fully allocated costs. and there's a dilemma because if you price everything above, above attributable costs, you're unlikely to just -- if that's your goal, you're unlikely to cover the full cost of service. so that was the model. profits on letter mail, subsidize everything else. and arguably, this was efficient if you go back and look at the microeconomic literature and see what would be optimal for a price-constrained monopolist with senate scale economies, you would get ramsey pricing, you know what that is. it was second-order conditions, and you would get something approximating the rate structure that the postal service experienced until a few years ago. ..

>> i dare say that the number of electronic messages now dwarfs the number of letter mail messages. every day. dwarfs it. my own experience, i know that. i spend far more -- send far more electronic messages than i do letter mail. that's not to say that the postal service volume of mail evolve because you could have a big burgeoning of public

messages. in fact, that's what we have experienced. but these electronic messages haven't eaten into the postal service is first class mail. and i see no reason to believe that that is going to turn around. now, one reason that first class mail volume has fallen, it's been the recession. in early on in the process where we started claiming the bell, we, postal board of governors, started claiming the bill saying something is wrong here, we got to do something. just because there was a recession, a lot of folks said that's the problem. it's not anything fundamental. it's not a systemic problem. demand hasn't really changed. it's a product of the recession. but go ahead, more analytical people looked closely and recognize that there was this diversion going on, and it was not in. so what do you do? will what do you do when you

have a model where all of this losing service is being undergirded bride profits on another come on one class of mail which constitutes about half the total revenue, but when that revenue, the net revenue disappeared. there's this withering away of this monopoly return and there's nothing to offset it. now, that's a simple explanation. what do you do about it? i mean, how do you address these kinds of problems? why don't you just raise rates? now, we economists, including people in this room, know they're just raising rates doesn't necessarily increase profits, right? you have a monopoly and you have the right price, if you increase

it from there you are less profit, et cetera. so this is a simple answer that you can raise rates is not always the accurate answer. and a lot of people don't think beyond the notion, well, just raise rates. by anything, event, raise rates. in 2006, congress passed the coastal accountability and enforcement act which liberalized some of the postal service's restraints, in particular gave us some authority to manage its competitor products primarily, products in competition with fedex and ups, but didn't really change the other. in fact, he made it more difficult to change or to alter the rest of the services, the services including the services that we're losing the most money. it put a limit on the rate

increases by class of service. and, in fact, said you couldn't raise rates more than cpi. that seems like a straightforward, good sense. you've got a monopoly, you have to have every strain on the rate increases that a good octane, -- that a good octane, but if you limited the cpi and you've got a lot of services for whom, for which the prices far below even a trivial cost, you can't raise the prices on losing services, you know, very much so you've got to keep providing the services annular zone every item. but the theory is you make it up on volume. i don't think so. i don't think so. so that is a problem to another provision of this law by the way, find this interesting,

requires, legally requires the board of governors to establish rates and so that those rates cover all costs of the surface, for each class of service. so you're in a position where one part of the law says you can't raise rates more than this amount, and another part of the law says you are really supposed to raise rates this amount. now, what do you do in that situation? i mean, if you're an elected officials were to uphold the constitution, follow the laws of the land, you're in a pickle. all the governors are facing that deliver right now. we are violating one part of the law or another part of it. so that's the difficulty. now, there is a provision for what's called an exigent rate increase, when there are significant, unexpected, dramatic reductions in the outlook, and reductions in

performance, because of unanticipated, suppose, forgot this, another anthrax case or another 9/11 or something like that. we have, i mean come it's not what an economist would say is a good solution but you do have the authority to go to the postal rate commission and ask for a rate increase, or exception from this cap. and we recently asked for an increase based on the recession, and the postal rate commission, now postal regulatory commission is called in the 2006 regulation, said no. it doesn't constitute what is required for showing of unanticipated, significant, whatever the languages. but that decision was overturned on appeal, or a partially overturned. we don't know what will happen

there. also, even quite aside from that, we have difficulty changing rate. if we want to change rates, part of the reason is that we would want to let our customers know the rates will be changed in advance so they could gear up, you know, and change their meters and all that. we have to go to the pr, the postal rate commission, 45 days at least ahead of time for them to do a proceeding to find out whether it's okay to change those rates. now, suppose your 7-eleven and you want to raise the price of altoid. you go in, is it going to be $1.89 or $2.25? suppose you had to go to some kind of government agency and apply, you know, filed a bunch of papers ahead of time and get some kind of decision. it doesn't make any sense. it doesn't make sense for the

postal service either, in my judgment. so even if those rates, rates within competition of ups and with fedex, we have under the new loss of authority to make some changes, but the prc then has a preceding in which they can make a determination that the prices are below costs that are unlawful. so you have that hanging over your head. now, what about reducing costs? obviously you know, the difference between revenue and cost, one way to get out of the find is to increase revenue, another way is to reduce costs. well, we, the postal service, run a logistics network. we have a nod towards ups, uses the word we are a logistics business, right?

so think of this. the economy is constantly changing. it's one of the wonderful things about our economy, it responds to different -- consumers change about what their preferences are and where they want to live, and from which retailer they want to buy things, et cetera. so, our need is to be able to adapt to those changing patterns. but we have in the law requirements, give advance notice for any kind of change, and that gives congress an opportunity to insert nimby, not in my backyard, provisions in appropriations or other essential legislation. or simply threats to do that. so it makes it difficult for us to make those kind of changes. similarly, the post office. with about 36,000 post offices, only about 6000 of which earn

revenue for the post office, more than the cost of operating that post office. imagine your wal-mart and you are told, i don't care if you don't make any money on this, you've got to keep the store open. well, yeah, but the bridges out and i don't think that for three years, doesn't matter, you've got to keep this open. well i mean, just multiply that by tens of thousands and you can see what a problem that we are in. there is also problems in changing delivery. wal-mart, open from 8:00 to 8:00, or 7:00 to 10:00, or even 24 hours, but that decision is up to wal-mart, or mcdonald's, some are open up 24 hours, some are open for much short period of time, et cetera. the market determines that.

people who own the stores are run these stones have the responsibility. they are looking at consumer demand. you know, they say consumers don't want to come in here between 10:00 at night and 5:00 in the morning. why keep the lights on? why pay people to stand back here and keep the grill going? close it down. we don't have that authority. we can't just eliminate those kinds of operations, or change the hours or change the frequency of delivered. that's a big issue right now. there is provision in current law that requires us to provide six-day week service. current law, appropriations rider, that requires the system provide six days a week. now, it wasn't always that way. in fact, it was the other -- when i was a kid, when i was

growing up in 1800 -- [laughter] we got delivered in my little town in conyers, georgia, we got a mail delivery twice a day. have you ever heard of that? we got delivered twice a day. now, that hasn't been the case for a long time, but people get delivered once a day. well, i'll just tell you, as a business proposition, there are places that ought to get delivery of mail six days a week. there are other places ought to get mail delivery five days a week. and other places ought to get mail delivery three days a week. and in some places maybe one day a week. do you know what we deliver mail at the bottom of the grand canyon? we have mules take the meltdown at all that. i don't mean people want to live in the grand canyon, god bless them, you know? but i mean, there's enormous

costs. and ladies and gentlemen, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. so if people are imposing the costs on the system, somebody is paying for it, and it's the ratepayers for others. and when you are in a situation where 20, 30 years ago he had a lot of profits, delivery of first class mail, you could subsidize that kind of system. it's not there now. it's simply not there. so that means there will be big losses racked up. there's also a problem of labor costs. labor costs are 80% of our total costs. 80%. now, why is that a big problem? it could be 90%. i'm not taking issue with the 80% numbered. but we do have two problems that experts, the connotations are much more -- about statistics

and multi-correlation and autocorrelation and all that stuff, has anything to do with automobiles. it's statistical testing of statistical properties, you know, of models, et cetera. well, they conclude that number one, that current employees, both those that distribute mail inside a facility, you know, are involved with channeling the mail, and those who actually walk are getting a premium. the total cost, including benefits, is higher than would be the case and the private sector. and secondly because of the constraints contained historically in the contract, and the constraints that are mandated by law, and there's

some constraints mandated by law, you have to give them this, this and this, that currently the are earning a significant premium. now, i'm not against anybody earning good money, absolutely. but on the other hand, when you have monopoly mail making a great profit, you can just to get it around, you can get along with that, but not now because we don't have the profits from first class mail to distribute around the losing services. so, it would be possible for us to do a lot better if we were able to get, obtaining contracts with our two major unions, the postal workers union and the letter carriers union's which provided, number one, lower basic compensation, number one.

and number two, a great deal more flexibility. the board went out and visited the facilities of ups and fedex. they have big teaching problem. i don't know if you know about this but they have all these things they collect around the country and they all go into memphis for fedex, you know? and they have, starting about 1:00 a.m. they have all these big planes landing and is just pandemonium. they have all the stuff on there, you know? well, there probably is greater than ours but we do have a peek problem. but what the deuce they to hire a lot of college students to come in and work for hours just to have another peak in the morning. we have peak problems as well. but for all practical purposes still, we have to pay people for an eight-hour day, on an eight hour day basis. we can't hire people for four

hours. for practical purposes there is some flexibility. now, why can't we get revision and pay scales, and also some free me up of these work pool's? well, there's a special law that applies to labor relations in the postal service. it says that management and employees, negotiate. and that there is an impasse, it goes to compulsory arbitration. all right? the history of compulsory arbitration has been that that organized labor gets pretty much what it asked for. for that reason we recently signed with the atw you and give them a great number of concessions come including an extension of the provision for no layoffs but they gave in

return some reductions and facing the salaries, wages for a short period, et cetera. so we have a labor law that is driving this. it's not that the postal service says it all, give them whatever they want. we have something that is driven by law. well, despite all these problems the postal service has been doing all it can reduce costs, to streamline the system, to have a more efficient logistical network. and we have reduced costs by quite a lot, but not as much proportionally as the reduction in total mail volume. what more could be done? well, in march of 2010 the postal board of governors and the postmaster general announced a plan based on our intensive study of these issues for about eight months of really intensive work, after sounding alarms for some time, and it required some

reform in delivery frequency, some restraints on workforce compensation and bring up work rules, some pricing flexibility. and things of this nature. one proposal that has been floated by academics has been to demonize allies and privatize the postal service. right? that's the solution. let me tell you, when i was budget director i sat down across the cabinet room table with president reagan and said the president reagan, mr. president, in his budget i prepared for you, i proposed that we do monopolize and privatize the postal service. his reaction was, well, jim, that sounds like a good idea. now, i found subsequently when this book that annelise anderson

and care and skin and marty anderson published in his own hand, based on his radio address that he given array to address saying virtually the same thing. which is an example by the way, you know, yet a plaque on his desk that said something to do that, you'd be surprised how much progress you can make if you don't care who gets the credit. that was an example of that. rather than sink in, i proposed this for years ago or something like that. he didn't say that. he said that's a good idea. so we put in there, and, of course, there was no progress of the proposal at all. there was massive opposition. i could meet anyone on the hill really interested in that proposition. and that situation prevails today. there is no constituent for privatization and demonopolize. none. dana rohrabacher, a congressman, former associate of mine in the

white house, now confident from california puts in to build nearly every are saying let's give the postal service new employees. and the unions fight that tooth and nail. well, i'm not surprised if you have the current system, right, and you offered, and the postal service we're offering ipo, what kind of feisty think it would bring? zero. it's not an ongoing proposition. in fact, ladies and gentlemen, if the postal service were an ordinary corporation, today it would be in chapter 11, perhaps chapter nine. postal service is -- i hate to say that, i don't know whether that will create new tonight, i've said it before. so changes have to be made. now, but basically that is a nonstarter. we could do some reform of the

labor law. one proposal has been they should take into account the financial condition of the postal service. to me, this is not an elegant solution. because it shouldn't matter, you know? the postal service and organized labor should be able to contest these things and solve it. so that's one thing that might improve the situation to another might be to relax what is called the universal service obligation. there is for the postal service a requirement by congress that it provides service everywhere in america, everywhere in america. there some places where you need to provide service, and there are other places where it makes no economic sense for us to be providing service. people say well, you know, without the universal service organization, obligation, they would be massive reductions in service, et cetera, people would

never get their mail, et cetera. those same arguments were used against trucking deregulation. i remember the american trucking association put out a volume in the ford administration where they had a model that showed all of these services in the small town, michigan, how did they pick michigan? i don't know. all types of services in michigan would disappear, right? all those, didn't happen. same thing with the airline deregulation. forecast with that universal service obligation and control of the airlines by the civil aeronautics board, massive reductions in service, people wouldn't be able to get -- didn't have to. in fact, just the reverse happened. much more service than before. so i suspect that would be the case if you elimination of the uso postal service. neither fedex nor ups has any

kind of universal service obligation. their service is ubiquitous, right? you have trouble finding a ups or fedex? no. but they have some flexibility where they located provisions, their frequency. for example, i live in rappahannock county, virginia. fedex and ups don't deliver on saturday. i know that. and for that reason i can make provisions. i can always go to the central place and pick up what i need. and, in fact, the postal service has proposed that we, given the authority to reduce service, and the question of six versus five, we vacate the post offices open. so if you had something, people say well, there will be people getting medicine on saturdays and they would go without the medicine.

well, they could go to the post office and get the medicine instead of having it delivered to them. by the way, the postal regulatory commission recently finished a study where they found that the universal service obligation cost the postal service $4.4 billion each year. the monopoly on the mail, letter mail, the estimated indicated the postal service 3.5 billion each year. it might be a deal there. i mean, eliminate the requirement for the uso in exchange give up the monopoly on letter for the mailbox and letter mail. trc could put more classes of mail in the competitive category. we have some first class mail that still regulated under the old system. and it's just in direct competition to ups and fedex. that ought to be in the competitive category. any event, there's legislation

to consider dealing with these issues. the postal service wasn't supposed to have paid the federal government $5.5 billion on september 30. i said publicly last march, it ain't going to happen. we will default. you can't say, you can't say that. and i can. i'm chairman of the committee. i can do anything i want. i'm going to say it. u.s. government will default. i mean, the postal service will default on its obligation to the u.s. government. what happened in the c.r., you all know what ser is, c.r. you have to say that, go to the cocktail parties, i know about the c.r. they will think you are smart. the c.r. means continuing resolution. they postponed the date until november 18 so technically wouldn't be in the fall. we don't have any money. i mean, it's not there.

unless they do something we are going to default. they just keep pushing the date back. the president recently came out and said he was in favor of restructuring retiree health benefits. everybody agrees. first everybody agrees that we have overpaid for retiree health benefits. and we need to change that. federal employees retirement system, we've overpaid that, and so some notion is getting a refund there. and the president is supporting some flexibility in our delivery requirements. their specific bills. congressman issa has a bill in the house. congressman lynch, oxman cummings, in the senate a bill by senators lieberman, collins, and senator mccain. and among other things, they

would provide the establishment of a federal financial pro board in case we default in their change worker compensation will and so forth. so in conclusion, i know you know about it. in conclusion, and a lot of smart people within the beltway, groping for solutions that would establish a model that works. and that's good, because the old model, the old business model doesn't work. and in my opinion, postal service must be given more freedom to operate as a business if it's to remain part of the broader postal market, and avoid substantial continuing subsidies from the federal government. i appreciate your time. i will stop and answer questions.

[applause] >> chairman, if i could take the moderators prerogative and ask the first question, could you describe for the audience the structure of the governing bodies question referred to by postal regulatory commission. and a just curious, do they have any responsibilities other than regulating a government appointed board? >> let's start with the postal service organization. the postal services headed by a postmaster general, and a deputy postmaster general, that are chosen by a board of governors. the board of governors consists of, for most purposes, 11

members, including the postmaster general and the deputy postmaster general. obviously, when we choose a deputy or postmaster general, they don't get to vote. but the members of the postal board of governors are nine in number, are chosen by the president, nominated by the president and confirmed by the senate, like lots of other folks. those jobs are part-time jobs, but i'll tell you, i serve on a number of boards and none take as much time as this one. and none pay less than this one. so there's a board of governors, and they are the equivalent of a board of directors. you like having a board of directors by the board of directors doesn't have the same authority as they would have in the private sector. so you've got this, and then there's a postal regulatory commission. these are five members nominated

by the president, confirmed by the senate, no more than a bare majority could be from one political party. and they are full-time jobs, and they produce research on the postal service, figure out how the postal service works or doesn't work. but also have decision-making authority on whether we can raise rates or lower rates, how the rates have to be structured, et cetera. so every time we want to do something in that area we have to turn it over to them for them to make a decision. i'm simplifying somewhat, but basically our major decisions have to be reviewed ideas five -- by these five commissioners. so that's basically the way it works. >> good. let's open it up to the audience for questions.

we had the microphone, and when you ask questions please identify yourself so that the audience can no. why do we start over your? >> thank you. good afternoon. i think part of your questions are rhetorical. my name is todd wiggins and i'm an internet videographer, blogger, et cetera, and i use the internet for free. so i think part of your responses are rhetorical because we know the money shifting over to google and yahoo! and hotmail, that the post office, or the postal service need to mimic what is going on over there. because that is as you pointed out mail delivery, that's where a lot of mail delivery is going. so could the postal service integrate some of the same

strategies that these internet providers do in delivering virtual mail? or will i end up having to pay for my hotmail in the future? because that seems like that's coming down the pike. will i have to pay for my youtube in the future because the government will tax it? so those, i think you have thought of those, your board has thought of those, those methods. and then when you said that you are thinking about, or talked about raising the cost of mail, well, i understand i'm going to have to pay more for male. i may have to pay $50 for regular delivery because you're not making a profit so, therefore, i assumed i will have to take on that burden. so i think it's realistic that american public is going to see some changes, and it's not going to be pretty or palpable but you have to have it, right? >> mr. wiggins, that's a good question. let me say, we have done some very preliminary work on expanding into the virtual a.

we're not any position to talk about it now because it is so, that would be premature to do that. but we have thought about this and are addressing that as well. on the internet side, let me just say as a person who is a user of the internet, i think had the federal government regulated heavily the internet, we would be at the position of dial-up and something called broadband would be studied by hudson and other places, and they would be such a vested interest against it that he would not take place for a long time. so the fact that the internet was not regulated by the federal government, enabled it to advance with such great pace. there are obvious problems still at the margin about the

regulation and deregulation of internet, and i don't want to opine on that as well. in terms of prices, a lot of people say that the postal delivery is a terrific bargain, you know? where else can you send something from here today, you know, and have it delivered in cupertino, i don't know why i said cupertino. maybe because i just -- but i mean, it's a great value. i mean, maybe the price has to go to 65 cents. i'm just guessing. i'm not, you know, just using that as a total hypothetical. but i mean, right. interesting though, i want to making the point about delivery frequency. poll after poll shows that when

people are asked would you like to reduce delivery frequency from six days a week to five days a week? people say no, i want six days a week. would you rather have five day week delivery, or do you want to pay a dime more for stamps. they always say five day delivery is fine. i mean, it's like so much polling information where you don't give them the price of the choices, you know, they will think it would be for free. but it's not free. there's no free lunch here. we've got to make our choices. -- make hard choices. >> good afternoon. i'm ken weinstein, delighted to welcome jim miller, longtime champion of premarket ideas to hudson. very good to see you here. this subject has been one of longtime interest.

herman con who founded hudson institute 50 years ago, 1961, passed away in 1983, we the encyclopedia britannica for 1984, you look at the obituary for him and it notes that at the time of his death, he was increasingly obsessed with the possibility of the electronic transmission of mail. something we've been thinking about, thing about for a long time. as you look at the significant changes that have gone on and to discuss, has the commission at all or you personally looked at over seizing examples of postal service database the kind the kind of transformations necessary to bring thousands to the modern age, in your capacity as we've seen the sale, for european regulatory purposes. and i'm just wondering what have seen on the postal side, are there any examples particularly worth following in this new age? >> let me can speak for myself. i am very concerned about the

postal service is extending its reach right now. the notion that somehow we're going to be able to jump into banking or jumping to electronic transmission and make a huge profit in competition with the private sector is nuts. i mean, you're not going to do that. i would say the same thing if i owned another company. the company that says the way out of our deep hole is to jump in the new lines up for honors. it's nuts. over time we make it into some of these things. we have paid a lot of attention to what europe has done, et cetera. part of it is a lot of the postal services in europe, the predicate for them is much different than in the united states. i mean, take for example, in japan. they were part of the banking system, et cetera. so i'm concerned about that.

on the other hand, there are opportunities there and we ought to be very aware of them and look at the evidence on those, and take advantage of them where we can. >> i understand on a commercial entity of the crisis how it plays out. i guess the treasure walks in wind and says okay, our cash may be out tomorrow, and the general counsel's is okay, call the law firm and our chapter, what ever. but this is a different world, chapters or whatever, and cryptic code identify. you have the full faith and credit. can you help with the analogy, in an ordinary commercial crisis, and does this ever sort of, can they can be kicked down

the road by treasury? >> it can be kicked down by treasury, can't be kicked down the road by the postal service. it can be kicked down by the president. the congress has to change the law. the postal service is limited i law borrowing from the federal government. no more than $15 billion. we are at $15 billion. and another time we can borrow. dash it ain't another dime we can borrow. that's one law. of the law is postal service can't borrow money from the private sector. that's a law of law. there's a lot of economics that says nobody is going to lend the money to the postal service if it were to borrow such money, right? so we are in a box they're in terms of further analogy. i mean, the reason we had to

decide not to make the payment on september 30, and the board of governors voted we're not going to make the payment and let everybody know, some people interpreted that as a threat to congress. it was not a threat. we just want to let you know. we are not going to make it. and the reason is we didn't have the money. yes, we did have about a billion dollars by september 30 we had about a billion dollars. that was sort of the absolute minimum cash balance that allowed us to continue operation, including pay, our employees and benefits. so we just can't go below that. there's a number, and i just, i don't want, i don't want to put him on the spot. i just talked to our ceo this morning, and he looks kind of haggerty. it's a bad situation. you know? you don't have the money.

and you are worried every day about making sure that you can a bills. now, the way mail volume works, in october, every october and november, december it ramps up somewhat. why? because the christmas season. and postal services revenues rise more than the increase in costs, above the cost line is a way of saying it. so i think we will be fine. in fact, we have, as long as we don't have to pay the $5.5 billion due last september, now do november 18, we will get through to september 30, at which time we will default because we owe another 5.5 or so billion dollars on september 30 of 2012. there's been a lot of suggestions proposed for the federal government to kind of

bail out the postal service here, bail it out there. i mean, those are one year things. i mean, for the organization to survive and to be an active and productive participant in this postal market, small p. postal market, we have to have systemic change. the systemic change is to give the postal service board of governors the authority to respond to market forces as a board of directors of an ordinary company would do. that's my bottom line. >> i'm kind of concerned about this. michael horowitz, asked me a question. >> what would be so apocalyptic, jim, if the postal service went bankrupt? if congress refused to provide subsidies? if i sent a, increasingly what the post office is is a subsidy

operation for junk mailers. that in terms of first class service provides terrible service. every time i have to go to the post office i sit around waiting forever. so the question is, why do we need the postal service in its current form? could you spell out forthwith impact on the economy would be if, somehow you defaulted? and employees did not get paid or vendors didn't get paid and congress refused to provide the subsidy. how would that impact the american people, the american economy? >> let me state that i understand your predicate as being, defaulting to shut down. we defaulted or we're going to default, that is the payment of the federal government, even with that default we will continue operating. but let's just -- the postal service shut down. it would not be apocalyptic. they would either be a lot of

employees would be hurt, vendors would be caught shorthanded. they would be consequences of that, but let's just look at the consumer side. there are alternatives. i mean, advertisers can use different means of reaching consumers than sending it through the mail. what is called standard mail, what a lot of people called junk mail. there are other avenues. my point is there's a demand out there for vendors who want to communicate advertising messages to consumers that would be standalone, that enterprise would make money and cover costs. that is basically the market test of whether it makes sense to have such an institution. the problem is there so many constraints on it right now that it just can't do that. and again, i return, the postal service needs to be freed up to

provide services and make adjustments and operate as a business enterprise was ordinarily operate. now michael, you were there at the white house when the president said okay, that's a good idea, jim, right? by the conditions have changed from big monopoly source of inefficiency of allocated inefficiency the situation now that is quite different. my algorithm is try to make the postal service operate as a efficient business enterprise, and it can't do that with all of these restraints. i feel like, all of it about reading gulliver's travels, you know, it's like being tied up in this little rule, that little rule, you are tied down you get to the point where you can't get up.

[inaudible] >> the problem is that it's the labor unions that stand in the way of removing constraints. and what troubles me is the lack of tough bargaining. and you're a tough bargain or. icing on the part of the postal service itself. you said you don't want to go to arbitration because we will inevitably lose. i'm not sure you're right on that score, but can't replace far more pressure, leverage and hard choices, on the union's? if you block this would happen, if you block that freedom, then this postal service is going to go bankrupt, you will wind up with nothing an impact on the economy will not be that substantial. people won't miss it that very much. why isn't there more of that taking place? >> well, that's what congressman issa asked, and chairman issa asked. but let me say two things. one, we need flexibility in terms of a a lot of other ways in which the restraint is not

the unions but the congress. but on the union side, i mean, i won't divorce the nature of the discussions, the governors had about this, but our decision was that the deal we orchestrate with the apwu was terms of expected of what we could get. i'm reporting what the governors decided. this was the best we could get. and we bargained hard to get it. >> thank you. jim, we have met previously on the campaign trail. my question is toward sort of the financial side. in your expenses could you just estimate how much of that is towards pension obligations and how much of that is towards

operating costs in terms of your people, your equipment, that sort of thing? >> just roughly speaking, from zero-100%, wages, direct wages, including the taxes due on the wages and all, probably 80%. and the 20% are benefits, benefits, retirement, health care after retirement, things of this nature. i don't -- [inaudible] >> we would be able to contract

but if you think roughly in terms of 65, -- six to five, that would be an overstatement of savings you would get from some of the reasons you are pointing out. but they would be substantial savings in the order of three or $4 billion. we, i mean, we receive about roughly speaking, 62 or $63 billion in revenue. and our outlays are about $72 billion. so 72 billion, you would get, you know, three or $4 billion savings. it wouldn't happen immediately. part of it would be, the total pool of employees would shrink, but it would shrink over time since we have no layoff provisions in most of these contracts. you would have to take place slowly over time. so you wouldn't realize the annual savings so greatly, immediately. it would take, it would take a

while. >> another omg, john weicher. >> long ago in the days when we are getting mail twice a day i started to become a stamp collector. and like most kids i stopped, but i always remember the postal officials would say that stand for collectors were pure profit. are you still making pure profit, are you still making money on stands for collectors? >> we are. we are. it's not a whole lot. i mean, it is, we have, we have to carry on our books the liability for stance we've issued that haven't been redeemed, but part of it is a calculation what portion of

these stands are in the hands of collectors and will never be redeemed? we had a bit of a problem a couple years ago because we had to change the method, not change the methodology but change the estimates when we started issuing the for ever stamps. how many of you like the for ever stamps? i'm glad because i had a lot to do with that. [laughter] are right? the postal service now thinks it's a great idea. and, in fact, i went out last year and spoke at the unveiling of the new reagan centennial stamp. and i should be ashamed of myself. i said come and you know what? if i get my way, this reagan stamp will be a forever stamp. got this wonderful stand up

applause, and i knew we were going to do it already. [laughter] but, but it's interesting because russia is someone knows word. philatelist group, we are not sure about the forever stamp. and so that's one reason we made them all forever stamps. so they are not at a disadvantage. and more importantly, continue our flow of profits from them. >> we have time for two more questions. >> i was just saying, to my knowledge no legislation the

regulation for the mail system like trucking, airline, or railroad, and they all had a taxpayer bailout. do you think any current legislation will give flexibility to post office to meet its demand? and also, isn't a taxpayer bailout by extending borrowing by 10 billion? i was just wondering what you thought? >> i don't think congress is going to give the kind of flexibility i've advocated. just not going to do that. congress looks at the postal service has its own enterprise, and will control that enterpri enterprise. will grudgingly grant flexibility to the postal service, if necessary, keep it going without big government subsidy.

there are provisions in these various i said, carver, collins and all bill that if i could pick and choose, won't get me where i was suggesting we go, but get me down that line a long way. whether they will make those choices or not, i don't know. we've testified, we've positioned ourselves, we've tried to encourage the various staffs. the president, the white house has been very responsive to the concerns we've expressed. but where it will all come out i don't know. [inaudible] >> issa spill, reco recollect, e refining of the overpayment of

federal employee retirement system. actuaries ranging from the big accounting firms to the postal record were commissions and so on have concluded that we have overpaid already. besides that, the schedule of payments continues to overpaid because we have a shrinking workforce. 10 years ago we had about 700,000 full-time employees at the postal service. we now have about 450,000, or something like that. so it has shrunk already some. but if you have a schedule predicated on forecast 10 years ago obviously you would be overpaying. so i don't characterize that as a bailout. i know bailouts. i would recognize a bailout when i would see it. those are not bailouts, and you

know, we may get thrown in at the last minute, you know, some solutions like okay, we will raise the borrowing limit to 20,000 -- $20 billion. that's no solution. that's what i would say, any, that would be a bailout, or just forgetting obligations that are justified would be a bailout. but this is not a bailout. i'm troubled by chairman issa's proposal to study a financial control board. that's what i thought we were doing, you know? that's what our responsibility is. we are the financial control board. i'm the chairman of the committee. i'm trying to control, i mean, the board controls those sorts of things come and heavy separate financial control. it's kind of like we've been breaking our backs to avoid financial disaster, which could be placed, that he of all the regulatory and legal restraints that we face, and along come and

say well, you guys haven't done your job. >> six republican presidential candidates traveled to des moines, iowa, for the iowa faith in freedom coalition candidate for. watch our live coverage of herman cain, newt gingrich and with santorum as well as governor rick perry and representatives ron paul and michele bachmann starting at 7 p.m. eastern saturday on c-span's road to the white house. >> you are watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events. and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on book tv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our website, and you can enjoy and -- join in on the conversation on social media sites. >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel and to start their day. general speeches of first followed by continued work on three appropriation bills rolled into one measure. lawmakers will break between

12:30-2:15 eastern for party caucus lunches. now live to the senate floor here on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain dr. barry black will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray.

eternal lord god, our shelter in the time of storm, you have guided our nation through many seasons of danger and duress. in these challenging economic times, give our lawmakers the wisdom they need to make a positive difference in the lives of our citizens. help them to see that without wise and prompt actions, multitudes will face a future of privation and uncertainty. use our senators today to make america

all you intend for it to be. we pray in your loving 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 communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c., october 18, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jeanne shaheen, a senator from the state of new hampshire, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: madam president.

the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: following any leader remarks, the senate will be in a period of morning business for one hour. the majority will control the first half, republicans the second half. following that morning business, the senate will resume consideration of h.r. 2112. the senate will recess from 12:30 until 2:15 p.m. today for our weekly caucus meetings. we'll work on an agreement with respect to pending amendments to the appropriations bill that's now before the senate. we'll notify senators when votes are scheduled. i would hope that we can process some of the amendments that are now pending. it's my understanding senator mccain is coming today to offer a number of amendments. i look forward to working with senator mcconnell and others to move the process along as quickly as we can. there are five bills at the desk due for a second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the bills for the second time. the clerk: h.r. 2250, an act to provide additional time for the administrative environmental protection agency and so forth.

h.r. 2273, an act to amend sub title d of the solid waste disposal act and so forth. s. 1720, a bill to provide american jobs through economic growth. s. 1723, a bill to provide for teacher and first responder stabilization. s. 1726, a bill to repeal the imposition of withholding on certain payments made to vendors by government entities. mr. reid: mr. president, i would object to any further proceedings with respect to each of these bills. the presiding officer: objections having been heard, the bills will be placed on the calendar under rule 14. mr. reid: madam president, america's education system is literally under siege. this terrible recession that we're involved in has put millions of families in our country in a desperate economic situation. it's also put our schools at

risk. since 2008, we have lost 300,000 education jobs, 200,000 in the last year alone. without talented, dedicated teachers and support staff, our schools cannot provide the world-class education students need to succeed in today's difficult economic climate. as state and local governments are forced to slash education funding again and again, it jeopardizes the future of millions of children, regardless of where they live or how much money their parents make. nevada alone is facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall in 2011, practically ensuring further cuts to state and local education, but nevada can ill afford to lose more teachers, police and first responders. the state has already slashed state education funding below pre-recession levels. any additional cuts will place thousands of nevada teacher jobs at risk. school districts in nevada have already made difficult cuts, laying off teachers, eliminating programs, reducing the number of

hours children spend in school. the state has delayed expansion of all-day kindergarten, eliminated resources for gifted and talented programs and cut a magnet program for students who are deaf or hard of hearing. all around schools have been eliminated. further cuts will affect the basic pillars of american education. already, the school board in country county, lyon county, a rural part of nevada, has considered moving to a four-day school week. students in the united states already spend much less time at school than students in other countries including those with whom we compete for jobs. most american people spend a month less in the classrooms than those in south korea and japan whose students are among the highest performing in the world. at a time when nevadans are competing for jobs with graduates from countries around the world as well as those in neighboring states, school districts should be forceed to make decisions like the one facing the lyon county, nevada. the teachers first responders back to work act filed last night and led by senator lens

will ensure lyon county school district won't have to choose between laying teachers off and reducing the school year. it will protect gains made by school districts like the one in washington county which increased its education rate from 55% to nearly 70%. that is, the graduation rate increased from 55% to nearly 70% in a period of less than two years. budget cuts would threaten that progress. the district can't expect to improve on these gains if it has to jam more students in every class and lay off literacy and math specialists. the teachers legislation that i introduced last night will stem the loss of education jobs and help school districts like them continue to improve. this legislation will provide nevada with an additional $260 million to keep teachers in the classroom and maintain class sizes. it will support 3,600 education jobs in the state and give the economy a jolt, and it will not increase the deficit by one penny. it asks millionaires and

billionaires to contribute a tiny fraction more to help turn our economy around. that's an idea two-thirds of americans and a majority of even republicans support. this nation's schools have already been hit hard by state and local budget cuts. we cannot afford to lose more teachers or to lay off more police or first responders. in nevada, local governments have already made the difficult choice to cut almost 9,000 jobs. these unprecedented layoffs have extended the recession, slowed recovery in nevada. further budget shortfalls threaten thousands more jobs. nationwide, state and local budget cuts would cost as many as 280,000 teacher jobs next year unless we do something about that. this teachers and first responders legislation will invest $30 billion to create or save nearly 400,000 teacher jobs. that is those that are going to be laid off this year instead of those that have been laid off and hurt in the past years. that money will help states and school districts stop more layoffs.

we have had tens of thousands of teachers laid off since this severe recession began. we will also invest $5 billion to retain and rehire the police, firefighters and first responders in our communities throughout these tough economic times. that's why it's so important that the senate move to this as quickly as possible. teachers out of work through no fault of their own and students who desperately need a good education are relying on us to act. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: madam president. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings on the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mcconnell: madam president, it's no secret that the vast majority of americans aren't happy with washington right now. they say that 13% of the public approve of congress, and i haven't met any of those people. it's also no secret that the president of the united states is trying to use this displeasure with washington for political gain, and i think that's a pretty sad commentary on the state of affairs over at the white house lately. as the only person elected to

represent every american, the president should speak for all americans, especially in times of crisis, not divide them for short-term partisan political gain. but it is perfectly obvious why the president would find the path of division appealing, because on the number-one issue we face, jobs and the economy, the president's policies haven't worked as advertised. after nearly three years in office, he's failed to make any progress on his promises to turn the jobs crisis around, and i think you can pretty much sum up that failure with a single number -- 1.5 million. that's how many fewer jobs there are right now in america since the president signed his first stimulus, according to the obama administration's own labor department.

1.5 million. so what is the president trying to do? well, he's trying to change the topic. he wants to deflect attention from that 1.5 million job loss. he wants to think the problem isn't his policies. it's those mean republicans in congress who oppose it. but the president brings things out of the re-election script that he brought along on his bus tour. first of all, it wasn't just the republicans who defeated his latest stimulus bill last week. the only reason a majority of democrats voted to debate it is they knew they wouldn't have to vote on it. that's why the majority leader repeatedly moved to block a vote on the measure itself, the actual proposal. second, we're now living under economic policies that president obama himself put in place.

this isn't something you will hear on the bus tour, but let's be clear. the president got everything he wanted from a democrat-controlled congress during the first two years of his presidency. he owned the place. now we're living with the hard realities that those policies have brought to bear on the american worker, so at this point, any time the president says pass this bill, people have a very good reason to be skeptical, because this isn't the first time president obama demanded that congress pass what he calls a jobs bill. but if this one were to pass and it worked as advertised, then it would be the first one that did. again and again, the president's response to america's ongoing jobs crisis has been to insist that congress pass some urgent piece of legislation right away, or an even worse calamity would

result. those bills were supposed to create jobs and prevent layoffs as well, but he keeps coming back for more. i guess the president is counting on the american people to forget that part. he's counting on us to forget about the other stimulus legislation he's already signed into law and that has failed to live up to its hype every single time. again and again the president has demanded congress do something to create jobs and the only thing we seem to end up at the end of the day is more debt, more government, and fewer jobs. so let's just review the record for a while. 2 1/2 years ago president obama went down to florida and said the first stimulus, the nearly $1 trillion government spending bill he signed shortly after taking office, would save or create millions of jobs including jobs for firefighters, nurses, police officers, and teachers.

well, what happened? the states got their bailout, the national unemployment rate didn't budge, and a year and a half later the president was back asking for another one. that's right, a year and a half after the first stimulus, the white house was back last august saying they needed another $26 billion right away or else 160,000 teachers would get pink slips. and police and firefighters across the country would literally be off the job. and what happened then? well, the states got another bailout. the unemployment rate didn't budge. and now the president's riding around on a bus saying if they don't get another one, teachers, police and firefighters will lose their jobs again. anybody notice a pattern here? we've been doing this for nearly three years now. for three years. it doesn't work as advertised.

bailouts don't solve the problem. in fact, they perpetuate it. all we get from the president and democrats in congress is do it again, do it again, or else. we've been mired in a jobs crisis for three long years now. and all the democrats ever want to do is to throw more taxpayer money at it. and it never works the way they claim it will. and yet they want to keep on doing it. with other people's money. just throw another bailout together, slap the word "jobs" on the cover page, and dare people to vote against it. that's apparently the democrats' governing philosophy. three years into this jobs crisis.

well, madam president, it wouldn't be irresponsible to oppose an approach like this. it would be irresponsible to consider it. it didn't work the first time, it didn't work the second time, and the third time won't be a charm. that's why republicans and a growing number of our democratic friends want a different approach. there's a growing bipartisan opposition to trying the same failed policies again. and there's bipartisan opposition to raising taxes especially at a time when 14 million americans are out of work. i mean if there's one thing we should agree on right now, we should be making it easier for

business to hire, not harder. so the president should drop his obsession, his obsession with raising taxes. and if he really wants to create jobs, maybe he should consider doing something different. we've tried the bailout approach we've tried more regulations, more debt, more taxes. why don't we try a new idea for a change? one that has bipartisan support. one that isn't a two-time proven failure. let's try something that might actually work. because the american people didn't send us here to kick our problems down the road. and they certainly didn't send us here to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. and then stick them and their children with the tab.

that might be how you maintain a sense of urgency by failing to solve the problem the first two times around, but it isn't how you solve a jobs crisis. the american people simply deserve better than this. they deserve better than false promises they've been getting. the president got everything he wanted from a democratic congress for two years, everything he wanted. a health care law that was designed to take over one-sixth of the entire economy, a financial reform bill that punishess which bises that had nothing to do with the financial crisis. out-of-control regulations that are forcing otherwise healthy businesses to shut down, businesses like smart papers in hamilton, ohio, a paper mill that said last week it's shutting down because of onerous new federal regulations that make it too costly to do business. and a trillion-dollar surplus

that was supposed to solve the jobs crisis two and a half years ago. for two years, when the president said pass this bill right away, democrats did it. and here's what they got despite all the trillions in debt and more than a million and a half fewer jobs, that's what we got, trillions in debt and more than a million and a half fewer jobs after the president got everything he wanted for two whole years. we don't need any more of that. we can't afford more of the same. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order the leadership time is reserved. 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 divide and controlled between the two leaders or their

designees with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half. the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: thank you, madam president. mr. durbin: would the senator from new jersey yield? i ask unanimous consent i be allowed to follow the senator from new jersey after his remarks. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: madam president, i rise as the lead sponsor of the teacher first responder back to work act, and i rise in favor of jobs, in favor of teachers, in favor of police officers and firefighters, of keeping our communities safe, and the promise we made to first responders after september 11. now, we have a choice and i listened to the distinguished republican leader, but, you know, it's interesting how history can you viewed through different lenses.

why i failed to hear was the challenges that this president and this country inherited from eight years of policies that led us in 2008 to the verge not of the great recession we have been referring to but on the verge of a new depression where the chairman of the federal reserve and the former secretary of the treasury under president bush came before members of congress and said we have a series of financial institutions on the verge of collapse, if they collapse, they'll create systemic risk to the entire country's economy and every american will feel the consequences of it. and the result of that, of eight years of largely unregulated processes, created excesses where large entities made decisions that ultimately became the collective responsibility of everybody in this country because failure to have met those responsibilities

would have meant a collapse in this country. now, there are those in the senate who advocate going back to those very policies. they talk about stopping each and every regulation, those regulations ultimately, the lack of it and the lack of enforcement of it is what gave us the excesses that we had. additionally, two wars rage agriculture broad, totally unpaid for, fiscal responsibility went out the window there, tax cuts totally unpaid for, fiscal responsibility went out the window there, and the culmination of all of that brought us to january of 2009 when the new president takes office and has already inherited millions of jobs that had been lost prior to then, around 7.5% unemployment was the starting point already, and in the first quarter of 2009 before he could even do anything, before he could take the oath of office in

late january, swear in a cabinet in february and send a plan to march, another two million jobs were lost. i find it interesting how we forget all of that. at least as a starting point. we've had 19 months of private sector growth. a little over two million jobs. that's good news. but where we have been shedding many of the jobs is in the very essence of those in the public sector who teach our children, who prepare for the next generation and the competitive future of america, and who protect our communities. police officers who protect us from crime, firefighters that respond when there is an emergency in our communities. with the teachers and first responders back to work act, we can fulfill our duty to educate our children and keep our communities safe, or we can

gamble our future on the political games that we have seen here that disinvest in the future of our children and the safety of our communities. almost 300,000 education jobs are on the chopping block this year in this country. at a time when other countries in the world are increasing their educational work force, we are in the process of decreasing it. new jersey, my home state, is facing a $10.5 billion shortfall in its budget. that means cuts for state and local education and that hurts our children. the teachers and first responders back to work act creates 400,000 education jobs because an investment in our teachers is an investment in our children and in our collective future. we're talking about $30 billion

to states and local communities to retain, to hire, to rehire the teachers that have already been separated, to educate tomorrow's entrepreneurs. no my state of new jersey that bill would provide an additional $831 million in funds to support an additional 9,300 education jobs that largely have been lost. new jersey alone has lost over 6,000 teachers since 2008, slowing our economic recovery and creating a huge knowledge gap in our schools. what does that gap translate in terms of lost knowledge? what does it mean to a promising young scientist who needs some guidance or a struggling student who needs a little extra help? madam president, i know about the power of a teacher. i know it through my own personal life. i've had several great teachers along the way but there was one who made a huge difference in my life. i still remember her name, gail

harper. she was my speech teacher in college -- i mean in high school, i'm sorry. and, you know, i know some of my colleagues won't believe this but i was among the most introverted persons at that time in my life. i didn't even want to take the speech course. but i was told by my guidance counselor that it was a must. and i was a good student, honor student, but i didn't want to take the speech course bus because i dwant to do extemporaneous speaking, get up in front of the class, do any assignments, didn't want to do any of that. i was forced to take it. by prepare my work but i wouldn't deliver it. and finally gail harper, the teacher said to me, robert, kept me after class one day and said look, i don't know why you prepare yourself, your preparation is great but if you don't deliver this here, you're going to fail. and my mother, who had fled a

country to come to freedom and was convinced i'd be the first in my family to go to college, told me failure is not an option. so when i heard gail harper talk about failure, i knew that that was not an option. and she worked with me to nurture my abilities so that i could break out of that self-imposed shell and really transform my life. in some respects, thinking that i'm here today sitting on -- speaking on the senate floor is because of gail harper. so i fully understand how teachers can make a huge difference this the life of a young person. we need to reinvest in teachers and education, in new jersey's kids and in america's future. we need to get those 6,000 new jersey teachers back in new jersey classroom and hire thousands more in every school and every state in america. and then i turn to the police

and firefighters, and i remember living in the new jersey-new york region, that fateful day on september 11, a little over a decade ago. on that fateful day, it was not the federal government that responded to the tragedies and the horror of the world trade center. it was local police, local firefighters, local emergency management that were the first responders, that risked their lives, that gave their lives on that fateful day. we made a promise to every community that we would keep communities safe in america in a post-september 11 world, that we would give cops and firefighters what they needed to do to do their jobs. every member of congress wanted to take a picture with a police officer or a firefighter. we call them heroes. and now republicans want to zero out a cops program that puts

police officers on the beat. they want to break our promises after september 11, and i think it's time to make good on it with the $5 billion that our legislation provides so that communities can hire and keep cops and firefighters on the job. they are our first line of defense. we learned that after september 11. and i don't care where you are in the political spectrum or what you believe the role of government is, we can all agree that public safety and the security of our communities is government's most fundamental responsibility. we don't need police and firefighters just in the big cities, although they face some of the major challenges. we need them in every town and community. over 2,700 communities applied for help to fund 9,000 officers in the last round for a total of $2 billion. but because of the opposition of those on the republican side to keeping our promise to first responders, only $243 million

was available, enough for only 238 of 2,700 communities that applied. that's 9%. and it was capped at 25 officers no matter how big the city or how great the need. in new jersey, more than 150 communities applied for funding to keep cops on the job. only 12 of those 150 were funded. those 12 communities were only able to hire approximately 78 cops over the course of the next three years. right now in new jersey, there are 705 police officers who lost their jobs and can't find law enforcement work. 705 fewer sworn officers on the street. and there are 4,000 fewer officers today in new jersey than there were on december 31, 2009. public safety is government's number-one responsibility, and it's time to deliver on that promise after september 11 to

our communities and our first responders. this legislation includes $5 billion to help first responders stay on the job, close the public safety gap and keep our communities safe. so let me conclude by saying according to a cnn poll released just yesterday afternoon, 75% of americans support providing funding to state and local governments to hire teachers and first responders, including 63% of republicans. mr. president, we have a choice. with this legislation, we can fulfill our duty to educate our kids and keep our communities safe or we can gamble our future on political games that don't invest in our children, our economy and the safety of our communities. i think the choice is clear. i choose educating our kids. i choose protecting our communities. i choose investing in our future. and we do this all and pay for it at the same time. this is the beginning of a

fight, and we will be back again and again to force our friends on the other side to make the choice again and again about whose side are they on. i think the choices are pretty clear. the american people have spoken. it's time to get our teachers and our first responders back to work. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: mr. president, i want to thank my colleague from new jersey for this amendment. it's an amendment that's critically important to new jersey, to alaska, and to the state of illinois, because the menendez-casey amendment in my state means that 14,500 teachers, firefighters and policemen will stay on the job. if the menendez amendment, which is part of president obama's jobs package, does not pass, these people will be out of work. there will be more kids in the classroom, talented teachers will be laid off. there will be fewer cops on the beat in small towns and large, and firefighters will have to

cut back in terms of their ranks, and we need their protection and we can't let that happen. senator menendez has an amendment which deals with this responsibly. it pays for it. it doesn't add to the deficit. and that's where the objection comes in from the republican side of the aisle, because he pays for it by asking those making over a million dollars a year to pay about .5% more in taxes, and the republicans say no way. we cannot ask the wealthiest people in america to pay one penny more. now, that to me is hard to explain. why we would want to deny our children a quality education, lay off teachers, make our streets a little less safe with fewer police and run the risk of fewer firefighters because we don't want to ask people making over a million dollars a year to pay .5% more on their taxes.

people who are making over 20 -- $20,000 a week, we are asking them to pay .5% to save the jobs of teachers, firefighters and police. it's interesting to me, mr. president, because when president bush offered his jobs bill years ago, with payroll tax cuts and cuts for businesses, these same senators that are criticizing president obama's version of the bill were voting for it and it wasn't paid for. it was added directly to the deficit. these deficit hawks were willing to vote for this with president bush's name on it but now oppose it with president obama's name on it. is there a message there? i think there is a clear message. there are two things which drive the republican caucus when it comes to this debate. first, protect those making over

a million dollars a year at any cost. let america languish in this recession with 14 million people unemployed rather than ask the wealthiest, most comfortable people in america to pay just a little bit more in taxes. secondly, they consistently oppose proposals to deal with this jobs crisis if they are offered by the president of the united states. senator mcconnell said it earlier, it's been quoted over and over and over again, that his highest priority as the republican leader in the senate was to make sure that president obama was a one-term president. if we are driven only by that kind of motive, i assume it will make for good political headlines, but it really ties our hands in getting things done. you see in the senate here, it takes 60 votes to do anything significant, and unfortunately 53 on this side of the aisle need the help of seven on the other side, and they haven't

been forthcoming. last week, we offered the president's jobs bill and said to the republicans at least let's proceed to the bill and offer amendments. we couldn't get a single republican senator to vote with us, not one. we had 51 votes for it. two democrats did not vote for it, but we had no republican support, none. so what is the republican jobs bill? what would they do to turn this economy around and move us forward? sadly, they have nothing to offer, nothing. protect the incomes of the wealthiest people in america and say no to everything that president obama suggests. that's not a recipe for moving america forward. i like to listen to their arguments about cutting red tape to create jobs, and i think to myself do we have to really eliminate the standards in this country for clean air and clean

water in order to have a thriving economy? and if we went the republican way of eliminating these protections for america's families and children, would this be a better nation? i think not. basic protections when it comes to air pollution, for example, really mean an awful lot to a lot of americans. mr. president, i make it a point of going to classrooms and asking the kids in the classroom a question -- how many of you in this classroom know someone who has asthma? i just asked that question in mount sterling, illinois, a rural community, one that you wouldn't believe would be dealing with air pollution problems or pulmonary issues. more than half the class raised their hand. yes, they all knew someone -- at least half of them knew someone who was dealing with asthma. every year, asthma is responsible for nine million

visits to health care professionals and more than 4,000 deaths in america. it's one of the leading causes of school absenteeism. accounts for 14 million missed school days annually. the average family spends between 5.5% and 14.5% of its total income on treating an asthmatic child. so when the republicans want to come forward here and waive air pollution standards, eliminate the protections that we're trying to put in place, they are endangering the health of people and children across america. that is the reality. to argue that the only way to build the american economy is by destroying public health standards to protect families and children is not the right answer. we have got to find a balanced approach, one that takes into account the reality of science and the reality of business, but certainly protects defenseless americans from the kinds of changes which some republicans

are suggesting. and is this what it comes down to? is this the only way to move the american economy forward? to say that we may have to compromise the purity of our drinking water when it comes to mercury and arsenic in order to have the economy create jobs? what a terrible choice that is. and it's a real choice. take a look at the amendment offered by a republican senator on cement kilns. cement kilns generate toxic chemicals that end up in air pollution and eventually are deposited on earth, many times in bodies of water like the great lakes. what do mercury and arsenic do to the aquatic life in the great lakes and to the people who live around those great lakes? they compromise the safety of those great bodies of water. now, there are some who say well, it goes in the air and it surely isn't going to hurt you, and yet the statistics shows just the opposite. poor air quality in the most

polluted u.s. cities can shorten the lives of residents up to two years on average. the american cancer society found that the risk of early death is over 15% greater in areas with increased smog pollution. nearly two-thirds of those suffering from asthma live in an area where at least one federal air quality standard is not being met. we can't ignore this public health reality. we have an obligation to the families that live in these cities, whether it's chicago or springfield or any city across america, to make certain that we don't compromise basic air quality standards, and that frankly is the only proposal we hear from the republicans to create jobs. they want to protect the incomes of the wealthiest people in america and lessen the standards that we use to protect innocent families from air pollution and deterioration of water quality. mr. president, before i got up to speak, you showed me a

headline from the "wall street journal." it's a headline that we need to remind republicans of when they get into this debate about jobs. mr. president, do you remember how many times they mocked the president of the united states because he stepped up and said i will not allow the american automobile industry to die? i'm going to step in, he said, and help general motors and chrysler through a very difficult time. and you recall what we heard from the other side of the aisle? it's the wrong thing to do. let general motors go bankrupt, the republicans said. even former governor romney said that the yubl bailout was a bad decision. here is governor romney from a family that had a lot to do with the automobile industry and ought to know a little better about it. the president of the united states said, you know, it wasn't my ambition to step in and intervene and help major automobile companies, but i'm going to do it because hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake. the reality is that the president's decision was the right decision. it was the right decision not

just for michigan and illinois, i might add, but for the nation. now general motors and chrysler have restructured, now they have a leaner work force, a stronger inventory and better products, and the report from the "wall street journal" which you showed me, mr. president, shows that the profitability of automobile companies when you look across the board is now tipping in favor of american companies for american workers. there was also that support there that said for the first time in a long time, we are importing jobs from asia and mexico in the automobile industry back to the united states of america. now, some republican senators can come to the floor and say president obama got it all wrong. come on down to the ford works south of chicago and take a look at those workers filing in every single day to go to work. then go over to belvedere, illinois, to the chrysler facility and see 1,200 people

going to work with good-paying jobs. they're there because this president stepped up and said we're not going to let these jobs go away. many on the republican side argued this was her iticcal and wrong. explain that to families that have these good-paying jobs right here in america with good benefits. so when i hear my republican colleagues and friends come to the floor and criticize what president obama has done on this economy, they better stop and explain their early position opposing the president's efforts to make sure the automobile industry in america survived and thrives. 200,000 workers today went to work for general motors in america. if the republicans had had their way, g.m. would have gone bankrupt. whether it would have survived bankruptcy, no one knows. the president said we can't run that risk. he kept the company in business, restructured, and now profitable again. that's a fact. i'll say this, too: when i hear

the republican leader come to the floor and argue that the president should speak up for all americans, i would ask the republican leader to take a look at the response of the american people to the president's jobs package. when the president says we should cut payroll tax for working families so they're struggling paycheck to paycheck and they have money to get by, overwhelmingly the american people support it. when the president says we should help small businesses hire the unemployed, particularly veterans shall, overwhelmingly the american people support it. when the president says we should make sure that teachers and policemen and firefighters do not lose their jobs in this tough economy, overwhelmingly the american people support it. when the president says that millionaires should pay a little bit more in their taxes to make sure the american recovery is underway, overwhelmingly the american people support that, too. in fact, 56% of republicans

when asked say that is a reasonable way to pay for a jobs program. unfortunately, none of those 56% serve in the united states senate. who happen to believe their number-one task and goal is to protect the incomes of the wealthiest people in america. we can do better. we need to make sure that we move forward on a bipartisan basis to create jobs. this president inherited a very weak economy. under president bush we had more than doubled the national debt. when president bush took office our national debt was $5 trillion. when he left office, it was over $10 trillion. two wars he didn't pay for, programs he didn't pay for, and tax cuts for wealthy people in the midst of a war, something no president had ever done. president obama inherited that and it has been a tough road, he'll tell you, to get this economy back on track but now he has a plan and the republicans offer nothing. they vote against the president, whatever he wants,

they're opposing. and they vote against common sense which says helping working families, helping small businesses, helping our veterans find jobs and paying for it so it doesn't add to our deficit is a sensible approach to getting america back on the right track. i urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, put the campaigning aside for a moment. take a look at what it takes to create jobs and bring your best ideas to the table. let's sit down together and put together a bipartisan bill. we'll have the president's proposals as a starting point, bring your ideas, too. let's do something for this country on a bipartisan basis. i think that's why we were elected. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. president, before i yield the floor i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate with the approval of the majority and minority leaders. ask these be agreed to painted in the record. the presiding officer: without

objection. the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: as always, i listened with interest to my friend and colleague from illinois, and i didn't come to the floor with my colleagues to discuss that particular issue, but, you know, it's interesting the justification for the bailout of general motors and chrysler when the fact is that there are thousands of small businesses and companies all over america that had to go into bankruptcy but didn't get the bailout that was favorable to the trade unions. why couldn't -- why couldn't general motors have gone into bankruptcy the way everybody other company and corporation has had to do in hard times, restructure and then go back into business again? but instead, this administration and my friend from illinois seem to favor the trade unions who obviously got very favorable treatment rather than the normal bankruptcy procedures, which unlike the

favored trade unions, and car -- automobile corporations were able to get which thousands of small businesses and companies all over america were unable to get the benefit of their largess. mr. president, i came to the floor this morning with my colleagues to discuss the national defense authorization bill, but before i do, i'd like to mention that there is -- has been a lot of talk dominating or certainly part of the talk radio and television about the bus tour that the president is on. and a lot of it has centered around the bus and i'm not going to discuss that any more except to say that in 2008 when i ran for president, i didn't need a bus to be paid for and built by the government and the taxpayers of the united states. i understand that now there has been another bus purchased for

whoever the republican nominee is. how do you justify that? republican nominee may not want a bus. but the fact is, after having said that, the most important thing here is, is that the president is now on the taxpayers' money campaigning for three days in north carolina. it says, today's post, and i quote, "on n.c. bus tour, obama in full campaign mode." obama in full campaign mode. i say i have seen other presidents, both republican and democrats, who have hedged and come right up to the edge and sometimes crossed over it, and charging the taxpayers for what has been clearly campaign activities. but never do i believe any of us have seen the kind of activity that the president has engaged in, and all of it being charged

to the taxpayers of america. that's wrong. that's the wrong thing to do. according to recent reports, the president's campaign has raised record amounts of money already. the campaign should be paying for this north carolina trip of his. and i don't begrudge him beating up on us and criticizing us and making all kinds of allegations about not understanding his -- his stimulus 2 package, which we understand very well is more of the same. but at least this campaign should be paying for this kind of campaigning. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with my colleagues from georgia, senator chambliss, from new hampshire, senator ayotte, and the distinguished republican leader, senator mcconnell, for purposes of a colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: i thank the

president. mr. president, today we come to the floor to talk about the importance of the defense authorization bill. for 50 years, five zero, 50 years, the congress of the united states has enacted a defense authorization bill, enacted it do law and had it signed by the president of the united states. now, there have been times when this legislation has been very contentious. days during the vietnam war, days during operation desert storm, operation iraqi freedom, bosnia, companies owe voe, all -- kosovo, all of those times the defense authorization bill has been a vehicle for debate and votes on the floor of the senate concerning transcend ant issues of national security. and for 50 years we have cared for the men and women who have served and provided them with the equipment, the pay, the

benefits that the men and women of this country deserve, with hundreds of hours of deliberation, thousands of hours of written testimony and testimony before the committee, full committee, and subcommittee, such as the chairmanship of the senator from the state of georgia. and now because of a part of the legislation the majority leader has decided that we will not take this bill to the floor of the senate. that, my friends, is a betrayal of the men and women who are serving this nation. now, i understand that there are differences on the issue of a detainee treatment. i understand it's an emotional issue. but should it be a reason for the united states senate to carry out its 50-year tradition and debate and discuss and amend and vote and come out with a package that provides for the

needs, the training, the equipment, the benefits of the men and women who are serving? i quote from a letter from the -- from the distinguished majority leader who says, and i quote, the letter to be senator levin and to me, he says "however, as you know, i do not intend to bring this bill to the floor until concerns regarding the bill's detainee provisions are resolved." is that the way the senate works? that we don't bring bills to the floor unless objectionable -- that are disagreed with by one side or the other are not resolved? i always believed the way these issues are resolved is through debate, through amendments, through votes, through allowing the american people also to see and hear our deliberations, our discussions, and our debate. so now it appears -- and obviously the fiscal year has

expired, and so this bill is obviously long overdue. so now we are in a position that apparently the majority leader wants to take up the president's job bill one by one, apparently, in complete disregard of the needs and the requirements of the men and women who are serving in our national security. part of that bill also is the intelligence parts of the bill from the intelligence committee. the senator from georgia, who i -- and by the way, i note the presence of the senator from south carolina who knows more about detainees than any member of this body without question. he continually travels to iraq and afghanistan, he has visited the prisons, he understands the issues better than anyone. and i'd be willing to ask him how he feels about the detainee

provisions after the senator from georgia makes a comment about the importance of the intelligence portion of the defense authorization bill. mr. chambliss: i thank the senator from he arizona. this is the ninth defense authorization bill that i've been involved in since i've been a member of the senate, and i must say that the refusal to bring this defense authorization bill to the floor by the majority leader is truly disheartening. it's critically important that we address the issues not only of what's going on in iraq and afghanistan, but the day-to-day operations of our military from the standpoint of pay raises, quality of life, purchase of weapons systems for future use, any number of issues that are included today and the refusal of the majority leader to bring this to the floor because of his objection to a very critical aspect of this bill truly is disheartening. during committee consideration of the bill, committee

considered and adopted by a vote of 25-1 a comprehensive bipartisan bill -- provision relating to detainees. we have no detainee policy in this country today. if we had captured bin laden, what would we have done with him? if we had captured anwar awlaki, what would we have done with him. certainly we could have gained actionable intelligence from either one of those individuals, but we have no detainee policy in this country today. we have nowhere to take them to that we can hold these individuals and ensure that they don't get lawyered up quickly and that we're unable to get the type of information that we need to get from -- from individuals like that. over the past several years there's been an ongoing debate about the importance of being able to fully and lawfulfully intergate suspected terrorists. one thing is clear after all

these years that our nation still lacks this clear and effective policy. this bipartisan detainee compromise goes a long way toward ensuring we can get timely and actionable intelligence from newly captured detainees connected to al qaeda and other terrorist organizations. the compromise also provides for a permanent process for transferring guantanamo detainees to other countries. and we're in the midst right now of review within the intelligence committee of the thought process that went into the transferring of the detainees by both the bush administration and the current administration, and i will tell you that there are real flaws in that policy. those flaws have resulted, according to the d. niemplet, general clapper, of a recidivism rate of guantanamo detainees of 27%. that means 27% of the individuals that we have released from guantanamo and sent to other countries who have

been willing to take them under various agreements, 27% of them have returned to the battlefield and are killing -- seeking to kill americans. so the policy is not only about detainees, but policies with regard to what we do with guantanamo detainees is extremely important. there were a number of us that were involved in those -- the amendments that went into the authorization bill in committee. senator graham from south carolina, senator ayotte from new hampshire was integrally involved. and let me just turn to senator ayotte, and from the perspective of the people of new hampshire, where do you think we are with respect to a detainee policy in this country today? ms. ayotte: thank you, senator chambliss. i would say this, you highlighted the importance,

number one, as did senator mccain of passing the defense authorization. i have been to the floor twice on this issue because i think it's so important for our country. the notion that it's been half a century since we have failed to pass this authorization, what is at stake for our troops and for the troops and the message that it sends to them. we still are at war, in two wars. there are threats that face our country every day, and our military men and women, we owe it to them that they know that we're going to pass this authorization to address issues like pay increases and issues like weapons that they need, and all of the fundamental day-to-day issues to make sure that they know that we're behind them. but this issue of the detainee policy of this country, i would summarize over the last few months in the armed services committee, military leader after military leader has come before our committee, and we have asked them about this issue of how do we treat detainees. and i questioned general carter

himm, the commander of the africa command about what we would do if we captured a member of the al qaeda in africa. he said he would -- quote -- need some lawyerly help to answer that one. is that what we have come to? our commanders need lawyerly help in order to know how to deal with captured terrorists and how to treat them within our system to make sure that we have a secure place to gather intelligence from them and to ensure that the american people and our allies are protected? this detainee compromise that the majority leader is holding up the entire authorization bill for was an overwhelmingly bipartisan compromise. this provision in the committee was voted 25-1 in support of this because there is such a need to address how we treat detainees. and as senator chambliss already highlighted, we have a 27%

recidivism rate from those who have been released from guantanamo. just a couple of examples of what those individuals are doing right now, against us, our troops and our allies. for example, the number two in al qaeda in the arabian peninsula was someone released from guantanamo. another top commander of the taliban in the kadasura is out planning attacks, someone we released from guantanamo. that's why this issue cries out for a detention policy for our country. this is a very important issue to be brought to the floor along with the entire authorization, and i see my colleague from south carolina here, senator graham, who i know has worked very closely on these detention issues as a j.a.g. attorney and someone who has visited afghanistan just in office. i would ask him, have you ever

seen, first of all, in your time in the senate us acting like this with respect to the defense authorization, the senate in this way? and second, how important do you think it is that we address this detainee issue? mr. mccain: could i just say i thank the senator from new hampshire and the enormous contribution she has made in putting together this legislation. and i would also like both of you and my friend from south carolina in the letter to address this issue, in the letter that senator reid, the majority leader, i would ask my colleague, sent to senator levin and me, he used as the rationale for not bringing the bill to the floor, he says i do not intend to bring this bill to the floor until concerns regarding the bill's detainee provisions are resolved. it goes on and on. and then he says, as deputy national security advisor john brennan stated in a recent speech, he said, in sum, he said this approach -- talking about

the approach that we have taken in the bill, i believe the vote was 25-1, he said this approach would impose unprecedented restrictions on the ability of experienced professionals to combat terrorism, injecting legal and operational uncertainty into what is already enormously complicated work. i wonder if the senator from south carolina -- does mr. brennan understand what's in the legislation? mr. graham: well, i thank the senator from arizona and all of my colleagues for working on what is a very difficult subject matter, but when 25-1 becomes the outcome, that's pretty good. and i don't know what the -- this is not -- quite frankly, i like senator reid. this goes back to the white house. this is president obama's team. this is not harry reid. this is not the senate holding up this bill. it's the white house holding up this bill because they have an

irrational view of what we need to be doing with the detainees. they have lost the argument, and i tried to help, to close guantanamo bay. it's not going to close. we're not going to move those prisoners inside the united states. the congress has said no. the american people have said no. and the reason we have lost that argument is after working with the white house for about a year and a half to try to find a national security-centric detainee policy that would ensure the american people that we're not going to let these people roam around the world and treat them as common criminals, they could never pull the trigger on the hard stuff. we're here because the white house cannot tell the aclu no. there are 48 people at guantanamo bay being held under the law of war who will never see a courtroom, military or civilian courtroom, and that's part of military law. you don't have to let an enemy prisoner go. most enemy prisoners are never prosecuted. and they are being held down at guantanamo bay under the law of

war in executive order issued by the obama administration gives them an annual review. we have been trying to work with the obama administration for a couple of years now to create a statutory scheme to deal with every class of detainee that we may run into in this war that will go well beyond my lifetime. and the reason that mr. brennan objects is because there is a decision made by the congress to say that if a detainee is captured and interrogated by the high value interrogation team which i like, which is an interagency combination of the c.i.a., the f.b.i., military and other law enforcement agencies to make sure we get the best intelligence possible, that we create a presumption for military custody. and the reason we're doing that is because the obama administration has been hellbent on criminalizing this war. sheikh mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, had charges against him during the bush administration and he was ready to go to trial, literally ready to plead guilty.

the obama administration withdraws those charges and was going to put him in norkd, giving khalid sheikh mohammed the same constitutional rights as an american citizen, take that show on the road from guantanamo bay and have a trial in the heart of new york city that would cost $300 million alone for security. that blew up in their face. you just don't get it. most americans don't see these people as some guy that robbed a car -- stole a car or robbed a liquor store. most americans see the detainees that we're capturing on the battlefield throughout the whole world as a genuine threat to this country. and i applaud the obama administration for taking the fight to the terrorists, for going after bin laden, for using predator drones on the battlefield all over afghanistan and pakistan. what i fought them with is that we have no way of capturing someone and acquiring good intelligence because you have locked the system down. and this detainee legislation that we have before the senate will allow a way to go forward.

what happens if you capture someone tomorrow, where do we put them, what jail do we have as a nation to put a captured terrorist in? we don't have a jail because they won't use guantanamo bay. they captured a terrorist and put him on a ship for 60 days. the navy is not in the detention business. we don't build ships to make them jails. we build ships to fight wars. so this aversion to using guantanamo bay is going to bite us as a nation. so this legislation allows us to move forward. if you capture someone, you can gather good intelligence. there is a presumption that they are going to be held as an enemy combatant, but there is a waiver provision there. what i don't want to do is start reading rights to everybody we capture in the united states as part of a terrorist organization's plot. we're not fighting a crime. we're fighting a war, and under the rules of war, you can hold an enemy combatant and interrogate them as long as necessary to find out what the enemy is up to. that's what this legislation does to my colleagues.

you have written a very balanced approach. and this idea of never using guantanamo bay again is dangerous. the idea that the c.i.a. cannot interrogate enemy parissers in as a policy is dangerous. by give order, the president of the united states, president obama, within a week of taking office took off the table enhanced interrogation techniques under the detainee treatment act that were classified, that were not waterboarding within our values, but they were techniques available to our intelligence community, senator chambliss overseas, that will allow them over time to acquire good intelligence. one of the reasons we captured -- killed bin laden is because of the intelligence picture we acquired over ten years. but this president within a week said by executive order the only interrogation tool available to the united states of america is the army field manual which is online, you can go read it for yourself. mr. mccain: i ask my colleague, it's a fact, as the

senator from new hampshire pointed out, that 27% of the detainees that have been released from guantanamo bay have returned to the fight. not only have they returned to the fight. the fact that they were in guantanamo gives them an automatic kind of charisma and aura and leadership in al qaeda and other terrorist organizations. and is that -- do you think the american people find that acceptable, that one out of every four that we have released from guantanamo bay have re-entered the fight and clearly are responsible for the deaths of -- at least of some brave young americans and may be responsible for the deaths in the future of americans? mr. graham: not only i think are most americans upset by that, but they are worried about what comes down the road. that's what i'm worried about. the senate legislation is trying to create a pathway forward for the future. what do you do with these people we have at guantanamo bay that may never go on trial?

what do you do with these people at guantanamo bay who come from countries if you return them to that country, they would be back in the fight by the end of the day? mr. mccain: as has happened in yemen. mr. graham: so we have a bipartisan proposal that will allow us as a nation to make rational decisions about detention, and the white house is holding it up, and there is -- there is provisions in this bill that affect the day-to-day lives of the men and women in our military, and the white house is saying detainee policy driven by the aclu is more important to them than a bill that would allow the c.i.a., the authorization they need to go fight this war, that would provide wounded warrior assistance at a time when wounded warriors need it the most. you talk about perverse view of things. you talk about having it wrong in terms of what's most important. allowing the detainee issue to deny the c.i.a. the authorization they need to protect us all is dangerous.

to put the men and women's needs in uniform in terms of their health care, their pay, their ability to take care of their families, secondary to detainee policies that make no sense driven by the far left in this country is what this debate is about. well, to the white house, we're not going to change this bill. mr. mcconnell: would the senator yield for a question? mr. graham: yes. mr. mcconnell: then am i correct, i would say to my friends from south carolina and new hampshire and arizona, that because of the administration's opposition to a detainee treatment provision that was, i gather, approved overwhelmingly in the armed services committee, we will for the first time deny everybody in the senate an opportunity to offer any amendments on any subject to the d.o.d. authorization bill and in fact will not consider it on the floor of the senate for the first time in four decades?

mr. graham: the minority leader is absolutely right, but i would just add to my good friend from kentucky, even more -- it's not just about us. what we're denying is general petraeus, the new c.i.a. director, authorization language he desperately needs to fight the war. what we're denying is men and women in uniform pay raises, health care benefits that they desperately need because of detention policy driven by, i think, the most liberal people in this country and 25 out of 26 senators blessed this package. so senator mcconnell, you are absolutely right. not only does the senate not have a say about what would be the way forward on detainees, the men and women in uniform and our c.i.a. operatives out there taking the fight to the enemy do not have the tools they need because of one area of this legislation, and it would be a national tragedy if we could not pass this bill which is sound to its core in all areas because the aclu doesn't like what we

have done on detention. mr. chambliss: senator, if the minority leader would yield for a question? as you well know, the intelligence community depends upon the defense authorization bill for the authorization to operate in the intelligence community. whether it's the budget or whether it's policy. all of that is compromiseed in the majority leader's refusal to bring this bill to the floor. and without the authorities and the respective intelligence bills that are passed by the house and by the senate, then our intelligence committee is handicapped and hamstrung in policies that are needed as we move forward in this ever-changing war on terrorism. by ask the senator from kentucky if he has ever in his long experience in the senate, ever seen any bill of this nature

held up and not allowed to come to the floor because of any single senator's refusal to accept the provisions that are in the bill by an overwhelming vote like this. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i'm not sure who has the floor but i would say in response to my friend from georgia -- mr. mccain: i would say we have unanimous consent for a colloquy. mr. mcconnell: there may have been examples but i'm hard pressed to think of one recently. and the tradition of the passing the defense authorization bill is there for a good reason. the national defense of the united states is the most important thing the federal government does, and the committee upon which the senator from georgia and the senator from arizona and the senator from new hampshire serve are the experts on this the matter and i find this truly astonishing. it's consistent, however, i must say with the pattern around here in recent times. no amendments, fill up the

tree, deny the majority and the minority in this case, both the majority and the minority, the opportunity to have any input on a piece of legislation that determines what we do in the federal government's most important responsibility. i think this is another example of the way the senate has deteriorated into operating like the house. and it's extremely bad direction for this institution and for the american people. ms. ayotte: i would just like to add as well this detainee compromise as senator mccain and i have talked -- have talked about before is actually the group of individuals that we're talking about here are military custody for members of al qaeda or affiliated groups who are planning an attack

against the united states or its coalition partners, and you think about that category of individuals, the most dangerous category of individuals that we have to address, is why we came to the compromise in committee that the default would be military custody for those individuals and it's inconsistent with the administration's position. if you think about it, they are rightly so and i agree with them, undertaking -- taking out members of al qaeda around the world that fall under that category that are out there killing americans and plotting against americans and our allies. yet they're objecting to a provision, a detainee provision that would give guidance to our military and intelligence leaders that those individuals should be treated in the first instance with military custody seems to me very inconsistent with what they have been doing in other contexts and obviously this is a category of individuals on a bipartisan basis we agreed to in committee were the most dangerous category

of individuals who should be held in the first instance in military custody. and i wanted to add that mr. brennan, whom the majority leader has cited on behalf of the administration as objecting to this provision, he doesn't seem to in his speech to harvard that he gave recently to appreciate who this provision applies to and that there is actually a national security waiver in the provision. so i would ask the administration and mr. brennan again to read the provisions that were passed on a bipartisan basis by the committee because this is such a key issue to move forward to give guidance to our military, but i'm concerned that the administration's objections to this are misguided and they haven't read the actual legislation we are working on here. so it is my hope as the majority leader -- excuse me, as our leader, the minority leader has said, that we will move forward with passing the critical pieces for our troops because our troops deserve nothing less than

for us to bring this forward to the floor because of the pay raises in there, the weapons systems that they deserve to have, everything that is in that bill. but also i would ask the administration to revisit its position because it seems inconsistent with its own policies and they don't seem to have actually read the compromise that was overwhelmingly passed out of the armed services committee. mr. mccain: i thank the senator from new hampshire. i know that we have addressed this issue in some depth but by remind my colleagues, this is the defense authorization bill. this is the product of thousands of hours of work, of staff work, hundreds of hours of testimony and hearings, a week-long markup with the full committee putting this package together. the thoughts, the ideas, the recommendations of the administration, people in and out of the administration, the

knowledge and expertise of thousands of individuals goes into this most important piece of legislation. that for 50 years has been taken up, debated, amended, passed and signed into law by the president of the united states. now because of one small provision of this bill, the majority leader of the senate at the behest of the white house has decided that we won't take up the defense authorization bill for the first time in 50 years. i think that the distinguished republican leader and i, who have been around here for quite a while, have seen this process now deteriorate to the point where we now cannot debate, amend, and pass legislation that is so vital to our nation's security and the men and women who take part in preserving it.

kind of a sad day for this member. mr. mcconnell: i would just finally, i'd ask both the senator from arizona who has been our leader on national defense issues and the senator from new hampshire, the basis of this, if the administration wants to establish the precedent that they can capture enemy noncombatants anywhere in the world and send them straight into the united states into and article 3 court, is that the crutch of this, by ask my friends? ms. ayotte: i would say to our distinguished republican leader, i think that is at the heart of this, they want to treat these individuals in the context of our civilian court system. otherwise why would you object to a provision on military custody for those who are members of al qaeda who are planning an attack against the united states or have attacked the united states? because in -- and also by point out there is a national security waiver in this provision. so the only thing i can take

from it is they do want to treat this war as really people who are enemy -- we're at war with as civilians as opposed to who they are, which are enemies of our country. mr. mcconnell: could i ask the senator from new hampshire, a former attorney general, a further question. does this not lead inevitably in the direction of a mindset that would say on the battlefield you capture an enemy combatant, and that enemy combatant is inevitably on the way to an article 3 court, could it lead to the feeling that that enemy combatant should be read his miranda rights on the battlefield? if he is viewed as an individual who is on the way to a u.s. court, under u.s. law, where does it end, i ask my friend from new hampshire. ms. ayotte: i would say that's

an absolute concern here because this would be the first war in the history of our country where we would be treating those we capture on the battlefield, giving them the rights to our civilian court system. and that is where do we draw the line? it would be outrageous to require members of our military and intelligence officials to immediately ask do i have to give miranda rights, do i have to give the same -- do i have to worry about some of the speedy trial and presentment issues that come from a civilian court system. and that's why in the guidance of the committee on a bipartisan basis was that this category of individuals, the presumption should be military custody because these are individuals who are enemy combatants that we are at war at and that's fundamentally at issue here and it does seem inconsistent with what the administration is doing in treating these individuals in

terms of rightly going after them around the world and killing them in certain instances, that we wouldn't provide them military custody in the first instance. mr. mccain: could i also point out to my friend and my colleagues, that as is the case quite often with even though the vote was 25-1 on this provision in the senate armed services committee, we did provide at the request of the administration a waiver for national security. so we included a waiver that says the secretary of defense may in consultation with the secretary of state, the director of national intelligence, waive the requirements of the paragraph 1, that's the detainee issue, if the secretary submits to congress a certification in writing that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the united states. so there is a national security waiver. we've given the president of the united states a way that he could waive every provision of this legislation. something that i wasn't

particularly happy about, but in the spirit of compromise, we gave a waiver. and could i say also, i'm sure i see the majority leader on the floor, yes, there have been contentious times. there was contention last year about the "don't ask, don't tell" act, last year there was contention about the fact they added the hate crime bill which had nothing to do with national security on to the bill. but at least we ought to go ahead and take up and debate and amend and have the senate act as the american people expect us to, and that is is consideration, voting, and the president if it is that objectionable, obviously could veto the bill. but to just say because of these few pages, these pages right here, of the bill, that therefore we won't even take up the bill for the 50 -- for the first time in 50 years, in my view is a great disservice to the men and women who are serving. i thank my friends, the senator

from new hampshire and the minority leader. i yield the floor. mr. reid: conversations with senator mccain and levin about the provisions they've spent a lot of time on this morning, discussions have been very positive, and hopefully these concerns can be resolved. of course if they can't be, the only way to resolve them would be here on the senate floor and i hope in the next several days we can work something out on this. somewhat difficult provision that's in the bill reported out of the committee. mr. president, first of all, let me say that my friends who came and spoke on the floor today, i understand their concern about the -- the defense of this country. any time john mccain comes to the floor or comes anyplace in the world and talks about anything dealing with the security of this country, everyone should listen. he's a man we all know, we

respect, we hold in the highest regard. not only because of his legislative skills, he's been a presidential nominee, but the fact is, he's a certified american military hero. so i want everyone to understand that i have no problem at all with senator mccain coming to the floor talking about something that he knows a lot about. but i do want to remind everyone that we are now in the tenth month of this congress and we have been blocked, obstructed, prevented, and held up from moving the legislation for ten months. we've wasted months and months because of obstructionism, threats to shut down the government. think back just a little while, mr. president, on trying to get government funded until the first of october. i don't know at this stage how many votes we had but at least a half a dozen extending the government for a week, a few

days with the threat of government shutting down with every one of those extensions of the continuing resolution. then we moved to a new stage in the history of our great country. that is, extending the debt ceiling. at times in the past it's been done routinely. hundreds of times. 18 times during the reagan administration. but no, we took months to do it for president obama. and that has prevented us from doing a lot of the routine work we need to do here including the defense authorization bill. these items used to be routine. under democratic and republican presidents. but this congress, republicans have turned even routine matters into crises. since the beginning of the year, they've blocked jobs bills, using obstruction tactics, they've filibustered everything by amendment.

remember the small business innovation bill, mr. president, a bill i like to talk about because it's been one of the best things that's happened to this country. small business entrepreneurs, people who had ideas how to improve the economy, did good things with these small grants they got. my favorite, of course, is the electric toothbrush. but there were other things that have been done. but you know that bill, mr. president, traditionally handled with minimal controversy -- in fact, no controversy -- always passes unanimously with help from both sides. republicans amended this little piece of legislation so good for our country and creating jobs to death. the process nearly took two months. there was economic development revitalization act, something that started during the time that richard nixon was president. we did this routinely, most every time by unanimous consent. a job that creates -- a bill

that creates lots and lots of jobs, employment for our country. the republican senators blocked this bill, dragging out the process for months. their obstructionism has cost this country millions of jobs, including two million that were created by the american jobs act. and suddenly, they are calling for return to normal order, regular order, they call it. well, mr. president, after ten months of dragging out the most routine matters, preventing the normal order of business here in the senate, suddenly they are calling for us to move quickly on the defense authorization bill, something that should have been done some time ago, and they are threatening to shut down the government if they don't get their way. we have coming up in less than a month another threat by the republicans to shut down the government. that seems to be the mantra. if we don't get what we want, we'll close the government. the continuing resolution expires on november 18, right before thanksgiving.

my colleagues are right about the defense authorization act, absolutely right. we need to do this. we have always done it and we're going to do it this year. as i said to senator mccain on a number of occasions and senator levin, i'm eager to find a path to get this done. my colleagues have said several times they believe these provisions ought to be considered regular order and the senate ought to proceed to debate them. as i indicated a few minutes ago, if that's the only avenue we have, then that's what we'll do. the defense authorization bill is going to be done this year, but we have been held up for ten months, mr. president, and doing the ordinary process that this government is so required to do. mr. durbin: would the senator yield for a question? mr. reid: i would be happy to yield. mr. durbin: i'd like to ask the majority leader, since i have listened to the colloquy by my republican colleagues just a few moments ago and it related to the detainee policy, which is one of the controversial issues in the defense authorization

bill. i would ask the majority leader, i'm sure he is aware of the fact that last week in detroit, in an article 3 federal court, an accused terrorist, the so-called underwear bomber, pled guilty to terrorism, having gone through the regular criminal process in article 3 courts, having been interrogated by the f.b.i. and even after miranda warnings surrendering very valuable information and intelligence to protect the united states, and is it not true that when we look at the record about detainees, are those accused of terrorism being tried, we find that since 9/11 over 200 of them have been successfully tried in article 3 courts under president bush and president obama and under military commissions exactly four, four terrorists have been tried, and that the argument on the other side that the article

3 courts are incapable of protecting the united states in successfully prosecuting terrorists absolutely flies in the face of the facts. 200 terrorists convicted in article 3 courts, four by military tribunals. you would think it was exactly the opposite from the arguments made on the floor by my friend from arizona and others. i would ask the senator from nevada, our majority leader, are we not trying to give to any president, this president and any president, the tools and the decisionmaking necessary to protect our nation, to pick the best place to investigate and to prosecute those who are accused of terrorism? mr. reid: in response to my friend's question, he is absolutely right. and remember, this is not an obama-driven program. it started during the george bush era. why? because george bush was president of the united states on 9/11, and he recognized the importance of doing this in a fashion that will maintain the

civility of our criminal justice system. i say to my friend, there is some -- i want to make sure i repeat what i said earlier. no one is saying that we're not going to do the defense authorization bill. we're going to do that. but we are really -- because of being jammed, as i have tried to out line here, to the entire country and being able to get our work done here this last ten months, we're trying to find time to do lots of things. that's why we have come up with this unique way of moving appropriation bills. we're doing them together, three at a time rather than one at a time, in an effort to do what i have been asked by the speaker of the house to do, do what you can to get these appropriations bills done. senator mcconnell suggested the same thing. we're doing our very, very best. but we have been held up from doing the ordinary business. i gave two examples, about as good as you can give, of our trying to do things to create

jobs in america today, and we have been stymied from doing that. so i say to everyone here, we have -- i'm really somewhat at a loss for words for an organization here, the republican caucus, who have done everything they can do these past ten months to stop us from moving forward. remember, mr. president, remember my friend the republican leader's number-one goal, and i admire his honesty. he said his number-one goal was and has been to defeat president obama. and as a result of that, we have not been able to do the government's business because everything that they can do to slow down government is something they believe will help them a year from now. mr. durbin: will the senator

yield for one more question? is it not true the majority leader came to the floor yesterday on the pending legislation on the appropriations bills and invited members from both sides to bring their amendments to the floor and call their amendments for a vote, that some 10 or 11 or more amendments have been filed, and we're still waiting for that? is it not true that we are giving this opportunity to our colleagues to offer their amendments and to call their amendments, and that that is a way for those who are looking for their opportunity on the floor to express their point of view and get a vote? mr. reid: i appreciate very much the senator from illinois reminding me of what took place at the beginning of this congress. mr. mccain: will the senator yield for a comment? mr. reid: as soon as i answer my friend's question. i'm reminded what took place at the beginning of this year. we had a number of new senators, relatively new senators, who joined with some more experienced senators, who wanted to change the way they saw our having done business in the last congress. and i joined with my friend, the

republican leader, and said let's back off a little bit, and the republican leader said we're going to be very, very discrete in what we do with motions to proceed to allow us to get on legislation, and i said fine. if that's the case, then we will make sure we have the opportunity to offer amendments. that has broken down big time, i say to my friend, because it is a rare day here that we have been able to move to a piece of legislation without having to go through the process of filing cloture on just the ability to get on a bill, and we have had alternate amendments as we did on the small business innovation bill, and guess what happened. it was amended to death, so after two months, after two months, we gave up. couldn't do that bill that had been done routinely in the past. so i say to my friend, we're going to try it again. we have got this appropriation bill. we're going to try to get it

done. amendments, we're waiting for people to offer amendments, and we're going to try to move through this and get it done. we're going to do the appropriation bill this week. we have other things we need to do. this is an important time in the history of our country, to show the american people we can work together. i hope that in fact is the case, because based on my experience at the beginning of this congress where there was supposed to be a good-faith effort to return to regular order, it has not happened. i would be happy to yield to my friend for a question. mr. mccain: thank you. i just want to say to the majority leader who i have known and been friends with for many years, i thank him for his kind remarks and i'm very appreciative of his comments of the commitment of bringing the defense authorization bill to the floor. i thank the majority leader. mr. president. the presiding officer: the morning business is closed. under the previous order, the senate resumes consideration of h.r. 2112, which the clerk will

report. the clerk: calendar number 155, h.r. 2112, an act making appropriations for agriculture, rural development, food and drug administration, and related agencies programs, for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2012, and for other purposes. mr. mccain: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent to temporarily set aside the pending amendment for purposes of calling up amendments. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain call up three amendments numbered and ask that they be reported by number. the clerk: the senator from arizona, mr. mccain, proposes amendments en bloc numbered 739, 740, 741 to amendment number 738. mr. mccain: mr. president, i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president, i would suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: thank you, mr. president. i have to ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cornyn: thank you. mr. president, yesterday, i introduced my amendment to the

pending commerce and justice appropriations bill, and this amendment, i'd like to just explain briefly for my colleagues, this amendment is designed to basically cut off any future funds that might be made available under this appropriation bill to fund the department of justice's program now notoriously known as fast and furious. this would prohibit the taxpayer funding of operations where federal law enforcement personnel knowingly caused the transfer of firearms to drug cartel agents and intentionally failed to monitor those weapons. on december 14, 2010, united states border patrol agent brian terry was gunned down on the southern border while attempting to apprehend members of a predatory criminal gang that operated in arizona's peck canyon. a congressional investigation

and several news reports have confirmed that some of those guns used in that attack actually came from gun dealers in the united states, and the guns were actually put in the hands of these agents of the cartels and allowed to cross the border with the full knowledge of officials associated with the united states government. most notably, the bureau of cholesterol, tobacco and -- of alcohol, tobacco and firearms and the u.s. attorney's office in arizona. although it's unknown at this point how far up in the chain of command knowledge of this program went, but that's another story for another time. so the american people and their representatives in congress began asking after the death of brian terry what happened under this fast and furious program and who will be held accountable. answers to those questions have been very slow in coming, and some have been contradictory,

but the more questions that were raised, the more questions came up. one question is, of course, who authorized fast and furious and why. according to congressional investigations led on this side of the capitol by senator grassley and on the other side of the capitol by congressman darrell issa, this program began in 2009 in the field office of the bureau of to be coand firearms. it instructed phoenix area firearms dealers to go through with sales of nearly 2,000 weapons to persons suspected of working as straw purchasers on behalf of mexican drug cartels. a logical question is why in the world would such a misguided program be initiated and who would be held accountable. another question is who objected to the fast and furious and why

weren't those objections taken seriously? congressional investigations have found that many firearms dealers actually contacted the a.t.f. and spreased concerns about in whose hands they might end up. multiple agents testified they openly protested their orders to actually let these guns walk across the border into the hands of the cartels. when they were told to break off surveillance of these illegally purchased weapons because they expected what eventually did happen, is that no good would come of fast and furious not only as brian terry lost his life as a result of this misguided program, weapons from the fast and furious program have shown up in about 11 different crime scenes here in the united states. so the questions that i have relate to why weren't the voices of people in the field who first

raised objections or concerns about this program heard? another question my constituents in texas have been asking is have similar gun walking practices occurred in our state? according to published reports, houston-based firearms dealer carter's country, revealed store clerks have been ordered to go through the sale of weapons to suspicious persons who may have been working as straw purchasers for mexican drug cartels, and some of the weapons purchased from carter's country have been recovered at the scene of violent crimes in mexico. senator grassley's investigations have also revealed a possible texas connection to the february murder of u.s. immigration and customs enforcement officer jaime zapata in mep mexico. one of the weapons used to murder him was purchased in texas in october of 2010 and subsequently trafficked to

mexico through laredo, texas. while the suspected traffickers may have been arrested, there are reports that the a.t.f. allowed them to continue far too long. another question asked about our friends across the border, the government of mexico who are fighting these cartels and many of whom have lost their lives but our friends in mexico are asking why is the administration allowing guns to come into the -- into mexico as part of u.s. government policy? why is the u.s. government arming drug cartels? according to a report in the "l.a. times," one of the victims of fast and furious was a brother of patricia gonzalez who at the time was a top state prosecutor in chihuahua. the "l.a. times" always reports that mexico's attorney general,

a good partner to the united states, that she first learned about fast and furious from news reports and as of last month she said u.s. officials have not briefed her on the operation nor have there been any apologies for this misguided program. so, mr. president, questions are being asked on both sides of the border and they deserve answers. back in august i wrote to attorney general holder and asked him to promptly disclose the details of any past or present texas gun-walking program similar to operation fast and furious. much to my disappointment, i've not received any official response from the department of justice nor attorney general holder. while disappointing, this stonewalling is not surprising considering the difficulty that senator grassley and representative issa have had in their operation of investigation investigation -- investigation of operation fast and furious. in may, 2007, attorney general holder told the committee that he only learned of operation

fast and furious in the past few weeks, to quote him. the evidence now shows that attorney general holder had received multiple briefing memos regarding the operation that date back as early as july, 2010. much earlier than the few weeks ago he claimed in may of 2007. it's time -- in may of 2011. it's time for attorney general holder to tell congress precisely what he knew and when he knew it and to be honest with congress and the american people about how this happened and who will be held accountable for it. so far, i think the attorney general's earnest hope is to -- that this will all go away but it will not go away. my amendment would help ensure we no longer have to worry about operation fast and furious or similar ill-advised gun walking operations. this amendment will mandate no taxpayer money will be spent on programs where law enforcement

personnel knowingly cause the transfer of weapons to suspected drug cartel associates with the intent that those 4r5u6r789 officials break off the surveillance of those weapons prior to interdicting them. in other words, this amendment is narrowly taylored to prevent -- tailored to prevent future programs like operation fast and furious while allowing law enforcement the free trade o operate where they are in continuous surveillance of the weapons. this will also allow law enforcement officials to use weapons transfers to low-level straw purchasers as a tool to investigate the chain of command in gun trafficking rings while simultaneously requiring them to keep their eyes on the weapons at all times so that they can step in and prevent unnecessary and tragic violence. just over ten months ago border patrol agent brian terry was murdered by criminal gang weapons with weapons walked into

their hands by the a.t.f. and the department of justice. it's my hope this body has learned from this tragedy and we will affirmatively act to ensure nothing like this happens again. my amendment does just that and i hope my colleagues will join me in supporting it. mr. president, -- >> mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: i rise to comment on tax reform texas' amendment. -- the gentleman from texas' amendment. mr. chairman, i am the chair of the subcommittee on commerce, justice, and science and fund the bureau of alcohol and firearms. i'm going to comment on the amendment. before i comment on the amendment explicitly i'd like to compliment the gentleman from texas, one, raising the issue on the floor, second, his fierce defense of the border, our southwest border, and his devotion to federal law enforcement and always being

concerned when we send them in harm's way and where we in any way could have contributed to either their injury or their death. so i think -- you know, i just compliment you on that. my ranking member, senator kay bailey hutchison, also from texas has spoken eloquently, diligently and unflinchingly about the need that we have to be serious about what's happening on the southwest border. i say this to you, that for those of us who are concerned about our country, we support the efforts to control our border and the growing violence that's occurring there. i believe that america is in four wars. iraq, which is winding down, afghanistan, that ultimately will, southwest border, and the cyberwar. we have now two enduring wars, and i say to the gentleman from texas, i'm going to work with

you. when i look what happened with operation fast and furious, i was fast to be furious about the bungled, botched occurrences that occurred. for those who might not be familiar with it, this was the -- the federal law enforcement by trying to combat illegal gun traffic allowed guns to knowingly walk into mexico so we could track what it was doing. it was poorly planned, poorly executed, had flawed leadership, and it was definitely of questionable strategy and value. i would like to work with the senator from texas with some slight modifications 0 to the bill, some tweaking and more precise definitions and over the next hour or so if we could look at it, i'd like to be able to accept your amendment. i think you're on to something, and i'd also like to work with you, your colleague from texas, those from the southwest

to get the answers from the attorney general that you want. you're entitled to those answers. and people at the local level who put local cops on the ground, our version of boots on the ground, should at least have answers from their own government and about what they're doing. operation fast and furious was one of many strategies along the u.s.-mexico border. in arizona targeting illegal gun and drug smuggling. the offshoot of those successful project gun runner, they were teams of a.t.f. agents and investigators that increased our coverage, disrupting firearm trafficking corridors. that project gun runner has been operating since 2006. but fast and furious just went too far. it went beyond normal project gun runner strategy, it allowed assault weapons to be sold to suspected straw buyers who

transported them to mexico, and then a.t.f. lost track of the weapons, which was the point of what they were trying to do. fast and furious with us put to an end without -- without terrible problems. there is no doubt a.t.f. has done good work, they see tens of thousands of guns, there is the whole issue of allowing them to sell guns across the area, but, you know, what, hundreds of mexican citizens have died, our obvious law enforcement has died, we've got to do something about it. now, i understand from the attorney general that when he heard about it, he did take decisive steps to clean it. immediately asked the department d.o.j. inspector general to conduct an investigation examining the facts of what had happened. he made it clear to all federal prosecutors and law enforcement they should never knowingly

allow guns to cross the border. long-time justice department policy. he changed the leadership at a.t.f. and the u.s. attorney's office in arizona. and has complied, he tells me, with congressional requests for thousands of documents. if you feel you're not getting answers, i want to join with you, again, you deserve those answers. now, we need to make sure we're giving law enforcement the tools they need, hopefully we have it in the bill, we'd like to do more. we've got to fight those cartels. vicious, violent, grim, ghoulish. we've listened to the concerns of our colleagues who have spoken, outspoken, our colleagues, our two colleagues from arizona, kyl and mccain, are well known in your advocacy on this. we've made a major investment in 2009 and another close to

$2 billion in this bill, close -- it's $1.9 billion to safeguard or southwest border. so we're putting resources in it. fast and furious has ended. we need better leadership, we need better strategy. by like to work with you on your amendment and if we could -- i think it would be great if we could just accept it. we've all got to be in this together. the southwest border is america's border. i don't live this the southwest. i live in the northeast. but anything that happens down at your border affects us, and that's the way we need to think about ourselves. we're all americans, we all need to look out for one another, we need to be able to protect our border, protect those who are defending the border and make sure we get it right and that we don't contribute to the problem. so i'd sure like to work with you on this. mr. cornyn: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: i would take a moment or two to say to the

senator from maryland, i'll take you up on your offer, our staff is working on the general thrust of the amendment and make clear that the senate will not approve of any funds being used going forward for these sorts of misguided and poorly thought out programs like operation fast and furious. i would ask the senator's help and take her up on her offer to try to get conclusive and comprehensive answers from the department of justice. i know senator grassley and representative issa feel and i feel as well that the attorney general and the department could be more forthcoming and really what it boils down to is a matter of accountability. i think one of the things that drives people crazy about washington and congress these days is they feel like things are happening that shouldn't be happening and no one is held accountable. and that is what needs to happen in this program.

and i would take you up on your offer, so i appreciate that and we'll work with you and your staff to see if we coon come up with some acceptable language. i would as a matter of the record because i think we need, again, from the standpoint of accountability and for clears in, the record, i would like, shall clearness, by like to have a roll call vote on my amendment at the appropriate time. but we will work with you to come up with some acceptable language. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i just want to update my colleagues on an amendment that senator udall of colorado and i, along with several of our colleagues filed and debated last night. this is the amendment that would