the availability of federal funds, to allow each state to receive a predictable amount of funding. right now the program, 21 states are receiving grants and the rest of the states are not receiving grants and relying totally on their own resources to be able to do that. so just a states are required to coordinate and maximize state programs and resources, nasha supports inter-agency task force that hrsa has created to promote federal coordination of all resources. we look forward to the time of of the task force will invite stakeholders such as nasha the brain injury association of america the national disability rights network as well as individual tbi families to provide input as we develop a national plan and priority for tbi. thank you.

1789, the 21st century postal service act. i regret to say there is a fundamental problem with this bill that we have to address, and i wish it weren't so but i'm afraid it is. the bill would increase federal deficit by $34 billion. this violates the deficit neutrality provisions for spending that we adopted as part of the budget control act of last summer, just last summer.

as a result, there are at least five budget points of order that lie against the bill, and i, ranking republican on the budget committee, will be raising points of order at the appropriate time. this means it would take 60 votes in the united states senate, 60. our hundred members to say we don't want to agree and follow the law we passed last summer, that we promised the american people would make a difference and we'll just spend this money anyway because we think it has an important need. under the senate rules, no committee can bring a bill to the floor that spends even one penny more than already is going to be spent under the current law, or increase the deficit more than it would increase under current law. current law is the budget control act of last summer, and it was passed, as we all

recall, as part of a major debate over the debt ceiling, the raising of the debt ceiling so we continue to borrow money, borrowing at the rate of about 40 cents of every dollar we spend is borrowed. we knew that had to end, so some decisions were made and spending was constrained although i would contend not nearly enough. in other words, the spending and debt under the postal bill violates the debt limit agreement reached just last summer. in august we agreed to modest so insufficient savings. in fact, the discretionary spending under that bill is not even cut. last august we talked about big cuts, but the reduction in growth is what occurred, and spending this year would increase $7 billion over the spending of last year.

and now the senate has already -- is already spending more than we agreed to at that time. this is particularly odd since the president and the senate majority leader have accused the house members, the republican house, of breaking the budget agreement by trying to save a little more money than the budget control act said that they should save. and this argument is not sound, of course. the debt deal established basic spending caps, basic limits, the amount, maximumth amount that could be spent on discretionary accounts and not one word in that law prevents us or any member of congress from doing the duty to try to save more money. not one word in that law requires the congress to max out and spend up to that cap, to that limit. so this is not a matter of

interpretation. caps are the maximum, not the minimum that we can spend. but this bill does violate that legislation. it spends above the agreed upon limits. so only in washington does spending below a cap get you accused of breaking a deal while spending more than the agreement explicitly states means people just look the other way. the majority leader and the chairman of the budget committee are proud of the budget control act. they say it has ironclad restraints on spending. they say we don't even need a budget, which is clearly not accurate. but the budget control act did have certain spending limitations on us and they've been proud of those and they said those are sufficient to put

us on a sound course, and we're going to follow those, they've implicitly said, i suppose. but where are they when it comes to making sure that this agreement they so proudly talked about is actually followed? it's curious that we don't have leadership from the majority leader, the budget committee chairman, to tell the committee look, we understand the postal service has serious problems. we understand that. something probably needs to be done to fix that and improve that situation. it may even cost some money and we may need to come up with some money. but due -- to do so shouldn't we comply with the law of the united states in what we agreed to just last summer? so as this unfolds you'll hear

some say that part of the reason that the spending increases are in the bill is because the bill requires the treasury to repay the postal service $11 billion that the postal service has in the past overpaid to the u.s. treasury, in effect, for retirement contributions of current employees. so i'm not debating that argument. and whether or not it's an overpayment. i'm not debating that. we've got experts that have looked at and said it basically is accurate that the united states treasury does owe the postal service $11 billion. and under some circumstances maybe we are required to pay that back. i don't argue that at this point. what i would say is if we pay it back, is it not an expenditure

of the united states? if you're behind on your car payment, and you have to make that payment, well, you have to make the payment. but don't you have to get the money from somewhere? and if you and your family have agreed to you're not -- agreed you're not going to borrow not so much but so much new money and shouldn't you look to see where you can cut spending to pay for that? that's all we're talking about here. certainly owing a debt doesn't mean you don't have to pay the debt. but as a matter of coring scoring, a matter of integrity and accounting you have to understand that it costs money. the money comes from somewhere. most people understand, i think, that the united states government borrows money through t-bill sales and we pay inta on the money -- interest on the money we are borrowing and the fastest growing item in our budget is interest on our debt.

so we ought to be cutting spending to pay for this if we need to pay for it. over ten years, that's $11 billion, well, that's a lot, but $11 billion is a little over a billion dollars a year, and this year alone we'll spend, as i recall, approximately 3,700 billion dollars. we couldn't find $1 billion a year to pay the money back? we have to borrow it in addition to the money we agreed to borrow, the debt limit we agreed on to breach? the $11 billion is only one third of the debt impact of the legislation. it is only one-third of the amount by which the bill breaks the agreement of last summer.

so what else accounts for the total of $34 billion? most of the deficit increase from the bill, about two-thirds, would occur because the bill would reduce the amount that the postal service is supposed to pay to the office of personnel management to fund the future retiree health benefits under the current postal service employees -- or for them. coverage for when they retire. and the postal service is famous for having good health care and good retirement programs, and what they're legally entitled to, somehow should be funded if at all possible. if there's money to fund it. in 2006, congress enacted the postal accountability act to set the postal service on a self-sustaining course. according to one of the managers of the bill, that law included

-- quote -- "a requirement that the postal service endorsed at the time" -- close quote, a requirement that the postal service agreed to, that they would prefund the future retiree health benefits of the current postal employees on an accrual basis. and that 2006 law set out a schedule of those required payments to the government. now six years later, the postal service does not want to make those required payments, or says they are unable to. we already enacted a bill last year partially relieving the postal service of some of their required 2011 payment, so this bill would defer those payments and stretch out the amount of time to pay them. how much is the postal service

allowed to defer? $23 billion, almost, almost 23 more billion dollars. the legislation allows the postal service to defer $23 billion in payments for retiree health benefits. since the decision apparently that's been made and included in this legislation is that the users of the postal service, the stamp buyers, aren't -- shouldn't be required to pay this money. the idea is the taxpayers will pay the money. so the taxpayers will pay it. just pick it up. you know,ates tough thing, not enough money going into the health care fund. yeah, we promised that postal would stand on its own but don't want have enough money, so we're not so serious about paying this $34 billion total

that we would actually find the money to pay for it. we're just going to add it to the amount that we're borrowing each year. and this year for the fourth consecutive year we will borrow about 1,300 billion dollars. it's an unsustainable path. so this means that the treasury has to go out and borrow the money over the next ten years because the postal service is relieved from making the health care payments. again, a budget produced under regular order that i have truly felt we should have done and remain disappointed deeply that has not occurred, should have planned for this and would have planned for this, hopefully, by including policy changes somewhere else in the government that would have offset the deficit and the debt increase caused by this bill.

and because the bill doesn't do that, because it adds to the debt of the united states, violates the pay-go requirements and the budget control act, i will raise a point of order and it will require the vote of 60 senators to waive it. if this new spending is necessary -- and i suspect some of it may be -- then isn't it worth cutting spending somewhere else in this massive government to pay for it? do we really have to break our spending agreement before the ink is dry on it, the first real bill on the floor of the senate after the budget control act agreement of last summer violates substantially the spending limitations of that

act. so this is at a time when we're facing the fourth straight deficit in excess of $1 trillion, the four largest deficits in had the history of the american republic. washington is in a state of financial chaos. we are in denial. we are not recognizing, owning up to the fact that we do -- there are limits on what we can do. you tell me how long we can borrow a trillion dollars a year. how long we can spends substantially more than we take in and add the difference to the interest payment of the government every year. the government services administration is throwing lavish parties in las vegas, the government accountability office has identified $400 billion -- $400 billion -- maybe we could pay the $34 billion out of this $400

billion -- being spent every year, each year on waste. inefficiency and duplication. that's the official government accountability office. far worse, the senate's democratic majority has failed to produce a budget plan in calendar years between, 2011 and now 2012, in fact this sunday in fact marks exactly three years since the last time the senate has passed a budget. a budget means responsible behavior, it means that we know there are many places we'd like to spend money. there are a lot of places we'd like to spend money. but since we know our money is limited, we adopt budgets, or we're supposed to doop a budget, there's an absolute legal requirement we do, it just doesn't require congress to go to jail if they violate it. so it requires, and forces congress to make tough choices.

now we say the postal service needs more money, and we won't stay within our budget limits, we'll just borrow it and give it to them, knowing that this is not a responsible behavior but hey, we don't need to make tough choices, do we? because te senate can't say no and because the president refuses to exercise managerial discipline, we are set to spend another $34 billion in borrowed money. so the white house warns that republicans want to cut too much spending, but the american people know the truth, and the truth is that we have never spent more money than we are spending today, and spend it more recklessly and with less accountability than we have been spending the taxpayers' money.

so this is in many ways a decisive moment. this is not a mere formality, phoeu budget point of order. -- my budget point of order. it is not just something i'm going through the motions of. i believe it's a crucial vote. now i respect so deeply my colleagues who have worked on this legislation. it is very complex. it is very important. it is a very difficult issue. this country has got to confront rationally the difficulties in the postal service. the world is changing. e-mails and other things are occurring. i won't say this is a horse and buggy whip manufacturing system, but it has to alter to keep up with the times, and we can't just throw money at it. by throwing money at it often, you keep it from reacting to the realities of the situations they're in. so i respect deeply the people

who worked on this, but i do believe it's a crucial vote. even if one supports every dollar of spending in the bill, colleagues do you support a violation of the budget control act in such a dramatic fashion so soon after it was adopted? vote to sustain the budget point of order. that's what i ask my colleagues to do. let's stand up for fiscal responsibility. in effect, it would send the bill back to our good committee and it would say to them look at it. if you can spend less, please do so. but if you feel you have to spend money on this postal fix, find out where it should be paid for. propose how it should be paid for. and that would meet the requirements we made through each other just last summer. it would meet the requirements

that we and the promises we made to the american people. we said, okay, we're not raising the debt limit until you agree to spending cuts. and that was a total of $2.1 trillion in spending cuts. and we agreed that we wouldn't increase the debt limit more than the amount approved in that legislation. we wouldn't increase the debt over that amount. we would honor the paygo rule. that was part of that legislation. that's what we promised each other, and the american people. we don't need to violate that now. and remember, a vote to sustain the point of order would not kill the postal reform bill. but a vote to waive the point of order and just spend the money would be a vote to ignore spending requirements and would, i believe, kill our professed

commitment to fiscal responsibility. so, mr. president, i thank the chair for the opportunity to share these remarks. i see we have as much of a, is as much of a $34 billion problem here. it's going to be difficult to fix it but certainly not impossible. i would hope if this bill with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, let me start by responding to the ranking member of the budget committee by saying that i could not agree with him more that it is absolutely unacceptable that we have not had a budget pass in the senate for more than 1,000 days. that is totally unacceptable. it's one of the reasons that we

are in such a financial crisis in this country. so, i completely agree with senator sessions that we should be doing a budget resolution on the senate floor. and i wholeheartedly agree with his comments that it is absolutely irresponsible for us to be proceeding without a budget resolution. and as a member of the appropriations committee, i would say to my colleagues that it makes it very difficult for us to carry out our work due to the cooperation of the chairman and ranking member of that committee. we are operating under allocations for each subcommittee. but it would be far, far preferable if there were a budget resolution that passed, and it should have passed last year, the year before. and it should be passing this year. so we're in complete agreement

on that point. and i know that's been a great source of frustration for the senator from alabama, as the ranking member of the budget committee. having said that, mr. president, let me explain a few facts. first of all, there are no tax dollars being authorized by this reform bill. there is no transfer of taxpayer money to the postal service. what we have here is a very strange and unusual budget situation, and the score that c.b.o. has is incredibly misleading because the postal service, oddly enough, is part of the unified budget of the united states, even though most

of its accounts are off-budget. but it participates in federal employee retirement systems and the health benefits systems and the workers' compensation systems, where postal dollars that come from postal employees and from ratepayers, postal ratepayers, are commingled, if you will, with tax dollars that come from other federal agencies into the retirement system, the workers comp system and the health benefits system. and that creates this odd situation which makes it very difficult for c.b.o. to score this bill correctly. now, the inspector general of

the postal service puts a -- it far more bluntly. the inspector general says in a february 22 report from this year called "budget enforcement procedures and the postal service" -- and let me quote. the i.g. says, "the postal service's off-budget status exposes the postal service to, quote, an inappropriate and illogical application of the scoring process that threatens its ability to reform and heal its financial condition. scoring and budget enforcement were created for a good purpose, but they are undermined when the scoring process assumes that unlikely or inappropriate inflows to the treasury must

occur." end quote. let me give you a couple of examples because it's incredibly important that we walk through the score so that our colleagues can understand the unique on-budget, off-budget status of the postal service. particularly in the area of reducing payments to retiree health benefits or recovering overpayments to the fers system and how the c.b.o. scoring method obscures the true savings achieved by refunding the fers payments. now, again, let me repeat. since 1971, the postal service has received no federal subsidy to operate other than some very

minor appropriated dollars for functions that the postal service is legislatively mandated to do, such as mail for the blind and overseas ballots for our troops. that's it. prior to 1971, there was a taxpayer subsidy year after year to the postal service. that ended with the postal reform act in that year. so from the sale of stamps, the cost of shipping packages, the rates that mailers and magazine publishers, newspaper publishers pay to get the print versions delivered comes the revenue for the postal service. and even the money that the postal service uses for retiree benefits comes from the combination of the contributions

the postal workers make and the money that the postal service invests. so there is, as i mentioned earlier, a significant overpayment into the federal employees retirement system, and we, along with the administration, the g.a.o., the independent actuaries, the postal service inspector general all have proposed that that overpayment be returned to the postal service. and it would be used in part to finance these buyouts and retirement incentives to reduce the size of the postal workforce. now, let's look at how c.b.o. scores this particular part of the bill.

first of all, c.b.o. gives this bill no credit whatsoever for the buyouts, and here's why: c.b.o. argues that the postal service already has buyout authority. but, mr. president, as you know better than anybody in this chamber, our bill changes the status quo in two critical ways. first of all, the postal service has no cash right now to do these buyouts. that is one of the reasons that we're so eager to get the money from the overpayment to fers refunded to the postal service. second, in our bill, in our substitute bill, we specifically direct the postmaster general to use a portion of this money to

entice 18% of the current postal workers to accept this offer. that is a big difns. so there is -- that is a big big difference. so there is a mandatory move to reduce the workforce by 18% and there's the cash to allow tom offer buy -- to allow him to offer buyouts to do that. now, why c.b.o. doesn't do that as a savings to the postal service is beyond me. now, there's another way to reduce the workforce, and again the funds for this would come from the fers refund. and that is, our bill provides new authority to the postal service to offer one or two

years of credited service toward a pension annuity so that some worker who's just lacking a year or two in -- to reach the number of years necessary for retirement could be credited with that extra year or two of service, depending which retirement system the worker is in. unfortunately, the c.b.o. gives -- makes an assumption that only several thousand employees would take advantage of that offer and credits the bill with savings of only $643 billion over ten years. since these kinds of service credits have never been offered before, it's not clear how the c.b.o. came up with this assumption. this is a know precedent for it.

there are no data for the c.b.o. to use. and, again, our original bill did not include the hard requirement for the 18% reduction. but our substitute does. and yet c.b.o. does not recognize that change. now, the postal service has told us, as the presiding officer would attest, that these requirements and this new authority and the funds to -- for the buyouts and the service credit would allow them to reduce their workforce in the neighborhood of 100,000 employees and saves them $8 billion a year. that is not reflected in the estimate.

so i use that example because it shows how strange the scoring is. this is a quirk of the budget scoring rules because when there's a transfer of postal service money -- not taxpayer money, postal service money -- from one account in the treasury, such as the retirement account, into an off-budget postal operations account, the c.b.o. makes this assumption that savings are not going to occur. so, when you transfer the $11 billion overpayment, the refund, from the pension account to which the postal service has been overcharged into a postal

operating account, it gets credited as $5.5 billion instead of $11 billion. that means an on-budget account loses $11 billion, as c.b.o. looks at it, and the off-budget accounts only gains $5.5 billion. this is very complex because it's so obscure and because, frankly, it's so illogical. the result is a net score in the unified budget of $5.5 billion, as a cost to the treasury. and that simply not the reality. again, these aren't taxpayer dollars. -- again, these aren't taxpayer dollars that went into the overpayment in the first place. so here we have a provision

that's being scored as a $5.5 billion cost to the treasury when in fact they aren't tax dollars, and it's only because this is a unified budget where some of the accounts are on-budget, some of the accounts are off-budget that we have this anomalous result. it just doesn't make sense. let me give you another example. the c.b.o. acknowledges that our reforms of the federal workers' compensation program would save $1.2 billion, but c.b.o. doesn't count this reduction as a savings because of the way that the department of labor charges

agencies for participation in the workers' compensation program. again, that just doesn't make any sense when the c.b.o. itself acknowledges that these are real reforms that are going to save $1.2 billion. yet we only get credit for $200 million of the reforms. mr. president, there's -- there's another issue here. the c.b.o. does not account for what would happen if the postal service allows service to continue to deteriorate. instead, because again the c.b.o. doesn't recognize the reality that all the big mailers

and small mailers tell us, which is that revenue will be driven out of the system if the service cuts associated with plant closures and wholesale closures of post offices are allowed to proceed. the bottom line, mr. president, is that were it not for 50% discounts being applied over and over again to the savings that we achieve for five-day delivery, retiree health care, the pension refund, on the basis of these strange behavioral assumptions and reflecting the odd combination of off-budget and on-budget accounts being brought together in a unified budget, the bill would have

scored approximately $24.6 billion more in off-budget savings, making the bill a net saver of $14.8 billion. this is so frustrating, mr. president, because it is so complex. but i think if our colleagues just look at the example of the fers overpayment, it becomes very clear because there are no taxpayer dollars involved and yet it is scored at -- as a cost to the treasury of $5.5 billion. how can a refund of an overpayment that involved no tax dollars end up being scored as a

cost to the treasury of $5.5 billion? that is how illogical and quirky this estimate is, and it is because of the unique status of the postal service and how its various accounts are reflected in the budget. but, mr. president, in addition to my absolute conviction that this score is very misleading, let me make another point, and that is, if we do not proceed with this bill, if this budget point of order brings down this bill, the postal service will not survive as we know it. and, again, we are not providing a taxpayer subsidy in this bill.

in fact, i would argue we're preventing a taxpayer bailout in this bill because later this year, if the postal service cannot meet its payroll and, thus, is unable to deliver mail, i think the pressure for the taxpayer bailout will increase substantially. and i do not want to see us return to the pre-1971 era where the taxpayers were on the hook for the postal service. and our bill would avoid that outcome.