quorum call: the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: i ask consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. nelson: mr. president, i want to speak today, along with my colleague from florida, senator rubio, about the nomination of judge adalberto jordan. a lot of our folks refer to him as judge jordan, but he has been nominated to the 11th circuit court of appeals, and at this time when we have a very

sizable judicial vacancy rate with a lot of these judicial positions empty, we need to get them filled with qualified judges who are going to rule and rule expeditiously. confirming judge jordan to the 111th -- 11th circuit, which is one of the busiest in the country,about is going to be a good step forward in filling the need for all of these judges. we have in florida a long history of bipartisan support for our judicial nominees. that is especially so with my colleague, marco rubio, as we participate with our judicial nominating commission which the two of us appoint, and they screen and interview the applicants for the vacancies on

the district court vacancies. and as a result, we have nominees that come to us that have already been screened, and it takes the politics out of it. well, in the case of judge jordan, it is a continuation of that bipartisan support even though he did not go through that process, he was selected by the president, and is a sitting federal judge who has a -- an excellent record, and thus you see the bipartisan support. judge jordan received his undergraduate and his law degrees from the university of miami, and then after law school he clerked for a judge, judge thomas clark, on the 11th circuit, and then he

moved on to become a clerk for justice sandra day o'connor. he continued his legal career in private private sector at steel, hector, and davis, and then was an instant u.s. attorney in the -- assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of florida. he began his judicial career in 1999 as a united states district court judge for the southern district of florida, where he still sits. and based on his experience, judge jordan is extremely qualified for this position. and once confirmed, he will become the first hispanic judge on the 11th circuit court. so i would urge our colleagues to confirm this nominee without further delay, and i am pleased to be joined by my colleague,

senator rubio, my colleague from the state of florida. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. rubio: the other senator from florida, thank you. thank you, senator nelson, for that introduction, the first thing we how to decide his name, is his jordan, jor-dan, or hardan. he has a reputation. i have a bias, because i also graduated from the university of miami school of law where i have my law degree and my student loan so i'm grateful to them for that. he was only 37 years old when he was appointed to the bench and it says a lot that over the years he's garnered a reputation for both being fair but also for his intellect. he's highly regarded for his intellect. if you run in the legal circles particularly in south florida, you will find that judge jordan is somebody who people have

tremendous amount of respect for, not just his fairness but his intellect, his ability to understand complex legal issues. his background is one that would lead to you that. he was the chief of the appellate gigs in the office of the u.s. attorney for the southern district which is an extremely busy, one of the busiest districts in the country for the justice department. and as senator nelson has already pointed out, he spent a year clerking on the u.s. supreme court, he also clerked in the 11th circuit, where he now seeks to return and hopefully return today as one of its judges. a couple things there about the 11th circuit. it has two current vacancies, one in florida, one in georgia. it is the busiest per judge in the entire country and they have caseloads that range in cases from georgia, florida, alabama, death penalty appeals and so overwhelming they routinely invite judges from other circuits to hear its cased. it's critically important we fill these vaik candies and that's hopefully what we company do today. a couple more points about the judge. he continues to be very involved

in our community, both through his family and as an individual and he teaches courses both at the university of miami school of law and at the florida international university college of law, which is a new school that recently started operation just a few years ago. so he's an integral part of our community. i can tell my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that being from south florida, running in the same circles that he's run in terms of the legal community, he is highly respected and i think as a nation we are fortunate to have someone like this who is willing to bypass the many comforts of private practice and serve the country in a role like this and i hope tonight we will confirm 23478 him in a bipartisan and overwhelming fashion and with that i thank you for this opportunity and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call:quorum :

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. tbras grass i ask that the calling of the quorum be suspended. officer without objection. tbras grass we're going to traik up the nomination of judge -- tbras grass we'ring about to -- mr. grassley: we're tbg to take up the nomination of judge adalberto jordan. he's going to fill the vacancy that's been created by judge susan black taken senior status. looking bag, i think the senate accomplished much last year passing legislation confirming a significant number of judicial and executive nominations. i would note that even though the majority leader recognized that we have done a good job on nominations and have accomplished quite a bit as we well, we could have confirmed

more nominees had the president indicated that he would respect the practice and precedent on recess appointments. he would not give the senate that assurance, so a number of nominationominations could not e confirmed and now remain on the executive calendar. as it turned out, the president went on to violate the practice and precedent. i want to remind my colleagues that the constitution outlines two ways in which the president may make appointments. one is with the advice and consent of the senate. the other is he may make temporary appointments when a vacancy is one of those when the national is in recess. given the national was not in recess, it seems clear that advice and consent was required but not obtained by the president. it is for the senate to determine its own rules and procedures, including designation of when it is in recess within the constraints of

the constitutional provisions found in article 1. so, consequently, this is not a matter within the purview of the executive branch. in other words, under the constitution of the united states, the president is in no position to tell the senate when we adjourn and when we don't adjourn. these so-called recess appointments break a long-standing practiceddition. they violate precedents followed as recently as 2008 under president bush. this is a matter of concern to my republican colleagues, as it should be for all senators. in fact, i'm quite puzzled and disappointed by the silence from the other side. this is more than just a policy issue or disagreement on a particular nominee. the underlying concern is a power grab by the president. i would think that all senators would rise to defend the prerogatives of the senate and

the constitutional principles which has been violated by the senate. in other words, if the constitution of the united states says that the senate determines when we're in adjourn the or not, how does the president get the power to do that? when a president thinks he can do anything the constitution does not expressly prohibit, the danger arises that his advisors will feel pressure to say that the constitution does not stand in the way. at that point, a president is no longer a constitutional figure with limited powers, as the founders intended; quite to the contrary, the president looks more and more like a king that the constitution was designed to replace. you remember george iii, i hope. generally, i am willing to give the president's nominees the benefit of the doubt when the nominee on the surface meets the requirements i previously outlined. but as i have indicated over the

past few weeks, we're not operating under normal circumstances. the atmosphere the president has created with his disregard for constitutional principles has made it difficult to give his nominees any benefit of the doubt. despite the conditions the president has created, the committee is moving forward with hearings and with markups, and as we see, we continue to have floor votes and confirmations. we're making progress. this will be president obama's 26th circuit nominee that we've confirmed. that means over 62% of the president's circuit judge nominees have been confirmed. this is the same pace of confirmation for president bush's circuit nominees at a comparable point in his first term. furthermore, president obama's nominees are moving through the process at a quicker pace.

the average time for president obama's circuit nominees to be confirmed is about 140 days. for president bush, the average time was quite longer at 350 days, more than twice as long. with regard to judicial vacancies, i would note that progress has been made. we've made significant reductions in the vacancy rate. i hear some mistakenly -- i hear some mistakenly state that the vacancy rate is at historic highs. the claim is not true. i would point out that the current vacancy rate is about where it was at the beginning of the presidency of george w. bush, and in terms of historical highs, i'd like to remind my colleagues of some history. when george h.w. bush assumed the presidency, the vacancy rate was around 5%. during his term, the democratic majority in the senate let the

vacancy rate rise to 16%, nearly double what it is today. those who continue to explain what -- to explain -- those who continue to complain about vacancy rate should also be reminded that for more than half of the vacancies, the president has failed to even submit a nomination to the senate. this has been a pattern throughout this administration. this is the case even for vacancies designated as "judicial emergencies." 19 of those 33 emergencies vacancies have no nominee. furthermore, president obama is significantly behind in the number of nominations he has made. so it's not surprise that he would be a little behind in the confirmations as well. in other words, if the president wantwants the senate to move fa, send the nominations up here. i'm going to submit the rest of

my statement for the record. and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. cardin: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. under the previous order, the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture. the clerk: cloture motion. we the undersigned senators in accordance with the provisions of rule 22 of the standing rules of the senate hereby move to bring to a close the debate on the nomination of tkaopblg florida to be united states -- nomination of adalberto jose

jordan to be united states circuit judge. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent the quorum call has been waived. the question is is it the sense of the senate that debate on the nomination of adalberto jose jordan of florida to be a u.s. circuit judge for the 11th circuit shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

quorum call:

vote: vote: vote: vote: vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? seeing none, on this vote, the yeas are 89, the nays are 5.

three-finals of the senators duly chosen an sworn having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed to. the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i scuk that the senate resume legislative session, proceed to a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak for up to ten minutes each, further that the time in postcloture count during morning business and any recess or adjournment of the senate. a senator: mr. president 134. the presiding officer: the senator from florida. mr. nelson: reserving the right to db ash and obviously i'm not going to object -- but i want to say to the senate that this is an example 789-5 that debate -- an example 89-5 that debate has been cut off on a nomination that has the bipartisan support of senator rubio and myself of a judge from florida, and one senator is holding up the works that he would not agree to the consent

that you dismiss the 30 hours of debate, and that is causing us now to delay this. and so is it any wonder, i would ask the distinguished chairman of the judiciary committee, is it any wonder that we can't get things done around here when we see this kind of action on this kind of bipartisanship support of a judge? mr. leahy: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i have been here for 37 years. i could not agree more with the distinguished senior senator from florida. i would note are that four months ago -- i would note that four months ago when judge adalberto jose jordan came out of the senate judiciary committee, every single republican, every single democrat voted for him. after the work done by the distinguished senior senator from florida and his senate colleague from florida, the senator from florida, senator nelson, made a commitment to

every single democra democrat we for this american. four weeks later, having had the cloture vote that the senator from florida just mentioned, overwhelming support for him, he is still being held up. this is beneath the united states senate of america. i agree with the senator from florida. mrs. boxer: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: do we have that unanimous consent request vote? the presiding officer: the unanimous consent request is pending. mrsis is there objection to the request? without objection, so ordered. mrs. boxer: in p? the presiding officer: the snoer from california. mrs. boxer: i rise because i want to point out to the people of this country, who may be watching this proceeding, that what's happened here tonight on the senate floor is just

ridiculous, and i think, you know, senator nelson, bill nelson, who just -- you know, i think he was restrained frankly. i know him. he is a very close friend. he was restrained in his comments. one senator is stopping us from being able to ensure that justice is done, getting a great judge on the beth. and it is -- getting a great judge on the bench. it is sad. it is a bipartisan nominee. it goes beyond this. in addition to holding up the senate and wasting time here, because we can't vote on the judge now; we have to wait until hours understand hours go by -- what happens after? we're supposed to be on a highway bill, a bill that will protect 1.8 million jobs and croat an additional million jobs. 2.8 million jobs are hanging in the balance, and we have obstruction from moi friends on

the roan coyed, and they're moi friends. i don't know what they're doing. i don't know who they think they're helping. but it isn't the american people. whether it's standing in the way of this judge or whether i.t. stopping this -- or whether it's stopping this highway bill, they're hurting america. you know, i want to tell them, wake up and smell the roses. we're troig to get out of this recession. this is a jobs bill that's just waiting to happen. we have myself, senator inhofe as partners in this effort. we have senator baucus working with the republicans in the finance committee. we have senator johnson working in concert with senator shelby on the banking committee. and on the commerce committee we have a few bumps in the road, but we're going to straighten those out because senators hutchison and rockefeller are working together. so, why is it that we're doing

nothing? it's because senators on the other side don't want us to move ahead. it's no wonder we have a 13% approval from the american people. and i'll tell you, if they didn't let our families vote, it would be less. how low can it go? well, we're going to know. you know, i have to say, we want to get to this highway bill. it also had 85-11 vote to move forward, okay? 85-11 vote to move forward. and guess what the first amendment is? it's not about making sure our highways keep up with the demand p. it's not about how we can make shower our transit systems are functional. it's not about how woe make our bridges safer. it's about birth control. excuse me?

the first amendment that my friends on the other side want to offer is about birth control. now, i honor moi friends' views on birth control. i personally believe, as the vast majority of americans believe, that it is important that women have the ability to have their insurance cover contraception. it saves money. it saves loiives. it row duces the abortions by the tedges tens of thousands. it saves insurance companies 15% because it avoids so many problems. 15% of the women who use birth control use it for nonpwerbgt control -- birth control reasons such as helping prevent an ovarian cyst from turning into a dangerous situation. they use it to prevent

endometriosis. they use it to prevent debilitating pain. so it's a highway bill. i'm interested to see what senator blunt -- i have to read again -- what he's offering. i think it's so broad. it says that anybody in america, any employer can refuse to offer any part of insurance that they want if they say that it's a religious objection. so let's say you are a christian scientist and you run a big organization, and you don't believe children should get chemotherapy. and we've had those cases. well, under the blunt amendment, i guess you don't have to do it. you just say it's a religious objection. it's so sweeping. but my point tonight is to say that such an amendment does not belong on a highway bill. and to that end -- and i will stop here -- we received a letter today to the members of the senate.

this is, madam president, one of the clearest letters i've ever seen. here's what it says. "the time is now to pass s. 1813." that's the highway bill, moving ahead for progress in the 21st century. "the bipartisan bill crafted by the e.p.w., environment and public works committee, last thursday 85 senators voted to invoke cloture to proceed to it. clearly demonstrating bipartisan support for passing the highway and transit bill. while we're encouraged by this show of support, the undersigned organizations are concerned that progress may be impeded if nongermane, unrelated amendments are offered as part of the deliberations on this bill. and here's what they say. i love this letter. listen to what they say: "the organizations that we represent may hold diverse views on social, energy and fiscal issues, but we are united in our

desire to see immediate action on the senate's bipartisan highway and transit reauthorization measures. therefore, we strongly urge you to abstain." this is to every senator. senators, if you're listening, please listen carefully. "we strongly urge you to abstain from offering nongermane amendments that would impede the passage of this legislation, which is essential to job creation, economic growth, and to the long-term stability of vital transportation programs." i'm g.e.d. to read who -- i'm going to read who signed this. the triple a, american association of state highway and transit tperbls, the american bus association, american concrete association, american council of engineering companies, american highway users alliance, american moving and storage association, american public transportation association, american road and transportation builders, american society of civil

engineers, american traffic safety services association, american trucking association, the general contractors of america, equipment distributors, equipment manufacturers, metropolitan planning organizations, vehicle safety alliance, highway safety association, governors highway safety association, intelligent transportation society, international union of operating engineers, motor and equipment manufacturers association, the national az fault pavement association, the national association of development organizations, national construction alliance two, national stone, sand and gravel association, portland cement, and the u.s. chamber of commerce. listen, we have to put aside these wedge issues, these

got-cha issues. we have business after business after business that's struggling. this is a bipartisan bill. this will save 1.8 million jobs and create an additional million jobs. and we're talking about birth control amendments, line-item veto amendments, amendments about foreign policy. i have to say to those colleagues of mine, whatever side of the aisle you're on, at this time i only nope republican amendments. -- i only know republican amendments. but anyone who would come forward with a nongermane amendment and try to put it on this important bill, let me say this as best i can. either they don't care a hoot about jobs for our people or they just want this economy to tank for political reasons. because if we don't pass a highway bill -- and, madam president, the authorization ends at the end of march -- i'm going to be blunt with you here. what's going to happen? our states are going to start

shutting down these projects, and people will be unemployed, and we'll see a reversal in this very delicate economic recovery. this is a critical bill, and i'm going to be on this floor every single day, and i'm going to be going on my facebook, and i'm going to be going on twitter and going on tv and radio and everywhere. why? to say a very simple things to my colleagues. get out of the way of this jobs bill. get out of the way. all of america supports it from the left to the right to the center and everything in between. and with that, i would yield the floor. thank you very much, madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: earlier today i toured alcoa's cleveland works plant, the plant houses an engineering and manufacturing marvel of 50,000-ton, stands 87

feet high, 36 feet below the surface, 51 feet above the surface. the press has enough steel to lay 42 miles of railroad track. that's roughly here to baltimore or akron to cleveland. it's massive, one of only five heavy dye pressing storage in the united states, considered officially by the mechanical engineering association a landmark. its original purpose was to build components for large airplanes during world war ii. during the war, we discovered the german aircraft were being built with structure elements that could only be made by large forging processes that we thought had not yet been invented. and so only as it could do, our government, as only it could do, our government through the air force initiated the heavy press program to compete with the

germans and to show that advanced manufacturing matters to our country. after the war, we brought the super giant forging press to america and to cleveland where it remains critical to our commercial and defense aerospace industries. it formed the basis of a public-private partnership that stamps the "made in america" label on some of the world's most advanced technologies and products. today alcoa is investing $100 million to complete and restart its redesign of the massive press. alcoa invested in america and it's an investment in ohio manufacturing. it shows the company's ability to leverage public resources to meet industrial based needs as well as commercial demands of the market. it's for our national security and it's for our domestic security to build a middle class. as an example of how partnerships can still pay

dividends six decades later and will do so with continued investment for decades to come. at the time it was about our national pride and need in times of war. today it's about creating and retaining jobs. it's about showing that manufacturing. it's about building things. it's about innovation. manufacturing is about high-tech production, its sophisticated engineering, its advanced technologies and remains a ticket to the middle class. we're finally seeing recognition in washington that manufacturing is critical to our economic recovery. for 12 years, from 1997 through the eight bush years into 2009, we had seen a decline every single year in ohio manufacturing, in american manufacturing. but for the last 21 months we've seen an increase in manufacturing jobs in america, and an increase in manufacturing jobs in ohio. it started in part with the auto rescue, where if some

conservative politicians in washington had their way, they would have allowed the auto industry simply to declare bankruptcy with no ability to finance a restructure of the auto industry. instead, working -- the president working with the senate, working with the house rescued that industry by investing in that industry. today in my state, we are seeing thousands of auto jobs in the auto companies, in chrysler and g.m., themselves, jobs that wouldn't have been there if we hadn't done the auto rescue. we're seeing all kinds of auto supply jobs. for instance, in toledo, at the jeep plant, the chrysler jeep plant in toledo, where three years ago 50% of components in that assembly plant came from only -- only 50% came from domestic sources. today more than 70% come from domestic sources. today plants in toledo, in

lordstown are hiring workers. the chevy cruze, one of the hottest selling cars in america is as close to an all-ohio car as you can get. the engine is tphaeud defiance, transmission in toledo, the steel comes out of cleveland. the aluminum comes out of cleveland. part of the sound system comes out of springboro, assembly in lordstown. thousands and thousands of auto worker jobs, tens of thousands of jobs of auto suppliers supplying the cruze, supplying honda, supplying the jeep plant in toledo, supplying the ford plant in avon lake. in the last year alone, honda and chrysler and ford and g.m. announced multimillion dollar investments in ohio alone and in many cases around the country. honda announced it would build and develop its most state-of-the-art sports car ever right in ohio.

we see the same job-creating investments from chrysler, its toledo assembly complex, from g.m. and its defiance plant. like it did when our country need the the forging press, our government stepped up to invest in american auto industry. so those who complain about the auto rescue need to read a little history to understand that so often american manufacturing partnered with u.s. taxpayers to make sure these industries were strong and solid and created good-paying jobs to build a middle class. it's paying off dividends today. it will continue to do so in the future. one last point, madam president -- a unanimous consent request after i speak that the senator from oregon is recognized. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, madam president. one more point i want to make, we must remain vigilant in

enforcement of our trade laws. our progress in autos is at risk of being undercut if we allow china to continue to cheat trade rules, flaunt its predatory auto trade practices in our faces. only ten years ago china, our trade deficit in auto parts with china was only about $1 billion. that has grown 800% to about $9 billion to $10 billion. that means more than 1.6 million american jobs are at risk. our trade deficit with china is continuing to cause difficulty for middle-class americans. china has begun placing tariffs on american-made automobiles. these massive illegal subsidies are worsened by indirect predatory subsidies like currency is i manipulation. that's why, madam president, i'm encouraged by the president's announcement of a new trade enforcement panel. it's born of the realizeization that the stakes are too high for our workers and our companies and our economy if we don't

fight back. we need all hands on deck approach among ustr, the trade rep, state department, the commerce department to be involved, to be more aggressive especially by initiating more trade cases. madam president, i know from representing ohio in the united states senate since 2007, i know what trade enforcement laws do. trade enforcement by the commerce department and international trade commission against china cheating created jobs in lorain, ohio in the steel industry, created jobs in findlay, ohio in the tire industry, created jobs in paper in other industries around the state. and, madam president, resulted in a new steel mill in youngstown ohio whereby about 1,000 building tradespeople are building that plant and 500 or 600 steelworkers will be working in that plant that manufactures oil country tubular steel, jobs that would have been in china if the president of the united

states and the international trade commission did not enforce trade laws. that's why that matters. that's why the new trade enforcement panel that the president is setting up as part of his budget is so very, very important for the future of our national security and for the future of the middle class in our great country. madam president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: thank you, madam president. i rise today to address the legislation we hope will soon be pending here on the floor of the senate, the moving ahead for progress in the 21st century act, better known as the highway bill. this bill is dedicated to rebuilding both our highway and transit transportation system. it's critical down payment on both america's economic recovery and our long-term economic success. infrastructure is a doubly effective investment. first, in the short term, infrastructure projects create much-needed jobs.

particularly now when the construction industry is flat on its back, it's one of the hardest hit sectors in this downturn. so rebuilding and repairing our crumbling roads and bridges is one of the best things we can do to create jobs. second, infrastructure investments support jobs in the long term. think of how many businesses in this country lie -- rely on america's infrastructure to move their goods to consumers. businesses in every state of our nation, from our most rural communities to our largest cities. small businesses, large corporations, and everything in between. creating the infrastructure that gives these businesses the tools they need to grow is an essential ingredient for future job growth. yet over the past generation, our commitment to infrastructure funding at the federal level has not reflected its role as a key to our future competitiveness.

china is spending 10% of its gross domestic product on infrastructure. europe is spending 5% of its g.d.p. on infrastructure. the number here in america, just 2%. barely enough to keep our roads and transit systems in repair. and there are those here in washington pushing to cut the investment even further. mr. president, this is not a recipe for success in the 21st century. nor should this be a partisan issue. when i go home to oregon i hear from businesses large to small, from liberal to conservative, telling me that this transportation bill is a good investment in our future. likewise, more than 1,000 organizations ranging from the u.s. chamber of commerce to labor groups to local

governments, have urged congress to act without delay and pass this highway bill. it is time for congress to recognize as our constituents do that if we want jobs, if we want growth, if we want competitiveness, this is one of the best investments that we can make. so i am very pleased that the committee responsible for this, environment and public works, was able to pass a strong bill out, and it's going to be merged with work done by three other committees, in all cases with bipartisan votes, and bring it to the floor, this bill to the floor with significant support on both sides of the aisle. but our work is not going to be done until we pass this bill through this chamber, until we pass this bill through the house and we put it on the president's desk. this bill really is a down

payment on the next phase of our economic growth. it puts construction workers back on the job, creating 1.8 million jobs over the next two years. that's a sizable number, 1.8 million jobs. that will make a huge difference to construction workers who are still struggling with an unemployment rate of 18%, more than twice the national average. second, this bill gives states the flexibility to direct more of their own funds, putting more power in the hands of local communities to decide what their most important transportation priorities are. and finally, it's an investment in the 21st century system that will move us all forward. of course, there are always ways that a bill could be stronger, and i will work with my colleagues to bring a number of amendments to the floor. there are, for example, several

loopholes in the buy america provisions that we should fix. we already recognize in current law if we are spending taxpayer dollars to buy materials for american infrastructure projects, it makes no sense to ship those dollars overseas when they could stay in our economy and support growth and jobs right here. all highway and transit projects have requirements to use american-made materials for public infrastructure and transit. but two specific loopholes have enabled states to buy chinese steel instead of american steel, and ship jobs out of the country. first, we should close the freight rail loophole in our buy america laws. the industrial might of this nation was built on american railroads made from american steel. as we update and improve that freight rail system, it is only right that those bridges and tracks continue to be made in america.

this summer, construction of a rail bridge in alaska to a military base was awarded to a chinese company because of federal rail administration, unlike the federal transit and federal highway administrations, doesn't have a buy american provision provision. an american company was ready to build this bridge but because of this loophole the contract went to a chinese company using chinese steels, paid for with american tax dollars. that is a huge mistake. let's shut that loophole. second, we should close the segmentation loophole. this loophole allows projects to be split into little pieces in order to bypass the requirement for american-made materials. the bay bridge in california was split into nine separate projects instead of just one bridge project so that federal funds and therefore buy america provisions would only apply to two out of the nine projects. this allowed the bulk of the bridge to be built with chinese

steel and chinese workers. with american tax dollars. that's a mistake. even republican members of the house know that that's a mistake. they have put forward an amendment to close this loophole. let's close this loophole as well on the senate side. in addition to closing these two loopholes, we need to star treken the bike and pedestrian provisions in this bill. bike and pedestrian systems are essential components in an integrated transportation system, reducing congestion, reducing pollution in a highly cost-effective manner. with gas prices on the rise, many families are looking for increased opportunities to get around on their bikes and on foot. in many communities around the nation, such as portland and eugene in my home state of oregon and other cities in oregon, biking and walk have become a way of like with families commuting and running errands and getting around town

and when they are able to do that, they decrease the load on the highway system, reduce the congestion, reduce the pollution, it is a win-win at every level. but federal funding has not kept up with this shift. just as traffic lights and highway lanes are necessary to make our roads safer and faster for drivers, pedestrians and bikers need infrastructure to make their trips safe and efficient. yet there is no dedicated federal funding stream despite the growing demand in many communities across the united states and despite the fact in terms of reducing congestion on the roads it's one of one of tht cost-effective strategies we could possibly follow. the infrastructure costs little. it has big bang for the buck. in portland, 2% itself city's -- of the city's money was spent but the percent went up 140%. the gentleman madge if those

bikers were in cars by themselves. congestion would have increased instead of staying constant over a ten-year period. so i am supporting an amendment that would retain the current level of funding at 2% for bike and pedestrian projects and encourage my colleagues to be smart with the federal dollar. and support this amendment. this bill, the broader highway bill, is a critical investment in our short-term and long-term economic success. over the next two years it will provide an immediate boost to a struggling construction industry, creating jobs where they are needed most and over the next generation will act as the down payment we need on infrastructure for our businesses to grow and prosper in the 21st century. i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue to build support around this bill. indeed, to get this bill to the floor for consideration.

while there are some in this chamber who want to fight social battles by putting unrelated amendments up, there are millions of americans in need of jobs and there's an infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt and there are citizens that want us to put aside the games and do the work here so they can do the work back at home. thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i recognize the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: will the senator suspend his request. mr. merkley: yes, indeed. the presiding officer: the senator from washington is recognized. ms. cantwell: i ask unanimous consent senate proceed to immediate consideration of h.r. 1162 which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 1162, an act to

provide for the indian tribe, tsunami protection and for other purposes. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. cantwell: i ask for the consideration that the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider with no intervening action or debate and any statements printed in the record at the appropriate place. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. cantwell: thank you, mr. president. for decades the quilu tribe in the pacific northwest has waited for a chang to move out of the tsunami zone they are in and into safety and every day 80 students go to a school in a schoolhouse that is just one foot above sea level and every day they look directly out the window at the roaring waves of the powerful ocean and wonder when they can move to safer, higher ground.

when the tragic tsunami hit japan last march, and when a recent earthquake in just the last few weeks hit off vancouver island, it sent another urgent message, a wake-up call to hurry to get this legislation passed through congress. the department of interior, which endorsed this legislation, said the tsunami, quote, clearly demonstrates the risk to the tribe and the citizens and the need to move its housing and infrastructure inland. now with the one-year anniversary of the tragedy less than one month away, we have finally done our job. with the passage of the bill tonight, the quilud can begin to move out of the flood zone and i want to thank congressman norm dicks for his help in meeting this a reality. the tribe has been struggling with the natural perils of this land since its reservation was created in the 1889 and there

has been more erosion and flooding problems. the one road that connects the road to the higher ground is often flooded making it ien more challenging to deal with this particular area in case of a tsunami. so the quilud struggle to move out of the flood flood zone has gone on for many years but tonight with the message passage of this legislation, the tribe can move to higher grounds and safer means to provide for their members. so this is an important victory to give the quilud tribe peace of mind. so i want to thank senator barrasso and senator akaka for helping it move out of the indian affairs committee and to the tribal chairs, been eata cleveland and now tony foster, thank you for coming to washington, d.c. and explaining how important this legislation is and to the national park

service and to the national park director, thank you for your help in getting this legislation passed and to senator murray for her cosponsorship of this important legislation. it is important in times like this that congress does act, that we break gridlock and move forward, and for the quilu tribe, a tribe that gained notoriety in the recent movie series, what's really important is not that notoriety but the fact today that people have come together to help them move to safer grounds. i thank the chair -- the president and i yield the floor. i ask unanimous consent that the senate adjourn until 10:00 a.m. tuesday, february 14, and that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of compleed preedings approved to date, the morning hour deemed expired and

the time for the two leaders reserved for use later in the day. following any leader remarks, the senate be in a period of morning business for one hour with senators permitted to speak therein for ten minutes each with the time equally divided and controlled by the leaders or their designees with the majority controlling the first half and the republicans controlling the final half, and following morning business, the senate proceed to executive session and resume consideration of the jordan nomination postcloture. further that the senate recess from 12:30 to 2:15 to allow for the weekly caucus meetings and finally that all time during adjournment, morning business count postcloture. the presiding officer: without objection ms. cantwell: tomorrow, we expect to confirm the jordan nomination and also resume consideration of the infrastructure bill. senators will be notified when any votes are scheduled. if there's no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order.

the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning.

the tonight on the communicators the fourth in a series from this year's consumer electronics show this week to look the impact of mobile networks on society and in approaching spectrum use. with president and ceo of erickson, the world's largest provider of mobile networks, also the latest and smart phones with intel brian tonight at eight

eastern on c-span2 president obama released his $3.8 trillion 23 trillion-dollar budget request and senator sessions ranking memberle explained his opposition to the amendment. this is for >> mr. president, i want to budt share some remarks about the president's budget that he today submitted today. this is it. the the copy that would save a little bit ra money but it is a real document that is submitted every year byy every president according to alo law.the unit states se although the law also requires a the united states senate to past the budget every year we finally days, and in fact, the majority leader senator reid said it would be foolish for him to release the budget to produce ao

budget because i can only assume he thought it wouldn't be goodud politics so they didn't think have a budget and i would make the commitment that if i have anything to do about and this republican conference were torin achieve the majority in the senate next year we will have a budget and will change the trace of america and will be tenbrings years.ebt brings that under control and td the ma eximum extent possibleiti would encourage economic growtht that's the responsibility i believe that leaders have to deal with now.his the president has produced this budget to reduce the deficit by, $4 trillion, and i will talk ree

the deficit of the $4 trillion.n it does'tn't reduce the deficitt all.presidt this is his fourth year asf president, the last budget of the presidential term. he will have an opportunity in r it and he has that opportunity to lay out a plan for the future to suggest what taxes we ought e to have, how much spending we should have, where they can savn money by reducing spending in the ten year term, 20 or 30 year term all of that can and should be dealt with because as a mayor that is in financial trouble, a state that's struggling financially you've got to deal with their debt. they present their proposal, the fight for them before thery, an legislature, they make compromisesy when necessary, ant

that is how they do their business. to because they don't have a tha constitutional amendment, they are required a budget to be balanced. it becomes easier through to spending just borrow the money and not te cut spending and continue the o. deficit course that we are on. our analysis the budget committee analysis and the ranking republican on the budget committee to the few hours that we have had it and that we've te had over the weekend to see some of the tables we've reached a gd number of conclusions that is not good. f will say a couple of things. o mr. bernanke at the budget committee hearing last weekmr. chaired by senator conrad who announced that we should have a 5 trillion-dollar reduction in spending over ten years, not fon

coming and he also said reallyln an would like to see a balancedl budget, andce i think senatorine conrad is right on boths. accounts. even has i the budget in thet committee this year he won't beb brought up on the floor. so i don't know what we will do. whether we will have a budget markup b or not. but mr. bernanke indicated thaty when you reach that level as high as we are today, the growth of debt being 100% of the grossy domestic product the country isa at risk particularly when the inevitable shot in the world occurs you don't have the margie of strength necessary to ride out the crisis, and we could go into a crisis.pened to i just happened to see this morning on the msnbc presidentnt have a debt crisis next year,hee

talking about greece he said wee did have a crisis next year ands he laid out a scenario. this is the council on foreign s relations, the most prestigiouse organization around. so here are some indisputable facts about the budget beforersi us. $ .irst, there is no reduction 4 trillion-dollar deficitde redc reduction. there is not a 4 trillion-dollar deficit reduction.alking abo i know that's hard to believe. difference between $4 trillion when the president submits the budget s and we worry about allo these accounts and we are $4 trillion off. w well, it's a hard thing to imagine but i will explain to you why i say that. what we know is this that under the president's budget and the

numbers he has provided for us based on his growth projections and other protections that are in at come heat project that when the ten years is up, 2022,f we will have added to the total debt of america is lichteveryr r $11.3 trillion, added that much debt every year hundreds of billions of dollars of debt.75on the single european $575 billiot in debt, and the last several years the debt is increasing annually each year so it would der th bee -- under the current law thd budget control act that passedsn last summer that has a sequested in it and the reduction and spending, under that that is the current law. this budget deals with what tohe do now, what to deal on top of the current law, under the

budget control act the deficit would increase over ten years b2 11.5 trillion, 2.7, $270 billion, perhaps less debt occurring under the president's budget than the current law. that's not much. the budget deficit this year is5 1,300,000,000,000. we are t 11.5 trillion, that is $11,500,0 $11,500,000,000,000. and so we're just going to reduce that the 11,000 somehow we've changed that it force of u america.an peopl are t it's not true. the american people were tired i

of it.mmickry th have this kind of misrepresentation t and gimmickry that has got us to the point that the nation is ond a fiscal the unsustainable path as every expert has told us toct be a indeed, we are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar that is spent this year. we take into .2 trillion we stand 3.7 trillion. that is not an acceptable path. we have been told that. so, we have seen gimmicks before and i have a bill called the honest budget act that tightened smaller gimmicks that need to bt eliminated and it's called the honest budget act, but i will l. say we have never seen gimmicks this large, so large it's hard to believe anyone would attemptd to use them but some large

people don't think it is assible that the administration would not be completely truthful in asserting them. budgethat for example, the budget that he submitted for this year claimsud credit for cuts that occurred last year as a part of the budget control process. budget r only $2.1 trillion in the budget control act cuts.budg he claims he's cutting the budget to .1 trillion counting w those numbers. tay. that's not the numbers that we th are operating under today. those have already been done. that's one of the biggest iver n guess we have ever seen in term. of making numbers look better m than this year but there's mored amazinglyge this budget eliminae

in the races the $1.2 trillion in budget control act sequestered spending reductionsy we can argue whether they are done in the right way but they r are taking too big of a cut under that sequester but weques acknowledge that it is not month liable and those that we agreed to cut just a few months ago, less than a year ago now is no e longer operable and we are justs going to spepend that money and not cut any more. and that is a stunning reversal, anc it's the kind of thing that validates the charges that you hear from the american people.

yes you promised to cut money ie the future. you have a ten plan but we know what you politicians are going to do five years, three years, c six years down the road when o those spending cuts come up your going to say we can't do that. we we've got constituency's thr we can't cut this or that and wr put the money back in the savings will never occur becausf they are false promise in thethf future. tea people are complaining that it incorrectly. the was a part of the tea party movement.ntegrity this was a growing disrespectt for the integrity of congress when it makes projections for the future. but look at this. in august we agreed to the $2.1 trillion in total cuts and in a sequestered less than a sao

yearh, later the president said that's too much. we can't do that. $47 we have spent $47 trillion in the next ten years. we can't cut 1.2 when we arebt t facing the biggest debt crisisf? the nation has ever faced?e'reog what kind of world are we livine in? no wonder we are going broke i don't think it's right. n the president said i'm not cutting about $1 trillion. $1.2 i'm going to spend the spet 1 trillion, the 1.2 trillion. don't worry, raising taxes to pay for them.t commentators minute and thi

promoters in the statement about the budget claim that it reducee the deficit, the tax increase by the 1.2 trillion.axes well, if you increase spending v 1.2 and raise taxes to the any cloud, you haven't saved any money.hat you w you just are not increasing thee have.pendin so you have been eliminated the kutz committee and spending go up and we've raised taxes, andtt that's a lot. that's not another 1.2 savings. that's how they get the $4 trillion.that's aeally that is a really sad state of affairs to claim credit for that in at way that's just not fair. and we had a problem with theont war cost. i was disappointed in the state of the union president said we

are going to spend a half of the war savings. well i like to spend more on the highway. i am unhappy that we have diverted money that should have gone to the highways to theand general stimulus spending instead of being spent on highways as was promised.to spef however, spend half of the savings on bill war, highways, but there is no war savings. wa, we agreed, congress did throughout the war it's beenmery treated as an emergency.1, the attack on 9/11 we treated as an emergency. borrod. the money was borrowed. o every dollar spent on the war b. has been borrowed. there is no source of money being paid out to the war so when it dropped you could grab that money and spend at. w there is no money there. dropped when the cost dropped, the american people have the right s to expect we would borrow less a

money. we don't have to borrow as much. as el. they are claiming that the natural reduction of the warn spending creates a surplus ofnt money that can be spent.oney in however logical is that? there is no money in the war budget account. it's all borrowed. been so there's never been -- there was never any money to be saveds in thes war account. only less money to be borrowed as it came down and whoever thought the war would continue r dt the 100 plus billion dollarse per year? we've always expected those costs to come down.s, and i'm it's been long and difficultn bprocess, and i am glad to see that we can bring troops home

and hopefully we are doing it in americans have given to our country to put us in a position to withdraw successfully. but we are not going so fast the we jeopardize that. so, what about taxes? well, you the president has been arguing for some time you can't cut thei deficit without tax increases. i know you've got to cutt spending the can't cut the deficit without tax increases we have to have more tax increasese first he wanted a tax on the rich, they were bringingls f $800 billionor.onal now this budget calls for additional taxes of one donnellson $900 billion, $1.9 trillion of new taxes allai

across in a lot of different areas. but at any rate, this is what we are talking about. so in the statement released with the budget, he said there25 were $2.5 in spending reductions for every dollar of taxuld be increases. we've been talking about r what, should be the ratio? some people say look i know youv shouldn't have the 1-1 tax increase for every spending reduction, but we have to get ey the deficit down.we'vgot to get we've got to reduce the deficit and you republicans that don't like taxes, we will talk aboutn spending cuts. in the spring of last year 3-1.s that is a figure that was being bandied about. what does this budget deutsch? is at 2.5-1? stateme that

no. the statement that is to .5 tarincot one is not true. won i remember people tell us if yo. raise taxes they won't reducee r the deficit they will spend it. we have heard that over and ovem again and that is certainly improved by this budget.o the taxes that are in this budget reduced to pay for more spending.the budge there are no spending cuts in a the budget. the budget calls for the $1.5 trillion in increased spending, and the taxes are on top of that periods of the taxes ought to be used to reduce the deficit just like people haverab suspected alutl along that is nt an accurate statement but indeen taxes are used to create more spending and an even bigger

government. what about the debt sali is in its entirety and what are the numbers there? let's look at this chart.cits ot the red is the increase in years deficit over the next ten yearst as the occasion to by the budget control act that is the currentl law thasat was passed last summr and last august really come th september, and the president'ssi budget is on thef divided line. so if you look at what is occurring over the ten year period, we started at 14,tr $15 trillionil in debt today an? where does it end up? it ends up at $26 trillion inonl net debt under the budget control act it saves $2 trilliot

i guess that would reduce the f$ total debt from 13 trillion to.5 11.5 trillion, 13.5 to 11.5 has made some progress. n knew that wasn't enough butnt it was at least a step in ourt w democratic colleagues didn't want to cost any more money senate is the number reachedgred last year we agreed we needed te come back and do more work.educe the president's budget he claims reduces the debt by the $4 trillion would increase the e debt -- it was claimed to reduct the growth in our debt by gro $4 trillion. actually only reducing the growth in the debt less than the $300 billion for 11.5 to 11.2. in the that is not enough. we have had expert after expert

to 5 trillion to $6 trillion ino and we ought to put this country on the balanced budget and stay there as we can do that and that is the number why would succumb to under $73 billion only on thd red line by the slightesten amount, not nearly enough to make a difference in the not financial markets, not nearlycoe enough to create confidence in has the a business community that te united states has a plan for its future that will work. furthermore, the president's plan does not provide any effor noticeable, effective effort to do something about medicare, social security, medicaid, these programs that are moving every year gradually and inexorably out of control into default and

in those programs for future tha generations. i think that is a serious criticism we should meet. finally, i would note that the interest on the debt what we pay on the interest of the debt, yea this year this nation 2012 will pay to under $25 billion in interest on the debt.ntire miat is almost half the entire b defense budget. but under the plan submitted by the president and these number . quoting from our from the alleged nurse simply restating the numbers and in his office of management and budget has-- determined to leave interest ann 20, 22, ten years from now will3 be $850 billion. from to hundred 30 billion toion

two entered 25 billion to 850 billion. the increase in interest alone exceeds the defense budget.m, $850 billion exceeds any item in including social security, medicare and the budget today, it certainly exceeds the defensg budget. item in the entire budget because when you run on that debt, you go from 14 trillion gross debt $ to 26 trillion we s have extraordinarily low n interest rates today. they will not hold things goingu up the president estimates in his account, but you have theand interest in the changes and adet large amount of additional debt added it goes from to under 25 to $850. crowding out spending for the host of programs we are going ts have to w deal with.eal where are we going to have to ti

and by the way, this is one year of interest payment, not ten years.ll y one year we will be payingso, 850 billion. you take that 600 billion a year and run it over the 500 billion over $5 trillion of interest to be paid and what about the next ten years?unning $1 when it's running a trillion yer dollars a year in the interest e as we age and of entitlementnto programs continue to go into the default. a good analyst and blogger seeig suggested the debt that we are f seeing today, and this claim of the $4 trillion of savings is

why we've never had a secret negotiation all year.ll the president has asserted all year he had a plan to save $4 trillion. dguess this is it. what does it do? nothing. does it change the bet course? s no. it leads us on a course thatot inexorably does not deal with the surging entitlements that spe indeed accounts for over halfhe the spending already in therica. united states of america. entrance to medicare, medicaid, social security are already nearly 60% of the federalpendinf government spending how can yout control spending if you don't even talk about those programste and they are growing faster.on t thehe only thing growing fasters the interest onhe the debt.erios as we have a deep and serious challenge to bring those programs under control. so, mr. president, i would justt

close by saying our debt coursea hasn't been altered and our debt course is unsustainable we are moving to $26 trillion of debt,r and i remember last year when the chairman of the fed testify before the committee and said something to this effect, he of your spending and debtde yrsu trajectory and here you have the projection of what it is going and basically he saysing to you are not going to get there a because you are going to have at debt crisis before that happensp before those years pass.chosy ps and the man chosen by president slot to have the deficit commission with alan simpson defined a written statement last year and they said the course that we are on the will leadhe america to the most predictable

financial crisis in our history so you can clearly see the path we are on, the path in the t financial crisis.s we've got to realize we cannot d continue to put this off, and i find it deeply disappointingn that the president of the united states in his fourth year in dos office lease out a plan that imove does nothing to improve the tha financial status of the country. that does nothing to talk and et deal seriously with our entitlement programs. and indeed what he's indicatedg, in is that anybody else in it's congress, whether this congress man wrongly in the house budget committee, among the members of the senate to have the merit to make any suggestions about contant saving social security, medicare will b so probably is not proposing a plan that would help theion, heg situation, he is lobbying in thy

ways to politically go after anybody that seriously proposes changes that could put america on a sound that course. i don't think that is acceptable and a volume deeply disappointed in the budget and i wish you hao been so much better because i tt believe truly it could have hadd support from the congress to do some things of a historicaln soe nature. they were discussed in some of e the secret committee meetings to but never came to fruition. >> i think the chair would note lr. the floor and note the absencepn >> to the president obama released a budget that isn't really a budget at all. it's a campaign document.solve the goal isn't to solve ourthemf problems but to ignore them fort another year which only ensurese that they get even worse. once again, the president issing shirking his responsibility to lead by using this budget to

divide us.erfectly the game plan is perfectlycongrt clear. rather than reach out tonsus compress the consensus but the s president will take this budgetd on the road as he did today and talk aboutpart the parts he this audiences would like.d what he won't say is that it's , bad for the job creation, that for seniors and that it will make the e economy worse.gets the president's budget is bad for jobs becaus ie it includes e biggest tax hike in history andt continues like the democrats' health care law that is making it harder for the small t businesseso to hire.re a little more than a year ago the president extended the tax rates because he thought raisinr them would be bad for jobs.aisig today he will call for raisingod them any way because he thinks it's good for him.for our the president's budget is that for our seniors because it doesn't protect the security ofl medicare and social security. pk

and toee assure the programs kep the budget is that for the becay country's economic security aga because yet again the president take the primehis opportunity of the budget to nat address the nation's 15 trillion-dollar debt. preside contrarycl to the president's claims on the road, this budget is literally loaded with a deficit reduction genex the would trigger an audit forconomi anybody else and make our current economic situation eveng worse. of now the president isn't going to mention any of those things, bue americans deserve to know the whole truth about this budget. they deserve to know what partya doesn't want to vote on it gonea to the dhaka and why his top advisers are trying to deflect questions of what is really going on here. yesterday the president's chief

of staff said that the reasonint this budget won't get anywhereld in the senate is that it would take 60 votes to pass the 60 to pass and the democrats o don't have that many votes onugt their own. unwould suggest that he review s the sunday briefing materials ae little more closely next time. s as someone that has run the office of management and budgets for two different presidents come and he knows as well as th ermple majorityta is all itke th to pass a budget resolution here in the senate, a simple drats majority. in other words, democrats could thou pass the budget without a single republican vote, not one.t obama the inconvenient truth president obama and his top advisers don't want to admit is that this budget isn't going anywhere's tocause the president's partyt doesn't want to have anything to do with it. has indeed the majority leader in

now he knows as well as i do the fact that he does proves beyonds any doubt the president has no intention of this budget ever. actually. if he can't even count of he members of his own party to support who does he expect is gi going to support it? the have it both ways. t the president wants to be able e to take the budget around the he country to talk about the parts of it peothat he thinks peopleo like the band of the cuts in congress want to be able to avoid a vote on it because it is so damaging for job creationwely seniors in and the economy. faie if anybody wants to know what is the leadership looks like, this is it. this is it.f the it in halhif bsy the end of hise third term. he hasn't even come close.

here he is once again proposinge ie same failed policies that have belonged in this economic crisis well into the president's fourth year in office.ebt to the national debt increased under his watch by more than 40% he is still throwing good money. he still spending money we don'o have one thing is we don't need. he still refuses to lead andbeen democrats in congress have been more than happy to enable it. they haven't passed a budget of their own in three years and ale indications are able to pass one this year either. the failure ilof the leadership that will go down in history. at this point nothing seemsevere capable to action. ala every day we hearrm the alarm bl sounded across the atlantic's and it doesn't seem to faze himy every day we hear the warning from experts and economists that

the fiscal situation is unsustainable just a few monthse ago the unthinkable happened when americans credit rating war actually lowered for the first timeto in history and what is te president's response?udget a budget he knows his own party would even support. that is his response to the's hs 15 trillion-dollar debt. when the president's refusal to lead will catch up to all the rest of us. mr. president, i would yield the floor. >> tonight on the committee kidder's before the series from this year's consumer electronics show

>> there was a very sad tragic episode that broke out june 15th, 1943. there was a story about a black man having raped a white woman and when this spread into the shipyard, several thousand of the shipyard workers had at least 2,000 shipyard workers cannot of the to a shipyard and came downtown to the city hall and to the police department and tried to find the person who had eropgedly committed this crime

spree quote house correspondent for "the wall street journal". the rollout of this and whatde does it mean for his agenda for al012th and is this also ais campaign tactic? >> this is mostly a politicalos document at this point political document. i think everybody would knowledge that the chances of any of this becoming law are very slim except for perhaps on the margins. he's doing a statement of values, what is going to run on for reelection and what he would do if he won a second term. host: laura, you said it's probably not going to pass. why do you say that? republicans in the senate after bin after democrats for not putting a budget on the floor. i mean, where does the request

though it's not going to pass? guest: what you have on one hand its annual spending congress has to improve that call discretionary spending. every year the president makes proposals and congress then enacts goes into law or puts their own version of those in turlock. that is across the agencies, military spending and domestic spending, to figure out how much each program will get. the reason why this budget is a little less consequential than most is usually looking for what the total spending proposed is. but of total spending numbers were agreed to as part of the debt ceiling deal last summer. so we already know what the caps are going to be. president obama's budget adhere to those caps. of course congress is expected to adhere to those apps as well. there are questions about underneath that, how do you divide it up. it's a tight budget because the overall discretionary spending is not rising very much.

just barely more than it was the previous year. they will have to decide within each program, does heating assistance get less or does the program that helps to bring get more? it's those kinds of decisions back to be made. the president's proposal was certainly got the process, but congress will make its own decisions. on the bigger budget questions, things like should taxes go up and should you change the rules around medicare and medicaid and social security's, the really big programs that are automatically funding each year? that's the kind of stuff that really is not expected to go anywhere this year. host: on social security and medicare, you expect him to try to reform those? guest: he does not make any changes on social security. last year during the budget talks that he had with speaker john boehner, he did make some concessions on social security spending, but those were never -- never went for because there

were not able to seal a deal. medicare and medicaid, he proposes a more modest reductions in the range of about $320 billion between those two programs. those are cuts to providers and other changes on some co- payments or participants, but they don't make the big structural changes in the program that would save a lot of money. for instance, raising the eligibility age for medicare. he does not propose that. taxes, he has a total of $1.50 trillion over 10 years and tax increases. comes from a variety of places, ending the bush-era tax cuts for those earning over 250 cows and dollars a year is a big chunk of the money. he also proposes increases on -- bigger increases on families earning over $1 million a year. in addition, there are some corporate loopholes, corporate tax and bandages that they would --

host: what about jobs? guest: he also has some spending proposals. you should spend more upfront in order to stimulate the economy and then deal with the deficit in long-term. he proposes infrastructure spending and proposes aid to states, opposes a variety of things, renewing the payroll tax, which will expire at the end of this month -- i'm sorry, the payroll tax deduction. he has a short-term spending increase that he's been talking about several months. host: and what can we expect in the pentagon budget? guest: the pentagon budget has been reduced compared with where it was projected to go. the defense department laid out a lot of the details already. it is definitely a tighter budget. they are no longer saying that they will have the ability of fighting two wars at once.

they are -- it is definitely a much tighter pentagon budget than we're used to seeing. of course, the bigger question around the pentagon is there are some looming much bigger cuts of about a half trillion dollars in defense cuts that would kick in for 2013nd of this year port unless congress finds a way to replace those with other deposit reductions. >> laura, thank you very much for your time. first, will you download the free app that allows you to read all four volumes of the budget? guest: yes, luckily i don't have to do it. my news room has a system for getting all the information to our computers for us. the process is amazing. the news media has a process as well. there's an enormous amount of time