quorum call:

mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: also without objection. mr. mccain: i thank the president. mr. president, earlier this

afternoon there was a vote on a two-week continuing resolution to fund the government that was divided along party lines. i voted for the passage of h.r. 1, which was a house-passed continuing resolution which will fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year. and i supported this measure because i believe it's a critical first step toward reining in our deficit and debt and putting us back on a path to fiscal solvency. i appreciate the hard work of my colleagues in the house and the efforts required a lot of compromise and tough decisions. and i supported the passage of h.r. 1, but i do have serious concerns with the defense-related spending of this bill. the defense-related spending on

h.r. 1 is not sufficient for us to carry out our responsibilities to the men and women who are serving in the military and fulfill our national security requirements. therefore, if we are going to embark on another two-week continuing resolution, as it appears that reports indicate may be the case, then i will be compelled to oppose an amendment which will then fund our nation's national security requirements for the remainder of the year. that number, as i have determined it, is approximately $535 billion normal defense appropriations and $159 billion for war funding, known as overseas contingency operations.

now, mr. president, the secretary of defense, who i have disagreed with from time to time, which i think is natural and inappropriate, i believe is perhaps the finest secretary of defense that has ever served this nation in many respects. i'm sure there are others who are outstanding, but in recent memory i have not met a person that has led our defense department with the qualities of leadership and dedication as secretary gates. so i pay close attention, and i hope that all of us do, particularly the fact that we have americans in harm's way in two wars and the turmoil that now is present in the middle east in the arab world in the magreb. the secretary of defense has said unequivocally that he

cannot guarantee that we are defending this nation's vital national security interests if we continue on a two-week by two-week by two-week sequence. there's not the kind of funding nor the kind of assurance for the men and women who are serving that we can adequately train, equip and make them fight at their highest efficiencies and capabilities. i disagree. i disagree, and i will list some of those areas where i disagree with the funding requirements. and i don't agree with the number. the secretary of defense has said $540 billion. i think we can do it with $535 billion. but the fact is that we can't subject our nation's national security to a two-week by two-week process. it just is not the way the defense department can function and this nation can defend itself and its tpaoeulgts national security -- vital

national security interests. we owe it to the men and women who are serving in harm's way as we speak. so the bills that need to be, aspects of the defense appropriations bill that need to be taken away, eliminated are $300 million for medical research. and i'm sure that the medical research is important but it has nothing to do with national defense. and it is $50 million for peer-reviewed alzheimer's research, $150 million for peer reviewed breast cancer research, $12.8 million for peer reviewed lung cancer research, $20 million for peer reviewed ovarian cancer research, $80 million for peer reviewed prostate cancer research. all are worthy causes. none have anything to do with defending this country. if they want to be funded -- and i'm sure they deserve to be funded in many respects -- they

should come out of the health and human services appropriations, not out of defense. what's happened around here over the years is the willie sutton syndrome. they once asked the famous bank robber willie sutton why he robbed banks, and he said that's where the money is. various special interests have wanted funding for various projects either good or bad or programs either good or bad that have nothing to do with defense. we cannot afford those any more. if we want to fund a program, it should come out of the appropriate area, area of responsibility, the appropriations committee. both of these bills, that bill includes $70 million for private organizations, $24 million for the red cross, $1.2 million for special olympics, $20 million for youth mentoring grants; all worthy causes, all not defense related. $250 million for improvements to

local schools that are not part of the department of defense school system. if they need to be funded, take it out of the proper appropriations moneys. equally troubling is the way they make objectionable changes to the overseas contingency operations funding. the account, the o.c.o., the operations, overseas contingency operations funds are specifically for iraq and afghanistan. both the bills cut the iraq security force funding by $500 million, they also shift funding for 9f-18 horpbts from the base to overseas contingency operations despite the fact that we have not lost an f-18, and that's $500 million. it shifts $500 million in funding for u.a.v.'s where they were properly requested. they should not be designated

overseas contingency operations. 20 additional missile defense interceptor for $190 million and more, $37 million to fund support to the southwest border for the national guard. i strongly support funding for the southwest border to have it secured, and i will continue to advocate for that. but it does not apply to overseas contingency operations. so as we proceed, i intend to work to remove the non-defense-related spending from these bills, restore that funding to actual d.o.d. priorities, including full funding for our troops in combat and the costs needed to maintain and restore their equipment. mr. president, i don't know if the government's going to be shut down or not. i don't know whether there will be compromise. i don't know if we will engage in entitlement reform and all of the different scenarios that we could draw as to what's going to happen here at high noon in

great drama in our nation's capital. we cannot forget, we cannot forget that we're in two wars that, we have 100,000 troops in afghanistan, approximately 50,000 in iraq. and those are rough numbers, not to mention other civilians and members of the diplomatic corps, other parts of the u.s. government. we cannot force them to live two weeks by two weeks by two weeks and not be sufficiently funded. and i will be glad to engage with my colleagues in vigorous debate, and maybe they are able to find more ways to save money from our defense spending. and i'm sure they're there, and i look forward to working with them. but as the secretary of defense has tried to make it as clear as possible to the members of congress -- and i wish the president would weigh in more

heavily than this -- we cannot continue functioning and preserve our national security this way. that's why if we do another two-week continuing resolution, i will be coming to the floor to propose an amendment to provide funding for our nation's defense for the remainder of the year. and i take a backseat to no one in my zeal to cut unnecessary spending. i'm aware we have mortgaged our children's futures. i know that we can't stop spending the way we are, but the first priority of government -- the first priority is to ensure the safety and security of its citizens. that's why we must appropriately fund our department of defense and all its associated functions and especially provide the equipment and training and protection as much as we can to the men and women who are

serving and sacrifice so that the rest of us can live free. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. sessions: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, we have had our votes this afternoon on the continuing resolution proposal from the house. the senate did not approve that,

did not have the 60 votes necessary to accept that, and the democratic proposal, which i would suggest does nothing about the debt, also failed. i guess there were four or five party defections. if you take it what direction those defections went, all of those defections went to the more conservative side in that several thought that the house reductions in spending were not enough and several thought -- democrat colleagues who thought that the -- the democratic majority leader's proposal did not go far enough. i would just say that what we need to do -- and it's very, very important that we achieve it -- is that we need to move toward a -- a gradual, credible, sustained, mature reduction of the deficits this country has faced. and that takes some tough

decisionmaking. it doesn't require us to act in an extreme or drastic way, but it means sustained, serious changes in the trajectory on which we are headed. and i would just note that the house proposal that came over proposed reducing our discretionary -- nondefense discretionary spending, spending, $61 billion over the rest of the fiscal year. that's if you take only the discretionary amount that amounts to about a 60% reduction in it. you take the -- 6% reduction in it. if you take the other, it's less than 2% in entire spending. so it's utterly implausible that

this reduction in spending is so significant that it will impact adversely our economy today. that's one of the arguments that they're throwing out, particularly in light of the fact that these are -- don't consider the fact that we're dealing with outlays, and a lot of that money won't even be spent in this fiscal year. it will be spent in the next year or two as you build a project, a road or something that takes several years to complete. so the actual reduction in outlay in this year won't be that significant, and it's just not going to reduce the fragile growth rate that we're in. what it does do, though, is save save $61 billion out of this year's appropriations. and over a period of ten years, that will result in approximately $860 billion in savings. because it reduces the base line

by this amount at 61, and it carries out each of the ten years of a $61 billion reduction, plus the interest saved on all this debt since all of this money is borrowed, we're so deeply in debt, any reduction just reduces our debt, it reduces our interest payment, it puts us on a sound path. i do not believe the house sent us anything is reckless or dangerous or extreme. the majority leader yesterday said it was reckless. and -- and used those kind of preswror active terms. it's not -- pejorative terms. it's not. it's a realistic step that has a significant impact. pushing a trillion dollars actually over ten. do a few more little things, you'd save a trillion dollars on our debt over ten years, and that's significant. and i would point out, mr. president, we've had

substantial increases in our budgets in the last two years. in 2010, 2011, over the 2008 budget proposal, we've added 25% increases in spending in these discretionary programs. some of them will receive substantially more than that. so taking down these numbers will not put us into the poorhouse. it's not going to substantially alter the nature of the very republic that we are here to serve nor the government that's supposed to serve the people. it's not going to savage our government. it's not going to savage programs. for example, this -- these reductions that we voted on, had they -- if they become law, $61 billion over the rest of this fiscal year, would bring us still above the 2008 levels by

4.3%. 2008, we were spending $37 $378 billion on these programs. if this reduction were to be accomplished, the spending for the rest of this year -- for this year would be $394 billion. that's more than we were just spending in 2008 and i believe it's a reasonable reduction. now, i suppose after this vote that leaders and wise heads and people i affectionately call masters of the universe will all get together and they'll start deciding what we're going to do. well, you didn't win your vote and we didn't win our vote and so let's just sit down here and let's just divide up the pie and you give a little bit more and we don't want to cut too much spending, you know, and we'll just not agree to anything like

these spending levels. i think that would be a mistake. i believe the american people in this last election were very clear that they expected us to do something about this reckless washington spending. it was dominant in the election. there was a sha shellacking in s election of the big government, big spenders. they went down all over the country. what was it, 87 new house numbers elected? the biggest surge in years. every one of them virtually promising to contain the reckless spending in washington. so i can't understand what it is that people don't comprehend about the nature of the circumstances we're in. 40 cents of every dollar we spend today is borrowed.

every economist who's testified has said that we're on an unsustainable path. mr. erskine bowles testified, former -- president clinton's former chief of staff, a successful businessman himself, the head of the debt commission along with alan simpson, former senator, and he said we could have a debt crisis in two years, maybe a little less, maybe a little more on the rate we're going. thirty joint statement said this country has never been in a situation which we have such a predictable crisis. and senator simpson declared he thought we could have a debt crisis in less than a year. he said, i think it's less than a year, not two years. alan greenspan in january told

the "wall street journal" there was a little better but not much more than a 50/50 chance that we would have a debt crisis in less -- in two to three years. these are ominous warnings. you can't -- you can't spend $3.8 trillion and bring in $2.2 trillion and think you can continue that any time soon. it's the largest deficit in the history of the american republ republic. and the president's budget he just submitted to us projects no budget in ten years, less than $600 billion. and the last three years of his ten-year budget, those deficits are going up to $900 billion. it's the wrong trends. this is not a course we can sustain. we have to get off of it. we could be reaching the precipice sooner than we think, one year, two years, three

years, if we don't get off this path. we need to take action now. there's one opportunity. that's this continuing resolution which allows us to make some reductions, enough to send a message that there is a sufficient votes in this congress to reverse the path we're on. is there sufficient votes? i believe there is. partisanship information these last two votes. we know that. people were pressured on both sides. but the people who didn't follow party line were all that were moving on to the right side, the more conservative, restrained side of spending. so i think that suggests there's some momentum out there to do something other than just split the baby on this -- how much we're going to reduce spending. the majority leader's proposal is really a $4.6 billion reduction, less than one-half of

1% of the discretionary budget and a mere fraction of the total federal spending this year. that's nothing. so the choice is, are we going to do nothing or are we going to do something? are we going to listen to the warnings, that we're facing a predictable crisis financially or not? so we can do this. this is not going to be a dramatic reduction in spending. frankly, i'd like to see it go a good bit lower, as a number of people i know in the senate feel. but most of us felt like it was significant, it puts us on a downward path, it saves $61 billion this year, $850 billion over ten. that's a pretty good amount to save in seven months of this fiscal year, we come back next year and we do more and better

work. and we're going to have to bring entitlements into the discussion. but the president's going to have to step up on that. if he's going to oppose that, nothing's going to pass on entitlements, that's for sure. so we need some leadership. and we can move this thing in the right direction. so i'm disappointed that there were not more votes for the house proposal but at least on a republican side, it got every republican vote except a few who felt it didn't go far enough in reducing spending. and i believe the message needs to be, to whoever's meeting in these secret chambers, without the american people and without -- i won't be in there, i'm sure. they'll be meeting over there and they'll be making these plots. they need to know we're not just looking for any token cuts. we need to do something that's

significant. we need to stay with the house number, that's what we need to do. it would be so good for this country. the whole world would say hmm, this new congress, they take -- that was a noticeable step, they actually reduced spending. maybe they are in the united states ready to get their house in order. maybe we don't mind continuing to buy their bonds. maybe -- maybe they'll be able to honor their debts without debasing their currency. maybe it's a good investment. i hope that's what we need to be saying, because otherwise we could be in a situation in which our debt surges, the interest on our debt surges and the value of our currency is debased and put us on the road to political as well as economic decline. so, mr. president, i thank the

chair for the opportunity to share these remarks. as ranking republican on the budget committee, we've been wrestling with these -- these issues. i thank senator conrad, our chairman. he's had some good hearings. we've had some good witnesses and good testimony. but it's time for action. not just talk, we need to do something. this is the bill that's before us. this c.r., it's a vehicle by which we can speak to the american people, speak to the financial markets, speak to the entire world that the united states realizes that our path is an unsustainable one and we are going to do something about it. we are moving off that path. it's going to be a tougher road for awhile, but it's the road to prosperity, it's the road to growth, it's the road to more jobs.

excessive debt slows down the economy, as roghoffen rhine hard's book and studies show, as secretary gien heart testified in the budget committee. it's it's possible we could have a debt crisis, an adverse incident that is exacerbated by the very high levels of debt that we're under. mr. president, i thank the chair and would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. mr. sessions sessions: i suggese absence of a quorum, mr. president. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: mr. president, may i ask that the pending

quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. whitehouse: thank you, mr. president. i do not intend to speak long. know we're getting ready to wrap-up. and i'm not going to interfere with that, but i did not want the day to end without a reminder that the concern that h.r. 1 and the significant serious cuts that it imposes will produce significant serious job losses. that is not something that is being manufactured on our side of the aisle. it comes from careful analysis from very neutral forums. many people will have seen this graphic already. chairman bernanke of the federal reserve is one of the observers who has looked at the bill and

said that it will cut significant jobs. i believe his testimony was that it was not trivial, that it would be hundreds of thousands of jobs. economist mark zandi has advised republicans and democrats, he's a neutral, independent economist. he has calculated that the g.o.p. plan would cost 700,000 jobs. when you consider that the good news that we have just heard of job growth in the past reporting period was, i believe, around 170,000 jobs, less than 200,000, anyway, the idea of wiping out 700,000 jobs acquires a real scale and a real significance. and, finally, at the bottom is goldman sachs. goldman sachs is no great friend of the democratic party. what it is is a very smart and very talented group of financial advisers and investors who look

at data as dispassionately as possible because if they're wrong, they don't make money. they work hard to get it right. and goldman sachs has estimated that the spending cuts will hurt economic growth. my memory is that they estimated that it would be two percentage points off our economic growth. and when you consider that our economic growth is, i think, under 3% right now, you take two of those pernts out and you're basically -- pernts out and you're basically getting pretty close to flatlining the economy. prudence dictates that we go about the necessary adjustments to get rid of our debt and our deficit in a way that does not snuff out the gradually emerging recovery. in my state of rhode island we've just gone from 11.5% unemployment down to 11.3%.

un -- unemployment. it's still pretty darn serious out there. and while things appear to have bottomed out and started to go in right direction, nothing prevents what everybody calls the double dip. the things like the gas prices that we have been going through now has been discussed as potentially being a double dip. to knock out 700,000 jobs, to knock out two full percentage points out of a growth ratio that's not much over 3%, if, that's a very big hit to our economy. it may be wiser to allow the economic recovery to continue a little bit further as the bolle-simpson group recommended, that you couldn't snuff out the recovery early. let the blaze catch a little bit more. let it get growing and then we can move into these areas. i'll close with that. i will come to the floor later to talk not just about prudence, but also fairness.

because those are two issues that we need to address as we face up to our debt and deficit challenge. we have to do it prudently and also do it fairly. the way the house does it doesn't meet the standards of either prudence or fairness. prudence, i think we have -- mark zandi and goldman sachs talks about job losses and fairness as a topic of another day. i thank the presiding officer. i yield the floor and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: res. 63,

designating the first week of april 2011 as national asbestos

awareness week. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate shall proceed to the measure. mr. r mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be laid on the tab, there be no intervening action or debate and any statements be placed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that we proceed to s. res. 97. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 97, affirming the importance of exercise and physical being aivity, as key components of a healthy lifestyle, including combating obesity, reducing chronic disease, and lowering health care costs. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there be in intervening action or debate, any statements relating to this

matter be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if revmentd. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that on thursday, march 10, at 2:15 p.m., the senate proceed to executive session to consider calendar number 7, there be 15 minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form, upon the use or yielding back of the time, the senate proceed to vote on calendar number 7. the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, there be in intervening action or debate, that there be no further motions in order, any statements relating to this printed nlt record and president obama be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: #eu ask unanimous consent that the following senators be recognized as if in morning business with the times listed low for the purposes of maiden speeches in the united states senate: senator moran, up to 15 minutes,

senator coats tuesday, march 15, at 2:15 p.m. for up to 30 minutes. i would just say this is his second maiden speech. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it adjourn until thursday, march 10, at 10:00 a.m., following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day you and following leader remarks, there will be a period for morning business until 2:15 p.m., senators allowed to speak for up to 10 minutes each, at 2:15, the senate proceed to executive session, as provided under the previous order. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: the senate will vote on the confirmation of max oliver cogburn to be a district judge for north carolina. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order.

the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until >> live coverage of the senate when members return here on

c-span2. npr ceo vivian schiller resigned today after comments were made. the video made public on tuesday shows her, no relation to the ceo, conspiracying groups with two groups posing an muslim contributors. the meeting was secretly filmed. journalist david, a pulitzer prize winner died this week.

>> now that the senate rejected both the republican and the democratic versions of the fiscal year 2011 spending bill, members of the house and senate will need to reach agreement in order to keep the government funded after march 18. here's part of the senate debate from today. >> mr. president, the amendment i introduced on friday cost $51 billion from the discretionary spending requests submitted by the president for fy2011. if this amendment were agreed to

as written, it would mean that we would appropriate $51 billion less than the president felt necessary for the government to carry out its duties. mr. president, i do not agree with every item in this president or any president requests on this budget, but i also know that the president's budget requests it not contain $51 billion in frivolous or wasteful spending. the costs necessary to reach the $51 billion level required 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 promise to reduce spending by $100 billion. hr1 shows clearly what happens when you face an analysis, but on campaign speeches. therefore, today to dray draconian cuts that lead to disrupted delivery of government agencies and services and harm america's children, our students, our working class, and

our seniors, and as today, 700,000 jobs would be lost. all of this 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 an debate on 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

nondefense, as well as cuts in our entitlement spending, and, yes, the need for additional revenues. just yesterday, the "new york times" published a story about the junior senator from virginia and senior senator from georgia to honestly examine what it will take to solve our fiscal challenges. according to that story, even if congress cut this 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 cannot come from huge cuts from a small portion of the federal budget, but that is what the house is proposing. what hr1 will do instead is jeopardize the economic recovery

we are beginning to see. mr. president, this democratic alternative attempts to make the best of the very bad situation. the top numbers call the story. in this amendment, we are $23 billion below the president's request for nondiscretionary spending and below the spending requested for the nation's security. all the department of defense alone, we reduced spending by $19.4 billion including a reduction of $2.1 billion for military construction, and $17.3 billion for 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 depths of the cuts that were made to take out to get $51 billion under their requests. this should be advised, for example, that the senate amendment cuts $355 million in state and local law enforcement grinds. this will remain result in some 1400 local and tribal law enforcement and criminal enforcement jobs.

in addition to amendment cuts, $526 million from fbi 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 cyberattacks and to assist in litigation of terrorism cases. this amendment cuts funding by $573 million at the national science foundation, and by $165 million of that, the international institute of science and technology, and as a result, mr. president, the nation will lose opportunities a promising resource in the field and cybertechnology.

instead of taking the lead as we have always done, we will slow down allowing the rest of the world to cut up. when it comes to the critical area of education, the sum of the eliminations in education programs and cuts all federal funding specifically targeted to education technology, gifted instruction, and family literacy, and, mr. president, the list goes on and on, but as significant as these cuts are, there's a strong contrast to the house republican bill which includes such severe members that the bill that underminds our security and our economy are costing hundreds of thousands of american jobs.

hr1 would cut transit security funds by 66%. despite the fact there have been over 1300 attacks, killing or injuries over 18,000 people worldwide on trains and subways over the last seven years. this bill maintains the fiscal year 2010 enacted budget of $300 million. the house republican rc cuts, discretionary funding for community health centers by a billion dollars compared to the fy10 enacted level. this cut would prevent any new clinic from opening, eliminate funding for 127 clinics currently operating in 38 states, and reduce current services at another 196 centers

across the country. more than 2.8 million people will likely lose access to the current primary care provider and over 5,000 health center staff would lose their jobs. the senate bill restores the billion dollar cut preserving both the vital services being provided today and the plan expansion of centers estimated to create over 7.5 million new patients this year. the whole cr eliminated all funding it was transportation investment generating economic recovery targeting grant program. grants are highly competitive and fund transportation 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 information from the transportation department, cutting a total of $1.2 billion from the program will put 33360 jobs at risk. hr1 cuts funding for the social security administration administrative expenses by $125 billion below the 2010 level. this would cause the ssa to freeze hiring across the agency and possibly let go of apply -- employees at a time when americans are fighting for

disability at record levels. the senate bill by contrast provides $600 million more than the house republican's proposal. compared to the house cr, it would allow ssa to process 300,000 additional claims and 150,000 disability hearings and due beneficiaries receive time and benefits. it slashes education funding by nearly $700 billion meaning 204 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 i grants program says as a foundation of federal assistance to elementary and secondary schools across the country, providing national assistance to more than 9 0% of our nation's school districts. finally, we are rob -- brought with regard to the school interests, the cuts in hr1 undermind our ability to stabilize afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq, and to support general petraeus' strategy. hr1 provides $5.71 billion for economic support fund, a 27% cut from the fy2011 request. as secretary gates and secretary clinton have made clear in

repeating testimony before congress, cuts of this magnitude will seriously impede efforts in afghanistan and transition the stability for u.s. operations in iraq from military to civilian. mr. president, there are many more examples of damage that have come from should hr1 be enacted into law which is why the president's promised a veto, and why i know my democratic colleagues will reject it and a thumbs up to a vote. the senate amendment also takes a responsible approach for funding the government for the remainder of the fiscal year making difficult decisions, but also ensuring minimal disruptions in economic recovery. mr. president, we are now almost

halfway through fy2011, and if we are to have any chance of voting on another serious continuing resolutions for fy2012, we simply must finish our work on the current year 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. >> mr. president? >> the senator from nevada. >> mr. president, i start by asking unanimous concept to speakers on the republican side be limited to 10 minutes each with senator coburn contributing up to 5 minutes. >> without objection. >> mr. president, come to speak on the two proposals, the democrat proposal and the republican proposal from the

house known as hr1. i'm going to reluctantly support hr1. it reduces government spending by about $61 billion below last year's level. the reason i'm reluctantly supporting it is because i don't think it goes far enough. we 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, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, just going to read the yellow portion here. he said, "i believe our debt is the greatest threat to our national security." well, we know that our national debt is over $14 trillion now. this year, we're spending in excess of what we take in 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 sultry amount. a few other things to talk about here. this is from treasury secretary, tim geithner. he said february 17th, "it is excessively high interest burden. it's unsustainable with the president's plan even if congress were to enact it and even if the congress were to hold on to it over reduce those deficits over the next five years, we would still be left with a very large interest burden and unsustainable obligations over time." that's the secretary of treasury. he also said, "our deficits are too high. they are unsustainable." i think everybody agrees. they are unsustainable, and he said, "if left unaddressed,

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. next quote, this from the president himself. he says, "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 trillion in debt over the next decade. it 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. over the decade, we go up further, further, further, down here in 2021, $26.3. this is vir coolly a doubling of our national debt. that's why when timothy geithner said it's unsustainable, our secretary treasury appointed by president obama, says it's unsustainable. we all agree it's unsustainable, so when are we going to get spending under control? 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 mansion 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 spinning in absolutely unsustainable and out of control levels." we must turn our financial ship around, but the senate proposal continues to set forward as yet there's no storm on the 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.

senator mark warner said, "at some point, we need to send 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's going is the right direction. what we need to do as a congress, the bill that the majority put before us is really showing a lack of understanding of how serious this deficit and this debt -- how serious of an issue this is for our country. now, i 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 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. 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 pathetic, and this will do nothing to actually put us on a sustainable tabis call path -- fiscal path where we can start living within our means and quit spending money that 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 year since we're borrowing 40 crepts out of every dollar we spend, to put that in terms that a family would understand, it would be like a family making $60,000 a year, and yet, it's going to spend $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 dupe my kate -- dupe duplicative programs. this gao report underscores the great negligence of the federal government when it comes to managing hard earned taxpayer dollars. let me give you a couple 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 strategies to develop even more job training programs. 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 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 gao 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 costs 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 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 service transportation programs. 100 of them, and so while i'm troubled the $61 billion isn't enough to tackle the problem, i'm astounded by what the other

side of the aisle has done. it halls continues -- also continues many of the wasteful programs we talk about, the cooperation for public broadcasting is under fire, obviously, npr. this morning, their ceo resigned. we have seen the controversies there, but their bill also spends tens of millions of dollars to help unions organize overseas, not even in america. we're helping unions organize overseas. is that what we want to do with american taxpayer dollars? well, today's vote is a choice between modest progress and making the -- >> the senator used the 10 minutes. >> i ask for an in additional one minute. >> without objection. >> 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 staigs are really -- stakes are really just too high. today, i will be reluctantly supporting hr1, 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. president? >> senator from new york. >> i ask concept to speak -- i ask consent to speak up to two minutes and senator leahy to follow. >> without objection. >> mr. president, i wouldn't mind the chart from my friend

from nevada kept up because it makes my point in a minute. in a few hours we'll hold a vote. the republicans scorchedded spending with critical priorities like defense, cancer research, and food safety inspectors. it is a trojan horse, and we will not be fooled by it. it speaks in the name of deficit reduction, but the dirty little secret about the republican spending plan is once the dust is settled, it decreases the deficit by $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. when you look at the cbo's score of the continuing resolution we're operating under and compare that to the house spending bill, the difference by cbo only amounts to $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. we're talking of a difference of $1.63 trillion under the current cr1 versus 3.55 billion under

the republican proposal. much as my colleague from nevada's chart has shown. in other words, all of the cuts that the republicans are currently proposing will shave a grand total of .3% from the deficit. some say 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 hr1 is enacted, and these cuts harm our ability for the future because they gut the priorities we need to up vest in to help the economy grow. >> the senator's time expired. >> unanimous consent to be given

2 minutes. >> without objection. >> if all these cuts won't improve the economy in the near term and help economic growth in the longer term and won't cut the deficit, then exactly what will they do? they'll satisfy a 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 today. i think it's important that after today's vote, boat sides in the debate take a deep collective breath. we should all take stock of all the decision up to now is 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 mind set. rather than continuing the fixation on comessic 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 counter offer 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 with discretionary and even leaving out the military will not achieve our goal of deficit reduction including mandatory cuts in revenue raisers like oil royalties will. the bottom line is this, the blame for the current break down in budget negotiations rests with our failure to think big. a bipartisan compromise is not found in discretionary spending cuts alone. we have to broaden the playing field. the solution will only come from putting other kinds of cuts as well as revenue enhancemented 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. >> i appreciate that, but i think what they're going to do is try to go back and forth. >> well, i yield the floor in any case. >> senator sessions, but i appreciate the curtesy from the senator from new york, and i yield and with consent i'm recognized at the end of the senator from alabama's speech. >> without objection. >> mr. president, i thank the esteemed chairman of the committee and congratulate him on a successful patent bill that was passed with an overwhelming bill. i was pleased to work on that as a partner for two years as ranking member in that committee, and i think it's a good day. mr. president, we will soon be moving towards a voten the continuing resolution apparently there's 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? can we do nothing? is nothing an option? that's what the democratic proposal is. nothing. zero. nadda. we had in the budget committee, which i'm the ranking member now, the testimony yesterday of alan simpson and senator simpson, republican from wyoming, bowless president bush's chief of staff and academic leader, and 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 december sicive action, our --

decisive action, our nation faces the most predictable economic crisis in history." they have spent much 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 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. what do we mean a crisis? we had a crisis in 2007 that put us in the deepest recession we've had in decades. greece had a crisis. that's the kind of thing they're talking about. 0% of every -- 40% of every dollar we spend is borrowed, and senator conrad, our chairman, senior distinguished leader, 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? commission proposes a $4 trillion reduction in our deficit spending over the next 10 years. should it be more? that's what they propose. president obama's budget reduces it by $1 trillion, but when the cbo scores it, they find it's filled with gimmicks and no reduction i predict in the deficit in the obama budget which is really, really disappointing. it's a do-nothing-about-the-debt-problm budget. what's going to happen? this problem is going to happen. it is a problem. we are going to have to face up in maybe two years, maybe a little less, maybe a little

more. mr. simpson, he commented. i think it will come before two years. we're talking about a crisis. i'm just saying at some point i think within a year, at a end of a year if they, the people who hold our debt just thought you are playing with fluff, 5%-6% of this hole, they are going to say i want 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 saying for 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 charge to make today. to we take a -- 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 could do nothing as the democratic proposal is. the republican proposal will immediately lower spending by $61 billion the rest of the year. that's a reduction of 6% of the discretionary spending budget. most states, citizens, counties in america have had bigger reductions than that, they they are -- and they are 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. 245 amount -- 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 one-half of 1% reduction in the discretionary spending budget last -- less than one-half of 1%. now, this $61 billion is not going to break us. gao 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 $61

billion to reduce out of more than $1 trillion in a discretionary budget. under president obama, 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 are doing so every day. washington just keeps on growing and spending and growing. we had the education secretary in last week. they propose 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

they propose a 62% transportation budget increase, so this is where we were, $3 trillion, and we're at $3.7 trillion. that's a 24% increase. i'm not making these numbers up. well, what about the deficit numbers? this year, we spend $3.7 trillion, maybe $3.8 trillion. want to know how much our revenue is this year? $2.2. i know it's unbelievable. the american people probably just cannot imagine that we are spending 3.8 and taking in 2.2, but it is true, 40 cents of

every dollar we spend is borrowed. this is why mr. bowles and mr. simpson and every economist that testified says we're on an unsustainable path. our path cannot be continued. we need to take action now. this suspect enough, but it's -- this isn't enough, but it's a step. it sends a message to the world markets that maybe united states is, in fact, on the road to doing something about the spending that we're in. our debt will soon be larger than the economy. it will exceed 100% of gdp by the end of this fiscal year, amazingly serging our debt load for the whole country. we can want keep -- we cannot keep spending what we

do not have, borrowing what we do not have. we cannot do this. it's like an anchor dragging on our economy. it slows growth. as the studies showed as secretary of treasury geithner acknowledged in the committee, it's already slowing our growth, and he also 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. >> the senator's time expired. >> unanimous consent for two additional minutes. >> without objection. >> 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 saying any savings from reducing deficit spending. let me show you this chart. i'll take the first one because $61 billion reduction is a reduction of the baseline, and when you reduce the baseline, you say that amount every year, even if there's growth in the future years, and it adds up. it's geomet try call reduction in deficits we need to have. you know from your business accounting that 7% return on your money doubles your money in ten years. we had 24% the last two years. that's why the government is

doubling in size, but this would show according to our budget staff and calculators, if you reduce the baseline $61 billion of discretionary spending alone, it would save $862 billion in deficit reduction over ten years, and if you were to freeze that baseline in for just five years, not only would you save $860 billion, but $1.65 trillion, enough money to make a real difference in just one little act of $61 billion in reduction of this discretionary spending. >> the senator's time -- >> i yield the floor. >> mr. president? >> senator from vermont. >> mr. president, 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 i think help the deficit. i do, you know, i have to think of the revenues that come in. we had a terrible mistake when the congress voted to support going to war in iraq, and i was one of the 22 who voted against that war, but then voted to cut taxes and borrow the money to pay for the war in iraq, we borrowed a trillion dollars that has not made us safer, but created thousands of american deaths and thousands of others, and destroyed our ability to respond otherwise. it has accomplished one thing. iraq did pose a threat to iran, and we removed that threat to iran which i'm sorry to say was an added mistake.

we also went into afghanistan with the intent to catch bin laden when they had him according to accounts, surrounded. our cia and special forces were yanked out of afghanistan to go in iraq and he escaped to pakistan, and a trillion dollars later, we'll still there. borrowed money for those two wars, one that went way beyond what it was supposed to. we borrowed money and 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 over there who have the hardship, not the rest of us. when -- let me talk to about how

the senate cr and hr1, how that funding would affect the department of state and foreign operations. these have both come under a subcommittee i chair in appropriations. let's talk about what's in the house cr and more importantly what's not in the house cr. it defines diplomacy and international development as nonsecurity spending, even though, of course, the integral part they both play in protecting our security around the globe, ignores the views of secretary state clinton, secretary defense gates, chairman of joint chiefs, admiral mullen, former chairman general powell, general petraeus, president obama, former president's george hw bush and george w. bush and every national security adviser, they all made clear these

investments do protect u.s. security. the investments the house say are not prior to security interests. every one of these people i named say it directly affects our national security interests, not only in the front lines, but around the world. president reagan, former homeland security ridge also recognizes the connection between international assistance and our security. president reagan said security assistance programs, the essential complement to our protection enhances the united states. secretary reid said the programmings supported by the international affairs budget are essential to national security as defense programs. secretary gates says i never miss an opportunity to call for more funding on diplomacy and development. there's a whole lot of other examples, both republicans and democratic leaders that seem to fall on deaf ears in the house.

our republican friends in the house should know we can counter the influence of al-qaeda and other extremists. they should not helping countries like southern sudan rebuilding after conflict are building stable democratic governments like egypt. educating and providing jobs for youth who would otherwise by plotted for terrorist recruiters in the middle east or combating the crowsive input of organized crime in central america or preventing the spread of deadly viruses in asia. viruses are only one plane ride away from the united states or supporting nato or the atomic energy agency or u.n. peace keeping, these are all parts of our national security, and there's diplomats here and abroad and the funds they administer to make it possible

to make the united states part of the world community. while the house press release to adequately cuts operations and programs in afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, that's too rhetoric. secretary clinton said the house cr1 unacceptable hurts interests in those part of the countries. it hurts refugees and other victims of disaster by 40%. at the same time, the other members on the other side of the aisle are said -- we should be helping these libyans, these people who fled their homes, help the egyptian who are now refugees in libya, and i agree with them. everybody does, 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 cr provides the security fund and that prevents hunger in africa and asia and improves united states standing. it provide funding for the clean technology fund for wind, solar and other technology, but you know what it does? because we remove it, we remove a major exe tore to chie -- competitor to china. they are funding the technologies. we have fierce competition with them. they are delighted to see us step back so these jobs are not going to be in technology in the united states. they are not going to be exporting this. we are not going to have input. china will take over. how short sided can this be? it's like you own a business, and you got a competitor on the other side of town and you say, well, we're not going to

advertise. we're not going to carry up-to-date goods. we're only going to be open a couple days a week. gosh, i hope that competitor doesn't drive us out of business. is drastically cuts funding to american consulates which many people depend on. every one of us know when there's a problem somewhere or america had a problem, we go to our embassies and consulates abroad. they are not going to be there. the house cr cuts funding from the global health programs. hiv, aides, ma -- aids, malaria, other deadly diseases. it denies drugs and services to hundreds and thousands of people, condemning women and children in other parts of the world to death, neglecting our treaty obligations, that

threatens our voting shares which again our competitors in china are eager to purchase. at o time china is growing, we pull back saying here, you guys take over. you can be the face, the power that these countries will see, not the united states. well, even great britain's conservative government is exempting and increasing international aid because unlike our republican president of the house they recognize the matter of national security. you know, we might say also the impact of hr1 is impacting our domestic programs. look what it's doing here, social saty