so there's lots of opportunity, and there's a good role for government to play in this. i'm not much of an interventionallist from that standpoint, but like the bank and other things, there's things that the government can do that will keep us at least on a relatively level playing field with everybody else. i mean, that's something that, you know, we have to recognize and say that is an important role for government. >> and i want to come back to the skills question in a minute, but before i want to make sure we're bringing in the expert side. dave, you talked a bit about the competitive challenges you face in export markets, the issues of financing, the issues of government support for r&d. give us the land scape there. i mean, as a u.s. company with the level of government support you get here, you're competing with french companies, japanese, chinese, how does it stack up? what are the major challenges that we face there and are there things that the government's not doing that it should be doing that would make a big

difference? >> well, let me cite, let me cite two challenges that we face in our business and put them in perspective of what has allowed u.s. satellite builders to command more than a 50% market share despite the growth of foreign competition over the last couple of decades. the fundamental competitive advantage that orbital and our companion u.s. satellite manufacturers have is that we have been able through incremental improvements pretty frequently on an annual or twice, twice-a-year cycle in some cases to make small technology advances on a steady basis over many decades. and looking back now in the time we've been in business which has been about 30 years, we've seen about an 11-12% improvement in

the fundamental economic figure of merit of commercial satellites since the early 1980s and that's, essentially, the capital cost required to build a satellite for a certain amount of communications capacity. so if you integrate an 11 or 12% per-year improvement over three decades, it turns out that what you get are products today that are about 25 times morefective than -- morefective than products of 30 years ago were in this fundamental figure of merit. now, we've been able to do that to date by virtue of fairly rig vote investment -- rigorous investment applied to some really bright engineers and scientists. and it's in those two latter areas that we increasingly face the toughest outlook in our

export business. first of all, with regard to research and development incentives, as i mentioned earlier, state-funded r&d is pretty common in europe and very common in china, but generally not so today in the united states. now, it was true that in decades past u.s. government investment in space technology driven by the need for national security and other public sector functions often resulted in spin-off benefits to commercial satellite builders. and that was true in the '70s as the industry was getting started and through the '80s. but sometime in the '90 and certainly in the last decade the flow of technology reversed. and on a net basis today we see more technology being created in the commercial sector that's then being adopted for use in

government programs as budgets have gotten tighter and as the level of performance of commercial technology has, because of shorter cycle times, has advanced more. therefore, to stimulate continued private r&d investment by u.s. companies, i feel that the congress should adopt a more, a longer-term approach to r&d investment incentives. for those that follow it, you may know that the r&d tax credits that help in this regard have been, have been somewhat problematic in recent years, and so looking ahead instead of relying on one year, many some cases one year retroactive reinstatements of the r&d credit, it would be with high hi he sire bl -- highly desirable

to see a five or even ten-year extension of that mechanism and that it be simplified and strengthened to put it more on par with the economic incentives that many of our european and asian competitors enjoy. the young kids coming out of school to a pretty significant extent, the average age of our engineering staff is in the 30s. now, today universities are doing a great job of training students in the fundamental engineering disciplines that go into building a satellite, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering,

electrical engineering and so on. and they do this not only for kids that grow up in the u.s., but for bright young people that come to our country from all around the world to obtain the possible technical education they can get in fields that underpin our sector and other high technology areas. but, unfortunately, our immigration limits on foreign-born but u.s.-educated engineers and scientists, i think, are increasingly out of touch with the global competitive realities we face. today, for instance, across all of the engineering schools in the united states a little over 50% of ph.d. candidates in engineering and about 40% of master's degree candidates in engineering are foreign nationals. now, many of these young people want to stay in the u.s. and make their homes here, raise

their families here, build their careers here. but we prevent some of them from doing so because of the ricks that we place -- the restrictions that we place both on temporary work visas and also the fairly lengthy process that's involved in the converting a temporary work permit into permanent citizenship for these really highly-skilled technology workers. so i would hope to see that, improvements in that area being a part of our country's immigration reforms in the near term. >> it's interesting to note that there actually is a growing bipartisan consensus in congress on moving on some of these high-skilled immigration issues, but like everything else, it seems difficult, there are always things that block. the house in the fall passed overwhelmingly a bipartisan vote that would have dealt with part of the problem, but it was blocked in the senate.

we keep coming back, and i'm going to get back to exports in a second, but we keep coming back to this question of a skilled work force. i want to ask both the chief executives, what's the corporate respondent here? we often talk about government isn't training workers e we're not seeing the community colleges do what they do, but do the companies need to be more active either directly or in working with vocational institutions in making sure they have the work force they need here in the united states? >> certainly. i think we, you know, in our case we do work and especially in support of our dealers, the trained technicians in a number of areas with community colleges to set up training programs to develop those skilled technician. you can only do that at the local level because most of the places where they operate, if somebody's born in that area, they're going to stay in that area. so at that level we can. i think, um, what dave's talking about, though, and we have the

exact same example, most people think a company that's in ag equipment probably doesn't need all of that, but if you take our large row crop tractors, we have more lines of code, software code on that tractor than space shuttle has. in one tractor. it is, we've got seven computers onboard that's processing all kinds of information realtime. and so we have a tremendous need for embedded software engineers. you can't find them. you can't get them. we can't keep them here. we have a technical center in india that we put in place about ten years ago, it's now up to 3,000 people. the cost of a embedded software engineer operating in india is no cheaper than an embedded software engineer operating in waterloo, iowa. we're there because that's where we can get a lot of talent and keep it where here we cannot get -- first of all, you don't have enough u.s.-born embedded

software engineers being educated right now. that's where companies like us, a lot of companies, the business round table's working on a s.t.e.m. project trying to get more people, but that takes a long period of time before they go through the system. in the meantime, you've got toke toke -- to be able to keep the nucleus here. what i fear is there's going to be a day when so much of the nucleus is going to be someplace else like india that you're finally going to wake up and say, you know what? if two-thirds of our r&d staff is over there, why don't we just move the r r&d center there? >> yeah. there are a lot of things, india's growing faster, china, brazil, obviously, businesses want to be near those opportunities, but to lose investment because of lack of a skilled work force seems to be something the u.s. ought to be able to deal with. any other comments on that, on the corporate role or anything? >> well, i would just add that apart from a variety of

initiatives to, that both carried out in the private sector and led by governments to improve the supply of technology workers, i think many i industrs are also addressing in a sense the demand side of that equation a number of studies have been done in recent years looking within aerospace and defense as kind of our home industry sector , at the efficiency with which companies use their engineering and scientific brain power, and they -- these studies have pointed to areas where we could make improvements, where we could bring onboard a little different mix in our work force to free up our r&d engineers so

they can spend, you know, 95% of their time doing the things they're really good at doing and they love to do in research and development and minimize the amount of their time that's being consumed by work that could probably be done by somewhat lower-skilled level individuals. so we've got to work on both sides of that equation. i think there's a lot of room for productivity improvement on the demand side as well as pipeline improvement on the supply side. >> thank you. i want to bring the conversation back to the topic for which we're all assembled here which is export finance. at the risk of inviting any criticisms of our host, how does the u.s. do on that front? when you look at what the u.s. offers in export finance, you know, compared with the germans, the french, canadians or others? what are the things we do well, what are the things we could do

better? how does the u.s. measure up in this part of the equation? anybody want to start us off here? [laughter] >> well, we'll go ahead. let me first say we're thankful we have it, and i think what fred said earlier today, it's not -- it doesn't provide an advantage, it eliminates a competitive disadvantage. and without it there are definitely deals we would not be able to do. i think the risk tolerance profile that the bank has certainly is not as high as another, a number of other countries' banks or similar institutions would have. because what we're talking about is going into areas where there is risk. that's where there's advantage with this. it's not about doing it in very stable markets. and certainly in an environment like today where there's even question on whether the bank

ought to survive or not then, obviously, the risk profile goes down, so it becomes -- people become less willing to do a deal. i think the other thing that, clearly, from our standpoint what we see many of our competitors, they're able to from the start of trying to develop a deal to the point when the transaction is finally approved, that cycle time is much, much shorter, and in a business like ours where when you get the order, the person needs the product right away to get into the field, you really need that very, very short cycle time. so that's an opportunity for improvement. you know, i think if -- to be fair, i think if bank officials were here, they would number one all say, yep, we recognize it and, two, if we're in an environment where we're supported, continuous improvement can happen, and we can work on those thinks. ..

our direct experience is more limited. i would say though that over the last couple of years, several new business pursuits that fortunately had happy endings for us, export-import was a terrific hardener and from what i have heard about cycle time and so on, from years past, it seems like the improvements have been significant and those have

been very much appreciated in our business and i have heard comments by some of the other u.s. satellite company executives that they are on their own experience of the transistors seemed to be moving in a good direction. >> we are winding down our program so i want to ask a big summary question because behind all of these debates over competitiveness, you certainly see it in the debate over export finance, there is a real debate on the appropriate role of government and the government business relationship. if i go back to this harvard business school study that i mentioned at the outset, it was quite interesting and when the executives were asked, you know, what are your chief recommendations for improving u.s. competitiveness? and the top ones were what i would call sort of government get out of the way recommendations of these include things like simplify the tax

code or reduce regulatory burdens. but a number of the other big recommendations also touched on the things we have been discussing here, things like investing in k. to 12 education, dustin workplace training, proper incentives for research and development. is there any come is there any way to kind of summarize in a way that maybe cuts through some of these debates, what the appropriate role for government ought to be and how much can the government get out of the way and the government actively as as -- assists. maybe i will start with you. >> well, certainly there is a role for government and i think there is a role for government to help stimulate. i also think, as fred i think eloquently said early on, we can't wait for this perfect world. i think when we, all of us talk about, we should have less government, we are talking about a perfect world where everybody

gets the key. that is not the case and we are an environment where you need the carrot and a steak and i think government can assist in both providing the carrot and the stick, when the playing field is not level. i think the appropriate role is really to look to see if the playing field is level, not trying to drive competitive advantage. if you try to drive competitive advantage i think you are two-faced when you talk about these various areas. i would just argue that leveling the playing field as is the tax code and if i can say to other things the government would do if they would have -- i would focus on r&d tax credit, because you don't have innovation without r&d and long term that will be a driver for job creation no matter what industry and the other would be 100% accelerated depreciation permanently because when you are in an environment like that people put in very

capital-intensive budgets and those are jobs that don't go away and those would be this the simple three from my perspective. >> i would say the most legitimate goal for government going forward is to at least the first one is to provide the social goods, whether it's k-12 education, whether it's the foundation and in essence the infrastructure of the country, some of which are bridges and some of which are tunnels, some of which are education and i think we have fallen down on doing that in many ways, and supporting the basic infrastructure in its broadest definition, not just the bridges and tunnels and airports version of it. i think we need to move forward on that because we are falling behind. you can watch what china does and i don't necessarily hold them as an example of everything going right that there is a lot more effort made in that area and we will find that the playing field will be very much tilted against us if we don't take action now and the long

term and in today's environment that is a lot more difficult to deal with. but i also think there are roles for government to rethink how we go about things that include regulation. you know there is a lot of regulation that are very important. i want clean water, i want food that is safe to eat. there a lot of things that are there but there are also a lot of regulations that come from a different time that are still in the books and there's a role for government to go back and periodically do some pruning again. no one wants us to be in a polluted world and i don't think any business person in the u.s. would ever say that because they don't want to live in that world either but the fundamentals are we are living with a lot of regulations that come from a different era, that are not achieving what they were intended to be doing and it would be a helpful thing for the country if we went ahead in the pruning and that might mean taking out 5% of the regulations. is the one that aren't affecting the quality of life but affecting the quality of life in the sense they are stopping it from happening and i think we

have just not done that. there is a laudable role for the government to play now but all in all it's a social goods, that orbital can do for themselves. you can't fund k-12 education. you can find vocational programs for people for your plants but that's not something you should be doing in the company and i don't think anyone would argue that. but it is something we need to do as a nation and we need to come back at these issues recognizing the funding issues that exist in balancing the budget and the other things to take place and all the buildings that are near here but we do need to come back and start to make some real hard choices in the environment where we can make those choices come sooner rather than later. the reality is our children and grandchildren will be dependent on that. >> a very nice way to think about it. on the flipside i have a brother who has worked as a both a small farmer and small businesses and his government regulations are very different from mine. he will tell you horror stories about what it's like to operate

in government when you are trying to do those two copping's. >> you can cut a lot of those things without cutting the social good aspect. >> absolutely. you are just about out of time so you will get the last word. >> it's hard to add much to the good recommendations that you have just heard. i guess the one dimension that i might bring to the list though would be the temporal one. i think most of our leaders in government today and certainly our companies and our citizens understand very clearly that the global economic environment that we live in is quite different than the one that we all grew up in. and many of our international competitors, although i think fundamentally have less sustainable and less humane

forms of public sector organization in government to make decisions faster. the essential genius of the founders of our country was to build then the checks and balances and the separation of powers that create the need for compromise, and over a couple hundred years our country, most of the time, has been pretty good at coming up with smart and reasonable compromises. we have got to do that faster i think these days are go we can't keep kicking the can down the road to some future congress to solve some of these fundamental problems and issues that you have heard about from us, because the pace of technology development and economic growth around the world is much faster

now than it was even a decade or two ago. in addition to those recommendations, i would hope that we would see the kind of political leadership we need from both parties, from both ends of pennsylvania avenue to make the tough deals that the country needs and to make them a lot sooner rather than later. >> thank you very much. my understanding is we will have a brief break while we set up for president clinton. let's join me in thanking our panel for a tremendous discussion. thank you very much. [applause] >> he housing and urban development secretary shaun donovan talks about helping homeowners facing foreclosure. followed by today's live coverage of the senate.

housing and urban development secretary shaun donovan spoke at the annual convention of the national action network on friday. he talked about the administrations efforts to help homeowners at risk of foreclosure. this is 35 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> alright. calling you back to attention. we are joined on stage by the chairman of our board, reverend dr. w. franklin richardson. give him a hand. [applause] and from dallas, texas, reverend

freddie haynes. give him a hand. [applause] there has been significant development in our concerned about housing, about the mortgage meltdown, about affordable housing, and we are honored every year that he has been secretary. he has been here to address our national convention in new york, first in washington. he is the home boy from brooklyn, and i'm honored to bring the secretary of the housing and urban development, of the united states, the honorable shaun donovan. [applause] >> thank you reverend, and i do love coming to visit you in new york. i will be looking forward to

that invitation soon, but i will visit you anywhere, wherever you want to go, wherever you want to have the convention, i will be there. because come and i don't need to tell you this, but i will. reverend sharpton, over four decades, has brought a powerful, moral voice on behalf of the most vulnerable americans, and that has always been important, always been important. [applause] but it has never been more important than in the wake of the most devastating economic crisis and he of us has seen in our lifetime, so let us thank him for that voice, that moral voice. [applause] the national action network has been a remarkable, remarkable partner to all of us in the obama administration. i was just joking with the

reverend on the way and, we had to be holding our cabinet meetings here with you and the convention center because so many of us are here over these few days. [applause] but it's also the remarkable leadership that you have brought. dr. richardson and reverend haynes, i have to say as shout out to mallory for her remarkable work, michael hardy, just a wonderful wonderful team that you have wrought together. [applause] and the reason your voice is so important and the work that you do is because you are the ones who see this impact of this devastating crisis up close. you see it in the eyes of the families that you serve, on the streets of the communities where you live, and make no mistake, despite eating in the white house, president obama sees it too. he has seen the shock and pain felt by families who have lost a

home and he is seen with this crisis has done to what were some of the most solid middle-class neighborhoods just a few years ago. some of which have spent decades fighting back from the last crisis that this country faced. that is wide with his leadership, this administration has refused to stand still, and today i want to talk about just what reverend sharpton said which is the work that we are doing, the progress that we have made to fight back from this crisis, i want to talk about what we have done to keep families in their homes, the steps we have taken to hold the banks that created this crisis accountable for it, and the work that we are doing to lay a long-term foundation for an economy as the president likes to say, that is built to last. most of all, i want to talk about how, with your help, and

with the leader in the white house understands what american families are still going through, how we are going to finish the job of recovering from this crisis. now, we still have a long way to go, but there are many out there who would want you to forget where we started with the president walking into office. the day he took that seat behind the desk in the oval office, we lost over 800,000 jobs that month. home prices have been dropping for 30 straight month. every month for 30 straight month when the president walked into office. foreclosures month after month have been rising to record levels. now there are some who have said then and some who are saying, do you know what? government shouldn't be involved. just let that housing market hit bottom. you heard that, right?

let the housing market hit bottom. not me, not president obama. we are not going to stand by while millions of families lose not just their homes, but that tenuous grasp they have on the american dream. [applause] because we refuse to stand still, today 6 million families have been able to keep their homes because they have had their mortgages modified. [applause] we have cut the number of families falling into foreclosure by more than half since that day the president took office. [applause] and most important of all, we are at 4 million more new jobs over the last few years and counting. now that is real progress, but the president knows that this work isn't done until every

community, every family, has a chance to be a part of that progress, and that is why the work that we do at hud with you in your communities, to help reach families with our -- is so important. 8 million families since the president took office have benefited from the work that we do with so many of you, to help give counseling to the families who need it most. now remember, a family who is on the verge of losing their home, and you know this from talking to them, they are embarrassed. they are afraid to reach out their hands. they are getting six or eight calls a week from scam artists that want to take their home after they have given them those terrible loans that got them into the problem in the first place. our hud approved counselors have a proven record of stopping

foreclosures, and yet, and yet, this congress, the republicans in the house last year said do you know what? i think this is a good year to stop funding housing counseling. we never needed it more and yet, last year they cut off our funding so we fought with every one of you and last year we won that funding back. we won that funding back. [applause] but let me tell you something else that we are doing. since this little organization, part of my department that we call the federal housing administration, and in the midst of the crisis with all these sub-prime loans out there, we have shrunk to just 2% of the market. huai? because we were making safe loans. we remake in the kind of loans that didn't make these out rages

profits for the originators and servicers and the banks that were making them and so we have shrunk, but we were set up that in a moment of crisis, we would step up and be there for the american people. remember, some said let the market hit bottom. government should not be in gauge but let me tell you what would have happened if those critics had one out. i want to just have to guess what share of african-americans who bought homes in the country last year used an fha loan. 20%? 50%? 60% of african-americans who bought a home last year in this country used an fha loan. you add to that the veterans administration and the work that we do in rural communities through usda, over 80% of african-americans who bought a home last year used an fha or

another bone within the obama administration. [applause] so the next time you hear the statement let that housing market hit bottom, you know what that is really saying, no more fha, no more va, and do you know what? we got ours, let's pull up the drawbridge behind us and not let others get access to homeownership. and in fact, let's blame the crisis that happened on those who were the victims of it. we can't let that stand and so i will tell you fha is going to continue to be that rock of the american dream, that bridge to homeownership that it was set up to be and that president obama believed it needs to be. now, with all of this work that we did right from the beginning, we also knew that every day,

every week, every month there was more that we had to do so last month the president stood up and he said do you know what? so? so many african-americans are in fha loans, but if they are underwater, they may be paying seven, 8% when we have the lowest interest rate in 50 years, so we have got to open up the path to refinancing for those homeowners. we cut our fees by $1000 a year for refinancing. think about that. the average homeowner, $3000 a year when you put the fees and the interest-rate savings together, you talk about tax cuts, this is like a major tax cuts for the families that need it does. every year they are paying their mortgage. but it's not just fha. fannie mae, freddie mac. we made changes there. we have over 400,000

applications for refinancing just in the last few weeks thanks to the changes that the president made. [applause] and that is real money. that is $3000 a year. that can mean the difference between sending your child to college and a dream deferred. but you know something else too? foreclosures and high mortgage payments don't just tear families apart, they can overrun the entire communities. but there is good news they are too. in the new hud this president has invested $7 million in rebuilding the hardest hit laces through our neighborhood stabilization efforts and where are we putting that money? vacancy rates are down and 75% of those communities in housing and housing prices are starting to rise in two-thirds of those communities relative to the neighborhoods that haven't gotten that money and guess what

else? because african-american communities were the hardest hit by this crisis, they also need the help, so these neighborhood stabilization dollars are twice as targeted to african-american neighborhoods as they are to other neighborhoods. so we have made progress they are too but perhaps the biggest step that we have taken in recent months is our historic 25 billion-dollar mortgage servicing settlement that we reached with within unprecedented coalition, 49 states attorneys generals. i don't know what that attorney general from oklahoma was thinking, not signing on but 49 state attorneys general. now you have heard the story about the appalling way that banks have treated families throughout this crisis, losing their paperwork when people apply for help, dropping calls,

six or eight calls until you finally get someone on the phone when it may be too late. and most egregiously, signing thousands of foreclosure documents that tanks never verified or are even bothered to read. think about that, the single investment in a family is going to make in their lifetime, signed a way by a bank that didn't even read the paperwork. how can that be in the kent of america? well i will tell you what, it's not going to be again. we went and and the president directed us, full investigation, but over and over we found that folds who never even should have gotten in trouble or were just 30 days behind on their mortgages, the irony here is it

wasn't good for the families and the communities, it was good for the taxpayer too if you got that help because it would have avoided a foreclosure and a default on a loan in the first place. and not just this was the right thing for these banks to do to provide help, they were legally obligated to provide that help in so many cases. allowing some of our largest and most powerful institutions to play by a different set of rules than anybody else, to commit forgery and perjury against ordinary families is not just appalling, it's illegal and it's not what this administration and this president believes we stand for as americans. so i am proud -- [applause] i am proud to stand before the national action network and say that this settlement makes them pay for that behavior.

$25 billion, the largest joint federal state settlement in the history of the country. [applause] but we didn't just say cut a check. we said, help the homeowner said you harmed. keep them in their homes, provide tens of billions of dollars in direct relief to the family. it forces them to begin writing down the balances of these exploding, unaffordable loans. it forces them to refinance loans for homeowners that are underwater. it forces them to pay millions of dollars to states and consumers to provide housing counseling and other kinds of services. and the best news, last week a federal district court judge right here in washington d.c. signed off on this settlement.

what does that mean? it means that as we are speaking here today, $5 billion in checks are being cut to state attorneys general and to the federal government and relief is beginning to flow to over a million homeowners, who have waited far too long for that help. [applause] but it's not just those that were harmed that can be helped. you heard me say earlier, we can't ever let this crisis happen again. we can't ever let african-american wealth be devastated in the way that it has by this foreclosure crisis. and so also included in this settlement is a homeowner bill of rights that says on the one hand, and this is going to be done by richard cordray from the consumer financial protection

bureau. you remember how hard it was to give that done by congress right? and even if the president gets it done he had to stand in a way of the director. he had to say i'm sorry congress, i'm the president and i'm going to make an appointment and he did so right now because he did that, the consumer financial protection bureau is putting in place a single straightforward set of commonsense rules that families can count on when they are buying a home, when they are making the single most important financial decision of their lives. but at the same time, and you know this from the crisis, you can't just worry about getting folks the key to that home. we have to make sure that they keep that key and that over time, they can continue to be homeowners and get the help they need so the standard in the settlement says, it will force lenders and servicers to follow a comprehensive list of rights that should they ever lose a job, have a medical emergency, puts their home at risk, they

will get help. no more lost paperwork, no more runaround, no more excuses. [applause] but with all of this done, our work is still far from over and that is why you have gathered here. that is why you keep fighting. you know that. first of all, we can't let families fall victim to the kind of scams that got us into this crisis to begin with. you know, talk about something that made you mad. i have seen the advertisements already in newspapers in african-american communities saying, get your help from the servicing settlement. just a few thousand dollars and we will get you your check. here it is, the very folks who set up shop to make these terrible loans in the first

place, we put them out of business and what do they do? they set up a new business. we are going to help you fix the problem we created. just give us a few thousand dollars, right? we need your help. q. are qr leaders in your communities. you are the voices of justice. tell families there is help out there, that it is free. and i mean it, free. no charge. [applause] hud approved housing counselors who stand up and do this very thing. where do they go? the hope hotline. they go to the hud web site, hud.gov. 888995-hope. there is a safe place to go and you are trusted, you are known in your communities. let folks know there is help out

there and that they won't be taken advantage of again. another thing you can tell them, even if they have already lost their home, if they were wrongfully foreclosed on, if they were charged fees that they should not have, there is help for them as well. right now, there is a hotline set up for a foreclosure review that is being done right here in washington by federal agencies to make sure that we compensate folks at the bank's expense for harm that was done, but it's available until july 31. we found 138,000 problems in foreclosure so far but there are many more out there and unless someone picks up the phone and calls, they are not going to get help. so we need your voices on that too. that number, the hotline for this foreclosure review process,

888-952-9105, so that they can have their foreclosure reviewed and justice can be done. but only until the end of july, so we have to be urgent about this. we have got to get help out there fast. but you get my point. all of these efforts, we are here to help in this administration. this president is here to help, but we need your partnership. as activist and community leaders, no one is better positioned to articulate the concerns of families to washington than each of you here today. whether it's getting congress to pass president obama's plan to give every homeowner who is underwater in their mortgage the ability to refinance in today's record low interest rate, getting them to pass an enormous expansion of our neighborhood

stabilization effort that we call project rebuild, that would create 200,000 jobs in the hardest hit communities, rebuilding the homes that are sitting vacant and boarded up and dragging down too many communities in african-american neighborhoods around the country, or just ensuring that as many dollars as possible in this record settlement go to help the folks that needed the most. we need you to make your voices heard and to let not only congresspeople here in washington at your local leaders know that support for homeowners, community revitalization and housing counseling is a top priority for the families that you speak for. finally, as we celebrate fair housing month of this month, and it's one of the proudest things for me about serving our first african-american president in

the agency, hud, that has the very first african-american cabinet secretary, robert weaver, who won passage in 1968 of the fair housing law that martin luther king lived and died for. [applause] we remember, we remember that victory this month with fair housing month, and as we do that, we remember that we still need to get to the bottom of this housing crisis and to get justice for the families that were harmed most. so that is why just as we were announcing this record settlement, president obama and attorney general eric holder announced a renewed effort to go after these lenders are the origination in the

securitization of these mortgages. it's bad enough that once somebody has a bad mortgage, you take advantage of them. but let me tell you, where did these mortgages come from in the first place? that is what we have to get to the bottom up. that is exactly what we are doing. a couple of months ago eric holder and i announced a $335 million settlement with countrywide that was the largest fair housing settlement in the history of the country by 10 times. let me say that again. 10 times larger than any fair housing settlement we have ever had in this country. [applause] so i'm proud to stand side-by-side with my partner, eric holder, with his leadership, with the president's commitment, we will get to the bottom of this crisis. and hold those who created it accountable once and for all.

but let me step back from housing from just a moment because ultimately, everything you have heard about from the full roster of cabinet secretaries that have been visiting with you this week, all of these efforts are fundamentally about the same thing. not just turning the page on this crisis, not just getting past it, but ensuring that families across the country have a fair shot in this economy, something too few people have had for far too long. i mentioned earlier that what was on the president's plate when he walked in to the oval office, it wasn't just the 100,000 jobs being lost each month or even the foreclosures piling up month after month. in many ways, those were just the consequences of a decade of deepening wage inequality, of 25

years of america's middle class being hollowed out, one community at a time. and taking good-paying jobs with them to places overseas, or nowhere at all because they were just disappearing. of people saying no matter how many folks were being taken advantage of, government had no positive role to play in writing these wrongs. i am proud to work for a president who believes this crisis was an opportunity, not just to rebuild that instead to set things right. and he did it -- you did it right from the beginning when he passed to the recovery act. that so-called failed stimulus that you heard about. you heard that, right? let me give you some news about this so-called failed stimulus. that failed stimulus created 3 million jobs, prevented 6 million people from falling

into poverty. [applause] just one program at hud, one program that had saved 1.2 million people from sleeping on our streets every night. just one of them. [applause] instead of letting the housing market in our hardest hit communities hit rock autumn as was suggested and continue to suggest, president obama said we are going to invest in those homes, rebuild that housing, reform the schools there and get those families a chance to open a small business. as we speak, he is fighting to ensure that no millionaire or billionaire ever again pays a lower tax rates rate than their secretary. [applause] but for all this progress that i have talked about that we have seen under president obama's watch, keeping families in their

homes, rebuilding communities and creating jobs, let's be honest here today. he has gotten credit for virtually none of it, right? the media doesn't talk about it. well, maybe one member of the media, right? [applause] [applause] and plenty of folks in washington trying to hardest to talk about anything else, right? why did he do it? why did all this work that was such a priority for this president and everyone of us in the end ministries and? because he knows what you know. he knows what it's like to walk the halls of public housing, because he has worked there. he knows what it's like to walk the streets in some of our city's poorest neighborhoods, because he has lived there and what it's like to take a subway

or a bus just to find a fresh piece of fruit in a grocery store. he knows what it's like to wonder where he will ever be able to afford a college education or decent health care and he knows what it's like to be judged, not on your merits or your talents, but because of where you come from, what your name is, or even what you look like. one of the saddest things i see in the neighborhoods i work in every day at hud, in too many communities, you can predict the life expectancy of a child by the zip code they grow up in. and do you know what the president says? not in america. while i am president of the united states, not while i have the power to change that future. [applause] and i have seen that commitment

up close and personal. i haven't seen him fight for hud's budget because he believes in an america where we don't leave families earning $10,000 a year to fend for themselves. i've seen him provide troubled cities like detroit, memphis and new orleans with the support they finally needs to rebuild, because he knows, he knows we can't rebuild america until we rebuild the community that built america and its great black middle-class. i have seen him forge an economic policy that creates real pathways to opportunity, to working, to getting an education because he understands that we can't end the cycle of poverty if we don't start creating opportunities. now listen, you know and i know through all of these problems won't be solved in a year, in four years or even eight years,

even when we have got the national action network and we have got marc morial at the national urban league doing remarkable, remarkable work in partnership with all of you and all of us and mark, welcome. [applause] but i will tell you, even though change is hard, think about this, fair housing month, let's just take a moment and remember all of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice because they knew change was hard. the ultimate sacrifice. let's remember them when we talk about change and change being hard. but i also know something else, that if you are marching backwards, it ain't nothing going to change. and that is the choice we have to make about the future of this

country and this year. president obama's life and dedication demonstrates anything, we are not sure when or how change is going to come, but it will come. if we keep marching forward, together, it will change. that change will come. it will come because of the work that you do with this president, with me and with hud. i am going to keep marching. i'm going to keep coming back every year to visit with you and renew that spirit, that fair housing month spirit that this is a country that can and will change if we lift our hands together and say, march on. march on. thank you. [applause]

spain secretary shaun donovan. [applause] >> the senate is about to gavel and to debate changes to the u.s. postal service. they will discuss closing post offices and other postal facilities, changing from six day delivery to five days a week and refunding overpayments to the postal retirement fund. at 11:00 eastern senators will vote on moving forward with a bill. then they will recess at 12:34 caucus lunches and return it 2:15 eastern for more legislative work. the house meanwhile live on c-span will spend the afternoon on a bill opening federal land to hunting, fishing and recreational shooting. a number of amendments will be considered. lighthouse coverage again on c-span and live coverage now hear of the u.s. senate.

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 lord, we know you're mighty around we're weak, but we take heart because your power makes mountains tremble. as our senators rely on your strength for this day, fill them with renewed faith and love give them the security and serenity they need to face today's challenges and to glorify you in their thoughts,

words, and deeds. grip them with the conviction that you will provide them with supernatural strength, vision, and guidance. we pray in your great 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., april 17, 2012. to the senate: under the provisions of

rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable christopher a. coons, a senator from the state of delaware, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: followinger leader remarks we'll have an hour of morning business and at that time, when that time is up around 11:00 there will be 10 minutes -- there will be five minutes on each side for the motion to reconsider the postal reform bill. we should have a vote around 10 after 11:00 today. yesterday senate republicans rejected the idea of millionaires and billionaires should contribute their fair share to help the country prosper. republicans sent a message to millions of honest, hard-working americans who file their taxes today. it's fair for warren buffett to pay a lower tax than his secretary. that's not fair. republicans said it's fair for mitt romney to pay a lower tax

rate than his cleaning lady or his chauffeur. that's not fair. they believe, my republican colleagues, it's fair for hedge fund managers and executives to pay a lower tax and this than schoolteachers and waitresses and bus drivers. but that's something that you don't have to take my word for it, mr. president. that's what president ronald reagan called a system of unproductive tax loopholes that some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying are the they're share. in 1985 ronald reagan knocked the web of loopholes that allowed people making hundreds of millions of each year to pay lower rates than janitors. royal pro-president reagan called it crazy and to his credit he worked with a couple of democrats, senator bradley of new jersey, congress gephardt of new jersey and came up with a bradley-gephardt tax fairness act. it's worked well for a long time. but we have allowed other things to get in the way of that good

bradley-gephardt legislation and we're back to what ronald reagan was talking about many years ago. this broken system made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing while a bus driver was paying 10% of his salary. that's what president reagan said. but the same system is in place today as i've just explained. and as that radical liberal, ronald reagan, said, that's just crazy. those were his words. yesterday my republican colleagues used some strong words to oppose democrats' planned fight to infeek e. coli quality. republicans called our commonsense proposal tony sure that no one making more a million dollars a year pays a lower tax rate than a truck griefer driefer, a secretary, or a police officer. they called it class warfare. mr. president, it's class -- not warfare but class welfare. welfare for the wealthy at the expense of the middle class, class welfare, not warfare.

republicans are pushing a budget that would end medicare as we know it, just passed the house, slashing nursing home coverage for the elderly, decimate pell grant funding and kick 200,000 children out of the head start program. and they're calling our proposal class warfare? i wish that that was the most ridiculous thing they have said about our proposal to bring a measure of fairness to our tax system but far from it. one member of the senate leadership equated this measure to shooting ourselves in the head. the paying a fair share act, the buffett rule, would have ensured millionaires and billionaires paid at leech as much as their secretaries, assistants and even their nannies yet republicans thinking asking those billionaires and millionaires to contribute their fair share is like shooting the country in the head. that's what they said. our legislation would have

protected 99% of small business owners and maintained deductions for charitable giving. and it would have been a small but meaningful step to reduce our deficit at a time when every penny in this case every billion counts. doesn't seem radical to see me some request warren buffett who made almost $63 million in 2010 to pay a higher tax rate than his his secretary. you can remember when he came and spoke to a group of democrats and he carried around his tax returns for the last several years. he's the one who told us how much he made in 2010 and lamented the fact that he was paying the tax rate that was. well, it doesn't seem radical to me, it didn't seem radical to ronald reagan, and it doesn't seem radical to thriewrs of the -- three quarters of the american people. the wealthiest americans take home home a greater percentage of the nation's income than any time in nearly a century yet

they enjoy the lowest tax rate in more than five decades. the lowest tax rate. so it's no surprise americans believe millionaires should shoulder their fair share. even two-thirds of millionaires and a majority of republicans around the country agree it's time to fix the system rigged to favor the richest of the rich. republicans in congress aren't the only ones that are on board on this issue. if you need evident that millionaires and billionaires can afford to contribute a little more, consider this fact, mr. president, this sun wimple fact: last year there were 7,000 people who made more than a million dollars last year but didn't pay a single penny of federal income tax. not a penny. thanks to republicans, these lucky millionaires and brlts can keep gaming the system while middle-class workers keep 3eubging up -- keep picking up the tab.

following leader remarks as i've indicated the senate will be in a period of morning business until 11:00. republicans will control the first half and the majority will control the final half. at 11:00 there will be 10 minutes of debate on the motion to invoke cloture on the postal reform bill. at 11:00:there will be a cloture vote, a motion to pretty to the postal reform bill. the senate will recess from are 12:30 to 2:15 for our weekly caucus meetings so we hope to make progress on the postal reform bill which is so vitally important to more than half a million workers. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: yesterday i highlighted some of the tremendous challenges we face in our country, and this president's refusal to pace fais them with the seriousness they demand. at a moment when the fentd makes us look a lot like greece president obama stumps for a tax hike he knows won't help and that he knows won't pass.

on gas prices, the president's response has been to call for a tax hike on energy manufacturers that if anything, will drive the price of gas even higher and that he knows won't pass. now we hear that the president is announcing some kind of task force on oil speculation today. in other words, the same thing washington democrats always call for when gas prices go up. if i were to guess, i'd say today's proposal by the president probably polls proat well but i guarantee you it won't do a thing to lower the price of gas at the pump. it never has in the past. white house officials admit as much. why would it now? the democrats' favorite policy visor --, advisor, boehner one buffett weighed in a few years ago. here's what warren buffett had

to say about it. asked about the parole roll that speculation in the oil markets plays in determining price, he said it's not speculation, it's supply and demand. that's warren buffett on speculation relating to the oil market. it's not speculation, warren buffett said, it's supply and demand. but of course that's not the point for this white house. president obama only seems to care about warren buffett's opinion if it polls well. the president's goal isn't to do something about the problem, it's to make people think he's doing something about the problem until the next crisis comes along. and that's the larger problem. that we've got a president more concerned about looking like he's doing something than in actually doing what's needed to tackle the challenges we face. we've got a president who told us he was a different kind of politician doing is same old things and using the same old

talk tawg points politicians in washington have been pedestrianling for -- peddling for literally years. weren't these kinds of gimmicks and stale talking points precisely the kind of thing president obama campaigned against four years ago? i thought he was offering something new. something different. i think the associated press summed up the president's latest proposal pretty well this morning. the white house plan which obama was to unveil tuesday the a.p. said is more likely to draw sharp election-year distinctions with republicans than to have an immediate effect on prices at the pump. a.p. pretty well summed it up. they said it's more about drawing a distinction. look, we don't need new distinctions. we need solutions. americans need lawmakers who are more concerned about with facing up to the problems we face than

getting re-elected. they need a president who thinks about solving a problem, a president who thinks solving a problem involves more than giving a speech about it and pointing the finger at whatever doesn't poll well that particular day. as i said yesterday, the president seems to have forgotten why he was elected in the first place. he seems to have forgotten his own campaign rhetoric. that he was going to be different, that he would bridge differences, that he would bring people together. the reality couldn't be more different. or more disappointing. the sad truth is, it's all politics, all the time in this white house. they're out of ideas, they've got nothing new to offer. today's announcement is all the proof you need of that. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved.

and under the previous order, the senate will 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 by the two leaders or their designees with the republicans controlling the first half and the majority controlling the final half. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: over the weekend, united states, france, china, russia, and germany returned to the negotiating table with iran for the first time since january, 2012 twef. reports indicate -- 2011. reports indicate that modest progress was made and a second round is scheduled for may. while these negotiations represent an opportunity, the united states and our allies must guard against iranian delays. iran has a history of using negotiations as a stalling tactic and while negotiations -- while our

negotiators talk, the centrifuges keep spinning. and that is the crux of the problem. iran's nuclear program continues. according to the most recent report in february from the international atomic energy agency, iran has produced 450 kilograms of enriched uranium and 150 of uranium enriched to the level of 20%. enriching uranium represents a 85% to 90% of the work needed to reach weapon-grade fuel. iran is also preparing cascades used to produce enriched uranium which will accelerate the speed at which it can stockpile nuclear material. iran could build three to four nuclear weapons. in response to iran's continued nuclear program and its defines of the united states -- defiance of the united nations security council, many of our

allies have adopted sanctions on iran. sanctions are having a significant impact. in march, their exports fell 12% according to foreign reports. iran's currency has lost roughly half its value in the past year and inflation is more than 20%. the new european iewng iewn sanctions are scheduled to take effect this tournament surm to make it even more difficult for iran to ship oil globally. once the e.u. sanctions go into effect in july, oil sales could fall up to 40%. in addition, a major chinese insurance provider has announced it will no longer insure ships carrying iranian oil. these are important developments that will increase economic pressure on the iranian regime yet neither sanctions nor past negotiations have stopped iran's nuclear program and its quest for a nuclear weapons. iran's nuclear program threatens

american interests. first iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons jeopardizes the security of the united states. if last two nations to acquire nuclear weapons, pakistan and north korea, have presented numerous challenges to america's security interests. north korea provoked a condemnation last week when it launched a rocket. in pakistan a december report in the atlantic called into question the security of that country's nuclear arsenal stating that pakistan regularly transports nuclear weapons throughout its city streets without much security. if iran obtains a nuclear weapon, other nations in the middle east may soon follow. saudi arabia has already said it will consider seeking nuclear capabilities if iran's program is not stopped. second, a nuclear iran could increase support for terrorism. irans had is already one of the leading sponsors of terrorism, funneling weapons and money and training for terrorists, including hezbollah and hamas. with a nuclear weapon iran and

its allies may be emboldened to carry out even more more attacks. furthermore, what would prevent iran from giving nuclear weapons, sharing its capabilities with one of the terrorist groups? third, a nuclear iran could exert more influence over world oil markets. a direct link exists between volatile oil prices and iran's nuclear program. prices have risen when tensions increase and when -- i'm sorry when tensions recede, prices typically decline. american consumers and businesses are directly affected by volatile prices that negatively impact our economic well-being. although saudi arabia has pledged to boost production to make up for the loss of iranian oil, this will reduce that spare production capacity and leave our country and global economies vulnerable to any reduction in supplies whether whether from conflicts within oil producing nations or natural disasters. finally, other a nuclear iran would threaten the safety of american troops serving in the

middle east. for years iran has has supported tariffs groups that targeted and killed american troops. they supported the terrorists responsible for the 1996 attack on u.s. military residents in saudi arabia that killed 196 our service men. iran has long-range missiles that could hit baseness the region including ones in turkey, afghanistan, bahrain and kuwait. and iran's nuclear program threatens the existence of our ally, israel. president of iran has called for israel to be -- quote -- "wiped off the map." if iran acquires a nuclear weapon, they will have the capability to do the things they speak up. understandably, israel is worried. israelis know too well the price of war because they have witnessed that war and destruction. they know what can happen when evil men gain the abailt -- ability to carry out evil deeds. while some would have us believe that i is israel's problem, we

should not be fooled. iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons threatens owl nations who care about peace and stability. we cannot leave israel to deal with this crisis alone. american leadership is needed now more than ever to stop iran. we can begin by passing the iran sanctions accountability and human rights act. this legislation which came through the banking committee earlier this year on which i serve strengthens and expands existing sanctions and for the first time makes it official u.s. policy to prevent iran from object faing nuclear weapons -- obtaining nuclear weapons. the administration and president obama must fully u.s. law and penalize those that violate sanctions. in addition the united states should use current negotiations to bring about an end to iran's nuclear programs. as a party to the nonproliferation treaty, iran 234us must adhere to its obligations under provide transparency to national international inspectors. the longer iran's nuclear program continues, the greater

the danger grows for the united states and all nations. last month israeli prime benjamin netanyahu spoke here in washington. he is an incredible leader and his speech to congress last year was one of the best i've ever heard. while speaking in washington last month, he laid out a very clear reason why a nuclear iran would be such a grave danger. and he said he'd been warning the world for 15 years about a nuclear iran, 15 years of warnings. we must not be fooled by negotiations that only stall and continue to create the opportunity for are greater disaster down the road. the prime minister said no one would be happier than him if iran gave up its nuclear quest but there are many around the world who would be happy because we know the world would be a far safer, more peaceful place without a nuclear iran. while we all desire peaceful resolution, negotiations must not be a stalling tactic or an excuse for inaction.

thursday this week is holocaust remembrance day. as we pause to remember and reflect on this past tragedy, the united states must act to prevent a nuclear iran and the real possibility of a future tragedy. the world cannot again look the other way. mr. president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. ?ool quorum call: quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from kentucky.

mr. paul: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. paul: i rise today to introduce aid to egypt until they end the prosecution of our u.s. citizens. i offered this amendment earlier this spring when egypt was detaining our citizens, pro-democracy workers and was not letting them leave the country. since then they have let them leave the country but sort of in an insulting fashion in the sense that they have let them leave when we had to pay basically ransom. we had to pay about $5 million in ransom. $300,000 per person to let them leave egypt. so they came home and egypt could only get paid if the administration certified they were pro-democracy. within days secretary clinton released the said aid and said they were achieving their

democratic goals. i wrote a letter to secretary clinton and asked her not to do this because the prosecution still goes on. the u.s. citizens had to pay $300,000 in bills but had to sign a statement saying they're coming back for the trial. everybody signed of said i doubt they're ever going back to egypt for those show trials but then it gets worse. it turns out that in december of last year president obama signed an executive order -- this is order 135-24 -- that gives interpol, the international police organization, gives them immunity in our country. we also have an extradition treaty with egypt meaning if you're accused of a crime in egypt, we can send you back. the danger is, are these pro-democracy workers safe in the united states? you have interpol agents in the united states who now have immunity, we have an extradition treaty with egypt.

there are definitely problems to allowing this to go on. this is an indication to me that maybe egypt is not pursuing democratic goals and maybe certifying them as a democratic country is not in our best interest and maybe sending nearly $2 billion of taxpayer money to egypt who continues to prosecute our citizens is -- is not a good idea. i'll give you an example of what interfollow pol is doing. interpol recently took a saudi journalist from malaysia and sent him back to saudi arabia. do you know what the crime was? they were accused of blasphemy. a religious crime of apostasc every y. do you know what if penalty is? the deposit. we're use -- the death penalty. we're using, someone is accused of a religious crime and sent back to a country where they can be put to death. this alarms me. people say that could never happen in america. well, right now the president

has allowed interpol through an executive order through the president's signature, has allowed interpol to have diplomatic immunity in our country. some so for all i know interpol could be at this very moment looking for american citizens in this country and trying to get those people and extradite them back to egypt. this is a problem. this is why you don't want an international police force to operate within your sovereign nation. there can be cooperation but you don't want impunity and immunity for an international police force within your borders. so i will introduce again an amendment to this bill, and this amendment will say no aid to egypt until they end this prosecution. no aid to egypt until they end these red letter warrants that they've asked on u.s. citizens to be extradited back to egypt. we can't allow u.s. citizens to be sent to a foreign country to be tried in a country where

blasphemy is a crime. those are not american values, those are not american ways, and we can't allow u.s. citizens to be subject to foreign laws and foreign crimes. so i will ask today for a vote on an amendment that will end egyptian aid or at least delay egyptian foreign aid until they relinquish this persecution of our citizens. thank you, mr. president. i yield back my time. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

quorum call:

mr. lieberman: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. the presiding officer: morning business is closed. mr. lieberman: thank you. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which clotures was not invoked on the motion to proceed to s. 1789 is agreed to. the motion to reconsider the vote is agreed to and the senate will resume consideration of the motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to s. 1789. upon reconsideration, which the clerk will report. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar number 296, s. 1789, a

bill to improve, sustain and transform the united states postal service. the presiding officer: under the previous order, there will be 10 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. mr. president, before i proceed to that, i have seven unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have at approval of the majority and minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: mr. president, i rise to urge all of our colleagues to support the pending cloture motion filed by the leader so that we can begin a debate that will help decide whether the united states postal service, this iconic american institution created more than two centuries ago, embedded in the constitution, created in the age of ink wells and quill pens,

will survive in the age of e-mail and the internet. mr. president, to me, this is -- this cloture vote should be an easy one. because if you vote against cloture, you're essentially saying two things i think. one is you don't want to do anything. and if you don't do anything, the postal service is going to run out of money and his its borrowing limit later this year, forcing it to miss payments and unnecessarily to begin to shut back or close down operations, which is the last thing the country needs at this point. frankly, the other thing that you'll be doing if you think we should do nothing is to leave the -- the postmaster general of the postal service with an unlimited right to take steps that i believe a majority of members of this body don't want to be taken precipitously, without considering alternatives, and that is closing thousands of post offices around the country, including in small towns and rural areas and dramatically and

quickly cutting back on the number of male processing far -- of mail processing facilities and, therefore, the standards by which mail is delivered and the speed with which it's delivered in this country. so i hope our colleagues consider this an easy vote which is simply not to turn away from the crisis that the postal service is in. senator collins and i, joined by senator carper and senator scott brown, we have a institute that's a bipartisan proposal that i think -- we have a substitute that's a bipartisan proposal that i think will help really save the post office but also force it to begin to make tough, cost-efficient steps to keep itself in fiscal balance. let me just give you a sense of the scope of this. the postal service today, if it were a private corporation, would be the 35th largest company in the united states based on revenue. but putting it just ahead of apple. and it would be the country's second largest employer just

behind wal-mart. the 32,000 post offices in america represent more domestic retail outlets than wal-mart, starbucks and mcdonald's combined. these -- these are big numbers, and the post office has a storied history. but today it's a troubled business, frankly on the verge of insolvency if we don't act. in part because of the recent economic recession but mostly because of the transformational impact of the internet. the postal service has had a 21% drop in mail volume in the past five years. and, of course, a corresponding cut in revenue as more businesses and communications move on-line, mail volume is just inevitably going to continue to decrease. in fiscal year 2011, the postal service took in $65.7 billion

but had expenses of $70.6 billion. this $5 billion loss would have actually been twice that if congress had not delayed the due date for a statutorily required payment to the retiree health plan that was due at the end of the fiscal year. and incidentally, that followed record losses of $8.5 billion in 2010. this simply can't continue, mr. president. as i said earlier, if nothing is done, the postal service will not have enough money to pay its bills. so -- so, please, vote for cloture. we've got a good, solid substitute that -- that is a major reform with some due process in it that will make the post office leaner and more efficient. it will dramatically reduce the number of employees and the number of facilities that the post office maintains but still do so in a way that i think is

evolutionary and -- and not draconian either to the postal service or in its impact on the millions of people who depend on the post office and will continue to every day. there are a lot of different ideas about how to fix the post office. some people don't want us to make any changes and that's the road to bankruptcy. some people want us to make draconian changes right away and i don't think that's appropriate so i -- i ask for a vote for cloture, and i yield the floor. i thank the chair. ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm very pleased to join with the chairman of the homeland security committee in urging all of our colleagues to cast a vote for cloture on the motion to proceed to this vitally important bill. mr. president, there are many different views on how to save

the postal service but there can be no doubt that the postal service is in crisis. we are at a critical juncture. without passing legislation, the postal service will simply be unable to meet its payroll perhaps as soon as this fall. we simply cannot allow that to happen. the postal service is vital to our economy. it is the linchpin of a trillion-dollar mailing industry that employs nearly 8.7 million americans in fields as diverse as printing, catalog companies, paper manufacturing, newspaper and magazine publishers. these industries and the jobs that they sustain are in

jeopardy. if we fail to act, we will deliver a critical, crippling blow to the postal service. as senator lieberman has indicated, the postal service is in crisis. it has lost more than $13 billion just in the past two years. first-class mail volume has dropped by 23% over the past five years, 12% over the past two years. the postal service has a debt to the u.s. treasury of $13 billion and will max out its credit limit of $15 billion this year. we have to address this crisis. it would be irresponsible for

members to simply vote "no" on the motion to proceed if they have other ideas on how to address this crisis. i have urged a full and open and fair amendment process so that members can bring forth their alternative plans for saving the postal service. but we simply cannot allow the postal service to fail. the stakes are too high for our economy and for americans across this country. finally, i would remind my colleagues that the postal service's roots go back to our constitution. this is an organization that is vital to our heritage and to our future. i urge a "yes" vote for the motion to proceed. thank you, mr. president.

ms. collins: mr. president, i would yield back the remainder of of the time on our side. mr. lieberman: and i would do the same, mr. president. the presiding officer: all time is yielded back. 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 motion to proceed to calendar number 296, s. 1789, the 21st century postal service act. signed by 16 senators. the presiding officer: by unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum call has been waived. the question is: is it the sense of the senate that debate on the motion to proceed to s. 1789, a bill to improve, sustain and transform the united states postal service, upon reconsideration, shall be brought to a close? the yeas and nays are mandatory urn the rule.

the clerk will call the roll. vote:

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votevote.vote:

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the presiding officer: has every member voted? does any member wish to change his or her vote? on this vote the yeas are 74. the nays are 22. three-fifths of the senators having voted in the affirmative, upon reconsideration, the motion is agreed to. mr. lieberman: mr. president, i move for reconsideration and ask that the matter be laid on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lieberman: i thank the chair. i thank our colleagues; a very strong vote which says to me that members of the senate across party lines understand that the united states postal service is a historic and also important part of america's future. it needs to change. it's in the midst of a real and dangerous fiscal crisis. we may differ about how to react to that crisis, but this strong

cloture vote says to me that three-quarters of the members at least are ready and eager to debate and to pass something that will save the postal service from bankruptcy. and the implications that would have for our economy overall, the billions of dollars of our -- hundreds of billions of dollars of our economy that depend on the mail would be compromised and our economy and jobs would be further hurt. mr. president, i hope as the day goes on, obviously with the strong vote for cloture, we now proceed to a 30-hour period of debate on the matter. but i certainly hope that as the day goes on and the members of both caucus and the leaders talk, that we can find a

mutually agreeable path not to spend the 30 hours on the debate, on this motion to proceed, but that we go right to the bill. at that point senator collins and i, along with senator carper and senator scott brown, will file a bipartisan substitute amendment that we have worked on which we hope will be the pending matter. and then an opportunity for people who have different points of view about how to deal with the fiscal crisis of the post office, not to avoid dealing with it, people will have an opportunity to present amendments, and the body will work its will, which is the most important thing. there are too many great national problems that congress is not dealing with because of partisanship, because of ideological rigidity, because of an unwillingness to do what has

to be done in our system of government, which is to compromise. not to compromise your principles, but to understand that in a representative body such as the senate, representing a country as big and diverse as ours, you rarely can expect to get 100% of what you want. the aim should be to make progress, to get at least 50% of what you want and to let the other side get some of what they want as well. so i would like to deliver now an opening statement and then hope that my ranking member, senator collins, will do the same about the bill, the substitute, which is s. 1789. i'm convinced that the substitute will help make the postal service leaner, nimbleer and more cost-efficient while still maintaining the service americans need to live our daily

lives and to keep our economy going. but i want to be clear, this bill alone is not going to save the u.s. postal service. the changes around it occurring and within it are too deep. it will represent a very significant step forward. it will save, as the postal service, as we will indicate as this debate goes on, save billions and billions of dollars annually and put the postal service back on the road to fiscal balance. i view this bill bipartisan compromise, as a middle way between two different approaches to the fiscal crisis of the postal service. one, that to a certain extent wants to wish it away, to say that really nothing has to change. we just have find more ways, a different business model. we have to find more ways for the postal service to make money, and we can just keep on

doing business as we're doing. the end result of that is either the postal service will collapse of its own weight or the federal government, the taxpayers will be expected to bail it out. i don't think that's what the american people want us to do. so one way is to do nothing. the other way is to impose what i would call immediate and -- kind of immediate overreaction. close thousands of post offices which people depend on across the country, close hundreds of mail processing facilities, which will mean that people will not be able to get their mail, and businesses will not be able to realize the expectation of timely delivery of the mail. and it will have a negative impact on this economy of ours which still is struggling to come out of recession. we're offering a middle way here

which will provide real and substantial savings from the current operating picture of the post office, which is in severe debt; lost more than $13 billion over the last two years. but will not do it in a way -- will do it with due process, will do it in a way that requires the post office to look at every alternative before closing post offices which are so important to people in most every area of our country. this bill, in other words, is an important beginning, and it will allow the postal service more time to continue working with its customers, its employees, congress and others to develop a balanced approach to what we needed to do. in an age when almost every piece of communication that can be digitized is being digitized

and sent over the internet. if i may, mr. president, i'd like to step back and offer just a little bit of history, because we're dealing with a current problem, but there's a rich history here when you talk about the u.s. postal service. it's a kind of accidental irony, coincidental irony of the senate bill numbering that this bill turns out to be s. 1789. because 1789 was the year the first congress under the constitution was seated. and among the duties of that founding body was the charge under article 1, section 8 -- and i quote -- "to establish post offices and post roads." end of quote. in fact, in the list of congressional powers detailed under section 8, creating a postal system comes before the creation of an army, navy or federal courts. that's how important the founders felt this public function would be to our new

government, particularly in a democracy, how important communication was in a country that had ambitious economic and commercial dreams right from the beginning, that the ability to communicate through a post office would be critically important to commerce and job creation. in the revolutionary era, it was the post office, under the direction of our first postmaster general, benjamin franklin, that sped communications among the members of the continental congress and american revolutionary military as well as delivering letters and newspapers from across our fledgling republic that helped keep the citizens of our new country abreast of events in faraway cities and towns. if you read some of the histories of the revolutionary

war, some of the great biographies done of the founding generations of americans, an extraordinary and gifted group, you see the role the post office and postal communications play in their ability to keep in touch with each other and some of the most important communications that occurred. for instance, between the government and the military. the post office ever since that early period of american history has had a tradition of aiding progress and innovation. maps from the early days of our republic show that many of the roads that we still depend on today -- and if i may be parochial, i'll cite i-95 in connecticut and a lot of other places along that path, still follow, and in some cases are built on top of the old post roads. the job of maintaining samuel morris' first telegraph line between washington and baltimore was entrusted to the office.

and it was a former post morris general who helped morris expand his transformational network of telegraphs to other countries. to keep our nation connected with its frontiers way out in places like montana, i might say to the occupant of the chair, the post office helped sponsor the pony express. that was a great early example of what we talk about a lot but don't do as much as we should, public-private partnerships. pony express filled a necessary gap in communications until the telegraph finally spanned our nation coast to coast. and the post office's subsidies for airmail in the early days of aviation helped jump-start the fledgling airline and air

freight industries which of course we all depend on so much today. i won't repeat what i said in my statement about the scope of the postal service today when i spoke earlier in support of the vote for cloture but i will repeat saying that if the post office were a private corporation, it would be the 35th-largest company in the united states, just ahead of apple. that's by revenue. and it would be the country's second-largest employer, just behind wal-mart. 32,000 post offices across america. that's more domestic retail outlets than wal-marts, starbucks and mcdonald's combined. perhaps because of some of that, certainly not withstanding it, the post office is today a troubled business. and i want to speak honestly and directly. it's on the verge of insolvency if we don't act.

part of the problem more recently is obviously the impact of the economic recession, but the big problem is one that's not going to get better, and that is business loss to the internet has led to a 21% drop in mail volume in the past five years and a slump in revenue as a result. you'd have to be unrealistic to say anything other than that this trend is going to continue and that mail volume will continue -- first-class mail volume will continue to decrease. as i mentioned, $13 billion, that is deficit if the last two years, running a deficit in the last two years when the post service would have been $5 billion more if congress hadn't come along and delayed the due date for statutorily required