area that we have that uses, again, the most specialty fuel. mr. kirk: and this map shows -- it's a very complicated map, but what it shows is by federal regulation, the federal government has divided the national gasoline market up into 17 separate sub markets, and these 17 separate sub markets all have their unique recipe of gasoline. and by federal regulation, you cannot use gasoline that was sold in -- in chicagoland, which under this chart is the -- the chicagoland-milwaukee-r.f.g. with ethanol standard in the st. louis area, the sfrg standard with ethanol. by creating small, tiny monopolies, we create higher prices for the american people. and i think that's why the blunt legislation is necessary. mr. blunt: i thank the senator for those comments. i just point out using your chart here that in missouri, you buy one blend of gas in

st. louis, another blend of fuel in the kansas city area, and a third blend yet in between. and so, clearly, these -- these areas aren't even unique in the fuel that's used there. if you buy fuel driving from one city to the other and use the other half of the tank while you're driving around to st. louis, you're using the fuel that is available generally any how. and this does a couple of things, one is, it allows in a time where it's hard to get fuel for any reason the president to waive those standards. and the other thing it does is cap these fuels so that if the e.p.a. decides under the clean air act that you have a clean air attainment problem in your city, you have to go and look at the existing fuel blends and choose from one of them rather than what had happened in the country up until 2005 which was every city somehow became convinced that there was a

unique fuel blend for them that only would work there, that never would quite work anywhere else, and that doesn't make sense. we've headed in the other direction. this legislation has us a little -- heads us a little further -- heads us a little further and a little faster where we don't have these ewe next blends. we -- unique blentdz. we have fuel -- blends. we have fuel as fuel is. we have the various businesses where if fuel's $4 a a gallon, something has to give. and maybe it's -- it's goes throughout the entire economy. this helps solve that problem and hopefully we can be talking about an energy bill before too long, but, clearly, whether it's a small business bill or any other bill, the cost of fuel makes a a real difference in the country today. this -- a real difference in the country today. this amendment that we hope to

offer eventually to the small business bill bill is one of the things that could help solve that a problem. mr. kirk: the unhighlighted areas is where regular gasoline are sold. and the highlighted areas where the monopolies have been created. what happens if another hurricane hits the gulf? if this area was lacking its specific kind of gasoline, under the current regulations it couldn't borrow gasoline from chicagoland, georgia or anywhere else, so we have a an -- an incredible price rigidity. i think we should move to one clean burning fuel. one thing we should not do is have 17 different sub markets all with the ability to charge the american driving public much higher prices than would otherwise be the case. i commend the gentleman, this is why we need the blunt legislation and the blunt amendment should pass to address

this problem, one reason why gasoline costs too much in the united states. mr. blunt: i thank my friend from illinois, a long-term proponent of this concept. we're going to continue to work for things that make gasoline and fuel -- fuel system work better and make more sense for people all over america and, madam president, i would yield the floor back. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mrs. hutchison: madam president, we are are today making a small step, a downpayment toward getting the runaway federal spending under control. the spending bill that we will vote on today represents a a $78 billion spending cut from that that president obama proposed for this year. it will be $38 billion from what the federal government spent

last year. we must address the spending binge that our country has been on for the last two, four, six years. spending cuts have been actually ignored. we have increased spending in the name of stimulus. the problem is that kind of spending didn't stimulate the economy in the private sector where the jobs are permanent. at the beginning of this year, the president proposed a budget that would spend $3.7 trillion next year with a $1.6 trillion deficit. the national debt is no now $14.29 trillion. under president obama's budget plan, the national debt would double since he took office an triple by -- and triple by 2020. we then embarked on a very

vigorous negotiation on this year's budget. republicans insisted on cuts beginning now, which is the middle of a fiscal year, which makes it very difficult because the spending levels are already in place for half a year, but we said, no, we need to start right now even if it is hard, even if it is in the middle of the fiscal year. and there was a hard negotiation. we know that because we had a series of one, two, and three-week continuing resolutions that continued the government to go forward, but did not make the final decisions on finishing our fiscal year september 30 with the cuts that were necessary. you know, part of the negotiation was to avoid a government shutdown. i did not want a government shutdown because in the end that

costs more. it costs more to do all the changes that are necessary to shut down the government and then to make the changes necessary to come back and put it back on line. so i think we did the right thing by making those cuts, by taking that first step, and by not shutting down government so that so many people would have been left in the lurch. federal employees, most certainly we were going to take care of our military, but they shouldn't have had to worry about it. all of the people who had vacations planned, who had airplane tickets bought who wanted to our national museums an parks, people all over the country would have had some kind of disruption and it wasn't necessary if we did the amount of cutting and we did. but we cannot rest here because

the real battle is going to be for cutting the trillions, not the billions. it is the trillions that are going to start getting the deficits down and bring our debt back into line. to do as the president suggested earlier this year and freeze spending at this year's levels would have been like someone who was on a diet saying i'm just going to eat what i eat now and no more. but that doesn't mean that you lose weight. we all know that. and today the federal government is spending $4 billion every day that we don't have. we add $4 billion every day that we don't have that is debt borrowed from somewhere else. we are borrowing 42 cents on every dollar we spend. much of that is from the chinese. and what are we doing?

we are giving a bill to our children that is insupportable. that is not just a problem for our grandchildren in the future, it is a problem for today. this year our interest payments on this mountain of debt have already cost us $190 billion this year $190 billion. by 2020, if we go at this rate, annual interest payments on the national debt will more than double to approximatel approximately $778 billion a year interest payments. now you're going to three-quarter of a trillion dollars just for interest payments. we cannot allow that to happen. the president made a speech yesterday and it was a call for action. unfortunately i believe the president called for the wrong action. the president says we've got to

have taxes that go up and we've got to have spending that goes down together. he proposed raising $1 trillion in tax increases. that's $1 trillion in higher taxes for small business. it is $1 trillion in higher taxes for family farmers. that is not going to help our economy come out of the doldrums. who is going to be able to hire people if they're going to know that they are going to have to a tax burden and a regulatory burden that is going to keep them from being able to expand their operations? washington has a spending problem, not taxing problem. we wasted $1 trillion in failed stimulus spending in the first two years of the obama presidency. now raising taxes by $1 trillion

in the second half of his presidency to pay for a stimulus package that didn't work, madam president, that does not make sense. the president also believes that a stronger federal government, a more powerful federal government is the answer to our problems. he proposed yesterday to address medicare and medicaid costs by expanding upon the health care reform bill that was pushed through on a a completely partisan -- on a a completely partisan vote that already is going to increase government, it is going to increase costs and cuts to medicare are going to pay for part of that increase. the president would give more power to the unelected bureaucrats on his new independent payment advisory board that is there to cut medicare payments and reimbursements to doctors. we do not need a a bigger, more power -- a bigger, more powerful

federal government to address the issues of this mounting debt. we are going to have a vigorous debate on what is the right answer. more powerful federal government and more taxes versus a smaller, more restrained federal government that promotes growth in the private sector to make our economy go. we are approaching the limit on the federal debt ceiling. that is where we must take a stand. that is where we have to draw the line in the sand and say, no more. we cannot raise the limit on the federal debt without reforms taking place that will show that over the next 10 years we have a plan and the plan is to cut back on the deficit every year. i think the total of around $6 trillion in cuts over a 10-year period is a

responsible approach. we will debate some of the things in the proposals that have been put forward. what are the priorities in spending? what will promote growth? what will promote jobs? but we must have a plan before we raise the debt ceiling. republicans and democrats can agree on one thing, we do need a combination of spending cuts with revenue increases to get to the trillions that are needed to cut this debt. but the way we define revenue is the answer. the democrats say revenue means tax increases and the tax increases are on people who would do the hiring to grow the jobs. so you're putting a damper on the ability to reinvigorate our economy. republicans are going to argue that the revenue comes from

creating jobs, from having more people employed so they can help with our economy and try to help bring revenue in by being employed in the private sector. republicans believe that the way to create revenue is build a vigorous economy. to have people working so that they are contributing to the economy, not people who are forced to take benefits because they cannot find a job in this stagnant economy that we all have acknowledged is here. so, madam president, today i hope that all of us will agree to take the first steps on the responsible spending cuts that will get us through the end of this fiscal year. and i hope that we will come together on next year's budget, the 2012 budget is what we're having hearings on.

i had a hearing with the committee on commerce to ensure that we are spending for 2012 in a limited, responsible way in covering the needs of our country and also making the investments that will spur growth in our economy. the big debate we're going to have is on increasing the debt limit at $14.29 trillion. we must do it with reforms that show the world that is buying our debt that we are going to have a responsible payback to them. i don't want the chinese to raise the interest rates because they're worried about whether we have the political will to pay them back. we will have the political will to do it if we cut spending, if we increase revenue through job growth, not taxes.

we will show the world that debt is good and that interest rates should stay low and that we should work for all of our good to have good trade agreements so that we can build up our jobs and buy things from outside, and those economies will flourish so that they can buy our products. that's what would be a win for everyone, and that's what we will be promoting in the next few months in washington. thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: i thank the senator from north carolina. madam president, i rise today once again on behalf of rural america. many folks don't understand rural america. we often get painted in broad brush strokes that often doesn't reflect the reality we face. the montanans who elected me sent me here to bring common sense over the issues that impact rural america. one issue where there is not a lot of common sense is the issue of debate interchange.

there is also a lot of misinformation out there about this issue. i have been concerned about the unintended consequences of this proposed rule since the senate voted on the provision last year. that's why i voted against the amendment when it came to the floor for a vote. over the past few months, i have been attacked by the big box retailers and called just about every name in the book. my legislation to study the impact of the fed's proposed rule has been called a bailout. it's pretty interesting since i was the only democrat in the senate to vote against both bailouts, and only in washington do people say that you're killing a bill by making sure that it does what we want it to do. now, i certainly don't think the goal of the interchange amendment was to engage in price fixing. i don't think the folks are trying to hurt consumers or small community banks or credit unions. but now we know the impact of this provision is far different than the information that we had when we passed the amendment.

now we know that the regulators tasked with implementing this rule think that it may not work at all. when we passed the amendment, we were told that small banks and credit unions would receive an exemption from the swipe fee rule. since there has been a lot of misinformation on this issue, let me share these comments directly with my colleagues. in a banking committee hearing in february, chairman bernanke referred to the exemption for community banks and credit unions, and he said, and i quote -- "we are not certain how effective that exemption will be. there is some risk that the exemption will not be effective and that the interchange fees available through smaller institutions will be reduced to the same extent that we would see for larger banks. that means as chairman of the federal reserve, the guy in charge of implementing the interchange rule does not think it will work for credit unions or for small mom and pop

community banks. this is common sense. when you set a price gap, big box retailers will use their market share to force little guys to meet the lower fee. at the same hearing, fdic chairwoman sheila bayer confirmed this, once again a quote -- "it remains to be seen whether they -- this is credit unions and community banks -- they can be protected with this. i think they are going to have to make it up somewhere else, probably by raising the fees that they have on transaxby accounts. that means that our credit unions and small community banks will be cutting back, cutting back on free checking. charging more for loans, cutting back on services to low and moderate-income folks in rural america." despite being tasked with the job of implementing the small bank exemption, the fed cannot guarantee that the exemption will work in practice, because

despite what some may say, the federal reserve cannot control markets. it cannot ensure that this provision will work since market forces will drive rates down with the community banks and credit unions. no one doubts that rural american small businesses will be significantly affected by regulating debit card interchange fees, yet the true and full effect of this regulation on small businesses are not being fully discussed or fairly portrayed. this amendment was an attempt to address a problem, but when you control prices, as this amendment does, you also invite ununintended consequences. -- unintended consequences. at first it might make sense if you reduce debit card swipe fees that small businesses will benefit, but once you take a closer look, you find a host of potential problems for small businesses and no guarantees that consumers will benefit one lick. for instance, a recent study says that only 10% of small businesses are in retail and in

a position to accept debit cards, but that same study also says that most small businesses have checking accounts and use debit cards to pay for things that they need to run their businesses. these businesses will end up paying more for basic services like checking accounts and they'll see more fees, and consumers will be no better off. in short, this limit is bad for small businesses and it's bad for consumers. which banking services are likely to be more expensive or disappear entirely as community banks and credit unions seek to make up lost revenue? well, free checking, for one. millions of americans have had checking accounts and debit cards because they're free. if banks and credit unions are forced to charge for these services, many business owners and consumers would suffer the consequences. and because the fed's rules don't allow banks to cover the costs of debit transactions, banks of all sizes are

considering limits on debit card purchases. moms using their debit cards at the grocery store may have to limit their grocery purchases to to $50 or $100 on groceries. so what's the alternative? well, put it on a credit card, but that, madam president, is a tough option for struggling families. low and moderate income families may not have access to credit or may have already maxed out their credit card, and pushing consumers toward credit isn't good for small businesses either because the interchange fees on credit card purchases are higher than those on debit cards. in a recent survey, three quarters of community banks reported considering imposing annual or monthly debit card fees. 3/5 of them would consider imposing monthly fees on checking account customers. if they start charging folks for just having an account, you can bet these folks won't be customers for long. in the long run, that will devastate rural america. and what does this mean for

small businesses that rely on those community banks and credit unions? without a doubt, the small businesses and communities across montana rely on community banks and credit unions to keep their doors open, to grow their businesses and to create jobs. these main street institutions are the backbone of this nation's small businesses. in fact, according to a recent national federation of independent businesses report, most small businesses do their banking with smaller institutions. community banks provide the bulk of small business lending in rural communities, and small business owners receive better treatment from community banks. that's because in rural america, a community bank is part of that community. a handshake still matters. and the folks on both sides of the table can look each other in the eye and be accountable to one another. you're not going to find that on wall street. community banks do the lion's share of lending with the youngest and smallest of small

businesses. those best positioned to create new jobs as we emerge from this recession. make no mistake about it, the price gaps called for by this durbin amendment will lead to fewer debit cards offered by community banks and credit unions. it will limit the size of debit card transactions,al it will end free checking for small businesses as they rely on these institutions. these changes will limit the ability of small businesses to conduct daily business. they will increase banking costs and could limit lending capability of smaller institutions. these changes come at a time when many small businesses are already fully leveraged and have few other options available. so what does this mean for small businesses in montana? for a contractor, it means he won't be able to use his debit card to buy lumber. it will mean the end of free checking. i know of too many businesses that don't have the option of increasing their lines of credit with their bank or who have

maxed out a credit card in this recession. those are the circumstances that folks are forced into and those are the circumstances that limit our economy. what will this mean for community banks and credit unions that are competing for small -- for the business of these small businesses? community banks and credit unions play an instrumental role in our economic recovery by providing loans to small businesses so that these businesses can grow and hire new employees. smaller banks treat small businesses better, but smaller banks don't have the means to make up for lost revenue from this federal mandate, and they don't have the volume to make up this revenue elsewhere like bigger banks do. one of the more troubling findings from the nfib report that i referenced earlier is the fact that community banks have been losing market share nationwide. the report found that the percentage of small businesses served by local banks fell from 31% to 25% between 2009-2010.

my concern is that this proposed rule will further harm the loss of market share by community banks. it will lead to further consolidation in the banking industry. community banks and credit unions simply cannot compete against wall street unless they provide products like debit cards. they simply can't make this revenue up elsewhere, and they can't compete unless they provide these services. madam president, this notion that some have raised that these proposed rules are a slam dunk for small businesses, it is simply false. unfortunately, this is one of the many misconceptions that have been put out there. for example, based on statements that i have heard, some would have you believe that we have been working and analyzing the debit interchange issue for years. talking about all of the hearings that we have had on this topic. the truth is, however, quite different. there has been just one senate hearing on this issue since 2006, and it was regarding the interchange fees paid by the federal government.

the judiciary committee has looked at antitrust issues, but they have never addressed the ramifications of this amendment, never. and no one has been able to explain to me why studying the impact of this rule is a bad idea. am i suggesting that the debit interchange system is without fault? absolutely not, but we should move forward with a rule that will create a whole new set of problems and will hurt community banks and credit unions until we have fully studied the impact. if we do not measure twice and cut once, we're bound to create a whole new set of problems that will hurt small businesses and consumers. i sure wouldn't have stepped in the middle of this fight if i didn't think it was critical for the survival of rural america and to the jobs and livelihoods of people who live there. i'm not in this -- i'm in this job not because i am known as a guy who stands up for big banks or wall street. far from it. i'm the guy in my party who voted against tarp and against

the automaker bailout. i'm in this job because rural america needs a voice at the table. rural america needs someone on their side to make sure rural communities and main street businesses don't get stuck with the short end of the stick when the senate makes policies like this one. we need to stop. we need to study. we need to make sure we're doing the right thing. therefore, madam president, i ask my colleagues for their bipartisan support on a responsible bipartisan bill to delay this rule so we can have time to study the consequences of this rule, both intended and unintended. our economy cannot afford to let this go into effect. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. i come to the floor today as someone who practiced medicine in wyoming, taking care of families all across the cowboy state for almost a quarter of a century. i come as a doctor giving a second opinion, as i have done week after week, about this

broken health care law that people all around the country are now very concerned about and the impact it's going to have on their own personal lives. we started the whole discussion and debate about health care, that the american people knew what they wanted. they wanted the care they need from a doctor they want at a cost they can afford. and what we've gotten is something that provides not that at all. so, madam president, i sauteed on the -- in "the washington post" under the headline "budget showdown" comments about the president's speech yesterday to the nation, and he did talk about medicare and did talk about medicaid, and i believe that that speech was very short, really inadequate on the details. and it was interesting to see what "the washington post" said about medicaid. it said -- "a senior administration official, speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, the

details, he said, have not been worked out yet." so we have an anonymous source working in the white house talking to reporters admitting that the details have not been worked out. well, yesterday, people heard the president's speech on spending, but it seemed to be higher on political attacks than it was on substantive speech. the things we need to seriously be discussing an debating in this country about a huge debt problem in this country with which we are living. the president did mention one bit of substance though that really should concern the american people, he said -- quote -- "we will slow the cost of medicare costs by doctors, nurses, medical experts an consumers who will look at all the evidence and recommend the best ways to reduce unnecessary spending while protecting access to the services seniors need.

well, what this is is this is a washington commission, a commission in the health care law that many know as ipab. it may sound harmless. it stands for the independent payment advisory board. and americans, i believe, need to know more about the details about how this will actually work. many americans may not remember that the health care law created this unelectable, unaccountable board of washington bureaucrats who will be appointed by the president and the sole purpose is to cut medicare spending based on arbitrary budget targets. you know, these are cuts above and beyond the $500 billion that was taken from a bankrupt medicare program not to create medicare from our seniors but to create a whole new entitlement program for someone else. this boredom powers 15 unelected

washington bureaucrats to make these medicare cuts all without full transparency and accountability to american seniors and to elected officials. so, once again, this board proves that the president and the democrats in congress who voted for the health care law simply didn't have the political courage to make the tough spending decisions themselves. instead they took the easy road. they pulled the classic washington maneuver, create a board and punt the decisions to them. well, congress gave this board its authority to manage medicare spending. i didn't vote for it. members on my side of the aisle didn't vote for, it but this was part of the health care law that was crammed down the throats of the american people. congress abdicated its responsibility to explain to the american people specific payment changes necessary to keep medicare solid. well, let's take a look at what happens when this board actually

makes recommendation. the recommendation becomes law. the recommendation becomes law. now, how can we prevent that from becoming law? the recommendation will become law unless the house and the senate each adopt, not by simple majority, each adopt by a three-fifths majority a resolution to block them. that's not enough. first you need three-fifths of the house, three-fifths of the senate resolutions to block what this board has recommended and then the house and senate have to pass legislation to achieve equivalent savings of what this board claims to be saving by the care that they deny. well, this is an incredible concentration of power that should belong in congress to a board of unelected -- unelected

individuals who are appointed by the president. now, is there concern about this? well, in the house of representatives there is. there's been a repeal provision creating -- that would repeal this board -- and i will tell you, madam president, it is a bipartisan -- bipartisanly cosponsored attempt to repeal this provision. so that's what we're looking at now. why? because the president and the democrats refused to take a leadership role and to just punt this down the road. they threw up their hands and said let someone else do it. this is not health reform, this is for patients or for the doctors or nurses who take care of those patients or the -- senator cornyn has a health care elimination act. this bill will repeal this board in order to ensure the doctor-patient relationship that is important for quality health

care for all americans is maintained and i'm happy to cosponsor that with senator cornyn. we will continue to fight to repeal and to replace this very broken health care law. thank you, madam president, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: madam president, thank you very much. madam president, shortly we are going to be voting three votes. one vote will be on the budget for our current fiscal year, the year that began on october 1 and ends on september 30th of this year. that vote, think we've talked about it at some length. i took the floor yesterday and explained how the negotiated budget for this year is far better than the republican-passed budget in the house of representatives, the original h.r. 1. i pointed out how a budget

represents the vision for our future, that's it's a -- that it's a policy document. and i far prefer the agreement that was reached that preserves america's ability to have a competitive workforce. i pointed out yesterday and i'll repeat again today that the budget we will vote on will maintain most of the funding for n.i.h. research, basic research which is critically important for information in america. that's the information used by our high-tech companies so america can outinnovate our competitors whereas the house-passed budget would have cut $1.4 billion from n.i.h. research. or how the agreed to budget will provide for job training and job corps pretty much at the current rates. whereas the republican-passed house budget would have eliminated most of the funds for job training and 45% of the funds for job corps. or for our students and the pell

grants we're maintaining the funding so that students can continue to receive $5,550 maximum under pell grants. as i pointed out college education tuition is going up. the house-passed budget would have cut 15% off of that program. perhaps the one that i really points, i thirks the major difference between where the republicans are on the budget and where we ended up is the head start program. the head start program has worked effectively in all of our states. children who participated in head start do much better in life. we know that. the house-passed budget would have cut the number of children in head start by 218,000, eliminating teachers and assistants from the head start program. i'm pleased that the agreement that was reached will maintain all services of head start so all of our children can continue in that program. and i -- the list goes on and on about the compromises that were reached. but i want to make it clear,

this was a true compromise. this is not what the democrats wanted or what the republicans wanted. it's going to be painful. there are a lot of things in here i would like to see done differently. i point out the g.s.a. budget is going to be reduced by a billion dollars. in maryland at the white oak facility for the f.d.a. we're doing some critically important construction work to bring together the different participants for the safety of americans. well, that program's going to be severely slowed down as a result of the cut to the g.s.a. budget. i pointed out that on the environmental front, the endangered species act that there's a provision in here that delists the gray wolf. that shouldn't be done through congressional action. that's a dangerous precedent for us to -- to go down. i pointed out that the community development block grants are cut. even though the e.p.a. budget which would have been cut by 30% with the house-passed budget, we bring that down by 50% so it's

only a 15% cut. but a 15% cut is too large of a cut for the enviromental protection agency. the good news is that we were able to remove those riders, those policy riders that would have prevented the enviromental protection agency from protecting the environment, protecting our public health. those were relimb made but i really -- eliminated. but i really want to speak about the other two votes that will be taking place on the floor in a few moments. they're votes on what are called correcting resolutions. now, let me explain this. because i think it might surprise some of the people to learn we're not talking about the amount of dollars that are gb to be appropriated in this -- going to be appropriated in this current year's budget. these are restrictions as to how money can be spent. so it really deals with a philosophical agenda, not a budget agenda. this isn't about reducing the deficit, this is about trying to impose a philosophical position on the budget for this year. so let me talk about the

correcting resolutions. and i'm going to urge my colleagues to vote against both much one would restrict funds going to planned parenthood. women's health care issues, which i call war on women. this deals with title 10 funding. now, title 10 funding is used for preventive health services, cervical cancer screenings, breast cancer screenings, immunization, diabetes and hypertension testing, sexually transmitted testing an treatment, h.i.v. treatment, and referables. not one time of the money can be used for abortions. that's the current law, the current prohibition. currently there are approximately five million people who benefit from title 10 funding. over 4,500 clinics as across the nation. 91% of the people who take advantage of these clinics have no health insurance.

less than 25% of title 10 funds go to planned parenthood. and planned parenthood spends approximately 3% of its total budget on abortion services. not one dime of which is federal funds. not one dime of which is federal funds. so this is not about abortion. this is about whether we're going to be able to provide preventive care to our most vulnerable in america. and it's attack on women. women are the basic beneficiaries of title 10 funds. it's going to cost us more money through the use of emergency room services. it makes no sense at all. it's certainly counter to what we all say we want, and that's gender equity in health care in america, and i would urge my colleagues to vote no on that correcting resolution. the second correcting resolution is an attempt to repeal the affordable care act. they'll be -- celebrated its

anniversary a few weeks ago. if you're a senior, you should be concerned about this vote because now you have a wellness exam annually under medicare that's reimbursed so you can take care of your own health care needs. that would be put in jeopardy. if you're one of those 3.2 million americans who fall within the so-called doughnut hole, the coverage gap for prescription drug coverage, you should be concerned about the repeal. you got $250 last year, you got 50% of the cost of the brand name prescription covered and by 2020 we're going to close the doughnut hole all together. that would be eliminated if this correcting resolution were passed. we've been able to extend the solvency of the medicare program by 12 years. quite frankly, you should be worried about what efforts are being made to privatize the medicare system. it starts with this vote later today where we can reject the

efforts to turn back the clock on medicare. -- where seniors would have to pay. if you're a small business you should be pleased by the tax credits that are now available in which this correcting resolution would take away from you, making it more expensive for you to provide health care for your employees. if you're a consumer and you're able to cover your child up to age 26, 1.2 million americans, the correcting resolution would turn the clock back on the progress we made on the abusive practices of private insurance companies. if you have a child with asthma, now you can get full coverage. if we turn the clock back by approving the continuing resolution, you will be at the mercy of private insurance companies to provide you coverage, which very unlikely will happen. i can talk about emergency room visits where some insurance companies require preauthorization. i don't know how you get preauthorization when you go to emergency room. we corrected that in the

affordable care act. once again, the correcting resolution that -- that we're being asked to vote on will turn the clock back, putting you at the mercy of private insurance companies as to whether to cover your emergency room visit. if you're a taxpayer -- if you're a taxpayer, which is what we're talking about today with the budget, you should be very much concerned about this correcting resolution because by turning back the clock on the affordable care act, it costs the taxpayers $1.5 trillion over the next 20 years so it's counter to your need. if you have pride as i do that america at long last has said that health care is a right, not a privilege, and recognize that we need to do more to improve our health care system, you'll want us to move forward and talk about the health care issue and try to improve our health care system. you don't want us to turn the clock back. the large number of people who have no health insurance or who

have restricted coverage because of the abusive practices of private insurance companies or your inability to cover your children after they graduate from college, that's now been corrected. and we certainly don't believe that a correcting resolution would take that away from us. so, madam president, i take it for today we're going to have three votes and i just urge my colleagues to vote against both of these correcting resolutions. they're attack on women's health care issues and they're an attack on quality health care for all americans. we need to pass the budget, but these correcting resolutions should be defeated. with that, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: before i speak, i ask unanimous consent for five additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: since january, i have been investigating allegations from whistleblowers at the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms.

the allegations that i had received are shocking but sadly they appear to be true. and praise the lord for whistleblowers in this government because we don't know where the skeletons are buried, and they help us to do our constitutional role of oversight checks and balances of government. the a.t.f. is supposed to stop criminals from trafficking guns to mexican drug cartels, was actually making that trafficking of arms easier for them. that would be bad enough if it happened because of incompetence or turf battles, but it looks like the agency was doing this on purpose. the government actually encouraged gun dealers to sell multiple firearms to known and

suspected traffickers. two of those guns ended up at the scene of a murder of u.s. border patrol agent in arizona. his name was brian terry, and his family deserves answers from their very own government. i have been fighting for those answers. i have written eight letters to the justice department. i have asked for documents. i've asked that specific questions be answered. at first, the justice department simply denied the charges. then one of the whistleblowers went on television. he risked his career to tell the truth on "cbs evening news." he had a sense of duty to agent terry's family, and in turn to the entire population of this

great country. he could not believe that his own government refused to come clean and to tell the truth when questioned by this united states senator. and so he went public to set the record straight. other whistleblowers confirmed what this other whistleblower had said. in fact, i received internal government documents that confirmed what he said. anonymous patriots tried to ensure that the truth would come out. and you know, that's about the only crime that whistleblowers commit, committing truth. isn't that sad? i forwarded many of those documents that i've received clandestinely to attorney general holder and acting

director melson, and i asked them how to square the denials from that department with the evidence that i have received both orally and on paper. at attorney general holder's confirmation hearing, now two years ago, i told him, and i quote myself, "i expect that you will be responsive to my oversight work and that my questions and document requests will be taken seriously. i hope that i have your assurance that if you are confirmed, you will assist me with oversight activities, be responsive to my requests and help me make the justice department accountable." end of this senator's quote two years ago. now, the attorney general who was a nominee at that time responded, and i quote -- this

is before his confirmation --" i will try to do all that i can to make sure that we respond fully and in a timely fashion to the very legitimate questions that i know that you have propounded to the

say. there have been careful -- there have to be careful controls in an operation like i just described. law enforcement should not cross the line into actually assisting criminals just for the simple process of gathering information. operation should be carefully focused on stopping crime without risking public safety. seizing contraband and making arrests are the most important goals. big headline-grabbing cases to advance some prosecutor's career should take a back seat in any of these gambles. yesterday, i sent a letter to attorney general holder with some more documents, so i'm sending the department documents that i'd like to have them send

me. and -- and these are documents that maybe the attorney general himself didn't know about. they're emails between a federally licensed firearms dealer and the supervisor in this arizona case known as fast and furious. in one email, the dealer raises for a third time now his concerns about how the case is being handled. this time he was prompted by a story on fox news about the growing firearms problem on our border with mexico. the dealer wrote -- and this is a long quote, so i start to quote now from the gun dealer -- "the segment is disturbing to me. i shared my concerns with you guys that i wanted to mak i kno,

and he got murdered -- or at least we think he got murdered with one of these guns. these guns were at the scene, at least. now, that email that i just quoted was sent to the supervisor of the case six months before guns from that case were found at the scene of border patrol agent brian terry's murder. the government put these firearms dealers in a completely

unfair position, and let me explain that, because on the one hand, these gun dealers rely upon the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms for their license to even be able to be in business. so, of course, these agents want to cooperate with the government. when you have got this big club hanging over your head, will you be licensed or not licensed. on the other hand, the government asks these gun dealers to keep selling to the bad guys even after the dealers warned that it might end in tragedy. now, i'm going to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this. the house oversight committee has joined in my effort and issued a subpoena for documents. because it might duplicate the process in the house, i have not sought any subpoenas or hearings in the senate judiciary committee yet.

i have not exercised my right to object to any unanimous consent requests on nominations because of this issue yet. however, i want my colleagues and officials at the justice department to hear this loud and clear. if that's what it takes, then i will take those actions. i hope it doesn't have to come to that. i hope that the justice department will decide to cooperate and provide the information we need, doing our constitutional responsibility of oversight to make sure the checks and balances of the system of government under our constitution is working. now, it's been nearly three months since i first raised this issue. it's past time for the justice department to come clean. madam president, i ask for consent to put a copy of this letter to holder in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: how much time do i have left?

the presiding officer: the senator has four minutes remaining. mr. grassley: thank you. i want to take just part of that four minutes for another issue. i'd like to talk about immigration, and a part of the immigration issue that concerns me -- and by golly, it's got something to do with government oversight as well. last august, some lawyers at the u.s. citizenship and the immigration service drafted internal memos outlining ways that the administration could get around congress and grant undocumented aliens in the u.s. with legal status. these amnesty memos outlined ways that the executive branch could use discretionary authority to make sure that thousands -- or who knows, maybe even millions of people here illegally could stay here without a vote of congress. a number of republicans sent a letter to president obama urging

him to abandon any such plan. we sent several letters to homeland security secretary napolitano asking for statistics and briefing on these memos. we asked for assurances that such plans to bypass congress emphasize plans to bypass congress, not be implemented. now, what did we get? all we got was radio silence. madam president, i raise this issue again today because i'm bothered by reports that there's another push for this administration to grant amnesty through executive order that really should only be done by law of this congress to certain groups of undocumented population. and surprisingly, the push for this is coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle. yesterday, 22 democrats sent a letter to president obama asking him to turn a blind eye to the law. these 22 senators said they were

okay with having an executive branch go ahead and go around congress and grant amnesty to those that would be eligible under the so-called dream act. these senators said that they didn't have the votes to get the bill through the senate last year, so their approach is, in an unconstitutional fashion, to ask the president to have his administration use what's referred to legally as prosecutorial discretion to keep these undocumented individuals here. they claim doing so would be consistent with our strong interest in the rule of law. they say that doing so would quote, unquote, "help to conserve limited enforcement resources." now i'm appalled, and i hope a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are appalled that members of this body think that an executive order to grant

amnesty behind our backs is not an assault on the democratic process. congress has the power to change immigration laws and only congress. the president has limited authority to grant relief in limited and emergency circumstances. and i support the president's power to do that. but it wasn't meant to -- to be used in a blanket fashion. the request by 22 members of this body is an affront to our country's longstanding belief in the rule of law. and it's an takes on this body's duty to legislate on behalf of the american people. a power to legislate that the president does not have. i happen to agree that our immigration policies have to be reformed. i will commit to moving legislation that expands the bond or improves the legal avenue we currently have in place. once again we have not seen

leadership by this president to work on a bill that this congress can support. until that time comes it would be foolish and disappointing if this president sir sum cented the -- circumvented the process. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, madam president. i rise near the end of this very, very important and profoundly significant debate to make some points about dollars and cents in health care, but also the impacts of health care on human beings and particularly the threats to cut back health care in the name of an ideological war on women's

health care. our nation is in the midst of a fiscal crisis and we need to recognize that there is a very immediate and important imperative to cut the costs of health care in this country, the cost of cost of health care are spiraling out of control at a rate five times the rate of inflation. and the president, commendly is talking about the needs for serious measures and sensible conversations about what can be done to control and reduce the cost of health care and he has initiated partnership for patients which is another step in his continuing effort and i believe this body's continuing effort to reduce needless costs

where they can be prevented. for example, reducing the incidents of readmissions to hospitals and providing for better out-patient treatment after people are out of a hospital. to reduce infection that's are caused by wounds, to reduce the cost of drugs when they are overprescribed and misprescribed. these kinds of costs are preventible and we have an obligation to reduce those costs of health care when they are preventible. higher quality at lower costs has to be our objective. and lowering costs also means preventive care for women when they can't afford it. that is what planned parenthood does. the threat of house resolution 36 is to that profoundly

important goal, higher quality of health care at lower costs that we can achieve as a nation if we invest in preventive care. the threat of house resolution 36 is, therefore, not only to the 1.4 million patients across the country who would be deprived of that preventive care, and not only to the 65,000 women in connecticut who are at risk, but to all of us, to our families, to our fiscal health because we know that planned parenthood saves $4 for every dollar invested in family planning and in screening and testing, the pap smears, ma'am

mammograms, others to save money and increase the quality of health care in the united states. but this debate is about more than costs. it is about human beings. it is about opportunity for those women who need that preventive care for their futures and their family's futures and eventually for their children's future. every woman across our nation, including 1.4 million medicaid patients that consider planned parenthood their primary source for preventive health deserves to visit a health care provider that she trusts, a health care provider that many of us have in this body. whether we are men or women. and i'm talking about women like rebecca in mariton, connecticut. rebecca's parents' health coverage didn't extend to her

and she made too much money to qualify for connecticut's husky program, too much money by $10 an hour, a total of $10,000 a year, too much money to qualify for husky, but she depended on planned parenthood for regular health screening and contraceptive care. and as she said in her own words, planned parenthood was my saving grace for my reproductive health. women like mia, a 23-year-old, uninsured, waitress part time, she went to planned parenthood for her routine pap smear and the results showed abnormal cells that required a biopsy and an operation to have the precancerous cells removed. that procedure could have been lifesaving. so could other procedures, other

testing and screening for countless women across the kund and in connecticut and all of these procedures take place day in and day out around connecticut in bridgeport for a price that they can afor. these stories from rebecca and mia are heard around our nation an at least 60,000 strong in connecticut alone. one of the presidents of our health care centers, mark maselli, the president of community health care in middle town recently said and i quote -- "defunding planned parenthood would be the moral equivalent of turning off the electricity and a whole segment of health care would go dark. " that is what house resolution 36 means in human terms.

in dollars and cents preventive health care, the kind of work done by st. vincent in bridgeport and hartford hospitals and countless others in the state of connecticut and around this country because our hospitals and our health care providers are responding responsibly to the need for lower costs and higher quality. but we must preserve the momentum to move forward and to make sure that the promise as well as the obligation, the opportunity as well as the mandate is fulfilled. so i call for my senate colleagues to stand together for women like rebecca and mia and for clinics and hospitals and providers across the nation that depend on planned parenthood and to reject this resolution, to reject the effort to turn back the clock and to settle this

debate once and for all to end the ideological war which has itself nothing to do with saving money. in fact, will cost more than it saves. and enable us to turn our attention as we should and we must to people who want us to put america back to work to create jobs, to foster economic growth, to fulfill the mandate that was articulated and expressed so eloquently by the people of this country in this last election which was not wage war on women's health. it was put connecticut and put america back to work, create jobs and continue our fragile economic recovery. thank you, mr. president, and i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

mr. thune: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, today we're going to vote on last year's unfinished business. we're going to vote on a continuing resolution that will fund the government through the end of this fiscal year which ends on september the 30th. the proposal that we have before us in order to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year certainly isn't perfect. in fact, there are many, myself included, who would like to see it make deeper reductions in spending. that said, we will be voting on a proposal that will cut spending by around $40 billion this year and, you know, when you look at baseline spending over the next decade, actually saves over $300 billion over the 10-year period. and what strikes me about that, mr. president, is it will be the first time in a long time that we have done something about reducing spending much that's something that's not routinely

or traditionally done here. in fact, we're going to reverse a trend that began a long time ago, but really accelerate add couple of years ago when nonnational security discretionary spending increased by almost 25% in the last two years. and so this is an important first step -- granted, it is a first step, mr. president, and in main i'm going to get to the bigger -- the bigger issue, but it's critical that we send a message and a signal to the american people that we have heard their voices loudly and clearly and we get what they want us to do and that is to get spending under control, to shrink the size of the federal government, to get it to live within its means and to quit spending money that we don't have in washington. that's something that's been happening here a long time and it's taken on a whole new dimension here in the last couple of years. but, as we talk about the unfinished business of last year in trying to get a measure in place that will fund the

government through the end of the year that actually will reduce spending by $40 billion, we are talking about the smaller part of overall spending when you look at the -- so the -- sort of the macroeconomic view or pull back as someone said the 30,000-foot and look at spending over the next decade. in fact, we had someone testify in front of the senate finance committee yesterday, daift walker, -- david walker, former comptroller general who said, talking about funding in the continuing resolution is like arguing over the bar tab on the titanic. we are on a sinking ship and we need to get maximum amount of spending reduction but then we need to pivot and start talking about the next big battle and that is the battle over the 2012 budget. ironically we are just now getting to the 112th congress's business because we're wrapping up the business of the 111th congress.

the democratic leadership didn't pass a budget or a single appropriation bill as a consequence we are here voting on now a continuing resolution doing last year's business to get us through the end of this fiscal year before we can start the work and the -- on the 2012 budget which i think is where the big debate will begin on how we will get this country back on a more reasonable fiscal path. we've seen a couple of developments in the last two weeks or so that bear on that debate. one is last week, we had the introduction by the house republicans of a budget plan, a ten-year budget plan that was very aggressive in trying to take on the issue of spending and debt, very aggressive in trying to put pro growth policies in place that would help grow the economy and create jobs, get our economy back on track in this country, and -- and that was kind of the big discussion last week. well, the president, i believe, felt left out of that discussion, and so he yesterday decided to make a speech in

which he would lay out his vision for the next decade and how we address the big -- the big challenges that this country needs to tackle. and i would describe it, mr. president, as a do-over, because the president's first trip to the plate was really his budget which he submitted a couple of months ago, and which was conspicuously bereft of any effort to address the really big challenges facing the country. didn't talk about how we're going to reform entitlements, didn't address tax reform, actually increased spending, increased taxes and increased dramatically over the next decade the debt. about double the gross debt from from $13 trillion to $14 trillion to over over $26 trillion. that's using pretty, i think, optimistic economic assumptions. but that being said, the president, because he didn't address in his budget any of the big issues and because the house republicans put a proposal forward last week which would, i think felt like he needed to get

in the game. and so yesterday he made a stridently partisan speech in which he tried to put forward a plan. i would argue that that speech yesterday was very long on politics, very short on substance. there wasn't a lot in there to really sink your teeth into if you're someone who believes seriously that we need to make reforms in entitlement programs. there was the usual prescription for dealing with the deficit and the debt which consisted of increasing taxes. there are tax increases in here, tax increases in the president's proposal on small businesses, the job creators in our economy. i would point out to my colleagues that half of all small business income is taxed at the individual level because many small businesses allow the income from that business to flow through to their individual tax return. so you have a lot of small businesses around this country. in fact, the number of small businesses that would be impacted by his proposal employ

about 35 million people in our economy. and so you're talking about raising taxes on the job creators, on the people who really are employing people across this country, and that was -- that was a key element in the president's prescription for dealing with the fiscal crisis that faces this country. another one was relying on this proposal that was part of the health care reform bill to squeeze provider payments under medicare to try and wring a little bit more out of medicare. and he relies on an independent payment advisory board which would be empowered to go ahead and make reductions, make cuts in provider payments. what's interesting about that, mr. president, is the health care reform bill last year did make significant cuts to providers, not to reform medicare but to create the new health care entitlement program which when it's fully implemented will cost

cost $2.5 trillion. that's what the president used, any savings that were achieved in medicare last year to do. and so when he talks about now using this independent payment advisory board to make further reductions in provider payments, it is relying on the same old tried and true formula -- tried and true, it's tried and failed formula that's been in place before. there is no reform in this proposal, there isn't anything new, there isn't anything innovative that says let's figure out a way to solve this nation's fiscal problems that -- that actually gets at the heart of the problem and doesn't use the same old failed prescriptions that have been used in the past. i, frankly, don't know what's going to happen if you continue to cut payments to physicians and to hospitals, you will find fewer and fewer medical providers are going to serve medicare and medicaid patients in this country. it's as simple as that. when you can't -- when you lose a little bit on each transaction , on each consumer or each patient that you serve, you

have to cost shift and make up for it by shifting more of the costs over to private payers which continues to drive health care costs for everybody who is not on some government -- or receiving their health care from some government program, drive their health care costs even higher and higher. and so there really wasn't anything in there, mr. president, that -- that i would suggest really gets at this problem. now, the other thing that was conspicuously silent from that speech was anything to do with reforming social security. we all know that social security is also a program which is -- which ran a deficit last year. it looks like it will be in the black this year, but next year starts running deficits and runs them well into the future. we have to make that program solvent, not just for the senior citizens who are benefiting from it today, knows who are -- those who are nearing retirement age but for the next generation. the president decided to punt on that subject as well. so as i said, the speech yesterday was long on politics, short on substance, short on a

meaningful discussion about how we get at and address and fix these enormous fiscal challenges that we face. the other thing that he does is he uses a 12-year time frame. now, we normally operate here on a 10-year budget window. that's what the house does, that's what the senate does, that's typically what the white house does when it submits a budget to congress. so he stretched that out to 12 years, perhaps maybe to lessen the impact of some of the few reductions that he does make in his budget, but nevertheless, it is a very different schedule in terms of the proposal that he makes relative to the one that came forth last week from the house republicans. now, the reason this whole debate is important is because we continue to spend and spend and spend like there's no tomorrow, and it's money we just flat don't have. this year we will take in in $2.2 trillion, spend spend $3.8 trillion. we'll run a $1.6 trillion

deficit. i've said this before on the floor, but it's 1:20 in the afternoon today. by tomorrow, friday, at 1:20 in the afternoon, we will have added over $4 billion to the federal debt. that is the rate at which this spending and debt problem is going today. we cannot continue the path we are on. and some people would argue the president and some of our colleagues on the democrat side, but the way that you fix this is , quote, have a balanced approach that raises taxes, that there has to be tax increases is a part of this. i don't think the american people ought to have their taxes raised until we demonstrate a willingness to get at the heart of the problem. the problem here in washington is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem. and the numbers bear that out. if you look at the last 40 years of american history, the average amount that we spend on the federal government as a percentage of our total economy is 20.6%. so a little over a fifth of our

entire economic output is spending by the federal government. this year, we will spend over 25% of our total economy on the federal government, and so we have seen the federal government in relation to our total economy grow by about 20% over the historical average, just in the last couple of years. in the last two years under this administration, we have added almost $3.5 trillion to the federal debt. as i said before, spending increased on nonnational security discretionary spending increased in the last two years by almost 25% at a time when inflation in the overall economy was only growing at 2%. so you have the federal government spending at somewhere on the order of ten times or more than ten times the rate of inflation. you can't -- you cannot defend or justify that to the american people. the american people have a right to know that we're serious about getting spending under control. as evidenced by the government accountability office report a few weeks back, where they came out and looked at i think about

one-third of the overall government to determine where there was duplication, where there was wasteful spending. and if you can believe this, they came up with a number of conclusions, one of which was there are 82 programs, 82 programs at the federal government that deal with teacher training spread across 20 agencies or so of the federal government. well, we have, if you can believe this, 56 programs that teach financial literacy. now, imagine washington, d.c., lecturing or instructing anybody around this country about financial literacy, of all things, but 56 programs spread across 10 different agencies or departments of government that deal with financial literacy? i mean, the american people have got to be going get serious. this is -- this is the kind of thing that outrages and frustrates the american people. that's why i think they want us to singularly focus on reducing spending and getting this debt under control, not by raising

their taxes in the middle of an economic downturn, particularly the taxes on our small businesses that will create the jobs to get the economy back on track, but by reducing spending, mr. president. that's where this thing -- that's where this debate ought to be centered. and regrettably, as i said, the president in his speech yesterday immediately latched onto the idea that we need to raise taxes on our small businesses, on our job creators. well, we're going to have the chance after the vote today on the continuing resolution, assuming that it passes, and then wrapping up last year's unfinished business to shift to this debate about the debt limit. the debt limit will be the next major thing coming along that will present an opportunity, an opportunity for both republicans and democrats to engage in a dialogue and a debate about how to solve this country's fiscal problems, starting with measures that we put in place that put caps on spending. we have got to get spending under control, and then we will have a debate about the 2012

budget. now, it's unclear to me at this point whether or not the senate will do a budget. the house of representatives clearly will. they passed it out of the budget committee, they're going to vote on it i think today, and they are going to put forward a plan that does reduce spending by over $6 trillion over the next ten years, that brings reforms to our tax code, that lower marginal income tax rates on our businesses and our individuals, that hopefully will create economic growth and development out there and create jobs, a budget that changes the way that we look at some of these traditional entitlement programs, insulating and protecting everybody who is over the age of 55. that's the ironic thing about it, because our colleagues on the other side get up and immediately attack this proposal as though it's going to cut benefits to senior citizens. the house plan that was put forward does not impact anybody under -- over the age of 55, so if you're retired today and drawing medicare benefits or

you're nearing retirement age, you are, under this particular proposal, unaffected. it would affect those younger than 55 who are beginning to look at the retirement years wondering whether or not any of these programs are even going to be around for them. but we can make those programs sustainable and viable for people, younger americans, mr. president, if we're willing to look at these things in a new way, and the house budget does that. it makes reforms that puts the patient back in charge, the consumer back in charge, draws on the great, i think, impulses in our tradition in this country, competition, choice, allowing people to -- to have more opportunity, more flexibility to choose a plan that works for them, and it seems to me at least that we have got to get to a new model because the current model clearly doesn't work. it is an example of just a government spending that if it perpetuates has a $38 trillion unfunded liability in medicare alone, further unfunded

liabilities in social security. we have a major problem in this country, mr. president, that needs to be addressed. it starts with the next debate on the debt limit, and then hopefully on the 2012 budget. but i -- i'm glad to see the president finally having a proposal out there and engaging in this debate. unfortunately, his vision is the wrong vision for the future of this country, but it is time that -- high time that the american people saw us take these issues on, have this debate, and let's hope that we can come together behind a proposal that reduce spending, reduce debt, put us more on a fiscal footing that is good for future generations and get this economy growing and creating jobs again. mr. president, i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk

will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. lautenberg: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from nothe new jersey. mr. lautenberg: mr. president, i ask that further calling of the roll be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lautenberg: mr. president, we're going to be voting

sometime today, and i'm concerned about the tea party republican assault on the health of american women because that's what -- that's what we're going to be deciding. and the focus on this has little to do with deficit reduction because better health automatically saves money. this assault is an attempt to change individual behavior to a standard that the tea party people see as proper for others exercising their own free will. it contains an element of unfathomable -- unfathomable history -- i ha i had poo chris.

for those members of congress, we all have immediate access to first-class health plans. never have to think about health coverage for our spouses, our children. it's all in the package. there is no decision to make between paying a medical bill and paying the rent. no decision to make between buying medicine and buying groceries. no decision to make between going into a hospital or going into bankruptcy. and yet the republicans here are fighting to take health care away from women, children, and families across america. they want to completely defund planned parenthood, an organization that's been serving women and families in america for more than 90 years. today planned parenthood

operates more than 800 centers that serve 3 million women each and every year. for many -- for many low-income and young women, planned parenthood is a critical source of health care. and to women who can't afford medical coverage, planned parenthood says, don't worry; your health is more important. they don't just offer counseling and family planning. they also offer lifesaving breast exams and cervical cancer screenings. we look at 820 centers nationwide serve 3 million patients each year, provide 800,000 breast cancer screenings, provide 1 million cervical cancer screenings.

so important. cancer screenings save lives, and since 1950, cervical cancer screenings have cut mortality rates by more than 70%. and, remember, treating cancer and other diseases early enough saves health care dollars in the long run. but this isn't just about sound fiscal policy or better accounting. no, no ... they want to tell women, millions of them, if you can't afford it, tough luck. tough luck. this is about the tea party republicans remaking america in their own image. their real goal is to impose their radical ideology on american women. they want to come in to our homes, tell the women in our families how to live their lives. and this issue is deeply personal to me. my wife and i have five

daughters and eight granddaughters, and nothing is more important to me than their health, their well-being and their freedom to make choices that suit their needs. if we kill funding for planned parenthood, millions of women will lose access to essential care. and those tea party republicans claim that this will help close our deficit of dollars and it will leave us with a deficit of decency. and it's not just women's health that the tea party republicans are after. it's also health care for middle-class families across america. they want to stop the landmark health reform law dead in its tracks. this is the law that adds 32 million americans on the rolls of the insured. so here's what i say to colleagues on the other side: if

you don't want ordinary people to have affordable coverage, then show some sincerity and throw in the coverage that you have. be honest, vote "no" and tell your constituents why you're doing this. and say i mean it when i say no, and i'm giving up my coverage to prove it. i'm talking to senators on the side of taking away the funding. i'm talking to members of the house of representatives to say no and mean no. the health reform law makes health care more affordable, more accessible and more sustainable and holds insurers more accountable. it makes medicine more affordable for seniors by closing the doughnut hole and the medicare prescription drug benefit program. the new law also allows young

adults to stay on their parents' health plans until age 26. and it gives small businesses tax credits to help them provide their employees with medical coverage. now without this law, insurers could once again restrict benefits, rescind coverage when people get sick and refuse care to children with preexisting conditions. i don't think we really want to return to the days when insurers could turn their back, turn away from sick children. life, for phaoerbgs was up front -- for me, was up front and personal when it came to my family's health care needs. i grew up in a working-class family in paterson, new jersey. my father worked in the local silk mills and he died of cancer at age 43, leaving my mother a widow at age 37. our family struggled in bankruptcy as my father's life

ebbed away. my mother owed doctors, hospitals, pharmacies money we just didn't have. and after my service in europe in the army, i was, because there was a government program, able to get my education, g.i. bill. i joined two friends and built a company so successful that it's hard to imagine. it employs 45,000 people today, operating in more than 20 countries. three of us, poor families. for me, the g.i. bill made the difference. it's government stepping in when it was needed and put 45,000 people across this world to work. and that's what government's about. it's there to be helpful. this isn't just an accounting office. it's not just a fiscal policy

problem. because of my success in business, i never had to worry again about whether or not i could provide health care for my family. i never forgot what it was like to be without health care. and we need the health reform law because no american should ever have to make sacrifices to afford health care. americans are beginning to experience the benefits of this law enforcement why now -- benefits of this law. why now would we want to put our progress on hold? i agree. we have serious economic problems in our country, but we're not going to solve them by taking health care away from american women and families. don't take away this critical assistance for people who can't afford the care they need. if we have fiscal problems, if we have deficit problems, there are ways to solve it. but one way is not to take

health care away from people who need it. it's an injustice. we shouldn't permit it. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. shelby: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i address the senate for 8 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. shelby: mr. president, i rise today to once again inter-- mr. lautenberg: if i might. mr. shelby: go ahead. i'll yield to the senator. mr. lautenberg: i ask time until 4:00 p.m. be equally divided between the two leaders or their designees remaining with the other provisions of the previous order remaining in effect. and if my friend from alabama will excuse me. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. shelby: mr. president, i rise today to once again introduce my flat tax bill. the smart manageable and responsible tax act referred to

as the "smart" act. in the united states, mr. president, there are few if any days that are viewed with the same resentment and contempt year after year as april 15, national tax day, which happens to be, i believe tomorrow. our current tax code totals more than 70,000 pages, making tax compliance unnecessarily complex and costly. during the past few years there have been over 4,000 changes to the tax code including an estimated 579 changes in 2010 alone, mr. president. the inclusion of the additional 1099 requirements in the health reform bill are one example of the onerous requirements throughout our tax code. as we've learned since the package of these requirements -- passage of these requirements

last march incremental improvements to the tax code are not easy. it took congress over a year, mr. president, to finally agree to repeal, as you'll recall, the 1099 changes that common sense tells us is essential to alleviating the burdens on small businesses. yet, our tax code is riddled with other similarly ill-conceived requirements. over the course of a year individuals spend an average of 26 hours -- over half of a workweek -- preparing for their tax filings. and although this has been standard practice for years, i do not believe average taxpayers should have to pore over i.r.s. regulations for hours or pay someone to prepare their returns. unfortunately, mr. president, under our convoluted tax system, they're left with little choice. approximately 60% of individual taxpayers now pay preparers to complete their taxes for them.

an additional 29% of individuals use software to assist them with their filings. what this means for most people is that in addition to paying the government every year, they must pay someone to buy software to tell them exactly how much to pay the government. the american people, i believe, want and need fundamental tax reform that would save time and money and bring fairness to our tax structure. the legislation that i'm introducing today would complement much -- implement much-needed reform that eliminate onerous paperwork and promote economic growth in our country. the "smart" tax code would repeal the current internal revenue tax code in its entirety and replace it with a single tax rate for all taxpayers of 17% on all salaries, wages, and pensions. the only exemptions would be a personal exemption of $13,410

for a single person, $17,120 for a head of a household, $26,810 for a married couple filing jointly, and $57,080 for each dependent with these amounts indexed to inflation. additionally, mr. president, under my legislation, earnings from savings and investments would not be included in taxable income. eliminating this double taxation would increase the savings rate in our country and immediately spur investments in the economy, create jobs and boost economic growth. the "smart" act that we're talking about here also reforms our corporate tax code that's direly needed. the united states currently has the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world. american companies routinely make the difficult decision to move operations overseas to reduce their tax burden. under my legislation, companies

would pay a flat tax rate of 17% on their profits, cutting the corporate tax rate in half would increase domestic companies' competitiveness with foreign corporations and eliminate the incentives to shift jobs overseas. this bill provides a simple commonsense solution to the complexities and inequities of the current tax system that we live under. the taxpayers would be able to determine their tax liability quickly and easily and file a tax return the size of a postcard. i've said a number of times here in the senate that before our -- that our current system is very unfair. it punishes success and stifles economic growth. and i believe the best remedy is to adopt a single tax rate for all taxpayers, transitioning, mr. president, to a flat tax would not only increase fairness in the tax code. it would also increase the

incentives to work and invest and create jobs. by eliminating the thousands of tax loopholes, deductions and credits that can often only be utilized with extensive tax planning and expensive advisors, hardworking americans can rest assured that corporations with billions of dollars in profit and sophisticated taxpayers are not able to unfairly reduce or eliminate their tax liabilities and leave middle-class americans paying the bill. mr. president, i recognize that this bill is a monumental shift away from our current tax laws. i believe that is what we need. but our economy needs a boost and we must not allow the enormity of the task to deter us from tphafbgting better -- from enacting better more efficient tax laws. i urge my colleagues to join me in support of this legislation. i thank the chair and i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i'd like to ask the next 15 minutes for senator vitter and i have to have the opportunity to introduce a very important piece of legislation, mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. landrieu: thank you. i'm going to speech just for two or three minutes in a brief introduction and then turn it over to my colleague from louisiana. and we are both very excited and enthusiastic to present to the senate and to congress work that we really have been -- work that's been underway for almost a year. mr. president, as you know, next week, on april 20 we will be marking the one-year anniversary of the deepwater horizon explosion which killed 11 men. they are still in our thoughts and prayers and their families to this day, injured dozens of others and shocked millions with the explosion that occurred a

year ago next wednesday. there are many steps that our nation has to take and must take to respond to that horrific incident, and senator vitter and i are on the floor today to introduce the restore the gulf coast act of 2011 which we believe is one of the most important things that needs to be done in response to this incident. and is frankly, mr. president, long overdue even before this tragedy happened. and i'll briefly explain. this gulf coast is a very important coast of america. i know that all of our coasts believe, and it's true, they're all important. but we that live on the gulf coast are particularly proud of the coast of texas, louisiana, mississippi and florida because on this coast not only do we have the natural and normal port and maritime activities which is

true of every coast, we also support the nation in hosting a very important domestic oil and gas industry which is primarily offshore, but a great deal onshore, both close and on our marshes. in addition, we have a very vibrant and robust fishing industry, both commercial and recreationallal. we have ecotourism, migratory bird routes from the south going north. obviously this is a highway for migratory birds and extremely important to wildlife enthusiasts and hunters and fishermen and may i also add and not let us forget the tourism industry. we are america's working coast. we seek a balance between mining and exploring for and using our natural resources and balancing that so this coast can be sustainable. mr. president, this is a great

opportunity for the nation to do right by the gulf coast. it's a great opportunity for the polluters to step up and do the right thing. it's a great opportunity to give a break to taxpayers because the bill that senator vitter and i are putting forward and we hope our other colleagues will join us, will basically say that the fine that b.p. is going to pay, and maybe other contractors as well, that 100% of that fine -- and at least 80% of that fine should go to this area where the injury occurred. i'm just going to take the next minute to put up this horrifying picture that people will remember. because a year ago this is what the site looked like when the deepwater horizon exploded and

five billion barrels of oil escaped from this tragedy and marred the beaches and oceans and we're still recovering and will for years. but because of the five million approximate barrels that spilled b.p. will have to pay serious fine to the federal government. we believe that that fine is best directed to help the environment which was injured and to get the taxpayers off the hook and put the polluters on the hook for picking up this tab. and to do so in a way that's fair to the gulf coast states and that is what senator vitter will speak about in more detail. let me show you one picture. today the beaches along the gulf coast in -- and in large measure look like this. this is the way they normally look because not only do we drill for oil and gas off of our

waters, but our children swim in this water, we have picnics along this beach. is this the way we'd like this beach to look for decades to come. if we're going to have this bill passed through the congress and signed by the president in the near future, this is possible, along with pictures like this which represent a great and proud industry, the shrimping industry in the gulf coast which supplies fresh seafood for restaurants all over our nation and in some cases the world. so at this point let me turn it to senator vitter for some more detail. i want to say it's been a pleasure and really thank him for his support. we want this to be bipartisan effort, both the industry and the environmental groups are very interested in working with us on this and we think it's right policy, mr. president, for our country. senator vitter. mr. vitter: mr. president, i'm proud to join my colleague, senator landrieu, in introducing

today the restore the gulf coast act of 2011. i also want to thank her and compliment her on her leadership on the issue. she has been developing this legislation tirelessly since the tragedy along with many others who we hope will be cosponsors. i want to recognize steve colese are having similar conversations in the house. as we near the one-year anniversary of the disaster, first we need to remember the victims, the human victims, 11 people lost their lives rap theilives andthose -- and thosed we need to continue to remember them and pray for them. but we also need to help to restore the affected area. a lot of other lives were impacted through the environmental and economic devastation and we need to work

on that as well. this restore the gulf coast act of 2011 would go a long way in restoring those lives in healing those impacts. this was a horrible tragedy and, of course, the physical, the environmental damage was borne by these five gulf coast states. so, therefore, we think it is more than fair that 80% of the fines directly related to this event which would not have been incurred would not be in existence but for this tragedy be dedicated to restoration along the gulf coast. senator landrieu, myself, and others have worked out a very fair formula to impact all of the gulf coast states in a positive way. we think it is more than fair because it assures some minimum funding to all of the affected states and then has another pot

of money that is specifically focused on direct impacts and we think this is a very fair way to go about it that also dovetails with the work going on in the states and federally through the president's commission on impacts, and so we think this would be an excellent way to approach it. and it is more than fair to the federal government and to the federal taxpayer because the money retained that's still flowing to the federal treasury more than covers all expenses of the federal government related to this event. goes well beyond those direct expenses. so, again, mr. president, i thank my colleague for her leadership and i ask all of our colleagues to come together around this effort. this concept has been explicitly

enforced -- endorsed by president obama. this concept has been explicitly endorsed by the president's commission in the oil spill. all of those folks have absolutely said yes. 80% of these clean water act fines need to stay on the gulf coast for much-needed restoration. this legislation will get that done in a fair, straightforward way and i urge all of my colleagues to support it and help pass it in the next few weeks and months. thank you, mr. president. with that, i turn the floor back to my colleague from louisiana. ms. landrieu: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i see other colleagues on the floor waiting to speak so i'll try to wrap-up these remarks in just five minutes, but i do want to add these things and thank my colleague again. he is on the committee that will take this bill under consideration. that committee is chaired by

senator barbara boxer, and i want to thank her, our colleague from california, the chair of the e.p.w. committee, and her staff that have been working with us very, very closely over the last year as we fashioned this approach. and i think the senator, of course, will speak for herself, but i think it's in her philosophy that the polluters should pay, not the taxpayer, than the area that was injured should be the area that receives the response and that the environment that was injured here should step up and be first attended to and that is the essence and nature of our -- of our bill. but just to put a couple of other things in the record. senator vitter mentioned this, but it's worth repeating, president obama has already endorsed this general concept and i want to thank him for his early leadership on this and his administration. the oil spill commission, which

i had some real -- i'll have to say -- reservations about in the early stages of the makeup of that commission. i honestly didn't think that there were enough people representing the industry perspective, only the environmental perspective. i was happy to sea that that -- to see that that commission report came out fairly balanced, and both bob graham, who was a former colleague of ours from florida, and the former e.p.a. director under president bush came to the conclusion that one of the best ways to spend this find money would be restoring a very important coastal area not just for the gulf coast, but for the nation, and, frankly, for the world and to try to find a path forward for coastal communities to have sustainable economies. this is an important question, mr. president, not just for the gulf coast, not just for the east coast, not just for the west coast, but i might say this might be one of great questions

in the world today. since 60% of t population or more of the world of the planet live near coastlines, the question is, how can people live there productively, safely, and how can that environment sustain them in that growth and development is a really important question to get answers to. and, let me say, as a resident of the gulf coast, we don't have enough answers. we don't have enough money to ask questions. that's what this money will go for, some science and technology, some basic research, and most importantly, some money to restore and use the science we do have right now even though we don't have enough to do the right things by this environment. so i want to recognize those entities and might i say secretary mabieus, who former secretary -- well, current secretary of the navy took a

leave or added to his portfolio to come and run this commission and he too arrived at the same conclusion that a very excellent and smart way to spend some of these fine moneys would be on these programs. just a couple of minutes more to put some facts into the record and other senators from other states, florida, texas, mississippi, alabama can enter their own data. i think it's important for people to understand when we talk about the coast of louisiana -- let's put this back up. just the coast of louisiana, this is going to be hard for people to believe, but it is actually true. the title miles -- tidal miles, if you count the tidal miles of louisiana, which is about 7,000 tidal miles from the tip here all the way over to texas, from our mississippi border, 7,000 miles, if you stretched

that out, it's the same as going from miami to seattle. now, i just need people to get that in their mind. i know this looks like a little shore because it's not a big shore like california or new jersey or whatever, florida, but the -- the nature of this shore, because it's not just a beach, it's america's greatest wetlands and marshes, if you stretched it out in all of the inlets and base it would go from miami to seattle. this area is threatened and has been for years. yes, the oil an gas industry unfortunately has contributed to some of its damage, but it's also because the mississippi river flows through here and it's been dammed and tamed as best as men and women can tame natural things and the hydraulics have changed, sea

level has risen, and this area is under great threat. we lose 1,500 square miles have been lost since 1930, 25 square miles of wetland each year, which means a football field every 30 seconds. this is an urgent matter. there is no loss of land anywhere in the continental united states that has this amount of threat to this coast. we have struggled for years to find a revenue stream to help fix it. we understand the rest of the country says, why should we fix it? it's not our coast? but what we say back is, this coast is important to the whole nation. it drains 40% of the continent. it's the greatest river system in north america. no one can get wheat out of kansas or iowa without coming through this mississippi river,

so there is an interest, 17% of the g.d.p. is basically supported and created by this gulf coast economy. but we're also, mr. president, willing to pay our money way as well. our parishes have taxed themselves, state has setup a constitutional safeguard, lockbox. if we'd only done that for social security, mr. president, we'd be happy. we've done a lockbox for the wetlands money that comes in so that it can only be used for that purpose. we have happy with the practice that our locals have taken. now it's time for the federal government to act. 30% of the commercial fisheries in the united states comes off of this coast and 1.7 billion -- $1.7 billion and oil and gas.

because we drill for oil an gas here that keep lights on and electricity in chambers like this in rooms and buildings all over our country. so that's why this is important. i'm going to add some other statistics to the record about some of the economic impacts of this coast, but, again, this is an important coast to the country and it's an important effort for the world for us in america to get this right. just think about the drilling that's occurring off the coast of africa or brazil or australia or israel. and what happens? you know, let's prevent any explosions, let's prevent these disasters, and we're struggling to do that and the record is pretty good despite the criticism that comes, and that's a speech for another day, but the question is when there's an accident, when this happens, how do you take that penalty money and invest it in the coast so that it's more resilient and it

will really benefit people in every way over a long period of time in a very balanced fashion? i would only conclude by urging my colleagues along the gulf coast from florida to alabama to mississippi and texas, republicans and democrats alike, the members of the house as well, to step forward and join senator vitter and i. we're open to ideas and thoughts about how the money should be allocated, but within general sets of principles that we have outlined today. and i want to again thank senator boxer whose committee will consider this in the very near future. we're hoping for a hearing in the very near future and then a markup on this bill to move it forward to the president's desk. so again, mr. president, thank you, and i see other colleagues on the floor, and i will relinquish the floor.

a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, shortly we hopefully will be voting on a budget agreement for this fiscal year, and that will start the -- the process of debate on the next fiscal year, and what we are about to do is more than pass a budget agreement. we are about to define a vision of america. we are about to make choices now and in the coming weeks that will reflect our values and our principles as a people and as a nation. and the real question before us in my mind is not simply about the numbers, it is about competing visions of america. whether or not we choose a vision of america where the air and water are clean, where food and prescription drugs are safe, where roads and bridges and transportation systems are modern, well maintained and fuel prosperity for the future, an america that puts a premium on education and invests in jobs

and the middle class. an america where a mother who wakes up in the middle of the night with a sick child doesn't have to wonder if she can afford to take that child to the doctor or if her insurance will cover the costs. an america in which seniors have a reliable medicare system they can count on, not just a voucher that doesn't even cover the cost of a plan in the private marketplace. that's an ugly vision of america that we have seen before, and it's why we passed medicare in the first place. let's be clear, this is not about the numbers, this is not just simply about the details of deficit reduction. this is about two competing views of this nation, one in which we embrace the concept of community, each of us working together for the better of all of us. all of us sharing in the burden of balancing the budget and

reducing the deficit. the other is a tea party vision in which no government is good government, and the notion of an american community is a myth, and that we are simply a nation of competing individuals, each of us working for what we can get on our own. tea partiers see an america in which the burden of balancing the budget should be borne by senior citizens, students, middle-class families, while protecting subsidies to big oil companies and giving even more tax breaks to the wealthiest americans. we see an america of shared prosperity and shared responsibility, that reduces the deficit, balances its budget, knowing that millionaires and billionaires can be just as patriotic and willing to pay their fair share as a soldier in afghanistan whose family is living on an army paycheck.

mr. president, our friends on the other side tell us that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires create jobs and benefit middle-class families. they told us that when we passed the bush tax cuts a little over a decade ago that it would create millions of jobs for average americans and what happened. jobs were eliminated or sent overseas, and the wage gap increased. this tax policy may benefit some, but it doesn't create jobs and it doesn't reduce our deficit. for some reason, we seem to think that the wealthiest americans are clamoring for more tax cuts, but i find no basis in fact for that. i've spoken to many c.e.o.'s and leading corporate executives in my state and around the country, and never have i heard a word about how badly they need another tax cut. and i believe the wealthiest americans are as patriotic as

any one of us and are willing to step up to the plate and pay their fair share if we simply ask them to support a rational tax reform program that emphasizes shared fiscal responsibility and shared prosperity. in my view, tax cuts for millionaires are nothing more than a political sleight of hand, a smoke and mirrors vision of america in which there is no shared responsibility, no sense of community but a misguided belief that only if the rich had more money, the elderly, the sick, the poor, the middle-class families struggling to make ends meet, the disabled child on medicaid who needs round the clock care would somehow be better off. we have been there before, and it hasn't worked. it's a smoke and mirrors vision of america to believe that if there were no environmental protections, that polluters would protect our air and keep the water clean and safe because

it's the right thing to do. again, we've seen that vision of america, and it came in a poisonous cloud of smog that lingered over america's cities, which is why richard nixon, a republican president, created the environmental protection agency in the first place. and if we're serious about reducing the deficit, we at least should be looking, for example, at subsidies for big oil. the top five oil companies earned nearly $1 trillion, $1 trillion over the last decade. passing my bill to repeal oil subsidies would save taxpayers taxpayers $33 billion over the next ten years. and we can safely assume oil profits will be much greater in the decade to come with higher oil prices, but let's assume that the top five oil companies only get another $1 trillion in profits over the next decade. taking back $33 billion in

government handouts would only shave about 3% of those profits. and let's not forget that much of these profits are in federal waters and on federal lands, so they're making these profits on america's own soil. if we were serious about reducing the deficit, we would also be seriously looking, for example, at big oil subsidies and tax breaks. according to the data, the costs of exploration, development, production of oil and natural gas in the united states averaged about $33.76 per barrel of oil. oil is trading at $107 a barrel. that means big oil companies are enjoying a profit of over $70 per barrel of oil they extract. why in the world would they ever need subsidies from the united states taxpayer in such conditions? handing out money and reducing regulatory burdens on big oil companies and on the wealthiest americans is not about balancing

the budget or reducing the deficit. it is about a vision of america that favors the rich and would rather dismantle medicare, cut social security, cut medicaid for seniors and the poorest among us in nursing homes who have no other place to go rather than to solve our long-term deficit problems. i am deeply disturbed at what's being proposed as we move forward in the next debate of the next fiscal year, and the so-called push for balancing the budget by shifting $4 trillion from the promise of america to protect this nation and to create prosperity for its people to the wealthiest americans in a tax cut that actually does absolutely nothing to solve the deficit problem. i am disturbed when i see those on the other sidelining up to resist any compromise, any effort for a reasonable chance at a workable solution.

before the president was even done speaking yesterday, the tea party and many republicans had already made up their mind that there was nothing to talk about, no room for compromise, that there is no other view than their own. when i first arrived at the other body, mr. president, we may have had very clear and fundamental differences, but we understood that we were there to govern. now our republican colleagues seem to have stopped governing in order to score political points and hope they can win an election. the extreme wing of the republican party is driving the legislative process and the republican party to the darkest reaches of the political spectrum, fundamentally threatening the very notion of democracy. they want what they want, and they want it all. they will accept nothing less than everything, but let's not forget that it was republican policies that got us here in the first place.

it wasn't long ago, not long after the last republican government shutdown, during another democratic administration, when we had budget surpluses, surpluses as far as the eye could see. the day bill clinton left office, he handed president bush a $236 billion surplus with a projected stimulus of of $5.6 trillion over the next ten years. when the bush administration left office and president obama was sworn in, after eight year of republican economic policies that they are espousing again, tax cuts to the wealthiest, two wars waged unpaid for, turning a blind eye to the excesses of wall street, the new president faced an economy that was at the abyss of a new depression. the republicans had turned a a $236 billion budget surplus into a $1.3 trillion budget

deficit and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion over the next decade. now they want to give more tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. losing $700 billion on the revenue side over the next ten years by extending the bush tax cuts and trillions more, by slashing tax rates for corporations and millionaires without, without offsetting tax expenditures. those making more than than $1 million a year would see tax cuts of $125,000 each from the tax cuts, and tens of thousands of dollars more from the proposed tax rates. while people in my state would lose $34 billion in health benefits and 400,000 new jerseyans end up without health coverage at all. they want to shift the balance to millionaires and billionaires while making draconian cuts to make up for the deficits they created, cuts that do not reflect our values as a people and as a nation. so let me conclude,

mr. president, by saying we all agree that we must do more to rein in spending and get back to the kind of surpluses democrats created in the 1990's, but we could only get there through a reasonable framework that emphasizes shared prosperity and shared fiscal responsibility to achieve our common goal. the way we get there is through negotiation and compromise, not through smoke and mirrors, not through trickledown theories that have not worked and strictly adhering to an ideological political agenda that fundamentally starts the clock all over again on the battles for basic american protections that were fought and won in the last century. let's not go back. let's protect american values and keep america moving forward and working. as i've said, you show me your budget and i'll show you your values. mr. president, the republican vision of this nation, as defined in h.r. 1, does not represent this senator's values. it is not the fulfillment of the

american promise idea and ideal, and i do not believe it is who we are as a people and what we want our nation to represent to the world. mr. president, with that, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky. mr. paul: you know, it's amazing to me to be lectured to and hear about how awful the tea party is and what the tea party represents from folks who have never been to a tea party. you know, come on down to a tea party. bring your huey long rhetoric, a chicken in every pot, a windmill in every background -- a windmill in every back yard, bring it on down to the tea party, let's have a discussion. bring it out to the american public. we hear from those who want to lecture the tea party about cutting spending. who among these folks has voted against an appropriations bill? we haven't even seen an appropriations bill in this body in over a year, we didn't see a

budget. we're spending $2 trillion we don't have, and they're here blaming it on the tea party. who's in charge here? it's not the tea party. blame it on us. give us an appropriations bill, give us our budget. do something constructive to fix the fiscal problems we have up here. they say that compromise is the ideal. they tell the tea party, you need to compromise. but you know what the compromise is? they want to raise your taxes. the debt commission wants to raise your taxes. the president wants to raise your taxes. that's what they're talking about. the president yesterday said he's going to cut $4 trillion. well, try to read what's going on here. he said he was going to spend $46 trillion a month ago, his budget, before we've even had a discussion of his budget, he's going to cut $4 trillion off the $46 trillion he's going to spend. these are no cuts.

we will spend more this year than we spent last year. forget about all the numbers, forget about all the baselineses, forget about 6, 30, or zero, which is what the c.b.o. scored this yesterday, forget all about it. ask your representative cht are we going to spend more this year than last year? if we're spending more this year than last year, that's not a cut. ask your representatives, ask your senators. will the deficit be more this year than last year? the deficit will be bigger this year. we threatened to shut down government over nothing because we're not cutting spending in any serious way. they want to blame it on the tea party because in their secret caucus meetings they've done a poll that says, ah, the tea party could be thevill the vill. say the tea party has taken over the republican party.

you know what the stay party believes in? good government. we believe in balancing the budget. we believe in reducing spending. we have plans to fix social security. we introduced a plan yesterday. if the other side is serious about fixing the entitlements, we have a plan. come to us and work with us. but don't just come down here and call us names. before you send anymore money to washington, ask your representatives, are they spending your money wisely? $100 billion in the budget last year is unaccounted for. we don't know where it was spent or we think it was improperly spent. $100 billion. in our senatorial offices we get several million dollars. some of us want to be frugal with that and send some back to the treasury. we plan on sending several hundred thousand dollars back. but we want know where the money goes. we're still not certain. we've been asking for four months. some people say that money is

kept in some fund for three years and then may go back. other people have told us the leadership spend that money. we don't have a definitive answer for even trying to save a couple hundred thousand dollars of your money that i have control over. now, the pentagon spends a lot of money. some people say, we can never cut any. but are they spending their money wisely? you don't know because we can't audit them. why can't we audit them? the pentagon tells us they are "too big to audit." you heard about the companies saying they're too big to fail? the government tells you know, they're too big to be audited. we got a partial audit of the federal reserve. we got some information from that. guess what? we're now fighting a war against qadhafi. you know what we were doing last month? we were giving him money. we were giving him foreign aid -- not much, but we gave him some. twee also helped to bail out his national bank n these third world countries, the national bank is the piggy bank. half of it is probably spirited

off to secret accounts in switzerland. but the u.s. taxpayer bailed out qadhafi's bank. now we're bombing it. the budget bill that we're talking about has now been scored by the c.b.o. and will cut almost nothing, maybe a couple hundred millions. it will increase defense spending by $8 billion and it will cut spending by $8 billion. the net is about zero. our deficit this year will be bigger than last year. our overall spending will be bigger this year than last year. we are not yet serious in washington. we have not yet here recognized the severity, the enormity and the significance of how big this deficit is. this deficit is going to have serious repercussions. the chinese have bought over $1 trillion of 0 our debt. the japanese nearly $1 trillion. the japanese now have suffered an enormous national disaster. the question is will they continue to buy our debt?

or can they continue to buy our debt? the other question is how long can a government continue to exist that spends more than it brings in? now on the other side they want to blame the tea party or the republicans or rich people. you know what? both parties are responsible. republicans, democrats, senators, congressmen, president. everyone umhere is responsible. it is not one party or the other. when republicans were in charge, they rahn the deficit. now the democrats are in charge. the main difference? they're doing it feafort. but the republicans weren't doing a good job either during our time in power. we have to understand that the people can do things. not everything has to be done up here. the states can do things. we have to believe once again in the american dream. believing in the american dream is not standing here on the floor and castigating rich people. what's great about our country is that any among us, any of our kids, any among us could become rich people. work hard, go to school,

achieve. we live in a mobile soavment that's what th -- we live in a mobile society. that's what the american dream is about. the european country was stifled by opportunity. the interesting thing is when they try to soak the rich, the huey long stuff, when they try this it's actually failing the american people because many of us believe that our kids could gain great wealth or could grain great success. we still believe in the american dream. if they wnts to castigate that and want to say, forget about it what we need is just more government, they need to explain to people why they don't believe in capitalism, why they don't believe in the american dream, why they don't believe in the greatness of america. i still believe in america. i want to get government out of the way, but i think we cannot have an america that succeeds until we're able to do something about our debt crisis. i fear that no one here or very

few up here on either side recognizes the severity and imminence of this problem, and my hope is that before a crisis occurs in our country, we will begin to seriously discuss balancing our budget, have plans to balance our budget, and seriously cut spending. thank you, mr. president. i yield back my time. ms. landrieu: mr. president? sneer sneer the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i understand there are other colleagues on the floor. i would like to speak for just a few minutes as chair of the homeland security appropriations committee and give a few views about the vote that we're going to cast in a few hours troalt this committee. but before i do, to my good colleague from kentucky, senator paul, it's going to be a very lively and exciting debate. but i would just say respectfully that to a hungry family, a chicken in the pot looks pretty good every now and then, and that there are millions of children literally

and sadly in this country today that go home from school and open the refrigerator or look on the stove and they can't find a drumstick anywhere. and that's what this debate is. number two -- about number two, i think it's great -- and i used to love to hear president clinton say that one of our jobs here was to create more millionaires. i belong to the d.l.c. and i'm proud of it the democratic leadership council. we believe in creating opportunity that comes along with responsibility and create paths forward to prosperity. but 0 most people that i represent, including tea party people, don't believe that companies like g.e., one of the biggest companies in the world, should get away with paying no

taxes. i guess the senator from kentucky thinks that's a good idea. we don't. and i also think that most people i represent, including the tea party, think that people that make over $1 million a year -- not millionaires, not people that make $250,000 a year, but people that make over $1 million a year might -- could pay a little more so that we could afford either early childhood education or early health care, in an effective and efficient way, because people know -- tea party people and other people -- what a smart investment that is. so this is going to be a very interesting debate. and i look forward to it. but the reason i came to the floor was to actually give a statement on homeland security and i'll just fake a few minutes to do so. for the last several weeks, the press swirled about the possibility of a government shutdown. happily, because of compromise

and reasonable heads, we prevented that shutdown. we've still got an awful lot of work to do. a lot of attention was about 0 who would be blamed, if that happened. i think far too little was focused on the consequences of the funding cuts that were originally proposed by th the senator's colleagues in the house led by the more radical wing of the republican party. and i'd like to talk about that now. some officials in washington were busy slashing budgets while terrorists continue to seek ways to harm this nation. i can most certainly assure you, mr. president, that terrorists do not care about spending toplines, about chimps, about cuts and about compromise. terrorists care about finding our vulnerabilities and exploiting them to do harm to

americans, to target our military, and to damage our economy. in the state of the union earlier this year, the president stated that al qaeda and its affiliates continue to plan to attack us. he is stating the truth. he stressed that extremists are trying to do acts of violence. in the last year, 126 individuals have been indicted for terrorist activities including 50 u.s. citizens. homeland security napolitano secretary has said that the threat of terrorist attack is as high as it's been since 9/11. that's very sober. we know this because recent events that we see and read about tell us that. even if you're not in the classified briefings that many of us are as part of our job. we know the fort hood shooting happened at the hands of u.s.a. disefnlt we know the new york

subway bombing attempt happened at the hand of a legal resident alien. the times square bombing attempt happened precipitated by a naturalized citizen. but we also continue to face threats from abrawvmentd the 2009 christmas day bombing attempt, the 2010 air cargo event are just two, and every day daily cyber attacks get increasingly sophisticated, alarming, and come from countries and hackers that want to shut our economy or parts of it down and do violence and let me also mention the violence in mexico at our southern border. now, this isn't just about scare and fun. but i have to say, these are true things that are happening, true threats to our nation, and the homeland security budget is the citizens and the taxpayers' protection against these things happening. and so when we talk about the homeland security budget, to my

good friend from ken cendz and others -- from kentucky and others that are going to be debating this, this isn't just about complain slogans and -- campaign slogans and focus groups about what might sound good around the country, these budget lines and items have serious consequences to whether a terrorist will get through our line of defense, whether the machines that we purchase are the best on the market, whether they work, whether our human intelligence has been train appropriately. these are serious issues. and as chair of this committee, i can tell you i am vietnaming for this bill -- i'm voting for this bill today. we had a 2% cut. doesn't sound like a lot. but i am going to list for the record the things that we lost in these negotiations so people understand what's at risk as we go forward. in addition to these threats, we have homeland security must

prepare for natural disasters, and i am going to submit something to the record because i don't want to take too much time. i will summarize by saying this, because this is partly the republican leadership's fault and partly president obama's fault. neither side, neither one of them, thinks that it's a good idea to use emergency money for real emergencies. now, if you can't use emergency money for real emergencies, i don't know what you'd use emergency money for. and both in the president's proposal and in the republican leadership, they are speacting me as the chairman in my committee to have to kind of guess what's going to happen in the future by way of disasters and then take it out of the base homeland security budget and just pray that i'm right. if they continue to make me do that i'm going to have to go find a crystal ball, and i am going to put it on my desk, because that's what i'm going to have to use to do this budget.

and that would be ridiculous. so my point is this: i will take $1.8 billion, which is the average of disasters and put in this base bottle and use the rest for coast guard,ize, et cetera. i will not jeopardize the homeland security budget because of some ideological, philosophical foolishness that expects a chairman and my commode to predict in advance what disasters will happen, in advance how much they will cost, and put that in my budget. that will not happen. in addition, on a bipartisan basis, i wanted to say we have a part of this, if there is any happy part, we have funded some parts of the catastrophic disaster. we've -- we've averted some of the more serious parts by averting some of the good work we've done in these negotiations and we've

eliminated some of the more harmful cuts that would have happened to the coast guard, to customs, to border protection and to immigration enforcement and for transportation and security. i'm going to submit the rest of this, mr. chairman, for the record. but i want to say i in conclusi, this is going to be probably one of "the" most important debates that takes place not only on the floor of the senate but in our -- our colleagues -- with our colleagues in the house over the next couple of months about the path and the direction of this country and our values and our morals and our principles and who is going to share, are we going to share this burden or is this burden going to be put completely on the shoulders of the poor, of children, and of the middle-class families in this country? america's too great for that. i believe we'll find a way. i look forward to debating this with my colleague. and, again, since i represent quite a few, unfortunately, hungry children, let me just say that i'm sure that a chicken, whether it's fried, grilled, or

barbecued, looks pretty good to them when they come home from school. i yield the floor. mr. casey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, we have a vote today on a measure to continue spending for the federal government for the next couple of months, and it amounts to nearly $40 billion in cuts. and i think that's a good start. i think most americans would agree with that, but it is only a start and we should now work together across party lines to bring down our long-term debt in a responsible way that protects middle-income families and, of course, as well the most vulnerable in society. so we do have substantial cuts in this -- this bill today. in fact, they're record cuts for

what we know is discretionary funding. at the same time, though, we have to get down to the more difficult business of reducing deficit and debt and that work is ahead of us. as we do that, we've got to make sure that we're protecting middle-income families and those who are vulnerable. so this is a good start but we should remember what families are going through right now. families all across america, who's one member of that family or sometimes more, have lost their job. in pennsylvania, for example, we have over 500,000 people out of work. fortunately that number's come down since last summer. last summer it was approaching 6 600,000. now it's about 511,000. but we need to bring that number down. and as families are making decisions, they have to make some difficult choices, especially those who lost a job or a home or sometimes both, but even families in aren't living through the horrific crisis of unemployment and job loss.

even families where one or two members of that family are working. those families as well have to make difficult choices. and that's the way we should approach this, as a family, or at least do our best to imitate what families have to do every day of the week and to make those difficult choices. but we're face willing -- we're facing a deficit and debt set of facts and a challenge that we've never faced in the nation's history and we've got to be responsive to that. i spend a decade in state government in pennsylvania as the auditor general of the state and then my last two years in that decade as the state treasure. i know a lot about cutting waste and fraud and abuse, how to locate it, identify it, how to cut it out and how to make change. that's why so i was heartened by what i saw in the g.a.o. report last month. on march 1, the g.a.o. released a report entitled "opportunities to reduce potential duplication in government programs."

"save tax dollars and enhance revenue." that's the name of the report. it should serve as a -- one measure, but it should serve as a how-to guide to reducing waste, fraud and abuse in government. it's all there. and here's some of the highlights. the g.a.o. report identified numerous areas of the federal budget where unnecessary duplication, overlap, or fragmentation exists. by some estimates, addressing these redundancies could save more than $100 billion and potentially as much as $200 billion. it's not going to reduce the deficit by as much as we need reduce it but that as well is a very good start, a good place to look. so we need to take a hard look at reports like that and take action. i voted to support an amendment last week that would require the office of management and budget to immediately cut at least

$5 billion in wasteful and duplicative spending in government programs, and i was happy to see that pass the senate. so this is a -- another step, a first step and a good start in addition to what we're doing today by cutting almost $40 billion. but we've got to cut spending in a way that's smart. we've got to cut spending in a way that's smart enough to realize that those decisions have to contribute to economic growth, to keep the economy of a state like pennsylvania and a country like america growing. we've got to continue to grow as we cut and we have to continue to create jobs as we cut. we can't do one and not the other. the federal budget i think should also reflect our -- not just our national priorities but our values as well, and this hole true in the budget we're about to debate, the 2012 budget. unfortunately, though, what

republican members in the house have proposed for the upcoming fiscal year puts the entire burden of reducing the deaf sit on older citizens, students, and middle- -- deficit on older citizens, students, and middle-income families. that doesn't sound like a family to me. that doesn't sound like working together, coming together on a plan, everyone trying to sacrifice, everyone trying to pitch in. it sounds like they're placing the burden on members of the family that should not bear the whole burden. the republican plan would end medicare as we know it. it's as simple as that. it would end medicare as we know it. in pennsylvania, that means 2.2 million people who are -- who are medicare beneficiaries would be directly and adversely impacted. these aren't just numbers and statistics. it happens to be 2.2 million people, but who are they? they're people who fought our wars, they're people who worked in our factories, they're people who built this economy over many

generations, they're people who took care of our children, taught our children, cared for our children. these are people who gave all of us life and love, and we're going to come in with a medicare scheme to just put the burden on them and say that we've done deficit reduction? i don't think that's what a family does and i don't think that's what america has done or will ever do. we worked hard to reduce out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries under the affordable care act and the republican house plan will double -- double -- out-of-pocket expenses according to the congressional budget office. the republican plan does nothing to reduce health costs or reform the health care delivery system. does nothing at all to do that. what it does is shift costs to older citizens and people with disabilities. the g.o.p. plan in the house

targets health care spending. here's what it does. it cuts $700 -- over $770 billion out of medicaid by converting it to a block grant program. what does that mean? well, it means that those who are supposed to be able to rely upon the good services provided in medicaid have to shoulder the burden. medicaid provides health care to the most vulnerable people in our society. older citizens living in nursing homes in many instances millions of them, rely upon medicaid not always just medicare. children, tens of millions -- i think the number right now is about 27 million, to be exact -- 27 million children rely upon medicaid. people with disabilities. so as we look to reform our budget and to reduce deficit and debt, as we must, we shouldn't take steps that will harm

children by some of the proposals that we see for medicaid. about one-third of rulal children in america -- about one-third of rural children in america, about one-third of rural children are beneficiaries of medicaid or the children's health insurance program. we should remember that when we're thinking about what medicaid is. by every measure, medicaid is both cost-effective and an essential lifeline for our children. many people know about the early periodic screening and diagnosis and treatment provisions withi within -- within medicaid. it's the gold standard for how poor children get their health care and thank goodness we've had that in place all these decades. but we have people now that want to eliminate that basic gold standard of health care. so we have a long way to go. we've got a lot of work to do. we have much work to do on deficit and debt and we have to get to that, and we still have to reduce spending. we did reduce it by a record amount in the bill we're voting

on today, but as we do this, just as families have to come together and share burdens and cut costs, we've got to remember that our approach should be similar to any american family. and, unfortunately, there's some people around here who don't seem to understand that, that we need to approach this as a family approaches it and don't place all of the burden on the vulnerable. not placing all the burden on children, older citizens and those who sometimes don't have a voice in washington. mr. president, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kyl: mr. president, in just a few minutes we're going to be voting on the continuing resolution which our house colleagues are voting on literally as we speak here. and i wish to address that very briefly. but first, i must comment on at least one thing that my colleague from pennsylvania just said. he was critical of the ryan budget but does not appear to have read the ryan budget. i -- i believe that because i

know he wouldn't deliberately mischaracterize it. but he's wrong in several respects and i'll just cite one example. he said that the ryan budget would end medicare as we know it and that millions of seniors would be directly affected. that's simply not true unless you count as a senior somebody that's 50 or 53 or 54 years old. the ryan budget does not affect anyone above the age of 54 with respect to medicare. it says if you have medicare and you're 55 or older, nothing changes for you. all we do is provide premium support for those age 54 and below. so it's simply incorrect to say that millions of seniors would be directly affected by the ryan budget with respect to their medicare coverage. well, let me go back to the point of our discussion right now. as i said, we'll be voting very soon on the continuing

resolution. this is the final continuing resolution, we can finally say, for the fiscal year 2011 that funds the government for the rest of this fiscal year. and it does mark the end of a long and hard-fought process. i am pleased that we've been able to cut billions of dollars from the federal government and avoid a government shutdown. it's true that $38 billion in spending cuts represents a tiny fraction of the federal budget and it's less than many of us would have liked, but those who have been credi critical of the dealing saying it doesn't go far enough should keep three points in mind. first of all, our fiscal problems were not created in a day and they won't be solved in one budget, but this is a good start. it's a little bit like the weight that i put on. it took me a long time to add these 10 or 12 extra pounds and i'm not going to get them off overnight. it's going to take me time to get them off. the budget agreement begins a process that's critical to

beginning the reduction of our deficit. and debt. the agreement will enact the largest non-defense spending cut in dollar terms in american history. just months after president obama asked congress for a spending freeze that would have provided no cuts whatsoever. the "wall street journal" points out -- and i'm quoting now -- "domestic discretionary spending grew by 6% in 2008, 11% in 2009, and 14% in 2010, but this year we'll fall by 4 percen 4%. that's no small reversal," they say, and i believe they're correct. secondly, no one got everything they wanted. some wanted more in cuts, some wanted less. i would have preferred we cut more, but this was the best deal that we could get that could pass both chambers of the congress and be signed by the president. third, this debate has altered the conversation about spending and that's a good thing.

as columnist willial mcgern wrote thursday, "during the budget negotiations, speaker boehner helped change the national debate over spending from stimulus and investment to how much spending we need to c cut, which is why the president pressed the reset button in his speech this week on spending and debt." and i think that mr. mcgern is correct. we have changed the fight from how much money we're going to spend on stimulus to how much we're going to cut from this and future budgets. and once the final 2011 budget passes and we move on to the much larger discussion about the 2012 budget, we'll be talking not about saving billions, but about saving trillions of dollars. the problem, as we all know, is a $14 trillion debt with a large amount of that owned by china and by other foreign countries.

it also represents over $53 trillion in unfunded liabilities. in may our nation is expected to hit its debt ceiling, and the president has asked us to increase that ceiling. senate republicans and house republicans and i believe many democrats as well have said that in order to raise the debt ceiling, we need to do something significant about the debt and about constraining future spending. the longer we wait, the worse the problems will get. they're exacerbated over time, and we're not going to raise the debt ceiling without insuring that we don't have to keep on doing it in the future. raising taxes as the president proposed will not be helpful in this process. it's disappointing that the only specific proposal that the president laid out in his speech yesterday was in fact this call for higher taxes. speaker boehner has said that raising taxes is a nonstarter, and i imagine the vast majority of senate republicans will take

that position as well. most americans do not believe that we're overtaxed but that washington has a spending problem. i'll briefly go over a few of the better ideas our conference has been discussing which i think could attract support from both sides of the aisle. first is a balanced budget amendment, which all senate republicans have cosponsored. this should not serve as a means to raise taxes but as a mechanism to ensure that the federal government has to live within its means each year just as most american families do. second, i believe there is strong support in the republican caucus for a constitutional spending limitation at 18% of the gross domestic product. why 18%? because that's roughly equal to the revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product over the last 40 years. and 18% spending limit would stop washington from spending more than it takes in each year. and third, and i'm glad to see the presiding officer in the chair while i pass on a compliment, senators corker and

mccaskill have sponsored the commitment to american prosperity act, known as the cap act. i strongly support their legislation. it would cap both mandatory and discretionary spending and put all government spending on the table. beginning in 2013, the cap act would establish federal spending limits that would over ten years reduce spending to 20.6% of the gross domestic product and that's the average of the last 40 years. to reduce any gamesmanship the bill codifies the definition for emergency spending. i know some of my colleagues on this side of the aisle would like to see even more dramatic reductions as a part of the cap act. i'll note that the corker-mccaskill proposal is responsible and mainstream and it could hopefully attract a good deal of support from both sides of the aisle. over in the house of representatives, there are also some good ideas. budget committee paul ryan has been the leader on fiscal issues and that chamber will soon consider his budget plan for the

next fiscal year. chairman ryan believes this blueprint could reverse washington's trend of spending beyond its means and passing the debt on to our children and grandchildren, and i believe he's on target. his budget reflects the kind of difficult and politically unpopular choices that lawmakers will need to make in order to do something about our unsustainable spending and debt. and perhaps that's why democratic erskine bowles, head of the president's deficit commission, praised the ryan budget as a serious, honest and straightforward approach. end of quote. notably mr. bowles and cochairman alan simpson said the president's budget doesn't go nearly far enough in addressing the nation's fiscal challenges. chairman ryan's budget would return federal spending, specifically known as non-defense discretionary spending, to 2008 levels. that's the level before the massive spending unleashed by the obama administration. spending cuts proposed in ryan's

budget total $5.8 trillion over ten years. in a recent article, john taylor, an economics professor at stanford; gary becker, nobel prize winner; and george shultz, former secretary of labor, treasury and state, quote -- and i quote -- "credible actions that reduce the rapid growth of federal spending and debt will raise economic growth and lower the unemployment rate." end of quote. and then they say it again, higher private investment, not more government purchases, is the surest way to increase prosperity. end of quote. so, madam president, we duesing government spending can increase -- reduce being government spending can increase government productivey and jobs. president obama sought to stimulate the economy and create jobs by spending trillions of dollars. what has that the that gotten us? record deficits, excess

borrowing and it's gotten us stubbornly high unemployment. chairman ryan's budget also calls for tax reform through sensible and growth-promoting policies. the budget contemplates a top tax rate of 25% for individuals and businesses. currently the tax rate on business is 35%, the highest of all of the countries in the developed world. that rate, by the way, discourages investment. it discourages job creation and makes america an expensive place in which to do business. in fact, it encourages businesss to move overseas, their operations overseas, something that all of us are very concerned about. what we need are solutions that emphasize the strength of american entrepreneurs and our private sector, not the government. to spur the economy and help put people back to work. in the debates ahead, i hope we can engage in serious discussions about how to take on our fiscal problems in a responsible way, to bring down the cost of government, boost

our economy and promote economic growth. that's what americans are looking for and it's what our country needs. mr. wyden: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: madam president, i rise to make a parliamentary inquiry. the senate will soon receive from the house legislation to fund the federal government for the rest of this year, h.r. 1473. normally spending bills like this one go through the appropriations committee. despite the fact that this spending bill that the senate will soon take up covers funding for the entire federal government, including all appropriations bills for the year, this spending bill never was even considered by the house or senate appropriations committee. mr. president, snuck into this massive spending bill are legislative provisions that typically are not allowed by senate rules to be included in

the appropriations process. the senate has a rule, rule 16, that prohibits senate legislative amendments to an appropriations bill. despite this senate rule, the spending bill the senate will consider today includes provisions that are clearlying legislative in nature. specifically, i'm referring to section 1858 of the spending bill which repeals free choice vouchers from the affordable care act that became law last year. there should be no doubt that repealing a law or part of a law is legislative. in this case, section 1858 repeals part of the internal revenue code. amending the internal revenue code is general legislation, not the appropriation of funds. in fact, the congressional budget office has actually determined that free choice vouchers involve no

appropriation of funds whatsoever. so, mr. president, my parliamentary inquiry is whether repealing free-choice vouchers in the spending bill the senate will soon consider is legislating on an appropriations bill? the presiding officer: the chair is advised that repealing any law is legislative in nature and repealing a law in an appropriations bill is legislating on an appropriations bill. mr. wyden: madam president, i thank you for making this very clear that repealing free-choice vouchers, the opportunity to come up with a marketplace-oriented approach for people in a health care no man's land in this spending bill is clearly legislating on an appropriations bill, and that is not the way the united states senate traditionally does business. if this provision was brought up

in the united states senate, we now know it would be ruled out of order. it would be ruled out of order because in the united states senate, we simply do not legislate on appropriations bills. the united states senate doesn't legislate on appropriations bill for a simple reason. every united states senator knows that it would be open season for the special interest lobbyists all over this town. now, the administration and this body took a stand earlier this year against earmarking, something that you're very much aware of, madam president. and i'd like to quote from the president's state of the union address. the president said "the american people deserve to know that the special interests aren't hrargd up -- larding up legislation with pet projects.

both parties in congress should know this," said the president. "if a bill doms my desk with earmarks inside it, i will veto it." madam president, i would like to have somebody explain the difference between letting a lobbyist slip an earmark into an appropriations bill and slipping the legislative language into an appropriations bill that benefits a whole array of special interest lobbies? it sure seems to have the same effect to me. now, i'm not certain who proposed eliminating free-choice vouchers in this appropriations deal. maybe a lobbyist asked for it, or maybe some staffer with special interest sympathies saw an opportunity to send the lobbyist what one lobbyist called today, -- and i quote -- "an early easter gift."

but either way know with sthaerpbt this decision was not made with the public interest in mind. the american people are not the ones who benefit from eliminating free-choice vouchers. the american people like the idea of being able to have choices for their health care, choices i would point out that are much like the ones we have as members of congress. and the fact is this is one provision in the patient protection and affordable care act that combined the thinking of colleagues on both sides of the aisle, democrats who want to expand coverage, republicans who have an interest in choice and competition, this was one provision that provided a concrete path to holding down health care costs, and it has now been gutted by the special interests. now some special interests are

arguing that in some way free-choice vouchers would in some way harm employer base by health coverage. madam president, what we know for certain is that for a group of people who could access a free-choice voucher, the employer-based health system is dysfunctional. it's dysfunctional for them. the group of people who are covered by free-choice vouchers, folks who aren't eligible for the exchanges, folks who aren't eligible for subsidies, right now they have only two choices: coverage that is completely unavailable. or coverage that is completely unaffordable. the chairman of the senate if the committee at a time that free-choice vouchers was accepted specifically talked about how this filled a gap in

the bill. and now, with it gone, more than 300,000 americans aren't going to have a path to affordable good-quality coverage. madam president, free-choice vouchers were needed at the time we worked on the affordable care act, and they are even more necessary today. for example, the kaiser family foundation in their most recent analysis has demonstrated how consistently, again and again more health care costs are being shifted on to the backs of american workers. in their most recent analysis, madam president, they found that employee health expenses in the last year had gone up 14%, and the employee was eating almost all of that, almost all of it was being shifted on to the

backs of the workers. so this was important today. it was important when we moved originally to enact the legislation. it is even more important today. and the fact is these individuals are only looking for another path because the system doesn't work for them. if it worked for them, we wouldn't even have an issue. but as the chairman of the senate finance committee pointed out, this is a gap in the system, a gap that had we been able to sustain free-choice vouchers and stopped the lobbyists from stripping them out, we would have had a way to ensure that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of hardworking americans -- these are folks who work at jobs -- would still be able to go to sleep at night knowing that they

had decent, good-quality, affordable coverage for themselves and their family. madam president, the united states senate doesn't legislate on appropriations bill because, as the president said so appropriately, we should be working to rebuild people's 1/8 the institution of government. and we do not slip legislative language if these kinds of -- into these kinds of bills that benefits a few special interest groups at the expense of hundreds of thousands of americans. this is not the way we do business. throughout 2009 i promised my constituents that i wouldn't support health care -- health care reforms unless they were real reforms, well, this legislation let's special interest groups take real reform out of the health care law.

it seems to me that all over this town the special interest groups are looking at the bill and they're saying now it's going to be possible if we can just find behind closed doors some allies to take away real cost containment, real opportunities for good quality affordable coverage for people. this legislation takes real reform out of the health care law. and because i keep my promises, madam president, i will not support it. madam president, with that, i yield the floor. and i would -- i would note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. schumer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york.

mr. schumer: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: well, thank you, madam president. and the -- the last two weeks i think have been very good weeks for this country and this congress. we are on the -- we are passing a continuing resolution and funding the government and not letting the government close makes a great deal of sense and i very much think that was to the better. and even more importantly, madam president, we now will have a significant debate over the next few months about what this country should be like over the next several decades. and that is very important for our country and it's what we should be doing. i salute congressman ryan for laying a vision out on the table and speaker boehner for supporting it. i disagree with that vision but they did have the forthrightness

and the directness to put their views on the floor and it is a different vision than what america is today. i also salute president obama. he joined the issue yesterday clearly without objec off and sn the many places where he differed with congressman ryan. he laid out a different vision as to where america should go. in a minutely discuss my views of those visions, but i want to say at outset, it's very good to have this debate. i hope this will be a month or too. they'll -- there will be clashes, but i hope at the end of the day that the debate between the republican vision of where america should go and the democratic vision between

congressman ry ryan and presidet obama will be one of those times when historians will look back and say this is a place where america through its congress and its president, chose a direction. that's after all -- afterall why we're here. we have many different issues to contribution but the role of government, what it should do and what it should not is probably the most important for the next several decades. and the fact that the issue has been joined by congressman obama -- sorry, by congressman ryan on the one hand and president obama on the other can only be good for america. and what we will do is come to a conclusion hopefully the next month or two. so let me give you my views of those two visions.

yesterday president obama delivered a thoughtful, inspired speech about the need to rein in our out of control deficit -- out-of-control deficit. he called for a comprehensive approach including cuts to mandatory spending and rightfully put revenue on the table. his is a serious plan, one that would reduce the deficit b by $4 trillion over the next 12 years. as only a president can do, he powerfully framed the debate that will likely continue to rage certainly for the next several months and probably over the next year and a half long after we resolve the debt ceiling. this is a debate that the american people want to have it is a debate democrats are ready and eager to engage in. it is a debate we believe we

will win. we have the high ground. the house republican plan puts the middle class last instead of first. it will never ever pass the senate and we know the american people will reject it as well. the debate we just concluded, the debate about the c.r. was about spending levels. the debate ahead of us is more than spending levels, it is about the role of government itself. house republicans aren't trying to balance the budget, no. they are trying to fundamentally alter americans' relationship with their government. they believe that the message of the last election was that americans wanted a dramatic change, a great limitation in how much the government should do. it is our view, as democrats, that the american people gave us two messages.

first, deal with the deficit. there is too much spending. and i say as a party we ignore that message at our peril, but we have not ignored that message neither in the c.r. nor in the president's proposal. the american people sent a second message as loudly and as strongly as the first, and that is grow the economy, help the middle class continue to have better lives as they have over the last five decades. make sure there are meaningful jobs here in america. i believe a budget that reflects the american people's view has to do both these things, reduce the deficit, but keep that american dream brightly burning. the american dream that the american middle class holds which says the odds are quite

good that we'll be doing better 10 years from today than we're doing now and the odds are better still that our children will do better than us. that is what we believe the american people told us to do. and we believe that the budget revealed by congressman ryan and supported by republicans is not what the american people want. it is a negative, pessimistic message. it is a message that saves the great days of america are over. and we don't believe it is what the people want. and as we go through this debate, we shall see how that comes out. i believe we will prevail. the republican budget unveiled last week by chairman ryan is on closer inspection not a really serious document. the pundits and political handicappers may have hailed it

as a bold, daring approach to the fiscal challenges facing our country, but a closer examination reveals that ryan's budget used exactly to his party's orthodoxy, it doesn't gore a single republican ox. the house republican budget puts the entire burden of reducing the deficit on seniors, students, and middle-class families. at the same time it protects corporate welfare for oil companies, give giant new tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires an leaves pentagon -- and leaves pentagon spending almost completely untouched. consider what paul ryan wants to do with medicare. his plan ends medicare as we know it and replaces it with a private voucher system that would cut benefits. seniors would be left to fend for themselves with no guarantee of affordable coverage. they'd have to pay thousands of dollars more out of their pocket. as this chart shows, madam

president, under the current medicare system the average senior on medicare in 2022 will contribute about 25% of the cost of their health care. but under the ryan plan, seniors would have to pay 68% of the cost of coverage themselves according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office. that's an outrageous burden. simply put, it would drive many seniors into poverty. this generation of seniors, the first generation that was able to say they could retire and not go to bed every night sweating about how they were going to pay for health care if they or their spouse got an illness would be the last generation to do so under paul ryan's vision. in america, we have said we have bounty, and some of that bounty

should go to those in their golden years, to those who worked hard and built the country and raised the families and fought the wars, that they should not have to worry that they could not afford health care if, god forbid, an illness, serious illness afflicted them. the ryan budget turns its back on that vision. republicans have been patting themselves on the back recently for tackling entitlement reform, but their approach is nothing more than a rigid, ideological quest to unravel the social safety net. medicare certainly has cost issues, but a better way to protect and preserve medicare for future generations is to cut out the waste and inefficiency that everyone knows exists, not to privatize the program. our plan is simple when it comes

to medicare. mend it, don't end it. in the health care reform law, we made a good down payment on this effort. we began to shift medicare and the larger health care system from an expensive, fee-for-service model to a system that pays providers for episodes of care. the truth is when it comes to reining in the costs of medicare, the president did it first and did it better. we democrats are willing to build off that law. we can make further reforms to the delivery system. it needs further reforms, and we will further drive down the costs. the ryan budget reverses progress we've already made, and in doing so, reopens the doughnut hole, further burdening seniors' budgets. now, it's bad enough that the ryan budget ends medicare as we know it and increases costs for seniors, but just as egregious is what ryan proposes to do with all the money he takes from

seniors on medicare. as this second chart shows, and as the president said yesterday, house millionaires want -- sorry. house republicans want to give millionaires a new tax cut of of $200,000. to pay for it, it would make 33 seniors each pay $6,000 more for health care. what kind of vision is that? the ryan budget uses medicare cuts to reduce the tax rate on millionaires and billionaires to 25% from 25%. that's the lowest level since 1931 when herbert hoover was president. the ryan budget reduces taxes on the rich to the lowest level since 1931, the hoover era, the era of the great depression. madam president, i have nothing against the rich, god bless

them. many of them are living the american dream. it's what many of us aspire to be. but in order to keep that dream alive and get our country on firmer fiscal footing, we need a little shared sacrifice. democrats want to work with republicans to get our fiscal house in order, but we believe the best way to do it is to end the millionaires' tax break, not cut medicare benefits. let me be clear. a grand bargain on long-term deficit reduction is next to impossible unless we look at raising revenue. unfortunately, republican leaders are already trying to rule out revenue. if the other side refuse toss even consider savings in the tax code, they will lose credibility with the american people. we simply cannot balance the budget by focusing solely on domestic discretionary spending,

a narrow 12% slice of the budget. cancer research and head start did not create our current deficit problem. we won't fix it by going after cancer research and head start. thankfully, many rank-and-file republicans seem to agree with the need to put revenue on the table. the senator from oklahoma, a true fiscal conservative, said a blanket defense of all tax cuts is profoundly misguided. my republican friend from nebraska said republicans need to keep an open mind and keep everything on the table, including revenue. my republican friend from georgia has said revenue, along with entitlement cuts, should be part of the budget compromise. my friend from tennessee, who i work with closely on the rules committee, said that tax subsidies for big oil -- quote -- "may be too expensive" -- unquote. as you can see, madam president, many of my colleagues are prepared to tackle this challenge, with to use the

phrase of the republican senator from nebraska, an open mind. the bottom line is any budget that leaves defense and revenue off the table is ultimately untenable. indeed, a dollar cut from defense spending reduces the deficit just as much as a dollar cut from domestic discretionary spending, and while there is certainly waste in the domestic discretionary side of the budget, there is also certainly waste on the defense side. and while we're certainly open to compromise, democrats will not tolerate the house republican budget's assault on medicare. it isn't fair, it isn't right, and it will never, never pass the senate. i'm hopeful that both parties in both chambers of congress will come together to reach a reasonable, responsible deficit deal, but in order to do that, republican leaders need to take off their ideological straitjackets. they can start by going to the

drafting room and coming up with a fairer, more broad-based proposal than the ryan budget. in conclusion, madam president, speaker boehner needed democrats to pass this year's budget, and he'll need democrats to pass a long-term deficit reduction plan as well. the sooner he abandons the tea party, the sooner we can have a compromise. we hope the coming together will yield a sound, serious deal. madam president, that is our hope, that is our wish, and that is what the next few months are about. if it doesn't, we democrats will have to take this contrast of priorities into 2012. we know in that battle, too, we will have the high ground. thank you, madam president. i thank my colleagues, and i yield the floor. a senator: madam president?

the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: madam president, i see my distinguished colleagues, the senator from -- the senior senator from hawaii and the senior senator from mississippi, the leaders of our appropriations committee on the floor, and i just ask that i might be able to continue for two or three minutes before the -- thank you. madam president, i appreciate the extremely hard work that the majority leader -- and i've told him this -- and president -- i've told him that -- and the distinguished chairman -- i've told him that -- that the work they have done to get the best possible deal under extremely difficult circumstances now standing there with the final resolution, i will not be able to vote for it, as i assume others in the vermont delegation will not. i'm afraid that it creates a impossible bargain. it averts a government shutdown at the expense of our overall

national interest. this year, congress spent most of its time negotiating three rounds of deeper and deeper cuts in the current year's budget, an exercise in oftentimes misguided wheel spinning. it ignores the fact that discretionary spending is but a relative -- a fraction of the overall budget while it addresses some of the most pressing and urgent needs of ordinary americans. advocates paint this agreement in moral terms. i agree with them on that. budgets are about our real priorities. there is so much in this budget packet that is inconsistent with basic vermont and american values. drastic cuts to the antihunger programs for low-income women and children, elimination of vermont's weatherization program, cuts economic development programs that grow jobs in my state of vermont are not my idea of prudent sacrifices. it is no moral credit to

congress to cut vouchers for homeless vermont veterans who served their country honorably. nor has congress covered itself in glory to deny first generation vermonters help in going to college because of cuts in the trio program. is it a moral good to eliminate housing assistance for low-income families facing foreclosure or to slash small stipends for seniors who are on meals on wheels. i must admit that these cuts in my little state range as high as as $150 million, a tremendous burden at a time we face the worst time since the great depression. now, the reason we're here, as a column pointed out very well in our national papers yesterday, is because even though we had an agreement to pass an omnibus bill last december, at the last

minute, those on the other side of the aisle who agreed on that reneged, and of course we were not able to get the 60 votes necessary in the senate. i supported that omnibus budget bill even though there was enormous cuts in it. it would have enacted tens of billions of dollars in carefully drawn, reasonable reductions below the white house budget proposal. the distinguished senator from hawaii had worked very hard to encourage us to make cut after cut after cut, and we all agreed with him, i agreed with him. it was in the omnibus. if that had been passed, we wouldn't be here. but because those who had agreed to support it changed their mind at the last minute and killed the omnibus bill, it forced the congress into a series of stop-gap funding bills and now on to a slap dash continuing resolution. in addition to the cuts in the omnibus bill, i also supported

reductions of billions more, voted for billions of dollars of cuts in short-term reductions and the continuing resolutions earlier this year. now, some who tout this round of cuts as the most important and as the largest cuts of discretionary spending in history are the same ones who pushed through hundreds of billions of dollars of tax cuts to companies who ship jobs overseas, american jobs overseas . the profits of our oil companies who now charge us $4 for a gallon of gas or more. pushed through for multi, multimillionaires, many of whom didn't want the tax cut, pushed it through nonetheless. and the correlation between those spending cuts and those unfunded tax cuts is direct. it's unflattering to the

proponents of both initiatives. and, frankly, madam president, i'm tired of being lectured on fiscal sanity from those who voted for an unnecessary war in iraq, saying because 9/11, as we know from every single report that has come out, iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, but we spent $1 trillion. thousands of american lives, tens of thousands of other people's lives in iraq, and then for the first time in the history of this country, instead of paying for a war, as we always have in the past, we say oh, no, we'll borrow the money, and by the way, we'll give you a tax cut, too. so who paid for that war in iraq? the men and women who valiantly fought there and their families who waited, wondering if they would come back alive, broken or dead, and often they are given

the worst news. they are the ones who got the tax cut, and we borrowed the money from china and everywhere to pay for a war we never should have been in, and a trillion dollars later, ten years later, we still are spending tens of billions of dollars there. now, some corporations, some others made a lot of money. we didn't. and then we spent another eight or nine years we shouldn't have been in afghanistan doing the same thing, borrowed the money for those. so it seems that our soldiers paid a great burden, the american people paid a great burden, but boy, some made out like bandits, and i don't want any lectures from those who gave the bandits their bag of gold. i yield the floor. mr. inouye: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. mr. inouye: madam president, after six and a half months, it appears that the congress may finally be able to finish the

fiscal year 2011 appropriations process. earlier today, the house passed a department of defense appropriations bill which includes an extension of the current continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year. if the senate passes this bill and the president signs it, we'll be able to close the books on this issue and focus our attention on the budget for fiscal year 2012. in reflecting upon how we got here, madam president, i want to point out to my colleagues that the fundamental reason we find ourselves debating a continuing resolution today is because one year ago, the congress was unable to agree upon a budget resolution. the failure to reach a consensus agreement on the budget meant

that the appropriations committee was asked to resolve its differences in spending itself. after months of attempt to go do so, the committee was unable to bridge the gap between the republicans and the democrats. when the committee finally adopted the funding level proposed by republicans, the political environment crippled the committee's effort to enact a bipartisan budget plan. as we go forward, i would ask all of my colleagues to think carefully about this, and i urge everyone to cooperate, both here in the senate and with our colleagues in the house. if we can fashion a compromise budget agreement this year, it might allow our committee to restore the bipartisan working relationship which has long been the hallmark of the committee for generations, and i sincerely

hope that would be the case. in some respects, today we can take that first step. the bill that we are considering reflects a bipartisan agreement reached among the leadership of the house and senate and the white house, with the details being worked out by committees on appropriations. it's a very tough measure that cuts domestic spending more than i'm comfortable with, but it is dramatically superior to the alternative passed by the house two months ago and equally superior to not passing any extension through the end of the year. in total, the measure reduces government spending $78.5 billion below the president's request. it is nearly $40 billion below the enacted level for fy 2010.

never before have we cut our appropriated funding so drastically. by far and away, this is the largest one-year cut from the president's budget request in our nation's history. the bill cuts all categories of spending: defense, international and domestic, discretionary and mandatory. while some of my colleagues will argue that the department of defense was let off the hook, others will probably say that the bill cuts more than defense than is prudent. mr. inouye: including military construction, the defense department's budget is reduced $20 billion below the president's request. in comparison to the fy 2010 enacted funding, the department's bust is approximately $2 billion -- department's budget is approximately $2 billion below,

with military construction down more than $6 billion and the rest of defense increasing by more than $4 billion. the priority in this defense bill is first and foremost to ensure that we treat our military personnel and their families fairly. that means a 1.4% pay raise. it means fully funding health care. but it also means ensuring that our forces have the proper equipment and the funding necessary to operate. while funding is austere, the bill includes important enhancements, such as buying more missiles for our aegis missile defense ships, more helicopters for search-and-rescue operations and medical evacuation in afghanistan. it means investing in new technologies at a faster rate than requested, purchasing more drones to find and wipe out

terrorists, and ensuring the safety of our soldiers and marines by accelerating the purchases of safer striker vehicles and amrams. accomplishing this while at the same time reducing defense spending has been a challenge, but working with our colleagues in the house, we have put together a plan which fulfills all of these objectives. but, mr. president, this bill isn't just about defense. for the state department and foreign assistance, we are providing $ billio8 billion lesn was requested. this lower level of funding was the most we could get our colleagues in the house to agree with and it means many important programs will have to be reduc reduced. we won't be able to make as much progress in fighting aids and hunger. we won't have as much funding as i would like to support our operations in afghanistan and iraq.

but considering the budget situation we face, we will have to make do. it is in the area of domestic spending in which the bill makes the most serious reductions with the total included being approximately $50 billion below the president's request. in achieving this rate of savings, this compromise measure sought out as many different ways to reduce spending as possible to allow us to preserve our critically important priorities. we were able to mitigate the damage by looking at areas where we could identify savings from mandatory spending and by reducing lower priority projects. in total, domestic discretionary spending is cut by $38.3 billion while mandatory spending comes down by $17.7 billion.

madam president, many, many programs have to be cut to reach these levels. in health care, in education, in housing, in infrastructure. but this bill is much better than the approach adopted by the house in h.r. 1. for example, we're able to fully fund head start, restoring the house republican cut of $1. $1.4 billion, which would have denied 218,000 children an opportunity to learn. we provided $30.7 billion for n.i.h., $1.4 billion more than the house republicans. we provided $2.1 billion for food safety than the republican plan. in energy, housing, our national parks, our transit programs, in every area we forced the house to back away from the unwise

cuts which would have devastated the progress we are making to restore the economy and protect our people. crazy ideas like furloughing social security workers and shutting off food inspections were turned around. well, there's more to this story. the house bill wasn't just about dangerous and drastic cuts. it was also an attempt to legislate terrible social policy on a must-pass emergency spending bill. here, too, we turned them arou around. nearly a dozen provisions to overturn health care reform were rejected. 11 riders to gut the environmental protection agency were rejected. provisions to eliminate successful programs like needle exchanges and corporation on public broadcasting were denied.

their attempts to rewrite gun laws and net neutrality were rejected. madam president, it is true and regrettable that we had to accept limited provisions affecting the district of columbia on abortion and school vouchers. we are not happy about that. still, in comparison to what the house wanted to do, this bill is a more enormous improvement even for the district of columbia. as in any compromise, neither party to the agreement is happy with every item in the bill. some on the other side would have preferred more cuts in domestic programs, while most members on our side believe we have cut our domestic priorities too deeply. but this is truly a bipartisan bill.

when it is approved, it will be the most significant legislation to pass the congress this year. madam president, i believe this bill provides a road map on how we can continue to work across party lines to achieve what is necessary for the country. yesterday the president unveiled his long-range strategy to reduce the deficit. his approach is extremely different than the approach of the house republicans. in two weeks, our senate budget committee will unveil its plan on regaining fiscal control. it is not a mistake to say it is truly a matter of urgent national security that we reach across party lines and conclude an agreement with our colleagues in the house to regain control over our government's finances. both parties feel strongly about

the recommendations and the structure of future budgets. the philosophical divisions are wide. but as i watched the president's speech, i thought about this continuing resolution and how we were able to bridge the huge divide between the houses and the political parties. because of this experience, i became more optimistic that we can find a way to work with our house colleagues and come up with a deficit-reduction plan that would represent all of our best efforts to act in the country's interest. madam president, today, it's vitally important that we take that first step towards putting our fiscal house in order by adopting this bill. it is also critical that the congress demonstrate that it can act in the spirit of compromise and in the national interest.

this bill represents a fair compromise which will meet our country's needs and i urge all of my colleagues to support it. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. cochran: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. cochran: madam president, as ranking member of the committee on appropriations, i regret that the senate must consider in mid-april an appropriations bill for a fiscal year that is already half over. it disturbs me that we have subjected the federal government to eight short-term continuing resolutions over the past six months. such measures are inefficient, add hidden costs to federal contracts and procurements and make it difficult for state and local governments to plan effectively.

such measures also have a detrimental impact on the morale of the federal work force, including our men and women in uniform, who last week, even while engaged in hostilities overseas, were left wondering about their next paycheck. however, this delay has made possible significant spending reductions. the bill cuts $38 billion from the spending levels in place at the beginning of this congress. it also cuts $78 billion from the president's fiscal year 2011 budget request. these reductions in spending will compound over time and, if sustained, will result in a significant reduction in our national debt. these reductions don't come without consequences, however.

the bill cuts programs that are important both nationally and in my state of mississippi. this bill contains rescissions of funds that i once fought hard to appropriate but which have not been spent for a variety of reasons. in many cases, we don't yet know the precise impacts of the various cuts because so much discretion is left to the implementing agencies. we all recognize, however, that sacrifices must be made in order to achieve the greater good of fiscal solvency. we also recognize that the bill is only one step toward addressing our nation's debt problem. though discretionary spending will be an important component of any solution to that problem, we will fail to solve it if we focus on discretionary spending

alone. hopefully, the agreement reached on this bill will lay a foundation for the much more difficult decisions on entitlements and taxes that lie ahead. we also we also realize that some will think this bill cuts far too little and some who think it cuts too much. i suspect that individually each of us could write spending bills at much lower levels than are contained in this legislation. we could fund those things we deem to be priorities and significantly cut back or eliminate the rest. but this legislation inch stead represents the priority -- but this legislation instead represents the priorities of the people as negotiated by their duly elected representatives, senators, and the president. on balance, the process has

worked well. but without a budget resolution or any agreement on an appropriate topline discretionary spending level, there was little agreement on the level of funding in appropriations bills *6789 as a result, we are once again presented with a single trillion dollar package that no senator has had an opportunity to amend. the bill gives enormous flexibility to the executive branch because it does not contain the detailed directives typically found in appropriations bills and the reports. and of course, madam president, it is six months late. i hope that in the coming months congress and the president will reach consensus on a budget plan that will address each of the major drivers our current fiscal imbalance, including discretionary spending.

if we need to find a way to bring fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills to the floor, we should do so individually and get them to conference with the other body. i believe that such a process would provide needed constraints on spending levels while allowing all members to influence the content of the individual bills. madam president, i will vote for this bill, and i urge the senate to approve it. the presiding officer: the senator from texas is recognized. mr. cornyn: thank you, madam president. madam president, i would ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. cornyn: i thank the chair. madam president, moments ago i sent to the desk a resolution on

my behalf as well as that of senator collins, senator blunt, senator lee, senator roberts, and senator inhofe relating to the military operations in libya. and i'd like to speak for just a few minutes about that and about my concerns. like all of our colleagues, i respect our troops and honor them and of course their sense of duty which obligates them to do whatever the commander in chief has directed them to do. and, of course, i respect the role of our president as commander in chief. but i've grown increasingly concerned that the role of congress, in consultation and in communication with the white house on matters of such grave import to our country and our men and women in uniform as intervening in a foreign country, that the powers of congress have seemingly been ignored or certainly erode.

we know this is not new. since world war ii, to my recollection, the united states congress has never exercised its authority under article 1, section 8, of the constitution to declare war. instead, we've had something other than a war declared by congress, but most often with communication and consultation and even authorization by the congress. i believe it's imperative, particularly in light of the subsequent events subsequent to our intervention in libya, that the president should submit a plan to congress on libya. i believe the president should also come to congress and ask for a congressional authorization for our continued participation even in a nato mission of which the united states necessarily bears a disproportionate responsibility. like many americans, i admire

the libyans who protested against moammar qadhafi beginning on february the 15th of this year, and these dates, i believe, madam president, are important. february the 15th: they showed they wanted the same things as people in tunisia, in egypt, in bahrain, in syria, iran, and so many other nations in the middle east, and that is a chance to live in freedom and to determine -- have a voice in determining their own fiewvment but like many americans, i would also concerned that the people of libya got so little encouragement from the president. true, president obama said on march the 3rd that qadhafi had lost legitimacy and he must step down from power and leave immediately. that was on march the 3rd. he said it was the policy of the united states government that regime change was our explicit goal in libya. regime change. but he obviously had no plan to

accomplish that goal or to further assist the libyan people in accomplishing it for themselves, other than handing the responsibility off to nato. now, this is not like handing it off to some third party that is alien to us or not part of us. we are a significant part of the nato operations. for example, in afghanistan, basically for every one coalition troops from nato countries, there are two american troops. and we bear the proportionate financial responsibility as we will. the president watched as qadhafi forces regained the momentum against those that had taken umarms against the regime -- taken up arms against the regime. france became the first nation to recognize the libyan transitional national counsel sails a legitimate government of libya on march the 10th.

and then the arab league dishad no-fly -- asked that a no-fly zone be imposed on march 12. on march 17, this was lamb month after -- this was almost a month after the first protest against qadhafi in libya, the united states security counsel sail proved a no-fly don over libya as we will as necessary measures to protect civilians in that country. madam president, the u.n. security council resolution takes a lot of time to negotiat. there's a need for consultation between the nations make up the u.n. security council. that's why i'm left to wonder why it was during this period of time that the president had so little -- made so little effort to consult with congress in a substantive way. i admit he appeared to act like he checked the box once or twice. he sent us a letter on march 21, two days after "operation

odyssey dawn" began, letting us know what we could have learned from reading the newspaper and watching on cable television: that he had ordered strikes on libya. but the level of consultation with congress about libya was nothing like what we've had in recent years leading up to iraq and afghanistan where congress issued an explicit authorization for use of military force at the request of the president of the united states. this is not just a constitutional powers matter. this is also, i think, a matter of communicating with the american people about the reasons for our intervention in libya and expressing to the american people what the plan is is so the american people can do what they naturally want to do, and that is provide support for our men and women in uniform, particularly with they are in harm's way. the president waited until nine

days after our planes and missiles were in the air to make his case to the american people in a speech at the national defense university. and during that speech that the president began to draw a very confusing distinction between our political and military objectives in libya, saying "there's no question that libya and the world would be better off with qadhafi out of power." "i, along with many other world leaders, have embraced that gold and will actively pursue it through nonmilitary means." or, as he put it in an interview the next day, he said, "our primary military goal is to protect civilian populations and to set up a no-fly zone. ow primary -- our primary strategic goal is for qadhafi to step down so the libyan people may have an opportunity to live a decent live." now, madam president, i bet i'm not the only person in the country who was confused by this

dichotomy between our military goals and our strategic goals. i think they should be the same. the american people, we know, still have many questions about what we are doing in libya and why. as a matter of fact, i met with some national guardsmen who were from texas who were visiting the capitol just today who asked me a question on this very subject because they are confused. if our men and women in uniform are confused and the american people don't understand what it is, it means there hasn't been a good case made explaining the need for military intervention in the ongoing operations. but don't take my word for it. according to a pew research poll on april the 3rd, only 30% of americans believe that the u.s. or our allies had a clear goal in libya -- 30%. our troops deserve more clarity. the president told our troops that their involvement in libya would last a matter of days, not weeks.

these men and women, as we all acknowledge, are the finest fighting force in the world. they can accomplish any mission given to them, and they -- but they can also tell the difference between days and weeks. our troops can tell that they are still responsible for about 25% of the nato support missions in libya. they hear the voices calling for nato to expand its operations, and they know that any expansion of nato's mission, in scope or duration, puts more of them in harm's way. they simply deserve more clarity, as do the american people. so i think the congress, on behalf of the american people, consistent with our constitutional responsibilities and our shared power in matters as serious as this, deserve a plan from the president of the united states so he can present it to us and we can have what we sorely need, which is a genuine debate about our role in the

future, the way forward in libya. so what should that plan look like? i'll just make a few suggestions. i believe that a credible plan should contain a detailed description of a united states military -- of a united states policy objective in libya, both during and after qadhafi's rule. it should include a detailed plan to achieve those objectives and particularly in these times when we are struggling with enormous debt and deficits, it shoos include a -- it should include a detailed estimate of the costs -- approximate costs of u.s. military operations in libya and any other actions required to implement the plan. congress has a responsibility for the purse strings and would be asked to ave ppropriat askede the money. so the president should present to us a plan that we can debate and vote on in the form of a

resolution. i think a credible sploon also include a detailed description of the limitations the president has placed on the nature, duration, and scope of u.s. military operations in libya. the limitations he referred to in his letter of march 21 to congress. a plan from the president would of course be a cat a list for a long overdue debate right here in the halls of what we call occasionally the world's greatest deliberative body. well, we can't dlaib deliberate without debate. it's clear just by referring back to the debates we had on iraq and afghanistan, the amount of time devoted in this body to libya is the diswafe dwarfed bye fulsome debates we had over a period of years relative to iraq and afghanistan. now what questions should a senate debate over libya hope to address snicked think of a few. was the secretary of defense

correct when he said that libya is not a vital interest of the united states? is the situation on the ground in libya, as reported by the news, basically knew stalemate? remember that the initial u.s. commander of coalition operations in libya, general hamm, testified before the armed services committee just last week. he agreed with that assessment that it was essentially now a stalemate. and i think this is to me the most -- the simplest, the most direct question. if the president's goal was to stop qadhafi from killing libyans, civil yeas and nays rebelling against him and protesting against his tyrannical rule, how in the world do we stop the killing without killing the killer? and that would be moammar qadhafi. how do we stop the killing of civilians until it is our objective to remove him by any means necessary? i think it's also appropriate to

inquire as to whether the pottery barn rule applies in libya. colin powell once said, once you break it, you own it, the so-called pottery barn rule. has the administration's focus in libya distracted it from our efforts in iraq and afghanistan? we committed huge amounts of blood and treasure to success in both of those countries and i think congress needs to know and we need to have a fullsome debate about whether this mission in libya has distracted from those other two vital missions. we also need to talk about whether nato's peformance in libya jeopardies its effectiveness and reputation. is there a risk the alliance is already splitting because of caveats and restrictions some of the coalition members are making on their participation in the intervention in libya? and finally, i think we need to know because certainly

everything that happens is precedent for some future action, whether there really is something that you might call an obama doctrine. is it that the u.s. will use military force when requested by our allies like france or perhaps organizations like the arab league's or the united nations but not otherwise? is it something like the united states will protect civilians when they capture the world's media attention but ignore their suffering otherwise? is it something that explains why, for example, we're engaged in libya but not engaged in syria? remember that syria is a nation that is slaughtering its own civilians, a humanitarian crisis, i would submit. it is a known state spofr terrorism so did he go -- sponsor of terrorism so designated by the united states department of state. and it is a well-known and notorious conduit for arms from iran to the lebanese hezbollah.

whatever the obama doctrine is, why doesn't it apply to syria? we need to ask those questions, and i think we need and deserve, and the american people even more so deserve answers. i believe the resolution of our debate in the united states senate should be a congressional authorization for the president's plan, whatever it is, in libya, but we ought to have a conversation. we ought to communicate. we ought to have a consultation, not treat congress like a potted plant when it comes to intervening in a foreign nation in a military fashion. i believe the president should ask congress for an authorization, and i believe we should vote on one. now, i certainly don't believe that what we've done so far, which is a nondebated really resolution that was passed without really much notice or debate, is sufficient. and, frankly, i don't really understand why some of my colleagues are so willing to

acquiesce to the president filling this entire void and conceding to the executive branch all authority in dealing with a matter of this gravity and seriousness. i believe that a robust debate about libya would be good for the united states senate, it would be good for the house of representatives. i think it would be good for the american people. and i think it would be good for the president. i mean, if the president takes action knowing that the american people and the united states congress are behind that plan, that's good for america, and that's what we need. i'm afraid, though, that the president is taking the support of the american people for granted. the american people instinctively want to support our commander in chief, but history shows that our military operations are successful mainly when the united states people -- when the people of the united states are behind them. and when they're not, when they become disengaged or disillusioned, success becomes much more difficult not just in

libya but for future missions as well. and i hope the president will act in such a way that shows respect for congress as a coequal branch of government, and the american people who expect that their representatives will debate questions of this gravity in open and ask the questions they themselves would ask before their sons and daughters were put in danger. madam president, i hope the american people will have the benefit of a vigorous debate on libya in the united states senate. so it is with that objective in mind that my colleagues and i have submitted a resolution. i know there are other resolutions. i believe the senator from connecticut and the senator from massachusetts, the senator from arizona have another one. i'm advised that senator ensign from arizona, senator hutchison from texas have another one. i think we need to consider all of those views and have a debate and vote on a resolution. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut is recognized. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. madam president, it's

coincidental but my remarks follow in a logical path from those of my friend and colleague from texas, particularly with regard to the questions, thoughtful questions he raised about syria, because i've come to the floor to speak about the historic and extraordinary events that are taking place in syria where for the past three weeks the syrian people have been peacefully and courageously taking to the streets of their cities. and i want to talk particularly about what may happen in syria in the next 24 hours. what's happening in syria is part of a broader story that's unfolding across the middle east, a democratic awakening in which millions of ordinary people are rising up against corrupt autocratic regimes that have ruled the region and suppressed these people for

decades. but the strategic stakes in syria are among the highest anywhere in the region. in fact i'd say what happens in syria in the coming days will have far-reaching consequences for the future of the middle east and for our national security here in the united states. the upraoeugz in syria began like -- the uprising in syria began like those in tunesia. it rose from the people, not from outside. it began from the city of tkar are tkar -- city of dhara after a regime arrested a group of schoolchildren there, where the citizens of dhara began peacefully assembling to protest this absurd act of repression. the police responded by firing live ammunition into the crowd. rather than being intimidated by this violence, however, the

protest movement persisted and spread. although the assad regime is trying desperately to prevent accurate information about what's happening inside syria from reaching the rest of the world, it is clear that people, people in many cities around the country are now in open revolt against the assad regime. from latakya, to elepo, to the curdish northeast to the villages along the mediterranean coastline, more and more syrians from diverse background are rising up and demanding their freedom. and what exactly are they asking for? it's the same basic demands we hear throughout the region, and they are very familiar -- should be -- to the american people because they are the very demands that energized and motivated our rebellion of the american revolution and the

founding documents of our country. the people of syria want greater political freedom and they want economic opportunity. they want into the modern world. they want to be treated with respect by their government. and they want an end to the culture of corruption and impunity that surrounds the assad regime. and how has bashir al-assad reacted to these legitimate grievances? the answer is he has responded not by offering reform, but by unleashing what president obama has rightly characterized as abhorrent violence and repression against the syrian people. he's responded with thugs and militias who have attacked peaceful protesters. he's responded by spouting conspiracy theories rather than loosening his autocratic grip. and as we know now, he has

responded by calling on his allies, his patrons in tehran to help him crush the demonstrations by the syrian people. just as the regime, the fanatical extremist, expansionist regime in tehran stamp out the protests that took place in tehran after the june 2009 election. madam president, it's now clear what path bashir al-assad is on. rather than pursuing reform, he is taking a page from the qadhafi model. hes betting that he can beat his people into submission through force and that the world will let him get away with slaughter. let's be very clear what it means if bashir succeeds. it will send a most perverse but unmistakable message that

leaders like mubarak and ben ali in egypt and tunesia who were allied with the united states get overthrown, but leaders like assad who are allied with tehran survive. is that really a message we want to send? what about tomorrow? why do i focus on the next 24 hours? madam president, tomorrow's likely to be a critical day for the future of syria as protesters come together after friday's prayers. there is a significant danger that it will also become a very bloody day if assad continues on the path of violence and brutality against his own people. this is therefore an urgent moment for american leadership, at least for america's voice to be heard. it is important for president assad in damascus to know today

before the protests that are likely to take place throughout syria tomorrow that his regime will be held accountable for its actions. and i hope we will be prepared to act quickly together with the world community if assad fails to heed the will of the syrian people and tries to hang on to power through a repression and murder. what can we do? well, to begin with, we can impose tough and targeted sanctions on the syrian officials responsible for the human rights abuses that are being perpetrated against their own people. we can also work with our allies to summon a special session of the u.n. human rights council in geneva just as we did in the case of libya. and we can refer assad's regime to the international criminal court just as we did with qadhafi. we should also embrace the

syrian opposition, the freedom fighters. i hope senior american officials will meet with prominent syrian dissidents who are here in washington now. i also urge the administration to speak out clearly in support of the syrian people who deserve praise for their courage as they risk their lives for freedom and human rights. they must know that the united states, still the beacon of liberty in the world, stands on their side. in the face of attacks by the syrian regime, syrian protesters have remained remarkably peaceful, just as the protesters in tunesia and egypt before them did. in the face of sectarian provocations by assad, the people of syria who are protesting have remained together, unified, giving a message of national unity. i know that some have suggested

that we should hesitate before throwing our support to the syrian opposition, to the syrian people as they rise up, and this argument goes like this: bashir al-assad is the devil we know. we don't know what might replace him if we fail. excuse me. we don't know what might replace him if he fails. but, we know enough about bashir al assad to know, and we know enough about the opposition to know that it cannot be worse than assad and will be much better. the arguments that we should wait and see are, in my opinion, moral and strategic nonsense when you look at the record of assad. he is iran's most important arab ally; in some senses iran's only real arab ally and the strategic linchpin between iran and its terrorist problg is is --

proxies hamas and hezbollah. assad is responsible for a terrible campaign long-standing of intimidation and destabilization of lebanon and the blood of lebanese leaders, too many of them, is on his hands, including that of the great lebanese leader rafik herari. as senator cornyn said, assad also has the blood of countless american soldiers on his hands, having allowed syria to be used for years by foreign extremist fighters affiliated with al qaeda and their link to head to iraq to attack and kill americans and iraqis. and finally, let's not forget syria's illegal nuclear activities. this is a regime that tried to build a secret nuclear reactor, and they did so with help from

north korea. this is a regime that continues to refuse to cooperate with the international atomic energy agency in its investigation of syria's illegal nuclear activities. the plain fact is that bashir al-assad is not a reformer. he is a dictator. he runs a totalitarian regime that has long been one of the worst in the middle east. this is a a sleep that has intimidated and tortured and slaughtered the syrian people. it is deeply k corrupt and it ia regime that has been a menus to its neighbors and -- been a menace to its neighbors. i say we support the syrian people as they seek a better fruit oor for themselves.

-- future for themselves. it would be a shame if they and we lost this opportunity for the arab spring to come to syria. i hope that together with our allies we will seize this moment and stand in solidarity with the people in syria who are fighting for the fundamental values that our own country was built on, freedom and opportunity. i thank the chair and yield the floor. and i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: recognized.

a senator: i ask unanimous consent that privileges for the floor be granted to my intern. the presiding officer: we're in a quorum call. a senator: i ask that the quorum call be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. lee: i ask that my intern, mitchell mcbride, whose last day is today, be granted floor privileges today. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. lee: thank you. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mrs. murray: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington is recognized. mrs. murray: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mrs. murray: madam president, would the chair lay before the senate h. con. res. 35?

the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h. con. res. 35, directing the clerk of the house of representatives to make a correction in the enrollment of h.r. 1473. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there are two minutes of debate equally divided previous to the vote. mrs. murray: madam president, i yield back all time and ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: without objection. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. and the clerk will call the roll. vote: