last year, our highway spending was about $40 billion. the interest on that stimulus bill will be almost that much. forever, i suppose, unless we find some way to start paying down our debt, and there is no plan on the table to reduce our debt in the immediate future. that's for sure. so what would i say about where we are today? i believe that this congress cannot justify having created a financial situation in which 40 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. we take in -- we spend spend $3.7 trillion -- excuse me. we take in $2.2 trillion and we're spending $3.7 trillion. every economist has told us in the budget committee -- i'm ranking republican there -- this is unsustainable.

president bush's highest deficit was too high -- $450 billion -- the two budgets now on under president obama have been $1.2 billion, $1.3 trillion and this year we expect it to be $1.5 trillion in debt added to our debt. double the entire debt of the united states in four years of his leadership. and his budget that he submitted to us earlier this year makes the situation worse. if you take the basic trajectory of congressional budget office, the president's budget, even though it raises taxes, raises spending more and actually put us on a more unsustainable path than otherwise would be the case and over the ten-year budget that he proposes, the lowest single deficit is $740 billion, and in the year eight, nine, and ten, it's going up to $1

trillion in the tenth year. these are systemic, unsustainable deficits and they've got to be confronted, and we've got to reduce spending. everybody knows that. but we're not willing to do soavment the democratic leader, when we had the continuing resolution and a debate over how much to spend the rest of this fiscal year, he proposed a $4 billion reduction in spending. and our deficit will be $1,500,000,000,000 this year. he proposed to cut $4 billion. after some much fight and the house passed a $60 billion or $70 billion in spending reductions through the rest of the year and the senate finally, under the democratic leaders here, got it down to about $30-some-odd -- $35 billion, i believe. we're not facing up to the reality. what do you do? the fed has cut interest rates to zero.

we're spending unlimited amounts of money. we tried all kinds of gimmicks and efforts, reducing social security tax, other things that have tried to create growth in the economy. it hasn't worked. i suggest part of the problem is the deficit itself. professors rogoff and reinhart have written a book. "this tiements different." and in their analysis when your debt equals 90% or more of your economy, you will show at least a 1% reduction in economic growth for that year. this year our debt is already about 95% of g.d.p. will be 100% of g.d.p. by september 30. so over the first quarter growth numbers were 1.8% growth below what had originally been

projected. that was a reanalysis of it. 1.8 according to their theory. it would be 2.8%, 2.8% growth if we didn't have debt in excess of 90% of the gross domestic product. and i asked secretary of treasury geithner at the budget hearing, did he agree with the rogoff-reinhart study, which has received quite a bit of attention and a great deal of respectful attention. he said he did. he said in some ways the situation is worse than that suggests, because we could have an economic crisis. when your debt-to-g.d.p. is 90% or 100%, this is how you can have a circumstance like -- somewhat like we had perhaps with the financial meltdown or like they're having in greece. so we've been warned by the fiscal commission, chairman and cochairman appointed by

president obama, mr. erskine bowles and alan simpson, they testified and said we're facing the most predictable economic crisis in our nation's history. the most predictable. and when asked when it might happen, mr. bowles said, two years give or take. so we don't know what's going to happen. i think we've got to just grow up, realize that we have placed our nation in financial jeopar jeopardy, that this country has spent money in did not have to a degree greater than this nation has ever spent before except maybe in the height of world war ii when the entire nation was in a life-and-death struggle. we've never spent this kind of money. we've never had these kind of

deficits. many remember the big fight over spending in the mid-1990's and resulted in the balancing of the budget in the late-1990's. that was a much simpler problem than we've got today. i've look ad ated at the number. to get this country to a balanced budget is going to take some very, very serious, sustained work. it is going to be much more significant than it was in the mid-1990's. and we simply cannot grow this comirks which is the key to getting ourselves out of the miss we're in. we can't grow it by passing your taxes. we can't do that. and congress has got to step up to the plate. and i will remain extremely disappointed that the majority here in the senate did not even bring a budget to the floor last

year. we're now at $ 750, 760-some-odd days without having a budget. that's one reason why we're spend so much money. we don't even have a budget. it was not even brought to the floor last year. into the single appropriations bill was brought to the floor and passed last year. since i've been here -- and i guess in 20 or more years our democratic majority had the largest majority any senate has ever had. they had 60 votes last year in the senate. it only takes 50 to pass a budget. you don't need -- you can pass a budget without a supermajority, without a filibuster. it's designed to make sure we pass a budget because it's needed that we pass a budget. but it wasn't even brought up last year. and so what about this year? we've not even marked one up.

we've not had a hearing in the budget committee to mark up a budget. and under the budget act, the budget is supposed to be passed by april 15. the house has passed a busmgh b, an historic budget, a sound budget. it changes the unsustainable trajectory we're on. it's spofnlgt it's gotten widespread, bipartisan applause for being a serious attempt to confront the financial crisis that we are facing and the senate has not produced anything. indeed, my good friend -- and he's got a tough job -- our majority leader, harry reid, has said it would be foolish to pass a budget. and his staff said something similar to the press. foolish to pass a budget? foolish to pass a budget? what did he mean by that? would it be against the american

interest to pass a budget? would it make our country less strong financially if we passed a budget? would it be less responsible to not pass a budget? than to pass a one? i don't think so. actually, i don't think that's what he meant. what he meant was it would be foolish politically to pass a budget. so he didn't bring one on the floor last year when he had 60 senators, got 53 now. he's not going to bring one up again this year. it would be foolish to. why? because when you produce a budget, you have to set forth for the entire world, financial world, american people, and the political world, the individual citizens of this republic what your plans are for the future. what are we going to do? how much are we going to spend?

how much are we going to tax? how much deficit will be created or surplus, if one is to be found -- and i it is not going o be found soon, a surplus, trust me. i've looked at numbers. but we've got to get on the right path. and so he thinks that's foolish. i guess because, well, if he produced a budget, he split to cut spending -- he might have to cut spending and somebody might complain. if he produced a budget, as what is consistent with what some of my tax-and-spend friends believe, that might not be popular. so since it's not popular, we're just not going to do t it. while we've got the lowest number of people working in in economy since 1983, and we're 2% lee low the number of people --

below the number of people actually working ten years ago, this change in tax-and-spend idea of how to make an economy grow not sound. we've tried it. it was done over my objection, but it was done. we threw money at this economy, the lisks which we've never seen before. now, the brits -- they're reducing their spending. they are a making some tough choices in the u.k. some have been pushing back. they're having riots in greece where people are saying you're cutting back spending too much. we've got to have this money. but what did the international monetary fund say today -- i believe it was today? they said, the u. crks the brits, stay the course, stay with your fiscal responsibility, that was initiated by the new conservative government. don't go back to spending.

don't adopt the idea that you can create something out of nothing by borrowing money, money you don't have. and, of course, julie andrews laid that out in her song i thought, and always remember, "nothing comings from nothing, nothing ever could." you can't borrow your way out of debt, as one person in evergreen told me his granddaddy said. we have got to face the music. we don't have the money to operate at the level we are. i was at a town meeting in marion, alabama, and an elderly gentleman said he lived through the depression, he lived through world war ii, he lived through the great inflation surge in the 1970's, and he sees this other challenge we face today. and he said, the problem is not

the high cost of living. the problem is the cost of living too high. that just sort of closed the meeting. he was the last one to speak. and i thought that was a real silence there. the cost of living too high. we've just been living on the idea that these brilliant people in the fed and the treasury and all, that they can just borrow money and spend it today, and that'll make the economy flower, and we'll all be successful and we don't have to worry about paying it off. what's a little debt? well, we went down that road, and it's gotten completely out of control. and we can't sustain it. we're at a point where our debt threatens our economic growth. according to rogoff and rhine harkts it's already reducing our debt by 1%. and if we had 2% growth for the

year, if we have 2% growth this year instead of 1.8%, as we did the first quarter, that means a million more people employed. 1% growth, economists tell us, is equal to a million people employed. you get 3%, 4%, 5% growth, like we ought to have coming out of a recession, then you can have millions of jobs created and change this direction of our country. but we've gone -- we've used every weapon we have except common sense and sound policy. so what do we do? how do we get out of the mess we're in? how do we -- it's not going to be an easy road, but we need to reduce spending. we have increased spending in the last two years -- first two years under president obama -- 24% in discretionary non-defense spending. we can't cut that back.

to where we were on a previous date. is the united states of america going to cease to exist if we reduce spending? we're going to have to. we don't have the money. now, we do that if we get this -- we send a message to the world like the people in england have, we understand the problem, we know we've gone too far, we're going to get on the right road, we're going to put a shoulder to the wheerlings and we're going to lift this country forward and put it on a sound path, we can do that. we will do that. that's what the american people said they wanted, i'm convinced, in this last election. they want some responsibility here, and we owe it to them. and i hope and pray that we can come together and make some significant changes in the way that we spend money and the amount of debt that we've got. yes, it might be tough for

awhile, but we'll get on the right path. we'll get this country going in the right direction. so, when you're confused about the future, nobody knows exactly what to do, i think it's time to take a deep breath and go back to the old truths that nothing comes from nothing. hard work pays off. borrowing, borrowing, borrowing is a road to disaster. you need to start paying down your debts. the kind of things we tell our children every day, this nation needs to do. and if the world, and if the business community and our country saw us in that direction, nothing could be better for our economic growth. they would say the united states of america is finally got it. they got their heads on right. they are making decisions that will lay a foundation for sound, positive growth in the future. and they're not trying to get their way out of the problem

they're in by something for nothing; some gimmick. i thank the chair and would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. president, i'd like to share some brief thoughts about the nomination of donald verrilli to be solicitor general of the united states. solicitor general has been called the greatest lawyer job in the world. it's the position in the department of justice that represents the united states in appellate courts, particularly the supreme court. and as they said again, there is no higher honor than to appear in the highest court in the land and be able to announce that you represent the united states of america. and that's what the solicitor general gets to do and supervises that. it's a very important position. it requires integrity, independence, commitment to law.

and mr. verrilli, by the account of quite a number of people, is a smart lawyer with significant experience in appellate matters and is respected as to his integrity and his legal ability. i say that because i'm not going to be able to vote for him today, but what i'm saying about him is not to be personal in any way. and i can disagree with someone about their approach to law and still sometimes be able to vote for them. and i voted for most of the president's nominees. i supported attorney general holder for attorney general. but what i want to say is that we're in a struggle internationally with most virulent form of terrorism that has been declared by virtually

all objective people as a war, and we're involved in a war on terrorism. that's just what it is. bin laden and the people who attacked us on 9/11 has declared war against the united states. they officially said they were at war with us. and our president on occasion has said, acknowledged that we're at war. and congress has authorized the use of military force in iraq, afghanistan and against al qaeda. we've authorized. we haven't in libya, but we have in those instances. and so the department of justice, for which i was honored to be a member for 15 years as a federal prosecutor and united states attorney in alabama for 12, really loved that great department, believe in it deeply, am troubled by the extent to which it's being led

by people who have a unwise understanding of the nature of the struggle that we're in. and one of the ways this plays itself out is to conclude that an al qaeda person, if bin laden hadn't been killed, presumably, he was presumptively to be tried in civilian courts like a normal criminal. but under the rules of war, under the rules and history of the united states, under our constitution and laws, it's perfectly permissible to capture an enemy combatant who's threatening you and to put them in jail and detain them just like all prisoners of wars have been detained until the conflict is over. you don't give them a trial. they are not entitled to lawyers. they're not entitled to go before judges. they're prisoners of war and are held in prisoners of war camps. they have to be humanely

treated. they cannot be tortured. we have a specific statute about that. and i know that some instances people say it's torture and some say it's not. but that's not the situation today. we're not close to the line of what's torturing anybody that's being held in custody today. so the question is: what does the department of justice say? they made the statement that these individuals need to be tried in civilian courts, and congress, after several years of battle finally passed a law to prohibit funding of any civilian trial of any of the 9/11 people that have been captured. some have been knelled prisons in -- have been held in prisons in guantanamo. they have to be tried if they

are to be tried by military commissions. military commissions are historic. in world war ii nazi saboteurs came by submarine, attempted to enter the united states and bomb and blow up our places. they were captured; a trial was held within a few weeks by the military, and most of them were executed promptly. and supreme court and ex-party held that was perfectly appropriate. you can't try a normal prisoner of war and execute them. you cannot do that. if a prisoner of war, however, violates the rules of war and commits crimes above and beyond the rules of war, then they can be tried and punished appropriately. the 9/11 conspirators and the war on terrorist people are committed consistently and totally to violating the rules

of war. they attack men and women -- innocent men and women and children. they attack noncombatants. that's all prohibited by the rules of war. they don't wear uniforms. if you want to have the protections of the rule of war, you have to wear your uniform when you go into combat. and if you're captured, you have to be treated as a prisoner of war. but if you've been sneaking into the united states surreptitiously with a plot and plan to bomb and murder innocent men and women and children, you've committed a war crime. and so they can be detained as a prisoner of war and can be tried by the military as the war criminals they are. so this has been a big battle. and we went through it for years. and on the judiciary committee of which i'm a member, we had quite a bit of discussion about it in hearings after hearings,

and we somehow tragically convinced the world that american military torturing people at guantanamo, and it was not so. the people that have been found were waterboarded and that sort of thing. it was not done at guantanamo and it was not done by the u.s. military. zero. at any rate, we had all those debates and all those fusses and we had lawsuits filed, and people complained about president bush and all his policies. and you remember that. so now we're here with a series of people being appointed to the leadership of the department of justice, the law enforcement agency, the top prosecutors in the country, those positions being filled by the people not that were prosecuting terrorists, not that know something about it, not skilled professional prosecutors who

know how to do this job. the top people are being filled with people who are protesters. attorney general holder himself has said these cases ought to be tried in civilian courts. the acting deputy attorney general, mr. cole, wrote an op-ed, i think in "the new york times" saying these were criminal matters, not military matters. the assistant attorney general for the civil division, tony west, defended american taliban. the acting solicitor general also was involved in some of these defense matters in advocating these positions. these are some of the top positions in the entire department of justice. the attorney general, deputy attorney general, civil division, and the acting now solicitor general, and the person that's nominated to fulfill -- fill that spot.

so, mr. verrilli, i believe, is a good man. in normal circumstances, i would be willing to accept his nomination and vote for him. i'm not going to try to slow it down, glad to have the vote and cast my vote. i'm sure he'll be confirmed. but it's been reported in the media that president obama has now appointed 13 to 16 lawyers to high-ranking positions in the department who themselves previously represented alleged terrorists or their supporters or were senior partners at their law firms when their firms decided to accept alleged terrorists as clients. consistently, they support the view that terrorists are not -- are criminals and not unlawful combatants. that's all right to defend unpopular people, criminals that are unpopular. it's perfectly all right.

but i just want to say as someone who loves the department, i am concerned about the positions they are taking on the question of the civilian trials of military combatants. i think it is wrong, and i have voted for the last one i'm going to vote for in positions of the department of justice who advocate that view. i think it places our nation at greater risk. we do not need to be treating these individuals in that fashion. as a practical matter, it works out this way, you apprehend the christmas day, christmas day bomber. if he's treated as a civilian, he has to be given his miranda rights within minutes of being arrested. told he can have a lawyer; he remains silent. he has to be appointed a lawyer promptly. he has to be taken before a

magistrate promptly, letting all the other terrorists know he's been captured. he is entitled to discovery of the government's case in short order. and he is entitled to a speedy trial. all of those things are part and parcel of the civil process. but if they are captured as an unlawful combatant and held by the military, they can be held as a prisoner of war. they can be interrogated, not tortured. they can be interrogated over a period of months, weeks. they don't have to appoint a lawyer for them. and they can be tried if found to be in violation of the rules of war at guantanamo baby military commission -- guantanamo baby a military commission, which is what ought to happen in these cases. but that is not the position of this department of justice. they have been populated by people who have a different view of it, i think a wrong view, and so although i have great respect

for mr. verrilli and his record, it seems to be a good record. the fact that he is another voice in the department for a wrong philosophy is something that i will protest against by voting "no." and i thank the chair and will yield the floor. the presiding officer: time has expired. mr. leahy: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: question is on the nomination. mr. leahy: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be a second. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, on this nomination the ayes are 72. the nays are 16. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the president shall be immediately notified of the senate's action and the senate shall resume legislative. mr. reid: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to proceed to calendar 38, s. 782. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion, proceed to calendar 38, s. 78 2, a bill to amend the public works and economic development act of 1965, to reauthorize that act, and for other purposes. mr. reid: i have a cloture motion and ask that it be reported. the presiding officer: the

clerk will report. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to calendar number 38, s. 782, a bill to amend the public works and economic development act of 1965 to reauthorize that act and for other purposes, signed by 17 senators as follows. reid of nevada, boxer, conrad, kerry, whitehouse, klobuchar, cardin, binge minimum -- bingaman, merkley, menendez, shaheen, sanders, lautenberg, reed of rhode island, durbin, akaka. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10:30 a.m. on tuesday, june 7.

following the prayer and pledge the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for use later in the day. following leader remarks, senate proceed to a period of morning business for up to one hour with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. following morning business the senate resume consideration of the motion to proceed to s. 782, the economic development act. further that the senate recess from 12:30 p.m. until 2:15 p.m. to allow for weekly caucus meetings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, tonight i filed cloture on the motion to proceed to s. 782, the economic development act. i hope that it's not necessary that we vote to invoke cloture on this matter on wednesday. i hope we can get to it tomorrow. that cloture vote, if we can't move to it under consent, we'll

have a vote monday morning. if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask it adjourn under the previous order following the remarks of senator brown of ohio. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: over the last couple of weeks i've traveled to senior centers from toledo to youngstown to columbus to talk with seniors and health professionals about the threat facing their medicare benefits. we owe it, first of all, i'll

start, mr. president, with we owe it to our children, we owe it to our grandchildren, we owe it to succeeding generations to reduce our deficit. we know a decade ago, almost a exactly a decade ago we had the largest budget surplus in the history of our country. we know during the next eight years as congress and president bush cut taxes mostly on the kwraoelgt in 2001 and -- wealthy in 2001 and 2003, began two wars in iraq and afghanistan and didn't pay for them, did a prescription drug benefit, supposed benefit that was in many ways a bailout for drug and insurance companies and didn't pay for it and deregulated wall street during those eight years we had the largest budget deficit in american history. from the largest budget surplus in american history to the largest budget deficit in american history. what we see in the republican budget now as we talk about medicare and as they talk about medicare, ending medicare as we know it, turning medicare over

to the insurance companies, what we're seeing is sort of the same old game, the same old song from people who don't much like medicare. that is cut taxes on the wealthy again and pay for those tax cuts -- got to find a way to pay for them i guess -- pay for those tax cuts by cutting medicare, cutting medicare benefits seniors have earned. that's what's troubling to me about this republican budget. too many americans are facing a middle-class squeeze, working hard, playing by the rules, finding it still hard to get ahead in this economy. many parents, many americans in their 40 and 50's and 60's are part after sandwich generation. they're helping out their parents as their camel costs go up -- as their their medical coo up and their parents aren't earning very much and they're trying to pay for their children's college. this is the wrong time, as if there would ever be a right time to turn medicare over to the

insurance industry. that is why senators cardin from maryland, mccaskill from missouri and tester from montana wrote a letter to the vice president calling for an -- stop to end medicare as we know it. i want to see our deficit reduced. i want us to see us on a long-term plan to get our budget deficit under control. the way e 1990's and turn budget problems inherited by president clinton, bequeathed by presidents reagan and bush, inherited by president clinton of how we got from a budget deficit to a budget surplus. now, the statistics behind this are clear. the number of seniors lifted out of poverty in these 45 years. the number of families that have the help to care for a parent or grandparent. we simply can't reverse those games for the ultimate form of rationing health care for seniors. make no mistake, this isn't

rationing health care. when you shift the costs, you give senior citizens a voucher, is the term they use. basically give them an $8,000 check more or less and that check goes to insurance companies to pay for health insurance. what that runs short, what happens? it likely will for many seniors. they pay out of pocket. that really is rationing. if you're not a fairly wealthy senior and you run out of your medicare, you run out of this privatized medicare voucher, you're reaching under your pockets, mr. president, and paying for it. that's rationing because many seniors won't be able to pay for it. when i hear this term death panels and rationing and all these things that conservative politicians usually enthralled in the insurance industry are telling this chamber, in the senate and down the hall in the house of representatives, i know what real rationing is. real rationing is when seniors can't afford to pay out of pocket for their health insurance costs because of what this republican budget plan does. their plan calls for vouchers for private health coverage, double their out-of-pocket costs

in the first year alone. the average senior would receive receive $8,000 voucher. however, in that first year of the voucher program, out-of-pocket expenses would, according to the congressional budget office, not a democratic group, not a republican group, but down the middle group, the congressional budget office said seniors' out-of-pocket expenses would double to more than than $12,500 annually. as i said, at the same time, republicans are going to take these savings to the budget, the cuts to senior care through medicare, take those savings and finance tax cuts to those people who earn ten times or more the average retirement income for a medicare recipient. seniors would see the prescription drug costs explode. we in the health care bill cut the cost of prescription drugs for those seniors that are in the -- in the coverage gap, the so-called doughnut hole, cut them in half. that would go away. in other words, the republican budget plan in my state, across the river from the presiding officer's state, would hand an an $89 million prescription drug

bill tab to split among 139,000 ohio seniors. so tens of thousands of ohio seniors, thousands of west virginia seniors, tens of thousands of seniors in the assistant majority leader's state of illinois would be paying tens of millions of dollars in higher drug costs as a result of the republican budget bill. the senate voted that bill down, largely along party lines. republicans continue to want to to -- to privatize medicare, to turn medicare over to the insurance industry. it -- simply put, put insurance companies in charge of medicare, in charge of making decisions about our seniors. is that what we want? that's why we had medicare in 1965 because insurance companies were in charge of health care for seniors meaning a lot of senior citizens in this country didn't have health care. half of seniors had no health insurance, people over 65, in the year 1965. now 99% roughly of seniors have health insurance. that's because of this program that most of us dearly love, and

the huge majority of our constituents, in west virginia and illinois and ohio love, and that's called medicare. now, mr. president, take all of what i said aside for a moment. take out -- forget about vouchers, forget about privatization, forget about insurance companies even, and just think of a personal way what medicare has done in this country. medicare has created -- was created in 1965, passed mostly by democrats in the house and senate, signed by president lyndon johnson in july of 1965. we have had medicare for 45 years. think about what it's done. people -- forget all the academic, forget all the policy questions. what medicare has done is it's helped people in this country live longer, healthier lives. and what that means is that people have been able to get to know their grandchildren. somebody that's 65 or 70 or 75 or 80 and enjoys generally good health has had years, maybe decades, with helping to raise a grandchild, helping to -- get to go know their granddaughter,

getting to play with their grandson, all the things that grandparents want to do. because of medicare, because senior citizens have had good quality, better quality of life because of something we call medicare, they have gotten to know their grandchildren better. think about what that means to the children, they have gotten to know their grandparents better and have gotten the kind of guidance that only grandparents can give. margaret meade, the great anthropologist, said wisdom and knowledge are passed from grandparent to grandchild. think about that, wisdom and knowledge are passed from grandparent to grandchild, because we all know if we have kids, our children don't always listen to us. but our grandchildren do. i have a 3-year-old grandson named clayton, lives in columbus, ohio. when i'm in washington, a lot of days she will pick him up after charter school. we don't live in columbus, but she goes down and picks him up after school. every day clayton gets to spend with his grandmother, i get to

see clayton not as often as i want but fairly often. what margaret meade said is right, the grandparents impart a special knowledge or wisdom to grandchildren. you think of the benefit that grandchildren have because of their grandparents. i -- i would have looked at it quite the same way until i had my first grandson three years ago, but i understand that now. that's to me the real beauty of medicare. medicare has helped this country's seniors live longer, healthier lives. it has helped this country's children be raised in a way, in a moral way, in a practical way, in an educational way better than they would have if their grandparents hadn't been around. that's their fundamental reason that when i hear republicans say they want to change -- we want to get rid of medicare as we know it, they want to turn medicare over and senior health care over to the insurance industry, we know what will happen. seniors won't live longer, healthier lives because they will be part -- because they will have lost medicare as we know it, mr. president. that's why -- that's why we sent

the letter to vice president biden, senator tester, mccaskill, cardin and i did, to say take medicare off the table. we need to deal with this budget deficit, but don't -- don't mess with medicare while we're doing it. it's pretty simple, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: i ask unanimous consent to speak for the next ten minutes in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: mr. president, later this week, we're going to consider an issue which is complicateed, but it's an issue that affects every single american that ever takes a piece of plastic and pays for anything, at a hotel, at a restaurant, at a convenience store, tuition at a school, a charitable deduction to red cross in the midst of a disaster. if you use plastic, every time that debit card -- we're talking just about debit cards for this conversation -- every time that debit card is swiped, there is a fee that goes to the bank that issued the card. and you think to yourself, well, i wonder how they negotiate

those fees, and the answer is they don't. what happens is the credit card companies, the two giants, visa and mastercard, working through the issuing banks determine what's going to be charged every time you swipe the card. so what does the local grocery store have to say about it? nothing. their alternative is to not accept plastic at all. visa and mastercard say you want to use our card, you play by our rules, and our rules will tell you how much we take every time you swipe the card. i've seen it happen. you have, too, where you go into a store and you shake your head because that young person in front of you just bought a candy bar and is using a piece of plastic to pay for it. and you think to yourself why don't they reach in their pocket, pull out a dollar bill and pay for it? instead, they swipe the card. and you know what happens? that person selling that candy bar just lost money because the folks at the bank and the credit card companies are going to get that swipe fee, which happens to

be more than the profit that that little grocery store is going to make on a candy bar. so naturally, retailers and merchants all across america have said this isn't fair to us. we have no negotiating power when it comes to how much is taken out each time there is a plastic transaction for debit cards, and the consumers don't know. we know, as retailers, but the consumers don't even know. there is no transparency, there is no competition. well, what's wrong with this picture? if you believe in a free market, you believe in those two things. you ought to believe there would be some competition, so maybe there would be one debit card company that charges a lower fee. maybe there would be special consideration given if somebody paid in cash. i guess this dates me, but there was a time when people paid in cash for almost everything, except when they used a check and that was rare. and when they processed the check, it was pennies. right now what the federal

reserve tells us is that for each and every debit card transaction, the average fee charged is 44 cents. when we passed an amendment here last year, we said to the federal reserve, well, what's the actual cost to the company, the issuing bank and the credit card, debit card company for processing this transaction? they said 10 cents or 12 cents. and they're charging over 40 cents on each transaction. who pays it? we all pay it. even if you walk into a store to pay cash, that merchant has put a price on that good that considers the fact that most people are using plastic so they have to use that price to cover that fee. so we said to the federal reserve sit down and figure out what's reasonable and proportional in terms of the cost that should be collected every time you swipe the card. well, this is a big political issue, one of the biggest. you might say it's a multibillion-dollar issue, and it is, because each month in

america, over $1.3 billion, over $1.3 billion, $1.3 billion is collected from customers all across america when they swipe their debit cards. where does the money go? most of it goes to the biggest banks on wall street. the same banks that were just moaning and groaning a few years ago about they needed a bailout because they made some big mistakes, they're back again. they want a bailout when it comes to these debit cards. they want to be able to continue to collect 40 cents and more on every transaction. well, we passed a law that said the party's over. starting july 21, there will be a new rule that will establish a reasonable fee, and they have been fighting this with all of their might. all of their lobbyists, all of their workers, all the letters they can send against this reform. why? because it involves money, huge amounts of money for these major wall street banks and credit card companies. we ought to bring an end to

this. consumer groups across america, labor groups, even some small business groups, retail federation, merchants, saloon keepers, hotel owners, restaurant owners, convenience store owners all across america have said we have got to quit this. this isn't fair to us and to our customers. let us have a reasonable amount charged for what's actually taking place with a debit card, and we can live with it, but four times as much they're charging today? and incidentally, go up to canada, not a lot different than the united states. debit cards and credit cards there issued by banks. do you know what the interchange fee is charged in canada today? zero. no charge. no charge at all to the merchant who takes a debit card in canada. the same companies visa and mastercard charge zero in canada and 40 cents in the united states. aren't we blessed?

to have two great credit card companies who dreamed up how to stick it to american consumers, at the benefit of american banks, on wall street particularly. that's what this is about. now, most of my colleagues have gone home over the last week or two and they have heard about this issue because it means a lot to a lot of people. what we did was exempt in this law credit unions and community banks. some people said why did you exempt them? why shouldn't they have reduced fees, too? well, you want to make sure that financially they are not disadvantaged by this, and we put in a specific exemption, said to the federal reserve right up your rules to protect it. i have said on the floor and i will say it again. if at the end of the day the rule from the federal reserve does not provide adequate protection for credit unions and community banks, i am ready to sign up today to put in even more protection in the law. i'll be there. i want to make sure they understand. they were exempted because i

believe they should be, and i want to make sure that exemption works. but i don't care what happens to the wall street banks. i don't care what happens to these credit card companies. they seem toned up on their feet when it's all over anyway. after giving them billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to bail them out of their mess that they have made of things in this recession, what did they do? they sent us a big, wet kiss and -- in the form of multimillion-dollar bonuses for all their officers, smiling all the way to the banks with taxpayers' money. we don't owe them a thing. and the members who will come to the floor this week and vote with those big banks and those credit card companies really have to ask themselves when are you ever going to stand up for consumers and retailers and merchants, small businesses across america? is somebody going to speak up for them in this chamber? that's what this debate is about. and i hope at the end of the day that my colleagues will stand tall and say no to wall street,

no to the credit card companies, that they will stand by the retailers and merchants and give them a chance for transparency and competition, to give them a chance for a reasonable, reasonable fee for what is actually transpiring in this transaction. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under a previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 10:30 tuesday a.m.

>> perspective 2012, congresswoman michele bachmann was one of the speakers at the faith and freedom conference, a group founded by ralph reed and held a two day meeting in washington, d.c. last week with the theme of restores america's greatness and founding principles. this is about 20 minutes. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> hi, everyone. [cheers and applause] thank you for coming. [applause] good to see you, good morning. [applause] thank you for coming. i can tell this conference is off to a great start already, isn't it? [cheers and applause] oh, what a wonderful year this

is going to be and 2012 is even going to be better. [cheers and applause] we are looking forward to winning the triple crown, aren't we? [cheers and applause] holding on to the house of representatives, getting a conservative senate for the first time in a long time, and timely, a change of address form to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. [cheers and applause] because if we have anything to say about a barak obama will be a one-term president. [cheers and applause] well, it's a new day, and there's new things coming our way, and i'm extremely grateful for all of you here this morning, extremely grateful. there's a lot of bad news that's going on around the world, but there's a lot of good news going

on around the world too, and i want to talk to you about a few of those things. when i was a minnesota state senate, we started a project, not because we wanted to, but because we were acting in response to an action by the massachusetts judicial supreme court. anybody remember the decision to 2003 that the court issued? they issued a decision that told the state legislature that the legislature had to pass a law in conformity with the will of the justices. does anyone remember what that decision was about? do you remember? it was about marriage. it had something about redefining marriage. i had heard that in minnesota and knew that that would come our way as well, and so i announced i was going to introduce a constitutional amendment that would allow the people of minnesota to vote on the laws that they live under, particularly the definition of marriage. whether marriage would be between one man and one woman,

and -- [applause] that's a good concept. people were -- as you can imagine, this was the height of the controversy, and i was at the tip of the speer on that effort, and the reason why i bring this up is because i say to you persevere, persevere and never despise small beginnings because we were just a few people who got together and tried to make this happen, and the bill that i introduced, we began with, we were not able to get it out of the liberal dominated senate that i was in. we tried, we tried again, we were not able to succeed, but we didn't give up because we knew the people of minnesota ultimately wanted to be able to vote on this bill. 30 different states put this bill up. every time states put the bill before the american people, they

voted in their states to retain the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. [applause] and no, i am no longer in the minnesota state senate. i'm privileged to serve the people in the house of representatives. others took that torch and carried on, and just a week ago last saturday evening, minnesota timely passed the constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man, one woman. [applause] and so minnesota is the first state that has decided this issue will be on the ballot in 2012. the state of new hampshire will be taking this issue up as well, and other states. this is the time, and so i want

to encourage all of you at home, if you don't have a similar amendment, consider this in your home state. i believe this is the time to do it so i just want to say thank you to those who continue to carry that torch. [applause] we need to do this because how many of you know that marriage is under seize like no time in recent history. just recently in "u.s. today" and other magazines, we got the census data that said married couple dropped below half of all marriages. it's a milestone in our history. back in 1950, 78% of all households represented a married couple, and today we're at 48%. that's created a profound

difference in america. this year, my husband and i will be married 33 years, and -- [applause] you're clapping for the wrong person in our marriage. [laughter] it's my husband who deserves the share of the credit for that. it does help though when you're married to a marriage and family therapist, i have to say. [laughter] we do have an unfair advantage there, and i'm extremely grateful for this wonderful man who is not only committed deeply o our marriage, but our children. we made a decision when we got married. one of the decisions was even though we didn't have a lot of money, we decided we would always live on just one income. we would not be dependent on both of our incomes because we knew we both had broken hearts for at-risk children. i don't know what it was, but god put that on our hearts. we have broken hearts for at-risk kids.

we wanted to reach out and be a solution for them. along the way, god blessed us. we had five wonderful by logical children, and then the lord allowed us to bring 23 foster children into our home. i'm happy to say all foster children successfully graduated from high school, launched into the world, and they are off in their various endeavors. [applause] and with each of our five children, we began by home schooling our five children because we believed as parents, we wanted to teach our children how to read before they went off to school because if a child can read, they can be self-taught and they can make it, and so we home schooled each of our five bilogical children and then got them off into the world as well, and now this sunday, we will have graduation for our daughter from high school. this fall we'll send two off the

college, and let me tell you, after 29 years the prernting, we're done after this sunday. [laughter] and we love these children, but it's sinara. [laughter] [applause] there is something to be said for an empty nest and moving on. [laughter] adolescents does end in our family, so we're excited about it, but marriage is extremely important. children are extremely important, and to be highly valued, and that's one thing i think in our society we have done fairly well is place a high value on children. we need to do that for the benefit of the next generation, and i think that's why the issue of wife life is so profound and deal. when we met in college, we were 19 years of age. we saw a film series called "how

shall we then live?" he said in that film series, abortion was a watershed issue of our time, and my husband and i heard that, and it was a profound thought for both of us. the importance of that issue and the high value that we need to place on human rights and on human life, the founders did in the declaration of independence. they wrote in the declaration, thomas jefferson penned the words that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights that among those rights are life -- that's the first right. the incredible thing about this statement is that inalienable rights are ones that man cannot give. he's incapable of giving them. government is incapable of giving inalienable right, only a creator can, and the wisdom of the founders, they recognized

this natural law, this truth that was self-evident to all people, that only god could give life, and the other side of that is that not only can man not give that right, nor can government give it, the opposite side is that government is without power or authority to take that right away. [applause] that's valuable. [applause] and i think this is one of the self-evident truths that rings a cord of recognition in the hearts of all men, that there is an inalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and i think that's why this has been such a tremendous controversy since the supreme court decision written by harry blackman in the early 1970s regarding this issue of life, and when we will preserve

life. also, be encouraged. be encouraged on the marriage front. be encouraged on the life front. let me share this statistic with you. there's a poll done at the university, voters opposed by 72% to 23% using any public money in the health care overall to pay for abortions. 72% of americans oppose the prevision in obamacare to pay for taxpayer funded abortions. 72% of the american people. [applause] that's why i am convinced that ultimately be of good cheer. we will win this fight because we will repeal obamacare. [cheers and applause] it will happen. [cheers and applause]

and i am committed, i am committed, i will not rest until we repeal obamacare. america, will not rest until we repeal obamacare. [cheers and applause] take it to the bank, cash the check, it will be done. it will not stand. the american people will not stand. [cheers and applause] because know that you know that you know that you know the american people are with us on this issue. that's why the window of opportunity that we have in 2012 is so crucial. carol who was introducing me before has been working tirelessly in the minnesota legislature to prevent them from

the early implementation of obamacare in our state. in all of your 50 states, e urge you faith and freedom activists to do the same. work in your state to prevent the early implementation of obamacare. this is the dirty deal that was done with obamacare. some of you may know this, some of you may not. when obamacare was given, and we were told to vote on this bill, you can do a search, and you will not find this fact. hidden in the bill, tucked away in the bill, supposedly in plain sight was 105 billion dollars of prefunding of obamacare to implement it in the 50 states. this is like a lot of money, $ $105 billion. we spent, oh, about five or six weeks at the beginning of this week arguing over cutting $37 billion out of the budget.

you think maybe this went unnoticed? at the very last -- in fact, do you think that's why speaker pelosi said we have to pass the bill to know what's in it? maybe that's why members of congress should read these bills before they vote on them. [cheers and applause] don't worry, faith apple family, it's going -- faith and family, it's going to be just fine. we'll repeal the bill, get that money back. don't worry, it's going to be just fine, and recently, this also, i think, has given rise to the steam that's behind the issue of defunding planned parenthood. [cheers and applause] >> at a time when president obama is calling on the congress to give him authority to increase borrowing money that we

don't have so borrow, raise the debt ceiling by borrowing another $2.4 trillion, and we're giving money to corrupt organizations like planned parenthood that are committing crimes and enabling young minor girls in covering up issues? i don't even want to talk about it because it's so disgusting. this organization performed 324,000 abortions in 2008 and in 2009, and that's in addition to the trafficking of underage girls that have gone on under plan parenthood. do you think we can start here by defunding this organization? [cheers and applause] i think so too. it couldn't come soon enough. they are a billion a year organization. they need to stand on their own, and here's another issue that we've all heard about, and it's

come to our attention in the last couple weeks, and that's israel. our president made a shocking display of betraying our greatest friend and ally israel when he said to israel you need to give up yet more land, give up more land, shrink to your 67 borders. as a matter of fact, cut your nation in two so you're separated from each other to indefensible borders and give that land away to the palestinians who, by the way, don't even recognize that israel exists or has a right to defend herself. america must do what all previous presidents have done since harry truman and stand with israel. i stand with israel. [cheers and applause]

in faith and family, we're sending a message to the world that president obama speaks for a very tiny minority. he may be president of the united states, but he does not speak for us on the issue of israel. [cheers and applause] timothy tutu says to pray for those who are in authority, and let me tell you why. when you come into congress, when you're in government here in washington, d.c., things happen so fast it's like you jumped in a blender. that's what it's like around here. we need to ask you for prayer and to uphold us in prayer. we're at the critical time and hour in our nation's historying and our time has gone by so quickly. there's so much more to talk about, but the time is gone.

i wonder if you can indulge me and in the next couple seconds we have together, if we would do what we talk about and pray. join me in prayer on behalf of our nation. father god, i thank you that you are here at our midst in this wonderful conference. thank you for those who sacrificed so much to be here this morning. lord, we thank you for the encourage wants you give us on these issues of marriage and of life, father. we see so much encouragement, and yet we see, father, our nation hangs in the balance financially, morally, and also in our relationship with the rest of the world with our position towards israel. father, we lift all of these thingses up to you. we do pray for our president, the supreme court, we pray for the members of congress. we pray for those who are in authority because this is not a political score card. this is about the very life and future of our nation, so,

father, we lift it up to you because we want our people to be blessed and to prosper. we want all men to come to know you all across the world, and so father, we pray again for your spirit to come down, to come into this nation. again, demonstrate to each one of us this eternal love that you have for us. you say that you want for us prosperity. you want us to prosper, and you say in jeremiah that you have for us a future and a hope. lord, we ask for that future and that hope, and we confess our own sins, father, we confess them to you. we turn away from them now father. we pray for our nation. lord, we know there's things done in our nation that are not pleasing in your sight. lord, we ask your forgiveness for that. we ask once again you turn your face towards us and that you would bless us and empower us to be a blessing to the world, so we thank you, lord, we commit

this conference to you in your holy son's name, amen. have a great conference. thanks for letting me come, bye-bye. be encouraged. bye-bye, everyone. [cheers and applause] >> blair levin who led efforts in the development of national broadband plan assesses the status of broadband today on the on the communicators on c-span2. >> negotiations continue on capitol hill on raising the federal debt ceiling and how to lower the federal deficit. today, members spoke about the deficit and the economy. next we'll hear from charles grassley and senate minority leader mcconnell on the debt ceiling. >> when it comes to doing

oversight, i think i have a reputation of doing just as vigorous oversight when we have republican presidents as much as when we have democrat presidents, and what i'm speaking to the senate about today has no partisanship in it because i could have said the same thing and did say about the same thing when there was a president bush or a president clinton or a president reagan. i speak today about watchdogging the watchdogs as i've done many times in the past. i first started watchdogging the pentagon back in the early 1980s when president reagan was ramping up defense spending. then, a group of defense reformers were examining the pricing of spare parts at the defense department, and we

uncovered some real horror stories like $750 toy let seats and ashtrays going into aircraft. as these stories hit the street, offices of inspectors general, we call them oig's, office of inspector general, these were spouting up in every federal agency. as a result of a recently passed agent of congress in 1978. the defense department, oig, officially opened for business march the 20th, 1983. today, thanks to the inspector general act of 1978 and the taxpayers, we now have a real army of watchdogs. the question is to what extent

are they doing their business? this mushrooming idea bureaucracy is very exceptive. it costs over $2 billion a year, but it now occupies a pivotal oversight position within our government, a very important role to play. as a senator dedicated to watchdogging the taxpayers' precious money, i looked to the ig's for help. that's because i just don't have the resources in my own office to investigate every allegation that might come my way, like other members of congress, i regularly tap into this vast reservoir of talent that's called the inspector general. we count on them. we put our faith and trust in their independence and honesty. we rely on them to root out and detour fraud and waste in

government wherever that waste and fraud rears its ugly head. if, and that's a big if, if the ig's are on the ball, then the taxpayers are not supposed to worry about things like $750 toilet seats. i underscore the word "if" because fraud and waste are still alive and well in government. now, you could legitimately ask, how could this be? we created a huge army of watchdogs, yet fraud and waste still exists unchecked, so i keep asking myself that same question that you might ask, who was watchdogging the watchdogs? well, there's an ig watchdog agency called the counsel of inspectors general on integrity and efficiency, but that's just another toothless wonder, so the senator from iowa has a duty

today, i'm here to present another oversight report on the pentagon watchdog. i call it a report card on fiscal year 2010 audits issued by the department of defense inspector general. it assesses progress towards improving audit quality in response to recommendations that i made on an oversight report that i gave to my fellow senators last year. after receiving a series of anonymous letters from whistle-blowers about gross mismanagement at the office of inspector general and the audit office within that office, my staff had an in-depth oversight review. my staff focused in this audit on reporting by that office and our work began two years ago. on september 7, 2010, i issued

my first oversight review evaluating the 113 audit reports issued for fiscal year 2009. it determined that the office of inspector general audit capability which costs the taxpayers about $100 million a year, these capabilities were gravely impaired. as a watchdog, degrading audit capabilities give me serious heart burn for one simple reason. it puts the taxpayers' money in harm's way, it leaves a huge sum of money vulnerable to theft and waste. audits are the inspector general's primary tool for rooting out fraud and waste. audits are the tip of an inspector general's speer, a good speer always needs a finely

honed cutting edge. right now, the spoipt of that speer is dull. the inspector general's audit weapon is effectively disabled. in speaking about my first report here on the floor last september 15, e couraged inspector to "hit the audit reset button" and give audit -- get audits to refocus on the core general mission of detecting and reporting fraud and waste. my report offered 12 specific recommendations for getting the audit process back on track and lined up with the inspector general's act of 1978. the office of inspector general's report or a response to my report has been very positive and very constructive. in a letter to me dated

september 17th last year, he promised to "transform the audit organization. " consistent with recommendations in my report. the newly appointed deputy ig for audits, mr. dan believer produced -- blair, produced a road map pointing the way forward. that report dated september 15 laid out a plan for improving "timeliness, focus, and relevance of audit reports." he promised to create "a world class oversight organization providing benefit to the department, the congress, and the taxpayer." as part of the response to my report, the audit office also tasked two independent consulting companies to conduct an organizational assessment of

the audit office and its reports. these independent professionals seemed to reach the very same conclusions that i have. the quest report issued october 2010 put it this way -- "we do not believe audit is electing the best audits to detect fraud, waste, and abuse." . states have lost sight of that goal and -- quote -- "need to step back and refocus on the i.g.'s core mission." end of quote. so, mr. president, that is exactly what i saw last year and what i continue to see today. however, i want to be not totally pessimistic. all of the signals coming since my report from the i.g.'s office are encouraging. they tell me that i am on the right track.

the best question before us is this: when will the promised reforms begin to pop up on the radar screen? the fiscal year 2010 reports examined in my report card are issued between october 2009 and september 2010. september 2010. with with woo-hoo who favor set in so to speak long beforesurfan mr. blair's transformation. so the full impact of thosescal reforms will not begin to surface in public reports, to sy however, that is not to say that some improvement is not possible any time now since discussions regarding the need for audit

reform actually began in ha-joon, 2009. as you will soon see, mr. president, there is no selling of sustained improvement not hit today but a faint glimmer of light can be seen in the distant horizon. s in orderol to establish a solid baseline for assessing the ing transfer efforts, my staff has f taken another snapshot of recens audits. my recent hid overview report it best characterized as a report card because that is its ackley what it is. each of the 113 on classified audits issued in fiscal year fie 2010 was reviewed, and evaluated and greeted in five categories has followed. category number one was conneing relevance, category number two,

trail, number three, strength and accuracy of recommendations, fraud and waste, and number five, timeliness. the grades were awarded in eachd category.each the average necessary obviously to use one to five and then convert them to move the standards scoring was based on d answers to questions like this. was the audit aligned with the court inspector general missiont did the audit connect all the fm dots in the cycle of transactions from contract whato did the audit to verify the scope of the fraud and waste using the primary source accounting records or the recommendations top and l appropriate and last, howpleted quickly was the audit completed? each report was given a score called the jongh yard index.og

that is the overall average of the great awarded in the five evaluation categories. foowing following procedure was used. ge e or less reseeded a grade of eight and those completed in six to nine months be, those six to nine are nine to 12 months c and those taking 12 to 15 months d and those that took over 15ded months, f.individual aftelyr each was greeted report individually the scores for eacr report in the reading categoryce were added up an average to create a composite score of alll 113 audit reports.re the overall composite score awarded to the 113 reports was a b minus.y this was very low indeed and the grading system used to subject however subjective as it may be

the staff has determined thateao it's reasonable and a rough measureou of quality and right w audit quality is poor. but it's driven by a pervasive e efficiencies and surfaced in every report examined with 15utf exceptions out of 113.y those are the same ones pinpointed by the quest report previously referred to. instead of being a hard core busting contracts and financiald audits, most reports or policy recommendations that i gave to the inspector general last criti september when i criticized what they were doing spending too

much time on policy audits and not enough time on chasing the y money. the you've got to follow the money if you're going to find out pary where there is waste, fraud and abuse particularly fraud.ese hav what's been done for most of these have no redeeming value nt whatsoever because they did not pursue the contract financial audits instead of policy compliance reviews. simply the auditors then were not on the money trail 24/7 fraud and waste as mandated bye the ing act.t the auditors got it right, mostly right in five reports an partially right in to another clearly this is a drop in the bucket. but the jse 15us reports whichid

constitute 13% of the total we reviewed for fiscal year 2010 is output proves that the auditli office is capable of producing b quality reports. the 15 best reports earned grades good to very good.rades overall, with excellent grades e in several categories. they involve some credibleork. commendable audit work. gold each one deserves a gold star. s the top five reports earned overall scores of c plus to be r the scores would have been much higher were it not for the longo the average time to complete the five top reports was 21 months. long completion times make fer stila information. and of course makes the reports irrelevant. had they been completed in six months for example, they could s

have earned a b plus score such long completion times clearly show that doingkn nitty gritty down in the trenches audit workt requires large audit teams. if, and i want to emphasize if it were to be completed and in e reasonable length of time, right now there are no specified goalh for audit completion times. they are desperately needed.e organized with the right skills set to meet those goals. my report includes seven individual report cards, six on wors the best reports and one on the worst report. to und i think the best way for my rep colleagues toor understand my th audit report card is to brieflye walk through two of them, the ge best and the worst. the highest grade was awarded tf

an audit at the department of defense entitled foreign allowances and differentials paid to the dod civilianing employees supporting overseas contingency operations, end of th report title. e this report examines the accuracy of $213 million in payments to 11,700 dod civilians in fiscal year 2007, 2008. quo for overseas, quote on quote,ars the injured and hardship after reviewing the relevanthe payment records, the auditors determined that the defense to finance and accounting service, and i will refer to that as anee acronym had made improper payments, underpayments and overpayments totaling 57 to seven tenths million dollars. the audit recommended that to

the director take appropriate corrective action r to reimbursp or recover the improper payments. pols and new policies and proceduresp preclude the erroneous payments ine. the future to read this report received an overall grade of d , however it received excellent grades eight - in three categories, relevance, connecting the dots on the monen trail and fraud andey waste metr ti recommendations and timeliness because it took too long over 21 lo- over months to complete.mplete -and s and so it's still at that pointo the auditors went to the primary source records to verify the err exact aonmount of the erroneous payments and i want to emphasize to the auditors that this move is the one reason why this hig report earned high scores. j

very few of its, just a handful, satchel e-verified dollar amounts using primary sourceands accounting records. and that's why i emphasize soil often to foifllow y the money tl of your going to find fraud ande the waste. in this report the go far recommendations were good but e. did not go far enough. recommended recovery or or reimbursement of over or under payments was worth a b minus, but responsible officials were not identified and held accountable for the sloppyhat accounting work that produced 5p to seven tenths million dollarsf of the erroneous payments.ou and it's kind of a rule of thumt are around this place if you mae don't identify who screwed up and make responsible and send a message to other people how are you going to get changes to be maded the etaudit office followed up o determine whether the director had made steps to reimburse

underpayment to recovernts? overpayments the answer is noths probably no. in fact, nothing has been done.a on february 23rd, 2011, in response to a question from myss office it was reported that the department of defense is still, policy to fix the problem. now isn't it funny that they space to develop a policy for what is obviously wrong? once that process is completed,t it will, quote, take appropriate corrective action to reimburse and initiate collection action.e when auditors make a good recommendations and nothing kin happens, it's like they are inaf the wilderness, and of course that's got to be at this late hour probably the correcting are

mistakes, the chances of correcting our feeding fast. for starters, this work begans o over two years ago.it l 2006, that's five years ago with the passage of so much time this has become essentially an academic exercise. that is exactly why reports need to focus on current problems ane why they must be completed, promptly.hich that is exactly why this one which took 16 months tofor complete, earned an f for timeliness but otherwise was a pretty a good audit. the audit examined in my report card 98 of all or 87% of the total output for fiscal year earned a grade of d and f.

these are pimex and voyles of the kind of its targeted in the s est report that was previousle referred to.d that's an outside report brough- in by the department of defenset to bring them in to do some investigating that isn't questionable because they don't have an interest in what comesou out. to det but in these audits were not designed to detect fraud and to waste. that's what the oig department ought to be doing.oney follow the money trail. and the sanctions, they were not on the money trail where they needed to be. m and where the audit manual is tell auditors to go to detectd fraud and waste. they truly needs to be audited.ary they had little or no monetary value or impact. some were mandated by congress

including the 27 of stimulusthat projects. we that's from the stimulus that we passed here in 2009. it should have been formed to tackle fees. unfortunately the exact opposite happened. these were the worst of the worst. they contained no findings of any consequence. they offered few if any ident recommendations. most did not even identify the cost of the project audit. deepy the tax payers were deeply concerned about the value of the so-called schoeppel ready jobs that were supposed to be quickls consumed by the stimulus bill og 2005. the tax payers were looking ford aggressive oversight but sums o taxpayers wanted assurances that use sums of money were not tax

wasted. got the taxpayers got none of the objectives they sought. instead of probing audits, taxpayers got the equivalent of an inspector general approval like a rubber stamp that reads okay, approved. mr. president, i will not review the worst reports. it typifies i will now review the worst record. it typifies the ineffectiveness and wastefulness of the bulk of the fiscal year 2010 audit production. i remind my colleagues each of n $800,000.repo the report that received the lowest score in title by thedefe management agency acquisition work force for southwest asia.

it received a score in every br. category across the board. the purpose of this report was r to determine whether the antract defense contract management agency had adequate manpower tot oversee contract in southeast asia.hat it concluded that the defense contract management agency was not able to determine those requirements and there was no plan in doing so. the me report recommended that the defense contract management requirements for southwest asia. this was many of the policyn reviews, but this one was uniquk in that it took 18 months to review a policy that did not even accessed.ed

this audit should have been terminated early on what is thes report points out the inspectoro general's office has no process, are no longer relevant, and of quote, so this is like a runaway train and what redeeming valuefo did this report offered to the taxpayers? none that i can see. this is the stuff for the study or some think tank iependt analysis.sp not for anecto independent offi. inspector general office. this audit like so many others like it did not focus on fraudun and waste and not surprisingly found no for release.

the defense agency has a long history of exercising lacks contract oversight. the office of the inspector general resources would have been better spent auditing one m of the defense contract management agencies, one and three tenths trillion dollars i. contracts. go where the money is if you want to i find the fraud, follow the money. hee individual report cards on t the best and worst of it is meant to be constructive, educational exercise. so i am hoping the analyses accompanying these reports cards will serve as a guide and a learning tool for auditors and s managers alike.read i am hoping the auditors will read my report and use it to sk. sharpen their skills. them i hope will help to guide them on a path to reform andsdopt and

transformation. but the auditors follow thee the guidelines used to gain the quality of the best and worst reports will begin producing top-quality audits that are fully aligned with the core missions prescribed by the 1978w law. before wrapping up my comments,e i'd like to call attention of my colleagues to several very interesting charts presented in the final section of my report card. they appear in the chapter " entitled comparative performanct with of their audit offices meaning other departments executive branch. these two sets of chartsontrast. highlight striking contracts. being they show the department of defense auditors are being significantly outperformed by the pierce at three other umencies, the department ofnd h ntalth and human services,opme housing and urban development,d and homeland security.

and by very substantial margins indeed. the pierce might be five times more productive than they are ae the department of defense androe able to produce audits at one-quarter of their cost. i would offer one copy of of what i said about the other i.g. departments and on eg. while i of reviewed comparative avsts and productivity data froh all four of the audit office is, i have not even we did the quality of reports issued by thn human services, department of su homeland security and housing and urban development as i did report on quality of the department of defense report tok card. a i happen to think that it's ao but it may not be and i want to su. say that i don't know for sure. deputy ig of the audit mr. blair

needs to provide a satisfactory explanations otherwise you mayhe need to hit the reset button aud once again on august productione and cost as well as what he said he's doing now. cannot b be happy with an auditf the , i think that he problem ad understands the problem. is in and by understand that his heart is in the right place and he's taken the right steps to fix it. his commitment to reform and mr. blair's promised to quote oo quote create ate, world-class auditing oversight organization those words happen to be music to my years. they both will for the future.l and afterwards bode well for the future that these people do do their job and do it right fraudl and waste will be rooted out ast people would fear to commit that in the first place considering e

the fact people are going to bet on their tail and find out i about. for right now though, i cannot report that i see a sustained improvement in audit quality. nb not yet, not by a long shot, buy the signals coming my way are good and i said that at the beginning of my comments. horizn the way it can be seen on a of distant horizon. maybe we will see it in the nexe batch of audits and i will be here to report to my colleagues with the audits show and i hopem i can give every one of them b's and a's to read the 15 bestt ofn reports show the department of defense office of inspector general audit office is capableg of producing quality reports. te that number to call off in the bucket but these reports could be a solid foundation for building on the future. repeat them in ten times andl be mr. blair could be on his way to creating the that world-class tl

auditing operation. one that would be capable oftin, eetecting, not only detect, butb because people are going to be of so scared of them it's going to be detoured fraud and waste. mr. president those goals can bl dhieved mr. heddell and tear mr. blair need to tear down some walls.n aud and iit call them the top ten audit road blocks and they are a these. one, top a management lacks and clear and common vision of and commitment to the inspector general core mission, a problem that adversely affects every aspect of auditing. number taudiwo, second roadblock most are policy compliance beneo reviews that yield of zero financial benefit the taxpayers. roadblocks three all the terse are not on the money trail 24/7

where the need to be to detect fraud and waste.ock roadblock member for, auditorsey consistently fail to verifyy potential fraud and waste by connecting all the dots in the o cycle of transactions. d the need the contract and requirements with deliveries and payments using primary source mp documents by making these to matchups, auditors will be positioned to address key government receive what it ordered at an agreed upon price and schedule, or did theped government get ripped off and if so, ripped off by how muchost money? roadblock five most audits takee so long to complete that they ae are stale and irrelevant by the time they are published. reasonable time to complete goals need to be set, and the

wi audit team then can be organized with the right skills set to meet the skill sets to meetthese these goals. the road blocks six until thenting department of defense accounting system is fixed complete auditsf will require large audit teams if reports are to be completed within a reasonable length ofit time. roadblock number seven audit findings and recommendations are usually weak responsible officials are rarely heldnd accountable and wasted money isd rarely recommend it for theretun recovery and returning to the treasury.le roadblock eight, while relentless follow-up is anudit important part of auditing inspectors it is not practiced laste roadblock since thebroken department of defense brokeng te accounting system is obstructing

the audit process, contracts designed to fix the systemmuch e needed to be assigned a high your audit priority. these barriers stand between all the promises and reality deputy blair must find a way to tear these walls are otherwise reform and a transaction will these never happen. these issues will demand by my oversight team and by other i ot should say all of the oversight bodies as well including the committees on armed services an. appropriations. and mr. president, my oversight staff will keep reading and audt evaluating the office of inspector general audits until steadier improvement is popping out on my oversight radar screen

every day.jection. i yield the floor and said just. an p absence of a quorum. d >> senators return to washingtoi this week. we do so in a crush of troublin. news about the economy.hat in the past week alone we learned helm home values acrosse the country are still falling at a time when about one out ofeady five homeowners already owe mor. on their homes than the home is worth.ers sales are down, manufacturersweh are showing the weakest growth s in nearly two years and there's deep pessimism about theover prospect of recovery any time soon so while some in washington have sought to paper over the ae economic problems or offer week assurances that the recovery is right around the corner,end millions of americans continue to suffer with no end in sight. and very few people are

confident that things will turn. around anytime soon. now it's no secret why. for two and a half years servict democrats in washington have paid lip service to the idea of job creation will pursuing an ad agenda that is radically opposed to it and the results speak fore themselves. tri they told us if we borrow a trillion dollars and spent it on employment wouldn't rise above 8%. two and a half years later unemployment is hovering above 9%, on your than when the stimulus was signed. they told us if we spent trillions on a new health care entitlement we cwould see healg care costs go down. a year later, health care costs are expected to go up.idn't ha they told us if we spend money o we didn't have on things like tl cash for clunkers, tunnels, solar panels and windmills, in - other words on more government the recovery would take care ofn

itself. last week a second agency our threatened if we don't get our fiscal house in order in a matter of weeks, america's reading rooms a serious risk of being downgraded. now this is on chartered territory and warning signs are clear and urgent something musti be done.ot the first step is hto recognize how we gotas here.th that's the easy part. two a the government driven policies asve the last two and a half yew have clearly. the next step is getting democrats in washington to admie it.w w that's the hard part.nything, if the last few weeks have show in washington are in a deep state of denial. we've seen their approach to all the warnings as signs of an economic catastrophe have gathered, republicans haveating offered concrete proposals for creating jobs and growing theule

economy. we have offered multiple concrete budget proposals, we'vg offered specific plans for reining in the cost of entitlements and for preserving 30 democrats offered a 32nd a campaign ad of someone pushing a grandmother of a cliff. as rating agencies set up so ofc the to smoke signals about theil catastrophic consequences of a b potential default, the public as a proposed plan would rein in dt our deficits and debt and send o clear signal to tax payers andms the world that lawmakers inns. washington have the will to live mocrats within ourru means. rmocrats rushed to the whiteest house and demand the presidentte raised taxes.a wake-up the past weeks should have been a wake-up call for democrats. they sent it through toion voicemail more concern about ans havetion that's nearly two and half years away democrats have ignored every single morning. ae

americans look at this and ask e themselves the simple question when will these guys gethe every light on the control panel is flashing red and yet in allen the bad news this past friday the president heads out to himsn toledo to pat himself on the back for although bailout expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. nearly 14 million americans are looking for jobs and can't finde them, yet the president who of acknowledges free trade agreement will create hundreds suddenly holding them hostage in exchange for even more government spending.et american businesses on to expanh and hire a hit the white house is weighing them down withcost a mountains of regulations ands, d cost, health care mandates, futr taxes and conflicting signals about the future. resources energy producers want to tapis into our own resources yet the administration is blocking them at every turn.

one of the nation's biggest and proudest manufacturers wants tod employ thousands and solidify its reputation as an industry leader in the world. to yet the administration is unio standing in the wayn in order to help their union allies.dent's since when do businesses have to ask the president's permission to create jobs? most people know that when it comes to a politicians, you shod pay more attention to what they never was this more true that when it comes to democrats in washington today. just consider this three years ago my good friend, the majorith issued a report blasting thet a. administration on its approach and debt.yment he called those figures as casualty of the administration's failed economic policies and a e shameful legacy of the policies of the previous eight years. the

at the time my friend the majority leader made that statement, unemployment mr. president was 5%. the national debt stood at $9.2 trillion.ion. today with unemployment above 9% and the debt at more thanent. $14 trillion, democrats are silent. they have no plan, no proposals, no sense of urgency. t white they run the white house and the senate yet their entire approach is to sit back and wait. no budget, no plans, just wait for the next election. attack tm with the offer solutions and ten we will attack them and prepare you care about jobs.aitg unless your political consultana waiting around for a b bailout,w

the d plan won't do anything toe create a single new job, not ons and it won't do anything to there is address the crisis we knew was coming. back that's why republicans refuse to sit back and wait. aitil we see more jobs being reg created and until the americancn people begin to regain their confidence in this economy we will have to be all there answes proposing solutions, coming up with answers, making our case and we will keep at it until oue space friends finally start to focus on the battle for yr's america's future instead of the battle over next year'se quoruml mr. presideesnt, i suggest thei. absence of a quorum.wanted t >> i want to share a fewt the thoughts about the state of thet effectiveness in this congress and confronting in particular the lack of the latests

leadership of the senate to deat withh a crisis that we are facig both economically and financially as part of our economic condition you can't separateep those two. the economic indicators are not good. last week we were pummeled with a series of reports on the was bad news and continuing to be disturbing actually.is the shell of the population that is employed today declined to 58.4%, the lowest level since 1983. the percentage of people workine today is the lowest we have hadn since 1983.w dimaci honchar reports fell short of projections and the f view of economist for a gain of

167,000 jobs, but in fact, we we had gained 111,000 fewer than that. we had a very low job creation and it marks one of the worst m. job reports in eight months. everybody's been saying things e are getting better and jobs are getting better, but this is ay wake-up call. the numbers have not beenfragil solved. they've hav been fragile. the jobs have to increase abouty 180,000 a month to at least a he level, and to be able tot, increase you have to be abovempt that, reduce the unemployment rate, has to be above 180,000. so we were far below that this month. the percentage of people then ae who are long-term unemployedr who've been unemployed for 27 weeks or more jump nearly two

percentage points to 45.1. in 9.1% from 9% however theount unemployment rate does not taker into account those who aree enderemployed or may have become discouraged and that is why weee have such a low percentage ofe people working. many are discouraged and have given up looking for work. of since its peak of 12,800, the ae dow jones industrial average hin an more than 5% over the last weekd and i believe this is the sixtht consecutive week it has decline. deteriorated the confidence survey is down 12 points fromrur its peak and justin february and then steadily down consumer th expectations about the futureor,

are even worse falling more thas 20 points in the last three months. 97.5 to 75.2. three month drop in consumerints confidence and more than 20uring points was march of 2008 during the heart of the greatombine recession. change the unemployment rate with the change of inflation hit 12.2%, ng those are grim statistics and indeed i am looking at the lead expressed unease about, very seriseous concern and his lead column for the publication. he quotes a report from felipe d

and doug on the report and quoted from their analysis more than a little shocking and to uf as well referring to himself isy that private employment today is 2% below where it stood two years ago and they noted the jod loss over a ten year period is unprecedented. in other words over ten years we en the first time we've ever perio identified a tenure period in s our history he goes back to 1990 that we have actually seen a ten decline in employment and ten years. quoti

t so farhe they point out somewhat grim with avery gain 1.8 millioe jobs lost in the great recessiot and its aftermath are about one in five. f as a week and recovered about one in five jobs and you've beet reading the job growth is out there but it hasn't been much, .d's been anemic and so is gdp g growth, and he goes on to note the number of people out of work this month increased by 167,000, and a good number of those, 44.6% to be precise have been or unemployed for 27 weeks or longer within the distance of its all-time high.f the average stay in their ranks

of joblessness have reached the longest in the postwar period and that's world war ii. so that is the longest time for people with almost half thebein7 people would. it's not a good situation and ws tried the federal reserve is trying, the congress ran through a stimulus bill that didn't i ft work. i i felt it wouldn't work andinedh explained why at that time but passed anyway adding 800, $900 billion to our total debt. every penny of that was borrowei and it hasn't worked but we wilt last year the highway spending . was authority billion dollars. the interest on the bill will bt almost that much forever iup to start paying down our debto and there's no plan on the table

to reduce our debt in the say immediate future so what what i see a lot more we are today? i believe that this congress cannot justify having created ae financial situation in which 40 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. we spent 3.7 trillion, excused o me, we take in 2.2 trillion aret every economist has told us innn the committee and the ranking republican with his -- which is unsustainable. the highest deficit was tootwo s high, $450 billion, the budgets now under president obama have, been 1.2, 1.3 trillion this $1. year, said to refer the of, we

expect it to be $1.5 trillion in debt added to our deficit. i but the entire debt of the his d united states in four years of d this leadership and the budget s that he submitted to it earlier this year makes the situation b worse. if you take the basic trajectore of the congressional budgetaises office, the present budget evenp if it raises taxes spending more and actually put us on a more be unsustainable path than otherwise would be the case, ane over that in your budget that h0 proposes the lowest deficit is $740 billion in the year eight, nine and ten is going to a the here.c, it's a systemic unsustainable go deficit and it's got to be to re confronted and we've got toe're reduce spending to reach everybody knows that. but we are not willing to do sod

the democratic leader when weebe had the continuing resolution td e d the debate on how much to h spend the rest this fiscal years he proposed a 4 billion-dollarad reduction of spending. and our deficit will be he p 1,500,000,000,00ro0 this year. he proposed to cut and after thn house passed 60 or $70 million of spending reductions for the rest of the year the democratic leaders here are down to aboutsd 35i believe. so we are not facing up to theo? outa so what do you? the fed has cut interest rateset to zero.ing we are spending our unlimited amount of money. we tried all kinds of gimmicksec andin efforts, reducing social h security and other things to tr to create growth in the economy

ide suggest part of the problems the deficit itself. the professors have written a book this time that's differenti and in their analysis when he or debt equals 90% or more of yourt economy, you will show at leastc a 1% f reduction in economic growth for that year. this year a word that was already about 95% of gdp or 100y of gdp by 630 of 1.8% growth ori below what would original we've been projected and that was the reva analysis of it. their 1.8 according to their theory is a big 2.8. debt in excess of 90% of theand

gross domestic product. and i asked the secretary of bud treasury at the budget hearing did he agree with the study which has received quite a bit of attention and a great deal oe respect and attention he said he did. he said in some ways the situation is worse and that suggests we could have an debt-s economic crisis. when your debt to gdp is 90 or 100 per cent it's how you can have a circumstance like, someone like we had with a financial meltdown or like wen are having increase.he so we have been warned by the fiscal commission chairman and y co-chairman appointed by president obama and alan simpsof with a test site and said we art facing the most predictable economic crisis in our nation's history. the most predictable. i want to ask when it might,

happen. two years give or take. so we don't know what's going to happen. we have to just grow up, real in lives that we've placed our nation in financial jeopardy, that this country spend money it did not have to a degree greates than this nation has ever said before except maybe in the w height of world war ii when the nation was in a life-and-death struggle we've mone never spent this kind of money. we've never had these kind of deficits the very fight over spending in the mid nineties and msulted in the balancing of tha budget in the late 90's. the was a much simpler problem than we've got to do i've looked at the numbers.

gve studied the numbers.to to get this country to thebalaui balanced budget is going to tak, some very, very seriouse sustained work. it's going to be much more the significant than it was in the and mid 90's. and we simply cannot grow this y economy which is the key to getting ourselves out of the mess we are in. i we cannotn. grow it by just passing more taxes. d we can't do that. and congress has got to step up to the plate, and i was remained extremelydi disappointed that td majority here in the senate dido not even bring a budget to the floo lr last year 750 or 60 some odd days we'rene spending money we don't even have a budget it wasn't even doe brought to the floor last year.

in the not a single appropriations bilo was brought to the floor and passed last year. and since i've been here, and i our guess in 20 or more your eye ofs the largest majority in the ynate has ever had. the 60 votes last year in the0 a senate. it only takes 50 to pass aan pas budget you can pass a budget without super majority come without a filibuster it's a budt designed to make sure we pass a budget because it's needed thegt we pass a budget but it wasn't even brought up last year. we've not even market, we commie haven't had a hearing in the budget to man committee to marked the budget. and it's under the budget act the budget is supposed to be a passed by april 15th. the house has passed a budget, , historic budget, sound budget.

it changes unsustainablery trajectory we are all in. it's responsible, it's gotten widespread bipartisan applause for being a serious attempt to s confront a financial crisis thag we are facing, and the senatero ris not produced anything indeef my good friend, our majority leader harry reid has said it would be foolish to pass the ssh budget. and his staff said something budget.mean foolish to pass a budget. what did he mean by that? it would it be against the american interest to pass a budget? bud what we make the country less ie we pass the budget? would we be less responsible to not pass the budget? than to pass one? think

i don't think so. i don't think that's what he meant. what he meant is it would be foolish politically to pass a budget. last so he didn't bring one on the floor last year, he got 53 now.. why? because when you produce a f budget, yorou have to set forth for the entire world, theeople,d financial world, the american people and the political world,p the individual citizens of this republic what your plans are for the future. w what are we going to do?? how much are we going to spend? how much are we going to tax? ct how much deficit will be created its to be found and it's not going to be found sooner so trust me i've looked at thers. numbers. we've got to get on the right

path. i guess because if he producespn the budget he might have to cutg spending and somebody might complain. if he produced a budget and it's consistent with what some of my tax he's got a bunch of tax increases that might not beulare popular.ot goingo so since it's not popular we are just not going to do it. while we've got the lowest number of people working in this economy since 1983 and we are 2m below the number of people actually working ten years ago tax has been the idea of how to make an economy grow is not sound. it. we've tried it. over my it was gone over my objection

but it was done.we we threw money at this economy,h the likes of which we have never seen before. irw they are reducing their the spending, they are making someta tough choices in the u.k. and u. some have been pushing back.e be you are cutting it too muchng where people say you are cutting cu bac back skpending too much. we've got to have this money. but the international monetary fund say today i believe it was today they said the u.k., the brits stayed the course, stay with your fiscal responsibilityi that was initiated by the new conservative government. don't go back to spending. don't adopt the idea that yout f can create something out of nothing by borrowing money, money you don't have, and with

she laid that out in her song really well nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. you can't borrow your way out oe debt. and my granddaddy said we have got to face the music. we don't have the money to are. operate at the level we are. a i was in a town meeting inbama,d marion alabama and an elderlythe gentleman said he lived throughe the depression, lived through world war ii, lived through the great inflation in the 70's ande he sees this other challenge we face today and he said the problem is not of a high cost of living, the cost of living too he w the las high. he was the last one to speak ana i felt there was a silence

there. l the cost of living too high. tse that these people in the treasury. don'tave to worry we will all be successful and we don't have to worry about paying it off. what's a little debt?'s well, we went down that road and in's gotten completely out of sa control. and we can't sustain it.ur we are at a point where the debt threatens our economic growth and it's already reducing the growth by 1%. growt and if we have had to% growth over year instead of 1.8 as we did the first quarter, that means a million more people tl employed.is 1% growth economists tell us is. equal to a million people

employed. growt you get 3%, 5% growth like weren ought to have coming out ofmillf recession, then you can have millions of jobs created and but change this direction of the country. but we have used every weapon w. sound policy.w dget out t so what do we do? how do we get out of the mess wo are in? ngn to be an easyo road but we need to reduce spein spending. we have increased spending in the last few years, first two years under president obama, 24e discretionary nondefense spending. we can't cut back where we were in the previous day the united states of america going to cease to exist if we reduce spending? we are going to have to. we don't have the money.f so we do that. the wo we send a message to the world like the people in england.

we understand the problem, weo we are going trooad, get on tht road, we are going to put ourselves to the wheel and lift this country forward and put itd on a sound path. do ca will do that.at's what t amei that's what the american people said i'm convinced in this last election. they want the responsibility owe here and we know it to them andy i hope and pray that we can come together and make some the we spend money and the amount of debt that we have got. yes, it might be tough for ari while, but we will get on the right path. we will get this country going in the right direction.ou're so, when you are confused abouto the future, nobody knows exactlo what to do i think it is i