the foundation? >> yeah, we have goals in our k-12 education, some of which are the goals under our control. that is, how much does the field understand great teachers, and do we have examples of all the key things great teachers do to make the subject interesting, calm down the classroom, help the kid who is behind, engage the kid who is ahead? there is all these things that -- >> the u.s. senate is returning from recess this afternoon debating two competing proposals to fund the government. voting is scheduled for 3 p.m. eastern. live coverage of the u.s. senate live here on c-span2. introduced on friday cuts $52 billion from the discretionary

spending request submitted by the president for fy 2011. if this amendment were agreed to, as written, it would mean that we would appropriate $51 billion less than the president felt was necessary for the government to carry out its duties. mr. president, i do not agree with every item in this president or any president request on this budget, but i also know that the president's budget request did not contain $51 billion in frivolous or wasteful spending. the cuts are necessary to reach the $51 billion level require difficult choices. this amendment makes real cuts to real programs. tens of thousands of americans will feel the direct impact of the proposed cuts.

but the cuts included in this amendment are based on hearings, testimony, and a thorough analysis of the current needs of every agency and department that the committee funds. by contrast, the republicans in the house have thrown together a proposal based not on budgets, not on hearings, not on the demonstrated needs of agencies and departments but, rather, based on the campaign promise to reduce spending by $100 billion. h.r. 1 shows clearly what happens when you write a bill based not on analysis but on campaign speeches. therefore, today the senate finds itself responding to draconian cuts that would lead to furloughs, disrupted delivery of government agencies and

services, and harm america's children, our students, our working class, and our seniors. an estimated 700,000 jobs would be lost. all of this pain delivered in the name of deficit reduction and the growing economy. yet, mr. president, the facts are clear. this is the wrong direction for our nation. mr. president, we face our current fiscal situation primarily because of falling revenues brought about by unpaid tax cuts especially for the wealthiest americans and because of ever-rising entitlement costs. every nonpartisan report on finding a solution to our current fiscal crisis stresses the need for comprehensive

solution, a solution that includes cuts in discretionary spending, both defense and non-defense, as we will as cuts in entitlement spending and, yes, the need for additional revenues. just yesterday "the new york times" published a story about the efforts of the junior senator from virginia and the senior senator from georgia who honestly examine what it will take to solve our fiscal challenges. according to that story, even if congress cut discretionary spending to zero, the senior senator from georgia was quoted as saying, "we still could not solve the problem." mr. president, i could not agree more. the solution to deficit reduction will not come from huge cuts to a small portion of

the federal government, but that is what the house is proposing. what h.r. 1 will do instead is jeopardize the economic recovery we are beginning to see. mr. president, this democratic alternative attempts to make the best of a very bad situation. the topline numbers tell a story. in this amendment we are $23 billion below the president's request for nonsecurity spendi spending, and we are $28 billion below his original request for spending related to our nation's security. for the department of defense alone we have reduced spending by $19.4 billion, including a reduction of $2.1 billion for military construction and $17.3 billion for it the rest of the

defense department. at this level, the bill is nearly $3 billion below the amounts proposed by the house for these activities. the recommended amounts will cover our defense requirements in this constrained fiscal environment. however, my colleagues should all understand that with our troops still serving in iraq and afghanistan, this is not the time to be looking to defense for additional reductions. mr. president, i fear that not all members understand the depth of the cuts that were made to get $351 billion under the request -- to get $51 billion under the request. it should be advised, for example, that the senate amendment cuts $355 million for state and local law enforcement grants. this will remain -- result in some 1,400 fewer local and

tribal law enforcement and criminal justice jobs. in addition, the amendment cuts $526 million from f.b.i. salaries and expenses. these cuts will halt new national security enhancements intended to improve our intelligence and counterterrorism capabilities, to protect u.s. information and technology networks from cyber attacks, and to assist in litigation of intelligence and terrorism cases. this amendment cuts science funding by $573 million at the national science foundation and by $165 million at the national institute of standards and technology and, as a result, mr. president, the nation will lose opportunities for promising

research in emerging fields like cybersecurity and nanotechnology. instead of taking a lead, as we have always done, we will slow down, allowing the rest of the world to catch up. when it comes to the critical area of education, the senate amendment eliminates 17 individual education programs, totaling $370 million. it cuts all federal funding specifically targeted to education technology, gifted and talented instruction, a and family literacy. and, mr. president, the list goes on and on, but as significant as these cuts are, they stand in strong contrast to the house republican bill, which includes such severe measures that the bill would undermine

our security, endanger our economy, while costing hundreds of thousands of american jobs. h.r. 1 would cut transit security grants by 66%. despite the fact that there have been over 1,300 attacks killing or injuring over 1-r8,000 people worldwide on trains and subways over the last seven years, the senate bill would a maintain the fiscal year 2010-enacted level of $300 million. the house republican c.r. cuts discretionary funding for community health centers by $1 billion compared to the fy 2010-enacted level. this cut would prevent any new clinic from opening. it would eliminate funding for 127 clinics currently operating

in 38 states and reduce current services at another 1,096 centers across the country. more than 2.8 million people will likely lose access to their current primary care provider, and over 5,000 health center staff would lose their jobs. the senate bill restores the $1 billion cut, providing both the vital services being provided today and the planned expansion of centers estimated to treat over 7.5 million new patients this year. the house c.r. would eliminate all funding for the transportation investment generating economic recovery target grant program. target grants are highly

competitive and fund thrption projects that make a significant contribution to the nation, a region, or metropolitan area. the house proposal would take funding away from 75 projects in 40 states across the country. based on the information from the transportation department, cutting a total of $1.2 billion from the target program will put 33,360 jobs at risk. h.r. 1 cuts funding for the social security administration administrative expenses by $125 million below the 2010 level. this would cause the s.s.a. to freeze hiring are across the agency and possibly furlough

employees at a time when the number of americans filing for disability and retirement benefits is at record levels. the senate bill, by contrast, provides $600 million more than the house republican proposal. compared to the house c.r., it will allow s.s.a. to process about 300,000 more initial disability claims and 150,000 more disability hearings and prevent delays in new beneficiaries receiving their retirement benefits. the house bill slashes title 1 education funding by nearly $700 million, meaning 2,004 schools serving disadvantaged students would lose funding and approximately 10,000 teachers

and aides would lose their jobs. at a time when schools across the nation are already struggling with budget cuts, the title 1 grants program serves as a foundation of federal assistance to elementary and secondary schools across the country, providing financial assistance to more than 90% of our nation's school districts. finally, with regard to our nation's security interests, the devastating funding cuts in h.r. 1 undermine our ability to stablize afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq and to support general petraeus's strategy. h.r. 1 provides $5.71 billion for economic support fund, a 27% cut from the fy 2011 request.

as both secretary gates and secretary clinton have made clear in testimony before congress, cuts of this magnitude will seriously impede efforts to stablize afghanistan and to transition responsibility for u.s. operations in iraq from military to civilian. mr. president, there are many more examples of damage that would come from, should h.r. 1 be enacted into law, which is why the president has promised a veto and why i know my democratic colleagues will reject it when it comes up to a vote. the senate amendment that i offer takes a responsible approach to funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year, making difficult decisions but also

ensuring minimal disruptions for the economic recovery. mr. president, we are now almost halfway through fy 2011, and if we are to have any chance of avoiding another series of continuing resolutions for fy 2012, we simply must finish our work on the third tier and move past this issue. therefore, mr. president, i strongly encourage my colleagues to support my amendment as a prudent alternative to the house measure. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. mr. ensign: mr. president, i start by asking unanimous consent that speakers on the republican side be limited to ten minutes each with senator coburn controlling up to 25 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. ensign: mr. president, i've

come to speak on the two proposals, the democrat proposal and the republican proposal from the house, known as h.r. 1. i'm going to reluctantly support h.r. 1. it reduces government spending by about $61 billion below last year's levels. the reason i'm reluctantly supporting it is because i don't think it goes far enough. we've heard the other side rail that the cuts are too large, but let me just -- a few quotes here. this is from admiral mike mullen, who is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. just going to read the yellow portion here. he said that, "i believe that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security." well, we know that our national debt is over $14 trillion now thi.this year we're spending in excess of what we take in over

$1 -- $almost $1.6 trillion. and all we're talking about in that house bill that got sent over here is reducing that amount by $61 billion, a very paltry amount. a few other quotes that i want to talk about here. this is from treasury secretary tim geithner. he said, february 17, "it is an excessively high interest burden," talking about our debt. he said, "it's unsustainable. with the president's plan, even if congress were to enact it and even if congress were to hold to it and reduce those deficits as a percentage of g.d.p. over the next five years" -- and this is the important part -- "we would still be left with a very large interest burden and unsustainable obligations over time." that's the secretary -- secretary of treasury. he also said that "our deficit

are too high. they are unsustainable." i think everybody agrees. and he said, "if left unaaddressed, these deficits will hurt economic growth and make us weaker as a nation." well, the bills that we have before us, one bill starts to address it. the other bill virtually ignores the deficit. the next quote -- this is from the president himself, "what my budget does is to put forward some tough choices, some significant spending cuts so that by the middle of this decade, our annual spending will match our annual revenues." he said, "we will not be adding more to the national debt." it is absolutely incredible that the president could make such a comment by looking at his budget. his budget takes us from $14 trillion in debt to $27 tril

onin debt over the next decade -- $27 trillion in debt over the next decade. almost doubles the national debt. and he says we're going to be living within our means? here's a graph of that. in 2010, we are about $13.5 trillion. you see over the decade, we go up further, further, further. down here, 2021, $26.3 trillion. this is virtually a doubling of our national debt. that's why when timothy geithner said it's unsustainable, our secretary of the treasury, appointed by president obama, he says it's unsustainable. we all agree it's unsustainable, so when are we going to get spending under control? we literally, we have to quit spending money that we do not have because we're bankrupting the very future of america. i want to quote just a few of the senators from the other side of the aisle.

senator joe manchin said, "the most powerful person in these negotiations, our president, has failed to lead on this debate or offer a serious proposal for spending cuts." he also said, the democratic bill, the other alternative, "utterly ignores our fiscal reality, that our nation is badly in debt and spending at un -- absolutely unsustainable and out-of-control levels. we must turn our financial ship around, but the senate proposal continues to sail forward as if there's no storm on the horizo horizon." that's a quote from one of our democratic colleagues here from west virginia. the bill that has been proposed by the democrat majority fails to understand that there is a fiscal crisis in this country and it is a problem of spending. senator claire mccaskill of

missouri said, another democrat, "i feel strongly that the cuts are not large enough. talking about this bill. another said, "we need so send some sort of a shock wave across the federal government that this time we really mean it." he was talking about spending cuts. he was talking about getting serious about deficit reduction. well, mr. president the house bill doesn't do enough but at least it's headed more in the right direction about getting spending under control. while i might not agree with every one of the spending cuts in it, the direction it is going is the right direction. what we need to do as a congre congress. the bill that the majority has put before us is really showing a lack of understanding of how serious this deficit and this debt -- how serious of an issue

that this is for our country. now, a few other things that i want to talk about. i want to put all of this deficit reduction that this is being called into some sort of contract -- of context. this year the congressional budget office says that we're going to spend $1.5 trillion more than what we take in. that's what the deficit is this year. according to the president, it's over $1.6 trillion. those are their estimates. the bottom line is, we are spending about 40 cents more per dollar than what we take in. now, these spending proposals that we have before us, this is how much the deficit is. the house bill will reduce that deficit by this tiny slice of the pie. the democrat majority's bill will reduce it by this little, tiny slice of the pie right

here. so the house bill is a small slice but at least it's a larger slice than what the democrat majority has put out. the bottom line is, this is patent system they and i can this will do -- this is pathetic and this will do nothing to put us on a sustainable fiscal path where we can start living within our means and quit spending mean we do not have. the house bill itself is actually just a 4% reduction in the amount of money that we're borrowing. just a 4% reduction. if you think about it, this ye year, since we're borrowing 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend, to put that in terms that maybe a family would understand, it would be like a family making $60,000 a year and yet it's going to spend $100,0 $100,000. well, any family in america would understand that that's unsustainable. you couldn't continue along that

path. and if that same family was to decrease their spending habits by the same amount that the democrats have proposed out of that $100,000, they would reduce their spending habits by $168. that's all. that's how pathetic this spending reduction is by the other side. we have to get serious. recently, senator coburn requested a general accountability office report that came back and said they identified over $100 billion in duplicative and wasteful spending programs. $100 billion per year in wasteful and duplicative spending programs. this g.a.o. report underscores the great negligence of the federal government when it comes to managing hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

let me just give you a couple of facts from that report. it says that the government spends $18 billion on 47 different job-training programs and yet the president even requested another $400 million for a new program that will replicate proven stra strategieo develop even more job-training programs. do you know how many of these job-training programs are measured for effectiveness out of the 47? zero are measured for effectiveness. zero. and yet we're going to create more instead of eliminating a lot of the programs and doing our proper oversight that this congress should be doing. there are 80 programs providing transportation to disadvantaged persons in eight different departments. the g.a.o. found that $2 billion in costs for just 29 of these programs but the extent of fragmentation in this area was unable to identify total cost for the other 51 programs.

in other words, they couldn't even identify what the total costs were for these other programs, that's how messed up it is. the u.s. government also spends about $63 billion on 18 different domestic food and nutrition programs and about $3 billion on 20 homelessness programs. and the report notes -- and i'm quoting -- "this can create unnecessary work for both providers and applicants and may result in the use of more administrative resources than needed." let me translate that. that means we have too much bureaucracy and too much wasteful spending so the money doesn't actually get to the people it's intended to help. it gets spent in the bureaucracy. we also have another almost $60 billion spent on over 100 duplicated and fragmented surface transportation programs. a hundred of them. and so while i'm troubled that

the $61 billion from the house just isn't enough to tackle the problem, i am astounded by what the other side of the aisle has done. it also continues many of the wasteful programs that we talk about: the corporation for public broadcasting has come under fire, obviously, npr, this morning their c.e.o. resigned. they've wean the controversies there. -- we've seen the controversies there. but this bill also spends $20 billion to help unions organize overseas, not even in america, our unions -- helping unions organize overseas. is that what we want to be doing with american taxpayer dollars? well, today's vote are a choice between modest progress and making the problem -- the presiding officer: excuse me, the senator has used ten minutes. mr. ensign: i would ask for an additional one minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. ensign: the house bill needs to be the floor for what we

accomplish out of this process. and as i said, the house bill isn't nearly enough and we can't allow this process to capture a modest improvement in the name of compromise by watering it down to a complete abdication of leadership. the stakes are really just too high. so today i will be reluctantly supporting h.r. 1, the house bill, which cuts $61 billion from last year's spending. it's a step in the right direction, a modest step. the other side has put forward a proposal that should be rejected out of hand because it is completely inadequate. it keeps us spending money we do not have. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to two minutes and for senator leahy to be recognized following my remarks for ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, and

i wouldn't mind the chart from my friend from nevada staying up, because it makes my point that i'll make in a minute. in a few hours, the senate will hold an up-or-down vote on h.r. 1, the house republican scorched-earth spending proposal that counts among its casualties such critical priorities as border security, cancer research and food safety inspectors. the house g.o.p. proposal is a troatrojan horse and we will noe fooled by it. it speaks in the name of deficit reduction but the dirty little secret about the republican spending plan is that once the dust has settled, it would only decrease the deficit by $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. when you look at the c.b.o. score of the continuing resolution we're operating under and compare that to the house spending bill, the difference by c.b.o. and budget outlays only amounts to $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. so we're talking about a

difference of $1.36 tri trillion budget outlays under the current c.r. versus $1.355 trillion in outlays under the republican proposal, much like my colleague from nevada's chart has shown. in other words, all of the cuts the republicans are currently cy proposing will shave a grant total of .3% from the deficit. some might say, well, it's a start, but in relation to the damage these cuts will do, it's a meaningless start. the cuts to domestic discretionary will do nothing to create jobs or spur short-term economic growth. in fact, the reverse is true. as numerous independent economists point out, we will see a reduction in economic growth almost immediately if h.r. 1 is enacted, and these cuts will harm our ability to prepare for the future because they gut the very priorities we need to be investing in to help our economy grow -- education --

the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent i be given two additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: energy technology, and infrastructure. if all these cuts won't improve the economy in the near term and won't cut the deficit, then exactly what will they do? they'll satisfy a very small but vocal segment of the republican party. that's all. so, mr. president, it's time for a reset. this morning, i called for a reset of this budget debate. i think it's important that after today's votes, both sides in the debate take a deep, collective breath. we should all take stock of how the discussion up to now has become distorted and seek to reset the terms of the debate. it may not happen tomorrow, but in the coming weeks as negotiations led by the white house reconvene, we should approach the talks with fresh eyes and a new mindset. rather than continuing the

fixation on domestic discretionary cuts, which at the same time do huge damage and cut the deficit very little just because of the way they are spent, the next offer and counteroffer should include mandatory cuts and revenue raisers like oil royalties into the mix. we will only put a dent in the deficit through shared sacrifice. focusing simply on domestic discretionary and even leaving out the military will not achieve our goal of deficit reduction, including mandatory cuts and revenue raisers like oil royalties will. the bottom line is this: the blame for the current breakdown in budget negotiations rests with our failure to think big. a bipartisan compromise simply will not be found in discretionary spending cuts alone. we must broaden the playing field. the solution will only come from putting other kinds of cuts as well as revenue enhancements on the table. doing this will also set the

table for the larger budget discussions still to come. i see my colleague from vermont is here, so i'm ready to yield the floor to him. mr. leahy: i -- i appreciate that, but i think what they're going to do is try to go back and forth. mr. schumer: well, i yield the floor in any case. mr. leahy: senator sessions will go, but i appreciate the courtesy of the senator from new york. i would yield with the -- and with the consent that i then be recognized at the end of the senator from alabama's speech. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, i -- i thank the distinguished chairman of the judiciary committee and congratulate him on a very successful patent bill that passed with an overwhelming vote. i was pleased to work with him on that as a partner for two years when i was ranking member of that committee, and i think it's a good day. mr. president, we'll soon be

moving toward a vote on the continuing resolution. there are apparently going to be two options given to us, and the question i would pose to our colleagues and to the american people is do we have to do something or can we do nothing? is nothing an option? because that's what the democratic proposal is, nothing, zero, nada. so we had in the budget committee, of which i am the ranking member now, the testimony yesterday of allen simpson ander skin -- and erskine bowles, president clinton's chief of staff and a well-known business and democratic leader. this is what they told us yesterday in their written statement, both of them put this in to us.

"we believe that if we do not take decisive action, our nation faces the most predictable economic crisis in history." close quote. they have spent months wrestling with these numbers. they reached a majority of the members voted for the reforms they proposed, and they gave a lot of time and effort to it. i didn't think they went far enough in some of the areas, but i would say they made a real significant attempt to deal with the crisis we face. and in their testimony yesterday, they went even further. why do we mean a crisis? we had a crisis in 2007 that put us in the deepest recession we've had in decades. greece has had a crisis. that's the kind of thing they're talking about. 40% of every dollar we spend is borrowed, and senator conrad,

our chairman, our distinguished democratic leader asked them what happens in your judgment to the united states if we fail to get an agreement in the range of what the commission concluded is necessary? the commission proposes a a $4 trillion reduction in our deficit spending over the next ten years. it should be more. that's what they propose. president obama's budget says it reduce it is by $1 trillion, but when the cob scores it, they're going to find it's filled with gimmicks and there will not be any reduction, i predict, in the deficit in the obama budget, which is really, really disappointing. it's a do nothing about the debt problem budget. mr. bowles, so what's going to happen? mr. bowles -- quote -- "this problem is going to happen. it is a problem.

we're going to have to face up in maybe two years, maybe a little less, maybe a little more ." close quote. and mr. simpson, he -- he commented." i think it will come before two years." we're talking about a crisis. "i'm just saying at some point within a year, i think at the end of a year. if the people who hold our debt just thought you're playing with fluff, 5%, 6% of this hole, they're going to say i want some money for my paper. if there's anything money guys love, it's money, and money guys when they start losing money panic, and let me tell you they will. it won't matter what the government does. they'll say i want my money. i've got a better place for it. just say from me it won't be a year before we have a crisis."

well, this is a serious matter. it's not a do-nothing circumstance. so we have a simple choice to make today. do we take a step, even a small step that sends a signal to the world that we intend to take action to prevent the crisis, not act after a disaster hits? or we can do nothing, as the democratic proposal is. the republican proposal will immediately lower spending by by $61 billion for the rest of the year. that's a reduction of about 6% of the discretionary spending budget. most states, cities and counties in america have had bigger reductions than that. and they're still here. they haven't ceased to exist, and we're not going to cease to exist if we reduce spending 6%, but it will make a difference. that amounts to 4% of the total

debt, and as i will show in a moment, mr. president, it means a lot more than that. the democratic proposal proposes $6 billion, but it's really clearly only a $4 billion reduction. that's less than .5% reducks in the discretionary spending budget. less than .5%. now, this $61 billion is not going to break us. g.a.o. recently found that the government spends $18 billion on 47 different job training programs, 47 different job training programs. we don't have any ability to save money and do more with less in this country? no business would run the way we run the united states government, and this is just one of the typical kind of

duplication and waste that goes on in our government. we are living in a fantasy world if we think we can't find find $61 billion to reduce out of more than $1 trillion in a discretionary budget. under president obama, the discretionary spending increased 24% in the last two years. it's already gone up 24%. what do you mean we can't take a 6% reduction? we're facing a crisis, a debt crisis. families across the country are trimming their budgets. they're doing so every day. washington just keeps on growing, and spending and growing. we had the education secretary in to the budget committee last week. they proposed an 11% increase in education spending this year, 11%. energy was in, 9.5% increase this next year for energy, they

say. and hold your hat, the secretary of transportation was in and proposes a 62% transportation budget increase. now, this is where we were over over $3 trillion, and we jump now to $3.7 trillion. well, how much money do we -- so that's a 24% increase. i'm not making these numbers up. well, what about the deficit numbers? this year, we spend spend $3.7 trillion, maybe maybe $3.8 trillion. want to know how much our revenue is this year? $2.2 trillion. i know it's unbelievable. the american people probably

just cannot imagine that we are spending $3.8 trillion and taking in $2.2 trillion, but it is true. 40 cents of every dollar that we spend is borrowed. this is why mr. bowles and mr. simpson and every economist that's ever testified has said we're on an unsustainable path, a path that cannot be continued. we need to take action now. this isn't enough, but it's a step. i think it sends a message to the world financial markets, the bond vigilantes that the united states is on the road to do something about the spending that we're in. our debt will soon be larger than the economy. it will exceed 100% of g.d.p. by the end of this fiscal year. amazingly surging debt load for the whole country.

we -- we cannot keep spending what we don't have, borrowing what we cannot pay back. we cannot do this. our crushing -- crushes debt burden is like an anchor dragging on our economy. it slows growth. as rogoff and reinhardt's study showed, as secretary of treasury geithner acknowledged in the committee, it's already slowing our growth, and also he added it's worse than that because it puts us at risk as mr. bowles and simpson say for some sort of debt crisis. it's unpredictable when and how it might occur. that's president obama's secretary of the treasury. the presiding officer: the member's time has expired. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent to have two additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: so we can't keep delaying. we can't keep promising to do something tomorrow. we have to have a vote. we'll have a vote today. we need to act today. a vote for the democratic

proposal is a vote to do nothing. it's a vote to stay in denial. it's a vote that says deficits don't matter. we can just keep on, but deficits do matter. they have always mattered. they always will matter, and some say you can't reduce, say, making any savings from reducing deficit spending. let me show you this chart. i think the first one, because because $61 billion reduction is a reduction of the base line. and when you reduce the base line, you save that amount every year, even if you have growth in the future years, and it adds up. it's kind of geometrical reduction in spending and debt that we have to have, and it's been working the other way. we have been increasing dramatically, and you know from your business accounting that 7% return on your money doubles your money in ten years.

we got 24% the last two years. that's why the government is doubling and quadrupling in size. this would show, according to our budget staff and the calculator, if you reduce the base line $61 billion of discretionary spending alone, he would save $862 billion in deficit reduction over ten years, and if you were to freeze that base line in for just five years, not only would you save save $860 billion, but but $1.65 trillion. enough money to make a real difference. in just one little act of $61 billion, the reduction of discretionary spending. i thank the president and would yield the floor. mr. leahy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: mr. president, one, i would note, i appreciate the

senator from alabama's help on the patent bill which passed last night. and it is one thing that will help us increase jobs and not add anything to the deficit. i do -- you know, i have to think of the revenue that comes in. we had a what i think was a terrible mistake, when the congress voted to support going to war in iraq, and i was one of the 22 to vote against that war, but then voted to cut taxes and borrow the money to pay for the war in iraq. we borrowed $1 trillion, paid for a war that has not made us safer, has created thousands of americans' deaths and tens of thousands of others and destroyed our ability to respond otherwise. it has accomplished one thing: iraq did pose a threat to iran,

and we've removed that threat to iran, which i'm sorry to say was an added mistake. we also went into afghanistan in an attempt to catch osama bin laden. when he was surrounded, our c.i.a. and special forces were yanked out of afghanistan to go into iraq and he simply escaped into pakistan. $1 trillion later, we're still there. again, borrowed the money for those two wars, one that went way beyond whatever it was supposed to do, the other one we shouldn't have been in the first place, but we borrowed the money, and we also cut taxes on oil companies and millionaires and everybody else. not the best way to show shared hardships for that war. it's only the brave men and women who are over there who

have the hardship, not the rest of us. and this -- when -- let me talk, though, about how the senate c.r. and h.r. 1, how that funding would affect the debt -- the department of state and foreign operations. these both come under a subcommittee that i chair in appropriations. let's talk about what's in the house c.r. -- perhaps most importantly, what's not in the house c.r. international development is nonsecurity spending, even though the integral part they both play in protecting our security around the globe. it ignores the views of secretary of state clinton, secretary of defense gates, chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mullen, former chairman general powell, general petrae petraeus, president obama, former presidents george h.w.

bush and have been have been and every former national security advisor. they've all made clear that these investments do directly protect u.s. security investments. the investments the house say are not part of security interests. every one of these people i've named say it directly affects our national security interests, not only on the front lines of afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, but around the world. president reagan, former homeland security director ridge also recognize the connection. security essential programs directly enhances the security of the united states. secretary ridge said, "the program supported by the international affairs budget are as essential to our national security as defense programs." secretary gates said, "i never miss an opportunity to call for more funding for emphasis on

diplomacy and development." there are a whole lot of other examples from both republican and democratic leaders that seem to have fallen on deaf ears in the house. our republican friends in the house should know that we can't counter the influence of al qaeda and other violent extremists through military force alone. they should know that helping dunce like southern udan or building stable democratic institutions in countries like egypt or preventing the trafficking of nuclear material and other weapons in the former soviet union or educating and providing jobs for the youth that would otherwise be fodder for terrorist recruiters in the middle east or imaght the corrosive influence of organized crime in central america or preventing the spread of deadly viruses in africa and asia, viruses that are only one airplane ride away from the united states, or supporting nato, or supporting the international atomic energy agency or u.n. peacekeeping -- these are all parts of ash

national security, and the diplomats here and abroad and the funds they administer that make it possible, that make the united states part of the world community. the house press release claims it adequately funds operations and programs in afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq. that's empty rhetoric. secretary clinton has said the house c.r. will unacceptably harm u.s. interests in those countries. that's only the beginning. the house c.r. slashes funding for refugees and other victims of disaster by 40%, at the same time that members on the other sieftdz ierl are rightly urging that we help the tens of thousands of libyans who've fled their homes. we say we should be helping these libyans -- these people who have fled their homes. we should help the egyptians who are now refugees in lib yavment i agree with them. everybody agrees with them. but, oh, by the way, we're going

to cut almost in half your budget for refugees. you can't have one without the other. the house c.r. provides no funding for the global food security fund. that prevents hunger and famine in africa and asia and improves america's standing. it eliminates funding for the clean technology fund which supports exports of solar, wind, and other renewable energy technology. but you know what it does it because we remove it, we remove a major competitor to china. they're funding -- they are funding these technologies. we have fierce competition from them. they are delighted to see us step back so these jobs are not is going to be in technology in the united states, we're not going to be exporting this, we're not going to have influence this that part of the world. china will take over. how shortsighted can this be? this is like you own a business

and you got a competitor on the other side of the aisle and you say, we will, we're not going to advertise. we're not going to carry up-to-date goods. we're pea only going to be open a couple days a week. i hope that competitor doesn't drive us out of business. it drastically reduces funding to operate our embassies and consulates, which every american traveling, working or studying overseas depends upon. every one of us as members of congress knows that if there is a problem overseas, they go to our embassies or consulates abroad. the house c.r. would sharply cut funding for global health programs. h.i.v., aids, malaria and other deadly diseases. denying services to hundreds of thousands of people and condemning women and children in other parts of the world to

death. renege on our treaty obligations to the u.n., to the international financial institutions. our carpet,china, -- our competitors, china, is particularly eager to purchase. at a time when china is expanding its influence globally, the house would have us pull back and say, here, you guys take oamplet you can be the face -- you guys tak guys take t you can be the face that these guys will see, no not the united states. even britain's conservative government is exempting, even increasing international aid because unlike our republican friends in the house, they recognize a matter of national security. you know, we might say also the impact of h.r. 11 equally devastating on our domestic programs.

our foreign programs are part of our security, it's devastating there. but look at what it's doing here. the social safety net, the programs that expand and maintain our country's infrastructure, they're going to be slashed. and numerous comments from bernanke and mark zandi recognize the impact of the h.r. 1. the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs just at a time when our economy is starting to recover. i hear this daily from my fellow vermonters. a mother came into my office a few weeks ago explaining how the head start program changed the direction of her life. not only did head start provide a reliable, safe educational environment for her children, it made it possible for her to pursue a college education, be a strong tax-paying part of our society. but h.r. 1 would deny more than 300 vermont children and families these same opportunities. for those unmoved by cuts to

head start it would also devastate one of our best economic development tools: community development block grant program. i ask my full statement be made part of the prord and i'd ask to continue for 30 seconds more. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: the senate c.r. provides $1.68 billion for refugee assistance, which is equal to fiscal year 2010, and $662 million above provided in h.r. 1. i have many, many other examples. we ought to listen to former republican presidents and democratic presidents, former republican secretary of state and crefnts ones and know the need for this. i thank the chair, and i thank my distinguished friend, the senior citizen from new mexico for his courtesy. the presiding officer: the

senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: mr. president, first i'd -- i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. these have been approved by the majority and the minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i'd ask consent to speak for up to ten minutes as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i rise today to talk about the damage that would be done if h.r. 1 were to become law and, specifically, to talk about a few areas that i have been paying particular attention to: science and technology, for one; particularly related to energy, energy policy; second, border security and law enforcement; and also education.

to me, this is not a question of whether there should be cuts in our federal budget. clearly, there should be cuts. but the real issue here is whether we should be smart about where we make those cuts. to me, it's clear that h.r. 1 does not represent smart policy about where to make those cuts. it helps a plan to mindlessly cut funding during the remaining five months of the current fiscal year in order to send some kind of message to the world that we are serious about deficit reduction. and my -- in my view, h.r. 1 sends a message, but it is not the right message. the message it says sends is that we in fact are not willing to look at serious deficit reduction at this point. the first area of cuts that i wanted to talk about that are

contained in h.r. 1 that will severely impact our nation for years to come and have an effect on how many jobs we can actually create, that is the area of science and energy innovation. last december this congress passed a reauthorization of what we call the america competes afnlgcompete act.and i was privk with my colleague from tennessee, senator alexander, on helping get that legislation enacted. its purpose was to authorize funding for the department of energy's office of science, for the national consigns foundation, and -- national consigns foundation and for the national institutes of standards and technology, for the next three years so that by fiscal year 2016 we would have completed a ten-year doubling of the funding for those agencies. i'd like to note that this

effort was first started during the bush administration. it has been carried forward during this current administration. under president obama, the effort has enjoyed strong, bipartisan support and garnered endorsements from leading industry groups such as the u.s. chamber of commerce, the business round table, counsel on competitive -- council on competitiveness. these organizations recognize that the future of our nation depends on the strong scientific back sph bone that -- backbone that we need for our workforce in order to outinnovate our competitors around the world. so it comes as a surprise to notice see large cuts being proposed by the house of representatives in their fiscal year 2011 funding bill to the very programs that all of us seemed to agree are needed to keep us competitive in the years

ahead. what cuts am i talking about? let me give an example. one example is in the office of science. this is the nation's largest supporter of physical sciences and these are the very areas by which we intend to supply a new stream of scientists and engineers to companies such as intel and ford motor company and many others. the house bill proposes to cut the office of science budget by $1.1 billion or 22%. the result is an estimated reduction of 4,500 full-time scientists and engineers working on basic endeavors in the area of energy science. it will terminate the early career research program for young faculty and ongoing graduate programs in the energy sciences. national user facilities that the office of science runs for upwards of 27,000 researchers

from industry and academia will be shuttered or put into a standby status. this includes the four nano science centers across the united states that have had breakthrough discoveries to propel our industries forward in the areas of solid state lighting and new drugs and microelectronics. let me talk about some of the other programs impacted in the department of energy. the office nuclear energy. this is leading the way to a new generation of smaller, less costly reactors at places such as oak ridge and idaho national laboratories. this effort will suffer. the ability to move this bipartisan program forward will cease. in the office energy efficiency and renewable energy, eer&e, as

it's referred to in the department. the house bill will result in over 31,000 homes that will not be weatherized, and, by july 1, it is estimated that something like 8,000 people who are expected to perform this work will be out of jobs. the program to mix coal with biomass -- this is a program that shows great promise -- will be eliminated, as will programs to fund offshore wind. let me cite some other examples of the damage the house bill will have on other agencies in the competes act. the national science foundation will have reductions leading to a loss of 10,000 university researchers and graduate students. being so late in the year -- and i indicated we've got about five months left in this fiscal yea year -- the effect will to be reduce the program to train teachers in math and science by

53% at a time when it is widely recognized that other nations are outperforming us in student test scores in these subjects. mr. president, i'd like to enter into the record two letters, the first by the council on competitiveness, signed by sam allen, who's chairman and c.e.o. of the deer company, mike splinter, chairman and c.e.o. of applied materials, chad holloday, chairman of the bank of america, william hite, president of the united association of plumbers and pipe fitters, and deborah wynn smith, the president of the c.e.o. counsel. the letter succinctly stated that -- quote -- "scientific researchers and skilled workers are the basis for new ideas, new technologies, new products and services, new companies, even entirely new industries. the american economy cannot compete and grow if we neglect our capacity to innovate."

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: thank you, mr. president. the other letter is from 175 universities, industries, and laboratories, including the u.s. chamber of commerce, and it supports the goals outlined in the america competes act and asks that -- and it goes on to ask the congress to reject the cuts adopted by the house funding bill. i would ask that that second letter also be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. bingaman: let me move to the issue of homeland security. over the last several years, we've had a lot of speeches here in the senate about the need to bolster border security, particularly along the southern border. enhanced homeland security capabilities -- enhance homeland security capabilities. unfortunately, the budget the house has presented falls short in this respect. the continuing resolution would severe impact the capabilities of the department of homeland

security and reduce essential assistance that is provided to organizations at the state and local level. the legislation would be a step back in terms of the progress that we are making in securing our border and ensuring that the communities and law enforcement agencies along the border have the necessary resources to handle crime and to respond to disasters. with regard to border security, the house continuing resolution would reduce planned technological, fencing and security improvements along the southwest worried about. the legislation would introduce interoperable -- would reduce interoperable communications, it would reduce communication modernization efforts for 50%, making it more difficult for law enforcement to respond to emergencies in a timely way. the house pill woul -- the house bill would also provide funding for 20,500

border patrol agents rather than 291,370 that is -- 21,370 that is senate is proposing to fund. this cutback in border patrol agents i think is -- is shortsighted. the measure would also severely impact aviation security initiatives, the number of advanced imaging technology screening machines, the canine teams, the explosive detection machines would also be slashed by over 50%. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico is advised his ten minutes has expired. mr. bingaman: ps, i have several -- mr. president, i have several other points to make but i understand there's a limited time so i will ask unanimous consent that my full statement be included in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from utah is recognized. mr. hatch: thank you, mr. president. in a few hours, this body will vote. this is a solemn responsibility

and one that should not be taken lightly. at gettysburg, abraham lincoln reminded americans that those who died on that battlefield fought for a government of the people, by the people and for the people. we are only here because of the people, our constituents, because they sent us here. and every time we vote, we represent them. we represent their aspirations, we represent the dreams of growing families and entrepreneurs. we represent the interest of taxpayers. of course, not all votes are created equal. some are more important than others. and in my view, the votes that we are taking today are transcendent. they are quite literally about the future of this country. are we going to be a country without a constitutionally limited government -- no, are we going to be a country with a constitutionally limited government? are we going to be a country that limits the burden of taxation on individuals and families and businesses? or are we going to become euro

europe? are we going to move toward a full-blown cradle-to-grave nanny government with the majority of americans on the public dole and a small group of individuals bankrolling an ever expanding leviathan state? in short, are we going to remain america, a beacon of freedom to the world? or do we aspire to become a second european union with high taxes, high spending and measly economic growth? again, i remind you that we represent the aspirations of our constituents. i represent the great people of utah. and i can tell you that they do not wake up in the morning and say, "you know what? america would be much better if we were more like france." this is no exaggeration. right now, government spending is at 25.3% of gross domestic product. and if we do nothing, that number is just going to grow, pushing past 25% and reducing towards 28% of g.d.p. the last time we did that was

during world war ii. the republicans and democrats have very different ideas about how to address this spike in spending. either we can step off the pedal, the brakes -- hit the brakes and bring spending back in line with historical levels, levels that respect our constitution of vimentd government and -- of limited government and respect taxpayer citizens, or we can keep the car on cruise control and drive the car off the cliff. the republicans want to hit the brakes. democrats want to pull a "thelma and louise" with our economy. i, for one, am not going to sit back and allow them to do this. let's be clear about what the democrats and republicans are proposing here. h.r. 1, the bill that passed the house, appropriates $1,2 $1,26,,000,000,000 in nondiscretionary spending. the alternative offered up by my democratic colleagues would appropriate $1,79,000,000,000 in total nonemergency discretionary pending. h.r. 1, the bill passed by the

new republican majority in the house, a majority that most closely represents the views of millions of americans who are genuinely scared about our nation's fiscal trajectory, would reduce spending by $57 billion over the current continuing rescontinuing resolu. the democratic alternative would reduce spending by just $4.7 billion. you will hear democrats complain about the draconian cuts in the house-passed h.r. 1. this is nonsense. the fact is, when you look at federal nonemergency discretionary spending as a whole, which has exploded under the democrats control of congress and with president obama's acquiescence in their big-spending ways, h.r. 1 provides modest cuts. the people of utah and the people of this country understand this, so now that republicans winning the game on spending cuts, democrats are seeking to move the goal post. it is now being suggested that we can bridge the gap between these to bills by going after

entitlements and tax expenditures. don't get me wrong, we need to address both, but i can tell the members on the other side now that we are not going to let you shift the debate. this is a debate right now about discretionary spending. this is a debate about low-hanging fruit. last week, the government accountability office issued a report detailing possibly hundreds of billions of dollars in government waste and bloat. there's plenty of fat to be cut in the discretionary budget and doing so would give our constituents and members of congress the courage to go after even bigger fish. and yet democrats can't find it in themselves to cut an additional $50 billion when nonemergency discretionary spending is well over $1 trillion. some are now proposing that we get into tax expenditures. tax expenditures are a debate for another time. non-defense discretionary spending has grown by 24% over the past two years. we can cut that back

significantly. we need to do so and americans understand that going back to 2008 spending levels is not the end of the world. i would also like to correct the record with respect to h.r. 1 and medicare advantage. yesterday, just yesterday, secretary is sebelius sent a lr to the finance committee, senator baucus, that h.r. 1 would have a detrimental impact on medicare advantage. this assertion is or wellian. the secretary knows well that obama-care cuts $2 billion from a medicare advantage program that currently serves nearly 12 million seniors. according to the administration's own chief act wea these devastating -- actuary, these devastates cuts will reduce enroll in these programs by over 50%. further month, c.b.o. has also found that these cuts would also produce important benefits fo for -- by 50% for seniors enrolled in the program. h.r. 1 is intended to halt the

harmful cuts to seniors in the medicare advantage program. suggesting otherwise, as the secretary did, is both inaccurate and it risks confusing millions of seniors. h.r. 1 is a good bill. it is solid and responsible, and i will be supporting it. but it is the only -- it is only a starting point. the fact is, we are going to need many more cuts in discretionary spending. the american people and the people who sent us here have not signed on to the democrats' project of europeanizing the united states economy. citizens in every state want to roll back spending, reduce the tax burden on families and businesses, and restore america's promise of opportunity and economic growth. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle need to get with the program. we will be cutting spending and we need to cut a lot of it. it may not all happen in the next two years. the american people might need to speak again and send people to washington in 2012 who are accurate -- who will accurately

represent their interest. this is a big vote today, and when we look back, i think americans will say it was just the beginning. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from delaware is recognized. a senator: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 50 minutes -- okay, five minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. carper: thank you very much. i used to be governor. as governor, you had to propose budgets, you had to propose balanced budgets, you had to balance the budgets, you had to work with the legislature. mike castle is governor, pete dupont, we focused very hard on the fiscal responsibility. the eight years i was governor, we had eight balanced budgets in a row. seven years, we cut taxes. a couple years we actually paid down some debt. we ended up with a aaa credit rating for the first time in the history of delaware. so i feel i know something about this issue. so do a number of my colleagues. we're having a lot of debate, as

we should, over what our spending plan is going to be in this continuing resolution to try to fund the government, whether it be another two weeks, another four weeks or six months. that's all well and good, it's important. we need to get started and demonstrate that we're able to reduce this deficit and reduce our debt. but we need to keep in mind that while it's important what we do in the first -- in the next six months, what's really important is what we do in the next six years beyond that. we have had a commission put together that a bunch of us supported, creating the deficit reduction commission cochaired by erskine bowles and alan simpson. they gave us a road map over how to get to a more fiscally responsible place in the next few years, cutting $4 trillion out of the budget deficit. what they said is pretty much everything needs to be on the table, domestic spending, defense spending, entitlement programs, and the tax expenditures, tax credits, tax exemptions and that kind of thing, tax rates. and what they have suggested is

a proposal that cuts the deficit by $4 trillion over ten years, and about two-thirds of that on the spending side, maybe a third or so on the revenue side. i actually think that's a pretty good approach and i commend the 18 members of the commission who endorsed that approach. i -- i'd like to -- one of my core values is everything i do, i know i can do better. i think the same is true of all my colleagues. frankly, the same is true of federal programs. what we need to do is to replace what a lot of people think that we have here in washington, a culture of spendthrift. we need to replace it with a culture of thrift. we need to look at every nook and cranny of the federal government, all kinds of programs and say can we get a better result with less money? just about everything we did -- can we get a better result for at least not spending any more money? as we do that, partnering with the general accountability office, g.a.o., o.m.b., all the

nonprofit groups like citizens against waste, all of us focusing on what can we do to get better results for less money? that's part of what we need to do long term. we'll still have a lot of tough decisions, but at the end of the day, we need to save some money, carve out some money. if we have to spend an extra dollar or two, where should we invest that money? a guy named john chambers, who the presiding officer knows, some of us have met with him earlier today. he is the fellow who is the c.e.o. of cisco, a big successful technology company. he likes to say there are two things we need to do ifuary going to be successful as a nation, with a 21st century economy. number one, invest in people so we have the best work force. smart workers. post docs or people with high school degrees. productive workers, number one. number two, invest in our infrastructure. last year the transportation infrastructure in this country got a d os in not good, d, delta, not good. we need to invest in our

infrastructure. not just roads, highways, bridges, rails, port, but broadband, waste water, all of that broadly defined infrastructure. the third place we need to go is to invest in research and development so we can be an innovation economy, continue to be an innovation economy. the president says if we're going to be successful in the 21st century, we need to outeducate, out innovate, outcompete with the rest of the world. we need to invest in our work force for very young kids and folks that are off to college and postsecondary training. the other thing that we need to do is invest in our infrastructure, not just roads, highways, bridges, but infrastructure, described broadly, and finally invest in r&d so we can innovate and outcompete the rest of the world. at the end of the day, if we're going to have a successful economy, we have to create what i call a nurturing environment for job creation, for -- for job creation, for job preservation. we need a nurturing environment. part of that is our obligation working with the private sector and working with others, states

and local governments across the country. if we continue on the track that we're on, right now gross domestic product, rather our debt as a percentage of g.d.p. has climbed up to 65%, i'm told, 65%. our debt is a percentage of g.d.p. last time it was that high was the end of world war ii. it was the only time it's been that high, 65%. and other countries that get in that kind of territory like greece and ireland, that's not smart, and they found out the hard way. we need to learn from them, and this is the time to do it. it requires all of us to stand up and do what we know we need to do, sharing in the sacrifice, everything on the table, use the deficit commission as a good role model. ask the executive branch to provide the leadership that they need to provide. i think my time has expired, mr. president. with that, i will note the absence -- no, i take it back. i note the presence of a senator

from kentucky who is biding his time so that he can take the floor, but my time has expired. i yield to the gentleman from kentucky if he wants to proceed. the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky is recognized. mr. paul: we are discussing and debating two different alternatives, one from the other side of the aisle and one from our side about what we should do about the budget deficit. we have projected a a $1.65 trillion deficit in the next year. i think both alternatives are inadequate and do not significantly alter or change our course. on the democrat side, we have a proposal to cut about $5 billion to $6 billion for the rest of the year. to put that in perspective, we borrow $4 billion a day. so the other side is offering up cuts equal to one day's

borrowing. i think it's insignificant and it will not alter the coming and looming debt crisis that we face. now, on our side of the aisle, i think we have done more, the cuts are more significant, but they also pale in comparison to the problem. if we were to adopt the president's approach, we would have $1.65 trillion deficit in one year. if we were to adopt our approach, we're going to have a a $1.55 trillion deficit in one year. i think both approaches do not significantly alter or delay the crisis that's coming. now, it's interesting when we talk about cuts, everybody seems to be giddy around here, saying this is the first time we have talked about cuts. well, it is better and it sounds good, but guess what? we're not even really cutting spending. what we're talking about is cutting the rate of increase of spending. the base line of spending is going to go up at 7.3% according

to the c.b.o. we're talking about reducing that increase to 6.7% increase. we're talking about cutting the rate of increase of government. the problem is it's not enough. our deficit is growing by leaps and bounds. our national debt is is $14 trillion. our national debt is now equal to our entire economy. our gross domestic product equals our national debt. the president, i think, is tone deaf on this. we had an election, and in the election, the people said we're concerned about out-of-control spending, we're concerned about massive deficits, we're concerned about passing this debt on to our kids and our grandkids. the president recently proposed a ten-year budget, a ten-year plan for spending. he proposes that we spend spend $46 trillion. that means they aren't getting it. you have -- in washington, official washington is not

getting what the people are saying, and they're not getting how profound the problems are. spending $46 trillion? the president's plan will add add $13 trillion to the debt, and the republicans say oh, well ours is a lot better. theirs will add $12 trillion to the debt. i think it's out of control, and neither plan will do anything to significantly alter things. we're spending $10 billion a day. in order to reform things, in order to change things around here, we will have to come to grips with the idea of what should government be doing, what are the constitutional functions of government, what were the enumerated powers of the constitution, what powers did the constitution give to the federal government, and then examine what we're actually doing. what are we spending money on that's not constitutional or shouldn't be done here or should be left to the states and the people respectively?

once upon a time, our side believed that education was a function of the states and the localities. it's not mentioned in the constitution that the federal government should have anything to do with education. does that mean we're opposed to education? no, we just think it should be done at a state and a local level. ronald reagan was a champion of eliminating the department of education. it was part of the republican party platform for 20 years. but then we got in charge after the year 2000, and we doubled the size of the department of education. if you are serious about balancing the budget, if you are serious about the debt, you have to look at taking departments like the department of education and sending it back to the states and the localities. you have to look at programs that are growing by leaps and bounds like medicaid and food stamps, cap them, block grant them and send them back to the states. the states can manage these things better. the more close they are to the people, the better managed they

will be. the other compromise that needs to occur -- and this is something our side needs to compromise on. our side has blindly said that the military should get anything it wants, and it's a blank check. what do you want? here it is. we have increased military spending by 120% since 2001. we have doubled military spending. now, i'm for a strong national defense. i believe that it is a constitutional function of the federal government to provide for our national defense. i think it is the pre-eminent power, the pre-eminent enumerated power, the thing we should be doing here. but even that being said, we cannot every eight years double the defense department, double the military spending. it's also ultimately the compromise. within the space after few years, everyone here will come to an agreement, not because we want to but because we're forced to by the events and by the drama of the debt crisis. it will come.

it's come to other nations. when it comes to us, the compromise that both sides of the aisle will have to work out is the other side of the aisle will have to admit we cannot have enormous domestic spending, and our side of the aisle will have to admit that we can't give a blank check to the military. we will also have to look at entitlements. everyone's afraid to say how we reform entitlements, but there are two inescapable facts with entitlements. we're living longer, and there is a lot of people that were born after world war ii that are getting ready to retire. these are inescapable demographic facts. we have to address them. if we simply do nothing, if we do not address the entitlements, within a decade, entitlements will account for the entire budget and interest. there will be no money left for anything. so right now, the argument is about all these other programs. there will be no money left for any of these programs if we do nothing. it's going to take both sides of the aisle grappling with this and admitting that the rules and

eligibility will have to change for social security and likely for medicare. if you do it now, you can do it gradually. if you start now, you can gradually let the age rise for medicare and social security for those 55 and under. if you do it gradually. i think young people have already acknowledged this is going to happen. you ask young people anywhere across america, do you think you're going to have social security when you retire? do you think you're going to get it at 67? most young people acknowledge that it's broken, it's broken so badly that the only way we fix it and the only way it can continue is we have to look at the eligibility. but so many people have said oh, we can't talk about entitlement. you will be unelected, you will be unelectable if you talk about entitlement reform. the president still makes this mistake. he will not lead us. he will not talk and give a leadership role to entitlement reform. someone must do it. we must stand up and be bold because the longer these

problems fester, the longer we allow them to accumulate, the bigger the problems become. the more dramatic the answers must be. if you look at greece and these other nations that have faced debt crisis, their problem came to a head all of a sudden and they changed the age on social security like that. if we want to do it gradually and let people plan for their future, you need to start now before we enter into a crisis.mn and the debate at this point is that i don't think either side recognizes the enormity of the problem or the imminence. -- or the imminence of the problem. even people who would be considered to be those of the mainstream -- the former federal reserve chairman alan greenspan says 50% of chance that there will be some kind of monetary problems, significant monetary problems, even to the point of crisis in the next few years. many people have said japan is locked in crisis, that crisis is coming because of the debt that

they've accumulated. when that comes to america, do we want to have government by crisis? already we can't even pass a budget. we can't pass appropriations bills. our bills do not even go to the committees anymore. they just come to the floor and we put a patchwork quilt on them and there's a chance this ends up being two more weeks. it is not the way you should run government. if you want to have a significant plan for changing things, send things through the committee. if up to the have a realistic way of running government, have appropriations bills. if you want to be someone who believes in good, responsible government, for goodness sakes, pass a budget. we didn't pass a budget last year. this chart shows how big the problem is. i wish i had a magnifying glass because that's the only way you could see the other side's proposal. $6 billion in cuts. it's one day's borrowing. it's not even one day's spending

that they're talking about. it's insignificant, it's inconsequential, and it will do nothing to delay or alter the looming debt crisis. look at the other proposal from other side. it's bigger -- you can actually see it without a magnifying glass -- but look how this is dwarfed by one year's problem. i recently proposed $500 billion in cuts and when i went home and spoke to the people of my state, spoke to those from the tea party, they said, $500 billion is not u.n. and they're right. $500 billion is a third of one year's problem. up here that's way too bold, but it's not even enough. but we have to counterbalance and understand the alternatives here. if we do nothing, all of the programs that people are so fond of extolling and saying -- the presiding officer: the senator has used ten minutes of time. mr. paul: -- will be gone. so i glor the american public

and those here to look at this problem and say to congress, we're not doing enough; you must cut more. thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: senator from missouri is recognized. ms. mccaskill: i ask unanimous consent to speak for up to five minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. skirl skill mr. president, we need to make serious and substantial cuts and we need to be able to compromise. cuts and compromise needs to be the dialogue that is occurring across the island and with each other. i have great respect for some of my completion on the other side that say that we have -- some of my colleagues on the other side that say we've a structural debt problem and we have to get to it. certainly we do. but it is completely wrong that we would do massive, massive cuts all in one fell swoop right now with our economy in the position that it is. that would cause just as big a crisis as our failure to deal with our long-term structure debt. so that's where the compromise part comes in. we've got to do significant cuts

now. we've got to put everything on the table and look at our long-term debt structure. and we need to figure out how we do that in a bipartisan way. because we're going to fail our country if no one is willing to compromise. the house's resolution frankly was not smart in the way they did the cuts. no one in any business would take all of the cuts out of one small sliver of their business. they would look at their entire business to try to find cost savings. it was not smart. all the pain was in one place. and they are killing off the very part of our budget that has the best chance of increasing economic activity in this country. the building of roads and bridges, the educating of our kids, the research and the science and the development. so while their cuts were more substantial than the democrats' plan in the senate, they were not smart cuts. they were not-for-profit -- they did not spread the pain around. on the other hand, the senate

has not gone far enough. it is frankly disappointing to me. i still think that there are way too many people in citize deniad here about the nature of the problem and how serious it is. and i don't think we're demonstrating to the american people that we understand the nature of the problem when we present an alternative proposal with such a small number of cuts. so, really, the sweet spot is somewhere in between these two approaches. pain needs to be spread more broadly throughout the budget so the pain is not so acute in one area of the budget. we need to look at all of the programs, put it all on the table, and we need to be willing to compromise. let me out a couple of places where i think some of these compromises could come easy. the senate version that we're being asked to support today -- which i will not be able to support -- the senate democratic version increases the president's budget in 15 different programs. think about that. we're trying to cut, and our

appropriators have come up with a plan to increase 15 of the president's budget requests. by a total of $2.6 billion. we're going the wrong direction here. we should be, at a minimum, cutting what the president has recommended cutting, and frankly i think we need to go even further. and the pentagon -- let me just give one example that came up with a hearing yesterday. so people understand that there are real savings. we've got a pentagon that we can't audit. we haven't been able to audit for decades. and it is frustrating that we don't have business systems in place that allow transparency and that allow wise choices in terms of the expenditure of dollars. yesterday i talked with the head of the navy and the marines about a system that they're putting in place to track equipment. good idea, snriet we want to track equipment. now, the army is putting in a

system to track equipment. now, here's the rub: they share equipment. now, would you think that these two systems are going to talk to each other? oh, no. no, they've been done separately. they don't talk to each other. dink software. we're going to have to spend more money for a mechanism so that the two systems tracking tg siment equipment -- sometimes equipment they're sharing -- and by the way, each one of these system ofs is billions of dollars. we could save billions of dollars by just saying to the army and to the marines, use the same software. use the same pravment that's the kind of savings that we can find in the pentagon if we just look at the g.a.o. high-risk list. the air force has been trying for years to put a resource management software in place. they're saying they can't even get there until 2017. are you kidding? we have got to be more efficient with the dollars that we spend at the pentagon, and we won't be if we always say "yes" and we

never say "no." there will be no incentive to find savings, to find more jointness among our different military branches in terms of administrative costs if we always say "yes" and never say "no." so the pain has to be felt at the pentagon, too. we cannot do this without pain being felt at the pentagon. it's got to be across the board, it's got to be more substantial than $6.5 billion, and we all have to be willing to compromise. i will be voting "no" on both proposals for that reason. but i am anxious to sit down. i am anxious to sit down at the table and find those compromises -- the presiding officer: the senator has used five minutes. ms. mccaskill: -- make real cuts and move forward in a responsible way to show the american people that we get it. thank you, mr. president. and i yield the floor. mr. bennet: mr. presiden.mr. nei ask unanimous consent to speak for eight minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: i rise to speak

about the two budget bills that we'll be voting on that purport to cut spending in washington. i appreciate the comments of my good friend from missouri, senator mccaskill, in pointing out many of the shortcomings of the two pieces of legislation. i'm here to deliver a eulogy. both bills are dead and they deserve to be dead. one bill cuts too little. the other bill has too much hate. neither one is serious. most important, neither will pass and they shouldn't pass because their unfair. they're not in the best interest of nebraskans and taxpayers across our cufnlt the only thing they're serious about is guarantee shutting down the government. nebraskans want serious spending cuts but these bills are loaded up with tricks, treats, gimmicks and games sms on one side we see a bill that simply cuts too little. now it purports to cut spending by $50 billion, but when you push through the thicket of gimmicks, it actually only cuts about $6 obama.

about $6 billion. a cust about a half a percent just isn't enough. it won't get ru runaway governmt spending under control nor will it begin to bring under control that unsustainable national debt that endangers america's future. to win my support, there need to be more cuts in spending and they need to be real and reasonable. which brings me to the other bill. the other bill is h.r. 1. it's chockful of provisions pushing a political agenda snuck into the bill in the middle of the night. one provision is an attack on america's farmers. it aims to block allowing the use of more american-made ethanol in our cars and trucks. today cars and trucks can use gas with 10% ethanol. the government has just approved a 15% ethanol blend. there's no cost, but that didn't

stop some from sneaking in an unfair ban. cutting back on ethanol at a time when gas prices are above $3.50 a gallon nationwide and rising fast is the wrong thing to do. worse, it's a gift to foreign oil. looking at all the violence and turmoil we're seeing today on tv in a key oil-producing region of the world, it seems the worst possible gift at the worst possible time. another political agenda item in h.r. 1 will eliminate public television in nebraska, an educational resource for our citizens and an informational lifeline in many parts of nebraska. this bill makes other sneaky attempts to push a political agenda. it eliminates poison control centers, blocks a consumer database people might use to determine a product's safety, and keeps high-speed internet service out of rural areas. h.r. 1 also limits urban

homeland security funds and sets the limit arbitrarily at 25 cities. that will likely bar any future funding to the largest city in my state. while some might not think of omaha as a terror target, let nile, it is the home to u.s. strategic command, a major national telecommunications hub, and is a key rail and highway crossroads for freight and transportation. on the spending side, the house bill makes unfair cuts to the states, including mine, that will cost nebraskans hundreds of jobs and indeed unnecessary hardship. for example, more than 1,200 nebraska children would lose access to head start, which has proven to help students complete high school. the bill cuts pell tuition grants to 43,000 nebraskans, that they need to afford college. in addition, the $75 million cut for homeless veterans' housing

vouchers seems absurd. to quote the director of the omaha veterans hospital, "this is a very big deal for those veterans and the community." end of quote. this could impact 10,000 homeless veterans nationwide and in omaha alone, 240 veterans have used these voimps and there are 600 more who need this help to find permanent housing. after all is said and done, the bottom line is, washington just hasn't got serious. and i won't be held accountable for the failings of the house and the senate. i can, however, be held accountable for one of the 12 spending bills that fund the government. as chairman of the senate appropriations legislative branch subcommittee, i have the responsibility to oversee the spending bills of congress. we cut spending last year. we're cutting spending by 5% this year. and we'll be back for more cuts next year.

last year senator murkowski and i did this before all of the campaign-style speeches about cutting began. it was clear she didn't bring a political agenda to the table, and i hope she knows that i didn't either. and this year in working with senator hoeven and also a former governor, as i am, who is now ranking member on the subcommittee, i have every reason to believe that he also will be serious and fair, as we reduce spending in next year's budget. cutting the spending for congress for our offices, committees, and staff, our buildings, our police, our efforts on this hill is an effort to lead by example. our committee's bipartisan example can serve as an example for how the other 11 spend bills are handled. our message to paraphrase harry truman is, "the buck shrinks here." soon we'll vote on the two spending bills. one is -- has done nothing to

attract republicans. the other has done nothing to attract democrats. in the end, you have bills that will divide. they do not unite congress. for the reasons i've given, i will vote against both. then what's next? we will, washington needs to put aside all the games and gimmicks, the treaties and the tricks and come together to do what's right for the american people by passing a budget. they deserve it, thoreaued it, and it's now time. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon is recognized. mr. merkley: mr. president, this debate today is all about jobs. the house republican budget, which we'll soon be voting on in this body, will destroy 700,000 american jobs. that is the estimate put forward by mark zandi who advised john mccain's presidential campaign and now works for the nonpartisan moody's group. now, that sort of estimate isn't just a voice in the wilderness. it's repeated by major group after major group. ben bernanke, chairman of the fed, said last week the plan would cost, and i quote, a couple hundred thousand jobs. goldman sachs analyst alec

phillips put forward an estimate that said this house job-killing plan will reduce in the second and third quarter of the next year the economy of the united states by 1.5% to 2% points. what is 2% of a $15 trillion economy? $300 billion. so whether you view it in terms of the gross domestic product or you view it in terms of the number of jobs of americans taken away by the job-killing republican plan, this bill is a disaster, house resolution 1 that we'll be voting on later today. i want us to focus on this number because i can tell you folks back home in oregon want to create jobs. they want us to put america back to work. they don't want to have a plan put forward that continues to pay enormous bonuses to the billionaires of wall street and

creates enormous special tax bonuses for the millionaires who are making their tax returns while taking out this huge, huge economic meltdown on working people. now, let's review how this all came to pass. you will recall that during the second bush administration, there was a plan to take and launch two foreign wars and not pay for them, and then proceed to create medicare part-d and not pay for it and then to give bonus tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and not pay for it and reverse an enormous annual surplus and turn it into an enormous annual deficit, and in the process produce a very tiny, modest expansion in which working people actually lost ground. so that expansion all went to the very top. well, that was just the

beginning before my colleagues across decided that that he were going to deregulate retail mortgages in order to ramp up predatory mortgages, produce a huge balloon in the real estate market, deregulate wall street so they could proceed to securitize these mortgages and have those blow up in financial institutions across america and have the economy melt down in 2008-2009. that's how we got where we are right now, and now rather than take on a plan that creates jobs in america, the plan is to take and eliminate 700,000 jobs across this country. now, let's be clear, there is a tremendous amount we can do to reduce the deficit. a plan was put forward just a few weeks ago in which we get rid of those bonus breaks for those who are in the top 2% of this country. it saves about $50 billion a year in real hard cash. a plan has been put forward to

get rid of the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry, which is doing very well and doing even better now with the oil market speculators driving it up to a value of over $100 a barrel. these things actually close the deficit. they don't destroy the economy. they actually create the sort of plan that can create jobs across this nation and put people back to work and invest in the future of our nation rather than saying let's take after we blow up the economy and let's take and make working people do even worse. so i'm going to just summarize by saying embedded in house resolution 1 is attack after attack after attack. for example, taking on preventative health care. preventative health care for women across this country by taking out title ten. or how about the attack on homeless veterans? i tell you, i go throughout my state and folks say, you know, a

lot of our sons and daughters are coming home from iraq and afghanistan, and we need to support them. the transition back home is very, very difficult. there's a lot of posttraumatic stress. and instead of supporting them, my colleagues across the aisle produced a plan that says let's take away that support for housing for the homeless, housing for veterans. and i could go on because the list is so long and the attacks are so many, but that option, while it does only a modest amount in the short-term to affect the deficit, it proceeds to do devastating results to the economy. and what happens when the economy will slaps again? double-dip recession at the courtesy of house resolution 1? then the debt goes back up. so it's a lose on both fronts. so with that, mr. president, i'm going to conclude and say we need a responsible plan to reduce the deficit, not a plan to bomb the economy on the heads of our working americans. thank you, mr. president.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma is recognized. mr. coburn: thank you. would you kindly advise me when i have ten minutes left, please? the presiding officer: the chair will do so. mr. coburn: i'm coming to the floor today to talk about where we find ourselves. nobody has spent more time in the last six and a half years on this floor talking about the problem that's in front of us, and hopefully i can do that in a way that would never impugn the motives of my fellow senators. i find it really interesting where we are today, and i enjoyed the speech from the senator from nebraska because one of the things about it that he stated is we have to come together. you're not going to get coming together when you have the speech that we just heard, when you have a speech that impugns the motives of the people in the other body trying to solve some of the problems.

the first point i'd like to make is we're at a place where we're going to vote on two bills with no amendments. since when did the senate give up its ability to try to amend bills going forward? and the reason we're not is because had we not agreed to it, the tree would have been filled up and we would have either voted for cloture or not cloture, but the fact is in this body, we ought to be about amending what we don't like in the bills. if the senator from washington washington -- or i mean oregon doesn't like what's in the bills, he ought to have a chance to try to change it. and yet, we find ourselves with a very short period of time to debate what is the number one risk for us as a nation today. and i've read all the economic studies that have been put out on h.r. 1, and i've also read what the economists on the other

side say in terms of the false assumptions that have been made in it, and i don't know which one are right, but the fact that we're not going to have an actual debate on advancing amendments -- let me describe where we are today just so everybody knows. we're adding $4,507,000,000 a day to the deficit, every day. we're borrowing in the international market $3 billion a day. by the time i finish this talk, we will have added $98 million to the deficit. adding something to the deficit, what does that mean? that's the same thing as saying we're taking the opportunity away from the children and the generation that follows us by putting them in debtor's prison.

and that's exactly what we've done. i don't care where the blame lies. what we have to start doing is spending -- not spending money that we don't have. we can't continue to spend money we don't have. and it -- it's very interesting that last -- a week ago this monday, this past monday, that the g.a.o. issued a report. it covers one-third of the federal government and lists the duplications that they found, we asked them to do that with the last debt limit extension in the federal government. and according to my calculations, there's at least least $100 billion that isn't touched by either of these bills that could be eliminated tomorrow and saved against our children's future. we don't have an opportunity to offer amendments to do that on this bill. here's real data compiled by the

government accountability office where multitudes of members from this body have called me and said how do we help you do that? well, the first way you help me do that is make sure we have an open process on the floor where we can offer an amendment to do it. let me just highlight for a minute some of the things that were in this wonderful report put forward by the g.a.o. we have 47 job training programs across nine different agencies that we're spending $18 billion a year on. not one of them has a metric on whether or not it's successful or actually accomplishing what it's supposed to do. why do we need 18 different job training programs? why do we need any job training program if we can't show that it's working? why are we spending money on a job training program that isn't working? we have five departments, eight agencies, two dozen presidential appointees that oversees our

work on bioterrorism. we don't have one agency responsible for it, one group of people. we're spending $6.5 billion a year on bioterrorism and the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. we have 20 agencies, 56 programs dedicated to teaching america financial literacy. we have no moral authority to teach anybody financial literacy when we have a deficit that's going to be $1.65 trillion this year and we're $14.2 trillion in debt. we have 80 economic development programs across four different agencies where we spend spend $6.5 billion a year. we don't know if they're working, maybe they are, but we ought to know it before we spend money that we don't have on things that we don't know that they're working. we have 15 agencies covering 30 different food safety laws, 15 different agencies. we have 18 nutrition -- separate

nutrition programs. we spend $62.5 billion a year, $30 billion of it's borrowed, and we don't know the results. why shouldn't we have one? and why shouldn't we put a metric on it to know whether or not it's working? we have 20 homeless programs. we heard mention the homeless programs. we're going to spend spend $2.9 billion, seven different agencies, and if you add up the money over the last ten years that we have spent on homeless programs, we can buy every homeless person in this country a $200,000 home. and yet we continue to send money. we don't know if they're working. they certainly would be better off if they had $200,000 for their care for the future rather than continue the programs that we have no metrics on. we have 82 teacher training quality programs, 82 of them. they are across ten different federal government agencies, and

we spend $4 billion a year on them. and we have no idea whether or not they're successful. as a matter of fact, we do know they're successful. we're not successful in education in our country today. are we getting value for what we're spending? and remember, 40 cents of every dollar that we spend on these programs, we're borrowing from the chinese. we have 52 programs for entrepreneurial efforts. since when is that a role of the federal government? 35 programs just to oversee infrastructure. 27 different programs for commercial buildings. 28 programs to oversee new markets outside of this country, 28 programs. 20 programs for business incubators. 17 different grant programs for disaster preparedness. 17 different grant programs for disaster preparedness. 34 areas where federal agencies,

offices or programs have redundant or fragmented across several departments. 2,100 data centers for 24 agencies, consolidated could save $200 billion over a decade. we can't over offer this amendment on this. that's $20 billion. that's over what the house wants to save. we have the ability. there is the waste. there is the incompetency in what congress has done through its duplication efforts and its lack of oversight to solve a great portion of our fiscal problems. we can do it, but we can't do it when the process doesn't allow the debate and votes on those specific issues. i want to talk for a minute about what is ahead of us as a nation because i think it's really important. i'm very sorry that my friend, president obama, has not led on

this issue. let me tell you what is in front of us. what is in front of us is rising interest rates. what is in front of us is rising competition for capital to fund our deficits. the historic rate for us on our debt as a nation over the last 35 years has been greater than 6%. last year we paid less than 2% for what we had on the books, less than 2% average, and our historical time frame on when that money is due is usually about ten-plus years. we're now financing that at 59 months. what's going to happen in the world next year? well, the difference in terms of sovereign financing -- that's other countries that also need to borrow money, including us -- and what's available to finance that next year is $7 trillion.

in other words, there's a $7 trillion shortfall in terms of what's going to be available to finance. if you've got to borrow $7 trillion in the world more than what's available, what do you think's going to happen to interest rates? what's going to happen? well, they're going to rise. so we're going to be faced with one of the following two dilemmas unless congress gets its act together. and here's the two dilemmas. the first is, as our average interest cost goes back to its historical cost, if that happens, immediately we're going to see $640 billion more a year in interest costs. $640 billion. we only had $2000 billion, less than $200 billion this year. we're going to see $640 billion increase.

that doesn't help any manner that has a need -- any person that has a need. all that does is it's paid out to our debtors. that's a very real risk for us right now. that goes to say that we don't have a lot of time, because what we know is interest rates are going to rise. so it's mandatory that congress do what the american people have known for awhile we need to do and that's live within our means. now, how do we -- let me -- let me describe the second problem or a second solution and that's what the federal reserve will do. the federal reserve will just print more money. well, if you print more money and you don't have any base for doing that, that creates what's called inflation. it's called debasing your currency. what happens in america if we decide that the way we're going to get out of our problem is to debase our currency and print more money, like the fed is doing right now with what's called quantitative easing too.

they're printing $600 billion worth of money between now and june. what happens is the value of everything you own in real terms declines, in nominal dollars goes up, but the purchasing power of the average middle-class family in this country declines tragically. and the safety net that this country has been known for, for those that are far less fortunate than the average american, will be absolutely unaffordable. totally unaffordable. so you're talking about the destruction of the best of america, our middle class. you're talking about taking opportunities away. so what's the answer? the answer is not to have more partisan statements by senator merkley, impugning the motives of people who are trying to do

right things, even though different from his opinion. the answer is for congress to get together and recognize the threat to our future and give us long-held positions to solve the greater good. that means you have to move. that means you have to recognize that you can't have it all your way. how do you actually do that? well, the one failure of congress in my time in congress, both in the house in the mid-1990's and now in the senate since 2004, is we don't do oversight. how did we end up with this report that shows $100 billion in duplications? the only way it could have happened is we weren't watching. we weren't doing the oversight. so one of the things that needs to happen is the chairman of

every committee ought to spend 90% of their time oversight -- other than things we're already doing rather than working on creating new bills and new programs. and the second thing that ought to happen is we ought to have a vigorous debate with amendments on the floor of the u.s. senate to solve some of the very real problems we have. it's not all that hard to solve these problems, but what happens is in partisan bodies, people talk past one another. nobody would decline the fact that we ought to get rid of unused property. we can save $8 billion a year if we get rid of the unused federal property. anybody disagree with that? but we haven't done it. there's $8 billion. we're going to get out of this $1.6 trillion hole a couple of billion dollars as a time. and so we ought to do that. we ought to get rid of of the

wasteful printing at the government printing office, save several hundred million dollars over the next ten years. we ought to quit paying contractors who don't do their job bonuses -- and we have documented that multiple agencies are doing that -- on performance bonuses when they don't meet the performance requirements. we ought to collect the unpaid taxes from federal employees. it's $3 billion. and these are the settled claims. these aren't the unsettled claims. the presiding officer: the chair notifies the senator he has ten minutes remaining. mr. coburn: thank you. here's a list of ideas that comes to $380 billion of things that we would as normal americans sitting at our family table said you're in trouble, 40% of your budget you're spending you don't have the money for, your credit cards are maximummed out, you can't -- snier are maxed out, you can't do it, what do we cut?

you can't do it. 72 amendments last year, two of them passed the amendment. -- two of them passed the senate. i heard the senator from nebraska talk about some pain that might occur in his distri district. i want to tell you, there has to be shared pain all across the country if we're going to get out of the problems that we're in. we can no longer kick the can down the road without spilling the soup all over our kids. the time for action is now. the time for leadership is now. if you look at history, what you find is the average age of a republic is 207 years. all republics before us have failed. how did they fail? what is the thing that caused them to lose their autonomy and their freedom? was it an invading army? was it some natural disaster? none of those things.

every -- you go back in history. every one that has failed has failed over fiscal issues, the very issue as that confront us today -- the very issues that confront us today. i think it's time that america cheats history. i think it's time we come together and we solve these big problems. it's going to be painful for everyone. it means some senators are going to lose their seats if they do the best right thing for america. there can't be a greater calling than that, to do the best right thing for our country. it means following a pattern of leadership that says personal sacrifice by me in a leadership position has to come first, demonstrating my ability to understand what the problem is. so we're going to have a limited debate on two bills, both imperfect, but certainly one of

them goes more towards the problem that we have than the other. we're going to spend $3.8 trillion this year through september 30678 30. the deficit going to be $1.6 trillion. house cuts this little billy green downright here, it's only $57 billion. the savings from inouye is down here, you can't even see the line. it doesn't begin to address the dupe case, the waste, the fraud, the abuse, the incompetence of what we have created in the federal government. it won't solve our problem. it will be a nice starting point for partisan debate but it takes us away from what we really need to do. here's the cut. here's the deficit. this is in a pie chart showing it's nothing. $57 billion is nothing. what we have to do to be able to compete in the world financial market is send a signal that we get what the problem is, we're willing to make the difficult

and tough sacrifices and choices to become viable and reliable and having people loan us money in the future. we have to extend the term and period of our debt to where we buy the time to make these things possible so that the least amount of pain, although very real, comes about. and, for goodness sakes, we've got to stop spending money we don't have on things we don't absolutely need. and eye yield th i'd yield the f my time to the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana is recognized. mr. vitter: and i thank my colleague. mr. president, as congress tries to get serious about cutting wasteful and reckless spending, i believe taxpayer subsidies of abortion providers should be among the first things to go. now, i personally believe it's morally wrong to end an innocent human life through abortion. i also believe it's morally

reprehensible to take tax dollars of millions of pro-life americans in order to fund organizations that do that. and that is a view held by the great majority of americans. americans shouldn't be forced to subsidize abortions, much less fund our nation's largest abortion provider, planned parenthood. when the house passed its continuing resolution before us today, it adopted a provision that cuts funding to this abortion giant and it did it with significant bipartisan support. unfortunately, that language was stripped by senate leadership behind closed doors but i believe senators should have a chance to vote directly on that measure following a full and open debate. again, i don't personally believe that abortion is a right guaranteed by the constitution. i believe that it's morally wrong. but this issue is even beyond that. this isn't about abortion on

demand in this country. this debate is about whether taxpayer dollars, including those billions of taxpayer dollars, fro pro pro-life ameris should be sent to organizations like planned parenthood which perform millions of abortions in this country. accordinaccording to their latel report, planned parenthood bothed more than $633 million in taxpayer funding -- $36 $363 million. and, by the way, that's the same year it performed an unprecedented 324,008 abortions. every year since 2000, the government has increased taxpayer funding of planned parenthood, on average, over $22 million a year increase. and guess what? the number of abortions planned parenthood has performed has also steadily increased, even

though the overall abortion rate in the u.s. has declined since 2008. planned parenthood's abortion rate massive the outpaces its adoption referrals. in 2008, a woman entering a planned parenthood clinic was 134 times more likely to have an abortion than to be referred for an adoption. planned parenthood has also made a profit every year since 1987, including over $63 million return profit in 2009. now, there's no justification for subsidizing planned parenthood's profit-making venture with taxpayer dollars. there's been a recent onslawd of ads that claim -- onslaught of ads that claim planned parenthood is simply a leading provider of women's health services. but abortions, not other health services -- not true health services -- abortions account

for roughly one-third of the $1 billion income generated by its affiliated clinics. let me be clear. this provision would not cut all title 10 funding for health services such as breast cancer screenings, h.i.v. testing, counseling, valuable family planning services. it would simply block funds, taxpayer dollars from funding america's largest abortion provider. and that has the support of the american people even well beyond america's pro-life numbers. i believe that the sanctity of human life is a principle that congress should proclaim at every opportunity, but, again this goes even beyond that. the time has come to respect the wishes of the great majority of americans, pro-life and many pro-choice, who say using taxpayer dollars to fund huge

abortion providers, perrined parenthood is the biggest, simply is not right. so we have to cut, we have to get responsibility responsible, and this is certainly a key place to start. thank you, mr. president. i yield back the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. ms. mikulski: thank you very much, mr. president. i ask unanimous consent to speak up for -- speak up to for ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from maryland is recognized. ms. mikulski: thank you very much, mr. president. i wanted to address the senate about the consequences of where we are in the debate on appropriations and the really harsh and punitive consequences of h.r. 1. but i cannot let the comments that have been made during the last half an hour go uncommented on or unchallenged. first of all, i'd like to comment about the senator from oklahoma's comments about duplication in government.

i so respect the senator from a oklahoma. we've worked on many fiscal reform issues. but he went over a list, a program by program by program by program of where he says we have duplication. i don't challenge his facts, but i do challenge his inertia. now, if these programs have been in existence that have been duplicative and denied value to the taxpayer, where has he been? the republicans have been in charge for ten years, from 2000 to 2008, they were in charge of all three branches of the government. so if you didn't like duplication, you had a president, you had a house, and you had a senate. why didn't they change it? so now all of a sudden they've got religion -- and i don't know what faith that is -- but they've got the desire to talk

about it. we will, look, if you were serious about ending duplication, it should have started a long time ago. second, bring the ideas forth, look for cosponsors from other reform-minded people like the presiding officer and myself. let's end the duplication. but let's end the yo duplicity n the way we talk about the duplication. and i'm tired of blaming barack obama, who's been president for two years, for everything that's wrong -- perceived wrong with the united states of america. so where were they? now, i must credit the senator from oklahoma. he has often brought fiscal folly to the attention. and i've joined with him when we fought lavish meatballs at $4 and $7 apiece that was in my appropriations that he found when he showed it to me, i joined with him in the reform

package. i loved it and i look forward to working with him. but don't act holier than thou now about duplication. now, let's go to the abortion topic. i'm not going to change this conversation into the "a" word. however, the senator talked about planned parenthood being profit-making. it cannot profit-making. it is a nonprofit. but i'm not even going to argue additional revenue. so he doesn't want to give money to planned parenthood because he makes a profit. i won't debate him on that. but the next time he supports an oil subsidy, i'm going to oppose it because the oil companies make a profit. i'm going to fight tooth and nail end to the lavish subsidies that we give on oil and gas. and if we're nolt going to give it to plan -- and if we're not going to give it to planned parenthood because they make money, then i'm not going to give it to oil companies because they make money. so there, i've said t and i'm

proud of t now, mr. president, this is no loving matter about what we're doing with appropriations. h.r. 1 will have a draconian effect on the middle class and a draconian effect on where we are in jobs. our economy is very fragile. we are barely making a recovery. and what -- if we pass h.r. 1, we will place our nation at risk because of the impact of the cuts on those that really do protect america. and it will further pummel the middle class. we will, i'm not going to stand for further pummeling the middle class. you know i'm not just the senator from maryland. like you, i'm th the senator for maryland. if we take a look at what h.r. 1 does, it really whacks at maryland's middle-class families. it cuts job training, education, and access to higher education, much-needed childhood and after-school programs.

right this very minute, if h.r. 1 passed, we would have people lose their pell grants. a tremendous number of marylanders would lose their pell grants, not only numerically but their grant would be cut by over $500. for a lot of people, that's the money that helps buy textbooks, pays the lab fees so they can go on to be a lab tech or a cyber tech in the new economy. let's take a lookality the children. they talked about the right to lievment i'm for a right to life after you're born. after you're born. i think you ought to have a shot. i respect their position. they've got to respect ours. under their draconian cuts, 2,471 maryland little kids would lose head start opportunities. head start is what gets them learning-ready so they can take advantage of our public schools

and move on in life. let's have it for these little children. then there are those who say, we need to compete. we will, i want to compete, too. in the global marketplace. scwhee does that mean? it means that we have to fund n.i.h. under the h.r. 1, n.i.h. will be cut $1 billion, just in cancer screening alone, 36,000 marylanders will lose that opportunity and 5 million will lose it nationwide. if we look at program after program and how it affects women, children, access to education, we are net losers. if we're going to outeducate, outinnovate, we cannot pass h.r. 1. which takes me to why it is bad for maryland jobs. we have the great honor proliferate representing iconic federal institutions:

the national institutes of health, the national sniewt snots of standards, goddard space agency, goddard and hopkins space institute. the fact is that it takes people to work there and if we do these draconian cuts, it will have a tremendous impact. but i'm not talking about only government jobs. i'm talking about private-sector jobs. if h.r. 1 passes we will lose a tremendous amount of money, community development block grant money. we will lose $11 million in community development block grant money. so whether you are in baltimore city making its comeback under mayor stephanie rollins, or you are in another small rural county, it could result in 1,000 jobs being lost in construction where we could be creating new housing and new opportunities

for economic development. but the speaker of the house says, if it's going to cost jobs, so be it. we will, so be it is not okay with me. if we look at transportation alone, the cuts in transportation will cause maryland to lose close to $100 million. $100 million to fix highways, byways, beltways, the kinds of things that we need to do that will deal with congestion, will save lives because we'll have safer roads, and have jobs in construction. that's over 3,175,000 of those. now, mr. president, if we look at these great federal agencies -- and those are private-sector jobs. those are private-sector construction jobs. now look at what makes the private sector great. mr. chairman, you and i -- mr. president, you and i have visited our great maryland

biotech cms. the-- biotech cssments they have n.i.h. doing the basic research. they value-add it and then they go to f.d.a. f.d.a. maid makes sure that our prescription drugs are safe. when they have the f.d.a. brand of approval, we can sell them anywhere -- anywhere in the world. but under these cuts, we're going to eliminate 5,000 jobs. now, what that means is, we're going to further set back the backlog in order to get a biotech, a pharmaceutical, or a medical device approved. so it's going to cost us jobs in government in maryland at f.d.a., but it's going to cost jobs in the private sector, in the biotech feecialtiond the medical device feecialtiond and the pharmaceutical field. right now over the social security administration, the

people who calculate and pass the check -- make sure the checks go out on time to the right person, we're facing over -- the possible layoff and furloughs at social security. we are facing nationwide an immediate possibility of furloughs of 3,500 people. now what does that mean? , oh, yeah, the checks will go out. but that means if you're applying for a benefit, you're going to wait a long tievment if you have any kind of disability, the backlog could increase to as much as three to four years. you can't apply for social security disability. if you are applying for disability, it means you are too sick to work. so we're going to lay off the very people who make sure that our checks are delivered in a timely way. is my time up? we will, mr. president, i have

more to say, and i will say it as this debate continues. but if we pass h.r. 1, it is a job-killing, middle-class-pummeling bill that i am going to vote "no" for and urge my colleagues. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from montana is recognized. mr. baucus: mr. president, i was concerned over what the effect of h.r. 1 would have on medicare beneficiaries. and so i wrote a letter to h.h.s. secretary sebelius asking her that question, what effect will passage of h.r. 1 have on medicare beneficiaries. and i got the answer a couple dpais ago. frankly, it was cleared -- spent a couple days going through the

white house, o.m.b. and so forth, but i received the letter last night. what does the letter say? i have the letter with me and ask that it be included in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. baucus: mr. president, according to secretary of h.h.s., the consequence consequs medicare beneficiaries of h.r. 1 are desire, to say the least. i don't have the calculations for pentagon number of medicare beneficiaries that would be feactd nationwide, but i can give you the effect it would have on montana and that would be -- you could extrapolate that into what the effect would be nationwide. essentially, under the secretary's letter, she says that because the health care reform bill repealed certain provisions in medicare and then replaced them with other

provisions to address quality and help provide better health care expressly for seniors, that h.r. 1, because it repeals the provisions in the health care law that were put in place to provide benefits for seniors, would have the effect of cutting health care to seniors. for example, essentially the house amendment would eliminate private medicare coverage under medicare advantage. that is the effect of h.r. 1. if you are a medicare recipient under medicare advantage plan, under h.r. 1, you would no longer be allowed to receive benefits. in my state of montana, medicare advantage covers about 26,000 seniors. that's just the state of montana. but nationwide, of course, it would be hundreds of thousands. probably close to in the millions of seniors who would no

longer be able to benefit under medicare advantage. just thrown off. that's what h.h.s. secretary says. i'll read the significant sentence. basically she says, i am just reading one sentence. "this would seem to me that payments to organizations with have to be suspended." risky and significant disruptions to services to those enrolled in medicare advantage. they would be suspended according to the interpretation of the h.h.s. secretary, h.r. 1, medicare beneficiaries. second, it would have virtually the same effect with respect to part-d prescription drug benefits. that is health care reform began to close the doughnut hole. earlier seniors received $250 assistance for prescription

drugs. under the health care reform bill, they'd be eligible for a 50% discount for brand name drugs. that too would be suspended. that's the effect of h.r. 1, to suspend. let me see if i can find the operable sentence here. i don't see it at the moment. let me see the next page. in a few minutes i'll find it and i'll give it to you. after that is payments for preventive benefits. they too would be suspended. wellness programs such as colonoscopies, mammographies, et cetera. she says claims could no longer be paid for any of these benefits, the consequence of h.r. 1. after that, rural health care.

without h.r. 1, c.m.s. would no longer be able to provide bonus to primary care and general surgery physicians for eligible services. and there are other areas, mr. president. the nature of fraud prevention, those efforts would be suspended. of course, some of the proponents who want to kill health care reform don't mind additional preventions, namely moving more toward delivery system reform and toward improving the quality of health care and also reducing costs. but i don't think the authors of h.r. 1 knew what they were doing. i think they were a little quick in writing their legislation. i don't think they realized the effect of h.r. 1 would be to deny medicare beneficiaries these payments. especially i point out that

medicare beneficiaries, under medicare advantage, according to h.h.s. secretary, those payments to those persons under medicare advantage would be to have suspended. mr. president, i have a hunch that if we look more deeply into the actual provisions of h.r. 1, we would find other similar consequences. maybe the medicare program, it might be some other health care program. but i just ask the secretary to focus in on the effects of medicare. that's the response that she gave. i urge all senators to please don't cut medicare advantage payments. that is just not the right thing to do. innocent seniors are getting caught in this cross-fire here. i'm sure we have to begin to cut federal spending; there's no question about that. but let's not be so foolhardy and unintelligently cut medicare

beneficiaries the way this h.r. does. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: who yields time? a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: mr. president, i'd like to speak for the six minutes our time has remaining. i see a senator on the floor. i'm happy to yield. let me go ahead with my remarks. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana is recognized. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i want to follow up on the comments of the senator from montana and maryland, who spoke just so eloquently and clearly about the consequences of adopting the house concurrent resolution which sets spending levels for the next year.

in my view, a vote for h.r. 1 would be indeed a reckless vote because the consequences of such severe cuts in some areas as outlined particularly by the senator from maryland, the senator from montana would be in fact reckless, and as it relates to my subcommittee, which i wanted to speak about for a moment, and that's the subcommittee on homeland security, mr. president, not an inconsequential area of our responsibility. protecting the 350 million-plus americans that live here in the united states and trust that we're doing our jobs well enough to keep them safe every day from rising threat levels from a variety of different sources. that's what our job is on the homeland security appropriations committee, and i am going to be

voting against h.r. 1 because, in my view, it goes too far and it puts our homeland in jeopardy. and let me be clear, in the state of the union, the president stated that al qaeda and its affiliates to plan attacks against our nation. he stressed that extremists are trying to inspire acts of violence by those within our borders. according to the attorney general, in the last two years 126 individuals have been indicted for terrorist-related activities, including 50 of our own citizens. the homeland security secretary appeared before my subcommittee last week and said that the threat of terrorist attacks is as high as it's been since 9/11. and what do the republican leaders just newly minted and elected come to washington to do? slash the homeland security

budget. i'm not going to do that, and i would urge my colleagues not to do that. in view of these threats, we cannot reduce the homeland security budget to levels that preceded the christmas day bombing attempt, the times square bombing attempt, the air cargo bombing attempt and the fort hood shooting. and before the escalation of violence and drugs along the mexican border. we had one of our agents gunned down just three weeks ago. what does this budget do that they're recommending? slashing budget security. we literally spilled blood on this floor almost building that fence along the border and adding border security. now they want to dismantle it? i don't think so. the bill makes deep cuts in state and local grants to train and equip first responders. do they think it's going to be the f.b.i. agents that are walking around times square every day looking for a smoking

car? no. it's going to likely be a local new york firefighter or police officer or a citizen walking by noticing something and calling the police. we have very small, really relatively small training grants available. they cut that by over 50%. is that smart? i don't think so. the house bill cuts border security infrastructure programs when violence in mexico is at an unprecedented level. the house bill will cut coast guard acquisitions despite the need to revitalize its aging fleet and when the coast guard mission is to expand as it was not only a year ago on april 20 when the deep horizon exploded. who did you call when you went to 911 and said there is a rig on fire. who did you call?

the coast guard. how did they get to the rigs? on cutters that we build. the house bill cuts port security and transit security in london and madrid. how many more terrorists have to attack trains before we realize there is a level you cannot go beneath without putting our citizens at risk? and we're perilously close to that level. the house bill reduces transportation security administration procurement of explosive detection technologies that t.s.a. needs to respond as we've developed since the christmas -- you know, the bombing, the attempted bombing at christmastime. and sue pwer security, i -- and cybersecurity, i haven't even spoken about this. it's very difficult -- and some of this is classified information and not something people can grasp as well as they can understand explosives on

trains and airplanes which is, i guess easier to visualize. thank you. i have one additional minute. i just ask for one additional minute. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. landrieu: these attacks through our internet and through the new interconnecting technologies now that are electric grid and all of our companies depend on need to be secured as well. so i'm just going to conclude and put the rest of the statement in the record. but the house bill h.r. 1 cuts port security grants by 66%, transportation security grants by 66%. it cuts fema, it cuts the coast guard below levels that are safe. now, homeland security is the newest agency. i realize that we have to make cuts and bring our budget into balance. if this were a plan to get to us a balanced budget, mr. president, i would support it. but it's not. it's just a plan that

jeopardizes our homeland security and doesn't do very much at all to close that deficit gap. when a real plan is presented, i'll vote for it. until then i'm voting "no." thank you. the presiding officer: the majority time has expired. the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: thank you, mr. president. i want us to remember why we are here. the reason we are here right now debating this issue is because the democrat majority last year failed to pass a budget. it didn't pass a budget, didn't pass a single appropriations bill. this is a $3.7 trillion enterprise called the federal government. last year we didn't pass a budget, we didn't pass a single appropriations bill. and so this is cleaning up the unfinished business of last year. it was always said we couldn't do this before the election. so when the election was over with, instead of dealing with these important budget issues, we did a start treaty, which was, of course, important to debate. don't ask, don't tell, dream act, all kinds of other things, but never the budget. we didn't deal with the budget,

and so here we are dealing with last year's unfinished business. so, when my colleagues come in here and make all these arguments about how terrible it is that we're having to do this, and the house republicans have sent us this budget that shaves dollars 60 billion from last year's spending levels, the reason we're having to go through this exercise is because last year the democratic majority didn't even pass a budget. where does that leave us today? we all know that we've got a $14 trillion debt. $14 trillion. i think that has sunk in with the american people. and to put that into perspective historically, this last month, the month of february, our debt was $223 billion. our deficit; in other words, what we added to the debt. $223 billion in one month, the largest single-month total ever. we've added more to the debt last month than we did from the founding of our country until

1945, in just one month. now the projected deficit for this entire year is $1.65 trillion, the largest ever in nominal terms, and o.m.b. predicts it to be the largest as a share of our economy since world war ii. that's as much debt as we ran up from the founding of our country until 1985. this is the dimension of the problem that we're dealing with. now there's an old saying that if you're in a hole, stop digging. well, we continue to dig the hole deeper and deeper and deeper. so we're going to have votes today on a couple of alternatives. one is the alternative that was sent over from the house of representatives which shaves $60 billion off of last year's spending level. and so there are lots of people coming down here and there's all kinds of gnashing of teeth and how draconian these various cuts are going to be. $60 billion, remember, on a $3.7 trillion budget is less than 2%. the average american, if they were like we are at the federal

level, out of every dollar they spend, borrowing over 40 cents and running $1.5 trillion and $1.6 trillion deficits year over year over year, i think they would figure out a way how to tighten their belts a little bit and be able to absorb a 1.5% cut over last year's spending level. couple that with the fact that since 2008, spending has increased by 22%. non-defense discretionary spending, which is what we're talking about here, has gone up 22%. ten times the rate of inflation. all we're talking about here is going back to 2008 levels. this isn't draconian, mr. president. i think the american people think that this is reasonable. so what does the other side put forward? the other side said, well, we think this is draconian, and so we're going to put forward a proposal that cuts $4.7 billion. $4.7 billion compared to $60 billion.

$4.7 billion is what the other side puts on the table in terms of spending reduction in trying to do something about a runaway federal debt. well, if you look at the clock today, it's 2:45 p.m. by this time tomorrow, 2:45 p.m. tomorrow we will have added over $4 billion to the debt, almost as much as they're proposing to save for the balance of this entire year. so they're laying forward of savings of $4.7 billion for the rest of the fiscal year where between now and this time tomorrow we'll add over $4 billion to the federal debt. that's the dimension, mr. president, of what we're talking about. it's so bad that former chairman -- fed chairman alan greenspan said recently that he views the probability or the possibility of a debt crisis occuring in the next two to three years to be 50%. debt crisis. now, if that's not enough, the

chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the highest ranking military official in this country, admirable mike mullen said a few months back said the greatest threat to america's national security is our national debt. now, how much more do we have to hear? it's not just a threat to our future and to future generation, it's a threat to our national security an as it threat to our economy, mr. president. you have all kinds of evidence out there that this level of spending and this amount of debt costs job in our economy. now, everybody says the most important thing that we want to focus on is the economy and job creation. i agree with that. one of the best ways to do that is start getting spending and debt under control. there's a great body of research out there that studied the last eight centuries of governments and concluded that when your gross debt reaches the 90% level of your total economy, in other words, gross debt to g.d.p. equals 90%, then it costs you

about 1 percentage point of economic growth every year. according to christine romer, former economic adviser to the president, every time you lose 1% of economic growth, you lose a million jobs. if we continue to sustain this level of debt, it is costing us economic growth, which is costing us literally jobs every single day. now, the government accountability office here a couple of weeks ago issued a report and in it they looked at government and the various agencies of government and how much it costs and looked for duplication and redundancy and inefficieninefficiency. they concluded there are 82 programs in country that are designed to improve teacher quality. now, granted, a very noble goal. but does it really take 82 federal programs and 10 agencies or departments to administer

programs improving teacher quality? there are 56 federal programs out there which teach people how to manage their finances. now, when you're running a $14 trillion debt arguably this is probably the last place that ought to be advising people about their finances, but 56 federal programs. i mean, the american people have to be looking at this and it's incomprehensible to them, i think, to see what their federal government wastes money on. and so what we're talking about here is a fairly reasonable reduction in non-defense, nonnational security discretionary spending. and i think -- i hope today that we will take a step forward and demonstrate that we are serious about this. what the democrats put forward, $4.00 billion, mr. president, it - it -- $4.7 billion, it just isn't serious. it completely ignores and appears to be in denial of the dimensions of this problem which

i think are fully grasped by the american people. we had testimony from -- in front of the budget committee who said this is the most predictable crisis we've ever had. we see it coming. we know it's coming. we're going to do something about it and we're trying to today. it is about jobs, mr. much people have gotten up on the other side and said it's going to cut this or that. the majority leader got up and said we can't do this because it would cut funding for the cowboy poetry festival. when you're borrowing more than 40 cents, when you're running a $14 trillion debt, there are priorities arguable that are important in terms of federal priorities. i don't think that that probably counts as one of them. i don't think the american people would think so either. the senator from montana said this is going to cut people from medicare advantage. what about the medicare reform bill last year? that cut $200 billion from medicare advantage and would

leave literally a quarter of those people who get benefits under medicare advantage wut that -- without that coverage today. i mean, that wasn't a big talking point for the other side when we were doing health care reform last year and, yet, today, again, some typical rhetorical scare tactics, i want to remind my colleagues and remind the american people is that over the last two years spending has increased, non-defense discretionary spending has increased 22%. all we're talking about is going back to 2008 levels. since that time, it's increased 10 times the rate of inflation. we need to start living within our means. we cannot continue to spend money we don't have, mr. president. and i hope my colleagues will support h.r. 1 and let the american people know that we are serious about getting our fiscal house in order. i yield the floor. mr. alexander: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: how much time is remaining. the presiding officer: 11 minutes and 25 seconds. mr. alexander: mr. president, would you please let me know

when two minutes is remaining. the presiding officer: the senator will be so notified. mr. alexander: mr. president, i thank the senator from south dakota for his eloquent remarks. he phrased the question exactly. the question before this body upon which we're going to be casting two votes within a few minutes is this: will we or will we not stop spending money that we don't have? may i repeat, the question is, will we or will we not stop spending money that we don't have? do we have the courage and the common sense and the sense of responsibility to make difficult decisions for the future of our country when it comes to spending and debt? let's look at the facts. the federal government this year is collecting $2.2 trillion -- that's what's coming in -- and spending $3.7 trillion. we're collecting $2.2 trillion

in revenue and we're spendin spending $3.7 trillion in revenue. that's a fact. here's another fact. 40 cents of every dollar that the federal government spends is borrowed. much of it from china. here's another fact, we're piling up new debt at the rate of $4 billion a day. $4 billion a day of new debt. here's another fact. this is the shortest month -- last month was the shortest month of the year, february. the deficit, that's this year's deficit in just that month, was the largest in history history, $223 billion. and our friends on the other side are suggesting that we solve a problem of this dimension by reducing spending by 4.7 -- $4.7 billion.

as senator thune said, by tomorrow at about this time, we'll vl piled up -- we'll have piled up as much more debt as they propose to save. that's not urgent. that's not responsible. that's not dealing with difficult decisions in the way -- and the way people expect us to do with it. now, the republicans in the house of representatives have stepped up and have made difficult decisions. we might not agree with every single detail of the decision and the senate will have its own priorities when we pass a bill. but i, for one, and i think many others on this side of the aisle are going to vote for the h.r. 1, the house passed $57 billion cut because it is a sure step toward reducing spending and stopping our country for paying from spending money that we don't have. the senate democrats say, sorry,

we can only find $4.7 billion to save. the purpose of the vote i'll cast today is to say we have an urgent need that needs to be addressed. we have a sense of responsibility toward that decision. we can't solve much of it today, but we can solve some of it today and the time to start addressing this urgent need is now. when i became governor of tennessee about 30 years ago, a friend gave me a book written by george reedy, lyndon johnson's press secretary, it was called "the twilight of the president." and in that book i found a definition that i used as governor because it was such a good definition of what an executive in public life is to do, he said that the job of the president is number one, to see an urgent need. number two, to develop a strategy to meet the need. and, number three, to persuade

at least half the people that he's right. see an urgent need, develop a strategy to meet the need and persuade half the people to prove that he's right. 40 cents out of every dollar that we spend is borrowed. $2.2 trillion coming i in $3.7 trillion coming out. 40 top economists saying it is the most urgent need facing our country. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff saying it's our biggest national security threat, the debt. as senator thune said, debt costs job. the economists tell us that debt at this level costs us about a million jobs a year. let me read what the president's own debt commission had to say about this. a debt commission that had six members of the united states senate as members, three republicans, three democrats, five of the six voted for this debt commission. and they said, as members of this commission, we spent the

past eight months studying the same hard, cold facts, not opinions, facts. together we have reached these unavoidable conclusions. the problem is reap. the solution will be -- is real. the solution will be painful. there's no easy way out. everything must be on the table and washington must lead. that is president obama's debt commission. after all of the talk about debt and deficits, they say, it is long past time for america leaders to put up or shut up. the era of debt denial is over. there can be no turning back. we signed our names to this plan because we love our children, our grandchildren and our country too much not to act while we still have a chance to secure a better future for all of our citizens. that report included five members of this body, two democrats, three republicans. that was what the debt commission had to say here's what the president has had to

say. in 2009 he said what we've done is kicked this can down the road, we're now at the end of the road, we're not in a position to kick it any further. we can find only $4 billion to save? president obama said in -- last year, i hope some of the folks hollering about deficits and debt step up because i'm calling their bluff. and we can only save $4 billion? my administration is going to seek with congress to execute serious entitlement reform. and then as senator the president said, increasing america's debt weakens us domestically, weakens us internationally, leadership means the buck stops here. instead washington is shifting the burden of bad choices on to the backs of our children and grandchildren. i ask, mr. president, where is the president of the united states in this debate? where is the president of the united states? his debt commission came out months ago recommended $4 trillion in

savings. no support from the president. the president made an eloquent state of the union address. i sat in the front row, applauded many times, no sense of urgency about the federal debt. the president offered his budget a few weeks ago, no plan for reducing the federal debt. and now we're taking step number one, which is to work on the discretionary part of the budget. only about 12% of the budget. the house is willing to take difficult steps. the democratic majority says we can only find an amount that equals the debt we're piling up in one 24-hour period and the president is missing in action. mr. president, i respectfully say that is not leadership. we need the president of the united states to join us in an effort to stop our country from spending money that we don't have and making difficult decisions about spending so we can assure the strength and future of our country.

the question before us, is will we or will we not stop spending money we don't have? will we or will we not make the difficult decisions that it takes to reduce spending so that our country will be strong for the future? the other side says they can find $4.7 billion to save. we say we can start with $57 billion. i will vote for the $57 billion and against the $4.7 billion because that is a surer step toward a bright path for america's future. i thank the president and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: does the gentleman yield back all remaining time?

there's two minutes remaining. all time is yielded back. under the previous order the question is, the passage of h.r. 1. under that order 60 votes are required for passage. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators that wish to vote or change their vote? if not, the vote on this, the yeas are 44, the nays are 56. under the previous order inquiring 60 votes for passage of this act, the act is not passed. mr. leader. mr. reid: could we have order. the presiding officer: order in the senate. mr. reid: on behalf of senator i inouye, i send to the desk an amendment. the presiding officer: order in the senate. the clerk report. mr. reid: amendment number 149. the clerk: the senator from nevada, mr. reid, for mr. inouye, proposes amendment numbered 149. mr. reid: further reading of the amendment be waived. ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: without objection. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the vote on this is 42

yeas, 58 nays. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. under the previous order, the measure is returned to the calendar. mr. roberts: -- a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. mr. franken: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. franken: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to speak about h.r. 1, the house bill that we just voted down. and which i will continue to oppose until major changes are made.

now, with apologies to nobel prize-winning economist paul krugman, i'd like to talk about willie sutton for a second. while we shouldn't normally take fiscal lessons from criminals, willie sutton had it right. he said he robbed banks because that's where the money is. of course he didn't target places with only petty cash. what's the point in robbing a school or a homeless shelter? there is no money there. but that's exactly what h.r. 1 seeks to do. instead of tackling our deficits by going after the bank. instead of going after the bank, it's targeting our most vulnerable. domestic, nonsecurity discretionary spending makes up only 12% of our budget.

we can't balance the budget with only 12% of the budget on the table. we need to be looking at the big picture. we need to be focusing on the bank, where the money is. in president obama's state of the union address, he said that in order to get back on track, to build prosperity, we need to outeducate, outbuild and out-innovate the rest of the world. ask any small business owners and they'll agree. sometimes you have to trim overhead. also have to make smart targeted investments for your business to grow. so why does h.r. 1 do exactly the opposite? the president calls for education and up the funding that supports after-school programs. yet h.r. 1 cuts $100 million.

in minnesota, h.r. 1 would effectively eliminate after-school programs for nearly 2,000 kids. h.r. 1 also cuts job-training programs. virtually zeroing out the first title. even when 3,000 minnesotans are on a waiting list to get training for jobs that are going unfilled. i talked to businesses all over minnesota, and they need trained workers, and they support the workforce investment act. the president calls for infrastructure, yet h.r. 1 cuts surface transportation projects across the country, including nearly $8 million for a new railroad crossing in staples and $250,000 for the st. paul complete streets plan. the department of transportation estimates that h.r. 1 would

effectively cancel 75 projects in 40 states across the country and put more than 30,000 jobs at risk nationwide. the president calls for innovation, and yet h.r. 1 cuts $2.5 billion in lifesaving biomedical and health research at the national institutes of health and national cancer institute. the united states and my home state of minnesota have the world leaders in innovative biomedical research, but under h.r. 1 the united states would be forced to detour from our path toward breaking biomedical frontiers. i think that we can agree that we must not be penny wise and pound foolish when it comes to investing in our nation's future. so h.r. 1 does exactly the

opposite of what our country should be doing during an economic recovery, and h.r. 1 doesn't target willie sutton's bank. it goes after schools and roads and cancer research. i've got a few ideas for targeting the bank where the money is. let's start with big oil and gas. over the past decade, the past ten years, just the five largest oil and gas companies have made $1 trillion in profit. in profit. not revenues. profit. $1 trillion in profit. yet, we are giving them tax

subsidies that have been in place since as far back as 1916, eliminating these wasteful subsidies will bring in about $64 billion over ten years. hello, let's do that. another bank stp-rbgs waste and -- waste and fraud in the health care system. provisions in the health care law reduce waste and the value index that i and others pushed for in the health care reform bill is going to ensure that we reward value, not volume, in medicare. now, in texas, for example, medicare reimbursements are about 50% higher per patient -- per patient -- than they are in

minnesota. yet, in minnesota we have better outcomes. why? because we deliver higher-value health care at a much lower cost. imagine how many tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars we could save if every state delivered health care like minnesota does, like my state does. also in medicare, the government pays too much for medicare prescription drugs, because medicare represents so many people it could negotiate prices directly with the drug companies and deliver the same benefits for seniors at a much, at a lower cost. the v.a. already does this. the v.a. does this. this simple change could save taxpayers up to $24 billion a

year, or $240 billion over ten years. this is where the money is now i'm not the first to point out there is waste in health care, but we can do something about it. and guess what? h.r. 1 would cut $250 million from health care fraud and abuse control. man. another bank is the department of defense. we all agree that we can't skimp on national security, and believe me, when our troops are in two wars, we can do nothing to skimp on their safety, their security, their readiness, their ability to fight these wars.

or on them when they come back from war. and h.r. 1 makes cuts to homeless vets. so we don't want to skimp on national security. but when the military says it doesn't need or want something, we should listen. when it says it doesn't need the f-35 alternate engine, the marine expeditionary fighting vehicle or the nonline of sight launch system, we shouldn't buy them. this could save billions of dollars. and then, of course, there's revenue. h.r. 1 does nothing to shore up revenue at a time when we still have our troops overseas engaged in combat. we've always paid for our wars

before. this time we passed huge tax cuts for the wealthy. and just a couple months ago my colleagues on the other side of the aisle insisted on extending these tax breaks on income over $1 million. we had a vote on this. it wasn't enough to extend the tax breaks on your first million or your second million or your third million or your tenth million or your 20th million or your 50th million or your 100th million. ending the tax break for millionaires could have brought in around $35 billion to $40 billion every year.

that's $350 billion to $400 billion over four years. i added a zero. the president stated this was only a temporary extension. i plan to hold him to that. if we're going to be talking about making shared sacrifices in cutting homeless vets, in cutting head start, let's make sure those shared sacrifices are really shared. all these ideas need to be on the table, not just 12% of our entire budget. if we are at all serious about reforming our budget -- i'm talking about serious -- if we are serious about this, it's got to include the bank. we've got to go where the money

is. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:

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