we think the work of the mission in the near future shift to new with the relevant support from all sides. a particular importance in the content of efforts to settle the price is, the lis -- provision of the ugliest initiative from january 2012, this provision could prove useful as a cause of governments and all representatives of the opposition to work in dialogue under engaged in dialogue is not only diplomats but also politician.7

mr. coburn: thank you. as my colleagues are no doubt aware, i stand in opposition to

this bill, not because i think we should have insider trading. as a physician, i am trained to fix the real problem and you're treating the symptoms. you know, several months ago, cbs did a series and showed some questionable but not necessarily insider trading stock trades which brought about, given our low level of confidence by the american public in this institution, has raised the question well, what about insider trading? you know, i honestly believe everyone in our body is never going to use insider trading to advantage themselves over the best interests of the country, but the real problem is the confidence in the congress to do what is in the best long-term interest of the country, and the reason that the confidence isn't there doesn't have anything to do with insider trading, as we would normally think about it. it has to do with insider trading that we don't normally think about it, on how we sell a

vote to get something else out of the next vote, how we trade a position, how we saw positions were bought on the health care bill, whether it be the cornhusker kickback or the florida gator-aid or whatever it was. the fact is the american people saw behavior of members of congress doing things that were politically expedient rather than what is in the long, best term interests of our country. that is what we ought to be addressing. how do we do that? the way we address that is bring to the floor bills that actually address the problems our country is having today. you know, every second of every day this year, our government will borrow $121,000. we'll spend $121,000, not borrow. we'll borrow $52,000 a second, every day.

we're not addressing any of that in the senate. we haven't all last year, we aren't this year. the real problem in front of our country is america doesn't see a congress that's willing to address the real issues and make the hard choices. hard choices are coming. we will make those choices ultimately. some of us won't be here, but the longer we delay in making those very difficult choices, like saving medicare, like saving social security, like reforming the tax code to create, stimulate economic activity and create job opportunities for americans, that's what they want us doing. the other thing i would mention, i was one of two people who voted against the last ethics law. and i ask my colleagues, did we really improve the senate with

the last ethics law? were we -- will we really improve the quality of representation with this law? i don't think so. i think what we're doing is playing a political game to say we're all guilty, now we have to prove that we're not. that's not what our system of law is built on. our system of law is built on the fact that we're innocent until we're proven guilty. and the assumption that the senate is undertaking now is that some of our colleagues are doing insider trading on the stock market. nothing could be further from the truth. the real inside trading is the horse trading that goes on in this body that's not always in the best interest of the country. this -- this legislation isn't about the earned back the -- earning back the trust of the american people. the s.e.c. and the ethics committee already have the power to investigate inside trading

abuses. we yearly fill out a report saying -- listing every trade we have made. now, if it's true what the chairman of the committee said, that what the s.e.c. would like to do is have it more refined so they can have better access, then that ought to be the bill that we bring forward. we ought to bring forward a bill that says we, number one, are under the laws of the s.e.c., section 10-b, and we are. you don't hear that said anywhere, but we are. if our intent is to bring forward a bill to fix the potential for insider trading, then that's what we ought to be doing. but the assumption that we're guilty first and have to prove we're not by making a notification every 30 days of any trade that somebody makes for you, you may not have even

been involved but you may have a fiduciary that you've asked to trade for you. and then you're going to have to make that representation. has anybody asked the question, what happens if you do have inside information, have no involvement whatsoever in a trade because you put it if a trust account for you, but it's still being traded and they happen to coordinate at the same time? are you guilty of insider trading or are you going to spend $50,000 to $100 proving yourself that you're not guilty? this is a fine institution. it can be better. but it best when it fixes the real problems, not the symptoms of the problems.

mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that amendment number 1473 be called up. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn for himself and others proposes amendment numbered 1473. mr. coburn: i ask unanimous consent the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. coburn: this is a bipartisan amendment, senator mccain, plr mccaskill and senator paul and myself. multiple times we've asked for this but haven't gotten it. what this amendment says is every bill that comes before congress and to be considered by the senate, we should determine whether it's duplicating something that's already happening in the federal government. it's common sense. and all we're saying is an analysis by the c.r.s.,

congressional research service, to determine if the bill creates a new federal program, office, or initiative that would duplicate or overlap any existing federal program, any existing federal office or initiative with a similar mission, similar purpose, similar goal or activities along with a listing of all the overlapping or duplicative federal programs or offices or initiatives or initiative. now, why is that important? last february the g.a.o. brought to us the first third of the federal government an outline to us $200 billion worth of spending on duplicate programs. they gave it to us. it was hailed as a great thing that we now -- now we know, we have all these areas. 82 teacher training programs, 47 job training programs, 56 financial literacy programs and on and on and on. they brought that to us. and we all said that was good.

the problem with it, we didn't do anything about it. you want to restore confidence in the congress, do something about the problems that have been identified already. so what this is is a good-government policy that says before we act on a new bill that will actually know -- we'll actually know what we're doing and we will have checked with c.r.s. and they will tell us are we duplicating, again, something that's already happening out there. one of the other amendments that we should pass is to have every agency give us their list of programs every year. do you realize there's only one agency in the federal government, one department, who actually knows all their programs? there's only one. it's the department of education. they're the only ones you can go to and find out a list of all their programs. the rest of them don't know them. there's no catalogue. they have no idea. so before we pass a new piece of legislation, we ought to at least have the help of the

congressional research service and we ought to pass good legislation that doesn't duplicate. it may be a well-intentioned piece of legislation, but because we as a congress have failed in our oversight responsibility, we don't know that it's a duplication when we bring it here to the floor and pass it in the senate. all i'm asking, let's just do a double check, especially in time of trillion-dollar deficits, that we ought to double check and make sure we're not duplicating something that's already happening. that's important for a second reason. if we don't know that we're duplicating something, that means we're not oversighting the thing that's occurring right now, the program or the office or the initiative that's out there now. if we don't have the knowledge of it. so rather than create new program, it might actually give us the opportunity to fix one that has well mentioned -- was well mentioned but isn't working. so what this is is a good-government amendment that's bipartisan, that says let's do this before we pass additional

legislation, let's know what we're doing. it's complete and it's thorough. it also will provide greater transparency for both us and taxpayers regarding the impact of the legislation that we're passing. now, some may say what if we have an emergency? this has a claws in it -- clause in it that says if this is an emergency, that requirement is waived. so if in the case of an emergency that we need to do something, we will waive the requirement that we have to look at c.v. to see if there's -- c.r.s. to see if there's duplication. it's a commonsense amendment. i hope my colleagues will support it and that we can in fact actually tbix the real problems, not the symptoms of the disease. mr. president, i ask that the current amendment -- that's pending be set aside and i call up amendment 1474. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report.

the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn, for himself and mr. mccain, proposes amendment numbered 1474. mr. coburn: mr. president, this is another good-government amendment. what this says, and if we want to restore confidence, this is something we should do. it says before we vote on a bill, we're going to have at least 72 hours to read it. it's going to be available on line with a c.b.o. score so when we cast a vote we actually know what we're casting a vote on, and we actually know how much it costs. it just says it has to be online for 72 hours, in other words, we get the privilege of reading the bills we're voting on. and we also get the privilege of knowing the financial cost of the bills or at least an estimate of the financial cost that they will entail. this transparency is designed to

make the senate better. you want a bill -- to build confidence with the american public? then the way you build confidence is assure them that you knew exactly what you were doing when you cast a vote. not guessing at what the consequences and the details of that legislation are. for many pieces of legislation, right now what we've seen in the last two or three years here, there was no time given, no capability to study the legislation to make improvements and many of the pieces of legislation came without the ability to modify it. hmm. you can't read the legislation and you can't amend it. what does that tell you about the legislative temperament and thoughtfulness of the u.s. senate? you can't read it, you don't have time to contemplate it and consider it, and you can't amend it, even if you could.

that doesn't have anything to do with the u.s. senate as it was designed and functioned for 170 years. it has everything to do with politics today rather than the best long-term interests of the country. amendments like this have gained large amount of bipartisan support. and have had support in the past when we've voted on it. although we haven't acquired the 67 votes that have been necessary in the past to pass this. cosponsor of this amendment is senator mccain. he understands the importance of reading what we pass. all our colleagues do. why not put the self-discipline in that we have to, rather than the political moment that says you got to vote on this whether you know anything about it or not?

eight of my colleagues during the health care debate sent a letter to review the health care legislation. eight of my colleagues who ultimately voted for the health care legislation. and what their request was is give us 72 hours to read this. the legislative text and complete budget scores from the congressional budget office of the health care legislation considered on the senate should be made available on a website the public can access for at least 7 hours prior to the first vote to proceed to the legislation. why shouldn't the public be able to see what we're doing 72 hours before we do it and just as important, why shouldn't we be able to know what we're doing before we do it? so it's a straightforward, commonsense, transparent to the american public as well as to our colleagues in the senate that now you have the time available to read a piece of legislation, contemplate it and

hopefully have the opportunity to improve it. what's the goal? the best long-term outcome for the country. mr. president, i'd ask that the pending amendment be set aside and i call up amendment 1476. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from oklahoma, mr. coburn proposes amendment numbered 176. to amendment numbered 1470. mr. coburn: mr. president, this amendment would provide a complete substitute for the stock act. what it does, it requires members and staff to certify that they have not used inside information for private financial profit. in other words, they're going to make an affirmative statement under the law that they have not violated section 10-b of the securities and exchange act.

all members would be required to sign the following statement on annual financial disclosure forms. i hereby certify the financial transactions reflected in this disclosure form were not made on the basis of material nonpublic information. the stock act does not create new restrictions for congress against insider trading. we all know that. those restrictions are there. there's new restrictions. we don't change the restrictions at all. the s.e.c. has stated that the members of congress and staff are already subject to insider trading laws. they just need some clarity with that. they also would like to have timeliness with that. in fact, all americans are subject to these laws including the senate, found primarily in section 10-b. this provision restricts anyone who trades stocks from using material nonpublic information to profit financially and congress is no different than anybody else. the stock act was carefully written to apply simply reaffirm

that congress is not exempletted from these laws and i believe the chairman stated that just a moment ago which we would include in this. as such, the bill brings new reforms to the table, nor does it create any real expectation that behavior will change. it just requires a paperwork filing. all members and relevant staff should have to certify they're not trading on private information. each year, every member and certain high-salaried staff are required to close their financial holdings. senate rule 37 also already prohibits any senator or staff person from conflicts of interest. that would be a conflict of interest. specifically, rule 37 pricks the receipt of compensation by virtue of influence improperly exerted from his member, his position as a member or officer or employee. so we're covered doubly. we're already covered under section 37 and we're covered under section 10-b of the securities and exchange act.

if in fact somebody fails to do this, then they'll be liable under the false statements act and title 18 section 10001 which makes it a crime to lie to congress. that section prohibits anyone from knowingly and willfully making false, figure fictitiousr fraudulent statement to the government. the punishment for violating the false statements act is fine and a prison term up to five years. the does not mean that someone who makes a good faith effort but mistakenly forgets something will face punishment. yet any member who knowingly signs that form in error will be liable for making a false statement on his or her financing, carrying large penalties. i think efforts to reestablish trust in the congress are important. i disagree with my colleagues that this is one that will make a difference. it won't. nothing materially changes other

than a paperwork requirement. nothing materially changes other than every 30 days, you have to report instead of annually. what is the real problem? the people of this country do not have confidence in congress because congress does not address the real issues of the7