of both medication use and appropriate care of dementia across hospital, outpatient and nursing home settings and gave 11 recommendations that i think despite the, um, large pool of water between our two countries has a lot of application that we can take and use in our thinking today. ..

if we merely target this is one class of drugs in one setting we may have unintended consequences. for instance if we look at one narrow scope of drugs, what will happen is the pre scribers will shift to other equally inappropriate drugs such as sensitive -- sedatives and anti seizure medicines which also carry a risk of falls, contusion and death. it is bigger than a drug problem of low the drug is the tip of the iceberg of the underlying issue. we also addressed that is not just a nursing home problem. if we focus just on the solutions in the nursing home by caution we don't create inappropriate barriers to access for people who desperately need appropriate nursing-home care. so i think the short-term solution is in fact not a short-term solution but twofold strategy that ties into a longer sustained culture change. trustees application of non pharmacological interventions.

we talked about hydrotherapy. second is when medications -- close monitoring of appropriate and limiting use. we heard from cms there are existing regulations. and won't go over them again. i will distilled them. when i worked with my own patients and staff in nursing homes we narrowed it to five questions. one is sophisticated to cajun. why you would want to use the drug and what is a valid indication. if there was an appropriate indication is it still appropriate now? maybe the issue was a day ago legally week ago the transition happened, education is resolved, payne has been appropriately addressed. if the person is on anti psychotic is it working? what you are trying to address, have you documented its effectiveness and our use the standard is the person better able to function in their environment on the madison than not? have a family or caregiver been involved in the choice?

are they aware of indications, risks and potential benefits and have they been engaged in that discussion and is there a history of appropriate non pharma logical -- pharmacological intervention? if the answer is no, then the midst of not be started or discontinued. the long-term answer, knowing that dealing with the methods alone is like, look at fiscal restraint reduction, that my colleague toby referred to. is a sustained campaign where care givers focus on real person centered care alternatives including direct work force training with evidence based tools. and non pharmacological interventions. and true monitoring used to ensure proper indication those and response. this will all take a collaborative partnership of. include cms, staff physicians across the health care continue.

pharmacists, director work force and care givers. we need accurate data to look at the time we information to payback subscribers and large-scale applied research to look at how these models can be disseminated widely. we need surveyor training which includes mention and investment in meaningful work force. we at leadingage talk about some solutions like not-for-profit difference convene they were group already looking at exciting models. a couple of will mention, my colleague jennings in cleveland or in minnesota they're taking the same philosophy of medication free treatment for dementia looking at remarkable behavior intervention and alternatives. lastly i want to acknowledge that leading -- leadingage is representing truly multi stakeholder coalition that is committed to improving quality care for life -- for people in nursing homes. so in summary yes, we have a significant problem with

inappropriate use. the solution is how we better take care of persons with dementia which includes focusing on dignity, compassion, have an across-the-board approach that involve direct care givers, staff, prescribe birth, physicians, nurses and families and their loved ones as part of the care giver chain. we set the challenge that nursing-home is should not be the problem but we believe they could be the center of excellence for improving dementia care and learning laboratory for the rest of the health-care setting. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. dr. evans, you are you using antipsychotics as patients for dementia is a last resort when all the other interventions have been tried and failed. your experience in behavioral intervention failed. what is your estimate of how commonly antipsychotics would be used if health care

professionals were trained in how to effectively and efficiently deploy a range of behavioral interventions? >> as was mentioned earlier, in so many words if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. that is a problem that we are dealing with now. as i mentioned in my testimony i don't use these drugs to treat behavior. these drugs study after study have shown are ineffective in treating behavior and i believe that if the appropriate steps were taken or even if they weren't taken the use of these medications could be reduced to pretty close to zero. in a variety of settings. that being said, because only a small proportion of these medications happen in nursing-home is it may not have a huge impact you are hoping

for. $8 billion depends on off label use of these drugs currently. year. based on the o ig report < of course of that is in nursing-home. >> what is your answer? >> my answer is close to zero. my personal practice is zero. other doctors give you a different number. but there are so many other things that can be done that this really does not represent good dementia care. >> mr. peterson's tragic death seemed to be a wake-up call for the need to find better ways to provide care for individuals with dementia. in the outsiders community in wisconsin promoting information and training programs throughout our state so we can prevent others suffering the same

misfortune. how can we in washington promote these training programs? >> there are several answers to the question. we have two national programs. foundation of dementia care which is a classical operas for director, staff and supervisors and the on line care program which has a number of modules designed to train a number of different assets of quality care and the person from leadingage is correct that this problem is in the middle of a bigger set of problems. method within a number of other problems around quality care. we certainly believe staff training and education is critical. we think it did happen at all levels. certainly for b.c. and as as seen in the affordable care act

but often times it is the janitor or someone else in the facility that picks up fun behavior's earlier and says something is wrong with that gentleman in that hallway and we should check this out and that wave of the problems take place furth further. on our chapter level we have a 16 hour dementia care specialists training which is highly in demand across wisconsin. in many of these cases we see for replication of these training programs that staff have a wake-up call and they have new tools beyond the hammer and nail to address these difficult issues. a further problem to complicate this a little bit is staff turnover in the facilities which is very rampant. you can go to the same facility you trained in a year later and see a whole sea of frustration that were not there before because of staff turnover. we don't really value these positions these jobs do in our society. we need to look at that as why

aren't we providing a better standard of living for the people working in the facility? >> thank you very much. toby edelman, what staff training would you require cms required to curb the problem that nursing homes and training to be provided also in assisted living facilities and other health-care settings? >> training would be extremely important. i think we could have the model we had with physical restraint when the reform law was implemented in 1990. cms did a lot of training how to remove physical restraints within person training that i attended. now cms does a lot of training with satellite broadcast. it can do that. it can send the word and train people all over the country in better care practices. one of the organizations i have been working with very closely

in the antipsychotic drug issue leagues that advocates for nursing home reform conducting a series of training in the state. they had won a week or so ago with several hundred nursing-home residents, staff members and they are having people who have what dr. evans described. not provide care to people with dementia but provide care without chemical restraints and having people who have done it teach other facilities how to do it. very effective. it worked with physical restraint and chemical restraints as well. >> that is good. thank you. dr. phillips. hospitals and nursing homes working together to reduce the rate of leadingage -- antipsychotic use and if not leadingage is working to make this happen. >> the short answer is no and that is unfortunate. there is a chasm between hospitals and nursing homes in a variety of problems and i think the appropriate care of dementia

is but one of them. the opportunity certainly through some of the new models of integrated care provisions is an excellent starting point. it will take more than meds 11 alone and that is why we are working closely with collaborators such as advancing excellence because we recognize as we provide that basis to learn from people who are doing it well and how to replicate it but also to inform the physicians across the continuing that there are valid and real alternatives. lastly i want to put in an important issue we talked about staff turnover. the alzheimer's association. one thing advancing excellent identified is when you have consistent staffing so when the same person as often possible taking care of the same president of the behavior issues also tend to decline. that is another area that we at leadingage working with advancing excellence are working

on better understanding both staff turnover but also staff consistency has probably a key quality measure and that relates to pressure and the behavior management in persons with dementia. >> you talked about informed consent. do you believe family members of dementia patients understand the use of typical anti psychotic drugs can be quite harmful and it is not what can we do to ensure family members understand the risks of these drugs for their loved ones who cannot communicate their needs clearly and have behavior problems? >> the process of informed consent very seldom occurs in prescription and administration of these medications in any setting when treating behavior. part of the reason for that is

the use of these medications very often represents a great deal of frustration and caregiver stress whether it is a hospital or nursing home or elsewhere and there is sort of a fantasy that if somehow there were a magic pill that would make it go away the brittle all would be well. often times these drugs are initiated in kind of crisis situations where it is considered by the people involved to be urgent and therefore often times family members aren't notified. i think in that particular situation what is going on is these medicines and others like them, other classes of drugs are really being used as

tranquilizers. there really aren't diseases that i know of that only occur on one shift or on saturdays only work between when they're given a report at the hospital or something like that. the pattern under which these crises develop often are related to other things going on in the environment. frankly i think of this problem we are talking about, the same way i think about asbestos. it has been used everywhere based on what at one time seemed a like a good idea but now we know it is harmful and we have to get rid of it and it is a rather expensive proposition. but informed consent at least includes patients and families

in the discussion. one of the fundamental bases, one of the most basic ethical principles about care in this country and autonomy and i really can't defend not getting patient's permission to be provided treatment. certainly wouldn't stand for that if it was a surgery. but the risks we are talking about are of comparable magnitude. having informed consent as part of the process in some ways allows for a little bit of a cooling off period as well in that those conversations should happen in the light of day. but i think the reality is witty is easy and convenient is what gets done.

substantial and enduring change requires changing with the inconvenience. >> your testimony notes that 40% of nursing home residents are considered to be at high risk of receiving a typical antipsychotic drug due to behavior problems which is an astonishingly high number. is there evidence that behavior problems somehow become worse over time? >> i don't know that we have any evidence that behavior problems have gotten worse. i think that residents have behavior issues and there is not a staff that knows the presidents or how to deal with them. general recognition that nursing-home understaffs so they're not dealing with problems as well as they might. nursing-home does maybe do have presidents who are more seriously ill than before. we have a new alternative of assisted living now where some

people with lesser problems -- they are beginning to look more like nursing home residents all time and i have seen some reports indicating they take more drugs than nursing home residents. it is hard to say. there are issues that people have and they are not being dealt with properly. that is the primary concern. >> dr. phillips. did you want to comment? >> from the clinical history of dementia the behavior's when they are problematic are facing. early on in the disease process not so much. somewhere in the middle face and not for every one that usually by outside triggering events. too much noise or fatigue or pain or other medical problems. something that creates an education but quite frequently, most commonly in advance dementias the behavior's fade away if not disappear entirely. even if one argued that

occasionally the medications are appropriate for short term use another piece of the problem is it is like barnacles. once people are on these medicines they don't come off. they stay on and move from setting to setting with these medicines as part of their package. when we think it is not just that behavior gets worse over time, it may be worth somewhere in the middle of the person's clinical course with dementia but not everyone with dementia has difficult behavior's and certainly the vast majority of difficult behaviors are triggered and therefore resolved by outside environmental issues that can be much better addressed through intervention rather than pills. >> dr. phillips, are there safer medications than anti's narcotics with individuals with dementia and so what are they? >> to address specifically pain, we have another issue in the

nursing-home that i know you are familiar with which is appropriate treatment of pain for nursing home residents. it has been noted by several studies that even the use of medications like morphine when people are in pain their confusion gets better. if there contusion was due to an treated payne. what i am cautious and mentioned earlier are unintended consequences if we don't substitute antipsychotics for other inappropriate drugs but having said that, sometimes the very best management for a person who is acutely agitated who cannot give us their story through words is to look and see if pain is the underlying problem and treat the pain. sumner's homes have routinely looked at low dose of medicines like acetaminophen to use in persons with dementia who have risked for pain to see if that weather than waiting for their behavior to escalate if that doesn't modulate some of the agitation underlying. i am certainly not reporting

that we just give medicine willy-nilly to everybody without being careful about the appropriate indication for any medicine including pain medicine. but part of one piece of this problem is when we don't appropriately treat pain we see it result in increased education and what we label as difficult behavior's in persons with dementia. >> may i say something? researcher i talked about at the end of my testimony in new york has done work and i will try to get a copy and submit it for the record. she has looked at residents who have dementia and whether they get as much pain medication and those without dementia with the same physical diagnoses and medical problems and she found they don't get as much pain medication as non dementia presidents so that is a strong indication that a lot of the problems people are in pain and it is not being treated properly because it hasn't been identified.

cms is trying to fix that. the 3.0 which has been in for over a year has changed the way facilities assess president's payne. in the past the staff wrote down with it a thought residents were in pain. now staff is asking residents if they are in pain. the numbers are considerably higher than we have seen before because most people think 50% or 60% of residents have some pain problems. fat gets identified and treated, there might be -- this could really be a very important way of getting around and are psychotic drug use. the pain is not being identified and treated. >> please submit that to us. tom hlavacek, any comments you want to make to this panel? >> thank you so much for holding this hearing. one thing that was touched upon

was the whole concept of care transition. i think that is a very important fees for the committee to consider going into the future. we have definitely seen a breakdown in communication in our task force between the hospital and nursing homes and assisted living facilities. people get transferred out of the facility into a hospital. the bed may close behind the individual. the hospital may have a difficult time getting the person back some place in the community that is appropriate. the hospital on the other hand may say we send them back to the facility and they show up back here in a few days and we can't have that happen because of the medicare readmission rules so i think looking at those care transitions in light of this particular issue would be very informative because of the fact that our experiences, that is one place the use of those medications can truly have delays. we heard nursing-home say they come back from the hospital and

are on more medications that we know what to do with. we heard hospitals say when they come here throughout 12 medications how does the nursing-home allow that to happen? it is a complex issue but i think there's a lot of room for hospitals and nursing homes including assisted living to have a strong self-interest in fixing that problem. doesn't work for anybody. i think that will be a great area for development of policy and collaboration. >> anybody else like to add to this very informative discussion? mr. evans? >> if i could just add we have a huge problem in this country with extraordinarily expensive care and significant concern about health care quality such that we are not getting our

money's worth. as this hearing described, doctors have a large share of responsibility for many problems that exist in health care particularly when prescribing medications and i believe that doctors have a responsibility to be part of the solution. my colleagues and i are very committed to solving this problem. i also would like to say that good care really shouldn't depend in this country on where you go to get it. people should have a reasonable expectation of good care anywhere and everywhere whether it is on hospital or nursing home, and office. it is my hope that in my

lifetime that i will seek the standard of care being applied equally across all care settings. successful and a setting in -- effective in one setting. >> thank you, dr. evans. >> it is important as training is that it is important for facilities to be trained and prescribe birth to be trained it is also important that dms strength and the excellent regulations that it already has and the guidelines but put some attention on it. so if each survey made sure to include in the president example president with antipsychotic drugs focusing attention on this issue would be helpful and the enforcement could be strengthened to. i read a couple decisions from the administrator where

unnecessary drugs and antipsychotic drugs have been sighted but the penalty was $300 a day. $3,900 penalty for overmedicating a president seems like a very inadequate penalty. finally there are a couple laws and regulations that could help strengthen what we have as an excellent base of regulation. six of seven prescription drugs that you introduced last month would require physicians certification that the off label prescription of an anti psychotic drug is hermetically indicated dramatically accepted indication. that would be important and we hope that would get enacted. cms propose changing regulations to make sure they are independent. that is important. independent consultant pharmacists can make an important difference to call physician's attention that there is a problem prescribing a drug. the physicians are required to respond to the irregularities.

not that they keep records but respond -- required to respond. in 1992 cms proposed regulations on chemical restraints which strengthen the requirements on informed consent. those regulations have never been issued in final form and we would encourage dms to do that as well. >> thank you all very much for being here. this is a very important issue. you did show and a lot of flight as we move forward. thank you so much. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in to start there day. general speeches 11:00 this

morning. more work is expected the fiscal year 2012 programs. final vote on the measure possible later today. now live to the senate floor on c-span2. the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. o god, our father, we look to you this day for help. without your help, our senators

can see the ideal, but cannot reach it. they can know the right, but cannot do it. they can seek the truth, but cannot fully find it. they can recognize their duty, but cannot perform it. empowered by your might, help them to reach beyond guessing to knowing and beyond doubting to certainty regarding your purposes. we pray in your loving name. amen.

the presiding officer: please join me in reciting the pledge of allegiance to the flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington d.c., december 1, 2011. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable jeff merkley, a senator from the state of oregon, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: the majority leader.

mr. reid: following leader remarks the senate will be in morning business until 11:00 a.m. this morning. following morning business the senate will resume consideration of the defense department authorization bill. this will be postcloture debate. we expect to complete action on the defense bill today. we may give everyone as much notice as we can when we have votes that are coming. additionally, yesterday i filed cloture on a motion to proceed to s. 1917, middle-class tax cut, if no agreement is reached the vote will be tomorrow morning. there are six measures, mr. president, at the desk due for second reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles of the measures for the second time en bloc. the clerk: s.j. res. 30, joint resolution extending the cooling off period under section 10 of the railway labor act and so forth. s.j. res. 31, joint resolution applying certain conditions to

the dispute referred to in executive order 13586, and so forth. s.j. res. 32, joint resolution to provide for the resolution of the outstanding issues in the current railway labor-management dispute. s. 1930, a bill to prohibit earmarks. s. 1931, a bill to provide certain payroll tax relief to reduce the federal budget deficit and for other purposes. s. 1932, a bill to require the secretary of state to act on a permit for the keystone x.l. pipeline. mr. reid: i would object to any further proceedings in regard to these matters. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the measures will be placed on the calendar. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that tiffany griffin, who is a fellow in senator bingaman's office, be

granted floor privileges during today's session of the senate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: i also ask unanimous consent that roger yang, a member of senator merkley's staff be granted floor privileges today. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, yesterday on the senate floor my friend the republican leader said he supports the extension of the payroll tax cut that was enacted last year. there's been an extreme change of heart haoefrplt on the sunday's shows, the assistant leader, my friend, the junior senator from arizona, said sunday not a chance they would work to extend this payroll tax cut. then as late as tuesday my friend, the republican leader, said that it wouldn't do a thing to help the economy. so obviously there's been a change of heart since then by the leaders of the senate republicans. but i noted yesterday that my

friend was very careful to say only that he supports existing cuts, not that he supports our plan to cut taxes for 160 million american workers and every business in the country. last night i found out why. i was disappointed to see republicans' proposal was actually a back door route to protect the very rich while short taepbging the -- shortchanging the middle class. should we be surprised, mr. president? our proposal would provide relief for working families and expand existing tax cuts to benefit businesses. the republican proposal injects this new tax relief. it doesn't provide a penny of additional tax cuts for working families. and it does nothing for small businesses, the job creators republicans claim to care so much about. they seem to think that our plan to put $1,500 back into the pocket of every american, with

rare exception, and give small business the boost they need to hire new employees goes too far. they're willing to fight for ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, but when it comes to the middle class, republicans here in the senate -- not republicans generally -- but republicans in the senate pwhraoeft status quo is -- believe the status quo is good enough for struggling feels. the republican plan goes directly against the budget agreement we reached in the summer, the so-called budget deficit-reduction act where we raised the debt ceiling. those things, it took three months. their plan goes directly against the agreement we made which is now the law of this country. while democrats have been working tirelessly to create new jobs, the republican plan goes in precisely the opposite direction. instead of creating jobs, it would cost jobs. the report is out today that during the month of october there were 2 off 6 thousand -- 206,000 private sector jobs

created. under their plan, the republican plan, many more middle-class families around the country would lose their jobs. that includes americans dedicated to public service. hardworking people committing to keep our streets safe, for example, an f.b.i. agent, drug enforcement officer, food safety workers, highway construction workers, they want to devastate those folks. that's how they want to pay for this tax cut. it's not anything that's going to help the economy. it hurts the economy. they're going after jobs that we need so desperately. do the republicans really believe -- i guess so because that's what their legislation is all about -- that the way to revive the economy is to lay off more f.b.i. agents or fire more border patrol officers? these cuts won't revive the economy. they'll slow it down and cost even more jobs. but remember, the role of the republicans here in the senate is to defeat barack obama.

it doesn't matter what it does to middle-class families obviously. while targeting the middle class, republicans propose to do nothing to cut back on excessive subsidies for many large corporations that benefit from government contracts. mr. president, this is almost hard to comprehend. during the republican started -- and boy, i tell you, they caught fire during the republican control of the presidency. government contractors, there are more than five million of them, and they propose, the republicans propose to do nothing to cut back on excessive subsidies for many of these large corporations that benefit from government contracts. employees at some of these taxpayer-supported corporations are being paid more than $700,000 a year, while many

public servants struggle to make ends meet. republicans want to whack these people who work to keep us safe in many different ways while they let these people go untouched. the republicans are uninterested in going after these high-income earners. as usual, the only real target of the republican meat ax is the american middle class. it's wrong. americans believe across the country that the middle class is hurting. mr. president, i've said and i'll say it again, the only people in america who believe that the richest of the rich shouldn't contribute just a little bit to help our economy are the senate republicans. the republicans outside this body don't feel that way. america's middle class has been

hurting for a long time. they are the people who are struggling. they are the ones who need help, not these multimillionaires and not large, profitable government contractors. so, mr. president, the republican proposal is unacceptable. it won't pass the senate. we can do better, and we must do better. would the chair announce the business of the day. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will now be in a period of morning business until 11:00 a.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half.

the senator from washington. mrs. murray: mr. president, i come to the floor this morning to urge my colleagues to support the middle-class tax cut bill that would extend and expand the payroll tax relief for our families and small business owners. this legislation is straightforward. it should not be controversial. at a time when so many of our hardworking middle class families continue to struggle in this very tough economy, this bill would cut their social security payroll tax in half from 6.2% to 3.1%. that means a tax cut for 160 million workers in this country today. in my home state of washington, it represents a tax cut of around $1,700 for a family earning the median income next year. and this bill would put money into the pockets of small business owners and encourage them to hire workers by cutting the employer side of the payroll tax in half as well and

eliminating it altogether for firms who are making new hires. in washington state, 150,000 small business owners would receive a tax cut under this plan, and they would have thousands of dollars more in their pockets to spend in their communities and get workers back on the job. mr. president, this is a big deal. economists from across the ideological spectrum have said payroll tax cuts create jobs and boost the economy. and they have said it could be devastating to allow them to go up in this weak economy. in the past, republicans have agreed and have strongly supported payroll tax cuts as an effective way to boost the economy and create jobs. so this should be easy. it should be something that both parties can get behind and quickly pass. but unfortunately, it seems that politics seem to be getting in the way. i'm disappointed that many of the same republicans who spent the last few months fighting tooth and nail to prevent tax

increases on the richest americans and biggest corporations are now hesitating to give average working families a break. in fact, it was this very issue that prevented the joint select committee on deficit reduction to come to a deal. on the democratic side, we put forward serious compromises on the table to get to a balanced and bipartisan deal. but our republican counterparts refused to allow the wealthiest americans to pay a single penny in taxes and insisted that the middle class and seniors and most vulnerable americans bear the burden of this crisis alone. it wasn't fair then. not fair now. this bill is fully paid for by asking millionaires who earn more than $1 million a year to pay just a little bit more, just a small step towards a fair share. it's not drastic. it doesn't close the loopholes in shelters that republicans have been fighting hard to maintain. it doesn't touch the bush tax cuts for the rich that they have

been protecting. it doesn't end the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry that they wouldn't allow us to close. it simply adds a 3.25% tax on incomes over $1 million a year. that means if someone earns $1.2 million in a single year, they only owe an additional 3.25% on that last $200,000. at a time wh -- when so many families are struggling, we think this is a fair thing to ask. the wealthiest americans who survived well over the last few world series years to contribute in order to give working families a break. so, mr. president, this vote sets up a simple choice. do you vote to extend critical tax cuts for middle-class families and small businesses who have been struggling in this economy, or do you vote to protect the wealthiest americans from paying one penny more towards their fair share? i know where i stand. i feel very strongly that we owe it to middle-class families across our country to extend

this tax cut, and i think it would be a whole lot easier if our republican colleagues were as focused on tax cuts for the middle class as they are on those for the wealthiest americans and corporations. so i urge my colleagues to support this legislation and extend tax cuts for the families who really need them most. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. mr. mcconnell: mr. president. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: yesterday, our republicans led by senator heller introduced what we believe is a much smarter

approach to extending the temporary payroll tax cut than the one proposed by democrats involving permanent tax hikes on job creators. like democrats, we think struggling american workers should continue to get this temporary relief for another year. there is no reason folks should suffer even more than they already are from the president's failure to turn this jobs crisis around, but there is also no reason we should pay for that relief by raising taxes on the very employers we're counting on to help jolt this economy back to life. we wouldn't be helping anybody by making it less likely that small businesses actually start hiring people again. so senator heller's proposal would achieve the same result, the same relief without a gratuitous hit on job creators. even better, our plan protects social security and reduces the

federal deficit by more than $111 billion. how do we do it? well, consistent with the recommendations of the bipartisan simpson-bowles commission, our payroll tax plan would institute a three-year pay freeze on federal civilian employees, including members of congress. it would also reduce the federal work force gradually by 10%. not by firing anybody, but by only hiring one replacement for every three federal employees who leave federal service. until a 10% reduction that the simpson-bowles commission recommended is reached. so over this period, only hire one worker for every three who leave, which -- until it achieved a 10% reduction in the federal work force is the

recommendation in the simpson-bowles commission. our bill would also save money by means testing medicare benefits for millionaires and billionaires. what does that mean? well, one of the things the economic downturn in the past few years has revealed is that a lot of people out there are getting a pretty good deal from the government at every level, all on the taxpayers' dime. let me give you an example. yesterday, a cbs affiliate in philadelphia reported that a former philadelphia school superintendent who got a nearly $1 million buyout in august is now putting in for unemployment benefits. the lady got shown the door, got $905,000 not to finish her five-year contract with the school district, and on top of that, she now wants the taxpayers to subsidize her unemployment benefits to the tune of about 30,000 a year.

our proposal helps minimize this kind of thing. now, what we're saying is that anybody who makes more than a million dollars a year shouldn't be getting an unemployment check on top of it, paid for with tax dollars of folks struggling just to make ends meet. no more unemployment checks or food stamps for millionaires, no more unemployment or food stamps for millionaires. and we don't think these folks would mind having to pay the full freight on their medicare premiums either. millions of seniors need help covering their monthly medicare premiums. warren buffett isn't one of them. and here is another way things -- folks like warren buffett can help offset the relief we're giving working americans through this temporary extension of the payroll tax cut. our proposal also incorporates legislation from senator thune that would allow people that

want to voluntarily help pay down the federal debt to do so on their tax return. there would actually be a new line right on warren buffett's tax returns enabling him or anybody else, for that matter, who gives -- to give as much as they want. that way, those who want to go that route can feel like they are contributing in a way that they want to contribute and small business owners who want to help our economic and fiscal situation by growing their businesses and creating jobs can do that, too, without washington dictating one way or the other. now, this is the kind of balanced plan americans are looking for. it's focused on helping middle-class americans without asking them to fund benefits for the wealthy u.s. among us, and it does so without hamstringing the economy, as the democrats would, with a permanent tax on job creators. bear in mind what they are doing here is -- quote -- "paying for

a temporary pay love tax relief with a permanent tax increase on job creators." and it also helps reign in the bureaucracy in washington. millions of americans have had to go without or live with less over the past few years. yet all we see here is that washington keeps getting bigger and bigger and richer. it's about time washington took the hit for a change. so we think that this is a plan that those who are fed up with washington and wall street can embrace, but as i have said wf, we're never going to turn this economy around as long as we're focused on these temporary measures. yesterday, i outlined my vision for a tax reform plan that restores basic fairness, helps put businesses on a level, a level playing field, and puts our tax rates in line with our competitors overseas.

now, that's the kind of thing that will get this economy charging again and we'll continue to press for it. meanwhile, we'll also continue to point out the things this administration is doing to be prevent job creation right now. yesterday, republicans drew attention to one of the greatest fumbles of this administration yet. this is an astonishing thing, mr. president. i don't know how many americans are familiar with a proposed keystone x.l. pipeline, but this is an issue every single american is soon going to learn a lot about. the keystone x.l. pipeline is the single largest shovel-ready project in our entire country. the single largest shovel-ready project in our entire country. it would transport oil from canada, our friendly neighbor to the north, to the gulf coast.

it is privately funded so it wouldn't cost the taxpayer a dime. and we're told that its approval would lead to the creation of 20,000 jobs, not some other time but immediately, right now. this project is enormous. it is a huge job creator, and it's ready to go. labor unions love this project. folks in the heartland love this project. the chamber of commerce loves this project. but here's the problem. president obama is getting heat from his base over this project, especially from the very young and very liberal voters he will need knocking on doors before november. so the state department now says that they are going to delay the approval, even though previously they were seemingly ready to approve it after a three-year review that's already occurred, including two exhaustive

environmental evaluations. so here's the bottom line. the president has said time and time again that his top priority is jobs, yet here we have got the single largest shovel-ready project in the country ready to go, ready to go and he is delaying its approval, interestingly enough, until after the election next year. he's saying he doesn't care so much about jobs in states like nebraska that he doesn't think he will carry next year so he can keep the enthusiasm up in states he hopes to carry. so i think it's pretty clear the president cares less about this particular boon for job creation than his own job preservation. and it's wrong. there's no reason whatsoever to delay this project and these

jobs by another day. as the president recently put it, we have got to decide what are our priorities. we have got to ask yourself what's not just best for me but what's best for us. what's the best way to grow the economy and create jobs. that was president obama who said that. and that's why republicans are proposing legislation today that would require the president either to approve, approve this massive job-creating project within 60 days or to explain clearly why he doesn't think it's in the national interest to do so. give the president 60 days, not after next year's election but 60 days to decide why this shouldn't be approved and explain it to us. we think the people that want to start hiring deserve action or a

straightforward explanation from the president himself as to why he opposes it. get this pipeline going right now, mr. president. or get out of the way. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise to speak about the issue of job creation and also supporting our small businesses and strengthening our economic recovery. one of the fundamental questions that i have been asked in pennsylvania and i think most senators on both sides of the aisle have been asked repeatedly, not just in the last couple of days or weeks, but for many, many months now is a very fundamental question -- what are you doing as a member of the united states senate to create

jobs or to at least create the conditions under which jobs will be created? what are you doing in your votes, in your advocacy, in your fight in washington for jobs? what does that mean? and sometimes we have a better answer than other times. today, and certainly in the last couple of days and i think we will be debating this for a number of days moving forward, and that's a good thing, we will have a better answer to that fundamental question, what are you doing as a public official to create jobs in america? one of the ways that we can kick start the economy and get job creation moving in the right direction again is by passing legislation like the legislation that i have introduced, the middle-class tax cut act. it's now before the senate, as the presiding officer knows and we have been talking about it already, but we have got more work to do on this today and some voting to do today on this

legislation. the legislation is fully paid for and will accomplish two important objectives. number one, it will strengthen the economy to support middle-income families and specifically the way we do that is by providing middle-income families with a tax cut, a cut in the payroll tax, which means take-home pay, that will help make ends meet for that worker and that family but it will also have an impact by boosting demand throughout our economy. secondly, we'll cut payroll taxes for small businesses, helping them to grow and to create jobs. here is what most people are confronting. not just the big numbers, more than 14 million people out of work across america. in pennsylvania, where the latest number from october was 500,000, more than 500,000 people out of work.

513,000 to be exact, people out of work. that number has fruk taw itemed. thank goodness it's started to go below half a million, but it bumped up again to almost 525,000, so it's at least moving away from that number. but when a half million people are out of work in a state, you can just imagine the hurt that families are feeling, the lives of struggle and sacrifice in our midst. that's why we've got to do something to jump-start the economy and create jobs. i think the american people also want us to do this in a bipartisan way, and we can and we should. we came together at the end of 2010, passed a tax bill which was bipartisan. there are elements of that bill that one side and the other did not like, and vehemently so. but we came together in a bipartisan way to pass a tax bill at the end of last year. we need to do the same thing on a payroll tax cut. so we need to work together,

democrats and republicans, and get a result for the american people. and this is something we can do right now. not six months from now, not a year from now. right now to help our families and to create jobs. and there is broad agreement that more needs to be done to support the economic recovery. we've got to create more jobs. we've got to kick start the engine of economic growth. while the economy has added nearly 2.8 million private-sector jobs in the past 20 months, we continue to face significant economic challenges. unemployment across the country, as we all know, is still at about 9%. and long-term unemployment remains at record levels with four out of every ten unemployed workers having been jobless for six months or more. we know the gross domestic product, so-called g.d.p., grew at less than -- less than -- 1% in annual rate in the first half

of the year. for the first six months of 2011, less than 1% growth. the third quarter of gross domestic product growth was recently revised downward. initially they said 2.5. that was revised downward to just 2. it's self-evident that we need to do something right now about jobs. we've got a weak labor market and only modest economic growth this year. so it's clear we've got to do more and we've got to act right now. payroll tax cuts and credit are powerful tools to increase job creation and provide economic relief for middle-income families. the current 2% payroll tax cut for working americans that's in place now has played an important role in sustaining the economic recovery. by the end of this year, 121 million families will have received an average tax cut of more than $930, based upon last

year's action that we took to cut the payroll tax. that was a good decision. but if anything, we need to continue that and also expand that. and i'll explain that as i go forward. the number of families benefitting from this current payroll tax cut is very large, because anyone who receives a paycheck benefits from a cut in payroll tax. anyone who receives a paycheck gets this cut. cutting payroll taxes immediately increases the take-home pay of everyone who gets a paycheck. compared to reducing the tax rates for the top 1% of the american people, more money goes to middle- and lower-income americans who are likely to spend it if -- if -- we keep the payroll tax cut in place. and of course we want to expand it as well. this additional spending that goes into the pockets -- because take-home pay is greater and people have more money in their pockets.

as i said, more than 930 bucks this year. this additional take-home pay will result in more spending. we spend at that level and a lot of families are spending more, especially at the holiday season, that boosts demands for goods and services, and that leads to job creation. this is not theory. this is not some untested theory or hope. we know that this works. we did it in 2011. we've got to do more of it in 2012. the employee side of this -- and i'll divide this into employee and employer for a second. the employee payroll tax cut expires at the end of this year. without congressional action, employee's share of the payroll tax will return to 6.2% of earnings up from the current 4.2 level. you've got a payroll tax that's been cut from 6.2 to 4.2. that's in place. if we do nothing, if we don't

act, if we don't pass an extension of that, that 4.2 will be up to 6.2. it will be a tax increase for families across the board. if we fail to act, these middle-income families will see their payroll tax cut disappear at the end of this year. let me say that again. if we don't act by the end of december, middle-income families will lose this payroll tax cut that's in place now. so what does this mean? well, it means basically losing between $900 and $1,000. this is take-home pay for workers and their families. this is a very tough time for those families, as i mentioned before, with high unemployment and so many stresses, economic stresses and pressure on their lives. families who are already facing both declining wages and stubbornly high unemployment, families who are struggling to pay for housing, make car payments and pay the food bill, paying for college tuition, whatever it is, whatever in

their lives it means making ends meet, they're having a terribly difficult time still. losing this tax cut would also undermine the recovery by reducing consumer spending. numerous economists and forecasters have highlighted the dangers to the economy of allowing this payroll tax cut to expire. independent analysts estimate that letting the 2% employee tax cut expire would reduce gross domestic product growth by up to two-thirds of a percent in 2012. mark zandi, from moody's, in an article from september 9 of 2011 entitled "an analysis of president obama's jobs plan," made that same point. you don't continue the payroll tax cut, and you have an adverse impact on economic growth. goldman sachs, global research, e.c.s. research had a similar

conclusion. so this isn't just about individuals losing a payroll tax cut that's in place now. this is about harming in a very adverse way our economy's ability to grow in a substantial way. so, let me talk for a moment about the legislation before us. the middle-class tax cut act that i introduced. first of all -- the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. casey: let me ask consent for another five minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. casey: thank you very much. let me talk for a moment about the legislation. the legislation before us, as i said before, would both extend and expand the payroll tax cut that's in place right now. first of all, for employees, cut it in half. so instead of paying a 6.2% payroll tax, the employee, the worker, would pay just 3.1. it has a seismic impact on the

economy when you do that. $1,500 in the pockets of the average worker in america. 160 million american workers impacted. in pennsylvania as much as 6.7 million. so we would not only keep in place the tax cut for workers, the payroll tax cut, but we want to expand it so it's fully cut in half. secondly, i wanted to talk for a moment about the employer side of this because that wasn't part of last year's effort. i introduced the payroll tax credit in early 2010 to encourage workers to hire and expand -- or hire and accelerate i should say, the pace of the recovery. a number of folks on both sides of the aisle have worked on this. the ideas in those kinds of tax credits, those kind of bills we introduced formed the foundation of what we're trying to do today. this legislation incorporates

elements of my and others' earlier legislation to provide businesses with quarterly incentives to increase their payrolls. i want to highlight a couple of elements of the legislation before us. first, this bill cuts payroll taxes in half for 98% of u.s. businesses. these businesses have taxable payrolls of $5 million or less. those see their payroll taxes cut, as i said before, for the worker in half as well as for the businesses. some people would say, okay, that's 98% of businesses. that's good news. what about the other 2% who have higher income? those businesses that have taxable income above $5 million, they will still get a payroll tax cut from 6.2 to 3.1 on the first $5 million of their taxable payroll. they get it up to that level. this is a huge benefit to small businesses across the country

and even some businesses larger than that. the joint economic committee, the committee of which i'm a chair, just released a report that indicated that small business lending remains well below prerecession levels both in the number of loans and the dollar value of those loans. a lot of small businesses still cannot get access to credit. this payroll tax cut legislation will help those companies substantially to be able to get access to credit. finally, i'd make a point about the legislation as it relates to eliminating the employer share of the social security payroll tax on the first 50 million of increased payroll in 2012. this isn't just a cut. this is an elimination if they do one of three things. if they're hiring, hiring more workers. if they increase the hours.

that's another way to get the benefit of this. thirdly, if they are boosting pay. this is legislation which is one of the best ways to create jobs, one of the best ways to kick start our economy. and i conclude with this, mr. president, if you look at this in the real world, at communities across pennsylvania or across the country, what this means is we passed this legislation for a median family income in pennsylvania the benefit is $1,535, a little more than $1,500. whether you go to small, rural counties or big cities, wherever it is, workers will be able to put $1,500 roughly for this season coming up when people need some help. and small businesses will be substantially positively impacted by this legislation. we need to pass this legislation. we need to do it now to help our

workers, to help our businesses and to grow the economy and create jobs. thank you, mr. president. i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri mrs. mccaskill: mr. president, i have offered an amendment to the defense authorization bill that unfortunately we're not going to get a chance to vote on. but i want to begin talking about this because i think this is something that tpwhaoed to do as we -- we need to do as we appropriate money for our military for the next year. i want to start by saying i support the mission in afghanistan. but after years of work on wartime contracting issues and looking at the way we have spent money through contracting in both iraq and afghanistan, i have come to a stark and real conclusion about money that we have wasted and continue to waste in this effort. we are building infrastructure in afghanistan that we cannot

secure and that will not be sustained. since 2004, the defense department -- just the defense department, not the state department -- has spent more than $6.9 billion in iraq and afghanistan on humanitarn stabilization projects that include infrastructure, energy and road construction. primarily this has occurred there's what's known as the surp fund, it stands for commanders emergency response program. this began as an effort in the war against insurge seus, the counter-- insurgencies, the counterinsurgency effort, the coin strategy. this began as a good idea where the commanders on the ground would have phoepbl directly that they could -- have money directly they could access to do small neighborhood projects, to win the hearts and minds, to secure a neighborhood, to stabilize a community.

these projects were envisioned when i first came to the senate. we talked about fixing broken panes of glass in a shopkeeper's window. this program has morphed into something much different than what was envisioned at the beginning of the counterinsurgency effort in iraq. these hundred dollar-projects, $1,000 projects are now hundreds of millions of dollars. in fiscal year 2010, more than 90% of the spending on cerp were for projects over $500,000. at its height in 2009, the authorizations for cerp spending in afghanistan and iraq reached $1.5 billion. and this is the kicker: the military building of large infrastructure projects has not shown a measurable impact on the success of our mission.

i have stacks of studies, and i am such a wonk, i've actually read all of these studies. these are just a few of the studies that have been done by inspector generals, by special inspector generals, by the d.o.d. inspector general, by the wartime contracting commission that senator webb and i put into place to look at all of the wartime contracting issues. even our own troops have studied the expenditure of these funds. and i want to quote their conclusion in a recent study that was completed by the troops that are in fact fighting this effort in afghanistan. quote -- "despite hundreds of millions in investments, there is no persuasive evidence that the commanders emergency response program has fostered improved interdependent relationships between the host government and the population, arguably the key indicator of

counterinsurgency success." i go on, a direct quote -- "the effectiveness of cerp in affecting our counterinsurgency objectives in afghanistan has yet to be well documented. the relationship between development assistance and counterinsurgency is being increasingly challenged in the academic and practitioner fields. with only unsubstantiated assertions and the occasion alan he can dote offered as a counterargument. there are no clear objectives for a program that funds everything from immediate emergency relief to multiyear, multimillion-dollar road projects. the lack of proper incentives and accountability measures have rendered cerp and similar funds an industry for construction companies, nongovernmental organizations and multiple afghan governmental ministries fueling rather than fighting corruption, community insecurity and insurgent coercion."

finding and feeding terrorists, fighting the taliban, securing strategic victories against al qaeda, training the afghan -- afghanistan military and police, all of these things i support, but this amount of money being spent on large infrastructure projects that cannot be sustained we must end. in an unprecedented fashion, our military, not the state department, has embarked upon these massive projects. this year, for the first time in this authorization, there is now a new afghanistan reconstruction fund to get around the limits that have been placed on the size of projects in the cerp fund. i call this fund the son of cerp. it has now been documented that they want to go even larger and even bigger with these large multimillion-dollar projects. i can't stand by. as we spend billions on roads,

electrical grids, bridges in afghanistan, knowing the incredible need we have in this country for exactly that kind of investment. these projects are not being built in a secure environment. we're paying off people to try to keep the contractors safe, and it has been documented that some of that money has gone right into the hands of our enemy. now, that must be stopped. these projects in many if most instances cannot be sustained, and i can give a number of examples, but all you have to do is travel around iraq and see the empty, crumbling health care centers built with american taxpayer dollars, the water park that is a twisted pile of rubble, that is no longer operational. all of the investments that were made in oil production and electricity generation that were blown to bits.

i can give specific examples in afghanistan. how about hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a power plant, the latest technology, dual fuel, and nobody there knows how to operate it and they can't afford to operate it. so it stands by as an empty, hulking, potential generator for backup power while they buy cheaper electricity from a neighboring country. for the first time, the department of defense has requested and received $400 million in authorization in this new afghanistan reconstruction fund. we should limit our military to the small projects that cerp was originally intended for, not produce contracts to major multinational corporations. all of these reconstruction funds should be pulled, and my amendment will do just that. we would pull all of this money out, with the exception of projects under 50,000. that would be as much as

$700 million that we could immediately put directly into the highway trust fund in this country, and that's what this amendment does. it will transfer that investment from a nonsecure environment in areas these projects cannot be sustained to the very needy cause of infrastructure investment in the united states of america. let's do this. let's stop these large projects that cannot be secured and be sustained. keep in mind, as much as $700 million would be pulled, and that is a small fraction of what we're spending in afghanistan. the authorization for next year is more than $100 billion, so anyone who tries to say this will cripple our mission in afghanistan doesn't understand the numbers. the moneys were spent in afghanistan. the vast majority is about personnel to train the afghan military, to train the

afghanistan police department to fight the rifts that are there,e areas near pakistan, all of that remains. a very small percentage of this will be pulled, but it should be pulled and it should be pulled today, and we should take this investment and put it in roads and bridges right here in our country. i hope that this amendment will have success when we look at the appropriations process. i think it's time that we stop this funding and stop it now, and i thank you, mr. president, and yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: mr. president, i want to take a few minutes to commend dr. donald berwick for his service as administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid services, and also to express my deep disappointment

that his nomination was blocked by a minority of senators. c.m.s., the centers for medicare and medicaid services, c.m.s. has benefited greatly from dr. berwick's innovation and leadership and refusal of some members to support confirming him for this position is difficult to understand. dr. berwick is widely recognized as a highly qualified leader in the realm of health care quality. unfortunately, many of my colleagues across the aisle adamantly opposed dr. berwick's tenure, beginning when he was first nominated by president obama for this position in april of last year. many of these objections are based on inaccurate accusations, sound bites that have been completely taken out of context.

dr. berwick has the qualifications and expertise and demonstrated leadership ability that c.m.s. needs at this critical time. he is a pediatrician by training, a harvard professor, health care analyst, elected member of the institute of medicine, a leading advocate on health care quality and patient safety and a co-founder of the institute for health care improvement, which is a respected think tank that trains hospitals on how to increase patient safety and improve operations. don berwick has also written extensively. more than 120 scholarly articles that he has authored or co-authored, along with several books of the quality and efficiency of health care. dr. berwick is a true visionary. he has been an advocate for transparency and accountability within our health care system, and his distinguished career has

made him the ideal candidate to lead the c.m.s. at this critical time. it was due to dr. berwick's deep knowledge of health care, his vast experience and his passion for this issue that his nomination originally won praise from across the political and professional spectrum. this includes tom scully and mark mcclellan, both former administrators of c.m.s. under president george w. bush. they strongly endorsed his nomination. his nomination also had the support of dr. nancy nielsen, who is the past president of the american medical association, john rother, who is the former executive vice president of the aarp and former republican senator from minnesota, our former colleague, dave

durenberger. in fact, newt gingrich even saluted dr. berwick for seeking a -- quote -- dramatically safer, more effective and less expensive system of health care. end quote. during his tenure as c.m.s. administrator, the few months he has been in that position, dr. berwick has been able to implement impressive reforms, including launching the new c.m.s. innovation center that will test new health care delivery models that emphasize primary care and in-- innovative ways to finance health care. he has also instituted a financial incentives program for physicians who use electronic health records, and generally he has set the tone for health reform to take root and to provide americans with affordable, high-quality health care in a cost-efficient manner. to be perfectly clear, i am not in any way suggesting that i do

not continue to have enthusiasm for the president's recent nominee to replace dr. berwick. from all i know of this nominee, she will do an excellent job, but i am frustrated with -- that an imminently qualified public servant is being denied the opportunity to continue serving the american people in this important position. there is no valid justification for denying him that opportunity. the presiding officer: the majority's time has expired. mr. bingaman: i would ask an additional minute. john mcdonough in "the boston globe" in his commentary on the response to don berwick's nomination wrote -- "one of health care's most distinguished leaders and voices got mugged by partisan republicans who know better and who got away with it." end quote. i'm truly disappointed that

certain senators have pledged to block his nomination and that he has chosen to withdraw his -- or to resign his position effective tomorrow. our task now is to assess the new nominee the president has sent us. i hope members can come together to do what is right in this circumstance, and that is to quickly confirm an administrator for this very important position. mr. president, i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. coats: it's my understanding that i have 20 minutes of time allotted under morning business. the presiding officer: under the previous order, each senator has ten minutes to speak. mr. coats: all right, mr. president. i don't think i will use all those 20 minutes -- ten

minutes -- i will use the ten minutes, but i may need to ask for some additional if it works out and others aren't waiting. mr. president, i come to the floor deeply disappointed, like many, over our failure to reach -- to seize a unique opportunity to put america on a more fiscally sane path for the future. my number-one priority for this year, i have talked about it so many times, not only publicly but with colleagues in intense discussions for now nearly a year. that number-one priority has been to advocate for a deficit reduction package that would be deemed credible and would put us on a path to fiscal stability. i think given the situation that exists around the world today, nothing could have been more impactful in a positive way than doing so. financial experts agreed and they have for now years that we're on the wrong path, that we are spending far too much in relationship to our growth,

anemic growth of g.d.p., that we have staggered along here for three years and yet spent an extraordinary amount of money without seeing the economy recover. a number of plans have come forward. simpson-bowles was promoted as one of those bold types of plans that could help get us back on this fiscal path to prosperity. as you know, mr. bowles was the former chief of staff to our former president bill clinton, and our former colleague alan simpson. put together a package that whether or not you agreed with it, all of it, certainly you could not disagree that this was something that didn't put us on the path that we needed to go, yet that was rejected out of hand by the -- by the white house and others. we have seen the activities and

presentations of the gang of six. 40-plus senators, including me, joined together in a bipartisan way to urge the president to join us in coming forward with a bold, comprehensive plan. that was rejected. the president's budget was laughed out of this chamber. not one person, either democrat or republican, voted for it. we came far short in august of what we needed to do. i wasn't able to support that particular plan. i did avert a debt limit increase crisis. nevertheless, that opportunity which we had with a, involvement of both parties to do something truly significant, that was passed over. and so it then fell to, it fell to the committee of 12, which is called the super committee.

and many of us, most of us had input into that in terms of suggestions and what we urged those members to do, and to at least reach the minimum of $1.2 trillion of deficit reduction over a ten-year period of time. and there was a so-called draconian sequester or an across-the-board cut that would go into place automatically starting in 2013 if they couldn't come to agreement. and the consensus at the time was this is so draconian that it would force an agreement and a coming together of republicans and democrats, six of each -- six from the house, six from the senate -- to come forward with at least a minimal plan. many of us were urging them to do much more, to bring forth something that would be credible with the investment community and restore confidence that america understood the dire situation we were in and we were

doing something about it as representatives of the people. no clearer message came to this body than the message sent in november of 2010 with the historic turnover of members and outpouring of support for putting the future of our country, our fiscal future and economic future and future for our children and grandchildren ahead of politics. and yet it is politics that defeated the effort. now it's easy to blame the committee of 12. i know there was an earnest attempt to come together, and politically perhaps it was doomed from the start just by the way it was designed. at least i thought that way in august and was one of the reasons i voted against that proposal. nevertheless, they made an earnest attempt. unfortunately, were not able to bring it home. and so responsibility falls not just on those 123 but it false -- not just on those 12,

but it false on this entire congress because we wouldn't have gotten to that super committee of 12 if we had done our job earlier and presented in august when we were bumped up against a debt limit extension doing what i think most of us intuitively understand needs to be done. and yet the political considerations and ramifications were such that we came forward with a very timid and woefully short plan of what we needed to do. the president has to take some responsibility. you can't really bring forward a bold change in the way the u.s. government does business unless you have bipartisan support. and you really can't get that bipartisan support unless the chief executive, the number-one, the quarterback of the team stands up and says "i want to be involved and engaged and stay engaged. while there was some rhetoric coming out of the white house, there was no plan.

the president's budget plan was rejected on unanimous vote. republicans and every democrat turned it down. the president said some nice words about what we needed to get going and so forth and so on, but he was awol. as i said, the quarterback of the team needs to be engaged. he's the key person. and yet, that quarterback was not on the field. so congress, the white house, i think some responsibility falls on outside groups who distorted what we were trying to do, who mischaracterized what republicans were seeking to accomplish. and there was some mischaracterization of what democrats were seeking to accomplish. but it was an undermining process. those groups that are supposedly representative of seniors across this country, the shameful, shameful way in which they distorted the message and what we were trying to do. obviously it had a political

impact here and put restraint on members base their base, their base was being told that they were lied to in terms of what was under consideration and what we were trying to do. we all know the social security and medicare are not going to have the funds available in the future to provide the services that were promised to the american people. and yet any attempt to try to salvage and save and retain those programs' solvency, a message that went out from these groups that supposedly represent the interests of our seniors was such that, no, we were trying to take away their program. we were trying to destroy their program. i mean, how ridiculous it is that someone's going to come in here and say my goal is to destroy retirement benefits for the american people. or i'm here to take away health benefits from american retirees. none of us of here for that

purpose. these programs are a hrou, they are in place. -- are a law, they are in place. we want them to remain more efficient, effective and solvent. yet outside groups are sending the opposite message. so we failed. we came up short. having done so, we cannot avoid the responsibility that we continue to have to do everything in our power to try to address a very serious fiscal problem that exists in this country. years and years, decades and decades, not only this congress but former congresses. not only this president but former presidents have made promises to the american people which we are unable to keep because we are unable to sustain the fiscal capability of doing so. woo haven't had -- we haven't had a budget come out of the congress in more than a thousand days. there's some indication that we will have a budget next year, and i sincerely hope we can get together and come forward with a deficit-reduction budget, one

that recognizes the fiscal plight that we're in. and i'll work with both sides of the aisle to try to accomplish that. we have to acknowledge that we continue to spend trillions of more dollars than we have available to us. no nation can sustain that. all you have to do is look across the atlantic and at what's taking place in europe in country after country after country. it's not just greece. it's not just portugal. it's not just ireland anymore. it's italy and maybe france and maybe other countries. the european union is staggering , going forward in trying to address a serious problem, the same type of problem that we have here. the focus is there and we look and say they need to get their act together. we need to get our act together because what we're seeing there may be coming across the shore here. and certainly the same principles in place -- promising more than you can deliver,

borrowing more so that you can pay debts that you don't have the money to pay for through the revenues that you generate in your country. and the same thing is happening. and so all of this in front of us saoegz the opportunity to -- seizing the opportunity for us to do something for this country, our generation, the next generations for the sake of the country, we need to continue the process and go forward. it's easy to sit around and grumble and blame somebody else and say we gave it our best shot, and, therefore, we'll let happen what happens. we don't want to do that because what will happen here if we continue on the course that we're on is what is currently happening in europe. and there's no clearer picture of the consequences of a sovereign nation promising more and spending more than it takes in over time. it slows the economy. it piles up the interest payments. it shrinks the amount of money available for essential

services. and it puts the programs that were in place in real jeopardy. so, if we look at that, we clearly have to answer the question: where do we go from here and how do we go forward in a constructive way? i would suggest a few things. first, we need to force the law that's -- we need to enforce the law that's there, the law that is in place, on the books now, even though i believe that law is -- designs a process that is woefully short of where we need to go, at least it is a step in the right direction, and we need to enforce that. no one wanted to get to this across-the-board cutting, this sequester that impacts our national security particularly and other functions of government. that was supposed to prevent us -- provide a basis for us to come to agreement. it didn't. but that now is the law. and attempts to undo that, i think, is one of the most cynical things we could do. and the american people know it. and i don't believe they'll allow us to do it.

the law needs to be enforced in terms of the minimum amount of cuts that we've already agreed to take place, and we need to go forward and do that. so there are a number of ways -- and i commend the committee for at least trying to come up with some efficiencies and effectiveness in our federal spending process and that they have, i believe they have a list of things that we can look to in order to enforce more cuts. i have suggested a triage process when we review every aspect of an agency of government, every function that's performed through this federal government and basically say we've got a patient here that's sick. the patient here with a potentially terminal disease. but we need to -- and we've got a bunch of people in the waiting room. some of them need attention right away. so triaging results in every

agency, every function, every expenditure being examined from the standpoint of is this absolutely essential to the future of this country, for the protection of our citizens? is this an absolutely essential function of government that can't be done at the state level, at the local level or at the private level? and if so, that needs to have priority. secondly, there's a whole range of issues. we come down here every day with new ideas and thoughts of nice to do but we can't afford to do. and we have to postpone those or simply say to people, i'm sorry. we don't have the money to do it. fanned we don't have the money to do it, we shouldn't do it now. we separate the essential from the like to do or can't do. then we look at what do we really need to do that someone else can do better, whether it's at the private level, the state level, the local level; there's

a whole range of things where the federal government has gotten in way over its head. these are functions that can take flays through the private sector or through state and local governments that we don't need to do. we can look at the duplication and inefficiencies that exist here. senator coburn came up with a long list, trillions of dollars of expenditures that can be saved. we ought to look at those and decide which ones we want to go forward with and how we can stop that process. he talked about duplication. let me mention a couple of things here. 18 separate domestic food assistance program. do we need domestic assistance for food? probably there are some areas where we do. do we need 18 separate programs doling this out? 47 different job training programs. okay, the economy is restructuring. we need job training. do we need 47 separate programs to do that? and my personal favorite, 56

financial literacy programs. you can argue that the federal government is in no place to have one financial literacy program in place to go out and teach the american people how to be financially literate. i think what we need to do somebody financially lit -- is be financially literate here and use that model to show somebody how to be literate rather than saying we've got the answer. we ofpl don't have the answer. -- we obviously don't have the answer. why we have 56 financial literacy programs in place in the federal government is just astounding. these are suggestions and there's many others regarding cutting of spending. but there are other functions here that need to be addressed. and three major categories. one is regulatory reform. it's costing the american taxpayer and americans millions and billions of dollars of regulatory measures that are coming out of the various

agencies without a solid cost-benefit basis attached to it, without solid assessments. there is a process underway to look at those. that's one category. a second one is entitlement reform. i've been talking about that from the beginning. this is the engine that drives the train of deficit. we can either stand by and continue to lie to the american people and say you've got nothing to worry about, we're going to preserve every penny of the social security program and every penny of the medicare and medicaid programs. it will always be there for you. don't worry. even the money that you put in in payroll taxes and so forth, it's all sacrosanct, and don't worry about it. we can continue that lie or we can tell them the truth. and that is if we want to keep these programs viable, we need to take reform, structural reform measures now. that could be increasing the age of eligibility for medicare to republican side with the -- to

coincide with the age currently available for social security. that could be changing some of the indexes used to address the cost of living index. that could be modified through means testing. warren buffett says he doesn't need social security, fine. if people in that category don't need social security, medicare or at least the full payment, let's give them back what they paid in. but as most people don't understand, the average american is receiving three times as much in their lifetime as, from what they paid in as to what they are receiving. so we could put some means testing in there. we need to debate and talk about this. politically sensitive? sure. but let's be honest with the american people. they want us to be honest. i think that's what the message of 2010 was all about. in the third category, one in which i have been very involved in, is reforming our tax code, which is a mess. it's a complexity of -- that's totally incomprehensible to anybody who spends less than 15 hours a day as a career studying

the tax code and trying to figure out how all these things work together. it's a nightmare. americans spend billions of dollars paying people to do their taxes because they can't figure it out themselves. there is a complexity after complexity, and thousands and tens of thousands of pages in this tax code. there is a consensus that we need to reform our tax code, and it's a bipartisan consensus. senator wyden and i have a bill. it has been worked on for three years. it is not the absolute answer to everything, but it's in text and it's been scored and it's available to be a base of which to go forward on, and i know that the super committee looked at that. i think the ways and means committee and the finance committee ought to look at that. tax reform can produce revenues for this country and growth for this country which will give us a growing economy, a growing g.d.p. and help with our fiscal situation.

mr. president, i sense that i am close to or running out of time. in deference to my colleagues, let me just wrap up, if i could. i came here deeply disappointed, i remain deeply disappoint thad we haven't been able to do more. my number-one priority has been to advocate for going big. we weren't able to do that. experts agree we must do more. all we have to do is look at europe to see what's coming next. let's try to avoid that. there are plans out there that we can build off of. so instead of just folding our tent and saying there is nothing we can do except waiting for the election results of 2012 and maybe we'll have a different president or different congress or whatever, we have a responsibility to act and to act now. there are ways we can do this. we need to demonstrate to ourselves and to the american people that we will take up the responsibility. i choose to do that. i choose to make the tough decisions. i choose to take the tough medicine for the future of this

country, and i believe the american people choose also. and with that, i urge my colleagues to join me as we go forward to finishing out this year and going forward in the year ahead, not sitting back and waiting for election results. let's do something now because the urgency and the crisis is now, and it needs to be addressed. let's be responsible, step up and do it. mr. president, with that, i yield back. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. chambliss: mr. president, i rise today along with my colleague, my fellow university of georgia graduate, senator isakson, to honor a man who died last week who became a ledge engined his own time in our great state. a legend that was respected by, as we would say, folks on both sides of the aisle. this man -- that term to this

man means that he was respected by georgia tech football fans as well as university of georgia football fans. the man i am talking about is larry munson. larry munson was not a southerner by birth but he became a southerner and a georgia bulldog by passion. he was the georgia football announcer for in excess of four decades. during those four decades, he not only witnessed some of the most memorable football games, but he made some of the most memorable calls. his way of describing a football play will go down in the annals of broadcasting as not only being unique, not only being fascinating, but it will go down in the annals of sports broadcasting as being some of

the best and most professional calls ever made on a football field. but there was more to larry munson than the ron lindsay run, more to larry munson than the o's to herschel walker, more to larry munson than we just stomped on them with our hob nail boot. he was a man who had passion for life, a man who had a thorough understanding of his profession, a man who worked very hard at his profession. he used to get up every saturday morning before a football game and have coffee with our legendary coach vince dooley. coach dooley said that he finally had to stop having coffee with larry munson because larry was the ever pessimist from a football standpoint. coach dooley would come into

those coffees feeling good about his chances in the ballgame that day and by the time he finished having coffee with larry munson, he had to go back and rewrite his playbook for the ballgame. larry munson was simply a man who loved the university of georgia. he loved calling football games and he loved putting his emotions into those calls. he was a man who cared not just about the university of georgia but about its students. he used to have what he called a wednesday night movie night where he would invite students to join him at a theater in athens, georgia, and he would just share time, his time with students that he loved, and he did this for years and years and years. and i have heard stories from some of those folks who attended those movie nights that larry munson was more passionate about movies than he was about university of georgia football, which is hard to imagine.

but as we look back on the life of larry munson, those of us who live and breathe georgia football, we will always remember the passionate calls, the way that he put his heart and soul into a football game, but we'll also remember the man larry munson who enjoyed life, enjoyed people, enjoyed his profession and who gave so much back to his profession, and a man who loved the outdoors. he came from his birthplace of minneapolis south many years ago, and he remained a true southerner, not just for his 40 years of broadcasting at the university of georgia but in his bass fishing, for example. i remember when he would come down to our part of the world in south georgia to speak to a touchdown club or whatever it

may be, he would always call up and say where's the best bass pond in south georgia? that's where i want to be this afternoon before my speech. and he just thoroughly enjoyed the outdoors, thoroughly enjoyed being around people, and that was obvious in the way he expressed himself behind the microphone when he called football games. so as we celebrate the life of larry munson, we celebrate more than his historic calls. his passion for football, his passion for his family, his passion for friends exceeds any passion he had for football. larry munson was a great man, he was a great friend. he is certainly going to be missed by our state and particularly by our university. with that, i would yield to senator isakson.

mr. isakson: i thank mr. chambliss for the opportunity to share a few moments -- the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: i'm honored to share a few moments with senator chambliss on the floor of the senate to pay tribute to a great georgia lending end, larry munson. larry munson was born in indianapolis, and after his service got a scholarship for broadcasting school and his first job at the university of wyoming calling their football games. he worked his way to tennessee where he was the announcer for the vanderbilt basketball program and the vanderbilt football program. then when the atlanta braves moved from milwaukee to atlanta, larry munson was brought in to be one of the announcers for atlanta braves baseball. shortly after that, the voice of the georgia bulldogs retired, went to another job, and larry munson was asked to take over broadcasting at the university of georgia. he was a yankee, an outsider, not one that many people thought much of when he started, but he became a legend in his time and is a revered person in our state. you know, mr. president, it's

said that the southeastern conference football is not a game, it's a religion, and in that analogy, if it's a religion in the southeastern conference, larry munson was the high priest. he was the man that everybody looked to to make the call that nobody else could. the greatest tribute i ever saw to larry munson was on s.e.c. football on saturday afternoon at 3:30 when a couple of years ago before he retired, the announcers for cbs television brought in larry munson's radio play by play and set themselves aside because he was that good. he brought the game to life. he brought a spirit to the game that you just couldn't find. and he was a homer. he was a hometown boy. there was no question who he worked for, no question who signed his ticket. he was always fair but he was always friendly to the dogs. it was his spirit that brought the university of georgia from the doldrums of the 1960's to the heights of college football, the national championship in 1980, four s.e.c. championships in the last 12 years and

hopefully an s.e.c. state championship this saturday night. larry munson passed away a few days before thanksgiving in his beloved town and hometown of athens, georgia. although he started in minneapolis, minnesota, and went to wyoming and later to tennessee, he finally resided in georgia, he died in georgia, and he is esteemed in our state. so on this day, let me on behalf of the people i represent in my state of all persuasions when it comes to college football pay tribute to a man that gave every single measure of himself to make sure that every single person who listened to his voice saw a game whether they were blind or whether they could see, because he brought life to a game that nobody else could. larry munson was a great georgian, a great american, he will be missed, but i can promise you this -- his view of stanford stadium today is far better than the view he used to have in the broadcast booth because he is very high over the stadium he loved, the stadium where he made his living and a stadium where he will always be remembered. and i yield back the balance of

my time. and note the intelligence -- absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina is recognized. mr. graham: i ask unanimous consent to terminate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. graham: i believe we're still in morning business. the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. graham: i would ask consent to enter into a colloquy, and could you let me know when ten minutes has expired? the presiding officer: without objection. mr. graham: thank you. while we decide how we're going to move on the defense bill, senator kyl, i appreciate you coming to the floor. you and i along with senator levin and mccain, have been working on a detainee policy for years now. there is an issue that's before

the senate here soon. it involves what to do with an american citizen who is suspected of collaborating with al qaeda or an affiliated group. do you agree with me, senator kyl, that in other wars, american citizens unfortunately have aided the enemies of their time? mr. kyl: i would say to my colleagues, unfortunately it is the case that there probably hasn't been a major conflict in which at least some american citizen has decided to loaf his country and side with the enemy. mr. graham: are you familiar with the efforts by german saboteurs who landed, i believe, in the long island area, i don't know exactly where they landed during world war ii, and they were aided by american citizens to execute a sabotage plot against the united states? mr. kyl: mr. president, yes. in fact, there is a famous u.s. supreme court case, ex parte

inquiry indecided in -- quirin that dealt with the case of an american citizen helping the nazis, the nazi saboteurs that came to our shores. mr. graham: do you agree with me that our supreme court ruled then that when an american citizen decides to collaborate and assist an enemy force, that that's viewed as an act of war and the law of war applies to the conduct of the american citizen? mr. kyl: mr. president, i would say to my colleague, yes. my colleague knows this case, i am confident, and i think one quotation from the case makes the point clearly. in ex parte quirin, the court made clear, and i'm quoting now -- "citizenship in the united states of an enemy belligerent does not relieve him of the consequences of his belligerency." in other words, if you leave your country and take the position contrary, you side with the enemy, you become

belligerent against the united states, the fact that you're still a citizen does not protect you from being captured, being held and in this case even being tried by a military tribunal. mr. graham: so the law at least since 1942 by the supreme court has been that if you decide as an american citizen to join forces with enemies of the united states, you have committed an act of war against your fellow citizens, it's not a criminal event we're investigating or dealing with, it's an act of war, and the american citizens who helped the nazis were held as enemy combatants and tried as enemy combatants. mr. kyl: mr. president, yes. i would just qualify that statement this way. one can be subject to military custody being a belligerent against the united states even while being a u.s. citizen, be tried by military commission because of the act of war against the united states that you have committed. one could also theoretically have been tried in a criminal

court, but one can't reach the opposite conclusion, which is that you can only be tried in civilian court. mr. graham: and the military commission act of 2009, we prohibited american citizens from being tried by military commissions, and i am okay with that, but what we have not done, and i would be very upset if we chose to do that, is take off the table the ability to interrogate an american citizen who has chosen to help al qaeda regarding what they know about the enemy and what intelligence they may provide us to prevent a future attack. so since home-grown terrorism is a growing threat, under the current law if an american citizen became radical, went to pakistan and trained with al qaeda or an affiliated group, flew back to dulles airport, got off the plane, got a rifle, went down to the mall right behind us and started shooting people, do you agree with me that under the

law as it exists today that person could be held as an enemy combatant, that person could be interrogated by our military and intelligence community, and we could hold them as long as necessary to find out what they know about any future attacks or any past attacks and we don't have to read them their miranda rights? mr. kyl: mr. president, yes, the answer to your question in short is yes. it's confirmed by the fact that in the hamdi case, the united states supreme court precisely held that that detention would be lawful, and of course with the detention being lawful, the interrogation which my -- to which my colleagues would also be taken. mr. mccain: would the senator yield for a question on that specific point? the presiding officer: the senator from arizona is recognized. mr. mccain: the individual who was an american citizen, mr. hamdi, subject to the united states supreme court case was an american citizen captured in afghanistan, right? is that correct? and yet in the supreme court

decision, reference is made to an individual who was captured during world war ii in the united states of america, isn't that correct? referenced in the supreme court decision. mr. graham: the inre quirin case dealt with an american citizen helping the nazis in america. the hamdi case dealt with an american citizen helping the taliban in afghanistan. mr. mccain: the reason i raise the question is because the senator from illinois and others have cited the fact that hamdi was an american citizen but captured in afghanistan, not in the united states of america. yet isn't it a fact in hamden also made reference to a person who was apprehended in the united states of america? this is what's really bizarre about this discussion, it seems to me. mr. graham: senator mccain, the hamdi case cited in re

quirin for the proposition that an american citizen who provides aid, comfort or collaboration with the enemy can be held as an enemy combatant. the quirin case dealt with an american citizen helping the nazis in new york. the padilla case involves an american citizen collaborating with al qaeda in the united states. mr. mccain: the question is is it relevant where the citizen of the united states was captured, because the decision made reference to people captured both in the united states and outside the united states. mr. graham: exactly, and i would add and get senator kyl's comment, wouldn't it be an absurd result if you capture -- you can kill an american citizen abroad, al-awlaki, whatever his name was, the president targeted him for assassination because he was an american citizen who went to yemen to engage in an act of terrorism against the united states, and the president went through an executive legal process, targeted him for

assassination and a drone attack killed him, and we're all better off because when an american citizen helps the enemy, they are no longer just a common criminal, they are a military threat and they should be dealt with appropriately. but my point is wouldn't it be an odd result to have a law set up so that if you actually got to america and you tried to kill our people here on our own soil, all of a sudden you have criminal status? i would argue that the homeland is part of a battlefield and we should protect the homeland above anything else. so it would be crazy to have a law that says if you went to pakistan and attacked an american soldier, you could be blown up or held indefinitely, but if you made it back to dulles airport, if you went downtown and started killing americans randomly, we couldn't hold you and gather intelligence. the supreme court in 1942 said that made no sense. a person helping the nazis -- if

a senator in 1942 took the floor of the united states senate and said, you know, those american citizens who collaborated with the nazis, we ought not treat them as an enemy, you would be run out of town. i'm just saying to any american citizen, if you want to help al qaeda, you do so at your own peril. you can get killed in the process. you can get detained indefinitely, and when you're being questioned by the c.i.a., the f.b.i. or the department of defense about where you trained and what you did and what you know and you say to the interrogator, i want my lawyer, the interrogator will say you don't have a right to a lawyer because you're a military threat. this is not dragnet. we're fighting a war. and the supreme court of the united states has clearly said that an american citizen who joins with the enemy has committed an act of war. and senator feinstein who is the chairman of the intelligence committee is a very good senator, but her concerns about

holding an american citizen under the law of war would -- her amendment unfortunately would change the law. do you agree with that, senator kyl? mr. kyl: mr. president, and that's the key point here. there is a reason why you don't want to adopt the feinstein amendment. it would preclude us from gaining all of the intelligence that we could gain by interrogating the individual who has turned on his own country and who would have knowledge of others who might have joined him in that effort or other plans that might be under way. we know from past experience that this interrogation can lead to other information to save american lives by preventing future attacks, and it's occurred time and time again. in a moment, i will put a statement in the record that details a lot of this intelligence that we have gathered. and it's not as if an american citizen doesn't have the habeas corpus protection which still a attaches whether or not that individual is taken into

military custody. so the basic constitutional right of an american citizen is preserved, and yet the government's ability to interrogate and gain intelligence is also preserved by the existing law, by the status of the law as it exists today, and we would not want to change that law by something like the feinstein amendment. mr. graham: simply stated, when you decided to help the nazis, the american citizens questioned decided to give aid and comfort to the nazis, i am very glad they were allowed to be held by our military and interrogated about the plot and what they knew because intelligence gathering is the best way to keep us safe, and i would be just absolutely devastated if the senate for the first time in 2011 denied the ability of our military and intelligence community to interrogate somebody that came back from pakistan and started killing people on the mall, that you could no longer hold them as an

enemy combatant and find out what they did and why they did it, that you would have to treat them as a common criminal, reading them their miranda rights. that is not the law. if that becomes the law, then we're less safe, because i tell you as we speak, the threat to our homeland is growing, home-grown radical terrorists are becoming the threat of the 21st century, and now is not the time to change the law that's been in place for decades, and i do hope people understand what this means. it means you would change the law so if we caught somebody in america who went overseas to train and came back home an american citizen who turned on the rest of us, no longer could you hold them as an enemy combatant and gather intelligence and that to me would be a very dangerous thing to do. senator kyl, who determines what the constitution actually means? is at this time congress or the supreme court? mr. kyl: mr. president, ultimately the united states supreme court when cases come

before the court to present these issues determines what the law is. and in this situation we have actually two specific cases and there are others that are tangential that clarify what the court believes the supreme court -- excuse me what the constitution would provide in this. mr. graham: so the issue is simple. our courts are -- the highest level, the supreme court has acknowledged that the executive branch has the legal authority to hold an american citizen who has -- who is collaborating with an enemy as an enemy belligerent to gather intelligence and protect the rest of us. they recognize that power of the executive. do you agree with me that senator feinstein's amendment would be a situation where the congress does not recognize that authority and would actually try to change it? mr. kyl: yes, mr. president, one of the questions is the interplay between the executive and the ledge la slaib.

-- legislative branch. when congress as provided the legal basis for the administration to hold a person engaged in war against us, then it cannot be denied that that authority exists. there is a 1971 law that congress passed that said you can hold people only pursuant to law and this was the precise holding of the hamdi case where the u.s. supreme court said they had the authority because of the authorization of military force. so the executive has that authority. the legislature has provided the basis for the authority, and the supreme court has upheld it by its jurisdiction. mr. graham: to conclude this colloquy which i've really enjoyed the discussion, i'm not saying that our law enforcement military intelligence community must -- cannot read someone their miranda rights. i'll leave that up to them. i am saying the congress should not take off the table the ability to hold someone under the law of war to gather intelligence and that's what we're about to do if this passes. so to those who believe that

home-grown terrorists are a threat now and in the future, if you want to make sure we can never effectively gather intelligence, that we only have one option, then that's what we're about to impose on the country. mr. kyl: i might ask my colleague to yield for one last point i'd like to make here. mr. graham: absolutely. mr. kyl: in a criminal trial the object is to do justice to the individual as pertains to his alleged vials of law of the united states. in the case of the capture and detention of a -- of a combatant, someone who has taken action against the united states, the object first is to keep the united states safe from this individual's actions and secondly where possible, gain intelligence are that individual. that's the critical element that would be taken from our military were the feinstein amendment to be adopted and i'd like unanimous consent to insert in the record at this point a statement that makes very clear

why military detention is necessary to allow intelligence gathering that will prevent future terrorist attacks against the american people. the presiding officer: is there objection? so ordered. mr. kyl: thank you, mr. president. i hope this statement will clarify in anyone's minds, that by taking people into military custody in the past we have gathered essential intelligence to protect the american people. that's the reason for the detention in the first place, a to keep the american people safe from further attack by the individual, and b, to gather this kind of intelligence. nothing precludes the united states, the executive branch from thereafter deciding to try the individual as a criminal in the criminal court with all of the attendant rights of a criminal. but until that determination, it cannot be denied that the executive has the authority to hold people as military combatants, to gather intelligence necessary and to hold that individual until the cessation of hostilities.

the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. the senior senator from vermont is recognized. mr. leahy: i understand we're still in morning business? the presiding officer: the time of morning business has expired. mr. leahy: i ask consent that i be recognized for another five minutes as if in morning business. and that the senator from illinois be recognized for ten minutes as in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. leahy: mr. president, earlier this week one of the bill's lead sponsors here on the floor of the united states senate, the bill's detention subtitle would authorize the indefinite detention of u.s. citizens at guantanamo bay. i found that a stunning statement. we should consider the ramifications of passing a bill containing this language. the supporters of the detention provisions in the bill continue

to argue that such measures are needed, as they say, because we're a nation at war. that does not mean that we should be a nation without laws or a nation that does not adhere to the principles of our constitution. many of us remember being told because of the terrible things that saddam hussein did to us on 9/11 and his weapons of mass destruction, we should go to war. of course it turned out he he had nothing to do with 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction. but we spent ten years in a war and spent a trillion dollars because of that. let's stop and think about following what has protected us throughout our nation's history and our constitution. one of the provisions in this bill, section 103 , runs directly contrary 0 the principles of our laws, it requires the military to detain

terrorism suspects, even those who might be captured on u.s. soil. now, this provision is opposed by the very intelligence, military, and law enforcement officials who are entrusted with keeping our nation safe. these are the people who oppose it, the secretary of defense, the director of national intelligence, the attorney general, the director of the f.b.i., the president's top counterterrorism advisor. they say it doesn't help us, we shouldn't have it and as chairman of the judiciary committee, i support efforts of senator feinstein, the chair of the senate intelligence committee, to modify section 103 so it doesn't interfere with ongoing counterterrorism efforts or undermine our constitutional principles. we should in our fight against al qaeda and other are terrorist threats give our military and law enforcement professionals all the tools they need, and i think we all agree with that.

but the mandatory military detention provisions in section 1032 limits those tools by tying the hands of the intelligence and law enforcement professionals who are fighting terrorism. it creates operational confusion and uncertainty and that's unwise and unnecessary. on monday, the director of the f.b.i., robert mueller, warned this section 1032 would adversely affect the bureau's ability to continue ongoing international investigations. secretary panetta stated unequivocally this provision restrains the executive branch options to utilize a swift and flexible fashion all the counterterrorism tools that are now legally available. now, these aren't partisan objections. this is the secretary of defense, the director of the f.b.i. those who were confirmed by -- both of who were confirmed by

100-0 votes. but they're voices we're supposed to ignore. director mueller stated in his letter the provisions are problematical, they fail to recognize the reality of a counterterrorism investigation. the director of national intelligence clapper stated -- and this is what we should think about in this debate -- the various detention provisions even with the proposed waivers would introduce unnecessary rigidity in the intelligence gathering process. the assistant for, stated agents and prosecutors shouldn't have to spend their time worrying about citizenship status and whether and how to get a waiver signed by the secretary of defense in order to thwart an al qaeda plot against the homeland. we ought to listen to these people. senator feinstein's amendment would ensure the requirement of military detention, terrorism suspects is not applied

domestically. as chairman of the senate judiciary committee i'm a proud cosponsor of her position and i support it. and mr. president i ask my whole statement be made part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. leahy: i know senator durbin durbin -- i understand from senator durbin the distinguished senator from missouri is going next, and in any event, i yield the floor and i thank my colleagues for their courtesy. the presiding officer: the senator from missouri is recognized. mr. blunt: by like unanimous consent to address the senate for 10 minutes under morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. blunt: i appreciate my good friend from illinois allowing me to go ahead and talk about the defense bill at this time but doing it in the context of where we are in the floor right now. defending the country is the congress' most important constitutional responsibility. abraham lincoln said that government should do for people

only those things that people cannot better do for themselves, and if there's anything at the top of that list, this is at the top of that list. so it's critical, mr. president, that we have this discussion, that we pass this bill as soon as possible in order to give our men and women in uniform the tools they need to do their job and the certainty we need to know how that job is going to be done from the point of view of what the government needs to provide. while this bill is only about next year's defense program, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that our budget environment is more challenged all the time, and whether the automatic budget cuts to future defense finds -- happen or not, we do know that we're going to have to be more thoughtful, more cautious about how we get the most for our investment in defense.

you know, everybody else in america has spent the last 20 years figuring out how you focus on a better result for less investment, and defense is going to have to be there as well. but still, that doesn't mean it's not a top priority for the federal government. i appreciate the work that my friend, senator levin and senator mccain have done to get this bill to the floor. i'm frowd represent a state that -- proud to represent a state that is really involved in our national defense. missouri is the home of fort leonard wood, whiteman air force base, the marine corps mobilization center? kansas city. we have dozens of national guard and reserve facilities in our state. our state has 17,184 active duty soldiers, marines and airmen right now, 34,000 guard and reservists, we're the home of large and small defense contractors that provide thousands of jobs in our state,

and those defense contractors can do their work better and our defense dollars are better spent if we know what the plan is. and the only real way to know what the plan is to have an authorization bill that works. since the beginning of operation enduring freedom and iraq freedom, 134 missourians have given their lives, over 1,000 have been wounded in the line of duty. in fact, one of the amendments that i have that i hope finds its way into this bill is just research associated with rehabilitating those wounded warriors who have eye injuries. thousands of vision-related injuries have occurred as a result of the wars we're fighting now. tremendous work is being done by st. john's hospital and missouri state university in springfield to see what can be done to develop better ways to deal with those eye wounds, other

i.e.d.'s as a principal tool of our enemies of our opponents, our enemies in this war, your eyes are the hardest thing to ultimately protect. and every wounded warrior, 12% of them have eye wounds and hopefully we can look to see what we can do to make greater protection and greater recovery from those wounds. i join all missourians in thanking those who serve. i think all of us will show greater commitment to those who serve by actually having a defense authorization bill that sets out a plan for the future. mr. president, i'm particularly pleased that this bill contains funding for modifications of the b-2 bomber's mixed loading capacity. most of our stealth bombers operate out of whiteman air force base in missouri and we discovered as recently as libya

that operations with our b-2 bombers aren't as efficient as they need to be or could be simply by making that loading capacity work differently. that's the kind of thing we're going to have to do as we look at more difficult to get defense dollars, we're going to have to figure out how we spend those defense dollars in the best possible way. i hope the senate language as it's in the bill now prevails in a final bill. i also want to call attention to the bill's full authorization of the development of the next generation long-range strike bomber, and i'm pleased with the funding this bill has for maintenance facility at fort leonard wood and weapons storage at whiteman. i've filed a few amendments in this bill and i'll just mention a couple. one is i'm working with senator gillibrand for an amendment where national guard soldiers are entitled to the same domestic emergency job protection and employment rights

as others do when they come back. senator gillibrand and i have also worked on a bill to ensure that people in the guard and reserve and their families have access to financial and marital and other kinds of counseling as they try to put their other life back together. i want to thank my colleagues for bringing this bill to the floor. we face a wide variety of threat today, including some that are new and constantl evolving. cyber warfare, w.m.d., all things that we need to take seriously. this is a principal responsibility of the federal government. i am looking forward to seeing this bill pass the senate today and then to work with the house to get a bill on the president's desk so that all that are involved in the defense of the country know what the long-term plan is. and i would yield the floor, mr. president. mr. durbin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the assistant majority leader is recognized. mr. durbin: mr. president, i

thank my colleague from missouri and i certainly concur with his comments about our american military. we have the best in the world. these men and women serve us well, with courage and honor every day. and we are fortunate to have them a. tboarnt, those of us that enjoy the blessings and liberty and the safety of this nation, to have men and women willing to risk their lives for america. this underlying bill, this department of defense authorization bill, is a bill that authorizes the continued operations of our military and every year we pass this bill, as we should, in a timely manner. i have supported it consistently over the years with very few exceptions and believe that the work product brought to us by senators levin and mccain is excellent, bipartisan and moves us in a direction toward an even safer america. and i thank them for all the work they've put into it. but there are provisions within this bill today which trouble me greatly, provisions which i hope members of the senate will reflect o. one in particular that i'll address at this time. senator feinstein's offering amendment number 1125 and i'm a

cosponsor. i would say that this amendment raises a serious question about section 1032 in this bill. i am concerned that this section would limit the flexibility of any president to fight terrori terrorism. i'm concerned that it will create uncertainty for law enforcement, intelligence, and our military regarding how to handle suspected terrorists. and i think it raises fundamental and serious constitutional concerns. this provision, 1032, would for the first time in the history of the united states require our military to take custody of certain terrorism suspects in the united states. on its face, that doesn't sound offensive but, in fact, it creates a world of problems. where do we start this debate? we understand the responsibility of congress in passing laws and the president with the option to sign those laws or veto them and the courts with the responsibility to interpret th

them. when it comes to the protection of this country and fighting terrorism, most of us have felt that this is primarily an executive function under presidents of both political parties. we may disagree from time to time on patriot act and other aspects of it and debate those things, but by and large, i think we have ceded to presidents of both parties the power to protect america. my colleague and friend, senator lay see graham, a republican of south carolina, on september 19, 2007, stated -- and he states things very colorfully and clearly -- he said, "the last thing we need in any war is to have the ability of 535 people who are worried about the next election to be able to micromanage how you fight the war. this is not only micromanagement, this is a constitutional shift of power." that was senator graham's statement in 2007. though i would carefully and jealously guard the

constitutional responsibility of congress when comes to the declaration of war, even the waging of war, i do believe there's a line that we should honor. we should not stop our preside president, those who work for him in keeping america safe by second-guessing decisions to be made. today again on the republican side of the aisle came colleagues who make the argument that it is a serious mistake for us to take a suspected terrorist and put them into our criminal justice system. they argue the last thing in the world you want to do is take a suspected terrorist and read them their constitutional rights, the right to remain silent, everything you say can be used against you, the right to counsel. they argue that's what terrorists will clam up and stop talking. therefore, they argue, suspected terrorists should be transferred to military jurisdictions where miranda rights will not be read. on its face, it sounds like a reasonable conclusion.

in fact, it is not. it is not. since 9/11, we have arrested and detained 300 suspected terrorists, read them their miranda rights and then went on to prosecute them successfully and incarcerate them. they cooperated with the federal bureau of investigation. they gave information, in many cases gave volumes of information even after having been read their rights. so to argue that it can't be done or should not be done is to ignore the obvious. 300 times we have successfully prosecuted suspected terrorists and america has remained safe. for these ten years plus since 9/11. how many have been prosecuted under military tribunals in that period of time? six, and three have been released. so we are keeping this country safe by giving to the president and those who work for the president in the military intelligence and law enforcement

community the option to decide the best course of action when it comes to arresting, detaining, investigating and prosecuting an individual. remember the man who was on the plane flying into detroit a couple years ago? tried to detonate a bomb on the plane? his clothing caught fire and the other passengers subdued him, restrained him. he was arrested, investigated by the f.b.i. and read his miranda rights. within a day, his parents were brought over. the following day, he decided to cooperate with the united states and told us everything he knew. at the end of the day, he was prosecuted, brought to trial and pled guilty. he went through our regular criminal court system though he wasn't an american citizen and he was successfully prosecuted. president obama had the right to decide what was the best thing to do to keep america safe and he did it. why would we want to tie his hands? now let me talk to you about

this section, 1032, and why it is a serious mistake. 1032 in this bill would for the first time in american history require the military to take custody of certain terrorism suspects in the united states. from a practical point of view, it could be a deadly mistake for us to require this. listen to what was said by the justice department in explaining why. "while the legislation proposed as a waiver in certain circumstances to address concerns, this proposal inserts confusion and bureaucracy when f.b.i. agents and counterterrorism prosecutors are making split-second decisions in a rapidly developing situation, like that involving naji bulazi, traveling to new york in september of 2009 to plant a bomb on the new york subway, they need to be completely focused on getting the suspect and interrogating him about his plans. instead, this provider, 1032,

written into this law would require a handoff of of suspects to military authorities. so what does our military think about this? well, the secretary of defense, leon panetta, made it abud notly clear when he said -- abundantly clear when he said, "the failure of the revised text to clarify that section 1032 applying to individuals captured abroad, as we've urged, may needlessly complicate efforts by frontline law enforcement professionals to collect critical intelligence concerning operations and activities within the united states." what we've seen then is our secretary of defense telling us, ceding to the military this authority could compromise america's security at a critical moment, when every second counts, when the gathering of intelligence could literally save not just a life but thousands of lives. now, senator feinstein's amendment makes it clear, as the administration wants to make it clear, that those terrorism suspects who are arrested abroad

will be detained by the military but within the united states we are told by this administration this provision will jeopardize the security of our country, will require a procedure now to hand off these individuals to the military side in places where they couldn't possibly be handed off quickly or seamlessly. we have 10,000 f.b.i. agents dedicated to the security of this country. when it comes to these national security. in 56 different offices and we don't have anything near that capacity when it comes to the military picking up the interrogation of an individual who may have knowledge that if we can glean it from that person could save thousands of lives. why in the world do we want to tie the hands of law enforceme enforcement? why do we want to tie the hands of the intelligence community? why do we want to create the situation of giving to the military this responsibility when they're not prepared at this moment to take it? i think senator feinstein's doing the right thing for the

protection of this country. her position is supported not only by the attorney general, by the secretary of defense, and by the intelligence community. they have done a good job keeping america safe. they have asked us, please, do not micromanage, do not presume, do not create another hurdle for us when it comes to gathering information that can save lives in america. why would we do that? after more than ten years of success and avoiding another 9/11, let us not make the situation worse by this 1032, this section of the bill that is being presented to us. i know you'll hear arguments on the floor, well, there are opportunities here for a waiver, a waiver. so if a person is detained by the federal bureau of investigation, then it's determined that this is a suspect that falls in the category and needs to go to military detention, then we need to turn to the executive side for a waiver of that military detention. how much time will be lost? minutes? hours?

days? could >> ford tha you afford ths at stake is the potential loss of thousands of american lives? why? why make it more complex? i can't understand why the other side of the aisle is now so determined with this president -- this president -- to micromanage the defense of this country when it comes to terrorism. when it was a republican president, any suggestions along those lines were dismissed as unpatriotic and unwise and illogical. now under this president, everything's fair game. they want to change the rules, rules which have successfully protected the united states for more than ten years. i urge my colleagues, support senator feinstein's amendment 1125, amend the section 1032, make sure that our defense department, military and law enforcement, as well as intelligence community have the tools that they need to continue to keep america safe. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. cornyn: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from texas is recognized. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i'd ask unanimous -- i would be glad to yield to the -- [inaudible] mr. cornyn: i was going to ask and will ask, mr. president, unanimous consent that i be recognized to speak as if in morning business for up to ten minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. the senior senator from michig michigan. mr. levin: mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that when we return to the bill, which would be immediately after senator cornyn, that then we move immediately to the feinstein amendment number 1125 and that there be a 30-minute -- there be 30 minutes of debate evenly divided and that the vote would occur immediately following --

the presiding officer: the senator from texas is recognized. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i want to talk about something that is all too rare and that is bipartisan support for an important piece of legislation that not only fulfills america's commitments to our ally, taiwan, under the taiwan relations act of 1979, but helps stabilize a critical region of the world a