quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: mr. president, thank you. i'd ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: mr. president, yesterday we concluded our work here in the senate on our version of the agricultural appropriations bill. i am a member of the appropriations committee, a member of the agriculture appropriations subcommittee and i supported the legislation that we passed but there is an outstanding issue at the department of agriculture that i was only recently made aware of. it's, to me, a very serious issue, which given more time, i would have taken action here on the senate floor. it is an issue that i'll continue to pursue is as a member of the conference committee as we work toward our final fy 2012 agriculture appropriations bill. the issue involves a memo issued by the department of agriculture last month, october 6, authorizing the department of agriculture animal plant inspection service, aphis, to

conduct an animal wellness forum. this was approved by under secretary h edward avelos. i'd ask unanimous consent to submit the usda's memo for the record. officer sph without objection. mr. moran: thank you, mr. president. the ironic thing about this forum is that there's little science involved. it is nothing more than, in my view, the department of agriculture spending taxpayer dollars ton a forum to provide the humane society of the united states a public forum to h espoe its antiagricultural views. the document speaks for itself in this regard, and on page 2, the document state that aphis, representatives believe that the humane society's intent is to promote and position the organization to be recognized nationally as influencing aphis policy on critical and sensitive welfare issues.

after reading that statement, it becomes clear that the department of agriculture is indicatering to an -- is catering to an outside organization instead of relying on the universities or department of agriculture. if the department of agriculture was interested in science, why allow an animal rights organization to steer its agenda? would why wouldn't they simply qut latest research from scientists across the country to make sure its guidance is up to date? in addition to catering to hsus in planning this forum, the department of agriculture is precluding input from member of the agricultural industry that it's supposed to support. the memo states that hsus and other welfare advocacy groups would be invited to meet with a preplanning meetin meeting. these groups would vin put into the topics to be discussed, potential speakers for the

topics, dates and time for the forum, how the forum should run, et cetera. that's quoting from the memo. no mention is made in the memo of asking any agricultural organization or animal scientist for preplanning assistance. according to the memo, hsus is going to set the agenda for this forum, even if the agricultural industry is later invited to the event, agriculture would have the cards already stacked against them. i think it is important for most americans to understand that hsus is not your local animal shelter. hsus is a national lobbying organization that spends most of its budget to lobby against farmers and ranchers that provide us with the food and clothing that we enjoy in this country. in fact, tax documents show that hsus spends less than 1% of its budget on grants to animal shelters. given these facts, you would have to wonder why the department of agriculture is giving this organization this platform and shunning producer organizations.

this is one more demonstration that this administration is no real friend of rural america or the american farmer and rancher. my purpose this morning is to inform my fellow senators on what i consider this troubling development at the department of agriculture and to put the secretary on notice that this type of conduct from the department is unacceptable. the department's mission statement reads like this: "we provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, and related issues based upon sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management. usda should live up to its mission statement and twork promote agriculture, not to work against farmers and ranchers' best interests. and i would say, not to work against the best interests of the consumer of food in this country. going forward, i'll do best to make sure that the department of agriculture adheres to its mission statement. mr. president, thank you for the opportunity to speak, and i would again note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

mr. carper: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: a few moments ago, senators lieberman, collins, and i gathered in the press gallery upstairs to unveil a proposed compromise that is designed to help us help ensure that we have a viable, strong, viable u.s. postal service in this country for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years and longer. and there has been a lot of time spent in debate here over jobs, how are we going to save jobs, how are we going to create jobs in this rough economy that we're moving through. and as it turns out, there are about seven million jobs that flow from the postal service. there is only about 500,000 people that actually work for the postal service these days, but there are another roughly seven million jobs that are associated with the postal service in one way or the other. if we do nothing, the postal service which lost $10 billion last year is on track to lose a couple hundred billion dollars over the next ten years.

the postal service will literally go out of business next year. not in ten years, not in five years, but next year. that's a consequence that none of us can look forward to, and we need to provide predictability and certainty and part of that is to make sure that we have a postal service that meets the needs of our businesses and the interest of our citizens. i want to say that the situation is dire, but it is not hopeless. this is one that we can fix and the four of us have agreed on legislation that we believe will fix this problem, not five years, not ten years from now, but literally provide the fix that's needed this year. i mention that at our press conference that a couple of years ago, my sister and i went to the home of my parents. my parents are now both deceased. we went to their home and we rooted through all kinds of nooks and crannies and boxes in attics and so forth, and we came across a treasure-trove of letters that they exchanged

during world war ii. they wrote to one another when my dad was overseas, they wrote several times a week. they saved the letters, saved the letters. when i was in southeast asia back during the vietnam war, the happiest day of the week for us was the day the mail came. the letters, the post cards, the birthday cards, the packages that we received, magazines, the newspapers, that was really the best day of the week. when our presiding officer and i go on a codel to afghanistan or to iraq to visit our troops and see how they are doing and what we need to be doing, they still get the mail over there, but it's not like it was when i was serving, when my dad and my uncles were all serving. troops today have -- they communicate with their families back home with skype. they have the ability to use cell phones. they have the internet, they have facebook, they have twitter. you name it. it's a different game today, different game today. and as the way that we

communicate in this country and this world has changed, the postal service needs to change the way they do business, and they are ready and anxious to do just that. i think there is a good analogy here in trying to figure out what the postal service needs to do to right size its enterprise, it's a good analogy that we can do by looking back just three years ago, three or four years ago, the situation that the u.s. auto industry was in in this country. just think about this. in 1970, my first trip to southeast asia, the market share of ford, chrysler, g.m. was just about 85% here in this country. 85%. 2009, their market share dropped to less than 50%. the auto industry reported to us and to the rest of the country that they had given the market share they enjoyed in 2009, they had more employees than they needed, they had more auto plants than they needed, and there was a mismatch in terms of the wage-benefit structure they were paying their own employees

versus the wage benefits being paid to their competition selling cars and trucks and vans in this country. they asked from us a bailout, not exactly a bailout. they asked for a cash transfusion. they promised to pay it back with interest. and lo and behold, they have. and three years later, ford, chrysler and g.m. are still in business. they have fewer employees than they had three years ago. they have fewer auto plants than they had, but they have changed up the wage-benefit structure and made some changes in their health care costs, the way they administer health care costs who are now overseen by the united auto workers. and as i said earlier, the moneys that we invested in those two companies, chrysler and g.m., those moneys have been repaid largely with interest. the postal service in 2011 is in a situation not unlike where our auto industry was a couple of years ago. given the market share, the u.s. postal service has more employees than they need.

the postal service has more post offices than they need. they have more processing centers around the country than they need. and what they would like to be able to do is not to fire employees, not to abrogate labor contracts. what they have asked to do is to be able to do what the auto industry did working with their workers, and that's to incentivize people at the postal service that are eligible to retire to go ahead and retire. there is about 125,000 of them, and we have seen the postal service head count drop from 800,000 employees a decade ago to about 600,000, a little under 600,000 today, and the postal service needs -- because they need to be able to reduce that head count by another 100,000 or so over the next couple of years, by incentivizing the retirees -- people eligible to retire, to go ahead and retire, and by doing that, the postal service, they think they can do that for about $2 billion,

$2 billion. and by doing so, if 100,000 postal employees will retire, they are eligible to retire, it will say to the postal service, get this, $8 billion a year going forward, $8 billion a year. last year, the postal service lost $10 billion, and in the years to come, they are projected to lose about $20 billion. but we could literally address about half of that financial challenge just with one fell swoop -- incentivize retiree-eligible employees to go ahead and retire. the postal service is interested in being able to close some post offices. they would like to be able to consolidate some post offices where they have two, make one. in some cases, they would like to be able to take the services they provide at the post office and offer them at maybe a retail outlet that's open more than six days a week, maybe a retail outfit that's open 24/7. put the postal services maybe in some supermarkets in communities

across the country, put them in some convenience stores or maybe in pharmacies. the idea wouldn't be to provide worse service. the idea would be to provide better service in a lot of instances. there are 33,000 post offices in the country. the postal service is looking today at 3,700 of them to try to decide whether or not they are viable. under current law, the postal service can literally go in and close a post office. they can't do it solely on economic grounds, but they can go in and close a post office pretty much at their volition, and maybe have a cursory conversation with the community, but not much. the legislation that we have proposed would say that the post offices, as they look at these 3,700 post offices that are under review and others perhaps in the future, that before they go about closing any of them, the postal regulatory commission which is responsible for setting service standards for the post office, the postal regulatory commission would have to be part of that decision-making process

in these communities across america and make sure that the service standards that the regulatory commission, the regulators, if you will, for the post office, that their service standards that they have established are going to be met in the future if a post office is closed or post offices are consolidated or the services are relocated. this has to be a transparent process where the folks who live and work in those communities have the opportunity to be full participants in that decisionmaking. and with respect to the closure of mail processing centers, there are over 500 of them across the country. the postal service would like to close maybe as many as 300 of them but under the legislation that we have proposed, again there would be the opportunity for communities, businesses small and large, postal customers, residential customers and others to have the opportunity to make clear whether or not the closure of a mail processing center in their town, their community would somehow inopportune to the real

detriment of that community in ways that are not fair. so those are really three things the postal service wants to be able to do -- address their head count needs, make or take a close look at how many post offices we have and whether or not those services can be provided in a more cost-effective way, and the third to look at the 500-plus mail processing centers that we have and try to figure out how many of those can be closed. the postal service today delivers mail -- mail from my state to the presiding officer's state in minnesota. i can mail a letter today, probably get it out there on friday or maybe saturday. the standard of service today is in some cases next-day service. in some cases, service can be as much as three days. what the postal service has asked is they will still be able to do some one-day service, but they would like for the standard to be officially two to three days, and that's one of the things that they are asking for the opportunity to do. our bill lets them do that. the other thing that the postal

service has asked for is some relief, if you will, not a bailout, not taxpayer dollars, but some relief with respect to their health care costs. currently, the postal service pays into medicare for its employees, they are the second largest payer into medicare of all the employers in the country, and they also pay into something called the federal employee health benefit plan. so you have the postal service sort of paying twice for health care service for its retirees. people 65 and over, they are largely eligible -- 85% of them are eligible for medicare. if they are not, then they are still eligible for the federal employee health benefits as retirees. the postal service is asked to do what a lot of other companies have asked to do. what they have asked to do is folks who are eligible for medicare, that would be -- medicare would be their primary service of health care coverage. and in addition to that, the postal service would provide a medigap plan to fill the gaps

that medicaid -- medicare does not cover. and we think that's a reasonable request. we have also given the postal service the opportunity to negotiate with their labor unions to see if it might make sense for the postal service to withdraw from the federal employee health benefit plan and establish their own plan for roughly a million people. they will have a chance to study that and decide whether or not that makes sense. i will mention maybe two other, three other things that we believe the postal service can do to reduce costs. one of those is the way they deliver the mail. for a lot of folks in my home, the mail is delivered to our front door. there is a mailbox right by our front door. what we are suggesting in our legislation is that in some cases, the postal service looks and sees is that an efficient way to deliver mail or maybe is curbside delivery just fine? the mailbox, the letter carrier puts the mail in the mailbox, doesn't have to park the vehicle, walk up to the house, put the mail in the mailbox, walk back to the vehicle. there is a lot of money that can

be saved there. there is way money can be saved in how workers comp is handled for mail employees. we put legislation in this bill there, too. the -- in addition to finding ways to save money, i also hasten to add it's important for the postal service to find new ways to make money, new ways to make money. we have all seen the tv ads about flat-rate boxes. if it fits, it ships. the price is pretty good and the service is pretty good, too. that's -- that's the kind of idea, the kind of creativity we need more of from the postal service. the postal service has a partnership with fedex and u.p.s. most people think of them as competitors, but actually the postal service could partner with both fedex and u.p.s. how is that? fedex and u.p.s. don't want to deliver to every door in america every day or six days a week. they don't want to do that. and they simply ask the postal service to deliver to those doors that fedex and u.p.s. don't want to deliver to on a particular day, and the postal service makes money doing this,

they make a lot of money doing this. and in the holiday season, the holiday season comes upon us, we're going to find that there is a need for a -- a lot of people are going to not just go to brick-and-mortar stores to buy their holiday gifts. they will want to order online, and the postal service can participate broadly in that business, too. the last thing i want to mention is this -- in addition to making money, we have got to come up with new ideas. those are a couple of ideas that work. there are others. we're looking for ways to save money at the state and local government. why not consolidate some of your operations in post office buildings. really. you have a couple more tenants, you provide service there for other purposes. we do that for passports. why don't we do it for some other things? we're going to start hearing a lot about virtual mailboxes in the days to come and whether or not that might be a new piece of business for the post office to be involved in as well. let me close by saying this. i think as we go forward on this process, we need to invoke or be mindful of the golden rule, to treat people the way we would want to be treated.

that includes customers of the postal service, be they individuals or businesses, residential customers, employees of the postal service, other stakeholders, the taxpayers, we need to treat everybody the way that we would want to be treated. and the last thing i would say, my friend from tennessee is standing up, he and i are two people here who believe that we ought to be serious about solving big problems, as is the presiding officer. there are a lot of folks in this country who think that we are incapable of dealing with big challenges these days.this is a. the postal service is one of two largest employers in this country. the consequences of the postal service going down next year is not what we want to see. 7 million jobs would be in jeopardy. this is a big challenge. this is one we can fix. and to the extent that we can pull together as a body here in the senate, what we've done in our committee on this issue, will set a good example, i think, for our nation to say,

yeah, we can still govern, we can still take on a tough problem and we can fix it. not a year or two or three from now but this year. with that having been said, i yield the floor to my friend from tennessee. mr. corker: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: i know we're a in rotation right now. what i thought i might do is yield just a couple minutes to senator blumenthal, if that's okay, and then let him yield back to me. but i do want to thank senator carper for his leadership on this issue. we've looked at his bill and others and we're glad they have been able to come to an agreement between oche other. the issue of the postal service is one of the big issues that we need to deal with. i agree with you. i think that's something we can do now, and i thank him for the leadership. with that, mr. president, if it's okay, i'll yield back to my friend. the presiding officer: without objection, the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. and thank you to senator corker for very graciously beginning

this discussion. i want to join in thank the very distinguished senator from delaware for all of his hard work and very successful and insightful work on a problem that really concerns all of us very, very deeply and immediately, and his leadership has really been an enormous contribution to the nation on this issue. and i'm pleased to be here today with senator corker to discuss a problem that is really spreading across the country. it is a public health threat to our troops, our children, our frail, our elderly involving the spread of mutant germs, so-called superbugs, that are resistant, sometimes even immune to resistant antibiotics. and i have been very proud of the work that senator corker an i have done together. he has joined me and we have been joined by senators bennet, harchtion casey, alexander,

thune, roberts here in the senate and by representatives in the house along with a very bipartisan respected members there on an issue that's truly bipartisan. and i want to yield to him to discuss and then continue my conversation about it, on an issue that really ought to concern us very, very closely and immediately because reports from the center for disease control and prevention suggest that these infections are not only prevalent but spreading across the country. i will have a more detailed set of charts that show that problem, and he and i have developed what i think is a solution that the congress can take in order to provide incentives for development of new antibiotics, new medicine that can help the nation prevent the spread of these kinds of

diseases. so, with that, i would yield to the distinguished senator from tennessee. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. corker: thank you, mr. president. i'm you're getting a little dizzy going back and forth. i want to thank my friend from connecticut. he's mentioned the senators who's joined in this effort and the house members on the other side in a bipartisan way. i first want to thank him for his leadership on this and for aproposing our office about this issue. i know that -- and for approaching our office about this. i know the public watches washington and wonders if there's ever anything that's done in a bipartisan way. there are actually lots of efforts that are undertaken in that way. i am very a glad to be working with hill and his staff. they have been very professional. hopefully this bill will become law. the problem is we have this drug-resistant bacteria called superbugs. they're becoming harder and harder to treat because we lack the new antibiotics capable of exating these infections. it's actually scary when you

tbhi what's happening in many facilities across our country. and so it's obviously crucial that we find new antibiotics that are discovered so that we can stay ahead of this growing trend of drug resistance. drug discoveries obviously don't have overnight and action is needed now to ensure that we have access to these lifesaving medications when we really need them. these are serious infections. they are definitely life-threatening to the patient, especially children and the elderly. in fact, the c.d.c., the center for disease control, has named these antibiotic resistance as one of the top public health concerns in our country. according to the infectious disease society of america, 100,000 deaths and 360,000 hospitalizations result from antibiotic-resistant infections each year in the u.s. in my state of tennessee, nearly 2,000 cases of mrsa are reported

annually. mrsa is a common and very dangerous type of antibiotic-resistant bacteria often found in hospital setting. and again all of us know of cases, i'm sure, where this has happened to loved ones, friends and others. the financial impact of these infections is also staggering, costing our health care system $35 billion to $45 billion annually. this problem is also threatening the health of our troops abroad. one particular type of bacteria yon as iraqi bacter is strikingg hundreds of wounded soldiers coming back from iraq. more than 700 u.s. soldiers have been infeblghted -- infected or colonized with this life-threatening bacteria. while bacteria infections continue to become more resistant to traditional antibiotics, the innovation of these new antibiotics capable of

combating these infections have slowed at an alarming rate. f.d.a. approval of these new antibiotics has increased by 70% since the 1980's. between 2350 and 2007 there were 5 new antibiotics approved by the f.d.a. compared to 16 from 1983 to 1987. what this bill does, the gain act, provides meaningful market incentives and reduces regulatory burdens to encourage the development of these new antibiotics that will help us save lives. specifically, and i really appreciate the way the senator from connecticut has approached this, specifically, the bill provides five additional years of exclusivity to new inclusion developed to treat these new -- these superbugs. the bill also gives these antibiotics priority status during the f.d.a. review process so they can move quickly and it

encourages the f.d.a. to revisit their clinical trial guidelines for bye antibiotics by encourage a more robust antibiotic pipeline. we can help ensure that patients have access to lifesaving treatments while also reducing health care spending. the gain act is a straightforward, commonsense bill that provides market incentives to encourage innovation without putting federal dollars at stake. antibiotic resistance is a growing issue that we must address now to properly prepare for the future. dr. william evans, the director and c.e.o. of st. jude's childrens hospital in tennessee recently wrote a letter supporting this bill and all of you know of st. jude's and the wonderful work that they do for children across our country. here's this quote. "we don't want to find ourselves in a situation in which we have been able to save a child's life after a cancer diagnosis only to

lose them to an untreatable, multidrug-resistant infection. "quitiond a like to thank my colleague again, senator blumenthal from connecticut, for his leadership on this bill. and i look forward to working with him to ensure it gets proper consideration in the senate. and, also, mr. president, i'd like to ask for unanimous consent to submit letters of support into the record from the following organizations: st. jude's childrens hospital, lebonner childrens hospital, university of tennessee health sciences center, east tennessee state university quellen college of medicine. with that, mr. president, i -- the presiding officer: without objection. mr. corker: thank you. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor to my good friend, someone who i thoroughly enjoyed working with on this issue, and i thank him again for this leadership on a very important issue that matters to all of us.

thank you very much. blume mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. blumenthal: thank you, mr. president. again, my thanks to my very distinguished colleague from tennessee whose leadership and contribution to this bill has really been instrumental from the very start, and i really have welcomed and been thankful for his partnership on this issue. as he has said so well, thee antibiotic-resistant drugs are really a spreading scourge. the reports suggest that mrsa infections are responsible for montana than 17,000 deaths in the united states every year, more than aids and many other diseases that are regarded aces public health threats. and all 50 states have seen rates of antibiotic-resistant e. coli infections double in less than ten years.

a lesser known bug, acynobacter, that affects numbers of our troops, v. has afebruaried several hundreds of our service members. the numbers are continuing to rise. those numbers are alarming and i have some charts that i will show in a moment that will be even more grafng than the numbers. but to put a human face on this problem, denor soyer, a football ploir from nor walk, connecticut, knows too well the crippling gact of these infections. he was in school in boston, suffered from severe back pain, a rising temperature, went to the hospital, and was told that he was suffering from this kind of antibiotic staph infection,

an antibu antibiotic-resistant infection. he was left paralyzed and unable to walk. and he was paralyzed from the waist down, remains very severely handicapped as a result. and right now he is fighting to gain back his ability to walk and function normally. we are in an arms race with superbugs. we are in a fight with antibiotic-resistant, mutating germs that are a spreading, persist tant, and pernicious problem all around the country. the resistance is fueled by careless use of antibiotics, the kind of overuse of certain kinds

of antibiotics or failure to use them properly s., as when they are not used for the full round when they should be and thereby lead to greater resistance on the part of these germs. the failure to use these antibiotics properly, the failure to exercise good stewardship is important but it is not the only cause. we need to stay ahead of these germs in an arms race to develop new antibiotics and provide incentives for those antibiotics. the kind of problem that we encounter is shown by these charts. first beginning in the year 2000 with antibiotic-resistant ecoally. as this chart makes clear, nowhere in no state in the united states was there a rate e

above 10%. that accounts for the white to light yellow pattern here. in 2009, the situation was very different. in states across the country, major states, including new york and the entire east, the rate was above 35%. and in many parts of the midwest, including the president's state of wisconsin, the rate was above 25%. ecoally resistance presents a threat to our children and our elderly. the next chart i want to show concerns acidobacter. this bacteria has adplicted

particularly our troops -- afflicted particularly our troops coming back from iraq. it is nick named iraq-tobacter by many military doctors and it has literally jumped enormously. this was the case in 2000. almost everywhere rates below 5%. and the present incidence is very, very different, alarmingly so. in some states above 50%. including, i believe, new mexico. in many parts of the east, above 30% to 40%. this kind of acinetobacter incidence is really something that is a major national security problem insofar as 700

problems have been infected with acinetobacter, and as robert johnson, the director of military families united said so eloquently about this disease, and i'm quoting -- "the worst part is that many of our men and women in uniform survive the war effort only to return and die of this infection in the continental united states, thus military family united strongly supports the gain act which would ensure that american companies have the motivation to combat the most modern multidrug-resistant diseases. i brought these charts simply to show how the spread of these superbug infections has really affected the entire united states. there are other diseases like mr sa and vrsa. they are a set of acronyms that are comparable to in effect a

modern play. fully a third of all deaths from h1n1 swine flu in 2009 were actually caused by resistant bacteria. 350,000 hospitalizations in the united states resulted from antibiotic-resistant infections at a cost of $26 billion to our health system annually. what's the reason for the rise and spread of these diseases? well, the main reason is that we don't have new antibiotics to treat and cure them. and the reason for that dearth of new antibiotics goes to the fundamentals of modern economics involving the drug industry. antibiotics are prescribed and

used for a course of two weeks, if they work. there are blockbuster drugs and miracle drugs that are used for the treatment of chronic diseases and therefore are used often for lifetimes. the revenues from those blockbuster drugs are themselves blockbuster products and profits, and the problem with antibiotics is the lack of economic incentives to develop them in modern economics -- the modern economics of the pharmaceutical industry. the gain act would remedy that problem. it would incentivize the research rieferred to -- required to implement and discover these new drugs. it would extend the data exclusivity rights for five years. it would provide a fast track, essentially, and enable prompt

review. moderate and eliminate the kinds of regulatory hurdles that are so important in providing not only incentives but also a track to consumers so that they would have the availability of these drugs. i personally would welcome other ideas if there are any for strengthening the incentives for development of these antibiotics that are so important to treat and cure drug -- the antibiotic-resistant germs that cause these problems. i hope that we will continue to have the kind of bipartisan momentum in favor of these new developments. and i would just close by saying we're all talking about jobs on the floor of the united states senate these days. this proposal is also in a way a

jobs-related program. it would enable small innovators and small businesses. one is, for example, rybex pharmaceuticals in new haven, a 50-person company trying to develop new drugs through innovation. and the kind of boost and incentive that this bill will provide is very important for the innovators of america who are out there trying to provide cures for mrsa, e. coli, acinetobacter, all of theme superbugs, providing a solution to this problem that i think is urgent and in the interest of our nation. this measure is a first step. i hope we can come together to enact it, and i urge the united states senate to join me in doing so. and before yielding the floor, mr. president, i have six unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate.

they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. blumenthal: with that, mr. president, i yield the floor and i thank you. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois is recognized. mr. kirk: mr. president, i rise today to thank the government of kenya and its president kibaki for the difficult decision he and his government have made with regard to somalia. we all recall somalia as the site of the blackhawk down tragedy in 1993, and as much as americans might wish to ignore that troubled country, i don't think we can. somalia is a country whose government collapsed in 1991 but has now given rise to what is arguably the second largest terror presence on planet earth

shawld al shabaab. and the country also represents a new 21st century threat of piracy across america's persian gulf oil supply lines. on october 16, at the invitation of the somali transitional federal government, the kenyan government launched operation protect the country against the al shabaab terrorist organization based in somalia. we all recall that al shabaab is an al qaeda affiliate that was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the united states since 2008. it's responsible for multiple attacks in somalia, in kenya and uganda, including the suicide bombing in july of 2010 in campala that killed 76 people, including an american citizen, 25-year-old nate henn of north carolina who worked for the invisible children nonprofit organization. also, on october 25, al shabaab

kidnapped and is still holding another american citizen, 32-year-old jessica buchanan of virginia. now, about 4,000 kenyan troops are now approaching the critical somali port of kismail where al shabaab makes most of its money and is headquartered. the success of the kenyan operation would mean a significant weakening of al shabaab's ability to plan and execute terrorist attacks and would greatly support the security of the region and the united states. also joining in the fight against al shabaab are prominent local tribal militias, including alsunawajimula, the aswj, the ros kabuli front. i commend the kenyan government and allied groups for their

action. the united states and nato should support this kenyan action. al shabaab poses a significant threat to america's national security and to kenya's safety. since 2009, al shabaab has conducted at least ten attacks on kenyan soil and the territorial seas along her coastline. in a particular heinous crime on october 1, al shabaab kidnapped a disabled french woman on kenyan soil and dragged her to somalia where she later died. last week, al shabaab militants also threw a grenade into a nairobi nightclub. because of al shabaab's refusal to allow access for humanitarian organizations to relieve famine, kenya is also now home to 600,000 somali refugees. in many ways, the famine and distress that is now evident in somalia should be called the al shabaab famine.

al shabaab also poses a direct threat to the united states by actively radicalizing and recruiting american citizens. on october 29, a suicide bomber attacked an african union base in mogadishu, killing himself and ten other human beings. the suspect was a 22-year-old american citizen who grew up in minneapolis and studied to be a doctor before he suddenly disappeared to join al shabaab in 2008. on the recording that he allegedly made before his death contains a disturbing message aimed at young americans. he said -- quote -- "today jihad is what is most important. it's not important that you become a doctor or some sort of engineer." according to the f.b.i., ali was one of 30 american citizens who have now joined al shabaab. in august of 2010, the f.b.i.

arrested two and charged 12 more individuals in minnesota and alabama and california with -- quote -- "acts of terrorism that include providing money and personnel and other material support to the terror organization al shabaab. at the time, attorney general eric holder called it a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to al shabaab from cities across the united states. on july 27, an investigation by the house committee on homeland security found the following -- that al shabaab has an active recruitment and radicalization network inside the united states targeting muslim americans in somali communities. it ensnared a few non-somali muslim-american converts as well as a top shabaab commander. at least 40 or more americans, according to the house, have joined al shabaab. so many americans have joined that at least 15 of them have now been killed in fighting for

shabaab, as well as three canadian citizens. the three americans who returned to the u.s. were prosecuted, and one awaits extradition in the netherlands, and at least 21 more american al shabaab members are overseas and remain unaccounted for and pose a direct threat to the u.s. homeland. the house said that al shabaab has the intent and capability to conduct attacks or to aid the core of al qaeda or al qaeda in the arabian peninsula in yemen to strike u.s. interests or our homeland. they said that al shabaab has openly pledged loyalty and support to al qaeda and al qaeda in the arabian peninsula in yemen and has cemented an alarming set of operational ties to both groups. the house report also points out that after the successful u.s. operation to kill osama bin laden, al shabaab's leadership eulogized bin laden and vowed revenge against the united states.

omar ham an i, another -- hamani, another al shabaab leader, said he swore blood revenge for the killing of osama bin laden. al shabaab poses a grave threat to regional stability and to our own national security. i thank the kenyan government and their allies in somalia for taking action. our administration and our nato allies should support kenya. we should also make sure that in this support we have the objective to collapse al shabaab and somalia. with luck, while al shabaab may have found a recruiter or more among american citizens to wage jihad against their own country, there hopefully will be no al shabaab to fight for if they ever reach somalia. mr. president, i yield back.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts is recognized. mr. kerry: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, we are currently, i believe, debating the motion to proceed to go to the energy, water, et cetera package, i think, and included in that is the proposal of the president that he has sent up here asking the senate to vote on the question of an infrastructure bank. there was a prior vote, i believe, in the senate on that in the context of the jobs act, which we all know failed at that time, and there are some signs that this may wind up being a partisan effort here, but i hope colleagues will stop and think very, very carefully about the infrastructure bank proposal and what it represents to our country and whether or not we can get it over the hurdle at this moment, i don't know, but

it is an idea whose time has come, and i'm confident that in the next week or months, hopefully, the senate will embrace this concept, and the reason for doing so is really very simple. colleagues on both sides of the aisle are increasingly reminded when they go home, as well as familiar here just in the general dialogue about where we're going in our country, are increasingly aware of the enormous deficit reduction deficit -- deficit, it's on my mind -- of the infrastructure deficit that we face in the country as a whole. and so i want colleagues to stop and think hard about a simple question: how are we going to build america? how are we going to build america going forward so that we can do what our parents and our

grandparents did for us, which is provide us with basic infrastructure of a nation that has been able to allow people to move easily from home to work, to places of commerce across the country, an interstate highway system, all of our airports, our train stations, all of the assets that provide for the strength of our nation and for the kind of communities that we live in. none of it just appeared out of nowhere. it was built because people had a vision, people had an idea about how you make communities strong and also how economies work. the fact is that some of the greatest projects in our country, whether it's some of the great bridges that we look at today -- golden gate bridge, triburough, countless bridges across the potomac, elsewhere --

the tunnels, the roads, our water treatment facilities, our airports and the airline system that we have. all of these things have contributed to the strength of our country. but everyone here knows that we're not currently pursuing a set of projects that are calculated to make america more competitive and to continue that rich history and tradition of building for the future. we're busy living off the assets that were created by the generations that preceded us. so the question has to be asked by every colleague here: are we going to appropriate the money for grants? and the answer is "no." partly because the deficit and

the debt are telling us in loud terms we don't have those kinds of funds right now, but also because everybody here sees the difficulty we're having just trying to get the highway bill reauthorized, or the f.a.a. bill authorized in order to do the things we need to do. so the proposal for an infrastructure bank is a proposal that recognizes this fiscal reality. we simply don't have and will not allocate the types of funds necessary to do the job that every american knows has to be done. that doesn't mean the job can't be done. there's a way to do it, and the way to do it is to invite other people's money -- the private sector, not the tax dollar -- to come to the table and invest in these projects. where these projects have revenue streams that will

support that kind of investment. so one of the important features of the infrastructure bank that i ask colleagues to really focus on is the fact that this bank is not a grant entity. there will be no grants. it is exclusively loans and exclusively loans that meet the fiduciary test of its ability to be able to be repaid, to have a revenue stream that will support the loan itself. and i would say to my colleagues, some of them i know have asked me occasionally, well, is this going to be an entity like fannie mae or freddie mac? is it going to be one of those goflt-supported entities that got some folks in trouble? and the answer is "no." reas you understandingly and profoundly "no." it is not sl similar in any way

whatsoever. fannie and freddie offered stock. they were using the federal guarantee on the loan to actually leverage their position in the marketplace in competition with other entities and for profit. this bank is not for profit, no issuance of stock, will not be listed on any exchange, will exist exclusively for the purpose of lending to those types of projects that meet the highest fiscal standards with respect to the ability of those projects to be repaid. in fact, in each and every lending situation, the infrastructure bank will make a risk analysis, just as you do on any deal on wall street, there is a risk analysis. and the risk factor will be assigned to that deal, and in fact fees will be charged to the

borrowers, to the deal makers in order to cover that level of risk, and that will be part of the cost of the transaction. the benefit of this infrastructure bank is that by virtue of the treasury department providing a discount for the federal treasury guarantee, you actually make the loan attractive in terms of the private sector and competition, and it does so at a level, as i said, of risk analysis that doesn't put the federal government or the taxpayer on line and at risk with a measured level of the loan itself but only the risk as credited or put on the books in terms of what is carried by the treasury department as the risk of this

particular loan. so in fact it's really, if you look at types of projects that are authorized by this, only energy projects, only transportation projects, and only water projects. in the better part of the country, they're limited to a $100 million size or up, and there's a set-aside for rural communities, and in the rural communities, the level of loans could be $25 million or up, because obviously in parts of rural america, you have smaller kinds of projects, and we want everybody in the country to be able to share from the benefits of this kind of infrastructure bank. i would say to my colleagues that this bank has bipartisan support. it has been introduced in slightly different form from the form the president has put in it, but the fundamentals of the bank and its structure and concept is the same. it has been introduced by senator kay bailey hutchison of

texas, who is a coauthor, senator lindsey graham of south carolina supports it senator mark warner, the original cosponsors. but it has other cosponsors and broader support, including, i might arked the united states chamber of commerce is a strong supporter of the infrastructure bank, was present at the announcement of this legislation, as well as the afl-cio. now, mr. president, why is this infrastructure bank necessary? what is it we need? well, everybody knows that the experts are telling us we have a $2.2 trillion infrastructure deficit in america. that means there are over $2.2 trillion of projects around the country, countless bridge countn countless comientsst communities around the country where people -- or roads or other projects, which need to be

repaired, upgraded, or put in place at first instance. and we're that far behind, we're $2.2 trillion in deficit to we e ought to be doing. the american civil society of architects and engineers tells us that we have -- we could spend about $250 billion a year for the next 40 years just to bring our roads up to par, and we're not about to do that. we know, because we don't have the money. because we're not getting that kind of an appropriation now for our initiatives. so just listen to what oklahoma city mayor mick cornett says. "mayors see up close the deferred maintenance that's going on in the nation's cities. it's just a ticking time bomb. we also know that it puts people to work." well, cornett is president of

the republican mayors and local officials coalition within the u.s. conference of mayors, and he knows what he's talking about in terms of this deferred maintenance. but the truth is, every senator here knows you can go back home and find moirs, state senators, state representatives, the departments of transportation, all of whom are pleading with us to try to help provide the kinds of funding necessary because they're simply overwhelmed, and i might add, mr. president, many of our states are living under court orders to do some of these projects, particularly the water -- the combined water overflow, water treatment facilities where communities have sued and you need to do these projects in order to meet the standards. and they're under court order, without understanding where the money is going to come from, that they're under a court order.

the fact is, mr. president, that whether or not we decide to do these things is really going to determine how competitive america is going to be. right now everybody knows we are facing a transformational economic challenge. it's different from the challenge we faced in the last century. during that period of time as we came out of world war i i, we were the only major economy in the world left standing. and at the end of the war, we had both the vision and foresight, intelligence as well as the courage to put a lot of money on the line in the marshall plan to help rebuild europe and rebuild japan. and we saw throughout the cold war the ways in which that investment paid back for the united states of america, indeed

for the western world. and for the values that we made central to that kind of an investment. so, mr. president, that's changed. it started change in the 1980's and 1990's and now we're seeing with the rise of less developed countries who are, after all, doing the very thing that we encouraged them to do. we told them, you've got to -- you know, liberate your societies to be able to go out and compete in the marketplace, that they needed to open up that market, that they needed to traitd, thetrade, they need to e capital formation. that's exactly what they've done. they haven't changed that you are political systems, which remain authoritarian, closed and one peamplet but they have certainly with changed that you are economic circumstances. and in doing so, they've transformed the marketplace that

we're competing in. so the united states is not looking at the same playing field, where we had unlimited resources, unlimited capacity to go out and frankly win. and we could win many times without really even trying that hard. but now other people are doing the same things that we took for granted, and so they're competing in science, they're competing in technology, they're competing in manufacturing, they're competing in software, and they're competing in all kinds of things were our domain for a long period of time. and the market globally has changed significantly enough that we're facing a challenge to our ability to be able to remain the number-one economy. i just heard today that china probably will be the number-one economy in the world within five or six years, much faster than we had anticipated previously. so if the united states is going to compete and get its act together going forward, we have to invest in the infrastructure

of our country, because that's how you, number one, create jobs, but, number two, you provide the ability to move goods, to provide for people, to provide for the quality of life, and the kinds of institutions that make a difference to live the quality of life we want. mr. president, the figures of other people's commitment to infrastructure tells us the story. china is investing 9% of its gross domestic product in infrastructure. europe is investing 5% of its g.d.p. in infrastructure. here in the united states, we're investing somewhere around 2%. figures vary, 2.2%, 2.1%, 2%. and i think brazil invested over

$240 billion in its infrastructure just in the last three years. and the economy is growing in the double digits. north korea, mexico, brazil, china, india -- all growing in the double digits and the united states is stuck in this recession. may be just breaking out of it, but with very uneven growth. so, mr. president, the infrastructure bank is geared to fill a void in our investment abilities here in the country. again, senators know we're not going to invest billions of dollars of appropriated money, of taxpayers' dollars, because of the competition we have in our discretionary funds now, because of the way we're headed in terms of the fiscal cliff and debt cliff, and because of the challenge of the rise of cost of health care and entitlements,

and we don't have that money. so while we get control over those components of our economy, we need to be investing in the infrastructure of our nation, in putting people back to work. we need to invest in highways, roads, bridges, mass transit, inland waterways, commercial ports, airports, air traffic control systems, passenger rail, including high-speed rail, freight rail systems. in the water sector, we could invest in water waste treatment facilities, storm water management systems, dams, drinking water treatment facilities, levees, open space management systems. and in the energy sector, we need transmission in america. we need an energy grid that is modern. we need distribution, storage, energy enhancements for buildings, public and commercial. this is an extraordinary amount of work to be done if we will decide to do it. hundreds of billions of dollars is sitting on the sidelines right now.

it could come in and help us with these projects, and the infrastructure bank is precisely the entity that will bring that private capital to the table so that it's the chinese who are investing in an american infrastructure project that they can't take back to china. it's near america. it improves our lives but it gives them a return on investment for the money that they put on the line in a deal which, frankly, are the kinds of deals that will produce the sort of long-term patient capital investment that i think a lot of people are going to be turning to given the nature of the financial turmoil that we see going on in the world today. but we -- we are in a competitive race with other countries to attract this private equity investment. an infrastructure bank could help us put that money to work right here at home. now, some people say, well, senator, why do you need the

infrastructure bank to do this if these deals are so attractive, why won't the money just come and they'll invest it anyway and so forth? well, it doesn't quite work that way for a number of reasons. first of all, our financial institutions have not developed a long-term infrastructure lending business. we don't have that in this country the way that other banks in other parts of the world do. if you look at a major american infrastructure transaction over the last few years, guess what? non-u.s. banks, mostly australian and european, are the ones providing most of the financing and they're doing it at an average of 20-1. 20 parts by the non-u.s. banks, by the european, australian banks, and one part u.s. investment. and given the troubles that the european sovereign market has today, i think it's going to be

very -- a long time before we're going to see a lot of european banks looking to invest over here. maybe i'm wrong. but the lack of -- of investing by our institutions is not because the investment is too risky. the problem is that for a very long time, the vast majority of american infrastructure has been financed through the municipal bond market and the rest largely through federal grants, which i've said are now under pressure. so there's been no need for large bank lending to be created. and as we all know, large bank lending, that market just doesn't happen overnight. the municipal bond market also relies principally on small retail investors for most of its funding. and because of the way that it's designed, it can't access large global pools of capital or, for

that matter, pension funds. there were actually pension funds that are prohibited from investing in those bonds. so the municipal bond market is simply not well suited to fund large cross-state, cross-boundary projects so we need something else. and that something else is this kind of infrastructure bank with all of the very strict limits that have been put in place to keep it from reaching too far. it doesn't cost a lot of money. for $10 billion of start-up funding, it becomes self-financing. every loan is a loan that will be repaid or can be repaid because they rely on sources of revenue that are among the most dependable sources of revenue in the marketplace. they come from energy projects that sell electricity and the people -- you have a pretty regular stream of buyers for that. you have a pretty regular stream of people who need water in

their homes who pay for the water. all of these revenue streams. the tolls on bridges, for instance. these have a certainty to them and a longevity to them that make these kinds of deals very attractive. i would just say to my colleagues that one of the silver linings of this kind of infrastructure investment is this. for every $1 billion, the federal highway administration tells us you'll create -- i think it's 30,000 jobs according to the highway administration. the range of jobs depending on who you listen to goes from about 20,000 to 35,000. let's say it's 20,000 jobs per billion. people say this bank investment of $10 billion can leverage more than half a trillion dollars, $500 billion of investment. you're talking 20 million jobs.

20 million over the course of, perhaps, ten years. mr. president, i think there is, you know, so many compelling reasons for engaging in this. europe has an infrastructure bank. we have state infrastructure banks. but the state infrastructure banks don't have the advantage that this bank has of being able to do transboundary, cross-state deals, and they also don't have the advantage of having a discount on the lending component coming through the treasury department of the federal -- the federal component of this done, as i said, under the strictest fiduciary standards. mr. president, only 50% of any project can be lending. the rest has to be equity and it has to be invested by the other investors in the deal. it can be a combination of investors but they need to invest. so i just close by saying to

colleagues that a modern infrastructure is really the lifeblood of our economy. i don't know how many of my colleagues have taken the ascela to new york but it's a train that has the ability to go 150 miles an hour. it only goes 150 miles an hour between here and new york for about 18 miles of the trip because you can't go fast under the baltimore tunnel because the vibrations might call it to fall in. the can't go fast over the bridges of the chesapeake because the train will wind up in the cheese peek. -- wind of in the chesapeake. i mean, this is absurd. many of us have had the pleasure of having a train ride in chiefnlin china.i rode recentlyo xiancent. used to take 2 hours and 15 minutes. but now it takes 1 hour and the water on your table is barely

jiggling during your rievmentd it's an extraordinary accomplishment. and they're building something like 50,000 miles of that kind of high-speed rail system over there as they spend their 9% of g.d.p. on infrastructure. so we can do better. the united states of america can do better. we know that. we're the country that had invention and building, construction in our d.n.a. we're the country that went to the moon. we're the country that developed these extraordinary technologies that now connect human beings all around the world instantaneously. i am convinced that if we put this infrastructure bank together, we will find all of a sudden that the united states is going to attract capital, create jobs, modernize our economy and have benefits that spill out all across our nation. and i hope our colleagues will get rid of the politics and embrace this idea which is long overdue. mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. wyden: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from oregon is recognized. mr. wyden: mr. president, before he yields the -- before he leaves the floor, i just want to commend the senator from massachusetts. he has said much this afternoon that i certainly agree with, but i also want to touch on one other point about the senator's work -- the senator from massachusetts' efforts in this area. and that is, the public perhaps more than anything else is talking about why people in washington, d.c., can't work together, why we can't come up with ways to build coalitions. and i'm not sure people picked up on it in your remarks, and particularly your remarks with respect to china are indisputably right. there are investing far more than we are. but you have pulled together the chamber of commerce and the afl-cio for an infrastructure package. that doesn't happen by osmosis. it doesn't just happen because somebody puts out, you know, a

press release. you put in the time to try to build that coalition which, of course, is key to getting bipartisan support up here. and i just want you to know i very much appreciate it. i know you brought exactly the same approach to your work on the super committee, trying to find common ground on some of the most challenging issues, how we're going to generate growth, how we're going to deal with health care costs. i have some remarks to make but i'm glad i had a chance to come over and listen to you, senator kerry, because i thought this afternoon the point you made about bringing people togethe together -- and i hope people will say as we look at this transportation package. and i just want to get on the bill, frankly, so we can open up other kinds of ideas -- that you have logged a lot of time and it has paid off with coalitions like the chamber of commerce and the afl-cio. and i want the public to know that, in my view, is the kind of approach that's going to let us solve some of these big problems.

and i just want to commend you for it. mr. kerry: mr. president, i just want to thank my friend from oregon. i really appreciate it. there's nobody who works harder on building those coalitions. the senator has done a superb job on health care, on tax policy. and so those words mean a lot and i appreciate it enormously. thank you. mr. wyden: we're going to be working together on a variety of fronts. i thank the senator. mr. president, my sense is that if you tune in on the -- on the senate today and, of course, the ways of the senate are always hard to follow. the distinguished president of the senate's been involved in the effort to change the byzantine rules of -- of the senate and has a sense of what i'm talking about. you try to figure out what the senate is up to, and at this point you've learned that the senate is today working on infrastructure. you hear the word "infrastructure" repeated again and again. and you roll your eyes and you say, "wake me when the potholes

get fixed." so what i'd like to do for a few minutes this afternoon is try to tie this to what i believe is first and foremost on the minds of the american people and that is jobs. that's what we hear about morning, noon and night, mr. president. and the fact is, you cannot have big league economic growth in america with little league transportation systems. it's just not possible. if your bridges and your roads are falling apart, you simply cannot have the growth that we need and those jobs and the growth are the number-one issue for our people. and literally, infrastructure improvements in roads, bridges and transportation systems and jobs are two sides of the same coin. they go hand-in-hand. so that's point number one. point number two, mr. president, touches on this question of --

of how we stack up to some of our competitors worldwide. if you can't move goods and services efficiently in this country -- our businesses are practically in the position where they have to put up a sign and say, "we can't compete with china." because when china is making these kinds of investments that we heard senator kerry and other colleagues on both sides of the aisle talk about in the last few days, you know what we are up against. transportation is the key to moving goods of and services -- of moving goods and services. we have goods and services in my metropolitan part of the country and, frankly, in rural areas where people wouldn't have dreamed there could be a traffic jam even a few years ago. point number three, and that is there is no economic multiplier in our country like transportation. when you make investments, well-targeted investments, in

transportation, you create jobs for the folks who are building those projects. you create jobs for the people who are selling the equipment. you are selling -- you are creating jobs for folks like the people in the restaurants who make the ham sandwiches for the workers who are out there building the projects and trying to find ways to help our people avoid traffic and save gas as they try to get to and from work. so this is a big economic multiplier. fourth, mr. president, as you know from your experience as a westerner, the history of our part of the world is that private investment has always followed well-targeted public investments. you look all over the west and the great distances that our folks have to travel, you look and you will see again and again that the key to getting more private sector investment, which is in my view the key to

economic recovery, it's the private sector job growth that's behind the tax reform bill i have with senator coats, the first bipartisan tax reform bill, we need private sector job growth. in the west, the history of our region is that private sector employment has traditionally followed public investments, well-targeted public investments. now, what i want to see us do, mr. president, and what the vote is about coming up is to give us a chance to move to the bill. and if we move to the bill, i believe there are all kinds of opportunities for democrats and republicans through amendments and a variety of opportunities to exchange ideas to come up with bipartisan approaches. and i've had a chaps to be a part of those up kinds of discussions in the last -- in the last few years. i mean you look, for example, at the common ground that has

developed between senator boxer and senator inhofe on the environment and public works committee. they are making a lot of progress in reauthorizing a transportation bill. that's only one example here in the senate of democrats and republicans coming together. let me cite two others. in the economic recovery act, mr. president, i had a chance in the senate finances committee to advance an idea that i'd been working on for more than five years, and there is a very large bipartisan group of us that had worked on it, former senator talent was the original republican, but senator thune was involved, senator wicker, senator collins, a very large bipartisan group working with colleagues on our side of the aisle, the senator from minnesota, amy klobuchar is one that comes to mind who has been a very thoughtful advocate of improvements in transportation. so in the senate finance committee as we moved forward

with the economic recovery act, chairman baucus and then ranking minority member senator grassley in effect said well, we'd been hearing about some of these ideas this bipartisan group has been advance, let's -- advancing, let's give them a chance to make their case. and i offered the proposal to create something called build america bonds, mr. president. and this was a chance to -- for the first time to move the federal government into the bonding area, it's long of course been done at the state and local level, it had received good reviews from the private sector and i recall the day when senator baucus and senator grassley asked me what i predicted in terms of the results of build america bonds. and i said we've got basically about a year and a half, as, you know, the recovery act was passed in the winter of 2009,

the i.r.s. had to implement the rules. mr. president, when we wrapped up the period for which you could issue build america bonds, more than $181 billion worth of build america bonds had been used all across the country for capital infrastructure projects and they had been used in big parts of the east coast of the united states, new jersey, you know, turnpike was one and they had been used for roads in southern oregon. and if you want to talk efficiency, look at the web site of our state treasurer, ted wheeler, who said they were saving in our state 10% by issuing thee build america bonds. i see fry my friend from california here, senator feinstein, california was one of the largest users of build america bonds and to have a program that was envisioned as perhaps selling $5 billion or

$6 billion worth of bonds sell more than $180 billion, mr. president, is an example of what we can do on a bipartisan basis that will put people to work and will actually save money and the savings that we found in oregon can also be illustrated by the analysis done by the department of treasury that finds the same sort of savings that we found in oregon. now, with respect to build america bonds, in some respects they were too successful, people said perhaps they're being used for more kinds of projects than was acceptable to some people so once again, we said we're going to come back and try to find a way to generate bipartisan support, and my colleague from north dakota, senator hoeven, we got together and we put forward another proposal, a different kind of version that we call the trips program, the

transportation and regional infrastructure program. and you our plan would allow state infrastructure banks to issue bonds that pay for transportation projects, once again having a small supportive role from the federal government. the folks who run the numbers at the joint committee on taxation say that with this bipartisan proposal, a republican from north dakota, a democrat from the state of oregon, it would be possible to get $50 billion worth of transportation projects with this model with only $12 billion worth of costs over ten years. now, mr. president, i only illustrate the fact that if it's possible to get on the bill, i think we're going to see colleagues on the republican and the democratic side look to try to cooperate and find some common ground. senator kerry made the point about the infrastructure bank, how he got the support of the chamber of commerce and senator

graham and senator hutchison and others. i've gone through some of the history of other transportation efforts. the progress that's being made now with senator boxer and senator inhofe on the transportation bill. the build america bonds effort, which produced a 30-fold increase over what was anticipated, literally revolutionizing the municipal bond market and for projects big like the new jersey turnpike and small like roads in southern oregon. and now we're seeing that if we can go to this bill -- and that's what the vote is really all about, whether we can actually get on the bill, be able to offer alternatives and ideas and frankly, there are provisions in the bill that is in its current form i don't see how anybody can be against. the question of highway repair? i mean that's about as fundamental a function of government as anything you can

imagine. so there's plenty in this bill that i think colleagues on both sides of the aisle could support. i've cited a number of examples of bipartisanship in this area where we can do more in the infrastructure field, while we save money and i just hope colleagues will vote, and i gather the vote will be tomorrow, to move -- move to the bill and give us a chance to get -- get serious about what i think is central to growing the american economy and that is well-targeted investments in transportation. and to me, the question of job creation and infrastructure are literally two sides of the same -- same county and i hope the senate moves to this legislation tomorrow, and begins to beef up our effort to deal with a fundamental part of job creation in this country. so fundamental that in much of

the country, if we don't make the investments, it will literally be the equivalent of saying to our businesses put up a sign, not going to be in a position to compete with china right now, come back another time. that's unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable to oregon businesses and oregon workers, and that's why i hope my colleagues will vote to go to the bill. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california is recognized. mrs. feinstein: thank you very much, mr. president. i want to thank the senator from oregon and the senator from massachusetts, i happened to hear both of their comments and they're both very good and they're both right on. i was thinking, senator, while you spoke about the fact that in the past six months those of us on this side have tried on four different occasions to pass legislation related to jobs. we began may 4 to reauthorize

the small business innovation research program, which would direct grants to small businesses to develop technologies. it fell on a cloture vote, didn't get 60 votes, only got 52. then to reauthorize the economic development administration, which i think most of us know essentially is a cost share for communities in distress. that didn't get cloture. 49-51. then we tried on the president's big job act on october 11. that vote fell, did not get cloture, only got 50 votes. and then we tried by just taking a part of it on october 20 to fund 400,000 school jobs and more than 20 -- well, thousands of jobs for police and fire departments, first responders throughout the nation, paid for

with a .5% surtax on people who could well afford to pay for it and probably would want to pay for it. that fell on a 50-50 vote, did not get the 60 votes for cloture. and so now today we are trying for a fifth time on a part of the president's bill which has to do with infrastructure. and again, there is a pay-for, it's paid for by a .7% tax on people who can well afford to pay that 7%. i think you and i both know the value of keeping this nation number one. we come from the west, we're on a burgeoning trade basin, we seek competition with countries that have booming infrastructure, and we see the plugs and the bumps and the stoppages in this country because of an absence of adequate infrastructure.

so i'm really delighted that you're here and that we share this same cause. and hopefully there's going to be some change in the mindset on the other side of this great hall, and people will realize if we're going to remain number one, and we're really not number one, and i'll go into that in my speech -- then we have to pass this segment of the president's bill. so i thank you very much, senator wyden for your comments. as i just said, this legislation offered by the majority leader includes the key infrastructure provisions of the president's jobs act. it's $50 billion for our roads, bridges, airports, and transit systems and it capitalizes a freestanding infrastructure bank with $10 billion. this bill makes the investment without increasing the deficit. funds appropriated are offset by

a .7% surcharge on people that can afford it only. i come from a state where unemployment is high, 11.9% and unemployment -- excuse me, employment in our construction sector is down 44%. as you can see from this chart. this is actually california's construction jobs, and you can see where it was in 2000, you see it rise to 900,000 in 2006 and since that time, it's become a plummet. and the fact of the matter is that construction to a great extent drives the economy in a number of states. and i think california heads that list. so infrastructure and employment go directly together.

last week, this body passed legislation authorizing the sale of power from the hoover dam. hoover is a dam on the -- on the border between nevada and arizona. and it was built in the 1930's. but it reminded me of the invaluable contribution that infrastructure investments have made in generations past. during the depths of the great depression, we stepped forward to help build hoover dam. and between 1931 and 1936 our nation made a massive effort involving thousands of workers, more than 100 of whom lost their lives, to build a power plant unlike anything the world had ever seen. and this is kind of a working picture of hoover dam being

built. at the time, many in congress argued that the cost of this engineering marvel was too high, and the investment of taxpayer dollars too risky. they opposed efforts to invest in an unproven energy technology like hydropower. the debate was strikingly similar to the debates we hear today. now, luckily for the people of california, believers in american infrastructure and technology won the hoover dam debate. as the years have passed, the investment has been repaid and the wisdom of congress' investment remains clear. today, hoover dam all these years later, is still owned by the american people. and it produces power for the southwestern united states at less than one quarter of the market price. it is the quintessential example

of why infrastructure spending and investment makes sense. during the depths of the depression it gave people jobs and hope, its benefits were permit, not fleeting. the investment made in the 1930's is still paying dividends for the economy of the southwest. now, today, this legislation invests $50 billion in america's transportation infrastructure. that specifically 27 for highways, $9 billion for transit, $4 billion for high-speed rail, $2 billion for amtrak rail improvements, three for airports and air traffic control modernization and $5 billion for discretionary grants and tiffa loans to multimodal promise. these are in addition to funding levels this the surface transportation bill which

authorizes $52 billion annually and the f.a.a. authorization which authorizes $16 billion annually. the proposal also appropriates $10 billion to capitalize an infrastructure bank with its own appointed board and c.e.o., this bank would have the power to issue loan guarantees and loans at the federal funds rate to large projects in water, transportation, and energy. the bank's authority is similar to the functions performed by e.p.a. state revolving fund, the d. oamplet's -- d.o.e.'s loan guarantee program. in the long term, centralizing these functions in a single infrastructure bank will establish more consistent lending rules and policies. so i think a lot of us have gotten together from time to time to see what could be done

to fund a real infrastructure bank. presently, when we build infrastructure we have no way of financing it. you put up the whole cost up front. well, most states and cities don't fund their infrastructure that way. they float bonds, and they're am owe tiesed over time. so -- amortized over time. so the ability to have an infrastructure bank to loan money to look at various instruments, to move infrastructure production throughout this country i think is vital. and because the bank will lend, not grant, funds, it will leverage $10 billion into approximately $100 billion in actual investment dollars. the bank would be particularly beneficial to california, i must say that. and we lead the application list for federal financing assistance for example, los angeles'

citizens voted to tax themselves by raising the sales tax in order to build a desperately needed subway and transit system. they seek a federal loan, they have the money to pay it back, it comes every year, due in sales taxes, but they seek a federal loan to build the system in ten years, not 30 years because they need it sooner rather than later. the county of riverside seeks a federal loan to build a toll road on the highway 91 goods movement corridor through which millions of containers move from the ports of l.a. and long beach to every community in america. i think most people in this body don't understand that approximately 50% of all of the containers that come into this country, east coast, west coast, come in at l.a.-long beach. 40% to 50%.

and they go out in multimodal areas in stacked trains into the midwest. but they run into all kinds of impediments and there's not separated grade, not the ability to -- the ability to really move these trains is not as rapidly as they should be. so if we're going to keep up with the delivery of cargo into the heartland of this country most of which comes from asia, we really need to do something. california's communities are prepared to repay these loans, but they need help in beginning. the federal highway administration estimates that for every billion dollars of federal transportation spending, 27,822 jobs are produced. it is one of the biggest bang for the buck programs i know of.

for every billion dollars in spending, nearly 30,000 jobs are generated. so this bill is a job generator. and for every one dollar spent on infrastructure projects, it also spurs economic activity, raising the level of -- of gross domestic product by $1.59. so investing in infrastructure is essential to addressing our nationwide unemployment crisis. and, oh, i only wish we could see this. congestion is a big problem in this country. i told you about l.a.-long beach. what i should also tell you is that the average los angeles commuter spends 63 hours per year stuck in traffic. that costs $1,400 per person.

in greater los angeles, commuters spend 515 million hours stuck in traffic every year. they waste 407 million gallons of fuel at a total economic cost of $12 billion. that's just l.a. i see the senator from illinois is on the floor. that's just l.a. i wonder what the chicago numbers would be. they've got to be large. san francisco, san jose, san diego, and riverside county face all the similar congestion. in each area, the average commuter spends more than 30 hours a year stuck in traffic. that cost is 6.4 billion. and nationwide, congestion is causing americans to travel 4.8 billion hours more and to purchase an extra 3.9 billion gallons of fuel for a congestion cost of

$115 billion in one year, that year happens to be 2009. this is the equivalent of wasting 130 days of flow from the alaska pipeline each year. it's enormous. so, is this bill necessary? the answer is clearly a resounding yes. in my state, 66% of our major roads are in poor condition, 68% of our urban interstates are congestioned -- congested, vehicle travel increased by 27% from 1990 to 2007, and 30% of our bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. one of the best infrastructure projects in the nation is really the repair of doyle drive going

onto the golden gate bridge. senator, i wish you could see it because this is a stimulus project and it is amazing because you actually see these dollars at work. and and huge, huge ramps are being rebuilt going down to ground level and this great icon of america, the golden gate bridge would never be built today. i mean, we just wouldn't build it. and if we did, it would take a hundred years to do it with all the permits we need. but it's there, it's an icon and there is a major infrastructure package working on it. our nation's deteriorating surface transportation infrastructure is going to cost the economy more than 786,000 jobs. it's going to suppress g.d.p. growth it's estimated by $897 billion by 2020. moore road conditions cost united states motorists

$67 billion a year in repairs and operating costs, $333 per motorist. failing infrastructure will drive the cost of doing business in this country up by $430 billion in the next decade as the cost to ship goods and raw materials will increase due to bottlenecks and roads that beat up vehicles. there was a time when america built big things. in the 1800's, we built the transcontinental railroad in one of the great private-public partnerships of all time. we built projects like the bay bridge, the golden gate bridge, the hoover dam in the 1920's and 1930's. in the 1950's and 1960's, we built an interstate highway system unlike anything else anywhere on the planet. in the 1970's, we built the bay area rapid transit system in san

francisco. this multidecade investment gave america an economic advantage over every country around the world. now, listen to this. as recently as 2005, the world economic forum rated u.s. infrastructure as number one for economic competitiveness. number one in 2005 for economic competitiveness. but in just five years, we have slipped to number 15. not 5, not 10, but 15 in five years because we haven't kept what is a deteriorating infrastructure caused by overu overuse. i mean, the argument is so solid to pass this bill, i can't understand how anyone could vote against it. china is spending today 9% of

its g.d.p. on infrastructure. they're our competition. i live on the pacific rim. i can tell you every time any one of us goes to china, they will look around the city, whether it's beijing or shanghai and you will count 20 to 50 cranes building in that city, improving infrastructure. i stood in shanghai when the head of the government told me, in ten years, we will build 375 kilometers of yunder underground subway, 25 stations. and, guess what, they did it and are doing it? we can't do that. it's a problem. of course, china doesn't have nepa, doesn't have seqwa, it doesn't have three dozen permits you have to get. it's easy to write a letter to

mrs. li or mrs. chu saying you will move in 30 days because your apartment building is being destroyed. that doesn't happen here. but there is no excuse not to do what is in this bill. there is no impediment to do what is in this bill. and maybe -- might not take us back to number one but it might just take us back to number three or number four. china spends 9%. do you know what we spend? well, i'll tell you. according to the -- "the economist" on april 28, we spend 2% of g.d.p. on infrastructure. so a lot of people are doing columns on whether america remains number one in the world, whether we have lost our clout, whether we have lost our competitiveness, whether we have lost our ability to invest in the future.

and this bill is a good testing ground because this measure is all infrastructure with the ability to get it done in the future by a bank that can specialize in the arena. so it's a good test. it seems to me if we want this country to be number one, that we have to vote "yes." i believe the will is on this side of the aisle and i send a challenge to the other side of the aisle. there is no reason not to vote for this bill. thank you very much. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the deputy democratic leader. mr. durbin: let me thank the senator from california for her presentation. and as she talked about her wonderful home town of san francisco, one of my favorite cities outside of illinois, i thought about my most recent trip there to that golden gate bridge and the wonderful work that's been done on the presidio, what a tribute it is

to that beautiful part of our country that the investments are being made now so that people can enjoy them. and it was just filled with people, bicyclers, runners and walkers and families and tourists and everybody. and it's an indication to me that if you build it, they will come. and in this situation here, i couldn't help but reflect as you went through the litany of all the great achievements in america over the last 60 years, from the viewpoint of infrastructure, and you think back to president eisenhower and the big debate that was on then about the interstate highway system, was it going to be bonded or paid for with taxes, and it went back and forth. it ended up with a bipartisan agreement and thank goodness it did. we need that kind of bipartisan agreement right here were it not for the interstate highway system, your state would be much different today. so would mine. thank goodness 60 years ago there was an agreement. it can be done.

they thought better of the nation. and that was a commitment that made a difference. thank you for telling us the story. i appreciate it. mr. president, what if i came to the floor today and said i've got a new law that i want to introduce. here's what it says. if you stop a motorist across america, anywhere across america for speeding, reckless driving, driving under the influence, you could not only arrest that motorist, you could arrest the child in the back seat. you could tell that child in the back seat, maybe two years old or five years old, you have to pay a price because your parent broke the law. people would laugh me out of the senate chamber. that isn't right. it isn't the way we handle justice in america. you don't impose a penalty on children because of the wrongdoing of their parents. keep that in mind for a moment because i want to tell awe story, a story that goes back ten years in chicago, illinois, when a korean american woman

called my office in chicago and said "i have a problem. actually, i have a good thing to tell you. my daughter who is graduating from high school is an accomplished concert pianist. she's going through the merit music program in chicago, a wonderful program that allows kids not from the wealthy families but kids from families in lower-income groups a chance to own a musical instrument or take musical lessons and see if they can thrive. and they do. 100% of them go to college." so her daughter was one of them. a concert pianist graduating from high school and her mom said she's been accepted at the julliard school of music in new york. we can't believe it. she said i run a dry cleaners, my daughter is going to the best music school in america. she sat down and she was filling out the application, and she came to the box which said nationality, citizenship. and she turned to her mom and said u.s.a.; right?

her mom said we brought you here when you were two years old from korea, and we never filed any papers. so i don't know what to call you at this point. i don't know what your legal status is. your brother and sister were born here. they're american citizens. mom said i'm a naturalized citizen. we never filed any paperwork for you. i don't know what to tell you. they called my office. we checked the law. you know what the law said? the law said that young girl had to leave the city of chicago and america for ten years. ten years, and then apply to come back in. you see, her mother didn't file the papers. and at age two she became undocumented and illegal. it's not right. it's no more just than to arrest a child in the back seat for the speeding parent. but it was happening right before our eyes. and we started looking at it and said the only way to deal with this is to change the law. here's what we said: if you came

to the united states as a child under the age of 16 -- as a child -- if you finished high school and if you had no problems, no significant criminal record, we'll give you two chances to become a legal person in america. first chance, enlist in our military. if you are willing to risk your life for this country, you deserve a chance to be a citizen. secondly, finish at least two years of college. not a lot of kids do that. but if you'll finish two years of college, we'll give you a chance to be legal. we called it the dream act. and for ten years -- ten years i've been standing on this senate floor trying to pass the dream act. time and again we've had a majority vote here. the last time i think there were 55, if not 53 senators. but because it's controversial, someone objected, and we needed 60 votes, and we failed. you know, mr. president, when i

first introduced this bill, i'd stand up in the hispanic neighborhoods of chicago, and i'd talk about it. and a lot of people would listen intently, and then i would leave and go outside to my car to leave. and without fail, usually in the dark of night there would be a young person standing by my car. and that person would say to me, senator durbin, i'm one of those kids. can you do something to help me? can you pass the dream act? many of them with tears rolling down their cheeks. and they'd tell me their stories, how they had no future, no place to go, couldn't go to college. if they graduateed from college -- and some of them had -- they couldn't become engineers or doctors or lawyers or what they wanted to be. they were without a country. time has changed that approach, and these young people no longer stand in tears in the darkness. they fill the galleries last december when we voted on this. they were all over the galleries

with caps and gowns like graduates and signs that said "i'm a dreamer." and they waited and watched, and the bill failed. it broke my heart, and many of them left in tears. but they're standing up to tell their stories now, and some of them are brave enough to stand up and let america know who they are and why they should have a chance. and i think they deserve a chance. let me tell you right off the bat i have a conflict of interest on this bill, and i guess senators in this time of ethical consideration should confess and make public their conflict of interest. you see, my mother was an immigrant to this country. she would have been a dreamer in her day. she was brought in at the age of two from lithuania 100 years ago. it was only after she was married and had two children that she became a naturalized american citizen. i have her naturalization certificate upstairs in my office. i'm very proud of it. she passed on. she saw me sworn in to the

senate and passed on a few months after that. as her son, a first-generation american, the son of an immigrant, i stand here as a member of the united states senate, a privilege which barely 2,000 americans have ever had. it says a lot about my family, but it says a lot about america, that i had my chance. that the fact that my mother came here at the age of two, perhaps under suspicious circumstances, was given a chance to become an american citizen, raised a family, worked hard, sent her kids to school and saw one of them actual lip end up with a full-time government job as a united states senator. that's why when i hear this debate across america about immigration, i just wonder. i wonder who these people are that are talking about how evil and negative it is to have immigrants in our country. mr. president, i just left an historic ceremony just a couple of hours ago. it was at the hall in the new

visitors' center, emancipation hall. i couldn't believe my eyes. it was a special congressional gold medal honoring those japanese americans who served in world war ii. and what astounded me was the number that showed up. these are men who have to be in their 80's and 90's who came there to be honored with this congressional gold medal. people of japanese ancestry whose parents and relatives who were often sent to internment camps and asked for the chance to risk their lives and serve america in world war ii and ended up being some of our most her roerbg warriors -- heroic warriors. i looked at that audience and wondered if critics of immigration would criticize these men and their families, some of whom lost their lives

and many of whom were seriously injured. i am honored serving with so many great people in this united states senate, but no more than danny inouye, who is in my estimation a true american hero, a recipient of the congressional medal of honor for his service in the 442nd and a man who still comes and leads this senate as chairman of the appropriations committee. here was a person who was frowned on and even spit on for being japanese at a time when pearl harbor was still fresh in the minds of many people. but he said sign me up, put on the uniform, hand me a gun and i'll die for this country. he risked his life like thousands of others, and i'm glad this honor was given today. but it's a reminder, a constant reminder, that we are a nation of immigrants. we come from so many different corners of the world and we come to america to call it home. these children are in that same position. and when i see the argument being made in arizona and

alabama, the anti-immigrant argument being made, i'm thinking to myself, they're ignoring the reality, and the reality is the diversity of our nation is its strength. the fact that we come from so many different places, drawn and driven to this great country for the opportunity that it offers. the arizona law that was passed last year requires police officers to check the immigration status of any individual they have -- quote -- "reasonable suspicion they may be undocumented." under this law any undocumented immigrant can be arrested and charged with a state crime solely on the basis of their immigration status, if they did nothing wrong. and it's a crime for a legal immigrant to fail to carry documents proving their legal status at all times in the state of arizona. it doesn't sound right to me in this nation of immigrants. last year it was arizona. this year it's alabama. alabama governor robert bentley signed h.b.-56.

alabama's immigration law requires police officers to check immigration status of any individual they suspect is undocumented. any undocumented immigrant can be arrested and charged with a state crime. legal immigrants must carry documents proving their legal status at all time. mr. president, it's wrong to criminalize people based solely on their immigration status. that is not the way we treat immigrants in our country, and that's not the way our criminal justice system should work. it's not right to make criminals of people who just go to work each day, cook our food, clean our hotel rooms and care for our children and parents. it's not right to make criminals of those who worship with us in our churches, synagogues and mosques and send their children to school with our own kids. i think about this, and i think about what a blind eye some of the backers of these laws must have when they walk into a restaurant in a major city and don't look up and notice who's

cooking, who's cleaning the dishes, who's taking care of their parents at the nursing homes, who just cut the grass at the golf course. many of these people are undocumented. we know it, but we're not calling for them to leave. they're serving us, right? no. with these laws we're just condemning those in similar status. here is the reality. criminalizing immigrants will not help combat illegal immigration. law enforcement doesn't have the time or resources to become the immigration office of america. that's why the arizona association of chiefs of police opposes the arizona law. it makes it more difficult for them to keep people safe. not easier. more difficult. immigrants will be much less likely to cooperate with police who can arrest them on the spot. alabama's law goes even further. most contracts with undocumented immigrants are declared null and void, including, for example, rental tkpwrauplts and child --

agreements and child support agreements. schools have to check immigrant status of every parent and child reported to the state. schools are authorized to report students and parents they believe to be undocumented to the federal government. i'm concerned about the use of our schools and enforcing immigration laws. the supreme court's made it clear that it's constitutional to provide elementary education to children and not discriminate based on their immigration status. the education department of our federal government has warned states, including alabama, not to use education as a device to exclude those students who are otherwise eligible to be taught. mr. president, it's good to tell these stories. it's good to speak to these issues. but what i found over the years -- and i'm sorry it's been years. i wish we had passed this long ago. that the best way to tell the story of the dream act is to tell the story of the dreamers. let me tell you a couple at this moment. first is about a.m. -- amanda

eriturto. here's amanda, a pretty young woman. she was brought to the united states at the age of ten. she lives in tuscaloosa, alabama. when amanda first arrived here, she didn't speak a word of english. she sent me a letter about what it was like. here's what she said. "i remember how frustrating it was in school because i had no clue what was going on. but i told myself that all the frustration and fear should be blocked and i should concentrate on learning english. some people made fun of the way i talked, but that helped because it made me work even harder to try to assimilate. little by little i worked with my accent to the point that it's hardly noticeable." there's amanda. when she started high school, she decided she knew what she wanted to do with her life. she wanted to serve in the u.s.

military. she was number five in her high school class. she was a member of the national honor society. and she -- listen to this. she received the daughters of the american revolution award at her high school. amanda overcame great obstacles and wants to be part of america's future. she asked and wrote to me if i would tell her story and let those who hear it know that amanda wants to serve the u.s. military. but under our law, she can't. she's undocumented. if the dream act passed, she'd have her chance. here's another story. another lovely young lady, carla contreras, brought to the united states at the age of three, today carla is 16. she lives in pelham, alabama. she is a sophomore in high school, leader in the alabama dreamers for the future, an organization of students similar status in her state.

her dream, to become an attorney. her family's considering moving to washington state because of this new alabama law, this anti-immigrant law. here's what she said, what carla wrote to me. "i've never really lived anywhere besides alabama. i've been here practically all my life. alabama is my home. carla cept me a powerful essay about the alabama immigration law. she said all that people swant a better future, a job to maintain them in an average way, a place that they can call home with no fear of being kidnapped by a drug dealer, a place they're not afraid to walk out in their yard. it's so hard to see how these things could be a crime in anyone's eyes. the law, this alabama law, is putting children in fear for their parents. now, tell me who on earth would want to purposefully frighten a child? in 1982, texas passed a law that allowed elementary schools

to refuse entrance to undocumented children. the supreme court of the united states of america struck down that law. as a result, millions of children have received an education and millions have become citizens. they are doctors, soldiers, policemen, lawyers, engineers, and business people who make america a better nation. imagine what would have happened if the texas law had been allowed to stand. incidentally, that's exactly what alabama wants today. alabama should know, every state should know that no state is above the law, no state is above the findings of our supreme court. the american people have a right to be frustrated. congress has repeatedly failed to fix our broken immigration system. the casualties, many are young, dreamers that i've talked about today, and many have been around many years and still live in the shadows and live in fear every single day. mr. president, we are a better

nation than that. we are a nation of immigrants, a nation of justice, and a nation that can find its way to give an opportunity to young people who every day that they've attended school, stood up, put their hand over their heart and pledged allegiance to the only flag they've ever known. they are asking for a chance to be a part of the future of america. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to help me pass the dream act. mr. president, i'd like to ask that the statement i'm about to be made be placed at a separate place in the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. durbin: mr. president, we had a meeting this morning with economists from labor and business, and they came and talked to us about what's going on with the american economy. nothing that they said was a great surprise, but it sure was troubling. one fifth of all american in america currently out of work. just a few years ago it was 1/20. in 1969 there has been a 28%

decline the in purchasing power of the average working family, even though they're working, they've fallen behind. the level of fear and anger in our country is growing. we've had slow growth rates, slow economic growth rates, and we're facing some serious issues. the u.s. today has the same number of jobs that it had in the year 2000, 11 years ago. but we have 30 million more americans in 2011 than we did in 2000 but we have the same number of jobs. now, we can lament this, say isn'tate darn shape or we wee can do something about it. fortunately for those of us elected to this chamber we have a chaps to do something. in pact, that's the reason we were sent here. people didn't send here to give inspiring speeches, they sent us here to make this a stronger nation, a secure, safe, and stronger nation. we have that power to do this,

and the question is whether we will. i can tell you that many people argue that the president's efforts to get this economy moving have failed. i couldn't disagree more. i've been around illinois and i've taken a look at what we have built in america with the stimulus funds. it's impressive. in my home state it's impressive. not only in terms of infrastructure but helping businesses get started and to succeed. douglas holtz ekin is the president of the right-leaning american forum, an visor to john mccain in the 2008 campaign. in "the washington post" he said the argument the stimulus had zero impact is intellectually dishonest and wrong, end of quote from a conservative republican-leaning economist. he knew the stimulus helped. america would have been a deeper hole had we not acted to reduce

taxes and build america in ways that will serve us for generations to come. we know we need to do more. tomorrow we'll give our colleagues in the senate a chance to join us in making that happen. we're going to try to move this country forward by putting people to work building things that count, highways and bridges and airports and schools, community colleges and things that will serve us for years to come, creating thousands of jobs all across america. we know that this surplus bill did that. the department of transportation estimates $48 billion in transportation funds put 65,000 people to work on 15,000 projects. i just saw one last week. it's the new intermodal transportation center in normal, illinois. it's amazing. right there next to the amtrak station they have built an intermodal center which has kicked off a renaissance in downtown normal, illinois, brand-new restaurants, a hotel i stayed in, a marriott, all

sorts of shops and it's focused on the centerpiece soon to be completed of this intermodal center paid for by the same stimulus funds main come to the floor and question or mock. this multimodal center is the centerpiece for the growth of a great town in the midwest. the rail service incidentally of that amtrak station is being funded with $1.1 billion in high-speed rail grants that were part of the stimulus as well. we didn't just build the buildings, we're putting down new rail with concrete to make sure that people have a safe, secure, and faster ride. the station is built with $22 million in tiger grant funds through the same recovery action. these are doing great things for normal, and the mayor of bloomington, right next door came over to say that he agreed, too. now, the peoria airport is another story. they've just completed a

brand-new airport terminal. it is beautiful. $6.4 million in stimulus funds going right into peoria, building an airport for the 21st century. 120 workers were at the building, worked building this terminal. good pay, good benefits, jobs right here in america. the inglewood flyover create project in chicago is going to eliminate the biggest railroad bottleneck in the midwest. it will mean goods move more quick thinkly through that great city to their destination. it came out out of the stimulus package. i listennered earlier when senator feinstein talked about choices we have to make in this cup. i think the choices are clear. we know what china is doing. if you go to china today you will see building cranes in every direction. she talked about a 3475-mile

underground subway system. when i was there they talked about 50 new airports they're going to build in five years that can land every boeing aircraft. they are building the ports, the airports, the roads and the rail roads to compete with us in the 21st century and what are we doing? we are locked in a partisan debate on the senate floor where we can't get one republican vote to support the president's jobs bill to create jobs building america's economic future. not one. why? i'll tell you why. let's get down to brass tax. the republicans say we cannot vote for any bill that raises taxes. well, the president's jobs bill, the part we're going to bring, does raise taxes and here are the taxes that are raised. for those making over a million dollars a year in income, that's over $20,000 a week in income, we say on the income

over a million dollars you have to pay a surtax of .7%. .7%. so that would mean that the first hundred dollars that the millionaire makes over a million dollars, they would have to pay seven cents. and the republicans have said no way. we will not make the millionaire pay seven cents on the first hundred dollars he earns over a million, even if it means putting people to work in america. who disagrees with that position? a majority across america. a majority of democrats, independents, and a majority of republicans, a majority of the tea party members disagrees dpree with the republican position. but not a single republican has broken ranks to join us in a bipartisan effort to put americans back to work and pay for it by having the

wealthiest, the most well-off in our country pay seven cents on a hundred dollars. well, to me that's not too much to ask. i would ask that and more of those who have been blessed with a comfortable life and a good income and a nice home and no worries. for them to pay a little more so america can get moving forward and we can reduce this unemployment rate isn't too much to ask. it's what we were sent here to do. i encourage my colleagues to join us. let's get together, if we can on a bipartisan basis tomorrow and pass this portion of the jobs act and put america to work. incidentally, at this point the republicans have produced no jobs bill. they have no ideas. they are, as we are united in fighting this recession and unemployment, they are united in opposing anything proposed by president obama. i don't think that's the way we need to operate. thanks goodness when president

eisenhower built the system with a democratic congress, a republican president and democratic congress looked beyond the next election into the next century and what america needed. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming is recognized. mr. barrasso: thank you thank you, mr. president. the 2000, 2007 issue of the aarp bulletin one that i received in the mail, it contains an interesting opinion piece written by the senate majority leader, harry reid. right there, front page, senate leader reid and his opinion piece is titled "the health care law is already working." well, i come to the floor, mr. president, as i do from time to time to give a doctor's second opinion, and i have a second opinion today about the piece had the aarp paper. i find the title, the choice, the words, the new health care

law works, i find those ironic especially as the american people continue to express negative views about president obama's health care law. so i come to the floor as a physician who has practiced medicine in wyoming taking care of wyoming families for a quarter of a century, to talk about the health care law and talk about health care in america. what we see, mr. president, is a growing majority of americans want to see the entire law repealed. repealed and replaced with patient-centered reforms. now, don't take my word for it. let's look at the facts. on october 28, 2011, just last week, the kaiser family foundation released its monthly health tracking poll. this is nonpartisan kaiser survey and it tracks the public's views about the health care law and they've been doing it ongoing. well, the results this month are truly astonishing. about half of all americans have

an unfavorable view of the health care law. overall favorability of the health care law stands at just 34%. an all-time low. the number of individuals who view the health care law very favorably stands at 12%, an all-time low. the number of people who think that they will personally be better off due to the health care law stands at 18%, an all-time low. the number of individuals who think that the country as a whole will be better off due to the health care law stands at just 28%, an all-time low. approval of the law among democrats dropped 13 percentage points to an all-time low. mr. president, these results make it clear that the new

health care law does not work. 19 months ago, senator schumer, my colleague, the senior senator from new york claimed on nbc's "meet the press" that "as people learn about the bill and now that the bill is enacted it is going to become more and more popular." close quote. well, the president and washington in democrats miscalculated. they made numerous promises to the pherpl, and they said -- to the american people, and they said we need to act fast. we can answer questions later. they asked the american people to trust them. then the nation watched as weeks went by, new stories uncovered another health care law glitch, another health care law unintended consequence and another of the president's broken promises. seniors all around the country know that the president's health care law took over $500 billion

from a broken medicare program not to save medicare, but to start a whole new government spending program for someone else. not for seniors. medicare patients know that the health care law failed them and failed to address the broken physician payment system. america's seniors understand that washington democrats can't cut $500 billion from medicare and then claim that those cuts won't impact their own health care. when you look at medicaid, governors all across the country know that the health care laws to medicaid expansion will restrict patient access to care and very likely bankrupt our states. medicaid only pays health care providers cents on the dollar. that's why about 40% of physicians don't accept medicaid patients. having the government health care card doesn't mean patients

will actually have access to medical care. there also concerns since the law was passed about employers dropping coverage. president obama promised that if americans liked their current health care plan, he said that under the law they would be able to keep it. well, over the last 19 months employers have made it clear that the laws mandates are too expensive threatening their own ability to offer health insurance to their employees. a reputable national consulting firm surveyed more than 1,300 employers across industries, geographies and employer sizes. the company produced a report titled "how u.s. health care reform will affect employees' benefits." the company, mackenzie and company, found that overall, 30% of employers will either definitely or probably stop offering employer-sponsored coverage after 2014. and that's when the president's

health care law goes into full effect. among employers with a high awareness of the health care law, understanding the specific implications of the law, that number of those who will either definitely or probably stop offering employer-sponsored coverage jumps to 50%. at least 30% of employers would actually gain economically by simply dropping coverage, even if they compensate kpwhr employees or other benefit offerings. how do we get from "if you like the plan you have you can keep it" to 30% of employers will definitely or probably stop offering health insurance? the problems continue to mount. recently, october 20 of 2011, wal-mart announced its decision to scale back health insurance for some part-time employees. a "new york times" article explained that future part-time

wal-mart employees working less than 24 hours per week won't be allowed to join the company's plan. new part-time employees working between 24 and 33 hours a week, well, they won't be able to buy insurance for their spouse. "the new york times" article quotes wal-mart as just saying that the increasing cost of health care is the reason for the change. now let's take a look at people's premiums. in 2009, president obama promised his health care plan would reduce health insurance premiums $2,500 a year for families in america. well, the opposite has occurred. president obama's law has forced americans to pay more for their health care premiums. on september 27, 2011, the kaiser family foundation issued a report showing the employer average annual family premium increased 9% from $13,770 to

$15,073. the employer average annual single premium -- first there was the family, now for singles, premium increased 8% from $5,049 to $425. of course part of this premium increase is tied directly to the health care law. then let's look at the "class" program. that program has recently failed. remember president obama's health care law established a brand-new federal long-term care entitlement program. it was referred to as "class" but the letters stood for community living assisted services and supports. to qualify, people would have to pay the government a monthly premium for five years. and then after those five years, they could begin collecting benefits. well, it's now known that the

"class" program was an intentionally designed budget gimmick. the congressional budget office estimated that the "class" program would reduce the deficit by $86 billion. this savings -- the savings were mythical, and those savings came from the premium dollars that the "class" program would collect for the first five years, all the while the program wasn't required or allowed to pay out any benefits to individuals. so all the money would be coming in. well, instead of holding on to that excess money being collected to pay out for future expenses, washington democrats here in the senate used those funds to pay for president obama's health care law. fast forward, we now know for sure that the program is not financially viable and does not work. how do we know that? well, many of us knew it while the debate was going on on the

senate floor a few years ago. but on october 14 of this year, health and human service secretary kathleen sebelius announced the administration will not complement the "class" program. an op-ed that she has written appeared in the huffington post. it said "as a report, our department is releasing today shows, we have not identified a way to make "class" work at this time." the obama administration had 19 months to figure out how to implement the program. they couldn't do it. administration officials at the department of health and human services knew that the "class" program was unsustainable, and i believe that they knew it before president obama signed the health care law. they knew it. the administration knew it. and the administration failed in their duty to be honest with the american people and tell them. today the white house still

refuses to admit that the "class" program is a colossal failure. in the middle of last month, october 17, 2011, a white house spokesman said reappealing the class act isn't necessary. what we should be doing is working together to address the long-term care challenges we face as a country. how can the white house admit that this part of the health care spending law will burden taxpayers with yet another unsustainable entitlement program and at the same time demand that it stay on the books? how do they do that? so it just comes to me, mr. president, when i receive that aarp mail or the aarp bulletin, the headline "the health care law's already working, by the senate majority leader."

i came to the conclusion that i needed to come to the floor with a second opinion. the health care law must repealed. it must be replaced with reasonable, commonsense and financially sound alternatives. this health care law is not working. it's not good for patients. it's not good for providers, doctors and nurses who take care of those patients. and it is not good for the american taxpayers. so, mr. president, i will continue to come to the floor of the senate as we learn more and more about this health care law t. just does seem that just about every week or so there is a new unintended consequence that comes forth, a new concern for patients, a new concern for providers, a new concern for the taxpayers. and i will continue to work with my patients and with my colleagues to find a health care law that gets patients the care

that they need from the doctor that they want at a price they can afford. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. ms. klobuchar: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: i'm here today to discuss the critical need to address our nation's crumbling transportation and infrastructure system. the cracks in this system became abundantly clear to all of our country, and in fact the entire world, when on the afternoon of

august 1, 2011, the i-35w bridge in minneapolis collapsed into the middle of the mississippi river, taking the lives of 13 minnesotans and injuring so many more. as i said that tkaeurbgs a bridge just -- day, a bridge shouldn't fall down in the middle of america, especially not an eight-lane interstate highway, which is one of the most heavily traveled bridges in our state. especially not at rush hour in the middle of a metropolitan area, especially not a bridge six blocks from my house, a bridge that i take my family over all the time to go out to visit their friends. that's what happened that day in the middle of a sunny day in the middle of america. and yet, four years after the i-35w bridge has collapsed and been rebuilt, 25% -- 25% -- of our nation's bridges are still structurally deficient or

obsolete. i wish i could say that the bridge collapse was the only tragedy that my state has suffered because of a broken infrastructure system. it's not. we saw another one just this october in good hew county on highway 52 which connects the twin cities to rochester, the home of the mayo clinic. within a ten-day span one intersection on highway 52 between rochester, minnesota, and the twin cities of minnesota was the site of two fatal crashes that claimed three lives and injured others. even before these tragic crashes, everyone agreed that an interchange was needed so that drivers weren't forced to risk racing across a four-lane divided highway. but the county and the minnesota department of transportation didn't have the funds to build an interchange which could have eased the situation, could have saved three lives. the worst part? that intersection of highway 52 isn't even the most dangerous stretch of that road. local leaders have marked several other projects as higher

safety priorities. and yet the funds aren't there, the money isn't there to address those problems. these are just two examples of the impact of our infrastructure and transportation needs in this country. there are tens of thousands more in small towns, in big cities from maryland to minnesota. that's why i've come to the floor to discuss the rebuild america jobs act, legislation that i introduced with several of my colleagues, including senator manchin of west virginia and senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. we have come together as senators from all corners of the country because we recognize the urgent need for new and bold initiatives to rebuild america. our legislation would get the ball rolling on desperately needed improvements by establishing an infrastructure bank, something that is long garnered bipartisan support in the congress and directing $50 billion toward infrastructure. both of these ideas, as i've noted, have enjoyed bipartisan

support in the past. in fact, standing there with us this afternoon was ray la haorbgsd former republican -- ray lahood, former republican congressman now the secretary of transportation under a democratic president. there is no such thing as a democratic bridge or republican bridge. no such thing as a republican highway or democratic highway. transportation has always been a bipartisan issue in this country and must continue to be so. and that is why we're continuing to push this legislation. we may not pass it this week, but i know from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle there continues to be interest in moving ahead on infrastructure funding. the legislation is about improving public safety, so no bridge ever collapses again in the middle of america. but it's also about creating better opportunities for our businesses and jobs. i say that because if you look back through history, it's clear that many of the major milestones that contributed to america's greatness were rooted in our infrastructure. whether it was connecting the

east and west coast by rail in 1869 or the w.p.a. in the 1930's or the construction of the interstate highway system that began in the 1950's with a democratic congress and a republican president, dwight eisenhower, or even the amazing innovations of the early american auto industry, our country did not move forward because our leaders tinkered at the edges of the status quo. america flourished because of innovators like eni had ford who once said, "if i'd asked my customers what they wanted, they had have said a faster horse." then he turned around add built the model-t. if he were alive today, he would say that america cannot afford to take a horse-and-buggy approach to infrastructure. yet that's what we've been doing. while other countries are moving full steam ahead with infrastructure investments, we're simply treading water. and in an increasingly competitive global economy, standing still is sadly falling

behind. china and india are spending about 9% and 5% respectively of their g.d.p.'s on infrastructure. even europe spends 5% of its g.d.p., and yet how much are we committing right now? about 2%. the effects of this shortsighted strategy are increasingly clear. in its 2007 and 28 report, the world economic forum ranked american infrastructure sixth in the world. that was only a few years ago. yet we have already slipped to 16th place, putting our roads roughly on par with those of malaysia and far behind those of germany, canada, and hong kong. this is a huge problem because the strength of our infrastructure is directly tied to the competitiveness of our economy. just look at the numbers. as our country slipped in the ranking for infrastructure, we also dropped in the world economic forum's ratings on competitiveness. last year we were at fourth place.

this year we're in fifth place. competitive in is a huge element because this isn't just about global bragging rights. fundamentally, it is about lifting the parking brake that has kept our economy idling and addressing the major inefficiencies we've seen in our infrastructure system. if we want to move to the next-century economy, it is going to be about imports, it is going to be about making stuff now, exporting to the world f we don't have the roads to carry the goods to markets or the waterways or barges to do it or an air traffic control system that's up to speed, we are not going to be that economy that so many of our workers and so many of our businesses want us to be. failing to move ahead will have consequences that no one likes. just for example, it would not be toalgt different from -- altogether different from levying a multibillion-dollar tax on american industry. infrastructure is expected to drive up the cost of doing

business by an estimated $430 billion according to the american society of civil engineers. that's just in the next decade. america spends 4.8 billion hous in traffic, just sitting there in traffic every single year. when traction idle in traffic on the highway, waiting for port facilities to be loaded or unroded or when trains sit on our congested rail network, our economy hemorrhages dollars, losing roughly $200 billion each year. to put that number in perspective, it is roughly 1.5% of our gross domestic product. increased transportation costs will make it more expensive for companies to ship goods and purchase raw materials. we can only expect that those costs will be passed on to customers. traffic congestion, as i mentioned, costs us billions. when i said that $4.8 billion for a year, when i said it i thought, did i get it wrong?

is it millions? but, no, mr. president, it is in fact 4.8 billion hours each year stuck in trafnlg that's $101 billion in lost revenue. that is $713 per motorist. the bad news is that without action, those numbers are only going up. but by 2020 it is estimated that our crumbling infrastructure will cost our economy more than $890 billion in lost g.d.p. growth. the public safety aspect of this debate is also incredibly important and it is something that we cannot can't atoured t. according to the census bureaucrat the american population is expected to add another 120 million people by 2050. that's a 40% increase in 40 years. and like -- it's like adding the entire nation of japan or more than three states of california. think about that.

we can't stand still on our infrastructure. that's 120 million more people on our roads, bridges, tunnels, highways, and airports, structures that are already insufficient for meeting the needs of today's population. here's the good news: addressing this challenge doesn't just make sense from a long-term competitiveness perspective. it also makes sense because it would be an immediate shot in the arm for our economy. we're still looking at an environment where too many americans are out of work or have seen their hours cut back, and people that have taken it the hardest are people in the construction industry. in construction the unemployment rate is now 13.3%, more than 4 points higher than the national average. the rebuild america act will help to get these workers back on the job. here's how we'll do it: first of all, we'll need to be making smarter decisions to stretch our transportation dollars further. this is a compelling case for public-private partnerships. we all know government can't do

this alone. public-private partnerships for private-sector jobs. that's why the infrastructure bank, part of the rebuild america jobs act, is so important. the america infrastructure financing authorize would provide loans and loan guarantees to finance projects that would otherwise be too expensive for any one city, county, or even state to accomplish on its own. the bank would serve as an incentive for the creation of public-private partnerships and the mechanisms necessary for repaying loans once the projects are completed. this will help ensure the quality of projects, too, because no private firm is going to invest in a project that is likely to fail. the infrastructure bank would allow state transportation departments to move more projects off the books and to tackle other critical needs, so the minnesota department of transportation could finally have the resources to focus on fixing highway 52 and good hugh

county road 9, or projects in missouri, maryland, o or oregon. there are needs all over this cufnlt i want to make an important point here that the american taxpayer needs to know, and that is that they would be protectors as well. projects would be reviewed by staff separate from the board. there are strong oversight protections and projects would have to be backed by a dedicated revenue stream. all of this is part of the reason that this infrastructure bank has always had bipartisan support. senator kerry has worked very hard on this legislation, as have many of my republican colleagues. they have suggested a similar mod until this build-back. it has 10 bipartisan cosponsors. beyond bipartisan congressional support, an infrastructure bank has earned the support of people as far ranging as the chamber of commerce to the afl-cio.

with the initial infusion of $10 billion that the rebuild america act proposes, it is estimated that it could leverage private investment to generate between $300 billion ands 600 billion in infrastructure improvements. the infrastructure bank is the kind of bold and new action that we should be taking as a nation. coming from a state as i do where there is a large rural population, i also think it's important to note that rural america, whether in south dakota, north dakota, montana or nevada should not be left behind here. the infrastructure bank would be structured so that the kinds of projects that are important to rural regions, like drinking water and sanitary sewer systems, could also compete for loans and loan guarantees. right now too many repair and replacement projects in our nation's drinking water and sanitary sewer systems are endangered by a lack of funding. according to the 2008 e.p.a.

survey of needs, minnesota needs $4.1 billion to upgrade our drinking and sanitary water systems alone. and in 2011 alone, my state has $4 00 million worth of projects that are just sitting there. clean water projects are strightal to the safety of our communities, particularly our rural communities. we all benefit from projects that will protect our environment, help create jobs and support local infrastructure. let me give you an example. in southwestern minnesota we're work upon a three-state effort with iowa, south dakota, and minnesota to get water to 20 communities. the region's current lack of water has brought economic development to a standstill in an area where there are all kinds of possibilities for development in an ag community. according to the manager of the lincoln pipe stone rural water system in minnesota, this lack of clean water has forced a community to turn away businesses that would have otherwise opened in the area. including a large dairy plant, a

large cattle feeding operation, biofuels plants, that's just in the last five years. in other words, the community has lost untold jobs and economic growth because it lacks the water. importantly, the infrastructure bank that the rebuild america jobs act would create also includes a technical assistance to rural communities and 5% of the initial investment that capitalize the bank would be designated for projects in these very areas. that's $500 million for rural america. as we move forward with this conversation, we can't lose sight of the critical importance of the multiyear surface transportation bill. this is something we need and we need it now. the surface transportation bill gives certainty to state departments of transportation so that they can make the multiyear planning decisions on how to best spend the federal and state resources. the certainty of a multiyear bill also benefits the private

sector. once states know how much they can put towards infrastructure projects, then they can begin contracting with the companies -- private companies -- in engineering, design, and construction. these are companies like caterpillar, which employs 750 people at its road paving equipment manufacturing facility in minnesota. i visited there in august. caterpillar's employees are the kind of people who are out there on the front lines of american industry. they are people that make the slogan "made it america" not just a slogan; it's real. and they depend on the certainty that only a multiyear transportation bill provides. we have an opportunity to give them that certainty p. i know chairman boxer and senator inhofe have been working on this out of their committee, but i did want to keep in mind in this aas we work on the rebuild america jobs bill and we work on the transportation bill that we're talking about today that i would like to get passed by the end of this year, that we also are cognizant of the fact

that there is a very important two-year bill that they are debating at this very moment. when we look at the state of our nation's infrastructure, there's no h escaping the fact that we e far from where we need to be. our 21st century economy depends on a 21st century transportation network. it's just that simple. fixing our infrastructure is one of the best possible ways to strengthen our nation's most basic foundation. the channels we use for everything from commerce and exporting to emergency management and disaster response. but i also believe it's about bringing america back to the brass tacks. we know we need to do something about our debt and i believe we can get there with a balanced approached and looking at closing some of these loopholes. but even then we must focus on what will move our economy forward in the long term. we simply can no longer base our economy on being the country that just simply churns money

and shuffles paper simply being a country that consumes the imports and spends its way to a huge trade deficit. thathat has not worked. what what we need to be now is a country that makes things again, that invents things, that exports to the world. and the only way we're going to make that happen, if we have the roads and the bridges and the rail and the barges and the airlines to carry these goods to market. that's what this is about. we cannot put it off any longer. we must move forward now in a bipartisan manner to get this done for our country. i urge my colleagues to support this bill. thank you very much, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president, i rise today to speak on this infrastructure jobs bill and i think my good friend from minnesota has done a great job of explaining why we need to be focused on infrastructure. i think if i was going to summarize nigh comments, as -- i think if i was going to

summarize my comments as they might compare with hers is that we need to be compared on the longer-term problem. we certainly do have a committee that's working on a two-year bill, and here we're spending time today talking about a bill that i think is likely not to happen and even if it did happen would it be better than a two-year bill? of course not. does it do anything better than the traditional infrastructure focus of the country that included communities and cities and states instead of federal bureaucrats? of course it doesn't. and we need to be focused on the right thing, mr. president, at the right tiesm the top concern on american minds today is righting our nation's economy, of having an economy that creates private-sector jobs and while we take different approaches to addressing this, i think the congress is genuinely united in understanding when the goal should be. we just have such a difns of opinion as to how to get there.

what role does infrastructure play in the private-sector job creation and competition? it plays a critical role. in fact it's one of the few places where the federal government actually can take actions that specifically create private-sector jobs. roads and bridges are maintained and kept clean and kept open and supervised by state and local authorities, but they're built by private-sector contractors. so that's a good thing. the question is what is the best way to get there. unfortunately, we're two years removed from the expiration of the last surface transportation bill, and we're talking in the transportation committee, i'm told -- i'm not on that committee, but i know that chairman boxer and the ranking republican, mr. inhofe, are talking about how you can have a two-year extension, another two-year extension of that bill. it's unfortunate we're not talking about the four or five

or six-year surface transportation bills that we traditionally talked about because that's the kind of time it takes to really make a project that matters work. we have been holding the surface transportation bill together with duct tape and super glue for a couple of years now, and the last time we did this in september, we extended that bill for six months, and the president frankly began to put his energy behind this different proposal that i have lots of concerns about, but i have even greater concerns about the fact that the energy and focus is there instead of on how do we get at least a two-year extension of a transportation bill, a surface transportation bill that would work. i said we were holding the bill together, the legislation together by duct tape and super glue. unfortunately, that's probably how we're also holding the

transportation system together, because you can't have the eisenhower vision that was mentioned earlier of an interstate system, you can't have an eisenhower vision that has a six-month shelf life or a six-month window of opportunity. if you're going to have that kind of system put in place, you have to have a system that is put in place with an understanding that this is an ongoing program, that we have ongoing sources of funding, that we have ongoing ability to contract, and that's why, mr. president, we need to be talking about the best way to find new and innovative ideas to invest in our infrastructure development. i'm increasingly concerned that this legislation we're talking about today takes a short-term federal bureaucrat knows best approach rather than the approach that we have had good success with in the country when we really were building roads

and bridges and airports and infrastructure in ways that matter. in all of our home states, certainly in my home state of missouri, community leaders and job creators tell me that they are clearly looking for more certainty of how to create jobs. they need the ability to look beyond three or six months in order to plan and anticipate investment levels and expand their operations. we need to make smart investments in our nation's infrastructure so that people who build infrastructure can look forward with certainty, and communities who are dependent on infrastructure can look forward with certainty, and a business that's thinking about making a job-expanding commitment to a community knows what the highway plan is for the decade, not for the next day, and we have to get there and you can't get there six months at a time. this piecemeal approach,

including the continuing resolution and the so-called stimulus bill and other things that postpone our efforts for communities to really get funding, the whole idea of an infrastructure bank that would go for projects that had some ability to pay for themselves, and when you ask questions about that, nobody knows what that means. nobody knows why -- if these things have an ability to pay for themselves, states could bond them out tomorrow. if you have a revenue stream that will pay off the building of a bridge, if you figure out how to create that revenue stream, states could issue that bond right now. the only reason to have a federal infrastructure bank is because the infrastructure bank is insolvent and not planned to be solvent and only the federal government can give it the credibility it needs so it could ever possibly be used, but that's not the long-term solution to infrastructure. as we have witnessed in recent

months, the president's idea of a jobs plan is apparently focusing on holding press conferences in front of bridges -- he had one just today -- to sell the idea that another stimulus bill will create more jobs. now, how does the president ever expect shovel-ready projects to get to be shovel ready? they only get to be shovel ready if you have a lot of time to plan and you know what the funding source is and you know how you're going to not just start the project but complete the project. bridge replacement and major infrastructure investments in projects are critical, but if this bill does become law, 10% of the money, the congressional budget office estimates, would be spent between now and september 30 of next year. so this is no economic recovery plan, and it's also no long-term highway plan. 10% of the money spent in the next 11 months is not what it

takes to get this job done, and of course 50% of that, of all the money would be spent by the federal highway department rather than allocated as we have allocated federal highway money since the 1950's back to the states with incentives for them to match that money and to do the best they could to really have a fair distribution of highway and surface transportation money across the country. these piecemeal solutions don't work. there are many examples of communities that are facing challenges, and they want to know how that -- how that question is going to be met. in washington, missouri -- not washington, d.c., but washington, missouri, there is an 80-year-old bridge that goes across the missouri river, and it needs to be replaced, and it's needed to be replaced for some time now, but are we going to let the president of the united states decide if that's the bridge we replace or not?

there are some things that the president should decide. the president is without any question in the best position to decide what is the best way to go into abadibad and get osama bin laden. the president is not in the best position to decide where the bridge will be built between kentucky and ohio. the republican speaker of the house is from ohio. the republican leader is from kentucky. he says we need a bridge between ohio and kentucky. that may actually be true, but the president of the united states is not the best person to solve that problem. the best person to solve that problem are the people in kentucky and ohio who get their gas tax money, their transportation money of whatever kind of funding we can figure out meets the needs of the future and say here is our 10-year plan, here is how we're going to fund our ten-year plan. in year one, we're going to do

the bridge planning for which of these bridge possibilities we need. in year two, we're going to plan a bridge we decide we need. in year three, we're going to build a bridge. maybe by year six or seven, somebody is using the bridge. this is the idea of -- these ideas of the short-term solutions just simply don't work. state departments of transportation are hesitant to commit to long-term projects without the assurance of a funding stream in the future. the president's bus tour will not provide individuals with more certainty, but a steady, long-term investment plan will work to answer these questions. we need a clear federal infrastructure blueprint to help county commissioners, to help contractors and cities, to help statewide departments of transportation to lay the groundwork to plan to access -- to assess local needs, to hire more employees, to make the decisions necessary to encourage

economic growth. in addition to the short-term approach that i think this bill has, i'm concerned with some of the policies included in this proposal. with the increased funding for discretionary proposals, grant programs like the federal tiger grants and now the infrastructure bank, the message being sent to the states is that washington bureaucrats will set the priorities. our entire infrastructure network is in desperate need of comprehensive updateing, that refuses to be put off any longer. we need to refocus all our efforts on the modes of transportation, the flexibility between them, why we continue to rely on fragmented programs makes no sense to me or lots of other people. the answer is not to continue writing blank checks to the administration and then hoping that the people will have -- who

make the decision with zero accountability, frankly, will somehow make that in the best interests of all of our states. we need to do the hard work of crafting and investing in a fire alarm -- in a formula that works for the future. chairman boxer and ranking member inhofe have been working hard putting together a new reauthorization bill. i wish that was a six-year bill, not a two-year bill, but i'll tell you, a two-year bill has greater possibilities for success than a six-month bill that will go away before it is able to do any good. i look forward to starting the work. i hope we can stop taking time on things that won't work and start solving the problems that have to be solved for the country to have the private sector job recovery that we need and to be prepared for the next century as well as people in this body worked in the 1950's

to see that we would be prepared for the last 50 years of the last century. and i believe, mr. president, there is the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. the presiding officer: without objection.

mr. grassley: most every republican, mr. president, in this body and probably outside of this body would admit that president obama inherited a very bad economic situation by the time he was sworn in. the only thing is, by every measure of the economy, this economy is much, much worse now than what he inherited. the obama economy is bad because there is a prospect of taking more money from the american taxpayers with the biggest tax increase in the history of the country next year.

many, many brand-new regulations that are very costly to the economy, so particularly small business don't know where they are going to be hit next and where their costs are. we have this big budget deficit that's a damper on the economy. and in every respect, things that this administration's doing is putting a wet blanket on the economy. we have wrongheaded energy policies as well. so we hear the president say when he put forth his jobs bill touring the country in his bus, he kept saying pass this bill right now, pass this bill right now. we have had some experience with efforts to pass bills right now, and they got passed like the

stimulus bill one month after he was sworn in. supposed to keep unemployment under 8%, but it's never been under 8% since one month after that time. we have to pass the health care reform bill right now. the health care reform bill was passed that very first year when the other party controlled everything, all three political branches of government. they had everything their way, and it was passed right now. and we're finding out that passing something right now just isn't the way to do business, and particularly if it's not in a partisan way. i think the extent to which the president would lead instead of being on the fringe would help this process along, because he's the only elected official in

this country that speaks for the national voice. each one of us representing our constituencies have a national perspective, but we also have to be worried about the needs of our constituents. so let's go to what the latest effort is of this president to turn this economy around his way and get this bill passed right now. just a few weeks ago, the senate considered a so-called jobs bill that would have provided $35 billion of the $47 billion for -- $447 billion for the purpose of creating jobs for teachers and policemen, firefighters. this state bailout was included by president obama in this $44 $447 billion stimulus bill number two that he proposed in

his speech before congress this september. when it became apparent that the senate leadership didn't have the necessary votes for the whole package, then majority leader reid chose to move thi this -- this bill in parts instead of in one big package. and, you know, most of the reason he to do that is because people in his caucus were not ready to vote for big tax increases or taking more money away from the american people and sending it to washington. proponents for that bill argued that this $35 billion bailout was necessary to prevent the layoff of teachers and public safety employees. and don't forget, this sin the first time the senate had considered this type of bailout because it was that bailout that just had to pass right now in

february 2009 that was supposed to keep employment under 8%. that was the $1.814 billion stimulus bill that congress enacted in early 2009. and as i said, it included bailout money for state and local governments. in fact, that's one of the reasons it didn't work, because whether you're state, local are or federal government, governments consume wealth, they don't create wealth. and when you put half of that bill of $814 billion into public employment, it doesn't create jobs. that money should have been used to stimulate private-sector employment. president obama stated that that bill would save or create up to 4 million jobs over the following two years. that bill was supposed to create or save 150,000 jobs for

teachers, nurses, firefighters, police officers, according to our president. then in august 2010, congress passed another state and local bailout, this time sending $26 billion to states to save or create public-sector jobs. at that time, robert gibbs, the white house spokesman, stated that this bill was -- quote -- "a very important proposal, particularly to ensure that 160,000-plus teachers didn't get fired as a result of bad state budgets. this $26 billion was the second major effort by congress to help states plug their budget holes while claiming that we were saving the jobs of teachers and other government workers. the truth is, these efforts to save state and local public-sector jobs are more simply a bailout of state and

local governments that have failed to rein in their own spending. state and local governments become addicted to tax-and-spend big-government policies and federal bailouts have only aided the addiction. rather than making the necessary and difficult budget decisions, these state and local governments come to rely upon the spendthrift behavior of this congress to spend more and plug budget holes. nationally, the debt held by states is approaching $3 trillion and that doesn't even figure in unfunded pension liabilities. some of the states in the worst trouble are massachusetts, rhode island, new york, new jersey, connecticut, illinois, and california. the increase in debt has had a significant impact on their budget or on their bond rates

and abilities to find competitive bond rates and competitive financing. the free-spending state legislature coupled with a huge public work force have driven up the cost of doing business in these states. iit has also negatively impacted their unemployment rates and their economic growth. for much of the history of our country, states have been responsible for financing their schools, police, firefighters, first responders and other public employment. now, we know throughout the 224-year history of our country, most of the time these state and local governments have done a pretty darned good job. states have done well -- states that have done well have grown economically and attracted more jobs, and with economic growth, you're going to have more

taxpayers. and what this country needs is more taxpayers, not more taxes. states that haven't managed their budgets well have had, as you might expect, the opposite result. this competition among states has created a system that demands and rewards good government and in the process attracting employers and worke workers. a federal bailout of states upsets this balance. it rewards bad behavior and ultimately hurts the american economy. federal bailouts eliminates the risks associated with poor economic policies. moral hazard as federal bailouts send a message to bad actors that there's no negative consequences for their failure to effectively govern. at the same time, this type of federal stimulus is ineffective

at saving or creating jobs and it does nothing to promote private-sector growth. annual federal deficits are close to about 8% to 9% of g.d.p. and our national debt is $15 trillion. we cannot afford to bail out states and continue to encourage poor fiscal behavior by our states. the bailout of democratic governors and state legislatur legislatures, and i suppose i ought to include republican governors and republican state legislatures as well, and public employees may be good politics but it's terrible economics and creates even worse fiscal situation. rather than propose political solutions during this economic downturn, the president should work with congress to find real,

authentic, genuine solutions to our economic and unemployment problems. the recession began in december 2007. nearly 1 in 10 americans remain unemployed today. more than 26 million americans are either unemployed or underemployed. the policies of the past 2 1/2 years have not worked. they've made things worse. now, for the benefit of people who maybe you can't say this too often because it looks like it's strictly partisan, i think we all ought to admit that this president inherited a bad economic situation. nothing to be proud of for a republican president going in office or any of us republicans that were in office at that time. but by any measure of the economy, this president has made things worse.

the time for political documents has long passed. it's time to govern, to work together, to get our economy growing again and move the obama into a bipartisan economy, at least to job creation. for those who are unemployed, it's a depression. it's time that we did something to help turn this situation around. private-sector employers need an international trade agenda that opens new doors to sell u.s. agricultural goods and manufactured products and services, so obviously i'm glad that the president finally sent to the senate three trade agreements and that they were passed last month. they were delayed, though, unnecessarily for years and the rest of the world is moving ahead without us. we're more than capable of

increasing exports but we need the markets to do it. and it's very simple. why worry about exports, because only 4% of the people on the face of this earth live in the united states. the other 96% live outside the united states. who are you going to market to? the 4%? yes. but you're also, if you're going to expand your economy, you're going to have to market to the other 96%. now, thank god president obama has set an agenda that he wants to double exports. but in order to reach this goal and to do everything possible to generate economic activity and opportunities in the united states, the president needs to move forward on other job generating trade initiatives without delay. it's time to put an end to job-killing federal regulations as i move on to a new subject of why the economy's not so good. new regulations from e.p.a., the

department of labor, national labor relations board and others are making it harder for business to grow. now, understand i said new regulations because i think sometimes people, when they hear us talking about a moratorium on regulations, they think we ought to take all the regulations that are on the books off. they're kind of -- they may not necessarily be good but they're kind of -- the economy has accounted for them already. but when you got 9.1% unemployment, you got all these new regulations coming out, you know, 66,000 pages of new regulations just so far this year. it just makes it very hard to decide whether or not you ought to hire somebody or not, and particularly for small business. and remember, small business creates 70% of the new jobs and about 25% of all unemployment in

america. in some cases, new regulations are actually destroying jobs. with unemployment at 9.1%, its time for the federal bureaucracy to stop harmful job-killing new regulations. what we're really calling for is not to stop ever regulating into the future but just put a short-term moratorium on regulations so people have a chance to get us out of this hole we're in. 9.1% unemployment. let's say a measure of getting unemployment down to 7% before we have new regulations. it's also time to develop a domestic energy resources that will create jobs while increasing domestic energy supplies. nobody seemed to be very concerned about spending 830 million every day -- $830 million every day.

now, just in case that sounds phenomenal, $830 million a day is the amount of money that we pay to over -- send overseas to bring oil into this country. that's a terrible subsidy to the volatile middle east that want to train americans to kill us. or it's a reward for chavez, that is hugo chavez, that's bad-mouthing us almost every d day. we need to make more energy available, driving down prices, making our country more energy independent. the president's energy agenda is moving us backwards because of not enough emphasis upon fossil fuels that are available right here in this country. you know, it wasn't only three years ago that natural gas was $14, $15 because we thought we

were using it all up in america. and discoveries recently tell us that we got natural gas maybe for a hundred years. now, it's down to around i think $4 to $5 now per unit but it' it's -- we -- it's not a case of finding fault with the president on green energy. because whether -- whatever source of energy you have, if you want a growing economy, you're obviously going to use more energy. now, use more energy conservatively, so we ought to have an energy policy that encourages conservation but it ought to encourage use of our fossil fuels wherever it can be found. it ought to encourage all sorts of green energy and that's all the biofuel as that we in the midwest talks -- biofuels that we in the midwest talks about. it's solar production that we in the midwest are second in production of. it's solar energy, biomass,

cellulosic biofuels, all of the above. and i said conservation. i guess the fourth one would be nuclear energy. so it's time to change course and develop energy sources here at home and create jobs in the process. finally, in 2009, president obama said that you don't raise taxes in a recession. he stated his position clearly that the last thing you'd want to do is raise taxes on anyone during a recession because it would harm businesses and economic growth. and you know when he said that, unemployment was under 8%. if you got 9.1% unemployment now for now and quite a bit into the future, aren't we in a recession so isn't the president's own benchmark the benchmark we ought to use today yet we have the biggest tax increase in the history of the country taking more money away from the taxpayers and sending

it to washington coming up next year. and boy, wouldn't it do a great deal of economic good if this president said exactly what he said about the time he was sworn in, that you shouldn't increase taxes during a recession. yet we have so many job packages put before the senate that include job-killing tax hikes. that's why they've been received with bipartisan opposition. so anybody that says the taxes that the president proposed have been killed by republicans, one of the reasons the majority leader had to change the president's tax packages for a vote here a couple weeks ago is because there was opposition within his own conference about it. a few courageous senate democrats have consistently said

no to their leadership when it comes to raising taxes on small business and other job creators. the only bipartisanship we've seen so far is the bipartisan opposition to ill-conceived political documents. the democratic majority needs to get serious about addressing our economic problems. it's time to consider policies that will get people back to work without harming the economy. it's time to stop the political aspects of this debate. and the best way to do that, it seems to me, is the other body controlled by republicans have passed 15 -- 15 pieces of legislation and i don't think we've taken any of them up but i think we're about to take up, thank god, one of the 15, that 3% deal that we have, that is what it's known by. so unemployed americans need to know that we're going to do

something to help create jobs and grow the economy. and taking up more of those 15 jobs would be getting something done in a bipartisan way. unfortunately, so far the democrat majority, and president obama are more interested in political strategies that create jobs and economic growth. and the only reason i say this, it seems to me there is a little bit of intellectual dishonesty on the part of a president that one day would have -- union evening would -- one evening would give a speech to a joint session of congress like he did in september and plead for bipartisan support and then the next day go out on the road on a political venture and say that can't get the cooperation of republicans. pass that bill right now. you know. i yield the floor.

i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin in: first i ask unanimous consent that julian feinberg and adam newman be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's proceedings. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: mr. president, later this week, i assume sometime tomorrow, the senate is expected to vote on the rebuild america jobs act. this is a practical, commonsense legislation that does two urgent and important things. it will help to modernize america's crumbling

infrastructure, and it will help to put americans back to work and get our economy going again. not surprisingly this bill enjoys overwhelming popular support among the american people. every day americans see the infrastructure crisis with their own eyes. they see interstate highways increasingly overwhelmed, potholes everywhere, they see bridges and overpasses structurally unsound, in danger of collapse, need i mention the gridlock in some of our major cities because of inadequate roadways and access points for automobiles. china and brazil are building world-class ports, sea ports while ours are left over from early in the last century. we know that we need to make major federal investments in modernizing america's infrastructure. so why not do it now? at a time when our nation is suffering from the most

protracted period of joblessness since the great depression. the construction sector is the hardest hit part of our economy. we can put those people back to work renewing our infrastructure and as i said boosting our economy. so why aren't we doing this? well, the answer, mr. president, is the republicans have made it clear that they intend to block this legislation tomorrow. just as they have blocked so many other bills designed to put americans back to work and get the economy moving again. they filibustered and killed the american jobs act. two weeks ago they filibustered and killed the teachers and first responders back to work act. mr. president, it seems to me that if the word "no" were removed from the english language, our republican friends would be rendered speechless. but let me state the obvious. the word "no" will not put 28 million americans back to

work, the word "no" will not allow to us bring deficits under control, the word "no" will allow us to undertake a robust program to modernize our transportation system. now, the job creating investments in this bill are fully paid for with a tiny fractional tax on the richest of the rich in the united states. these wealthy americans would pay a .7%, that's .7% surtax on incomes in excess of $1 million a year. let me repeat that. this infrastructure jobs bill that we'll be voting on tomorrow which the republicans have indicated they're going to filibuster and kill, fully paid for, with a .7% surtax on incomes in excess of a million dollars a year. now, if those making more than a million dollars a year even

noticed such a negligible tax, i would be astonished but still the republicans say no. let's put this in context. just last week the nonpartisan congressional budget office reported that over the last three decades, the after-tax income of millionaires and billionaires increased by 275%. the congressional budget office said over the last three decades, the after-tax income of millionaires and billionaires increased 275%. during the same 30 years, the same three decades, the average take-home pay of middle-class workers in america actually declined. is it any wonder that the middle class is upset? when they see what's happened to

them over the last 30 years, flat, slightly declined in terms of their living standards and their income. the super rich increased their take-home by 275%. the top 1% of income earners in america now take home more than half of all the money earned each year in america. and that needs repeating. the top 1% of income earners in america take home over half of all of the money earned in america every year. mind-boggling, isn't it? mind-boggling. and yet, republicans adamantly oppose any tax increase on these people, even a .7%, which

would go towards the infrastructure of america. putting people back to work. certainly no one questions the solicitude of republicans towards the rich and the super rich. i just wish they'd show even a fraction of that concern on behalf of the besieged middle class in this country. republicans on this so-called super committee are willing to block all progress in order to prevent any tax increase at all on the rich. but they are demanding, demanding deep cuts to social security and medicare, student loans, other federal programs that undergird the middle class in the united states. and meanwhile, republicans here in the senate continue to block the bills that we have proposed in order to put people back to work and get the economy moving again. some pundits have speculated that for political reasons, republicans are deliberately

blocking any legislation that would boost the economy or create jobs. because that would make president obama maybe look good. these pundits point out that the senate's minority leader has been ex explicit in stating his number-one priority, his number-one priority is to prevent the election, the re-election of president obama. so many of the pundits say that to the extent that republicans can prevent us from doing anything, keep this place in gridlock, keep us from having a jobs program, and the economy gets worse, well, then they'll say to the american people see, president obama's not doing his job. the economy's getting worse. i just heard my colleague from iowa in his speech, at least he was honest enough to say that president obama had inherited a bad economy and that's true, he admitted that. my friend from iowa, my

colleague went on to say, however, that president obama's made it worse. hasn't improved anything in the last two and a half years, his plan hasn't worked. i dare say it's been the republicans who have been blocking anything that we could do to put america back to work, including their voting no tomorrow which i understand they will, 0 to prevent us from getting this jobs bill through tomorrow on our infrastructure. a more charitable explanation is that republican ideology insists that government can't create jobs. this may be a sincere belief of most republicans, but i must point out it is sincerely wrong. across our nation's history, and often visionary federal government has funded and spearheaded initiatives that have expanded private commerce and given birth to countless inventions and new industries

and created tens of millions of jobs in the process. so let's take a look at the history. one of the most visionary advocates of federal investments to create jobs was believe it or not the father of the republican party, abraham lincoln. despite the disruption of the civil war, lincoln insisted on moving the nation forward through bold federal investments and initiatives. for example in 1862, he signed the pacific railway act, authorizing huge federal land grants to finance construction of the transcontinental railroad, one of the great technological feats of the 19th century. to produce the rails for this railroad he enacted a steep tariff on foreign steel in order to get the american steel industry going. there's a story, i don't know if it's real or apockry

sphal -- apocryphal about abraham lincoln. he was approached by i guess the free traders of his time, and said, you know, if you're going to build this transcontinental railroad, it would be cheaper to import the rails from england. they had the steel mills, they know how to do it, it would be cheaper to build them in england and ship them in here. it is said that lincoln thought about this for some time and he came back and he said well, it seems to me however, that if we buy the rails from england, then they've got our money and we've got the rails. but if we build the rails here, we have our money here and we have the rails. like i said, i don't know that story is true or not but i've

heard it many, many times in my lifetime. and thus he put a steep tariff, kept engine lapped's rails out, rebuilt our steel industry and as they say, the rest is history. these and other federal initiatives during lincoln's presidency created new industries, created millions of jobs. and, again, lincoln did this despite the fact the federal government was deeply in debt. deeply in debt. running huge deficits to finance the civil war. it's almost humorous to imagine how today's republicans would have reacted to lincoln's agenda. no doubt they would have attacked him as reckless and irresponsible. they would have whined that we're broke and can't afford to invest in the future. i keep hearing this all the time. we can't afford this. we can't afford to do this.

we're broke, we're broke. doesn't anybody understand we're broke. i keep pointing out the united states is the richest country in the history of mankind. the richest country in the history of mankind. we have the highest per capita income of any nation in the world. if we're so rich, why are we so broke? i'm sure that the tea party contingent would have demanded that lincoln be expelled from the party, all of which reminds us just how far the modern-day republican party has strayed from its progressive forward-thinking beginnings. indeed, indeed, the present-day republican party would have excoriated, excoriated president reagan. i see they just put a new nine-foot statue of him out at national airport. they should put underneath it

"he raised taxes in 1982, 1983 and 1984." yes, president reagan raised taxes 1982, 1983 and 1984. dwight eisenhower, another republican, championed one of the greatest public works tphropblgs other his -- projects in our history. a 1996 study of the system concluded the interstate highway has driven 40 years of unprecedented prosperity and positioned the united states to remain the world's preeminent power into the 21st century. and of course, of course franklin roosevelt in the depths of the depression put a lot of people to work, and they built a lot of good things. i thought i would bring over here, this is -- i hang this on the wall in my office. this is my father's -- not my

grandfather. this is my father's w.p.a. card. now for all you young people here, w.p.a. stands for the works project administration. it was instituted in the depression to put people back to work building public works projects. so this is my father's w.p.a. card because he was out of work. he went to work on w.p.a. it's got his name here, patrick f. harkin, cumming, iowa. it says you're asked to report ready for work at once at a project as a laborer, $40.30 per month. 130 hours max, warren county. signed by my father. now, my father went to work on w.p.a. this is his card. i keep it as a reminder of a lot

of things. but also a reminder of the good things the government can do. they gave my father a job. he was married, had five kids, the sixth one on the way -- me -- no work, no income. of course that was before social security or medicare or anything else. so, what did they do? they just stand around doing nothing? years later my father took me out to visit some of the projects that he worked on on w.p.a. there is a place south of des moines called lake aquavi h-rbs a-h-q-u-a-v-i. it is a huge state park. it is a recreational facility, camp grounds, boy scouts, big lake there. conference centers still being used today.

built by my father. well, not by him alone, but he worked on it in the w.p.a. still being used today. you can go in and look at the high school built by w.p.a. still being used today, i might add. so, my father was rather proud of the things he worked on. now, when they built the high school, did the government do it? was the government -- was it some kind of government entity that built it? no. it was a private contractor. who dug out the lake and built the things at lake aqhuavi? private contractors. the bill that are we're going to vote on tomorrow, the public works bill, putting america back to work jobs bill tomorrow would put people all over america back to work on highways and bridges and sewer and water systems and

things like that that would be employed by the private sector, by private companies to do the work. and the work needs to be done. many of the things my father and others in w.p.a. worked on in the 1930's still are being used today, although they're crumbling. they're crumbling. someone recently said that we are still driving on eisenhower's highways and going to roosevelt's schools. so what is our generation going to do to rebuild that infrastructure for future generations? i guess we're just going to sit around here and do nothing, because the republicans continue to filibuster and block any meaningful jobs bill from getting through the senate. mr. mccain: would the senator yield for a question as to how

much more time the senator will be taken for the benefit -- so we can adjust? mr. harkin: i would say to my friend from arizona, about less than ten minutes. about seven minutes. mr. mccain: i thank the senator. mr. harkin: i thank the senator. so investments like these, investments like what abraham lincoln did or what eisenhower did or franklin roosevelt did, investments that were led by lyndon baines johnson to educate our workforce, to retrain our workforce, to make sure every child had a good education in america, all of these, all of these helped people who were unemployed, helped them get jobs, helped them to become taxpayers. and it set the stage for economic growth in our country.

so, to me, the most obvious and quickest way to dramatically wrap up our federal investments in infrastructure is to pass this jobs bill. the american society of civil engineers estimates that america faces a $2.2 trillion infrastructure backlog. bringing the u.s. infrastructure into the 21st century would rapidly create millions of private-sector jobs, especially in the hard-hit construction industry, while modernizing our arteries and veins of commerce. mr. president, there can be no economic recovery without robust forward-thinking investments to boost our competitiveness and put people back to work. this means to invest in education, innovation, the infrastructure in america. and it means restoring a level playing field with fair taxation, fair taxation and good ladder of opportunity to give

every american the education they need to gain decent employment and achieve the american dream. again, it's all wrapped up in the rebuild america jobs act that we'll be voting on here tomorrow. i wish i could say that i'm hopeful that we could pass it, but i understand the republicans are going to filibuster it and we won't have the 60 votes needed. and that's just a shame because we need to put people back to work and we need to rebuild our infrastructure. and we can't wait much longer to do it. mr. president, with that, i yield the floor. and i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: the presiding officer: the

senator from south dakota. mr. thune: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on finance be discharged from further consideration of senate bill 720 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration, that the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table and any statements relating to the measure appear at the appropriate place in the record as if read. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. rockefeller: reserving the right to object, which this senator does, i want to make a comment and then i'll give my answer. mr. president, the good senator who is on the finance committee wants to repeal the "class" act. it's called long-term care. to be sure, the "class" act is not perfect but little of what we do in the senate is perfect. but if there's anything in this country which we ought to be driving towards, it's a

long-term care policy, which right now consists of impoverishing yourself and getting rid of your assets -- homes, house, whatever, car -- in order to classify for medicaid. that way you can get it. it's called the humiliation of americans for legitimate health care needs. the "class" act can be amended through the legislative process to make it sustainable for long term. always our friends on the other side of the aisle appeal something. you can lead people to the same sense of suffering as we found during the pepper commission where people prostrate themselves in order to qualify for medicaid, in which they haven't a chance at getting some long-term care. we need to discuss this because it's a huge problem. in 2008, 21 million americans

had a condition that caused them to need help with their health and personal care. why? because congress has shied away from this subject forever. we just made a habit of shying away from it. medicare does not cover long-term services and other supports. yet, about 70% of people over age 65 will require some type of long-term services and supports at some point in their lifetime. 70% of people over 65. as our population ages, the need for services will grow. and a little-known fact is that about 40% of the individuals who need long-term care are under the age of 65. and long-term care services and supports can help these individuals be more independent and to be part of the workforce and have a sense of self-esteem. medicare, as i say, does not cover these services.

the difference between medicare and medicaid and what each their role should be is something that there's now a separate agency in the health and human services which i helped promote, which is now sorting out what's the best relationship between the two so they don't have to duplicate each other, which they can sort of clarify roles and get at the problems. so, medicare doesn't cost -- cover these services. so medicaid is in fact the real de facto long-term care program in the country. and only after middle-class americans impoverish themselves are they allowed to get into that situation. again, the class act is not complete as an answer, but it was at long last an attempt on the part of the united states congress to do something about it. and that in itself was a signal victory, an attempt to live with dignity in their homes and their communities is not something which we should consider a

frivolous matter. those who are gloating today about the administration's decision not to carry forward with the class act are not the fiscal heroes they make themselves out to be. they have no answers. they have no answers. they have no alternative. but if you can just repeal something, boy, you can take that home and the people will say, they got rid of that party government. not having any understanding of what it does to people who have situations either of age or other problems which they cannot help. and they're called people. instead they use this as a political opportunity to bash the president. i was disappointed when the president did this. was very disappointed. was very disappointed. it doesn't mean we have to go along. imagine that, bark the president -- bashing the president, using seniors and people with disabilities as a political prop instead of putting forward real solutions. what this place lacks is in fact real solutions. a lot of people like to tease the health care bill. they are for the most part

wrong. not entirely wrong. but one thing they can't tease is the fact that a whole bunch of people called senators and congressmen and staff members worked really hard for a very long two years to try and come up with answers, and we did. so let's have a serious discussion how to meet the current and future needs of seniors and people with disabilities. they are all of our friends. we know them. those needs are not going away. having said that, i object to the senator's request. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. thune: mr. president, i appreciate the senator from west virginia's objection to this, and i appreciate his comments about the importance of long-term care. i agree. it's something that we need to address in this country. there are other ideas out there. and i think better ideas, ideas that are based upon incentives as opposed to creating a new government program. but let me just, if i might briefly here for a moment, add what i believe is the real

issue, and that is this was a program destined to fail. it was pretty clear from the beginning. many of us said that. there were 12 of my colleagues on the other side, 12 democrats, who voted to strike this particular provision from the health care bill back in december of 2009. i think at that time many of us were making the same arguments that the experts are now conceding at the department of health and human services. in fact, there were colleagues on the other side, one of my democrat colleagues called this a ponzi scheme of the highest order, something bernie madoff would be proud of. that is how it was being described before it was voted and put into the health care bill to help demonstrate the health care bill would reduce the deficit. but the fact of the matter now is after having had several months to look at this -- here we are 19 months or so later -- the department of health and human services concluded that this didn't work. they can't make it work. now the c.b.o. has come out and said it really doesn't impact the budget, so my view is we ought to repeal this. we ought to get it off the books. we ought to address this issue

but address it in a way that makes sense for the american people, not in a way that adds trillions of dollars of additional debt. if you look at what we have today in terms of unfunded liabilities, we have $61.6 trillion in unfunded liabilities in this country or $528,000 for every family. that's five ti -- that's five times what most families have in terms of car mortgages, home mortgages, other types of debt. this would have been yet another unfunded liability and the experts warned at the time -- we now have all the -- we did an investigation of this. it was published in september. i woshed with some of my house colleagues on it. what it concluded was the actuaries at h.h.s. were saying before this bill was even passed that, one it would be a recipe for disaster, would lead to an insurance death spiral, and the chief medicare actuary at h.h.s. said, 36 years of actuarial

experience lead me to believe that this would collapse in short order and require significant subdisois continue. that's what the expert were saying about this program way become before it was even voted on in 2009. so i think we ought to acknowledge what now everybody concludes to be the case. that is that this program won't work. it is actuarial unsound, and we ought to repeal it, get it off the books. that is simply what my motion would do. i have some expleetion that have been very active on this issue. i would say to my colleague from arizona that in light of this report that came out from h.h.s. last month, outlining exactly why they can't move forward with "class," it seems difficult to understand why the administration doesn't support repeal of this program. can you make any sense oust this contradiction and apparent hypocrisy to say a program doesn't work and yet we want to keep it on the books? mr. mccain: i don't quite

understand it either. in response to the senator from west virginia's comments about the importance of long-term care, i think all of us understand that. i think all of us meet and have interface with our constituents and recognize that the issue of long-term care is one of transcendent importance, and the senator from west virginia said he would be glad to make some changes or tweaks to the program. we'd be eager to hear of those. we'd be eager to hear how we could change the program, the "class" act, so that it is not, as senator conrad, chairman of the budget committee, said -- quote -- "that the clat ac class a ponzi scheme of the first order, the i kind of thing that person knee madoff would have been proud of." so i think it's pretty clear that if you accept senator conrad and other objective assessments of the "class" act,

that we've got to go back to square one. that you're not going to be able to fix a program which, according to the congressional budget office, said -- and i quote -- "the programs would add to budget deficits in the third decade and in succeeding decades by amounts in the order of tens of billions of dollars for each ten-year period." the class program would add to budget -- the congressional budget 0 office said, "would add to budget deficits in future decades even though the proposals require the secretary of health and human services to set premiums to ensure the program solvency for 75 years." and i had a like to interject. i know that my colleagues share my view. when senators leave, we kind of forget them and maybe we don't mention them anymore. but we owe a debt of gratitude to senator gregg, former senator from new hampshire, that put in

this provision that required solvency over a period of 75 years before it could be implemented. if it hadn't of been for that provision, we would now be moving forward with a program that according to the c.b.o. would add tens of millions of dollars added to the deficit in each ten-year period. so wherever you are, senator gregg -- and i know you're happier than you are here -- i would offer my appreciation and my thanks. i note the presence of dr. barrasso here. and i think there's something we ought to really understand about the class act. it did have a short-term impact, according to the way that the congressional budget office -- quote -- "scores things" -- tells us how much things will add or detract from the deficit, either plus or minus, and the fact is that the class act, in the first ten years -- because

younger people would be paying in in premiums and not going to the point where they were eligible for the benefits -- it disguised the cost of what we know now, what we call obamacare. and so because of the way they are restricted on scoring, the class act, at least for ten years, contributed $70 billion and helped them estimate that the health care reform act known as obamacare would have $122 billion in savings when in reality, after the first ten-year period, it was tens of billions of dollars in added deficit and burdens on average americans. so i would ask my colleague, senator barrasso, dr. barrasso, isn't there a way that we could address the long-term care problem in america?

is there a way that we could address this issue without piling on, as the c.b.o. judged the class act, as an increase of tens of billions of dollars to the deficit, which we all know right now is $44,000, i believe, for every man, woman, and child in america? mr. barrasso: i would respond to my colleague from arizona that we all have concerns for the people of america, and that's why we were here trying to offer constructive ideas to make sure that people would get the care that they need from the doctor that they want at a price they can afford. and we heard the president make promises that the cost of premiums would go down $2,500 a family. we've seen instead that the premiums have gone up. we've heard the president say, if you like what you have, you can keep it the and we saw that we've lost out on that. and so many people are going to lose their health coverage that they like under this new health care law, and so i would say to my colleague, absolutely there are things that we could do and should be doing.

it is astonishing, because i received through my medical office the aarp bulletin, and on the cover of this aarp bulletin for this past month, october 2011, the headline is "senator leader reid: the health care law is already working." this is what the senate majority leader has said on the cover of the aarp bulletin. yet the kaiser survey that traction public views about the health care law every month have come out with their recent numbers and the results are astonishing. the american people have seen through this health care law to the point that a majority of americans now have an unfavorable view of the health care law. mr. mccain: we now have about two-thirds of what was advertised as a savings now going by the boards, $70 billion of the advertised $122 billion in total savings that we voted

on not that long ago. is that -- mr. barrasso: that's exactly way i read t it's the way the american people read it which is why the overall favorablety of the health care law stands at an all-time low. mr. thune: by the way, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that we be able to enter into a colloquy for 25 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: and i would simply say -- and we have the ranking member of the budget committee here -- that it strikes me that there were probably lots of other budget girm mix that were used in the -- gimmicks that were used in the health care law that are going 0 come to the surface in the same twhai this class act -- in the same way that this class act gimmick has. the senator from arizona pointed out, they tried to understate the true cost of this thing by particular ago lot of savings in the early years as people were paying premiums knowing full well in the out years it would add billions of dollars to the deficit. so it was a gym make that was used again to make it sail to

believe the american people and salable to here. there were still a majority of senators who voted against this voted to strike this provision from the health care bill in 2009. we ought to have bipartisan support that everyone, it's come out, has recognized what we were trying to tell them in advance, that is that this doesn't work that it was a gimmick. we ought to get it off the books. i would just ask my colleague, the ranking member of the budget committee, about this budget gimmick that was used on this. does it -- is it illogical to think that if you have this $2.5 trillion expansion of government in the form of this new health care bill that somehow it's going to reduce the federal deficit? because that's the argument that was made at the time. this is one of the reasons that they were able to make this argument. there are probably lots of other gimmicks that we're going to uncover. but i would ask for his comments, being the ranking member of the budget committee.

mr. sessions: mr. president, senator thune has deserved a lot of credit for pursuing this issue tenaciously and seeing his prediction validated now by the -- president obama's own secretary that this can't be a viable program. but you are exactly correct. one of the greatest financial misrepresentations in history, if it continues to be on the books, will be the contention that this health care bill would actually create money for the united states treasury, actually produce a surplus. and they use add ten-year scoring model, $70 billion -- about 60% or so -- of the total savings this bill is alleged to produce -- not savings, actual revenue, net revenue increase -- was this program. and now it's gone.

and as senator mccain correctly said, judd gregg deserves great credit for it because what he did was, he put it in the bill that the secretary had to certify that this was a sound program. certify that it was a sound program. and so after all the political smoke had been going on, after the bill had been passed, while they were defending it as a viable class act program that would actually produce revenue for the government, when she had to certify it, i suppose under penalty of perjury, could go to jail if she didn't do it correctly, she said she could not do so. it was never possible this bill was going to be a money makerrer for the united states treasury and they double counted maybe $300 billion, $400 billion, $500 billion in medicare money, also cowpts cowrchlts the as income to fund an entirely -- als also

counted as income to fund an entirely new bill. their estimates have been wildly inaccurate concerning the ability to bring the cost curve down, to actually reduce health care. this was something that a lot of people thought was a good idea. this was going to produce a reduction in our insurance benefits. since the bill has passed, they've gone up dramatically, just the opposite of what was promised. so i think this is a death necessaril--this is a death knee entire becomecare concept. this is just one more example of it. i thank you and i -- mr. mccain: the thing that is a little bit hard to understand and maybe dr. barrasso understands it, the secretary of health and human services said they can find no way to implement it, after nearly two years. so why would there be an objection to senator thune's -- senator thune has just moved to repeal the class act. i mean, if they tried for all of

these months since the passage of the bill to figure pout a way they can -- to figure out a way they can meet the judd gregg proviso that required 75-year sustainsability, then one would wonder, one would wonder why -- i thought showght wa shouting w- one would wonder why we wouldn't just go ahead and repeal it. and if ther there is a better proposal, as we've all agreed, to address the long-term care issue in america, then why don't we sit down at the drawing board and find a way to cash fo care r people who in their most vulnerable years need government substance? i know of no one in this body who is topped a viable, reasonable -- who is opposed to a viable, reasonable, fiscally sound long-term care program. this is not it. that's not even close. so i wonder why my colleagues on

the other side of the aisle would want -- would be -- would reducrefuse to repeal it unlesss a distorted pride in authorship. mr. thune: just to say to our colleague from wyoming who is a if i saingsdz has a lot of experience on these issues, who comes down every week with a second opinion about the health care bill and a most recent one as we've all seen now is contrary to predictions, health care costs are going up, predictions that were they would go down that. is also something that many of us saw coming. but just the question about, okay, if we leave this on the books and if they decide at some point to resurrect it after they have already acknowledged that it doesn't work but come up with some new language that does away with the judd gregg proviso on there, what are the fiscal consequences of this program being resurrected? i mean, you know, we've talked

about this and there were lots of predictions made at the time. in fact, the senator from arizona i think had some of our colleagues who made statements on the floor at the time about how this was going to be a great deal and how it was going to work. the -- the administration said at the time that this is, this is not a budget gimmick. that's what they were quoted at saying. clearly this was a budget gimmick. we all know that now. it is a ponzi scheme, at least clearly that's what the actuaries are saying at health and human services. so if they -- if, in fact, we don't get this repealed and we end up at some point this program being resurrected, what are the fiscal consequences and implications for the country and for future generations who are going to be saddled with yet another unfunded liability, another entitlement program that isn't paid for? a senator: to my colleague, i would say i think this is devastating for the country, and i told the president directly that i thought his proposal overall was going to bankrupt the country. mr. barrasso: you know, we stood here and debated over a year ago the fact that the democrats in

this body were voting to take $500 billion away from our seniors on medicare. not to save medicare but to start a whole new government program for somebody else. and when we talk about long-term care and what people need over the course of their lifetime, they took money away from hospice. they took money away from home health. they continued to take money away from hospitals and the physicians who take care of our seniors. mr. mccain mccain: mccain: liker medicare advantage program. mr. barrasso: which has an advantage, because it coordinates care, it has a number of things that are important. but i believe this is the reason that just last week in the kaiser poll, the number of individuals who have a very favorable view of the overall health care law has dropped to 12%, an all-time low. the number of people who think now that this health care law will -- that they will personally be better off under the health care law is only 18%, an all-time low.

the number of people in the country who think that the country as a whole will be better off due to the health care law stands at 28%, an all-time low. so the american people realize that we need truth, honesty in budgeting. and i know my colleague from the budget committee is working on that, has an op-ed that i read, has a proposal, working on that. that's what the american people want. they want some honesty in budgeting, not the kind of politics and bu gimmicks and tricks -- and budget gimmicks and tricks that we see happening here. and the american people are tired of being misled and sold a bill of goods. they see through it, they don't like it, they don't want it and that's why all of the polling on the health care law shows it at an all-time low. mr. thune: well, i would just say and to my colleagues, i think what this suggests is, you know, we -- we all saw this coming and we tried our best to

prevent it but now we know and we've got these statements that came out as a part of the report that was done by the house and senate, investigative report called "the class act: the untold story," and it was published in september. but what it revealed was that the health and human services department actuaries, the people who are really the experts, not the politicians, not those of us who were -- were making many of these statements during the political debate that we were having here in the senate, but the people who actually are responsible for doing the math on this, came up and said that they -- they called the class program a recipe for disaster. and those were in internal e-mail as that we discovered when -- e-mails that we discovered when we were doing this investigation. and prior to their announcement in october that h.h.s. isn't moving forward with the class program at this time, secretary sebelius and other officials at the health and human services department claimed through much of 2011 that the department had sufficient authority to modify

it. what they were trying to suggest is that we can make this work and yet these internal documents cast significant doubts on all of those assertions. and, in fact, and i'll repeat this again because i think it's important. the chief actuary during 2009, when this program was being debated -- it was a part of the health care bill, it was during the debate here in the united states senate -- richard foster said -- and i quote again -- "36 years of actuarial experience lead notice believe that this program would collapse -- lead me to believe that this program would collapse in short order and require significant federal subsidies to continue." that was what they were saying in 2009, before this vote ever occurred. and he also went on to say that this would end -- and quote again -- "an insurance death spiral because the coverage would only be attractive to sicker people who would need costly services and it would force premiums higher and deter healthy individuals from enrolling." so you had all this -- all the experts that were putting all this information out there and sharing this with their

superiors, all of whom were out there on the record promoting this as being something that would work and it's something that is not a budget gimmick but actually could, in fact, cancel out and be actuarially sound. we all know now that it wasn't t. wasn't then, it isn't now, and that's why we ought to repeal it. so i would, again, i appreciate my colleagues' input and work on this. i think this is something that we -- we really ought to put a -- just end it. i mean, we need to put the final touches on this program, end it once and for all so that it doesn't come back in some other form and -- and saddle future generations with trillions of dollars of additional unfunded liabilities and debt. there are ways that we can approach this issue. in fact, i've got some ideas that i introduced in 2007 that deal with long-term care and providing incentives for people to -- to provide for that important need that we all are going to be faced with at some point we hope in our lives.

but this is the wrong way. this was the wrong way. the wrong prescription at the beginning. it's the wrong prescription now. that's why it ought to be repealed. mr. sessions: senator thune, if i recall, you quoted chief actuarial -- actuary richard foster and his statement that this would collapse during the debate on the floor. this was talked about but the administration and our democratic colleagues just refused to listen. they continued to repeat the idea that they would have this large surplus and they counted this money as surplus money in justifying voting for passage of this bill when common sense told us in a host of areas, including this one, it wasn't going to produce a surplus. and it goes to me something systemic about our problem and why this congress, now i guess going into the third year, will

be borrowing 40% of the money that the united states spends. it's because the politics is we want to pass the bill. and when somebody shows it's not act warmly sound -- actuarially sound and it's going to cost money in the out-years, they don't worry about that. somebody will take care of that in the out-years and it's that kind of mentality that i think has helped overrule commonsense budgeting. we haven't had a budget now in over 900 years -- 900 days in this united states senate. and so this is not the kind of responsible approach to managing the taxpayers' money. and i know senator barrasso raised this repeatedly, that this should not be counted. but did we hear secretary sebelius at that time? she -- back in 2009, she wrote to senator kennedy and said, "to express administration support for inclusion of this bill,"

calling it an innovative bill. so they were supporting it, promoting it, totally ignoring the critics, and as a result, they got the bill passed on a straight party-line vote. as a matter of fact, i believe senator brown from -- had senator brown from massachusetts taken office two weeks sooner, there wouldn't have been the 60 votes necessary to pass it. there would only have been 59 and the bill would not be law today. so i just thank both of you for your consistent, steadfast explanation of the financial danger of this legislation, your willingness to continue to carry that fight on. and i hope we learn something throughout our whole budgetary and financial process here. we can't continue to play games with the american people's mon money. we've got to be honest with them. honest about a budget, honest

about what things are going to cost and only then can we get the country on a sound footing. mr. thune: we've got to quit making promise as that we can't keep. and i think what we're seeing today in our -- in europe and all the meltdown that's occurring in all the economies over there are too many promise as that were made, too much government debt, governments that have gotten too big that can no longer be supported by the economies in those country. and that's where we're headed and that's why we have got to start living within our means, we've got to quit spending money that we don't have. and that's -- this was a perfect example i think of -- of the -- just the tendency around here to -- to want to grow government, to have a government answer, a government solution for everything when this makes matters not better but much worse. much, much worse for hard-working taxpayers in this country and for future generations of americans, for whom this would become an enormous liability added already to the $528,000 that every family in this country owes, the

mortgage that they have on the their -- their families already as a result of the unfunded liabilities we've already racked up. we can't keep making promises that we can't keep. and so i hope that we can get this repealed and i appreciate my colleagues' hard work in that regard and look forward to -- to getting an opportunity to get it voted on. i'm sorry that it was -- that our request this afternoon to repeal it was rejected but i happy to we'll get another opportunity to revisit that and perhaps a vote that will actually put people on the record because i do believe there are a majority of senators who agree with us on this point. mr. sessions: mr. president, i would just say that just a couple of weeks ago, the "wall street journal," after all this happened, wrote that, "including this class act was a special act of fiscal corruption." now, if a private business had done this, if a private business had said, invest in my company.

i've got a plan that's going to be sound and that's going to make money in the future, and trust me, invest your money with me, vote for me and they knew and had evidence in their files and their own employees were saying it wasn't sound, it was actually going to cost money, i wonder what would happen to them. senator barrasso and senator thune? mr. barrasso: well, you know, you would hear about it a lot, and this speaks to the problems that we have in this body when you write legislation in the cloak of darkness, behind closed doors, come in and vote at 1:00 in the morning and try to jam things through at a time when an administration calls for openness and transparency and then they do this sort of thing with -- with the books in a manipulative way to try to come up with ways to say that it saves money. in any other true, real busine business, people would go to jail for this sort of behavior,

i would assume. the -- it's -- is it wrong, all the way wrong? we've seen other so-called bets that this administration has made which have the american people scratching their head. and just yesterday, it was noted that fannie mae, freddie mac, bonuses have been paid to ten of their executives to the tune of over $12 million. i've called for the president to cancel those bonuses. the white house is fairly silent on that. yet when senator obama was running for president, he wrote a letter to the treasury secretary and said, make sure no bonuses go to freddie and fann fannie. now under his administration, $12 million, it was reported yesterday, went to ten executives. doesn't seem to be a problem now. he said the -- the white house said there was nothing they could do about it. well, why not get the secretary of the treasury involved? that's what candidate obama did

in 2008. it's time for this white house to stand up and do what's right. mr. sessions: let me just say a little bit of an explanation about how this happened, the more accurate explanation. the congressional budget office scored this as a surplus indeed over ten years, and as senator mccain said, the benefits only come out after five years, and these are younger people paying in, so the real benefits and payments take place in outer years. and the question is is the plan sufficient to be actuarially sound for the distant future when the payouts really occur? so what happened was they -- mr. mr. orzag, who had been c.b.o. director, said it was not a gimmick and not a ponzi scheme. well, in one sense, he was telling the truth.

he was using a window score from the congressional budget office over the first ten years when it didn't pay out any benefits and had a surplus to claim that the -- that this was going to be -- make the bill itself financially sound. and in a sense to me, it's these kind of gimmicks that might keep somebody from being prosecuted and sent to jail if they were a private person that ought to end in the congress. i think the american people are crying out for honesty in budgeting. they want us to be responsible, to tell them the good news but to tell them the bad news financially that we face, and that they know we can't do things we'd like to do if we don't have the money, and they know we don't have the money to keep taking on new obligations. so i just feel like that this is not healthy. now, when secretary sebelius

came along and had to certify that they had a 75-year actuarially sound program, no way she could do it. and it just knocks a gaping hole into the entire scheme of this health care bill. so i think it's a lesson for all of us on every vote we do, we need to be sure that we are honest, not only in the short-term window but in the long term also. mr. thune: the focus around here is focused on the short term, the near term, the game, to be able to have some sort of a political victory at the expense of what's in the best interests of this country, and our children and grandchildren, this is a perfect example of that. i appreciate my colleagues being here, and this discussion will be continued. mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. barrasso: i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: i would ask unanimous consent that senator sessions and i have up to 15 -- the presiding officer: a quorum call is in progress, senator. mr. vitter: excuse me. i ask unanimous consent to vitiate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: now i ask unanimous consent that senator sessions and i have up to 15 minutes for a colloquy. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, senator sessions and i come to the floor following the discussion of a lot of important issues here on the floor to discuss the most important issue back home for us this week, which is the upcoming national championship game, regular season national championship game between l.s.u. and alabama. in the history of the s.e.c., this is the first-ever regular

season matchup between a number one and number two team in the s.e.c. as most folks probably know, l.s.u. and alabama are both 8-0 overall and 5-0 in the s.e.c. now, obviously, i know who is going to win, the tigers are going to win. they have beaten five ranked opponents this year. three of those away from home, as we're going to have to play alabama. they have outscored all opponents 314-92 this year. and, not to get cocky or anything, but l.s.u. has beaten alabama eight out of the last 11 years, including four out of the last five times in tuscaloosa. now, we have a lot of strengths. our senior quarterback jarrett lee leads the s.e.c. in passing efficiency. we have a ferocious defense led by lineman sam montgomery and defensive backs tie ron matthew and mo clayburn.

tyron, by the way, is much better known as honey badger. this is a prelude to the b.c.s. championship, which, by the way, is going to be in january in new orleans in the superdome. so we feel great going into this game, and that's why i was very eager to get with both senators from alabama and have a friendly wager, which the senator from alabama will explain. the loser is going to treat the winners to some great gulf shrimp and other seafood. we feel great about it, so we look forward to it, and senator sessions, as i turn the floor over to you, i would just summarize our feelings in louisiana in a simple way. you all have a great team, maybe one of the best alabama teams ever, but it really doesn't matter who l.s.u.'s opponent is, because as we say in louisiana,

the honey badger takes what he wants, and we're looking forward to doing that on saturday night. mr. sessions: well, senator vitter, i thank you for those confident comments. we're going to look forward to being very hospitable to the fabulous l.s.u. fans that will be in tuscaloosa for the titanic tussle in tuscaloosa. the game of the century, many are calling it, the match of the millennium between alabama and l.s.u. it's always a big game, and it's going to be a big game especially this year. while we have a minute here on the floor and there is no other business being conducted, i just want to celebrate college football, particularly in the southeastern conference. when you go to those games and the color and the crowd and the enthusiasm and the roar of the -- for the home team, it's just a thrilling event. it's just very, very special.

the fans in tuscaloosa are very, very sophisticated. they know this is a big game, a -- one of the biggest games in the history of the university of alabama, and they know when good plays are good and bad plays are bad. it's just going to be exciting. they know l.s.u. is consistently one of the great teams in america. so alabama is doing pretty well. 8-0. their all-star defense is number one in scoring and number one in total defense. their number one rushing -- they are the number one rushing defense in the country, allowing only 44 yards per game rushing, a historic number that ranks better than alabama's national championship team in 1992 and the undefeated, untied 1966 team that was famous. so it's going to be a special time. our university is a great university. the university of alabama has been growing in strength for

years now. it has one of the great presidents in america, dr. witt, and my high school classmate, judy bonner, is the provost there, sister of congressman joe bonner. it's an exciting time. academically and otherwise, university of alabama is in one of the best periods of its history. i'd also like to point out and the l.s.u. fans and chef john folds and rick atera mantieu are sponsoring a louisiana-alabama gumbo bowl to benefit victims of the hurricane. for all the talk that's going on this week, i do hope to see the kind of respect that this partnership indicates among all our fans.

and while i don't think it will happen, should les miles and his team somehow manage to get out of tuscaloosa with a victory, i would love to treat you and senator landrieu to some of the finest gulf seafood there is, healthy and straight from the gulf of mexico, which you know is fresher and cleaner and finer than it ever has been, and maybe we could garnish it with some of that green grass that marks the field that marks the stadium. so i understand les miles is a fan, and i would also be more than happy to bring you an alabama tie on monday after the game, which i think would really look good, senator vitter, if you wear it on the united states senate floor. mr. vitter: well, mr. president, should the unthinkable happen, i will do that, and should the unthinkable happen, i will deliver fresh, healthy gulf seafood to senator sessions'

office as well as senator shelby's. we have been in contact with senator shelby's office and senator landrieu's office, and they are part of this friendly arrangement as well. so we'll look forward to that, but most of all we'll look forward to a great game saturday night, and we'll both look forward to a win saturday night. one of us will have to be disappointed, we'll see who, but it's going to be a great game. mr. sessions: i thank you, senator vitter, for your friendship and good service here in the senate. we have worked on so many things together. but college football is a special, special thing, and i think the game this weekend will be one of the great games in college history. i'm so excited about it. i know fans in both our states and really throughout the country are excited about it. mr. vitter: amen. mr. president, with that, we yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

mr. menendez: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: mr. president, i came to the floor to speak about a different type of football. it seems to be the political football that we seem to have some of our colleagues playing on the question of getting america back to work again, and i am amazed at the political posturing that we have seen this year. i know for some of our colleagues on the other side, this election cycle has been driven by tea party economics that demand political purity over good governance. they have said no to just about everything, and the problem with no to everything is that no

doesn't create a job, no doesn't build an economy, no doesn't create prosperity, no doesn't get america moving again, and they have said no to every different venture that we have had to try to put america back to work. certainly back in my home state of new jersey, what i hear from the average citizen is, senator, help me get back to work. because i have new jerseyans who come up to me, sometimes with tears in their eyes, and say this is the first time in my life that i have been unemployed and while that has created a significant economic consequence to them and their family, it has shaken something even more profound, which is that social contract, that promise in america that if i prepare myself, work hard and sacrifice, i