of 2009 in nato. maritime group 1 is a group and the eu and one of the subjunks is ct51 as the admiral is quite area and those are the three principal purely multitask forces that are operating to try to deal with the piracy problem. at the same time there's a number of independent deemployers there a country such as japan, korea, russia, china they're all working together to try to deal with the problem but each of them with a little more different mandate, certainly whether they are escorting convoys through the gulf of aden or trying to protect their own national shipping, these are some of the strategies that they're employing but what i

noticed when we were operating there is that despite national mandates, despite a few different approaches in how to deal with the problem, the crux of the issue is they all wanted to do something about piracy. so what we found is that everybody was working together to share information, to exchange bits of information that might prove useful to the locating pirate action groups to try to deal with the problem and i found a very constructive element while we were conducting our work over there. >> i just wanted to put a little vignette that kind of gives you a sense of how we dealt with certain issues out there. and i know we've got a bit of a strategic overlay and a sense of the operational environment but to pull yourself into my position as a ship's captain. when you're out there operating, it's just immense geography. and you're trying to reassure the shipping community that is obviously quite concerned about the problem. you can hear it every time they

call in on the radio. if they see something suspicious, they're looking for support. they're looking for that voice from the other end of a radio to say we're here. we're doing our best to try to reassure you to try to suppress and detour piracy. and time and again we would hear the jittery voice of the captain full of fear thinking something was going to happen. i recall on one night where we heard the captain coming across saying i see something suspicious. we immediately got on the radio to tell him, we're on our way. we're going to come have a look which we did and clearly what struck home to me was to hear the apprehension in his voice first off and then to hear the relief on his voice once on scene. there were three skiffs in his vicinity once we arrived they took off into the night. and his appreciation for the fact that there was an able force there doing what we could do to try to suppress those acts before they get on board and take his ship.

so i found that time and again, that reassurance of the legitimate mariners, those who want to use and need to use the global commons, the sea to make sure that we can transfer cargo to keep our livelihood in place, to keep the commerce moving. it's that legitimate use of the sea that is important and that reassurance that we can provide -- by dealing with the problem at sea, because you ultimately although we'll do what we can at sea, the problem going to be and we'll try to do our best at sea suppressing and disrupting acts of piracy. >> thank you very much. it's a good mix of the operation and strategic policy there. over to my operational colleague here. captain martip? -- martin. >>, i suppose, the small unit approach to counter-piracy

operations -- i'll just begin my remarks with a point on the 9th of september, 2010. a remarkable day. not because the star was recaptured. that's what we had trained at the navy and the marine corps and all of our elements in the 15th marine expeditionary unit. it was a remarkable day because simultaneously they were conducting operations across the theater and that day there was people rescued in pakistan. there was bombs dropped on taliban in support of enduring freedom and there was a hostage rescue on the jones star so that's a remarkable commentary on what the navy and the marine corps is doing and the importance of maritime that influence out at sea. the 9th of september a truly remarkable day. our role the fourth reconnaissance company was to provide an assault unit to their maritime raid force. my role i have a very talented individuals that i work for and i stay out of the way and let them do their job and that's

basically what it comes down and i'm on the radio telling all the good work they're doing. we were the concept of the marine corps in 2008. the command directed that we stand up a maritime rate force and get back into visit for search and seizure the ability to conduct interdiction operations, distributed operations at sea. so we were that -- we were that element. may 2010, we deployed ahead of the 15th mieux and we basically conducted training operations throughout the pacific, southwest and southeast asia with various countries in maritime assault basically preparing those coalition navies with how to conduct the assault on these vessels. on the 8th of september we had left task force 152, the week prior which is the task force in the arabian gulf and we had come in to task force 151 which is what the admiral stood up down there, and we were basically conducting convoy operations on board the uss dubuque in the

internationally recognized transit corridor. a couple days prior the monsoon season the started. as the scripper announced it's kind of an eery feeling and you feel like you're in a bad neighborhood. i think you'd agree with that feeling. there's just a sense about what the gulf of aden is like. a day later the magellan star and another motor vessel the old g were simultaneously pirated and that was on the 8th of september. we were conducting escort operations, moved to the scene of the uss princeton was on scene along with the turkish flagship who had just assumed command of task force 151. and it was sort of a perfect storm of events in that we had the task force commander on scene. we had the uss princeton, a very capable coast guard deployed with them and then the dubuque was tasked and organized to consult an assault at an opposed level.

that's the capability that my unit brought to the raid force that we can conduct an assault on an opposed target. so on the 8th of september we were prepared to go the authority. went up the chain of command and came back around and basically it worked out that we launch did assault on the morning of the 9th which worked to our advantage. actually, we were able to use the night to look at the ship's schematics and work on our assets that were onsite. the pirates throughout the night were basically -- you know, were intercepting some radio traffic and they were fight their way through this. first light of 9th we consulted the assault. we were on board in minutes and basically within 15 minutes we had the pirates apprehended, 9 in total. the real work came in the three-hour effort to get the crew out because as murphy reared his evil hand at us, the second we hooked and we began our climb, we lost

communications with the ship's crew in the citadel and the pirates made one last attempt to try to to get to them. in short it became a three briefing effort to get in the citadel and, of course, culminating having to cut a hole showing an american flag patched through. we're the americans and we're here to rescue and it was kind of a good close to that afternoon. the big take-away that, you know, that i can bring to the table is a junior officer in terms of counter-piracy are, one, that the task force does work, you know, just as the admiral said. it's a phenomenal thing, you know, of course, there's complication and it takes a lot to truly curb what's going on now. the task force especially 151 is a phenomenal thing. the pirates themselves, they're motivated. they're fluid and they're very creative and at least that's what we were seeing when we were out there. in terms of the marines and navy team that are out there, operating in the task force, in terms of tactics, you know,

speed, violence of action and mostly restraint. you should all note the most important thing at least for me as the small unit leader out there was the professionalism of the marines that operated and the sailors that operated that day. certainly weapons off safe multiple times and executed their target site with the highest level of restraint as they should. the level of professionalism that day was phenomenal. and lastly, truly the navy marine corps team operating out there is doing great work. not the end all be all out there and that's why it's complicated of the strategy level minded thinkers are here but at the tactical level the problem is solvable and i think we proved that on the 9th of september. thank you. >> thank you very much. a very interesting session. if i could pass over with the spokesman piece. admiral? >> thank you. this is really not a new phenomenon, piracy. we grappled with piracy in the

straits of milaka and perhaps one of the silver linings under the cloud of that tsunami is that it eliminated many of those piracy vessels that operated on-governor territories around indonesia. if you look back in our history, a book i would command is jefferson's first war, the war of terrorism when the barbary pirates were holding u.s. mariners hostage. and a number of hostage would front load their annual ransom payment to the barbary pirates so they could carry out commerce in that part of the world. here we are in 2011. now what has changed? the events are on the increase. the level of violence are on the increase. and the area of operations have expanded as well. you hard admiral mght mention square mil tt

the are theeski at dblgt ell offsh at sarg pac from will to prosecute. and again, under the sua convention. ironically somalia is one of the countries that is not signatory to the sua convention. and i'll just close with recreational vessels. we do a lot of outreach within the coast guard, with the national association of boating law administrators, with regattas. we have a staff attorney he's the maritime liaison assigned to bahrain who does outreach with a number of these regattas to make them aware that these are not safe waters for a vessel that can make 5, 6 knots under sail to be doing these open water regattas. the sailing vessel quest, working with that regatta, they were under the impression that the risk was manageable because of the presence of coalition forces but we saw how that played out. there was another regatta that was ongoing. there were about eight u.s. vessels participating.

they all pulled into port, put those vessels on roll on/roll off vessels and they have now since cleared the area so i do not expect to see any u.s. recreational vessels going po those waters anytime in the future. we provided a notice to mariners to all recreational vessels in the u.s. in an out reach to a number of forums that define what the geographic limits are and that this is not a safe place to be operating. and so with that, i think that's everything from our panel. and we look forward to entertaining your questions. >> thank you very much. and thanks to all of our speakers. if i can ask for questions now from the floor. we have darion who will be running around with the microphone. and anybody who is asking a question please identify yourself by name and affiliation and then and if you wish to address that to any specific member of the panel, please feel free to do so. >> yes. i'm with national defense magazine. can i ask anyone who has any knowledge, where's the money really going? 'cause i don't think many

people believe that these teenagers are walking away with a million dollars each. and so are there organized crime involved? and are these organized groups outside of somalia? or fully within somalia? where's the money really going? >> who would like to start? >> i would probably take that because this is a challenge that we faced in the meeting that i held he with the national security staff and again, these are cash payments that go directly -- typically, into somalia banks and we do not have good awareness of where the money goes from there. we do know some of it goes to buy property. some of it goes to buy education. in universities but that is a key piece of information that we currently lack. again, these are cash payments. it's not wired money, which does make the tracing of that very difficult but we're looking at some of the same methods we use within the department of justice, tracing drug money.

but right now that is an intelligence gap that exists with, you know, show me the money. >> well, i guess the other question that everybody asks is, is that money going to terrorists? and from what we have found, it is not going that route. when i was out there in 2007, actually they would exchange the money in a hotel dubai and another one would walk in with a briefcase and the other guy would walk out so there was always a middle man. and everybody else got their cut and then finally the pirates got whatever, you know, $200 sometimes. but lately, most of the cash has been done by air drops so they cut out the middle man. it really is a pretty extensive organization of a clan that knows what they're doing with the money. it is going somewhere but like the admiral said, once the cash gets out in the community it's pretty hard to follow the train. >> i'd just also like to add,

two, when i was operating there, there were examples where certainly it's very attractive to try to get access to some of that money and there were examples of some of the rival pirate clans going at each other essentially to get access to some of that as well. >> other questions? >> the navy has been talking on the coast guard for ages about if you have basic protection on the ship and you go 15-plus knots, you are probably not going to be hit. and the number of ships being hit is going up. are the companies simply unwilling to spend the extra money to go faster and to take those basic precaution isn't it so >> let me take that one. we do a lot of work with -- you know, with the global shipping companies. and certainly we have a number of them represented here today.

and there are incentives to follow these best management practices. and that's through the pni clubs, the underwriters for the ship and the cargo. and so that does provide a financial incentive, obviously, to follow these best management practices. let me put my counter-drug hat on because i've been tracing drug smugglers for 34 years and i haven't put them out of business yet. we've become very capable -- first we were chasing -- when they were mother ships, we were interdicting them they went to 70 knot go fast. and so then when we started arming helicopters they went to semi submersibles and they've gone a step further and they have gone to fully submersible vessels which makes it all the more to detect, monitor and ultimately interdict. so when you have a lucrative business like that and you don't have rule of law to prosecute, and then you go back to what the economic conditions are in an ungoverned territory, that

incentive is going to be there for some time yet. and it's certainly not one that the united states or even -- you know, the industry is just one niche, but it's really going to take a combination of private and public sector to be able to eradicate this threat. >> okay. any other comments? >> just to add to that, the number of vessels to go through the -- through that transitary is in excess of 30,000 vessels. so when we're talking -- i mean, it's a small number but it's so significant. but there's a lot of traffic that goes through there. and the vessels that -- i mean, if you're doing 16-plus knots high free board, stay in the zone and especially in the zones at the place where the pirates attack it during the day, if you've transited that night your chances of being pirated are very low. so we have to continue to watch the vessels that are transited at low speed, low free board. they got this big beacon out there and say, hey, come get me,

come get me. it's still -- those vessels are the ones that are targeted. >> i got a follow-up. [inaudible] >> you're sort of -- the shipping companies are dealing with what they have available to them. if they have ships that can only do 12 knots and they are low free board they can't stop commerce because that's the only ships to transport those cargo. we have seen it's those ships that are more funable. it would be in their best measures to put out lookouts, fire hose and see razor wire and they are encouraged and many do to report in the task forces that are operating there so that we can provide a little extra awareness as to where the higher risk vessels are operating and

that's part of the exchange of information between the commercial shipping industry and the naval forces that are operating there. >> if i could just add one thing. these guys are not the most educated people in the world out there. i mean, in the last year they've attacked the uss ashland and they're basically out there at night. they wake up in the morning and they go after ships. they're just looking for a target of opportunity. it's not that they have, you know, a particular ship in mind. it's what comes by. >> that's reflective of what we saw from the -- at least on the magellan star, younger probably mid-20s, you know. the use of -- it had a narcotic effect and that was played in the decision-making cycle in terms of how the threat assessment for what enemy or criminals i'm sorry, we thought we would see on the target site,

you know, the use of cot, lack of education, certainly there was an initial bravado that they have but i think the training are indications and warning, the collections that we were getting from them just line of sight through the lens was that they were not well trained but certainly a creative group of guys who should not be underestimated and that was something we certainly didn't want to do at the same time. >> did you have a view on the resilience if you would like of the ships that you were looking at to stage rescues on? >> in terms of their physical security? >> yeah. the security on the magellan star with the citadel was phenomenal. there's counter-pirates and antipirates and we talk about all these ship guys -- these ship owners can get through but certainly the establishment of the citadel saves the day for the crew of the magellan star. they had basically a defense in

depth on their ship where they could fall back to continued positions that had water and had food and had communications. that's some very important things that you have to consider. there was no hard security on the outboard, on the free board of the ship but razor wire, barbed wire is important. the pirates, the trends -- you know, they're coming up. they use lightweight waters and they use these skiffs that go go at 25 knots their closest angle of attack. they get on board they get one guy and they secure that ladder and the rest of the team is on. so the crew has to be well rehearsed to get to their citadel. what are they using to contact their crew and tell everyone who might be asleep or off-watch you have to go because you only have minutes. these pirates will go fast. they'll move from their approach and move to the bridge and then they'll get control of the ship. certainly the use of the citadel dumbies, speed, free board all of these things come in to play.

check in on coalition forces when you get in there. >> i'm with ausi unmanned systems magazine. you guys have been speaking to this possibly 1 to 2 million square mile area that you need to survey and look over and the growing threat of piracy. i was wondering if for the military and for the task force if you view it as more valuable to use tactical sort of scan eagle type systems or is there a growing need to use more long endurance systems? >> well, when i was out there in 2007 and in 2009 -- and i can tell you that scan eagle was the force multiplier. i begged every single day to the staff back at centcom, send me more scan eagle. i mean, we'd love to have p3's but -- i mean, you know, the

number of p3's in their inventory are decreasing so right now a scan eagle-type, you know, uas is just -- is just great to have out there. it's the perfect system to have. and when i came back and debriefed that, you know, i praised it. and back at that time in 2009, it was not in the -- you know, the permanent record in the navy but now we've selected it. but it's a great platform. and i strongly endorse it. it's exactly what you need out there. >> you need an international set of assets and have them define the systems. >> there was in ctf151 that was working alongside on the eu and the task force in the gulf of aden there were two scan eagles in operation which were very effective at locating pirate skiffs, conducting wide surveillance and certainly was a force multiplier as you

indicated bringing that intelligence, that information to the task group. but i would also note that with the international perspective of whether it was a japanese or an eu, mpa's operating in the area you can't always substitute a set of eyes and a helicopter with simply unmanned systems. so they are useful tools that augments your capabilities but they aren't the replacement as well. >> another question? >> yes. i wanted to ask in the wake of the quest, where the pirates killed the hostages, how did that change things on a tactical level? in terms of the noncompliant boarding? >> there's various aspects of the quest that's still under

investigation. there was dissension among the pirates. the two that were -- we had fbi hostage rescue team embarked in trying to cut a deal with two of the pirates. but there was dissension within the ranks. they had assassinated one of their own before we overwhelmed the sailing vessel quest. it probably goes back to, you know, what you heard the captain and admiral mcknight mention is that, you know, the lack of sophistication among these -- among these folks -- the use of khat, it is a narcotic and so their state of mind is questionable at best. the fact that they're running on adrenaline and now they're operating in the shadow of a u.s. warship, it may cloud good judgment. and so i think that's more indicative. this is not -- it's a very

spontaneous event in that regard. but we did see with the recent case with the danish vessel, the ing, another sailing vessel, with family members on board, we are aware that any attempt to recover those individuals would result in immediate execution so we're seeing that, you know, that type of behavior become more prevalent. is it out of frustration? you know, we can't -- it's very difficult to say right now. but again, i think it's -- the state of mind of these pirates itself always in question. >> next question, please. >> yes, this is keith johnson with the "wall street journal." commander wadell, i think you made a reference to the mother ships but this can be for all panelists as well. we've heard some differing numbers in terms of how many

mother ships are out there. the big concern -- we talked a lot about identifying the skiffs taking them out, tactical operations. what's to prevent all the different task forces from actually targeting and wiping out the mother ships if we can't go to the land-based solution to get at the root of it? you know, what's to stop the naval forces from going that route? >> the first problem with the mother ships is that often they are legitimate mariner so if it's a yemeni ship transferring goal down to the african continent these are just legitimate mariners out there who suddenly find themselves being taken hostage of pirate skiffs and they are mixed with the legitimate mariners so suddenly you're in a hostage situation where they are being compelled to assist the pirates in attacks of more lucrative targets. so at any decision or any desire to go after the mother ships, you're in a situation where you're putting legitimate

mariners, innocent mariners at risk. >> just to add to that, the mother ship issue is not new. i mean, this has been going on for years, like the commander said. they highjack it and use it and abandon it. there was a case in -- i think it was in late 2008 where we actually -- where the u.k. actually boarded the yemeni fishing and there were pirates on board and they got into a fire-fight. it's nothing new. they're using bigger vessels to go out farther distances to go out in the indian ocean. that's the thing that complicates the issue. and usually what you'll see they're flying -- i mean, they could be flying a flag of a yemeni, you know, whatever, or something so it's hard to actually say there it is right there unless you see them strategically going after another vessel. >> admiral? >> does that did that cover all the points seven >> i think the same challenge we have mother ships are used in

counter-drug operations. yeah, we have 37 bilateral agreements where we can go on board vessels of various flag states but when you go on board, a number of legitimate fishing vessels it's only a question of time before we get a demarsh from that nation and it's difficult to discern legitimate from illegitimate. you wantonly board every vessel out there will probably result in some type of reprisal as well through diplomatic channels. >> okay. i'm from surface warfare magazine. my question is for anyone who can answer. what types of training are the pirates receiving based on your observations. >> you know, i'm not sure the answer to that question in detail. but i can tell you that just --

just watching some of the -- the patterns and reading some of that just, you know, open source analysis you can see that they're doing -- they're certainly better than they were, you know, a decade ago or, you know, back when the -- you know, the '90s but there's some kind of training going on at that small pirate action group level. they need to coordinate who's going to be the ladder guy. who's going to be up there when they get there. by watching and that carrying it to its logical conclusion we saw we could, you know, certain that there's some kind of training going on. now, the level to that training, in my assessment, was you low. you know, on the 8th of september and again, this was just one event, you know, just one single event so take what you will. the watch standing and these basic things, we know how to do. very, very low levels of training awareness, discipline. and that's what you're looking for. the posture, how they were standing with their weapons told me and my leaders, hey these guys look how they're carrying

their weapons. this is probably not going to be too bad of a fight. does that answer your question? >> i haven't seen any pure examples of training. ultimately, what i've seen is they aren't very well trained. what they make up with lack of training they make up with zeal of training trying to get on ship and several ships that are pirated and he would. at the pirate camps along the coast of somalia, you would think those would be an opportunity for them to bring out other teams to try to get on board given in an benign environment and i haven't even seen that. what they're doing they are fabricating ladders on shore and they are bringing weapons and they're doing the best they can fumbling their way through it but, obviously, it's working. >> okay. >> we have a question down in the front here.

one across there as well. >> how many actual pirates are we talking about worldwide that are around? and to piggyback off something you need. you said the average somali makes $2 a day. it comes out to a couple hundred dollars a year. how much does an average pirate make per year. >> well, i'll take a stab at that. yeah, i don't think we have a good number, although, i think we've seen just like we have with the whole counter-drug threat, which enjoys anywhere from a 40 to an 80% profit margin. any fortune 500 company that enjoyed those numbers would be sitting pretty. but the ability to reconstitute the force, i think, is the real challenge, you know, this is not one where just through attrition we're going to eliminate the threat. it will readily reconstitute. but, you know, as we talked about the mother ship operations, the fact that pirated vessels are then turned

to become to support pirate activity, it makes it difficult to get our arms around the sheer magnitude. but when you look at, for example, 14 pirates on a 56-foot sailing vessel the quest, if that negotiated settlement had come down to let's say $5 million, you know, how does that get distributed? you know, many of these sponsors have -- pirates have sponsors that help train, equip and so we didn't really get into the investment portfolio, but certainly, you know, if you're an investor in somalia investing in piracy may be a lucrative investment. so there may be perhaps be a sharing of those proceeds and then those are, you know, the real intelligence gap that we talked about earlier, where does the money go, you know, and following that cash flow is a challenge but i think that would help us give you a better indication of, you know, how much they profit.

we do know they are making investments in purchasing land oftentimes in somalia but they're also investing in education, if foreign universities but very difficult to say how much do they actually profit? but certainly it provides them, you know, a much more promising lifestyle beyond that event than they would otherwise experience living in somalia. >> okay. thank you. another question there. >> yes. this is sam from navy times again. my question for you, admiral, is about the piracy trend, the number of hostages has nearly doubled since last year. the length of the hostages being held is longer and the ransoms sound like it's going up and still we're talking about a law enforcement paradigm. you referred to the discussions that are going on at a policy level about -- about how looking

at new ways of handling this problem. are those -- are things on the table increasing taking or -- or taking other aspects of of a war on terror paradigm to the piracy problem? >> you know, we explored every option. even putting bounty on pirates. obviously, that's not one we -- you know, we are going to push forward but really looking at this from a number of different strands. certainly you have the offensive aspect, the kinetic operations. the defensive posture and that's hard hitting the targets that are being targeted. >> following the money flows and then rule of law. if not somalia, at least among, you know, the nations of the willing. we see that with just the membership in the coalition within ctf151, you know, nearly

30 nations participate that and others are doing. india, for example, are doing independent operations off their coast but it really is going to be a confluence of offensive/defensive posture, rule of law and then other policy, you know, following the money flow and that again the whole rule of law challenge ultimately resulting in prosecution but it was going to take a combination of all of those. there is no one holy grail to deal with this problem. and that's really what we're looking at the policy level but certainly not a one approach. and that being, you know, strictly kinetic operations. and certainly putting boots on the ground in somalia, that is not an option that's under consideration right now. [inaudible] >> i think what you've seen right now within the ctf, within

several of the successful apprehensions, you know, of having overwhelming force when you're able to bring that force to bear, you know, on a pirate vessel or a vessel that has been pirated -- and ultimately when the crew is in a citadel -- the citadel is a hardened area on the ship that the pirates are not able to penetrate. and so as long as the crew is, you know -- within that compartment and then the confessions these vessels carry -- it's a ship operated security system. it's an alerted button that says they're under attack and at least that provides us an indication warning including the name of the vessel and its location that event has taken place. then that at least allows us to -- and again, it's all about proximity. you know, we talked about large tyranny of distance and so having a vessel in that proximity but if all of those

events come together, then it does make that, you know -- that type of intervention at least one that we could take under consideration but recognizing that we put our people at great risk when we go in to intervene as well. at the same time, there's, you know -- when you look at this from a business case, and the value of these cargos, you know, there are some shippers that would just as soon as write a check as the cost of doing business but that will only cause, you know, this type of activity to flourish so again that's within the private sector which is not something at the policy level we can necessarily control especially within foreign states. but those are some of the challenges that we face as well. that there are nations that are willing to write a check. our u.s. government will not that sponsor a payment by the u.s. government to free hostages. i have a long-winded answer but there really is no one answer.

it's private. it's public, private sector really being, you know, within our shipping industry and certainly the public -- >> you can see this discussion in its entirety on our website, c-span.org. and we're returning now to live coverage of the u.s. senate as senators are expected to continue work on the patent and trademark law overhaul legislation. also there's no clear timetable for votes on 2011 federal spending. as behind the scenes negotiations continue on those two competing proposals. live now to the u.s. senate here on c-span2.

a senator: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to a period of monk business until 3:30 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. a senator: mr. president, i ask senate proceed to a period of nk business until 3:30 p.m. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator maryland. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum calling dispensed with. officer without objection, so ordered. mr. cardin: i understand we're in morning business. is that correct? the presiding officer: that is correct. mr. cardin: mr. president, i take this time to talk about the budget deficit and what we need to do in order to bring our budget into balance, to have a credible plan to deal with our future growth in this nation. i start off by saying, the budget deficit is an extremely serious issue for this nation. we do not have a sustainable budget. we cannot sustain a budget that creates debt at 10% of our gross domestic product, and a gross debt that equals 100% of our g.d.p. we need to bring down our

deficit in order to have the type of economic growth so that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy a better economic circumstance than this generation. but i think, first, before we talk about where we need to go, we've to understand how we got here. and i'm not going to harp on this but i want to make sure we -- that the people of maryland and the nation know how we got to these large deficits so we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. during president clinton's administration, we balanced the budget. and i might say we did that -- the democrats did it without a single vote from the republicans. we were on course to retire all of our debt, and that was just 10 years ago. then, under president bush, we cut taxes twice without paying for them. we want to war in -- we went to war in iraq and afghanistan and didn't pay for it. to date, the war in iraq has got $770 billion.

that's money that we had to borrow in order to fight that war in iraq. we've chosen, under the previous administration, that it was more important to cut taxes than it was to balance the budget. and that was a mistake. president obama inherited a huge deficit, and an economy that was hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month. we will, it is time now to move forward. we have turned our economy around. it is growing. we need to do it in a way that does not jeopardize our economic recovery. but it's absolutely essential that we start to move our budget back into balance. and that we take aggressive steps to do it. today in the budget committee we heard from erskine bowles and from senator simpson from the debt commission, and i think we were all impressed that if we're going to get a credible plan, which is critically important for our nation to balance the

budget, that we need to follow the example of the debt commission. it's something we have -- it doesn't mean twoaf agree with everything the debt commission did. but the commission recognizes that we couldn't balance the budget by cutting domestic discretionary spending alone. that we need a game flan brings all the major components of the budget together: discretionary domestic spending, military spending, we need to deal with entitlements, and we need to deal with revenues. and we're only going to ghet done if democrats and republicans work together for a credible plan. that's what we need to do in order to bring back our economy. now, the only specific proposal that we've had come over from the house of representatives to date, h.r. 1, their budget, i believe does not follow the example of the debt commission. i believe that it is extremely harmful to the process of trying to work out a plan when we have a credible effort to balance the

budget with shared sacrifice. because the house-passed budget, the republican budget in the house, gets all of its savings from 12% of the federal budget, from discretionary disom stick spending, and it jeopardizing our recovery. mark zandi, the economist from moody's, stayed would lose 700,000 jobs if the house-passed republican budget were enacted into law. let me give you some examples as to how it would affect the people of maryland if the house budget became law. first, let me talk a little bit about some of the budget cuts itself. that ten days ago i was at a health center in prince georges county, maryland, they're expanding it to include prenatal care. the reason, quite frankly, is that the infant mortality rate in maryland is too high. we rank 29th in the nation. that's unacceptable. in the african-american

community, the infant mortality rate is 260% of that of the white community. the problem is that we have too many low birthweight babies. some die and become part of the infant mortality statistics. others survive and have complications throughout their life. it's in our interest from every perspective to bring down that infant mortality rate and to provide prenatal care for women so that we have healthier babies. i would hope we would all agree to that. we will, we're doing something about that in maryland. using moneys that were part of the affordable care act. the republican budget would eliminate that funding. that community would not be able to expand with prenatal care, to do something about the health of our citizens. 2,900 community health workers would lose their jobs in maryland -- 2,9 radio community

health workers would lose their jobs in maryland if the house-passed budget, h.r. 1, became law. i a taken the floor on several occasions a little bit earlier today to talk about the chesapeake bay and the federal partnership. we've had a federal partnership in cleaning up the bay. it is the largest he is wary in north america, a body of global significance. and it's in danger because too many pollutants are entering the bay as a result of population growth, development, and farming practices. well, we have a game plan to do something about it. but the budget that passed the house would cut the chesapeake bay program dramatic $25 million, making text extremely difficult for us to move forward on our remedial efforts. to make it even worse, there is an environmental rider that was put on h.r. 1 that says that none of the funds made available under this act may be used to

implement the bay restoration plan now underway. what does that mean, mr. president? it means that each one of the states that are in the watershed of the chesapeake bay, the state of virginia, the state of deacialtion the state of new york, pennsylvania, west virginia, and the district of columbia, all rely on improving the west water treatment i facilities plants under the state resolving fund. if that rider became larks the states could not participate in that program. it would not be able to implement one of the major features of their plan in order to reduce the pollutants going into the bay to make it a cleaner body wawmplet i could talk about the watershed grants that go to schools, go to civic associations eliminated under the republican budget, or i could talk about how the state gets money to operate its water funds eliminated under the house-passed budget.

the environmental protection agency sees their budget reduced by over 30%, plus additional environmental ride theirs make it very difficult for the environmental protection agency to protect the environment. in maryland, we would lose $150 million towards the federal government's commitment to the washington metro system. this affects the entire area, including virginia and the district. this is the nation les metro system, wit where the federal workforce gets to work. we entered into a 10-year commitment that the federal government would be a partner, $150 million towards those costs. the house budget eliminates those transit funds. head start -- the republican house budget would cut head start by $1.1 billion, 157,000 children would be affected,

2,300 in the state of maryland. 2,300 in. these are children that are getting a better start in life because of this program. and the budget in the -- passed by the house, h.r. 1, would eliminate those services for so many of our children. pell grants to allow families to be able to afford college education reduced by $5.7 billion, 9.4 million students. what does it mean for the people of maryland? it means those who have pell grants today could see their grants go down by as much as $650. i can tell you, mr. president, there are many families in maryland that just can't afford that extra $650. and without a college education today, it's difficult to be able to be as competitive as you need to be in order to take advantage of our economic opportunities. the w.i.c. program that helps women, infants, and children cut by 10% under the house-passed budget. n.i.h. funding down $1 billion.

research not just at n.i.h. which is located in my state of maryland, but also at johns hopkins university, the university of maryland medical center would be disrupted if the republican house-passed budget h.r. 1 were to become law. our challenge, as president obama so well state in the state of the union address, is we have to outeducate, outinnovate and outbuild if our competitors of america are going to be able to compete in the 21st century globally that's our challenge. h.r. 1, the republican budget, does not allow us to do that. there's a better way of doing it. and as the president said, we need to do it in a fiscally responsible way. how do you do it? we need a credible plan to balance the federal budget, a credible plan that will bring in more deficit reduction than h.r. 1, the republican budget, because you need to allow america to grow but yet move

towards a balanced budget. the only way you can do that is to include, as i said earlier, all sectors, not just discretionary domestic spending. you need to include military spending. you need to deal with entitlements and you need to deal with revenues. president obama's budget starts us down that path by freezing discretionary domestic spending over five years. freezing discretionary domestic spending over five years. now, we've already gone further than that in the continuing resolution that we passed. we're all now going to go back to 2010 numbers, even a little bit below that. we've already put on the table dramatic reductions in the growth rates of discretionary domestic spending. but we need to include defense. iraq and afghanistan need to come to an end, and those savings will be dramatic. america cannot continue to have a growth economy where we spend

so much more than any other nation on our national defense. we have to protect the people of this nation but we can't take the burdens of the world. there has to be adequate burden sharing among our allies, bringing savings to the u.s. taxpayer. in entitlement spending, yes, we need to bring down costs. i think we taobgd a may -- took a major step toward doing this in the affordable care act. one of the areas where i agree with some of my republican friends who are citing krao*eut krao*eut -- who are criticizing the congressional budget office we're going to get more savings than what the congressional budget office has estimated. i am convinced that when you deal with people in preventive health care, use better information technology where you manage people's diseases, where you deal with readmissions so people understand what they need to do to stay healthy, when you put that together, when you expand our community health

centers, what's happened at the baby center on prenatal care, when you do that it's going to bring down the growth of health care costs. america spends well more than any other nation in any way you want to calculate it on health care. we need to bring down that growth rate. we don't have the health care results to demonstrate that type of a commitment. we can bring down the cost of health care. and when we do that, by implementing the affordable care act and making sure we get those savings, we will bring down the medicare costs. we will bring down the medicaid costs which will save taxpayers even more under our entitlement spending. we can get those savings. and, by the way, we're going to save middle-income families in this country by also reducing their costs in health care. that's what we need to do, making our economy stronger. so we can do something about entitlement spending. and there are other areas that we need to look at. the farm subsidy programs need to be reviewed, and the debt commission came in with

recommendations in that regard that i think are worthy of our review. and then there's revenues. yes, i think we need to take a look at revenues. our current income tax structure cannot be justified. as has been pointed out frequently, we hemorrhage as much revenue in our tax code as we raise. what do i mean by that? if you eliminated all the special provisions, you could cut the tax rates in half. in half. and since we had tax reform in 1986, we've added so many new loopholes and provisions and special interest provisions in the tax code. in 1986 we attempted to lower the rates and make sure everybody paid their fair share. well, it's now 2011 and we're out of balance, and we need to look at tax reform. i have urged us in looking at tax reform that we should look at consumption-based taxes. i know the criticisms of the consumption-based taxes.

let me just start by saying if we had consumption-based taxes to deal with some of our income tax revenues, we would be more competitive internationally. if you're an export company and you're choosing whether to locate here in america or to locate in another country, you pay income taxes here that can't be taken off the price of your product when you put it in the international marketplace. if you locate in another country that use consumption taxes at a higher level than we do -- and we don't use it at all, but higher levels than our income taxes, that country will allow those exporters to take the tax off when they put their product into the international marketplace. and that's acceptable under the world trade organization. putting american producers at a disadvantage. we need to save more as a nation. we've heard over and over again the point made that america during the height of our economic progress had one of the

lowest savings ratios in the world. we need to save more as a nation. our tax code should encourage savings much more than it does today. i want to make it clear, i think i am totally committed that in tax reform, we make our tax code more progressive. i don't believe it's progressive enough. progressive means that it is based, at least in part, to the ability to pay. so wealthier people pay a higher percentage of the tax than lower-income people. today under our income tax, many people do not have to pay income taxes. well, we can design a consumption tax so they won't have to pay the consumption tax, so there is no new tax burden. in fact, there are proposals out there that could take more people off the tax rolls. and, by the way, this is a zero-sum game on revenue. let's decide how much revenue we need and let's raise it in the most cost-efficient way that

will allow america to grow. that's the type of reforms i hope we will be able to get into. if we do, it will mean not only bringing our budget into balance by a credible plan that deals with discretionary domestic spending and military spending, entitlement spending and revenues, but does it in a way that allows america to grow. by investing in our future in education, in energy, in our transportation infrastructure, in transit and all those areas that we need so that we can meet the challenges of the future, but we do it in a way that is fiscally responsible. how do we get this done? by coming together, listening to each other. i don't think anyone here has a monoply on what is right. for the sake of our nation, let's listen to each other and try to get this done in a way that we have a credible plan. it's got to be a credible plan. these are not democratic problems or republican problems or independent problems. these are american issues, and

we've got to put our nation first. so i hope each one of us will step back a little bit and listen to debate and use the debt commission as a model of civility. again, i'm sure we'll have different views on it, but i hope at the end of the day that we can achieve at least the deficit reduction of the commission. i think we can do that. i know that our nation and the people of maryland and the country want us to do this. and working together, i think we can accomplish those goals. and with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. demint: is the senate in a quorum call? the presiding officer: it is. mr. demint: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. demint: thank you, mr. president. i have been sitting in my office listening to news reports about the congress and the president arguing about the budget and the debate about what we're going to cut. it's interesting to think back over the last couple of years because it's hard to put these

things together after two years of the largest expansion of government, the biggest increase in debt in our history, now suddenly we are debating what needs to be cut. i think over the last couple of years as the president proposed a massive spending plan that we call the stimulus, republicans were saying no, that's not the way to improve the economy, but the president insisted it would keep unemployment below 8% and get our economy going again. republicans said no. we were accused of being the party of no, but as it turns out, we were -- we were right. and then it wasn't too long until the president insisted that we needed essentially a national takeover of our health care system, and this is what he promised would lower the cost of health insurance. republicans said no, that what we need is more freedom for

patients and physicians to work together and more transparency, more competitiveness in the market. the president said no, that his way of nationalizing health care was better. republicans were again called the party of no for saying that was not the way to go, but as it turns out, we were right. insurance premiums are -- are headed straight up. even "the new york times" today talked about skyrocketing insurance premiums and less health care. it wasn't long after that until the president and our democrat majority wanted more of a national -- more national control of our whole banking system with the financial reform. it was supposed to loosen up credit and help our economy get going again. but i've talked to too many bankers back home to believe that that would work. of course, republicans said no, that wasn't the direction we needed to go. we were called the party of no. but as it turns out, we were

right. we might say we were the party of no, but you spell it k-n-o-w. we knew this approach of centralization, power, of government control was not going to stimulate our economy, it wasn't going to improve our health care system, it wasn't going to improve our banking system. it was the time to say no. last november, the american people decided it was time to say no. they began to put a stop to what's been going on up here, and we know what happened in the house and the elections over here, but the american people, i mean, they were pretty clear, they instinctively knew that we couldn't continue to spend more than we were bringing in. they knew that when you're borrowing 40 cents on every dollar you spend, that sooner or later the country is going to be bankrupt, but it's amazing since that election, even with the changes, that our colleagues here on the other side, even the other day, killed a proposal to

balance the budget, a resolution that called for the balancing of the budget. and i think most americans know if you're not willing to balance your checkbook or balance your budget, sooner or later, you're going to be bankrupt, and i think that's what a lot of americans are afraid of right now. and i think we have a different situation going on with our colleagues on the other side from -- from wisconsin to here in washington, as we look at the budget problems and the debate on how to cut spending at the federal level. we have got a party of no show. they're not showing up for the debate. in wisconsin, the democrats headed across the state line. in the budget debate, the president who had pledged to do something about our -- our spending and our deficits and go through the budget line by line didn't even produce a budget, and the budget he proposed this year and promised that it would keep us living within our means,

i think even the most liberal commentator said this expands our debt nationally probably more than $10 trillion over the next ten years. we're over $14 trillion in debt. we hit our debt ceiling within the next month or two, and we're debating how much to cut. i just wanted to talk ailing bit about this de -- talk a little bit about this debate. because it shows with even the stunning election we had in november, very quickly congress is back to business as usual. the deficit we're looking at this year in america -- this is just one year -- is over $1.5 trillion. that's going to be on top of the $14 trillion that we're already experiencing. and the projections are that we will increase our debt over the next ten years another trillion dollars every year. friends, last month, in february, which was a short

month, over $220 billion in debt in that one month. that's a larger deficit than we've experienced in most years that our country has been around. it's crazy. $220 billion in one month. we're facing $1.5 trillion this year. and it's amazing how this place can lower our expectations. because you know what the debate is about right now? the republican house has proposed $61 billion in cuts against the $1.5 trillion. the democrats have told us, this is completely unacceptable, draconian cuts. the president proposed around $6 billion. i think senator -- the democrat leader today is coming out with

one that's about $4.5 billion, which some say is too much of a cut. now, as we're looking at doubling this $14 trillion deficit over the next ten years, or close to doubling it, the hard decisions that we have to make about how do we deal with social security and medicare, the big decisions about how do we economize, even in areas like our defenses, how do we possibly deal with this debt? we have a congress now that instead of addressing the issue of $1.5 trillion is debating between $61 billion and $6 billion. these are fractional. you cannot even see the line here of what is being proposed by our democrat colleagues. i'm afraid that president obama

and the democrats like we see in wisconsin are not showing up for this debate. instead of proposing realistic ways to tighten our belts at the federal level, to look at how we can balance our checkbook, as so many americans have to do every month in their homes, the president has decided to sit on the sidelines and criticize things that have to be trimmed or cut or changed. i mean, it's amazing that the democrat leader has called republicans mean-spirited because they're proposing to cut funding for a cowboy poetry festival. a cowboy poetry festival. now, i love poetry and cowboys as much as anyone else, but we're looking at bankrupting our nation, destroying the future that was given to us by our predecessors. and we can't even get close to a

realistic debate on how we can stop this rampage towards bankruptcy in america? this is not enough. even what the house republicans have done is not enough. i realize that politics is sometimes the art of the possible, but i'm hoping that it can become the promotion of the principles that make this country great and can secure our future. we all have to decide today how we're going to vote. obviously this $6 billion is not a serious proposal by our democrat colleagues. but i think those of us that realize that we're up against a mountain of debt, how do we deal with even the highest proposal now that's coming through congress? my point is this -- there's some hard decisions that have to be made here in washington. some very hard decisions. there's a new reality that we

have to face as a congress. we have to tell the truth. americans just want the truth. they want fact-based budgeting. they want us to -- to do the things that we need to do to save our country. obviously, no one wants anything that's coming to them to be cut, but i've talked to too many americans that have said keep fighting, do what has to be done to leave this country as good as we found it. i think that's a reasonable thing for us to consider here. and what we're doing here is not even within the realm of reality of what has to be done to leave america better than we found it. this is not about partisan politics any more. this is about the survival of america. this is really about avoiding bankruptcy. not just for our country, but this country has been the bastion of freedom and the model for democracy and freedom for centuries. other countries even today are

looking at us and wanting to be free as violence erupts around the world to try to overthrow authoritarian regimes so people can live in freedom. but at the same time other countries strive to be like america, america seems to be determined, at least at the political level, to push our way towards a third world country that's so in debt and so dependent that we no longer can determine our own destiny. because today america is literally on its knees to china and other countries for the credit we need to run our economy. we're also on our knees to the middle east, which is very unstable right now, for the energy we need to run our country, to even take our food to market, the essentials here at home. but instead of addressing the real issues, knowing that this budget is in front of us over the last couple of weeks, when we knew we just had this two-week funding bill to get us through, instead of debating

what we're really up against, we've been dealing with a patent bill. now, i think it's a good thing to improve our patent system. but, folks, the party that's leading the senate here has been a in-show -- has been a no-show on the issue that is really threatening our country, and unless they show up, it is very difficult for republicans who resident in the white house, they're not controlling the senate to actually take the steps that are needed to move our country back in the right direction. so my invitation today is to my democrat colleagues. after living to them call us the party of no, i will say that we were right and our hope is they will listen to what we're saying here and show up for the debate on our budget. and what we need to do to change the role of the federal government, to devolve functions back to the states and back to individuals so that this country

can continue to survive, thrive, succeed in the future. this is within our grasp, it is something that we can do. this is not a doomsday scenario, because many of the solutions are not in what the federal government can do but what the federal government can let go of. because as we look at the problems we have today, it's not a matter that freedom has fail failed. the problem is we have failed to let freedom work. we have tried to take control of education, of health care, of transportation, of energy, of -- of retirement programs. and the fact is we haven't done it well and now we're spending so much that our country is threatened with bankruptcy. there are good solutions if we're willing to look at letting things go. and as we consider this massive debt hill that we have to climb, we need to realize that we can and we must balance the budget.

that is probably the -- i would consider the number-one goal of the republicans right now is to produce a budget that shows within five years that we can balance the budget and leave america better off than before we started. and i believe with real freedom solutions we can do that. but we need to go back to where we started. this political system, this washington establishment has brought america to the brink of bankruptcy. the debt in one year, even one month, we're talking about not even addressing for maybe a few days and we can't even agree on this $61 billion. i hope the american people, who were so instrumental in changing things in november, will rise up and let washington know that it's time to get serious about

reforming the way we spend money in washington. we've had reports in the last week that show over $100 billion of just outright waste that we could cut immediately if we would just address it. but when one party won't show up for the debate, it's very difficult to do. let's make this more than partisan politics. let's cooperate. let's look at the real problem, and let's address it. and i believe we can succeed. thank you, mr. president. i yield back, suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

inquire the parliamentarian, my

understanding is that we are in morning business an permitted 10 minutes for -- the presiding officer: you are correct. a senator: thank you, mr. president. there's a lot of talk these days about dangers posed to our national security from faraway places. mr. lautenberg: the revolution in rib yarks the war in afganistan -- rib yarks the war in -- libya, the war in afganistan, they get our attention. what about the dangers that lurk inside our nation? we have a danger that is directly visible and we are about to stoke that fire. house republicans are going after something as fundamental as the air our children breathe. the budget they recently -- recently passed for the gutting of the clean air act, which is a clear and present danger as they

fail to really solve a major fiscal requirement, and that includes expansion of revenues to balance the budget rather than simply slash and burn policy we're now undergoing. the clean air act protects our children from toxic chemicals in the air and illnesses like asthma and lung cancer. last year alone that law prevented 1.7 million cases of childhood asthma and more than 160,000 -- 16,000 premature deaths -- 160,000 premature deaths according to e.p.a. now, those numbers are big, but they loom a lot larger when it's your child, as we often say here, what goes around can come around. and if you really want to know

the real value of the clean air act to america's families, talk to the millions of parents who live in fear of their children's next asthma attack. it's a fear my own family knows all too well. one of my grandsons suffers from this disease and he's an athletic young man and every time he goes to a competitive game, my daughter first checks to see where the closest emergency room is if he hears him starting to wheeze. the house republican budget says these families, we're sorry, we're here as accountants, and we're not here to worry about these humanitarian things, as ridiculous as that sounds, but that's what they've done over there with their budget. they say you can't restrict polluters with regulations because it's too cumbersome.

if you don't like regulations, get rid of traffic signals. those red lights really slow traffic down. it's a terrible inconvenience. think of the outcome if you had no red lights. maybe they would get rid of the air traffic control system. pilots having to wait for some governmental bureaucrat to tell them when and where they can fly, land, or take off. the house republican budget doesn't even allow us to control mercury emissions. and mercury is brain poisoning for children. the centers for disease control have said that mercury is a potent neurotoxin that can, and i quote -- "permanently damage the brain, kidneys and -- in developing fetus." and, yet, the house republicans want to return mercury to our

nation's air. the house republican also -- budget also prevents the e.p.a. from strengthening air quality standards for soot pollution. and soot pollution reaches deep into the lungs, causes serious health problems especially in the very old or the very young. and you see how ugly it looks here. it's much uglier when it reaches inside a child's body. studies have linked it with aggravated asthma, heart attacks, premature death. why would we want to weaken our clean air laws and allow polluters to pump more smog, more soot and more toxic substances into the air that our children breathe? it's pretty simple.

the tea party republicans in the house apparently don't care about protecting our children's health. they only care about one thing, cutting the budget no matter the real cost, the long-term pain that can follow by cutting these budgets. and the question that we have to ask here, do we want our children to be able to play outside in clean air that allows them to grow and be healthy or should we just keep them indoors all the time? if you want to see where the house republicans will lead us, look at china. china has no clean air act. the air is so polluted that many people wear masks when they walk outside. and during the olympics in beijing, some u.s. athletes delayed their arrival to avoid the polluted air. on a trip i took to china some years ago, i went to visit the

minister of environment and he complained. he said, look at how the united states fouls the air with the burning of fuel. and i asked him to join me on the -- at the window on the 23 floor, you couldn't see the sidewalk, that's how heavy the pollution was in the air. so we don't want to be like that. we want to make sure that we take care of our obligations, and the strongest obligation anybody has in america is to their children. and interestingly enough we -- what's happening now is the phone calls that came to my office in new jersey that first seemed to support these

irrational budget cuts, and now they've turned around and they don't like what they see. and we don't -- we would rather make sure that our children are taken care of, that we try to balance the budget in more efficient ways than the -- and the one that i talk about on a regular basis is revenue. i ran a pretty good-sized corporation before i came to the senate and i know something about financial statements. and i knew one thing, that we had to continually improve the revenue so that we could in that corporation increase the profits and not cut staff needlessly or endlessly while the company got weaker and we can't do it in this country of ours. and so, madam president, we face

a very difficult task because people are feeling the squeeze on their incomes, concern about job protection, concerned about being able to stay in their houses. we still face a lot of foreclosure possibilities for homeowners. can't educate their children. can't take care of their health. can't say to them, as we used to say, we know that our children will do better in the future and their lives than we did in ours. can't say it and be honest about it. we don't know that that's true. and if we continue along this -- the path that we're on, we're going to be looking at fairly bleak things to tell our children about as they grow if we don't work harder to balance the budget, educate the kids,

make sure their health is good and america is what it is always thought to be, a golden -- a golden opportunity to bring your families up and make sure that life is acceptable or better than they otherwise might have had. so, madam president, how is the time here? are we -- the presiding officer: the senator has used 9 1/2 minutes. mr. lautenberg: i will just take that half minute and i ask unanimous consent that if i go over the half minute, that i get two minutes more. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lautenberg: madam president, i served in world war ii, a long time ago, but i've been around a long time. and when i went into the army, i enlisted when i was 18.

my father was deathly ill with cancer. my mother was 37 years old. and the prospects for our family was grim. and i went to the army. my father with a condition arranged with the recruiters that i be allowed to stay home until my father passed away. he was 43 years old. my mother became a 37-year-old widow. and things were tough. money was owed. the doctors and pharmacists and hospitals. why do i talk about this now? it's because i was given the benefit as were eight million others in uniform to get my college education. i went to columbia university. it was so far distant from my

vision when i graduated from high school and enlisted in the army. it turned out to be the greatest generation that america has ever seen. it was because the government intervened at the right time and made sure that education was abundantly available for those who could learn. and that's what we ought to recall about america, and not this kind of a gloomy picture that says, okay, we're growing, but so are the threats to health and well-being. madam chairman, i yield the floor. okay. i ask unanimous consent to extend morning business until 5:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak there upon for 10 minutes each. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: without objection, the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. hatch: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from utah. mr. hatch: madam president, before the senate moves to final passage of the american invents act -- the presiding officer: the senate is in a quorum call. mr. hatch: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. hatch: before the senate moves to final passage of the america invents act of 2011, i want to express my unequivocal support for this bill. it's not a perfect bill. but the fact of the matter is, it's going to be a very, very important occasion to pass it through this body because we haven't passed a major piece of patent legislation for over -- we will, over 60 years, or around that time. it's been a long time in the making. but it is well worth the effort to modernize our patent system. despite modifications along the way, the bill retains its strength to bring about true reform. considering our country's economic condition shall the bill could not come at a more opportune time. it is integral to creating jobs and spurring growth across all sectors of our country. after all, jobs and economic growth are crucial to maintaining our nation's

dominance in innovation and entrepreneurship. i want to briefly mention a few key provisions of the act that improve our outdated patent system. these include transitioning to a first-inventor-to-file system that all the rest of the world has; allowing third parties to submit relevant prior art during patent prosecution; creating a patent quality enhancement supplemental examination process; instituting a post-grant review and an interparties reexamination expansion. all of that is extremely important. the bill provides face-setting authority and addresses a long long-wanted need to end the prarks the object noxious practice of diverting fees from the u.s. patent and trademark office. no wonder we have such a rough

time getting things to work. finally, the legislation makes important clarifications to tax strategy patents and creates a pilot program to review already-issued business method patents. now, this enumeration underscores a holistic approach to strikes the right balance. i hope everyone in this chamber recognizes what we are accomplishing here. we've come together in a bipartisan fashion to invigorate some of our country's greatest strengths, our ideas, and our inventive spirit. let me conclude my remarks by commending senate judiciary committee chairman pat leahy for his leadership and tenacity in moving this bill through the senate. he deserves a lot of credit. his vision and tireless efforts have made today's vote a reality. together, we have worked on patent reform legislation since 2006, and in reality, even earlier than that.

passing the torch of leadership along the way. one time i was chairntion he's been chairman -- one time i was chairman, he's been chairman. it's satisfying to see that the time has finally come to pass this bill. i also want to being acknowledge the hard work of our distinguished ranking member, chuck grassley. his unwavering support and commonsense approach has been invaluable. i also want to acknowledge the various staff members of senator leahy, my staff, senator grassley's staff for the work they've done on this bill. it is very important. likewise, contributions like i say of the members of the senate judiciary committee and other members of this body have enriched our debate. finally, as i've said, i want to thank our bill managers' staff for their efforts throughout the process -- aaron cooper, bruce cohen, rita and collin davis have been instrumental in getting us to this point. i also want to thank my own

counsel: matt sandrol, who has been a terrific job for all these years, and remi usal, my detailee. for hers and matt's commitment and perseverance over these many years. they've been a formidable team. i also want to acknowledge the importance -- the important work of joe matal, s.a.r. ray beth grosshart, and curtis legay. the president passing -- madam president, passing the america invents act is the right thing to do. and i ju u