i don't see anything. is there anything that restrains the metal? .one .. >> i am not clear if there is if the economy does not recover whether or not that suspension still applies or not. the interesting to see how that's interpreted.

>> gramm-rudman allow the congressional budget office to announce that there was a recession. i've always kind of hoped i'd be able to do that. [laughter] >> is there another question? >> peter from deutsche bank. does the panel blacks from optimistic too pessimistic, to question, one the baseline i think is critical, and just point-and-click occasion. is the cbo charged with using current law? >> that's the law. that is the law. >> given that -- >> that doesn't mean the committee has to do it. >> it comes fairly close to stabilizing debt to gdp, so that one and have trained would presumably put on a more positive trajectory.

in starting out you indicated you thought we needed more. is that an issue of disagreement over the baseline, or do you think we really do need more? i think giving cdos charge here, i agree with rudy, it's going to be very tough to get this through. >> if they do use a current law baseline, they would have to pay for all of the things that cdo calls realistic policy changes, plus the one and a half trillion. >> one other wrinkle here is the economy is slowing, the baseline path of gdp could well be lower which would make it even more difficult. >> except it's an absolute number. so whatever the baseline is, it's a change, it's an absolute. >> all these questions about baseline, i'm not sure the committee can't do whatever it wants. there's no, the way i read it as

i described earlier, i'm not sure what there is to enforce, if the requirement is actually the way the supreme court would read it at the cbo current law baseline is what supposed to be followed, how it gets enforced. it's not clear to me. >> can i make one quick observation? if everything else goes to hell in a handbasket, remember that congress has to pass the law to undo current law. there's an election next november, and the expiration of those tax cuts is december. the person who has the ultimate trigger, i think, is the president of the united states. because if he could veto that and put us back to current law. >> this goes beyond the charge of this panel but the last point you made is extremely important.

10 year projections are such that they can change radically, very quickly. and cbo is fairly modest in reflecting the slow rate of growth that we are experiencing in their midsession update. it would not take much of a deterioration in the economic assumptions, to make our debt problem look a lot more like greece. than it does today. that is something that everybody should worry a great deal about. >> there's that kind of route cheer. [laughter] >> let me agree with that, that the way the super committee is charged, things will be scored against current law but there also have, a lot, and they can also use scoring against different baselines. that can either be used for terrible games, you know, if we start see savings, and we try to -- but you can also see that use

as way to help this negotiation before because we know everybody will have to put forth policies they don't really want to do. so if we can use the baseline to help them, maybe that can be a good thing. my only comment about one and half trillion wasn't enough, was the assumption nobody needs sticks for the current law baseline. and what they do is pretend, save one have tried and then go ahead and patched amt and the doc fix and the tax cuts, we're not going to be where we need to be. i think we know that compare to any realistic baselines there's political will towards sticking fields we will need more, or if you want to say we'll stick to current law to me to put it in real paygo procedures, have much higher hurdles and have a process to keep us on track. and i think rudy is right that savings right now that with the document to stabilize the debt, assumes current economic projections. the risk is on the downside of things will get worse so that savings will have to get, the

fiscal metrics i think most people agree to which is you want to stabilize the debt, and bring it on a downward trajectory closer to historical levels, it's likely we'll need more, not less savings. i want to take one final question for the panel. a quick question, but i would like to know the percentage chance that everybody gives to the likelihood that the super committee will meet or exceed its goal. we'll take the bare minimum, the 1.2 trillion, by chance you think of getting that savings or more by the stated in line. >> me first? okay. >> running our own marketing. you our first. >> i put it in percentage terms, i would say maybe 40%. spent i thought i was -- i don't think there's any chance they will exceed 1.2, 1.5 in terms of real savings. it doesn't mean they can't

propose additional savings beyond the 1.2, 1.5 but i don't think there's any chances. i'd be very happy -- >> in 1844 henry clay ran for president of the united states and lost. he's one of the 14 men featured in c-span's new weekly series, the contenders. this week live from ashland henry clay's kentucky home friday at eight eastern.use] >> now former mayor new york city mayor rudy children talks about the anniversary of september 11 attacks and u.s. security since 9/11. he also weighs in on the republican presidential race and current u.s. foreign policy. from the national press club, lyis is 55 minutes.arge f one.our guest speaker, the lame duck mayor completing the t final months of his second term, who assured americans that the nation's greatest city would survive even as smoke and fir's

dulled a bright blue september as smo sky. sure, he had handled plenty of sueh tasks before in his career as a prosecutor and eventually d u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, our guest prosecuted mobsters and wall street financiers including ivan boesky. no stranger to washington he also served as an associate attorney general in the justicer department during the reagan administration. ass when he became mayor in 1994,ttl new york seemed overtaken by admi crime niand urban decay. our speaker is credited withban. reducing the crime rate ands cproving cthe quality of life, in particular cracking down onoi nuances such as squeegee men,t f w aggressive panhandling, and very relevant to the state, given the taurus and there, for cleaning up times square. wally does not insist on an, it would be appropriate to call may urge early on -- mayor giuliani serve.

it is a reminder that is a survivor of prostate cancer. he leads a security form which helps businesses and governments prepare for disasters. we will be asking him about his thoughts on the political landscape. a political moderate, at least the way it turns out these days, and he ran in 2008 for the republican nomination. although he topped opinion polls, he did not fare as well in the primaries. we're told he has not officially ruled out another month for the white house, a decision he says he will not make until after the 10th anniversary of 9/11 passes. he said he would focus more on the economy than national security, and tell me if we're wrong, if you have to talk about what people are concerned about. and what they are concerned about is the economy. today as we approach the somber anniversary, our primary focus

is the state of the nation's security a decade after the september 11 terrorist attack. as i began my term, i made it a priority of my own to land the top notch speaker for this occasion. i am especially grateful that he is accepted our invitation. please give a warm national press club welcome to rudy giuliani. >> thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. he is the 104th president of the press club and i'm the 107th mayor of new york city. i am very pleased to be here. this is always a difficult subject for me, because the whole recollection of and thinking about september 11 is very complicated.

very complicated because it was the worst day in my life, where state and a life of my city, and to some extent, i imagine the country. and in some ways it was the greatest day, the most glorious day, because of the display of bravery and fortitude and strength that people showed. and i have been given a lot of honors, of various kinds, including being knighted. i do not use the title sir because my friends back in brooklyn would be me up. [laughter] if i tried to use it, and if i ever have any hope of running for any office again, i better not use it very to appropriately use the title, you have to pronouncer citizenship. ain't no way. [laughter] a lot of the praise, honor, whether it was being knighted or

awarded by mrs. reagan, which i'm very proud of, i feel very humbled by that because i was standing on the shoulders of giants, of people who really did the brave work in the difficult work and the courageous work. and two of them are with me today because they worked in my administration with me. one is former deputy mayor rudy washington, one of four deputy mayors in new york city. he organized our effort to bring in heavy equipment that day to try to save lives, organized our effort to recover, he was totally dedicated and work 24 hours a day, probably, for four straight months. he has suffered some ailments as a result of that -- being at ground zero so often. he is one of the people that was affected by that. respiratory system affected by it, he has handled that with consonant bravery. and he has recently made the

news or some trouble, if you want to call it that, by urging that they include a religious leader or religious leaders as part of the september 11 memorial next saturday. [applause] the commissioner of the mayor's office, richie have a long history of being with a fire department and police department. have intimate knowledge of the in -- of the communications system and the response. he is one of the people the prepared new york city for whatever emergencies he could possibly think appeared we had 25 emergency plans and would practice them all the time. and we would try to continue to improve our situation. on the day of september 11, it was ready and richie with me when we were trapped in a building and it took us 20 minutes to get out.

on reflection, we could have lost our lives. at that time, you did not think that way, but when i went home and watched it, i said, oh, my goodness, we were so close. we were 2.5 blocks away from the first building coming down. it hit our building. -- remained tremendously, and responsible. he led the recovery effort effort, which many people do not to understand -- i am not going to say as complicated as the immediate response, but almost as complicated and dangerous. everyone that worked there for the next three or four months had their lights at risk with the buildings that could easily have fallen down, the fires below the ground, the enormous heavy equipment. when we build a building in new york, we often lose three or four people because it is inherently dangerous to do a construction project. somehow we got through that whole four months without anyone being seriously injured.

some people are seriously injured now and they should be abandoned, but i would not have believed it possible that we got through that period without a serious injury. richie is one of the reasons for that. he is one of the foremost experts on emergency management in the country. did not have people like rudy in ritchie, i would not have been able to do it, and there were many of them. [applause] so how you relate to september 11 and whether the country is safer now or not a safe and what should be done about it? it is a defining event for our country. whether we think it is or not, it is, because it is one of those events that people remember where they were when it happened.

in my lifetime, i can relate only two others, one before i was born and one when i was in college for the first one was pearl harbor. my parents and everyone of that generation would constantly tell you where they were when they heard about pearl harbor. the second one was the assassination of john f. kennedy. i remember where i was when i heard about the assassination of john f. kennedy. everyone in this room could immediately decide where they were. in the third one is the timber 11, 2001. everyone remembers where there were when the attack on the twin towers, on washington, and over the skies of pennsylvania happen. in fact, this is almost completely accurate, i cannot think of too many times that i spent in an airport, including in singapore and tokyo and south africa, where people have not come up to me and said, do you

know where i was on september 11? and then explain to me in detail where they were. the first couple of times that happen, i found it very strange. the answer was always, no, i do not know where you were. do you know were i was? i remember where i was. i do not know where you were. i decided that i had become a repository for people feeling like they have to explain that. it is a defining event for us. right now as we enter into the second decade of the 21st century, it is a defining event and it is tremendous implications for us. and it has implications that we still do not quite understand, because i'm not quite weak -- i'm not sure that we quite understood all the implications of pearl harbor or the kennedy assassination. here are some of them. and some that i think we can

learn from. when people in your a dramatic event -- in your -- endure a dramatic event, they become immobilized and defeated and crushed by it, or the growth of it. on the evening of september 11, i asked the people of new york, i think it might have been dissected till last statement at the third press conference that we had, and we're all exhausted. probably in shock. i said, i want the people of new york city to emerge stronger for this. i remember thinking as i walked off the podium, that i was not sure if that was a exhortation, an admonition, or a prayer. i was not sure that we had emerged stronger for it. i thought that we would, i hope that we would. i had the essential fate that

the people of the new city and the things much better -- big things much bigger than small things. there is a pothole or you do not get rid of the first snow, they want to impeach you. but if there is a train wreck or a blackout, they just rise to the occasion. the people of new york really did rise to this occasion. they have been stronger and better than even i thought it would be. new york city is focused on the new york city, which was the center of the largest attack. new york city now has more people living there. new york city has more tourists. new york city is economically sound or, even with the recession and the problems we're having now in our economy. new york city's economy is not as affected as the rest of the country. it is a more diverse economy. there is absolutely no feeling that i detect that people do not want to come to new york,

because they are afraid of the attack or september 11, or afraid of the realistic advice that new york city is a major target to this day. there's absolutely no one that does aa that they would not attacked -- that does not believe that they would not attack york city in. in fact, there was an attack on your's times square. it was full. resilience is a defense against islamic extremist terrorist -- terror, an important defense. the first reason they attacked us was to kill many, many people. they ended at killing almost 3000 people. the worst attack in the history of our country very worst -- of

our country. worse than pearl harbor. they did damage to us, damaged i still see and ritchie does and rudy, because it plays out in people's lives. i do not what my feelings will be on sunday when i see so many of the family members again, that many i saw for the first time at the family center or at the site when i took them there for their first visit, or the many funerals and wakes and memorial services, some of thie families are still very close to me, my closest friends. it has played out in their lives in ways if you can imagine. children go without fathers or mothers, people cannot cope with a memorial service because they cannot deal with the fact that it happened. others have moved on, but they did achieve that significant damage that is almost indescribable and will continue until we move on to another

generation or generation after. but on the other side of it, i think they wanted to kill more people than they did. the first estimate that was given a number people that died at the world trade center was given to me on the street after we got out of the building we were trapped in. after the second building came down, and we saw the cloud rushing through the street, i turned to my communications director and ast, tell me the number of people they think are missing. i was trying to calculate what kind of help to the fire department aide, what kind of help to the police department need, are these numbers we could handle, what we have asked for the national guard, and within 10 to 15 minutes, she got back to me as we were walking to our new command center, she got back to me, and she said, the part authority estimates about 12,000. i said, how the thing to do that? they tried to calculate the number of people on the building when the first plane hit and the

number of people you could get out in that. out of time, and they calculated about 12,000. i'm going to tell you the reason it was not of thousand. it is the bravery and courage and a loss of life that occurred to the members of the new york city fire department, the new york city police department, the port authority police department, and some very brave civilians who stepped up and guided people out of the building. i do not cut -- get told this is often about -- often, but more people tell me, it was not for your fire department, i would not have made it out of that building. there would say to me, you cannot of action -- they would say to me, you cannot imagine how much confidence it builds up in you when you are walking out of a building that is on fire and men are walking into that building. and do not seem to be afraid.

the continue to walk again. they did not run out on the first sign of evacuation. that saved incalculable numbers of lives. there was an orderly exit. things far less dramatic than the world trade center attacks have led to riots in which many people died. that is because of the bravery and the inherent courage of in york city fire department, the new york city police to farming, the port authority, and individuals like the one movie is being met about, the last one out. i think he saved a couple thousand people. that the mall on elevators, forced them out, and said he would be the last one out, and he never did get out. that prevented it from being worse than it was. it may be prevented the

terrorists from achieving their -- whatever there weird number they had in their head. the sec reason that they attacked us was to break our spirit. -- the second reason that they attacked us was to break our spirit. the purpose was to break our spirit, and it was accidental but they said elected washington, d.c. and new york city. the capital of in this case, the political capital, and the economic capital of the world. what is at the core of their hatred of us? our politics, our economy, our belief in various religions as opposed to what they believe is the one true religion. our political right that we give to women, that we give to other people. these are reasons that they hate us. was not accidental that they attacked washington and new york city. the purpose of it was to break our spirit. to demonstrate how week we are. to demonstrate how they doing this, that would put our

economic system in chaos, they put our political system in chaos, and the would show how much better as a world ruled by theocracy could be. well, boy, just the opposite occurred, right? from the first moment of the firefighters walking into the building, not running out, to our political people all coming together, man, we should have bottle that. [laughter] oh, it was fabulous. i was the mayor of new york. i had all the support i could ever possibly ask for from president bush. from the democratic members of congress. i had many gatherings of democrats and republicans going down to ground zero in talking about how to prevent another one and the american flags all over the place, being waived. i rode with president bush of

west end avenue on a very famous day, september 14, to thousand one, after he went to ground zero. -- and the car with me and commissioner carriage and commissioner von essen, all of whom are big guys. one of them sat on his lap. [laughter] as we're going of west end avenue, there were flags all over the place your people yelling and screaming, god bless america. blowing kisses to president bush, we love you. i cannot help but looking at them, and i said, mr. president, i have to tell you this, not a single one of these people voted for you. [laughter] and i think four of them voted for governor pataki and me. this is not our part of timown. for republican, there is no part of town except staten island.

but the reality is, we achieved a unity that most of us had never seen before. and it is because something when you're became stronger, not because it is new york, a bit -- but because they are american. america became stronger because realize how important freedom was and to defend it and to remain together when that happens. those are all wonderful things that emerge from september 11. i have absolutely no doubt that if god forbid we were attacked again, whether it happens under president obama, i certainly hope it does not, or under another president, that we would have exactly the same reaction to the president said about a year ago, and some people criticized him for this, but i thought it was absolutely the right statement, he said, america, something like america

could not handle another attack. he was not inviting one are suggesting that we would have one, just dating the office. that we could and it is important for the terrorist to know that. resiliency takes away a lot of what they think they are going to do to us. what do i think the country has really not been attacked since september 11? i have to tell you, if i take myself back tenures go to the morning of september 11 and september 12 and 13th and 14th, and both of them will remember this because they were at all of these meetings with me, we were being warned of numerous attacks. on that very day, we did not know if there would be another three or four airplanes that would attack is. a lot of our response, when people look at what we did and why we did it and the right decisions in the wrong decisions, but a lot of our response was not just to say that many people at the site -- save many people decide what -- but to prevent further attacks

which we were told were going happen and what happened in the aftermath of september 11 and for many years to come. there is every indication that that was the case. there have not been a lot of attacks. there have been at least 40 attacks in the united states since then, a lot more than people realize, and those are 40 that i can find from public documents from my previous experience in government. i can assure you that there would be a lot more. but for one, i would consider major hassan's attack on fort hood and islamic extremists attack. i cannot see what of government as i see it that way since he was yelling allahu akbar. that would be good evidence as a prosecutor as to why he was doing what he was doing. but we have been saved, although

a great deal of hard work has gone into it. i will show you the reasons why i think we were saved, and we have to do to continue to remain safe. we won on an offense starting with the war in afghanistan and the war in iraq. i think tying up al qaeda, tying up other groups that would try to rival and equal what al qaeda would do in foreign wars, it was enormously effective in slowing them down. it also gave us a plethora of intelligence that we would not obtain if we were not pleasant there -- present there, if you are nodding cage in a war there, capturing people, questioning people -- that intelligence was not available to us before september 11 because we did not have a major presence in that part of the war. the biggest fear that i have is that as we get to the 10th anniversary of september 11,

people are going to believe it is over. there is nothing special about a 10th anniversary. one of the women who lost her husband, was talking to are a few days ago and asked her, how would you deal with the 10th anniversary for summer she said, is no different than the ninth for the 11th. for the day after. that is true. there's nothing special about the 10th anniversary. it just happens to be a numerical computation that you may. here is the simple fact about september 11 that should be emphasized over and over again until the 10th anniversary is over. september 11 is not yet part of our history. pearl harbor eight is part of our history. pearl harbor is over. that war was one very our enemies have become our good friends. you can do it in less analysis it for purely historical reasons and to learn from it, but it is

not part of our present reality. september 11 as part of our present reality to the reasons i mentioned before and some others, for which those people attacked us on september 11, live. the people who attacked us under that banner of distorted islam still want to attack is under the banner of this -- distorted as long. and they have plenty to do it as we memorialize the 10th anniversary, arguably with even more force, maybe less, maybe they will resort to weather wasn't doing it. but we can i use this as an opportunity to say, oh, let's put this behind us. -- we cannot use this as an opportunity to say, oh, let's put this behind us. it does not evaluate correctly the scope and danger of islamic extremist terror purred notice i use those words and i use them often. i have a simple believf.

if you cannot face your enemy, you cannot defeat your enemy. can ominous -- if you cannot honestly describe your enemy, there are distortions in your policy decisions as a result of that. there is nothing in salting to decent good members of the moslem religion by side -- by my saying islamic extremist terror, any more than it was insulting to the italian community for me to say the word mafia, or do decent germans for me to say the word nazi. our family here to do it could lead to a series of mistakes in the bahamas and the figure appeared one mistake to avoid is political correctness. you cannot fight crime and you cannot deter terrorism if you are hobbled by political correctness. i believe that major hassan is

an example of that. there is no way that major hassan should have been a major in the united states army, and for several years, building up that hatred for the united states of america under the banner of distorted islam. if we want to learn from september 11, here is one of the first lessons to learn. do not underestimate your enemy. do not be afraid to face your enemy honestly and squarely. do not be afraid to discuss it honestly. and do not create within the bureaucracy, including the bureaucracy of the military, a fear of doing the right thing because it will be misinterpreted. most human beings are not heroes. most human beings are not going to get a chapter in "profiles of courage." most human beings do what is expected of them, and that is to ignore reality, because when they get in trouble, they will ignore reality and we will be the worst for.

the second thing i believe that we have to remember as we come out of september 11 is that there is an impatience that has developed over the last two years to our military presence in iraq, afghanistan, and some other parts of the world. that is an understandable impatience. we have been there a long time. and we have lost so many wonderful, innocent people, people who just want to serve their country, and they're the ones to show it -- who choose to serve and they lost their lives. it is understandable and a good country a desperate but leadership is say to the american people that we have to be present in that part of the world in spite of what public opinion polls say. we have to be present in that part of the world until that part of the world stops making plans to come here and kill us.

isn't that why we were in germany? for as long as the time we were in germany? isn't that why we were in europe? isn't that why ronald reagan appointed cruise missiles at the soviet union in the 1980's, because that part of the world's endangered our survival? isn't that why we remained in south korea for as long as we have? it was our leadership, republican, democratic presidents from truman to george bush the first, they understood that and our leadership now needs to understand that your we need to be militarily present in the middle east until significant numbers of people in the middle east stop planning to come here and kill us or callous overseas. and we should get the american people ready for that. we should make impatient with that. we should get them to understand the value of in terms of intelligence, the value of it in terms of stopping things before they get to the point of people tried to kill us here in the united states or attacking one

of our embassies abroad. we should explain to people how that has a deterrent impact, this is 100,000 american troops in that part of the world, the deterrent impact on these miserable dictators. it would be nice if it were different. it would be nice if we lived in some perfect world. but that is not leadership. leadership is helping us to live in the world that we actually live in. my final thought about it is, in addition to those things that we have to do, in addition to the fact that we have done some very good things, both in the bush and the obama administration, in improving airport security, and significantly improving intelligence gathering and a flow of intelligence, which also had a big impact on preventing those 40 attacks and more, and the good work that both president obama and president bush did in the long-term effort to catch bin laden which was a

significant achievement and a significant achievements we're having now, we have a tendency to think that the next attack will be like the last attack. we've done a good job of preventing an attack like september 11 from happening. it doesn't mean it will not happen but we of done as good job as a kindred port security has not been improve the way that it should and it needs that kind of attention. we should get out of the mindset that the next attack will be like the last one and we have to start thinking about, what else might they try to do? will they decide that they can do small attacks in smaller cities as a way of disrupting as? and we have to prepare for that. and we have to say to ourselves that we have let our economy and our budget get so out of control that it is beginning to become significantly and really a national security issue. when this country has to worry about whether it is spending too

much money on defending us, then this is a national security problem. republicans and democrats should figure out how to get beyond the fighting over old things and start to figure out, how you create a budget that people the confidence and? a budget that shows that we can get over our spending addiction, a budget that shows that we can make some reasonable choices about how much money we're spending on health care, not to eliminated, but to get it under control. if we do not do that, the 11 implication on how well we can defend ourselves. and it is past time that that stops being a political issue and becomes a national security issue. having said that, my primary memory of september 11 is the bravery. at least that is what i choose to make it, of how brave those people were.

and i remember the first good thought i had on september 11 was seeing the picture of the firefighters putting the flag out on top of the rubble and fire. and immediately what came to mind was iwo jima. book, qead tom brokaw's q the greatest generation." netbook ask the question, could this generation handle what that generation was able to do? watching that picture, i said to myself, they are the sons and grandsons of the people who fought and won the second world war. it is not going to be any different. they are just as strong, they are just as powerful, they're just as much in love with america as their parents and grandparents were. and maybe it takes a time like this to bring that out. but that is there. this is the most exceptional country in the history of the

world. what nation has ever fought wars for other people? empires are created like rome and england fighting wars to acquire territory for the empire. america has fought war to liberate and help other people. no nation in the history of the world has ever done that. this is an exceptional country, we should love it, we should understand its failings and picks them but we should also understand that no human beings have ever done a better than americans in the 20th and 21st century. it is never been any different and we should be very grateful. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, mayor. >> you're welcome. >> we had a lot of questions, a lot of people, nice crowd for you and we're grateful for all that. let's start with a personal aside. someone asked the question, where did you personally find the strength to continue leading the city after 9/11? >> no one place. first of all, i do not think i had a choice perdue was a question of, to light roldan ball and have people showing me on television like that? -- to i roll up into a ball and have people showing on television like that? it would of been embarrassing to show the mayor crying. or to adjust to the best that i can. he was and my father taught me very young in life, i have no idea why he taught this, if you ever ever in an emergency or fire, remain calm, because it's your best way of figuring your way out of it. and if you are not, pretend that

you are. and it will help you the calm. i can remember that and i prayed a lot. i had no one biggest loss on september 11. but maybe the most jarring was father michael judge, because it was the first one. we have reestablished a command center at the police academy and someone in foreign aid that the first person was discovered did, being carried out of the world trade center to st. peter's church, and it was father michael judge, the chaplain of the fire department. father michael judge was the person i was already thinking about that i would lean on to help me get through it. to help me explain it death to some many people. because he did it so many times for me with the fire department. when i lost him, i really felt alone. i felt almost like i felt when i left -- lost my father. i'm going have to grow up and do

this myself. i guess you find the strength in the things that brought you up, the things -- and then i would go back and think about the other emergencies that i handled, and realized i knew how to do this. and when i went home last night, -- that night, i read a biography of churchill, because how did he handle something far worse than this, repeated attacks every single night. i thought that was when happen, and gave me a great deal of strength to be able to see that, if someone else can go through that, i can go through. i wanted to say to the people of new york, the people of london went through this. you can go through it. >> a lot of questions about the face of terrorism today. one has to do with the ongoing threat from hawkeye that and then the shift this seems to occurred with even the present -- even before 9/11, the fear of

homegrown terror. what is your thought about balancing those two and where you think we are with that? >> i think they're both equally dangerous threats. homegrown terrorists are more dangerous in some ways, because they are harder to detect. if something is being organized overseas, particularly in the areas where we have this tremendous military presence, which also means tremendous intelligence presence, the need to communicate that across the world gives us a much better chance of finding in detecting that. stopping people from coming in, picking up messages. when it is done homegrown, it is much harder to detect. i was in london the day of the attack in london, the four bombings in london. i had to walk away from a liverpool station when the first bomb went off. that's why people were reluctant to invite me to parties and things like that. [laughter] and that was homegrown u.k.

terrorists. i think that shocked even them and their intelligence services are about the best in the world. homegrown terrorism is a very dangerous thing, but most of them are still organized around islamic extremism and around their own desire to protest a paid in jihad, irresponsible and insane even though it is. unfortunately, that is the area where you have to look for 95% of your terrorist. if you divert resources from that, you make a terrible mistake. >> what was your reaction to the death of osama bin laden and how have we manage the problem presented by pakistan? >> my reaction to the death of bin laden was relief and a tremendous amount of pride in the way in which the united states handled it.

i thought president obama's finest moment, he handled it courageously, particularly having to make the decision to send the seal cent rather than engage in a bombing that would have left all kinds of questions about whether we really had hindered i thought his decision making about the burial as he was excellent. -- the burial at sea was excellent. president bush paused policies held view of the information that led to that and that has to be acknowledged. and i think it will make the 10th anniversary somewhat easier. because when you bring someone to justice, there is something very elemental about the desire in human beings who been victimized the way that these people were victimized. and i think it will help. and i think it will help to stabilize and to construct a al qaeda. -- help destablize and

deconstruct al qaeda. there are allies of ours in pakistan and there are enemies. pakistan is a nuclear power. so we have to be able to play a game with pakistan that is better than the game they're playing with us, which is to minimize the people that are taking advantage of us. the problem that we have in afghanistan and pakistan, and i do not want to give political particularly, because i do not like doing that around september 11, if but i do not consider this political. i consider this important as sacred part of the problem we have in pakistan and afghanistan is the silly timetable that we put of mr. you cannot fight a war with a timetable. when did this idea of murder? who figured this out question no. this is the dumbest thing in the most dangerous thing you can possibly do. imagine if we had engaged in the civil war or the first world war or the second world war with

a timetable? we will fly nazism for three years and they get tired and leave. we will be in afghanistan until the summer of 2010 or the summer of 2011. first of all, you cannot win a war that way. secondly, you give your enemy a tremendous blaring headline that we really are not serious. we really can wear them out. we can willie -- really wear them down. finally, when you do that, you demoralize your troops and put them in a much greater danger. they realize the more pressure they are being put on, maybe that will speed up the withdrawal and we would change her mind. you fight a war for objective. objectives do not have time tables. what was the objective of the second world war -- defeat hitler. what is the objective in afghanistan? to make afghanistan say so that they stop plotting to kill us there. -- safe so that that,

plotting to cause there. that could be six years from now. just like the cold war. we should remain in afghanistan, in iraq, and in that part of world until people in that part of the world, significant numbers of people, stop trying to figure out how to kill americans. [applause] >> your referenced this in the beginning of your speech. mayor bloomberg decided that no religious leaders would participate in the ground zero ceremony on sunday. would you have come to the same decision? >> i respect mayor bloomberg very much and i appreciate what a good mayor he has been because i worked very hard to reform the new york city and i'll worried intensely my last year in office said that would be changed by another machine politician taking over and ruining the welfare reform program and hundreds of others.

mary bloomberg has carried them on and improve them. -- mayor bloomberg has carried them on an improved them. but i will allow four religious leaders to say a little prayer since so many people wanted. at least i personally quickness talent for religious was in getting people to september 11, whether your religious yourself or you're not, it played a tremendous role. having gone to some many masses, so many religious services, so many synagogues -- maybe a hundred? they did not know. -- i do not know. seeing how that offered some strength to move on, and it's a religion played a significant role in getting people through september 11, what you believe or do not believe, it is just the reality. it would be very simple to have a priest, minister, a rabbi, and a imam, the way that we had at

the service that reorganized at yankee stadium -- and oprah winfrey, if i'm not mistaken with m? you get them up and they say a little prayer. the microphone will not melt to say a prayer. [laughter] the first amendment -- it does not mean that you cannot say the word religion in a government building. we do not have to be hostile to religion. we just cannot establish one and require people to be a part of their religion. at the same time, we should not be at war with religion because it is evil and bad an awful, which is an excessive reaction they probably has marred the last 30 years of our country. >> you said you did not one of the political but i hope today that that has to do with i/11. we are in a political science and -- with 9/11.

we are in the political season. the consensus is that you're not one to run for president. >> how do i know? i am part of a consensus. nobody asked me. >> well, i am asking. >> i did not know the answer that. i decided to put off as we get closer to september 11. but i tell you what i said before that. i would very much like to see a change of direction in our country. i am a republican. how's the first republican elected mayor of new york city in 25 years, the first to remain a republican in 50. [laughter] i may be described as a moderate republican but i would ask people to read the "new york times"editorial about me and see how moderate i really was. i thought i govern economically as the most conservative mayor in that city. george will said i of was the most authentic conservative

candidate because of my economic policies and my welfare policies, policies on crime, and security. and if i were to run, i would have a chance of winning the presidency, a chance. nobody ever knows. but i would have a hard time getting on there. i am a realist and i understand how the primary system works. paula like to say, if there is someone that emerges that i think would be a strong candidates, if someone does not emerge that i -- is someone emerges that i think they can support, i would. my slogan for mayor of new york city is coming you cannot do any worse. bridget was, you cannot do any worse. [laughter] [applause] >> rick perry endorsed you in

october 2007 in your bid for the nomination. would you like to return the favor? >> i like him very much. i told him that if he wants to avow his endorsement of may, he could. i was such a liberal, crazy, out of control republican. i could see myself doing that, sure, but i do not know enough about what -- is going to say tomorrow night and the next two or three nights that the debate. i do not know what it romney is going to say. this is very strange election because we only had one debate, maybe two. we do not know all the positions that and how they can handle it. who looks like it would have the best chance of winning? the presidency. i would rather wait and see what happens there. but i do have a lot of

admiration for rick. a campaign for him when irahe rn for governor against kay bailey hutchison. i think his record in texas is exactly the record we would need in the united states. but i am not sure he is the right candidate yet. there is a lot to that. at this point four years ago, i was the nominee. and i was running against hillary clinton for you see how accurate those things are. >> which is said you cannot be nominated. what is it about the republican party that would prevent that from happening? >> i said it would be difficult to be nominated. we would have to be truly desperate. which, maybe we are, i do not know. >> about the party. >> is the organization of the primary system. it is a big party and has all kinds of facts and senate, far right, right, conservatives, moderates depends on where you

are if you're running a primary like new hampshire. it is one thing they will be economic issues. if you run n/a caucus like iowa, is going to be social issues and still have enormous impact even if the net -- if the economic issues are important, they still forced a vote of many people. the mistake i made last time was getting too focused on the idea of the national campaign. i would tell rick perry and governor romney not to worry some much about what those national polls are. i was at 34% -- national polls to not mean anything. winning iowa mean something. winning new hampshire mean something. winning south carolina mean something. those primaries are tilted very much in favor of conservative

republicans who are very strongly conservative on social issues. and i am simply not a conservative on social >> all of that event with rudy giuliani with rudy giuliani in our video library at c-span.org. the u.s. and is gaveling in next following leadership remarks, the senate floor will be open for an hour of general speeches before considering a bill that overhauls the patent system. legislation includes changes to the collection of fees in the way patents are awarded. time reserves to allow senators to pay tribute to former senator mark hatfield, a five term member from oregon passed away last month. centers may take up a resolution this week of disapproval over raising the debt ceiling. at some point this week that maneuver which was part of the debt ceiling agreement faces a possible veto by president obama, if it were to pass both chambers. the senate will recess today

between 1230 time back into 15, an open house they come in at 2:00. a couple of bills today. later in the week charter school programs and the reauthorization of intelligence programs for 2012. the house at 2 p.m. on c-span and now to the senate here on c-span2. order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, e senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. lord god, you are holy and inhabit the praises of your people. we're thankful that those who

seek you will not lack any good thing. help us to make you our source of hope depending on your providence and trusting your mighty arms to save us. as our lawmakers seek to serve you by making choices that honor you, purify their intentions that they will say what they believe and will act consistently with their speech. keep them aware of how their words and deeds affect the good fortune of the lives of those in need. oh god, you are our hiding

place, and in these challenging days we're depending on you to protect this nation from trouble. you are the one who puts the songs of deliverance in our hearts. we pray in your strong name. amen. the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer:

the clerk will read a communicae senate. the clerk: washington d.c., september 7, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorablekirsten e. gillibrand, a senator from the state of new york, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: majority leader. mr. reid: following leader remarks, if any, there will be an hour of morning business with the majority controlling the first half, republicans controlling the final half. following that morning business the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to the america invents act. the senate will recess from 12:30 until 2:15 for weekly party conferences. at 2:30 there will be 30 minutes for tributes to the lake senator mark hatfield of oregon, and i would indicate if people are unable to come during that 30 minutes, i would solicit their statements so that we can put them together as we often do in these situations so they're in a nice little book let that people can look at at a later time.

i would say, madam president, i had the god fortune -- the good fortune of being able to serve with mark hatfield. a treasure of a man. i don't know of anyone from oregon -- they have had great leaders from oregon -- but he is equal to any of them, a man who was not bound by party. i had the good fortune to travel. he led a codel. it was a wonderful trip led by this great statesman, went into the soviet union, mongolia, to find -- this great glacial lake, lake bicall is one things the

soviets didn't ruin. anyway, met with the leaders. it was a trip i'll always remember not only where we went but who was on that trip. i'll give a more complete statement at a later time regarding mark hatfield, a man i had great, great respect and admiration for. he was really a role model in my mind for what a senator should be. we expect to be in consideration of the patent bill today. i would hope that the republicans will let us get on that. it's too bad that we had to move to proceed to it, but we did. i hope we don't have to use the full 30 hours on that before -- i hope i don't have to file cloture on it again. i hope we can get rid of this bill as early as tonight. we have a lot to do. we have so much to do this work period. highway bill, patent bill, fema, trade issues that we have to deal with. and those matters we need to complete before we leave here in

just a few weeks. we have to take a break because of the holidays that come toward the end of this month. madam president, i understand h.j. res. 66 is at the desk and due for second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the bill for the second time. the clerk: h.j. res. 66 approving the renewal of the democracies act of 2003. mr. reid: i would object to further proceed -gdz with respect to this resolution. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. reid: madam president. the presiding officer: the bill will be placed on the calendar in accordance with rule 14. mr. reid: madam president, yesterday morning a man walked into a pancake house in carson city, nevada, our capital, and proceeded to, with, i'm told it's an ak-47.

he first shot some poor woman outside the pancake house, killed her; walked inside and started shooting with this automatic weapon. killed three national guardsmen, killed another innocent person, and we have a number of people who are in the hospital. we hope that no more die. we're still learning the details of this tragedy. we do know that five are dead. he killed himself following that rampage that he went on. the national guardsmen, as i understand, there was five of them, they were having breakfast prior to their duties, and this madman walked in to kill them. these three people who, one of them is a woman who -- one of my

outstanding employees who is a colonel in nevada army national guard, an airman, she was his assistant when he does his duty out there. killed her. it's sad that this violence is around us even in little carson city, nevada. citizen soldiers sacrificing their time to defend our country are killed having pancakes at a little restaurant in carson city. my thoughts go to the victims, and i appreciate their commitment to nevada and this country. what else can you say, madam president, than your heart goes out to these people who are going through such a, such

turmoil today trying to figure out why did this happen. it's hard to imagine such a thing taking place in this quiet little time. there's not much going on in carson city, not as you have in the capital when the legislature is in session. i spent three legislative sessions in carson city. my kids went to school in carson city when i was a lieutenant governor. i do wish all the citizens of carson city well as they begin the process of healing after these shocking events. this fall, madam president, we're hoping, democrats are hoping to find republican allies willing to reach across the aisle for the sake of creating jobs in america, for the sake of

putting people back to work. for eight months now the republicans have wasted our time on partisan politics. each issue should have been so simple, like funding the government for last year. we were forced to deal with that for months. and then when we finished that, we went to do something that happens as a matter of fact around here, not that it's unimportant but there's no reason for our country to default on the debts we have. extending the debt ceiling doesn't allow us to spend things on -- money doesn't go to spending more than items, more things. all it does is allow to us pay our debt. take, for example, ronald reagan. ronald reagan is somebody republicans idolize, and i have no problem with that. he was a good president and did some good things for our country, lots of good things. i liked him very much as a person and as a president.

he asked us 18 different times to raise the debt ceiling, and we did it every time. every time. but this time no thanks, republicans forced us to spend months on raising the debt ceiling. and they've used unrelated amendments and procedural stall tactics to kill good pieces of legislation that have always had the support of democrats and republicans. take, for example, economic development administration, they blocked that; something that has been going on for 35 years, creating jobs. this piece of legislation alone would have created 314,000 jobs. they killed it. the a.d.a. has worked with local businesses, universities in economically challenged areas to create jobs, i said for three decades. it's four and a half decades. for nearly twaol months they -- nearly two months they held up

efforts on the small business administration and research program before finally killing it altogether. this legislation would help small businesses, small technology companies, which have invented everything from an electric toothbrush to how to put armor on a bradley fighting vehicle. these small business innovation loans were terrific for bringing out the innovation creativity of the american people, creating thousands and thousands of jobs. they forced that bill off the floor. the fate of these two pieces of legislation alone costs more than half a million jobs, more than 500,000 jobs. but not only did it take away these two pieces of legislation -- there are many others -- but these two, but their obstructionistic tactics also cost us lots of time. for every moment wasted on

procedural hurdles -- and we spent months -- or these useless amendments is a moment we weren't creating jobs. as republicans held up the work of congress for months in hopes of defeating the president -- and this is not something i made up. my counterpart, the republican leader, said that's his number-one issue, making sure president obama is not reelected. but this effort to defeat president obama has also held up our economic recovery. we saw the total last month's job report which showed unemployment holding steady. for the eighth month in a row that we've created jobs, private-sector jobs, we didn't create many last months -- it was about 20,000. but because of what's going on around the country with the republicans' austerity program, there are lots of government jobs being cut. each of us in new york, illinois, nevada, we've had

local governments really being cut to the bone. police and fire. these are the jobs that also people need very, very much. madam president, i hope that they've gotten the stalling tactics out of their system and really will work with us to create jobs. hopefully the senate's now moving forward with this patent bill, america invents act. this bill will reform the nation's outdated system that has about almost a million patents waiting to be looked at. any one of those patents could be the new thing, something that would create jobs and allow people who have such great ingenuity in america to put their product on line.

we're told this reform of our nation's outdated patent system will allow to us create almost 300,000 jobs and will clear a three-year backlog of patent applications, so inventors, as i've indicated, they might be able to invent the next ipod or electric car or whatever thing that makes america so great. i hope the spirit of bipartisanship comes to being now because congress and this country cannot afford to waste any more time. there are two things we can do right away to create lots of jobs. first, extend the authorization of the f.a.a. bill. madam president, let me explain what this is all about. we passed an f.a.a. bill here, a good bill, passed overwhelmingly, democrats and republicans. it went to the house and they put it in some dark hole over there, and finally they gave us a bill back. it's different than our bill.

here's how it's different. the national mediation board set a new rule. it's something called democracy. what it means is in a labor election, majority wins. under republican dominance in years past, if you had a group of people who were trying to be unionized -- let's say there are a thousand of them -- and that's how many were in the work unit and there was an election held and 600 people turned out for that election. 450 voted yes, we think we should be able to collectively bargain with our employer. under the old rules, that's not enough. 450 out of the 600 is not enough. you would have to get a majority of the people in the unit. and i asked my friend from new york, the presiding officer, and my friend from illinois because

i have asked myself under what rules -- under rules like that, none of us would have been elected. the millions and millions of people in new york and illinois and the three million people in nevada, i got -- i won by 5% last election. i got a majority of the people that were registered to vote. that's how you win in america. not a majority of everyone in the state, because no one would be elected if that were, in fact, the case. but that's how the republicans, they want to change the rules. they want to go back and say that it's -- a simple majority of those voting is not enough. you have to have a majority of everybody in the union. as i indicated, based on our elections, it would mean that each of us could have to get a majority of everyone in the state. so they stuck that provision in the bill, saying no, majority is not enough. you have to have a majority of

everyone in the unit. it's kind of an antidemocratic issue that they have placed in this legislation. i would hope they would take that out. they haven't been willing to do that. if we can reform our anity antiquated -- antiquated air traffic control system that will bring us into the modern world. we are depending on radar and we can move into the modern world like almost all countries have where we have g.p.s., it will create lots and lots of jobs, madam president, hundreds of thousands of jobs which are so badly needed. ray lahood, secretary of transportation, thinks this is essential that we get this done for the safety and security of our nation, and certainly create lots and lots of jobs. second, we must authorize federal spending for the nation's highways. about 1.8 million construction jobs on highway and mass transit jobs nationwide are at stake. if we don't extend this bill, that will be gone, almost two million jobs.

so we will be happy to consider a bipartisan idea to get the economy humming again. i have talked about two things. here are two ideas republicans supported in the past. payroll tax cuts and an extension of unemployment insurance, extending the payroll tax cut could save 972,000 american jobs next year alone. extending unemployment insurance during these tough economic times would save 528,000 american jobs. they have agreed to these in the past. speaker boehner and leader cantor wrote to the president yesterday and they said -- quote -- "our differences should not preclude us from taking action on areas where there is a common ground." end of quote. i hope that they would agree. tending unemployment benefits and cutting the payroll tax are agreements that are common sense. so i agree with them. our differences should not stop us from taking action where there is common agreement. let's start with the four commonsense measures that i have

talked about. the f.a.a. bill. we of course have to do the extension of the payroll tax cuts. do the unemployment insurance and of course f.a.a. so, madam president, i would hope that we can move forward on these as quickly as possible. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the senate will be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the second half. mr. durbin: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: madam president, under morning business, i ask unanimous consent to speak for ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. durbin: and i see the senator from new hampshire is here and ask that she be permitted to speak immediately after i have concluded. madam president, tomorrow night we'll hear a speech from the president of the united states about an issue that affects every single one of us in

america. it affects millions in a personal way and all of us indirectly. it's the state of our economy. it's an economy that has been racked by a recession which has gone on way too long. even the president concedes that we had hoped that we would have emerged at this point but we still have not. i think it is important for us to focus on the reality of life even for working families in america. too many working families today are struggling to survive paycheck to paycheck. over the last 10 or 20 years, we have seen a decline in the rate of growth in real wages, which means that families, even working families aren't earning enough to keep up with the cost of living. they are falling a little bit behind each year. they recently surveyed working families across america and asked them a basic question. they said if you had an emergency in your family and needed to come up with $2,000 in the next 30 days, could you find

that $2,000 either in your savings or borrow it? 47% of working families said they could not come up with with $2,000 in 30 days. $2,000 is the cost of an uneventful trip to an emergency room. it's an indication of the vulnerability of families all across america. i'm also concerned about the fact that as you speak about the economy, we know that many families are doing the right thing, trying to shed debt. we see the credit card debt in america declineing as fewer and fewer people borrow against their credit cards, understanding the interest rates they are going to pay are way too high and it's impossible to keep up with your debt if you pile it all on credit cards. people are reluctant to purchase because they are afraid of debt and vulnerable with the thought of losing their jobs, or perhaps seeing a decline in their wages.

that's the reality of life for working families across america. it's a reality that i have seen in illinois and a reality that really affects us nationwide. the president will address that tomorrow night, as he should. i think there are ways to deal with it, but here is the caution i would like to add. we are fixed on the theme of our nation's deficit and debt, and we should be, because as we borrow 40 cents for every dollar we spend, we create an unsustainable situation for future generations. that's a fact. i have been party to the bowles-simpson commission where i voted for their report. i have worked with the gang of six. a bipartisan effort in the senate which has more than 30 senators showing an interest in this approach, so i really seriously believe that this deficit and debt are a problem for us in the long term. but i might remind my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that bowles-simpson, this bipartisan presidential commission, concluded that we should not hit

the brakes on spending, should not hit the brakes on government activity too soon because of the recession. in fact, they recommended that we wait another year with a serious effort to reduce the deficit coming after the recession. the logic behind it is obvious. it is virtually impossible to balance the budget of the united states with 14 million people out of work. you need to put americans back to work, earning a good paycheck, paying their taxes, and then you can start building this economy and building toward a balanced budget. i hope that we keep that in mind as we talk about what we're facing. as we try to create a climate to create more jobs in america. it is interesting to me the president will propose to extend the payroll tax cut for working families across america. it accounts for 2% of income. that to me is sensible. put spending power in the hands of working families, lower and

middle income families. these are the people who are struggling paycheck to paycheck. we have done that. we should continue to do that. the criticism from the republican side of the aisle is no, you shouldn't allow a tax cut for middle income families and those in lower income categories unless you pay for it. interestingly enough, that's exactly the opposite position from what they took when they were talking about tax cuts for the wealthiest americans. when the republicans wanted to see tax cuts for those making over $250,000 a year, they say we don't have to pay for them, but when we talk about tax cuts for working families, middle income families, all of a sudden they become deficit hawks and say you have to pay for those tax cuts. i think that we should continue the 2% payroll tax cut to help working families. i think that's good. i also think we ought to extend unemployment benefits. i spent my time in august in illinois visiting unemployment offices where i met a lot of people who are struggling every

single day to apply for jobs. sometimes four and five applications a day. and many times without success. they are doing their best to pick up new skills at community colleges and training coarses. they are trying to make their resumes look a little more attractive, working to do so, and they are running into a brick wall time after time. some are in extremely desperate circumstances. extending unemployment compensation at this moment in our economy is absolutely essential. it is the right and caring and humane thing to do, and it also injects money into the economy. the president will call for this, and i think he's right. the republicans have said we have to pay for that unemployment compensation. again, it is hard to follow their logic as they offer millions of dollars of tax relief for the wealthiest people, refuse to end the tax cuts and benefits for the most profitable oil companies in america, and when it comes to helping the unemployed and middle income, then they become deficit hawks. they also talk about the

corporate income tax. the corporate income tax rate in america is 35%, and they say it's one of the highest in the world. that's true, but it's an effective rate versus the nominal rate. the nominal rate is 35%. the effective rate is much lower. take, for example, the report that just came out that puts this in perspective. there was a report that compared the salaries for the c.e.o.'s, the chief executive officers, of major american corporations. 25 of the 100 highest paid corporate executives in the united states earned more in pay than their company paid in taxes in the year 2010. that's right. our tax code is so easy on massive multinational corporations, they pay their top executives more than they pay in federal taxes each year. it's a startling fact. it's a report released by the institute for policy studies. if you look through the report, you will see some of the biggest names in corporate america. look at general electric.

they made waves when it was reported that they paid zero, absolutely nothing, in federal taxes last year. in fact, g.e. got a refund from the government of over over $3 billion. the top executive at general electric was compensated to the tune of $15.2 million. consider that for a moment when we talk about the unfairness of corporate taxes. the biggest multinational corporations in america are escaping the 35% rate, some are actually getting money back, and they are paying their executives money in reward for coming up with these tax strategies under our current tax code. you want to clean up the tax code? stop imposing the highest corporate tack rate on middle and small businesses and impose it on the large corporations, the most profitable corporations in america. the other idea is this repatriation tax holiday. we should take care here. before we allow major corporations to bring their

profits back into the united states tax free or at lower tax rates, which is what they are asking for, look at what happened when we tried that under the bush administration. $362 billion in earnings repatriated under the holiday. $312 billion qualified for the tax break, but we didn't see a corresponding increase in employment in those corporations. they brought back the money they earned in profits overseas and declared it as dividends and profits and gave it compensation bonus to their executives. they did not create jobs. now the republicans are pushing for that same strategy. they want to give this tax holiday to these major corporations with no strings attached. i think we have learned our lesson under the bush administration. if that money is coming back to america, it should be dedicated to growing the corporations in america and growing good-paying jobs right here at home, and it shouldn't go out the door in executive compensation dividends and profits. the tax code is unfair. it's primarily unfair to working

families. we have got to do everything we can to make it fair for them, and secondly, we have got to make sure that we eliminate some of the loopholes that are stacked in the tax code today. i have been in favor of tax reform and think it's an essential part of fairness in america, getting the economy moving forward and dealing responsibly with our deficit. madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: madam president, as you know so well, as the senator from new york, across the country this weekend americans everywhere will gather to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the tragic events that took place on september 11, 2001. families from every town, from every city and state will mark this day in their own solemn way and take a moment to remember and honor the nearly 3,000 victims of those senseless attacks. more than any episode in recent american history, the events of

9/11 were experienced on a very personal level all across this country. no one was untouched by the tragedy of that day. all of us can remember exactly where we were when we heard the news. we remember those frantic hours as we tried to call loved ones. we remember the silence in our skies as our nation's entire air system shut down. we remember mourning the loss of family, friends and neighbors. and we remember the fear and uncertainty as we wondered if more attacks were coming. we remember the sight we all watched on television again and again, the sickening sight of the falling towers of the trade center. it's a vision that's been forever seared into every american's mind. as governor of new hampshire at the time, i was actually here in washington for a national governors association event on early childhood education.

i will never forget looking out of my hotel and seeing the smoke rising from the pentagon. the attacks of 9/11 forever changed us as a nation. our entire notion of security was turned upside down. our government changed. our policies changed. and our view of the world changed. for our children and grandchildren especially, this became one of the defining events of their generation and has left an indelible mark on their world view. as we gather this weekend, all of us in our own way will take a moment to recall those feelings of sadness and anger and to honor the memories of those we lost. but that loss is not the end of the story, and grief is not the true legacy of 9/11. we're not defined by what happens to us but by how we respond when we're faced with adversity.

september 11 didn't cripple us as a nation. instead it brought out the best in all of us. our story is really how we responded in the face of this attack, with courage, resolve and unity. in the aftermath of september 11, we showed the world the true meaning of the american spirit. the story of america's response to 9/11 starts on that very day with the w accounts of heroism that we could never have imagined. we remember the firefighters and the other first responders climbing up the stairwells of the burning world trade center while others fled down and how they paid the ultimate sacrifice for their selflessness. we remember the courageous passengers on united airlines flight 93 who took away the terrorists' greatest weapon -- fear -- by fighting back, even though it meant their lives. and who knows how many lives

they saved when they stopped that attack. in the days that followed, all americans stepped up in any way they could. red cross centers were overwhelmed with volunteer blood donors. millions of us donated money and offered up prayers. in new hampshire, days after the attack, i remember joining a crowd of hundreds for a prayer service at st. paul's church in concord. we came together to honor the victims and to comfort each other, and the response was incredible. the crowd spilled out into the streets with many waving american flags and holding candles singing "god bless america." in new hampshire, our state government and our employees refuseed to buckle under the terrorist threat. we kept the state working on september 11. i won't forget the more than 100 fire departments across new hampshire who called our state fire marshal office to offer

service for new york or the volunteers who made themselves available to help in a moment's notice. and of course we can't tell america's story without telling the story of the men and women in our military who spent the last decade trying to make sure that an attack like this never happens again. since september 11, more than 5 million men and women have voluntarily joined the armed forces to protect america and defend her freedom abroad. more than 6,200 americans, including 37 troops from new hampshire, have given the ultimate sacrifice in our nation's defense. over 45,000 more have been wounded or injured and returned home with lasting scars. millions of troops and their families have sustained the toughest, most debilitating tempo of deployments in our nation's history often being deployed into war five or six

times, enduring constant mental and physical strains in service to our country. the resolve our troops have demonstrated since 9/11 has yielded a string of successes on an extremely complex battlefield. our men and women in uniform have done everything that has been asked of them. osama bin laden has been brought to justice. countless other high-level terrorist operatives, including the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, have been killed or captured, and the organization's bases in afghanistan and pakistan remain under constant pressure. al qaeda and its extremist affiliates' deadly ideology is being questioned around the globe and the remnants of al qaeda's diminishing leadership are disorganized and struggling to reestablish themselves in the face of an aggressive u.s. offensive. as our current secretary of

defense leon panetta has remarked, we are -- quote -- "within reach of strategicically defeating al qaeda." although we can't be kphraeus sent and we -- complacent and we must remain steadfast in our pursuit our military should be honored for the gains made against the terrorist who attacked us on september 11. in new hampshire our air national guard deployed almost immediately after the attacks and etched since september 11, 2001 -- and every day since september 11, 2001 have been providing fuel coverage for airmen in iraq and afghanistan. i will forever remember when flights resumed after 9/11. as we walked through, people everywhere stopped what they were doing to applaud the national guard for their efforts to keep the people of new hampshire safe.

in the decade since the attacks, americans have found new appreciation for the service these citizen soldiers provide. and americans outside the military have learned that they have a role to play too. with the heroes of united 93 as their inspiration, every day americans have stopped a number of terrorist plots from succeeding. passengers and flight personnel stopped the december 2001 bomber, the attempt by shoe bomber richard reid. they stopped the christmas day 2009 attempt on board the northwest airlines flight, the attempted times square bombing last year, as you remember, was in part averted by an alert new york city street vendor. perhaps most important, as we remember america's 9/11 story this weekend, we should all reflect on the unity we demonstrated in the face of this terrible attack.

on september 11, we weren't republicans or democrats, black or white, rich or poor. we were all americans. the attack focused our attention on our common bonds and on the american ideals we all hold dear. we were determined to prove that despite our differences, the united states of america would persevere and endure. and while we have not always maintained that sense of unity in the years since, our memory of it has inspired us and continually reminded us of what is possible when we reach for the best within ourselves. when the history books are written and america's 9/11 story is told to the generations to follow, i hope it will tell of how we came together to remind the entire world of what this country stands for and who we are as a people, how after our darkest day we rose up with new

determination; how instead of turning inward, we chose to confront the evil that had visited our shores and to fight on; and how we continue to be the beacon of hope, liberty, and opportunity that we have always been to the world. thank you very much, madam president. i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming.

mr. barrasso: madam president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. madam president, i come to the floor today because this week, president obama is going to present his new jobs plan to the american people, to all of us. and i am certain that we will hear a lot of talk and a lot of promises. now, i remember when former house speaker nancy pelosi famously announced in 2010 in our white house health care summit -- i sat around the table at that summit, and the discussion -- in the discussion, she said that the president's new health care law, she said, would create four million jobs. four million jobs. here's exactly what former speaker pelosi promised on february 25, 2010. she said -- quote -- "this bill is not only about the health security of america, she went on to say, it's about jobs. she said in its life, it will create four million jobs,

400,000 jobs, she said, almost immediately. madam president, i ask today where are the jobs? the fact is that the president's health care law didn't create jobs. as a physician, i have come to the floor every week since the health care law has been signed and have given a doctor's second opinion about this health care law and why i believe it's bad for patients, bad for providers, the nurses and the doctors who take care of those patients, and terrible for the taxpayers. so here we are 17 months after the president signed his health care plan into law, and the american people have yet to see job growth anywhere, anywhere near the figures promised by nancy pelosi. in fact, the bureau of labor statistics reported last week that the american economy

generated a whopping zero jobs during the month of august, zero. this is sobering news when we have 9.1% unemployment in america. "the new york times" september 3 had an editorial called the jobs crisis, and let me read from it. it says that the august employment report released on friday -- this is "the new york times" -- is saying is bleak on all counts, but at least it leaves no doubt that the united states is in the grip of a severe and worsening job crisis, severe and worsening. it said this should lend a sense of urgency to the speech on jobs that president obama plans to deliver this week, and of course the speech is scheduled for tomorrow night. "the new york times" goes on to say the economy added no jobs in august, zero, and the anemic numbers for june and july were revised downward. downward, madam president. the unemployment rate is stuck

at 9.1%, and then it goes on to say it would be 16.2% if it included the swelling ranks of those who find only part-time work and the millions who have given up looking for jobs that simply do not exist. so here we are, madam president, looking at this sobering news, and it seems like the only connection between the health care law and the jobs market in america is that the job creators, the people that create jobs in this country made it very clear that they can't afford the president's new health care law. month after month, we hear from more people in the private sector who explain that they will either have to fire people or stop providing coverage in order to comply with the significant expenses of the new health care law. let me repeat, this law encourages job creators not to

create jobs but to fire workers, not to hire workers. well, to get around this problem in the short term, the administration began doing something that i didn't anticipate when the health care law was signed. they began to grant waivers from the president's health care law. they said oh, it doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you. come and apply for a waiver. well, during the month of august, this past month, the administration once again branded another round of waivers from the president's health care law. another 73 waivers allowing another 105,000 people to get out of the mandates of the obama health care law. since october, 2010, the obama administration has granted over 1,500 annual benefit limit waivers. now they are granting them for three years, and these waivers now cover over 3.4 million

americans, so the law and the mandates don't have to apply to them with regard to the benefits. now, over 50% of these waivers, who have they gone to? they have gone to union people, people who have gotten their health care through a union health plan. these are the very same people who lobbied for and supported the president's health care law. it's startling that even unions can't afford the president's law. remember nancy pelosi saying first we have to pass it before you get to find out what's in it? well, as more and more americans have found out what's in the health care law, we say we don't want this to apply to us. in fact, the service employees international union said that the law would be financially impossible, financially impossible for them to comply with. well, i don't think any job creator or american family should have to bear financially impossible costs because of the president's health care law.

each time this administration releases yet another round of its health care law waivers, it reminds the american people how fatally flawed the president's new law is. now, as the president prepares for his speech tomorrow night, he needs to take a hard look at his health care law. he needs to face the unfortunate reality that his law actually makes it harder and more expensive for the job creators of this country to hire more people. we need to make it easier and cheaper for the job creators of this country to create private sector jobs, but yet the president's health care law makes it harder and more expensive. tomorrow night, the president needs to change direction. instead of giving waivers to businesses and unions, he should announce that all americans can get a waiver from his health care law. now, the good news is that i have a bill that he can support

immediately. my bill will allow any individual, any american citizen to submit a waiver application seeking relief from any or all of the health care laws' mandates. waivers will be granted to individuals showing that the health care law is either increasing their health care premiums or decreasing their access to benefits. the bill is simple, it's straightforward. it's senate bill 1395. it's called the waive act and there are 16 cosponsors in the senate. it basically says if your costs go up or your benefits go down, then you have the freedom, the freedom to get out of the president's health care law. health insurance premiums have risen 19% since president obama took office. tomorrow night, the president should announce that he will allow all americans an opportunity to opt out of his health care law. if he did, this would be one of the best steps that he could

take to help america's economy. and that, madam president, is why i come to the floor week after week with a doctor's second opinion about a health care law that i believe is hurting our country. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

he. mr. sessions: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: madam president, the debt crisis has become a jobs crisis. there's no doubt in my mind that the debt that we now incurred is already weakening our economy.

the gross debt, federal debt has increased by almost $5 trillion since president obama took office, surging past 100% of our gross domestic product. 100% of the size of the economy. academic research shows that this level of debt is already costing us a million jobs a year. our debt is destroying growth and confidence in the economy. more borrowing -- more borrowing -- will only make matters worse. but according to the associated press, in an article today, the president's job plan will add another $300 billion to the debt. this is the article david espo boasted -- quote -- "the economy weak and the public seething, president obama is expected to

propose $300 billion in tax cuts in federal spending thursday night to get americans working again." i would say that he says will get american people working again. but if you've already borrowed all that you can borrow without damaging the economy, it becomes to a point you can't keep borrowing in a futile attempt to stimulate the economy when the increased debt itself is weakening the economy. according to the article -- the article goes on to say this -- quote -- "according to people familiar with white house deliberations, two of the biggest measures in the proposal for 2012 -- that begins october 1 of this year, fiscal year 201 -- are expected to be a one-year extension of the payroll tax for workers and extension of expiring jobless benefits. together, these two would total

about $170 billion. it goes on -- quote -- "the white house is also considering a tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed. that would cost about $30 billion. obama has also called for public works projects such as school construction. advocates of that plan have called for spending $50 billion on school construction." well, i don't think school buildings is the problem with our education right now. and when you don't have any money, you've got to be careful about borrowing more to spend. it goes on to say -- quote -- "this is significant. though obama has said he intends to propose long-term deficit-reduction measures to cover the upfront cost of his jobs plan, white house spokesman

jay carney said obama would not lay out a wholesale deficit-reduction plan in his speech." in other words, he won't lay out a plan that would pay for it. so, this is where we're heading, it seems to me. now remember the big debate we had over the debt ceiling that ended just before our august recess at the 11th hour and the 59th minute. you remember how much spending reductions it would call for next fiscal year? $7 billion. that's how much we would actually cut in spending next fiscal year. $7 billion. and this plan has called for over $300 billion in spending anew, not paid for. we are already in debt. we're already borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. and we're going to add another

$300 billion in spending, not paid for. borrowed, every penny of it. at some point this country gets to a position where you cannot continue to borrow without damaging the economy. it's just that seufrp. americans -- just that simple. american understands it. as one man told me in evergreen, alabama, you can't borrow your way out of debt. you cannot borrow your way out of debt. we've and gone past that limit, in my opinion. in order to have the kind of robust growth we desperately need, we must remove the looming threat of a greek-like debt crisis. we must do so. this debt has a chilling effect throughout our economy. indeed, a european banker just a few days ago said this feels like 2008. and that gained quite a bit of

traction because people were feeling that but nobody was saying it. and he was quoted all over the business channels about 2008 and the crisis that we might be facing. but the president has refused to do anything to actually reduce the surge in spending that he has engineered. nor have our senate democratic colleagues here in the senate. the house proposed a sound budget plan that would reduce spending over the next ten years and change the debt trajectory of america. we spend almost $8 trillion here in the congress since the senate democratic majority has passed a budget. 861 days. in fact the lewis and clarke expedition lasted 861 days. we passed that now without having a budget.

that is a do-nothing record. it just is, at a time of national crisis we have a failure of leadership in the senate and in the presidency, in my opinion. president obama has never once looked the american people in the eye and told them the bitter truth about the economic dangers we're facing and how much work must be done to get us back on a sound, secure path. it's hard to ask people to sacrifice, it's hard to ask the american public to make tough choices if the president, our leader, will not affirm that we need to make these choices because it's a serious threat to america. admiral mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs, has stated the greatest threat to our security is the national debt. every expert tells us that the greatest threat to our country is the debt. in my opinion, it dwarfs any

other threat that this nation faces. yet, according to partisan associated press -- according to the associated press, the president's speech is going to talk about spending and nothing to deal about how to deal with the debt, or nothing significant about that. so the rhetoric needs to confront reality. the president has given a number of speeches about creating jobs and reducing the deficit. but a speech is no substitute for a budget or for a detailed plan. the only plan the president has ever put on paper, the only plan that can be reviewed by the press, the public and congress is his february budget. he reaffirmed that plan last week, sending congress a midsession review that made no policy changes in his budget that he submitted earlier. he has a 500-person office of

management and budget staff working for him. is it too much to ask for a real plan? whatever he may say on thursday night on paper officially, he remains commited to this budget plan that grows the debt by about $12 trillion and raises taxes by about $2 trillion. what it does is it increases spending and increases taxes significantly. but the increase in spending is greater than the increase in taxes. so the net result is that the president's plan makes the budget projections we have from the congressional budget office worse than it would be if we didn't have his budget plan. america needs the confidence that only a concrete plan can provide.

the constant threat of more federal taxing, borrowing and regulating undermines confidence, certainty and predictability in our economy, that which our economy so desperately needs. so this isn't a question simply of ideology. it's really a question of leadership. we need and have to grow the economy, not the government. we need to grow the economy. america needs a budget plan that recognizes a core truth. our nation's strength does not lie in the size of our government but in the scope of our freedoms, the creativity of our people. we need to focus on policies that unleash the enormous productive potential of the private sector. we need to focus on policies that remove instability fostered by really the president's refusal to put forward a coherent economic plan that will actually reduce debt, not make

it worse. that would end the threat of high taxes and improve conditions for our jobs creators. instead of the failed tax-and-spend approach the voters rejected in the last election, we need to focus on policies that create jobs, not more bureaucracy, helping to steady the economy in these difficult, uncertain times. they include such things as energy production. we definitely damaged and delayed significantly the production of energy in the gulf far beyond what was necessary. only now is it beginning to come back. we are having incredibly increased regulations of every taoeupbd on our economy -- of every kind on our economy. and we failed to undertake the kind of serious tax reform that could help create growth and productivity. these are very, very, very

dangerous things. and i would like to just remind our colleagues that the debt problem can't all be blamed on president bush. i was a critic of some of his spending programs. but, for example, in the last three years president bush's plans compared to the first three years of president obama's, he's increased spending for education 67%. his budget for next fiscal year beginning october 1 was defended a few weeks ago in the appropriations committee, calls for a 13.5% increase in the education department. his plan for -- his budget plan calls for a 10.5% increase in the energy department. i affectionately call it the department of antienergy. the anti-energy department. the state department is looking at a 10.5% increase at a time when we are borrowing 40 cents

of every dollar we spend. how can this be reality? now we're talking about $300 billion will just be thrown in on top of this to stimulate the economy again. i hope and trust that there's some things the government can do to improve the economy. but i am afraid we're at a point where borrowing money is just not one of them. look what the europeans have done. they are facing a similar crisis. do they think they should borrow more and spend more? is that what they're doing? no. they're taking their medicine. italy is attempting to pass a $65 billion austerity plan that would balance their budget by 2013. the budget the president submitted to us does not even come close to balancing in ten

years. and, in fact, the projected annual one-year deficit on the president's plan for the tenth year of his ten-year budget is $1 trillion-plus, the highest budget deficit president bush ever had was $450 billion. he will average almost $1 trillion a year, a thousand billion average over ten years. the interest rate last year was $240 billion. the c.b.o. projects in the tenth year after president obama has doubled the deficit, based on his budget, interest in one year will be $840 billion, crowding out things like aid to education, which is is $100 billion, aid to federal aid to highways, $40 billion. we cannot continue on this path, so italy is making a change. what about spain?

these are three of the so-called pigs in europe, the ones that are in financial trouble. spain is planning a constitutional amendment and complementary law that would require close to balanced budgets at the federal and state level and limit federal debt to 60% of their economy. an active austerity plan reduces salaries of public sector workers and cuts public salary spending. portugal has a four-year consolidation plan that will reduce federal spending by 7% of g.d.p. and would balance the budget by 2015. we have no plan to balance the budget, nothing close to it. indeed, the plan that the president has submitted to us -- and i'm not exaggerating it. this is in the record books. we have got the two-volume

budget sent to us and it's being analyzed by the congressional budget office. we'll average a trillion dollars a year in deficits, which i suppose is why when i brought it up, the senate voted 97-0 to reject the budget. but we don't have one. that's the only one that's pending. our democratic colleagues canceled the budget markup in the budget committee of which i am the ranking republican. we never even pretended to produce a budget this year. senator reid, the majority leader, said it would be foolish to do so. so we're looking now at a crisis that involves millions of americans, the jobs that they hopefully have now and hope to continue and those who have lost their jobs. unemployment has almost doubled. so we're facing a difficult time, and i know the pressure is on to just do something so you

can politically say you did something, but that's not sufficient now. we need mature, strong, detailed leadership, a detailed plan that would put us on a path to a sound economy. the presiding officer: senator, your time is expired. mr. sessions: madam president, i thank the chair and would say we need a plan. i hope the president will do more than the article in the newspaper says to provide the kind of specific leadership that can help us move forward from the economic difficulties we face, and i yield the floor. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the motion to proceed to h.r. 1249, which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to the consideration of h.r. 1249, an act to amend title 35 united states code to provide for patent reform, an act to cut, cap and balance the federal budget.

mr. leahy: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: madam president, i have five unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders, and i ask unanimous consent the requests be agreed to, the requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: madam president, you know, every time i hear discussions about how we balance the budget, especially coming from the other side of the aisle, maybe because i have been here long enough, i remember the last time we did balance the budget during president clinton's term. we balanced the budget, we created an amazing surplus. we created millions and millions of new jobs. you know what? not a single republican voted for that. it passed in the senate only because the vice president of the united states cast the deciding vote. no republican voted.

we actually had to do more than just have a bumper sticker, let's balance the budget. when we actually did balance the budget which required some very tough choices, no republican voted for that. in fact, they all condemned it, saying this would bring about ruin and on and on. it didn't. it created enormous budget surplus, created at least 12 million new jobs. it was paying down the national debt. left a very large surplus to president clinton's successor, president bush, who immediately wasted it on a needless war in iraq and tax cuts, both of which i voted against. it's interesting also -- and i

find it in congress to be lectured on the other side of the aisle about balancing the budget. they voted to go on to two of the longest wars in our history, and for the first time in history voted to pay for it by borrowing the money. you want to look at where trillions of dollars have gone, look at iraq and afghanistan. now to be told that to continue to pay for unnecessary wars, we must cut out things for americans, like education, medical care, housing, scientific research into things like finding cures for cancer, alzheimer's. repairing our aging bridges, roads, even hearing from a member of the other body saying

we can't respond to the tragedies caused by eye reason, the distinguished presiding officer's home state, mine and others, unless we find some -- unless we take the money from other needs in this country, and yet that same member supported an unnecessary war in iraq and supports paying for it on the credit card. come on. let's be real. let's start thinking about things in america. speaking of which, the senate began debate last night on the america invents act. we -- unfortunately so many times just to proceed to something, we have to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed, and i would note that 93 senators, republicans and democrats alike, voted to invoke

cloture on the motion to proceed. and i hope we can now move forward, pass this legislation, help spur innovation, bolster the economy and create jobs. this is a bipartisan consensus bill. it's largely similar to the legislation the senate passed in march. we passed that on a vote of 95-5. some would say these days we can't vote on -- vote like that on a resolution saying the sun rises in the east. here republicans and democrats came together 95-5. the senate can and should move to modally pass this bill. it will create good jobs, it will encourage innovation, it will strengthen our recovering economy, and it won't cost the taxpayers anything. i want to commend senator hatch, a long-time republican lead sponsor of this measure, senator grassley, the ranking republican of the senate judiciary

committee, senator kyl, the republican whip for their support of the bill, for their commitment to making patent reform become a reality. this is an effort that we have worked on for nearly six years. i sometimes shudder to think of the amount of time my staff has spent on this and i have spent on this. during those six years, it has become even more important to the economy. the time has come to enact this bipartisan, bicameral legislation. i ask consent to include in the record the statement of administration policy on h.r. 1249 from the obama administration. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. leahy: the statement describes the bill as a balanced and well-crafted effort to enhance the services to peapt

appearly candidates that american -- american innovators provide to the patent office. the statement of information policy emphasizes the bill supports uspto's efforts to improve patent quality, reduce the backlog of patent applications, reducing domestic and global patent and costs for u.s. companies. now, i understand the -- and i underscore these points because they are exactly the goals that chairman smith and the other body and i sat out to achieve when we first introduced patent reform legislation six years ago. it's been over a half of century as the patent laws were updated. look at the changes, madam president, during that time. we have become even more of a global economy than ever before. we have become more of an innovative economy than ever before. an improved patent quality that

benefit businesses across the economic spectrum. the america invents act will improve patent quality by expanding the role of third parties in the patent examination process, creating a steam lined post window grant review to quickly challenge and weed out patents that never should have been issued in the first place and improving the funding mechanism for the patent office to confront its backlog of patent applications. that backlog, 700,000. those are patents that can be creating jobs. they could be improving our economy. let's get them done. for years, low quality patents have been a drain on our patent system and in turn our economy by undermining the value of what it means to hold a patent. higher quality patents will bring greater certainty in the patent system.

that's going to make it easier to get investment in american businesses, create jobs and grow our economy. this act is bipartisan legislation. it's going to lead to long-needed improvements in our patent system, our laws. i would note that no one senator, no industry, no interest group would get everything it wanted in this bill. i suggest, madam president, that we are going to write this bill exactly the way we wanted it in this body, we would have a hundred separate bills. we can only pass one. that's the nature of compromise. and this bill represents a significant step forward in preparing the patent office and in turn businesses to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. support for the bill has grown over time. it's now endorsed by an

extensive list of supporters across the political spectrum. look at what we have here. how often do you see this kind of a breakdown? the national association of manufacturers, the united states steelworkers, the u.s. chamber of commerce, the association of american universities, the american intellectual property law association, coalition for 21st century patent reform, small business and entrepreneurship council, the national retail federation, the financial services roundtable, the american bar association, the united inventors association of america, the association of competitive technology, the association of university technology managers, the information technology council, the american institution of -- institute of certified public accountants, and so many more. i mean, this, this is a

coalition. i cannot remember a time in my years in the senate where you have seen such a broad coalition come together, business, labor, high tech come together to pass legislation. so i think we should grant this legislation final approval. the senate and the house and now a host of associations, interested parties from the private sector endorse passing the bill without further amendment. at a time when we could do something to create jobs and not cost the taxpayers, every day we wait, every day we delay is another day before those jobs are created. every day we wait, every day we delay is another day that we hold back the innovative genius of america. every day we wait, every day we delay is another day that we're unable to really compete with the rest of the world on a level

playing field. and any amendment, any amendment including ones i might like would force reconsideration by the house and more unnecessary delay and longer before we can create those jobs, longer before we can innovate, longer before we can compete with the rest of the the world. i can think of half a dozen amendments i would like to have in the bill. i will vote against them because it's time to get this done. we spent six years. it is time to say the senate and the house have acted, let's do this for the country. not for any one individual feeling that they want one more thing. i want one more thing. i want five more things but i'm not going to do it because this bill has to pass. patent reform legislation has been debated exhaustively in both the senate and the house

the past four congresses. dozens of hearings, weeks of committee markups. we should proceed to the bill and pass it. let's not have any one person feel that they have the magic point that everybody else has somehow overlooked. it's not the way the legislative process works. there's a hundred here in the senate, 435 in the house. nobody gets every single thing they want. but here the vast majority of republicans and democrats in the house and the senate are getting what they feel is best for america. isn't it time to put america first? it's time for the senate to do that and pass the important legislation before us. it's a consensus bill. facilitate invention, innovation and job creation today. today.

this could help everyone from startups and small businesses to our largest cutting-edge corporations. let's put americans back to work. let's show the american people that the congress of the united states actually can accomplish something and do it for america. here is something where both republicans and democrats have come together. let's not delay longer. we've taken six years to get here. let's not delay longer. just in our vote yesterday over 90 senators voting to proceed indicates it is time to get moving. it is time to stop debating, it is time to start acting. madam president, i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the role.

quorum call:

mr. carper: good morning. quiet around here. hopefully at the other end of the capitol the president is going to give a speech, it's going to focus, we're told on the next steps in getting the economy moving, getting people back to work and that's something that on all of our minds. i have -- as a guy who used to make his living as governor of my state, and focus a whole lot on the economy, these are

issues of great interest to me and certainly the folks that i'm privileged to represent. but the thought that occurs to me as we anticipate the president's speech, i don't know if there is any one particular jobs bill that's going to do the trick. i'd like to think there was a silver bullet but i don't know that there is. what i've always focused on and we try to focus on in our state is how do we create a nurturing environment for job creation and job preservation. how do we do that? among the ways we tried to do that, one, tried to invest wisely in infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, trains, water, sewer. broadband, we try to invest in the work force, try to make sure we have people coming out of our schools, high schools or community colleges or other schools, people who can read and write and do math and have skills that enable them to fill the jobs that exist in the 21st century.

and the other part of what we focus on is trying to help promote research and development. not just any kind of research and development but r&d that can be used to create products that can be commercialized and sold not just in this country but in other places as well. we've been joined here by the senator from minnesota, i don't know if she is on a tight time line or not --, you good? all right. but anyway, hopefully the present will talk about some of those things tomorrow night. i look forward, whatever he talks about, i look forward to. i hope he talks about that nurturing environment and what we can do to allow them to plow the fields so companies large and small can actually grow some jobs here. part of the nurturing environment for job creation is infrastructure. we've been trying for many months since the beginning of this year to actually work on the airport infrastructure in our country to try to bring the

federal aviation administration or air traffic are control system into the 21st century. it's not and it needs to be. trying to make sure we have the resources we need to modernize airports. across the country and that we actually pay for it, don't actually add to the deficit. and the legislation we passed earlier this year does that. modernizes the f.a.a., brings us into the -- the air traffic control system into the 21st century, provides some agreement between the airlines and general aviation community and agreement on how to come up with the resources needed to modernize our airports. good approach and very encouraging to start the year this the way. it's been hung up in the house since then but we need to get that done. before today and this week is another part of that infrastructure that we need to work on, but this is the infrastructure that allows companies that have a good idea, inventors who have a good idea to actually get a peanut their idea and a patent that doesn't end up being litigated

on and on for years maybe for years in the courts. too often it takes years for -- from when somebody comes up with a good idea, they submit to the patent office, takes a long, long time to get to the cop of the queue, before anybody pays attention to the application. and a good chance somebody says i have had the same idea before would he or she did and we end up in litigation and we need to stop that. we finally worked out a compromise that whoever files first is essentially the win are. whoever says they came up with the idea sooner, it's whoever files first. we need to get this legislation done, we need to deal with one aspect of uncertainty, unpredictability that businesses face. and that's a great thing if we could at least make progress on this fronts this week. another part of the infrastructure for job creation, job preservation is the postal service. not a lot of people pay much attention to the postal service

until they get into trouble and the postal service is in trouble. i describe the situation as dire. the situation is not hopeless. and the postal service finds themselves in a situation not unlike the auto industry here in this country a couple of years ago. the auto industry, losing market, losing market share, the quality of products wasn't especially good, they're losing market share, and that they essentially concluded we have more people than we need for the size of the market we now sell to and we need to be able to reduce our head count. they said we have a more -- we have to make our wage-benefit structure more competitive for the new people who are hired in the future in order for us to be competitive. and the third thing they said is we have to -- have too many plants. too many people, the wage/benefit structure was out of whack and too many plants. the postal service today, we're seeing enormous diversion of

people using traditional mail, first-class mail, enormous diversion into electronic media. as naval flight officer in the vietnam war i remember how excited -- we've been joined by senator mccain, and he went for a long timing without getting much mail at all when he was a p.o.w. for those of us more fortunate and deployed and one of the happiest days every week were when we got mail. postcards, letters, cards, packages, you name it. magazines, newspapers, some connection from home. today, senator klobuchar and senator mccain have been over in afghanistan, our soldiers, sailors, marines, they skype. they communicate through different social media than we even thought about 10 years ago. facebook, at which time perks internet, cell phones. we never had that stuff even 30, 35 years ago in southeast asia or around the world for the

most part. the world has changed. and people aren't using mail so much. they especially don't use first-class mail. and the situation the postal service is in today, they lost last year about -- rather they're on track this year to lose about $10 billion, can only borrow about $15 billion with a line of credit with the federal government and that's it. they're up against their line of credit, looking to lose more money if they do nothing, if we don't let them do something they'll lose a bundle of money next year and could be in a position at the end of this year to default by the end of the month if we do nothing and at the end of next year, maybe next september, maybe out of business. out of business. that's not good for them and that's not good for us, or for the seven or eight million jobs that depend on the postal service to do their work. the situation with the postal service is similar to the situation of a couple years ago, did domestic auto industry but it's different, too. the auto industry, not ford but

chrysler and g.m. were looking for taxpayer bailout. they got that and repaid most of it to the treasury. the postal service is not asking for a bailout. that's not what they want. they want to be treated like a real business, run like a reals which business. they say like the auto industry they have more people than they need, they need to reduce that head count through attrition and incentivize 120,000 or so people who are close to requirement, incentivize them to retire by giving them early payments, $10,000, $230,000, allow them to get credit for a couple of extra years but get the people right there ready to retire, they need to be encouraged, incentivized to retire. not fired. not laid off. incentivized to retire. too many people. two, too many post offices. 33,000 post offices around the country. the postal service doesn't want to close them all but they're saying let's look at 3,000 of them. less than a tenth, look at

3,000 and have a conversation with the communities there. do all those 3,000 post offices in those communities need to stay open? are there some that can actually colocate their services so you can go to the convenience store open 24/7, or go into a pharmacy open maybe seven days a week, or you go combo do into a supermarket that's open seven days aweek and get your postal service he postal service, a loft your postal work done, colocate them. that service in one place. that's more convenient to the consumers. that's what the postal service wants to do. the last thing that the postal service has too much of is mail processing centers. they have over 500 of them around the country. they argue it's probably twice the number they need and they need to be able to reduce those. the postal service also needs to be treated fairly and they have been paying into civil service retirement system for many years for some of their older employees, and more recently another more recent federal

employee retirement system for the newer employees. two separate audits done by segal and company and a consulting company called hay group some have concluded that the postal service has overpaid its obligation into the civil service retirement system by $50 billion or more. they've estimated they have overpaid to the federal service retirement system by about $7 billion. postal service has asked to be reimbursed for those overpayments and would like to use those overpayments on the one hand, to help meet their obligation to pay the heavy health care costs for folks that are retired from the postal service or about to retire. it's an obligation under the 2006 law. they would like to use some of that $7 billion overpayment in the federal service retirement system to incent folks who are

eligible to retire from the postal service to retire. 80% of the cost of the postal service are people. 80%. the postal service has reduced its head count of about 800,000 people to, say, 600,000 people over the last seven or eight years. they need to be able to continue to reduce that in the years to come. roughly 100,000 over the next two or three years through attrition, maybe another 120,000 by incentivizing people to retire. the senator from minnesota is still standing here waiting for me to stop, and i've got a lot more that i want to say, but i'm going to stop and i'll come back maybe later today and finish my comments. let me conclude with this. we need to act so that the postal service can save itself. we don't need to bail them out. we need to let them act like a real company. the situation is dire, but it is not hopeless. and they need to be able to address, as the auto industry

did, too many people. they need to be able to close and consolidate some post offices and colocate services in places that make more sense for consumers. they need to be able to close some of their mail processing centers and they need to be treated fairly with respect to their overpayments into the civil service retirement system and federal employee retirement system. we can do these things. we need to do these things. we don't need to do it next year. we need to do it this year. thank you for your patience. ms. klobuchar: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: i appreciate the ability to go ahead. i rise today to speak in support of the america invents act, a bill to revamp our patent system. as a member of the judiciary committee, i worked on this bill. i was one of the cosponsors and helped manage the bill the last time, when it was on the floor. i'm here today to make sure that we get it over the finish line.

it is without dispute that intellectual property is one of our nation's most valuable assets, and our patent system plays a vital role in maintaining the value of our intellectual property. in fact, the commerce department estimates that up to 75% of economic growth in our nation since world war ii is due to technological innovation, innovation that was made possible in part by our patent system. i see firsthand the importance and success of a robust patent system whenever i am visiting minnesota companies and talking with business leaders in our states, as i did many times over the past month. minnesotans have brought the world everything from the pacemaker to the postit note. these invasion -- innovations would not have been possible without the patent system. this is why our state ranks sixth in the nation if patents

per capita and we are number one per capita for fortune 500 companies. companies like 3-m, eco lab, lectronics need a patent system. it is also companies that rely on patents to grope their companies and create -- to grow their companies and create jobs in america. from 1990 to 2001 all the net job growth in our country came from companies that were less than five years old. it's the person in the garage building a mousetrap or in the case of metronic, the first battery-powered pacemaker that drives our economy forward and creates the products that americans can make and sell to the world. i truly believe that to get out of this economic rut, we need to be a country that makes stuff again, that invents things, that exports to the world and that is why it is so critical that we pass the america invents act. unfortunately, our patent laws haven't had a major update since

1952. the system is outdated and is quickly becoming a burden on our innovators and entrepreneurs. because of these outdated laws, the patent and trademark office faces a backlog of over 700,000 patent applications, and many would argue that all too often the office issues low-quality patents. one of these 700,000 patents maybe the next implantable pacemaker or new and improved hearing aid. our current patent system also seems stacked against small entrepreneurs. i've spoken to small business owners and entrepreneurs across minnesota who are concerned with the high cost and uncertainty of protecting their inventions. for example, under the current system, when two patents are filed around the same time for the same invention, the applicants must go through an arduous and expensive process called and interference to determine which applicant will be awarded the patent.

small inventors rarely, if ever, win interference proceedings because the rules for interferences are often stacked in favor of companies with deep pockets. this needs to change. our current patent system also ignores the realities of the information age that we live in. in 1952 the world wasn't as interconnected as it is today. there was no internet. people didn't share information like they do in this modern age. in 1952 most publicly available information about technology could be found either in patents or scientific publications. so patent examiners only had to look to a few sources to determine if the technology described in the patent application was both novel and the word nonobvious. today there is a vast amount of information readily available everywhere you look. it is unrealistic to believe that a patent examiner would know all of the places to look for this information. and even if the examiner knew

where to look, it is unlikely he or she would have the time to search in all these nooks and crannies. the people that know where to look are the other scientists and innovators that also work in the field. but current law does not allow participation by third parties in the patent application process, despite the fact that third parties are often in the best position to challenge a patent application. without the benefit of this outside expertise, an examiner might grab a patent for technology that simply isn't a true invention. and those low-quality patents clog up the system and hinder true innovation. our nation can't afford to slow innovation anymore. while chain is investing billions of -- while china is investing billions of dollars in its medical technology sector we're still bickering about the regulations. while india encourages invention and entrepreneurship we're still giving our innovators the runaround playing red light,

green light with stop-and-go tax incentives. the truth is that america can no longer afford to be a country that simply exists on churning money and shuffling paper, a country that consumes, imports and spends its ways to huge trade deficits. what we need to be is that nation that invents again, that thinks again, that exports to the world, a country where you can walk into any store and pick up a product and turn it over and it says "made in the u.s.a." that's what our country needs to be. it's what tom friedman who writes for "the new york times" and is a minnesota nation wrote called nation building in our nation. as entrepreneurs across america told me, we need to rejuvenate our laws to ensure that our patent system supports the needs of a 21st century economy. the america invents act does just that. first, the america invents act increases the speed and certainty of the patent application process by

transitioning our patent system from a first to invent system to a first inventor to file system. this change to a first-inventor-to-file system will increase predictability by creating brighter lines to guide patent applicants and patent office examiners. by simply using the filing date of an application to determine the true inventor, the bill increases the speed of the patent application process while also rewarding novel cutting-edge inventions. to help guide investors and inventors, this bill allows them to search the public record to discover with more certainty whether their idea is patentable, helping eliminate duplication and streamlining the system. at the same time, the bill still provides a safe harbor of a year for inventors to go out and market their inventions before having to file for their patent. this grace period is one of the reasons our nation's top research universities like the university of minnesota support the bill.

the grace period protects professors who discuss their inventions with colleagues or publish them in journals before filing their patent application. the grace period, along with prior user rights, will encourage cross poll lynn nation of -- polli nation of ideas. this legislation also helps to ensure that only true inventions receive protections under our laws. by allowing third parties to provide information to the patent examiner, the america invents act helps bridge the information gap between the patent application and existing knowledge. the legislation also provides a modernized, streamlined mechanism for third parties that want to challenge recently issued low-quality patents that should never have been issued in the first place. eliminating these potential trivial patents will help the entire patent system by improving certainty. the legislation will also

improve the patent system by granting the u.s. patent and trade office the authority to set and adjust its own fees. allowing the office to set their own fees will give them the resources to reduce the current backlog and devote greater resources to each patent that is reviewed to ensure higher quality. the fee-setting authority is why i.b.m., one of the most innovative companies around that has facilities in rochester, minnesota and in the twin cities, that was granted a record 5,896 patents in 2010, that is why i.b.m. supports this bill. they want to even bring more inventions and more jobs to america. mr. president, as chair of the subcommittee -- madam president, as chair of the subcommittee on competitiveness, innovation and export promotion, i've been focused on ways to promote innovation and growth in the 21st century. stakeholders from across the spectrum agree this bill is a

necessary step to ensure that the united states remains the world leader in developing innovative products that bring prosperity and happiness to our citizens. globalization and technology changed our economy. this legislation will ensure that our patent system rewards the innovation of the 21st century. i know this is not the exact bill that we passed in the senate earlier this year, but the major components of that earlier bill are in the one on the floor today. those components are vital to bringing our patent system into the 21st century and unleashing american ingenuity like never before. sometimes it's obvious how you can get a job. sometimes it's harder to see when you have to get an invention invented, when you have to get it approved, when you have to get that patent, when you have to market it. that's the hard work that goes on in this bill. thank you, madam president. i urge my colleagues to support this bill. and i yield the floor to my colleague and friend from arizona, senator mccain.

mr. mccain: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business, and i additionally ask unanimous consent that i be joined in a colloquy with senator graham from south carolina and senator lieberman from connecticut. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: yesterday we learned from media reports that the obama administration has made a decision to sharply reduce the number of u.s. forces that it's proposing for a post2011 security agreement with iraq to roughly 3,000 troops. that media report has not been contradicted yet by anyone in the administration, so one has to assume that that is the direction which the administration is headed.

as is well known, 3,000 troops is dramatically lower than what our military commanders have repeatedly told us on multiple trips to iraq that would be needed to support iraq's stability and to secure our mutual interests that our two nations have sacrificed so much to achieve. our military leaders on the ground in iraq have told us that in order to achieve our goal, which is a stable, self-governing iraq, that's a partner in fighting terrorism and extremism, they need a post 2011 force presence that is significantly higher than 3,000 troops. we continue to hear that the iraqis are to blame because they haven't asked for a new agreement. well, the fact is in early august iraq's major political blocs reached agreement to begin negotiations with the u.s. on a