it. the question is how do we continue that momentum and frankly speed it up? >> thank you very much and mr. tangherlini you have taken a lot of heat by the other secretaries and if you would like to weigh in -- [laughter] >> when they got here this morning we all said we feel you know, but the important point is look, we all have been engaged in ways of winding savings. we have been in kind of budget fiscal mode, so unfortunately what happens with the gsa, because it's such a great media story, what is not a great media story is how we save money and other agencies in other ways and what other agencies have done at conferences which by the way, if you are running -- may reach across the country. [inaudible]

that part has -- >> secretary napolitano, mr. tangherlini talked about how angry people were at gsa and i suspect you are seeing the same thing with the secret service? >> yeah. in fact, one of those things where the issue is is the president safety at risk and what can we do from an immediate disciplinary status? let's move quickly. we did. now let's look at what happened, how it happened to make sure it does not happen again. i will tell you the people who are most upset are the other secret service agents. >> another question. >> jason ryan. i'm not going to ask about the secret service but had another question for secretary napolitano regarding the aqap bomb plot. just wondering what measures tsa

and the federal air marshals will be taking in response to this and also in the department of communications with the public yesterday, your spokesman said that you have no specific credible information regarding an accurate terrorist plot in the united states at this time and also comments by white house counterterrorism adviser john brennan when clearly there was a device that has been deemed to be a viable ied that was intercepted by the cia. how the administration can make these assertions that there is no credible plot underway? >> the statement was that there was no specific credible plot tied to the anniversary of bin laden's death. so, and that was and is an accurate statement. it was accurately made. the key point is that we will be taking all appropriate measures, now that the plot has become public, to make sure that the

aviation and the traveling public remains safe. we will be working with airlines. we will be working with more nations. the tsa doesn't do passenger screening in foreign airports. they do that, so there will be and are all appropriate measures are being taken. >> it sounds like it was a parsed statement. >> did was, and it was for a good reason. it was because we needed to protect and are protecting the plot that was unveiled. >> anybody else? >> good morning. my name is antoinette samuel. i am not a reporter. [laughter] [applause] but i am executive director of the american society for public administration. one thing that our society is interested in is the whole area

of intergovernmental cooperation and intergovernmental relations and we feel particularly with the last challenges that we have experienced in the last session the cooperation between the federal government and state and local government, solving some of the recent problems we have had, have really had some positive outcome so i'm very interested in hearing, do you think when you need to take a new strategic look at cooperation between public servants, between institutions of government, between levels of government and really emphasize more the importance of intergovernmental relations and intergovernmental cooperation solving some of the serious problems that we have? >> when it comes to transportation i will tell you this. the only way we are able to do what we do is because we have great partners in governors and mayors and people in the states. in the two years that we spent the $48 billion it received from the economic stimulus, we created 65,000 jobs and 15,000 projects. we did it in two years. there have been very very

minimal make it of stories written. there were no air marks, no boondoggles, no sweetheart deals. we could've never done it without great partners in governors, and mayors, in d.o.t.'s. at d.o.t. there is a tremendous amount of intergovernmental cooperation that goes on and it's all done in a professional way. there is no politics involved in it and it is all done for the right reasons, to put people to work and to fix up america's infrastructure. implementing high-speed rail in three years, we have been able to allocate $10 billion, and almost all of that money is because we have had great partnership with government. and it's just, it's extraordinary the kind of intergovernmental cooperation that goes on at the department. >> i would say that is true probably in lots of departments.

there are two things going on. some of which i think are fairly unique having served as a governor, and now having, watching the relationship that we have with governors and one is departments working together across federal agencies to solve problems. so the secretary of education and i are working on early childhood education and what the people tell me in that space is has never happened before so they have people at the table with us, early education folks at the school and what the childcare people are seeing. all kids should be in a safe and secure surrounding and we also need a curriculum on all programs. we need to talk about this together and parents need information. that really doesn't happen but the health care bill for instance is really a state strategy, run at the state level, put together and it's being developed. i, as a former governor, he used

to a lot of mandates and no money. i think there has been a lot of effort, whether during the recovery act, all of the programs. the reporters in the room will want to talk about public service. looking at the two years of programs that were run at the federal level, to really put incredible safety nets, new infrastructure, counter-cyclical plans in place and really no, no scandals, no boondoggles, billions of dollars that really provided lifesavers to people and places across this country and had to be intricately involved not only with mayors and governors but a lot of times with community agencies that were running weatherization programs. so i think that effort was very much underway and it's still a lot of part of the operation and as a masters in public administration, i think it's a

great background for public service. >> mr. tangherlini, would you expand a little bit on what secretary sebelius that about inter-agency cooperation, because sometimes that has been the biggest berrier to efficiency in the state's. >> going back one more stop and talking about intergovernmental relations, i think this panel is an example of the power of intergovernmental relations. i think state and local governments have so much to offer the federal government in terms of dealing with fiscal constraint, dealing with managing limited resources and that is frankly one of the things they offer is the smart use of inter-agency cooperation. we are at the the intergovernmental agency at gsa and we have the ability to bring together different services and focus on those administrative services that allow the other

agencies to focus on protecting the homeland, delivering transportation. >> but do you see them all operating in a discreet fashion or is their cooperation among them? >> i think the answer is yes, they are both operating in a discrete fashion and for their mission they should. we can do more and we should do more to find ways that we can work more closely together and eliminate duplication and that is the power of the agency i'm working with. >> look, let me just, and maybe jana can pick up on this. i just had a briefing yesterday from amtrak, a member of the amtrak security. the extraordinary cooperation that goes on between homeland security and amtrak when it comes to safety on trains is really quite remarkable and the same is true of airports. we have jurisdiction over it airplanes in airports. they have jurisdiction over the screening and the safety.

there is an extraordinary cooperation and coordination that goes on, and look, we know it's not going to get the headlines unless something goes wrong but so many things go right and that is why you don't see that many headlines about it. a lot of stuff goes right. [laughter] [applause]

one of the questions we have and from a management perspective is the budget, because oftentimes we are operating without one.

we are trying to guess what it is going to be, and there is no ceo in the country that has to deal with this sort of uncertainty. and coming right up to the edge and on the government that's not a morale builder for the federal workforce so that is the difficulty. >> no member of congress operates without a budget either by the way. >> yeah but our efficiency review efforts, we would be happy to provide you more detail but it really has been the employee generated finding redundancies. >> one of the really exciting things i think is going on not only as kind of an efficiency area and we are all sharing strategies with one another. we get together regularly and i want to know where janet has found savings and others, but i think the innovation is really exciting. we have had an effort underway where really the last few years, to figure out new and better

ways to deliver services and using technology and innovation, and often is it greatly reduced costs. so, we knew for instance one of the challenges that we were looking at and the health space was around getting good prenatal care, particularly to vulnerable women and low income neighborhoods. so partnership, public/private partnership with the cell phone companies. we initiated texts for babies and low income women are given a cell phone and get regular text updates about everything from vitamins to prenatal check-ups and kind of care strategies in a very user-friendly, easy to access fashion and it is now a couple hundred thousand women. we are seeing the results in terms of those women following up with care.

things like that. >> that is a huge cost savings. >> is a huge cost savings, reducing low term babies and making sure babies get off to a healthy start. those kinds of strategies are low-cost or no-cost and involves the public there to push refugees out but my group of employees who says we should do this. we are using that now, getting two t. dangers on smoking cessation's strategies against texting. kids don't talk to one another. they text. that could be a good thing. >> absolutely. >> having raised a few yes, that would be a good thing but again figuring out how to connect that and watching. we have 40,000 employees who are involved in innovative strategies and ideas and we have innovation awards and we have told them that kind of energy and effort, we welcome from anyplace in the department. we want people to be a work in progress and that has been a very exciting adventure.

>> hi. my name is christina wes. i'm from the u.s. senate subcommittee on the federal workforce of government management. my question is about reframing the question around the federal workforce. you ever even today at the event that was meant to celebrate. a lot of questions are from the media and a lot of them are about headlines. how do we reframe the discussion so that we talk about headlines in terms of what the federal work horse has done to uncover terror plots and the igs office to uncover ways to see taxpayer money and how do we reframe the focus as well as all the good things the that federal departments do? >> that sounds a little bit like our initial question. >> i mean you know, the problem is, it's the equivalent of

saying, 500 planes will go up today and land safely. that is the expectation, so it is the plane that crashes that is the news. >> so should we just drop her hands and say as long as nothing is going wrong we should assume the federal government is functioning great and the minute it does, pounce on every one --/federal benefits? is that what we do? how do u.s. leaders make sure that the message gets out that all of the good things your agency does in the federal government is capable of is -- your people? >> as one of the reasons for this. these are the things that you try to do and that is the partnership with the public service mission. reward people who do good work in the federal government, advertise the fact that they do

good work in the federal government but also make the federal government better. >> is there anything the department, that you folks are doing to recognize the work that you do? i would assume having worked in the senate, would assume it's important for your leaders. >> in the senate, what do you see the attitude being in the subcommittee? [laughter] >> i would honestly like to hear from you. [laughter] >> sometimes it's easier i find to get outside of d.c. and shine a bright light on regional office work and on work that is going on. i think that oftentimes, the press is senegal inside the beltway and ends up on a gotcha kind of media. so regional press, local press is often delighted to print good

stories, follow worth while employee adventures, deliver service news and so we try to do that a lot, send our leaders out and make sure that -- part of it is i think shining a light on what is going on in making sure people know the good work that is going on and at a very minimum making sure employees know that we know. so if it never gets headlines, at least having the internal effort to say we are doing terrific work each and every day and some of that involves travel and some of that involves going to places, visiting worksites where people are working hard and think nobody knows what i'm doing. nobody really cares about what i am doing and just having somebody show up and say we do know, we do care and it's terrific. >> thank you. >> look at the disclosures that were made were about federal employees who did their jobs,

that work for dhs or other agencies at dhs. that is why what happened in the last few days, because we have good people who show up every day, protect our airports and protect passengers and all of the disclosures were about good work that took place. the first thing that i remember the president saying about the secret service is, 99.9% of the people that he came in contact with at the secret service show up every day, put their life on the line to protect either the first family or other government officials. and you know, i think things are said. we have all said them here today. i think it's about good public service, about people who work hard. you know, there's going to be

hearing on capitol hill today about the tsa because a few members of congress are irritated about it, but think of the good work that is gone on for more than 10 years by tsa federal employees, well-trained to make sure that people don't board trains to hurt one another. and, there is a lot of those stories and hopefully some of them will come out in this hearing, rather than just trashing an organization that is actually protecting people that have been flying now for a decade. since 9/11. and not one plane has been brought down by a terrorist. [applause] i think we would all like to have a good track record like that. and that is what we are celebrating this week. look, we can all tell the stories and i think we have tried to his tell some of them, and we will continue to do it, because we believe in the people that believe in public service and serving the american people,

and doing it in a way that is honorable and with honesty. now, you need to answer a question about the senate. [laughter] alright, we answered your question. >> i work for daniel akaka and he is a huge proponent for the federal workforce aware of a hearing to celebrate public service recognition and focus on -- >> thank you and thank you senator senator akaka. [applause] >> good morning. i work for the national park so i'm a federal employee. actually 30 years in working. >> congratulations. [applause] >> i normally wouldn't say that. there are many places i would no longer say i have had a full career in federal service taste on a lot of what we just heard. my question was to ask you --

>> the park service is everybody loves. >> well, they do. but we every day say what you are facing today, and my question was to talk about the agent workforce and how we are going to find find maybe creative ways to let people retire and still have the credible exit where they can contribute their knowledge to the next generation. but i think i'm going to change that to the press question and the fact that even at my level which is relatively low, very low, five levels away from director, we face a lot of the same questions from the public and we don't know why in the press we don't see these stories every day, what we did right. we spend too much of our limited time on the sound bites and issues but back to my question. as we age out of the federal workforce, i really doing courage you to look at the part-time retirement option and as i said, people will

gracefully leave the park service and every other agency because they like to think it has impacted and the 30 years of work they have seen remains viable for another generation. but do any of you have programs looking at the transitional workforce? >> that is a very good and interesting question. >> we actually have begun looking at that. it has such different components in different ways but i think kathleen nailed it when she said we are about ready to hit a big bubble where a lot of people will be eligible for retirement. we don't want to lose all those resources. they have a very strong contribution to continue to me, so yes we are looking at what our available options and working with the office personnel management on that. what can we do to keep that talent of life and at the same time keep bringing in new talent that is properly mentored and properly incorporated into the federal system. >> what about the question of

involvement? >> there are some complicating rules as you know about what you can do in addition to part-time work and still collect pension, but meeting those rules, and we currently have a number of people who serve, exited and now are contributing on to a project by project basis so we hate to lose talent at any point along the way, and are trying to find various strategies. as sometimes it is the exiting person who, if they want to choose an occupation that would have a conflict, it is very difficult then to continue a relationship and from an agency point of view, that we are not trying but it is really their

choice to be in a situation and take that exit -- expertise elsewhere. i think all of us are looking at strategies in ways that we don't lose that institutional knowledge. we don't lose that expertise. we have the ability, but i also think it's well before a person decides to exit that conversation needs to begin and think about than what kinds of options they might have if they want to continue a relationship and not find out six months later said they have now made themselves ineligible while going out the door. >> the state department does a lot. >> that's right. >> this next question has to be our last because these are busy people here, -- >> all of these are busy people. >> i would ask after you get your answer for everybody to please stay seated, as our guests leave and then you all

can enjoy yourselves. >> good morning. my name is robert. i became a public servant 20 years ago and i work in human resources at the capitol capital currently. my question is, over the years, the idea of the culture of official business only in the culture of the behavior and the government has always been there but i think the degree of relevance today as we hinge over to requirement -- retirement. >> what i would like to know a senior leaders what new approaches or new ideas have you thought about regarding ethics and training? in addition to the traditional policy training, what new ideas are you thinking about or are looking to implement in your agency? >> an interesting question. >> it's a great point and the

theme of ethics has to run through public service. they go together. one of the things we are doing, just kind of and bolts, is there anything more boring than the entry video you have to watch when you come to the federal service? not much so we are looking at, how can we reshape that i make it interesting and relevant, more relevant and direct so that employees, once they are on board, aren't immediately hit with this two days of stuff. and then, how do we incorporate that into ethics training, public service? how do we incorporate that into how we bring in new employees, train them and enter them? >> i'm really working hard not to make a circuit -- secret service joe k. or. >> we have also i think the initial training is one thing, but we have created sort of a public integrity counsel across

the department because i think it's more than just the ethics rules that often deals with how you approach conflict, how you make sure that there is an appropriate oversight as money is being sent out the door. the ethical, kind of contact of employees has to draw the way down so we have representatives really from every agency and department and doing a variety of risk strategies to try to look at areas where there might've been gaps and focus some additional training, some additional help. we have to re-done a lot of documents were for not only our own employees but the downstream employees, looked at areas in the field that might've had gaps in strategy so i think it's kind of a culture of how you take great care not only with your own personal conduct and actions, but with taxpayer dollars, how you make sure that

you are responsible up and down the stream and how you instill that, not in a gotcha fashion but it that it becomes part of the culture of doing business. >> you referred to an entry video. is this something that everybody sees? and it's really awful? >> yeah, yeah. [laughter] >> that is something we could help with. that really is something partnership could help with. we should hire 20-year-olds to make a very cool u2. we shouldn't do it at the federal level. >> just a moment left in the program and you can see it in its entirety if you go to our web site c-span.org. the u.s. senate is about to start their day. members will continue working on a bill that would prevent the student loan interest rates from doubling on july 1 going from 3.4% to 6.8%. live senate coverage here on c-span2.

the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. o god our refuge, help us to never doubt your generous love. you gave us heaven's best gift and desire to freely give us

more than we can ask or imagine. even when we sin, you still love us. great is your faithfulness. give to our lawmakers gifts that only you possess. give them this day the gifts of courage to admit mistakes, grace to rise when they fall, and give peace that the world cannot give. give them this day the gifts of forgiveness for the past, courage for the present, and hope for the future. in the calm and quiet center of their lives so that they may be serene in the swirling stresses

of life. we pray in your merciful 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, may 9, 2012. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable kirsten e. gillibrand, a senator from the state of new york, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: daniel k. inouye, president pro tempore. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. reid: i move to proceed to

s. 2343. madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the time until 2:00 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees and the republicans control the first 30 minutes, the majority control the second 30 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report the motion. the clerk: motion to proceed to calendar numbe s. 2343, a bie interest rate for stafford student loans and for other purposes. mr. reid: madam president? the presiding officer: the majority. mr. reid: the clerk just read the matter before the senate is to prevent the loans that students get to be able to go to

school, the money they borrow, to prevent the interest rate by doubling from 3.4% to 6.8%. that's the bill that's before the senate. yesterday the republicans continued to filibuster our plan to make that not happen. we do not want the rates to double. we don't want them to go up at all. there's 30,000 people in nevada that are depending on our doing something to reduce those rates. what's worse, in my estimation, i think the american people, is that the republicans seem proud of blocking this legislation. not a single republican voted to allow the debate to go forward. madam president, this isn't an issue of saying, okay, if i vote for this, this will be the lilings. they wouldn't even let us go forward on it to debate it. i've said, if they don't like -- they've said that they hike the bill except they don't like the way it's paid for. fine, let us get on the bill and

offer amendments to pay for it. but, no, every single republican voted "no." every single republican said, we're not going to allow a debate on this. but the american people certainly shouldn't be surprised, because this has been going on for three years. almost four years. everything is a fight. they're blocking legislation that would allow us to stop the increase of student loan interest. it's wrong. now, the person that signed this legislation to make this interest rate such as it is was president bush. so i hope republicans will come to their senses and work with us toward compromise, but i am a he not holding my -- but i'm not holding my breath. because as i indicated, they seem proud that they've stopped another piece of legislation. they are all together.

now, what does this mean? they're hanging together to stop legislation, to stop progress? madam president, we worked to create jobs and make college affordable, my colleagues, my republican friends on the other side of the aisle, are operating under a different set of priorities. in the house, for example, there are efforts now under way to undo a hard-fought august agreement to cut more than $2 trillion from the deficit over the next decade. that agreement came, madam president, after threats by the tea party-driven house and now 40% of the people o.e.f. here are tea party advocate advocated now who% of the people over here are tea party advocates.

and now there are threats to shut down the government. then they came and they had a big, big thing here for the first time ever to have a knock-down, drag-out fight over weeks and weeks over whether we should increase the debt ceiling in this country. during president reagan's time as running the country, it was done dozens of times. but, no, nothing these folks will do without a big fight. so as a result of that, we came to an agreement that was bipartisan -- some say it was forced upon the reerntion but they voted upon it -- to reduce the deficit. and the deficit that we couldn't reduce, this -- before august of last year, we said, okay, fine. if we don't do something about it this year, then there will be automatic cut cuts called

sequestration. now, madam president, the house is doing everything they can to walk away from the agreement that we made, the bipartisan vote that we took. they're doing everything that they can. they have a republican budget, the so-called ryan budget. and now they have something -- i also say "so called" because they're trying to make it a reconciliation bill, but they can't do it because they're not following the law to do that. so they not only reneged on this bipartisan, bicameral agreement to reduce spending, but they reflect fundamentally skewed priorities. they hand out even more tax breaks to multimillionaires and shield corporate defense contractors all at the expense of hardworking middle-class fathers the elderly and those who can lead afford it. they are going to have a

so-called rule on it today an vote on it slightly thereafter. it just shreds the safety social net. president dwight eisenhower -- he was a republican, a tremendous president. each day that goes by, people are looking at him more favorably. here's what he said: quote "every gun that is made, every war ship launched, signifies a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." this isn't somethin some left-wg socialistic-leaning liberal. it is device eisenhower -- dwight inns hour. a five-star general. led the invasion why normandy and did many other great -- he started the national highway

system. here's what he said. "every gun that's made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in a final sense those who are clothed an cold at clothed. in a balanced world one where a strong national defense and strong safety net are both strong, that need not be necessarily true. the republican plan would enshrine into law a set of unbalanced priorities and ensure the kind of carable math general eisenhower envisioned. unlike defense contractors and billionaires, ordinary americans don't have high-priced lobbyists to protect them. that's our job. that's our job. there is not a person on this side of the aisle that doesn't

believe that it's good that we have wealthy people in america. we have united states senators here who are democrats that are wealthy. certainly not all democrats, but there are some. we don't look down at people who are rich. but which do have to look -- but we do have to look out for people who are in need of our help. most of these rich people have all kinds of lobbyists and people here to help them. but the people in henderson, nevada, they don't have people back here helping them. they have us. so republicans are going after those who can't fight back, hardworking americans and struggling families. let's review just a little bit of history again. the sequester isn't the first bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit. madam president, when i became

the democratic leader, i thought, having had served on the foreign affairs committee in the house of representatives and been very interested in america's involvement in foreign affairs, i took a trip to central and south america. i thought it was so necessary. and i took democratic and republican senators with me. i was very careful in picking two senators i wanted to go on this trip -- judd gregg, a very fine senator from new hampshire who is retired, i'm sorry to say, a person that i recommended be part of president obama's initial cab net. he agreed to take that job. some things came up and he didn't do it. but a wonderful man. and no one but perhaps kent conrad who i also wanted to go

on that trip. i don't know which one knows more about the workings of finance of this country. they're both good and i wanted them to go together. they spent hours and hours seated in that airplane working out something to do something about the deficit. they both believed it needed some really difficult hard work, and they decided to do what the base closing commission did. that is, prepare legislation -- give it to a commission, bring it back to us. there would be no raiments, no filibuster, up or down vote. that was their legislation. they wrote that and brought it to the floor. so i, as the leader, decided i would move to proceed to it. and i moved to proceed to it. should be a slam-dunk. seven republicans who cosponsored the legislation voted against it. i couldn't bring it to the floor.

so that was where the bowles-simpson commission came from. as a result of the republicans walking away from their own efforts to reduce the deficit. the bowles-sifn son was very difficult. they had to have 14 oust 18 to do it. it was 18 people, had to get 14 of the 18 to approve it i repeat. so it didn't work. in the meantime, the president is work -- president obama is working as hard as he could with the lead spokesperson for the republicans who was the speaker of the house, john boehner. john boehner said, i didn't get elected to do small things. i only do big things. and president obama, to his detriment with his base, said i'll do something to change social security, i'll get medicare and agree to do them publicly.

but the republicans -- john boehner could never go against grover -- grover nor norquist. this is the grover norquist congress because the republicans shake in their boots, they will not do anything, even though the american people by a more than 70% majority say people making more than $1 million a year should contribute to what's -- what the mobs are in this -- what the problems are in this country. so that fell apart. a group of six senators -- three republicans, three democrats -- had been on the simpson-bowles commission said we should do something about it. they had press conferences, this was going down the road, doing all sorts of great things. while that was going on there was a decision made and there was a law passed to create a supercommittee, led -- i appointed senator patty murray of twoz run this.

no one in the senate, democrat or republican, has more respect in the senate than patty murray. she worked so hard with the other 11 members of congress to come up with something. a few days before they were to arrive at a decision and the gang of six members out here doing all this stuff all the time, i get a letter signed by virtually every republican senator saying we're not going to raise revenue for anything. the super committee, it didn't work there, the gang of six is gone. so we passed this thing last august from government for two years and to say if we don't arrive at another $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction during this year, that automatically kicks in at the end of this year, the beginning of next year. so that's where we are. and the republicans in the house are trying to change that. that's what this little history

lesson has been all about. madam president, i don't like sequester. i wish we hadn't. it was a hard pill to swallow, but it was the right thing to do. if we're going to ever reduce these staggering deficits, we're going to have to make some hard decisions. so that's what this was all about. that was the point. it's hard to do, so therefore we have to do it. the sequester which would take $600 billion from domestic programs and $600 billion from defense programs, they were designed to be tough enough to force the two sides to reach a balanced deal. it hasn't happened yet. madam president, as i said earlier, as i said with general eisenhower's statement, i didn't make that up. that's what he said.

my complaining about the republicans here being so unreasonable about everything is something that i'm not somebody, a lone wolf crying in the wilderness. we have two longtime nonpartisan watchers of congress, one from the american enterprise institute, which is a conservative think tank; another from brookings institute, that wrote an article saying it's the republicans everybody. can't you say what they were doing. here's one thing they said. "we have been studying washington politics and congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. in our past writings we criticized both parties when we believe it was warranted. today we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the republican party. they further said the g.o.p. has

become an outliar in america politics. it is ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science and dismissive of the political opposition." what brave men to do that, to write these comments which are true. i've been saying -- i don't want to fight about everything. republicans insist on balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class, seniors, single mothers, those who can least afford it. that's what they're doing here today. it's their intransigence, their refusal to compromise that leaves us facing a threat for sequester. but it's difficult but it's balanced. going back to the august budget agreement now in order to protect wealthy special interests is no solution. neither is refighting the battles of last year. democrats agree we must reduce our deficit and make hard choices, but we believe in a balanced approach that shares the pain as well as the

responsibility is the sequester the best way to achieve that balance? no. but republicans refuse to consider more reasonable approaches. one, for example, that asks every american to pay his fair share while making difficult choices to reduce spending. and democrats want to agree to a -- won't agree to a one-sided solution that lets the super wealthy off the hook. democrats believe we can protect americans' access to health care, create jobs while investing in the future. but we can't do it alone. it will take work and compromise, and so far republicans have been unwilling to make a serious toefrt achieve that -- toefrt achieve that result. republicans rejected our balanced approach. their one-sided solution to across-the-board cuts would take away from the many to give to the few. here's what this plan would do. not all of it, but here's what their plan would do.

remember they're taking it over there in the house today. it would cut medicaid benefits. it would increase the number of uninsured children, parents, seniors. that is in addition to that, people with disabilities, by hundreds of thousands. just eliminate them. it would also put seniors in nursing homes at risk. some of them would have to move out of the nursing home, i guess. it would punish americans who receive tax credits to purchase health insurance when their financial circumstances change, causing 350,000 americans to have no coverage. this would add to the tens of millions that already exist that way. weaken wall street reforms, protecting the big banks at the expense of consumers. their legislation would once again target middle-class workers, food inspectors, air traffic krorlts, pwor -- air traffic controllers, drug enforcement agents and f.b.i.

agents. they would have to be cut off to cut funding for preventive health care programs that fight chronic illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, strokes, diabetes that cause 70% of the deaths in america. preventive care would be reined in. slash bloc grant funding. no segment of the population is immune from this painful, absurd republican plan except maybe millionaires, billionaires, wealthy corporations. the republican proposal cuts meals on wheels. it reduces food assistance for almost two million needy people. one of the republican candidates running for president said president obama is the food stamp president. madam president, there are more poor people. our economy has been in bad shape. people are struggling. the millionaires are doing fine.

and in addition to what i've already mentioned, this thing they're taking up in the house today cuts off almost 300,000 children from free school lunches at a time when one in five children live in poverty. the united states conference of catholic bishops said the republican plan fails the basic moral test. this budget sets very clear priorities. the problem is the thing they're taking up in the house sets the wrong priorities. president franklin roosevelt said humankindness is never weakened and stamina softened in the fiber of free people. say that again. president roosevelt said humankindness never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of free people. a nation does not have to be cruel to be tough is what roosevelt said. republicans will do well to remember our nation is judged

not only by the strength of its military but also the strength of its values, so says general eisenhower and president roosevelt. the presiding officer: the leadership time is reserved. phoeupb madam president? the presiding officer: -- mr. mcconnell: madam president, with president obama officially on the campaign trail now, it's hard not to be reminded of the kind of kentucky he was the last time -- the kind of kentucky he was the last time

around and to marvel at the difference. at some point the postpartisan healer who posed to unit red and blew america became the divider in chief, never missing an opportunity to pit one tkpwraoep against another -- group against another who is now determined to win reelection not by appealing to america's best instincts but all too often to their worst. even "the new york times" editorial page wrote this very morning that the country is more divided than it was four years ago under this president. some have argued that the transformation we've witnessed proves that the president was a liberal ideologue all along, that the task of governing revealed his true instincts. and that may be true. but there's an even simpler explanation than that and one that in some ways is even more disappointing. it's the idea that the president

said what he needed to say to get elected then and that he'll say whatever he needs to say to get reelected now. it encapsulates why the american people are so very skeptical of politicians. the president's policies may have disappointed a health care bill that was supposed to lower costs is causing them to rise. a stimulus bill that was supposed to create jobs was better at generating punch lines. but one of the greatest disappointments of this presidency is the difference between the kind of leader this president said he was and the kind he turned out to be. how did that happen? well, i think the president just put too much faith in government. let's face it, there isn't a problem we face that this president didn't think the government could solve. and despite all the evidence to the contrary, he still can't seem to shake the idea that more

government is the answer for what ails us. when the stimulus failed, it wasn't government's fault. it was the republicans'. when the health care bill caused health care costs to rise, same thing. when trillions are spent and jobs don't come, it's a.t.m. machines. it's the weather, it's bankers, it's the rich, it's fox news, it's anything other than the government. this is why the sickening waste of taxpayer dollars we've seen so many times over the last three years, whether it's at a solar company like solyndra or at a lavish party that federal bureaucrats threw for themselves in vegas, it's viewed not as a symptom of a larger problem in washington but as a problem to be managed, something to acknowledge, to acknowledge and

then move beyond. because they just don't seem to see it. the president seems to view government the way some parents view their children. it can do no wrong. so if there's a problem to solve, a challenge to tackle, the solution is always the same. more government. more government. and the results are always the same. a disappointment to be blamed on somebody, anybody else. i think the president summed it up pretty well during a speech he gave in new york just yesterday. this is what he said. the only way we can accelerate job creation that takes place on a scale that is needed, he said, is bold action from congress. really? the only way to accelerate job creation is through congress? not the private sector? hasn't the experience of the

last three and a half years taught this president anything at all about the limitations of government action? three and a half years and $5 trillion later, there are nearly a half a million fewer jobs in the country than the day the president took office. that's not what most people would describe as a good return on investment. yet, that's all we get. the same government-driven solutions he's been pushing for three and a half years. nearly 13 million americans who are actively looking for a job can't find one. millions more have given up looking for a job altogether. as worker participation rate is the lowest it's been in 30 years. and more than half of all college graduates, the best prepared to enter the workforce, can't find a good job.

half of college graduates can't find a job. and this president is proposing the same old ideas that have failed before. some government action failed? then just do it again on a larger scale. that's the approach this president has taken. it is his approach still. it is the clearest sign he's literally out of ideas. but he's unwilling to try something different. he's unwilling to confront the fact that the government -- that a government that might have worked well a half a century ago is outdated and in desperate need of reform. so he's resorting to the same old political gimmicks and games that he criticizes others for using. earlier this year, the president mocked -- mocked those every time gas prices go up dust off their three-point plans to lower them, especially in an election

year. that was the president. yet yesterday there he was up in new york proposing a five-point plan of his own to revive the economy, a to-do list, in effect, a to-do list for congress. the cynicism here is literally breathtaking. here is a president who in the morning worked hand in hand with senate democrats to ensure that legislation to freeze interest rates on student loans wouldn't pass, in the afternoon he pleaded for an end to the very gridlock he was orchestrating. there's perhaps no better illustration of how far this president has come from the days of his last campaign. look, americans voted this president into office on a promise of bipartisan action. orchestrating political showboats on student loans and giving congress a post-it note

checklist of legislative items to pass before the election really isn't what the american people expected. they expected us to work together, and they still do. the president knows as well as i do that the solution to our economic problems lies not in the post-it note congressional agenda dictated from a lectern in new york but through a sound pro-growth government plan which includes a true all-of-the-above energy policy and an end to regulations that are hindering businesses. the president at one time or another has claimed to support these policies. these are proposals where republicans and democrats can find common ground. in other words, a plan designed not to control free enterprise from washington but to liberate it. we just need the president to show some courage and some

leadershipshileadership. we'll get this economy going not by handing out more special favors to industries and groups but by simplifying the code, clearing out the loopholes, and lowering rates for everyone. in less than eight months americans will be hit with the biggest tax increase in history unless we act. the president knows as well as i do how devastating this would be for the american people, literally for everyone. people who are already struggling will have to do with even less, businesses that are already struggling just to keep afloat will see washington getting an even bigger take than it already is, the looming tax hike will be absolutely devastating. and yet here we are less than eight months away from it and the president is busy ork stright -- is busy orchestrating failure here in the senate.

now i'm not in the business of giving the president campaign advice, but i am in the business of trying to get the best possible outcome for the american people. and higher's an issue -- and here's an issue -- tax reform -- where i know the two parties have a shot at working together to help this economy and restore the american dream for all those who started to doubt whether it will even be there in a few years. so i would respectfully ask the president to ignore his campaign consultants for once and do what's right for the nation as a whole. republicans here in congress are ready to work with you, mr. president, on the kind of comprehensive reforms that you, yourself, have called for in the past. working together might not help your campaign, but it shoul surd help the country. so my message you to is this: we're ready whenever you are. i yield the floor.

mr. moran: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas. mr. moran: i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning hour. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. moran: it is that time of year when many parents will watch their children graduate. two years ago i watched my own daughter wak walk across a colle stage. if we fail to act, our children's future will be at significant risk. i believe all members of congress, in fact every american has the responsibility to be a good steward of what has been passed on to us. at that graduation event, i renewed my commitment do my part to turn our country around. my fear is that we are not doing enough, that we as americans, and especially we as members of this congress, are not doing

enough to off our children a bright future. in the last two weeks i've read headlines that catch my attention, would catch every american's attention. first, the amount of student loan debt has surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in american history. americans now have more combined student loan debt than combined credit card debt. second, the a. pep. recently reported that one out of every two college graduates this year will be unemployed or underemployed. unfortunately, it's not just college graduates that are having trouble finding a job and paying their bills. the department of labor reported just last week that more than 12 million americans are still looking for work and our economy only added 115,000 jobs in april, the lowest number of jobs added in five months. this makes 39 straight months of unemployment rate over 8%. our first priority in congress must be to strengthen our

economy so more jobs can be created, more americans can get back to work, and more graduates with pursue their dreams. data tells us that for close to three decades companies less than five years old have created almost all the new net jobs in america, averaging three million jobs each year. while start-ups provided the gasoline to fuel america's economic engine, new businesses are hiring fewer employees than in the past and make up a smaller share of all companies than in previous years. data out last week from the census bureau shows that the starstart-up rate fell to the lt ponts on record for -- point on record for new firm births. given the disproportionate impact new businesses have on the economy, it makes sense to craft policies that help entrepreneurs start businesses and make it easier for these

young businesses to grow. a former nasa engineer now in the technology field gave me a useful analogy. he described the process of designing a rocket or an airplane, which there are two forces at play that determine whether the rocket will launch or the plane will fly: thrust and drag. so much of what we want to do around here tends to focus on the thrust, spending money and creating programs, when what we really ought to be doing is focusing on reducing the drag. rather than spend money on government programs, congress must and should enact policies that create an environment in which many entrepreneurs and their companies have a better shot at success and putting people to work. reduce the drag so that the private sector can create jobs. to create this environment where these start-up companies can be successful, i've introduced the start-up act with senator

warner. the start-up act reforms federal regulatory process to ensure that the cost of compliance does not outweigh the benefits of regulations. the start-up act alters the tax code to create incentives that will facilitate the financing and growth of new businesses. the start-up act stimulates university research so more good ideas move into the marketplace where they can create jobs for men's. and perhaps most importantly, the start-up act helps america win the global battle for talent. on a recent trip to silicon valley, i met with some of the leading technology companies around the world. they were just start-up companies a few years ago. while i heard many encouraging stories of success, their number-one concern was attracting and retaining highly skilled employees. one business i met said they had plans to hire dozens -- i think the number was 68 foreign-born but u.s.-educated individuals

and to hire them in the united states but they were unable to get the visas necessary to have these workers work in the u.s. rather than lose that talent, this company hired the employees but placed them at various international companies that encouraged the retention of highly skilled foreign-born workers. another company told me with the talent increasing overseas, it will soon be easeiers for them to open offices and plants in other countries rather than have the work done here in the united states. the last thing we want is for american businesses to have a better business climate in places outside the united states. and it i it is not just the losf those dozens of jobs to some other country. many of those people in those businesses will become entrepreneurs themselves and create that's right own businesses, hiring even more people down the road, and so we lose this talent, this skill on two occasions: first the direct jobs today and ultsl ultimatelye

jobs that these entrepreneurs will create in the future. our future depends on america winning the global battle for talent. foreign-born americans have a strong record of creating businesses and employing americans. data shows us that 53% of immigrant founders of u.s.-based technology and engineering companies created their highest degree at an american university. rather than send these individuals who have been educated in the united states back home, we should keep them here in the united states where they are skills and talent and intellect can fuel u.s. economic growth. we're not talking about illegal immigration. we're talking about legal immigration. it makes no sense to educate these talented foreign-born students in america and then send them to their home countries to compete against americans for jobs. the start-up act will help america win this global battle for talent. the start-up act creates

entrepreneur visas for foreign entrepreneurs who register a business and employ americans in the united states. the start-up act also creates a new stem visa for students who graduate with a masters or ph.d. in science, technology, engineering or mathematics. our own department of commerce projects that stem jobs will grow by 17% in the years ahead. we have to retain more highly skilled and highly talented, highly educated individuals, the ones we educate in america, for us to remain exeativ competitiva global economy. we need to make sure our own u.s.-born and educated citizens have those job opportunities as well. we do not want to risk the loss of the next mark disuke zuckerb. despite the overwhelming evidence, congress should address this issue, conventional wisdom in washington, d.c., says that not much will get done in

an election year. my guess is that 80% of my colleagues here in congress would agree with the proposals contained in this legislation. particularly 80% i think would agree with the aspect of the legislation dealing with stem visas. but we are told that because we can't do everything, we can't do anything, and that excuse is no longer a good one and should not be accepted and we cannot continue to operate under the sentence that always says, well, we can't do anything in an election year. our country desperately needs us to act now, not later. and in fact in the short time i have been a member of the senate -- about 14, 15 months -- six other countries have changed their laws to encourage these types of individuals to work in their countries, to create jobs, to support entrepreneurship, innovation, and job creation in those countries. in just a little over a year that i have been a member of the senate, six other countries have advanced further than we have,

while we have waited because we can't do anything because it is an election year. america cannot turn a blind eye to those developments or to use the upcoming elections as an excuse to do nothing yet again on an issue that is so critical to our future. congress should work to make it easier for companies to grow because in a free market when people have a good idea and work hard, they not only enhance their own lives with success but the lives of so many others through the products and jobs they create. if we do take the steps now to wing the global battle for talent, our country's future economic growth will be limited. that means college grads and young people will have fewer opportunities and higher rates of unemployment may become the norm instead of the exception. allowing talented foreign-born, u.s. students and entrepreneurs to remain in the united states will create jobs for more americans. so i'll continue towork wit towo i'll continue to work with my colleagues to implement more policies so that more

entrepreneurs can turn their ideas into reality, that they will have the chance for sows. we owe -- so that they have have the chance for success. we owe the next generation of americans the opportunity to pursue their dreams, that those who this month walk across graduation stages at high schools and colleges and technical colleges and community colleges across our country will have the opportunity to pursue their dreams, what we all know as the american dream. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. vitter: thank you, mr. president. first i ask unanimous consent that sid degy, a detailee at the commerce committee, be allowed floor privileges during the rephaerpbd of the day. -- during the remainder of the day. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you. now i ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: i come to the floor to urge all of us to join

together on a bipartisan basis and reauthorize the national flood insurance program, to do it now, to do it quickly, because time is running out. madam president, on may 31 the entire national flood insurance program will expire. when the clock strikes midnight that day, it will be gone unless we act. and act we must. this is an important program for the country, in my neck of the woods, in south louisiana, in particular almost every real estate closing is dependent on this program because those properties need flood insurance for there to be a closing. that's very typical in many other parts of the country. and so here we are trying to get out of a real estate-led recession, trying to bolster the economy, and we're on the verge of letting the entire national flood insurance program expire yet again. madam president, what's so

frustrating about this is there are not big disagreements about how to get this done. this is not a overly partisan issue. we are not bitterly divided. this is merely an issue of getting floor time in the united states senate. the house has acted last year in a bipartisan way. the senate committee on which i serve has acted. i work very closely with my subcommittee chair, jon tester. we've acted in a bipartisan way. we put together a good five-year reauthorization bill, but we need to move this on and off the senate floor to get this done before the end of the month. madam president, again i urge the distinguished majority leader, senator reid, to give this important matter floor time. we all come here and talk about needing to improve the economy. we all come to the floor and talk about jobs. well, this is absolutely

necessary in all of those categories with all of those issues in mind to extend the national flood insurance program. and let's not just put a band-aid on it again and let it limp along with a very short-term extension. let's do the full five-year reauthorization, which we can do, which is well in sight. madam president, groups around the country, particularly those working in the real estate industry in this part of the economy strongly, strongly support this effort. and, therefore, madam president, i want to put into the record several items. a letter to senator reid and senator mcconnell, signed by numerous, dozens of associations all along the political spectrum urging this action. also -- i ask unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: also another letter along the same vein, addressed to senator tester, the

subcommittee chair; and myself, the ranking member on the subcommittee, again strongly supporting this effort. let's do it. let's do it now. this is the smarter, safer coalition. this letter is dated may 9. i ask unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: and also an op-ed in "roll call" written by two representatives of this broad coalition, again explaining the absolute importance, the critical nature of doing this full longer-term reauthorization. i ask unanimous consent that that be placed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. vitter: thank you, madam president. madam president, i keep coming to the floor urging this because it is so important and because it is so achievable. again, there are not big issues dividing us. this is not a partisan issue. we just need senate floor time to get it done. madam president, in that vein, i will be doing two things today

in the near future. first, i will be passing around to all members of the senate a new letter addressed to senator reid to urge that this matter be put on the floor absolutely as soon as possible. we urge this on a bipartisan basis in a letter dated february 14, 41 senators, both parties, signed that. this new letter restates that case. and of course now it's more urgent than ever as the clock ticks to may 31, just three weeks and one day away. and, madam president, i will also be proposing an amendment to the next matter that comes on the senate floor to incorporate the senate bill with perfecting amendments that have been worked out toward the floor to incorporate that amendment on that next bill on the senate floor. my understanding sthal either be -- is that will either be the

f.d.a. user fee reauthorization or a small business tax bill. neither of those bills are bitterly partisan or highly divisive. i will be proposing as an amendment to either of those bills, whichever comes to the floor next, the full reauthorization of the national flood insurance program along the lines the senate committee has proposed. so again, i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support that effort, and i urge senator reid to use that as a mechanism to get this done now, this month, before the expiration of the program. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: in 2005 the european union began their trading scheme which attempts to

cap emissions from carbon dioxide from stationery sources within the e.u. starting in 2012 civil aviation operators departing from or landing in europe began to be included in this emissions scheme. under this program, any airline, including noneuropean airlines, flying into and out of europe will be required to pay for e.u. emissions allowances. this change comes at a time when e.u. allowance prices continue to decline to a little over six-year olds and the european commission is considering driving up the prices. allowances will be for the entirety of the flight including portions in u.s. and international airspace. for example, this means a flight leaving from los angeles, california, and flying to london would be taxed on the entirety of their flight, not just the fractional part of the flight that is over e.u. airspace.

or to put it another way, you would be taxed as if 100% of your flight was in e.u. airspace even though approximately only 7% actually was. that's a flight originating in california here in the united states and flying to london. very simply, the unilateral imposition of such a scheme on the united states and other countries is arbitrary, unfair, and a violation of international law. plus it is being done without any guarantees for environmental improvements and at a huge cost to the aviation industry and constituents that we serve here in this country. according to the international air transport association, the economic cost of this program for airlines is expected to be $1.3 billion in 2012. let me repeat that. $1.3 billion in 2012 and reach as high as $3.5 billion by the year 2020. those are revenues coming out of the airlines in this country that would be used to pay for

this fee, this tax, if you will, imposed by the e.u. on the united states airspace. by requiring commercial aviation to comply, the e.u. e.t.s. limits airline capital available for other meaningful purposes including their ability to invest in more fuel efficient engines, alternative sources of fuel in research and development. let me be clear that no one in congress is against the e.u. implementing e.t.s. within their boundaries. however, i believe that any system that includes international and other none.u. airspace must be addressed through the international civil aviation organization, the icao policies, of which the united states and 190 countries are members. in fact, under current icao standards, the aviation industry is targeted to achieve a 1.5% average annual improvement in

carbon and fuel efficiency through 2020 and carbon-neutral growth from 2020 forward. that is why the united states airline industry, those advocates in the industry also agree that a single global approach to greenhouse gas emissions negotiated and set at the icao is preferred to the unilateral e.u./e.t.s. system. even the obama administration testified before the house committee on transportation and infrastructure in july of 2011 that an e.u. e.t.s. is inconsistent with international state law. the state department and the u.s. department of transportation are pressing this issue with their counterparts in europe and considering all legal and policy options to prevent further application of e.u./e.t.s. to u.s. air carriers. in addition, other nations have voiced opposition. those nations include argentina, brazil, china, india, japan, republic of korea, mexico, and stprabg. in fact -- stprabg.

china's abg bass -- ambassador suggested they will begin canceling airbus orders if the e.u. e.t.s. remains in place. countries like italy, the netherlands and spain, all e.u. member states are calling for the postponement of e.u./e.t.s. out of concerns raised by the international community. european manufacturers and airlines such as airbus, air france and british airways have urged their respective governments to stop the escalating trade conflict between the e.u. and the rest of the world. e.u. has no right to play policeman and undermine the ongoing work at the icao. as a result of this action by the e.u. on december 7, 2011, i introduced the european union missions trading scream prohibition act -- scheme prohibition act which has 17 cosponsors, both democrats and republicans. the bill gives the secretary of transportation the authority to

take the necessary steps to ensure that america's aviation operators are not penalized by any system unilaterally imposed by the e.u. the bill also requires the secretary of transportation, the administrator of the f.a.a. and other senior u.s. officials to use their authority to conduct international negotiations and take other actions necessary to ensure that u.s. operators are held harmless from the actions of the european union. the house of representatives passed a similar bill by voice vote on october 24 last year, in 2011. the u.s. commercial aviation community, including airlines and manufacturers, are all supportive of my bipartisan bill. next month i'm looking forward to the committee hearing which is scheduled to take a closer look at this important issue and at my legislation. madam president, doing nothing is not an option. the unilateral imposition of the e.u. emissions trading scheme is

a violation of international law and is hurting u.s. airlines, manufacturers and consumers. keep in mind with near-record oil prices, the e.u./e.t.s. will add to the already high amount the airline and passengers pay for fuel. we need to act now. we need to send a clear and unequivocal message and pass my bipartisan bill that addresses this scheme and protects the u.s. aviation industry and american sovereignty. i hope, madam president, that we will act on this legislation and make sure that this issue once and for all is put to rest and that the european union is not able to assess a tax or a fee on american airlines operating in american airspace. madam president, i yield the floor. madam president, i suggest the

absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call

quorum call:

mr. harkin: madam president?

officer the senator frothe prese senator from. mr. harkin:. mr. harkin: i ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: here we're again today. are wree actually goin we actuae legislation that will keep the interest rates at 3.4% on subsidized student loans or are we going to let it go to 6.8% -- double -- on july 1? we have legislation, we've brought it to the floor, yet my republican colleagues voted yesterday not to even proceed on it. not to even proceed on it. i think the people of america think, this shouldn't happen; we should be able to work these things out, and we should move -- move -- legislation, not obstruct it. everyone now grease agrees that

we should keep -- everyone now agrees that we should keep it at 3.4%. the republicans said they want to keep it at 3.4%. we say we do. the republicans initially were opposed to this, but they've gotten on board. that's fine. i've been here on the floor listening to my colleagues talk about this since monday. everyone agrees we got to keep it at 3.4%, not let it go up. so it ought to be a bipartisan issue. we ought to be able notify this rapidly and move -- we ought to be able to move this rapidly and move on to other issues confronting us higher in the senate. yet here we are on the floor again today discussing the student interest rate. we had the vote yesterday just to move it yesterday, but my republican colleagues blocked us from doing that. so they said they agree that we should keep it at 3.4%, but not on how to mov pay for for it.

why don't we just bring the bill forward, bring it to the floor, have a debate on how we pay for it. if they want to offer their amendment, they can offer their amendment and we'll vote on it. it seems to me -- at least i think one of the responsibilities -- maybe privileges, but responsibilities -- of the majority party in the senate, whichever party it might be, is to initiative legislation and bring -- is to initiate legislation and bring it to the floor. the privilege and responsibility of the minority party is to amend it, make it better, as they may see fit. i don't think it should be a privilege and responsibility of the minority party just to block everything, but we've seen that happen more and more over the last few years, where republicans just won't let us bring a bill to the floor, because under the rules it requires 60 votes, rather than

51 votes to bring a bill forward. so again here, we're stuck because we can't bring the bill forward. wwell, i hope we have another cloture vote. let's keep having these cloture votes and maybe -- maybe republicans then will say, okay, let's move it forward and let's debate it and move on. so i hope that's what we're going to be doing. now, just don't stop the process in its tracks. it's interesting to note that house and senate republicans were silent on this issue until students prosecutstudents from y became aware of the impending increase and made their voices heard. democrats were already hard at work on a solution. i would just remind my colleagues that earlier this year in the budget debate in the house an amendment was offered by democrats during the house budget process to extend the current rate of 3.4%.

that amendment lost by a straight party vote. instead, the republicans proposed that they pay for this by taking money from the prevention in public health fund. now, again, this was not an appropriate solution. killing the fund that's preventing cancer and preventing unnecessary diseases in the united states. my friends on the other side would have you believe that nothing bad would help if we eliminate the fund. they call it a slush fund. there is eno truth to that at all -- there's no truth to that at all. elimination of this fund would have disastrous effects on the health of our children and families. to eliminate the prevention in public health fund will cost us hundreds of billions of dollars in the future, taking care of people who have chronic illnesses and chronic diseases and obesity.

we know that an investment to i am munize our kids, for example, it saves us $16 in saved health care costs. to eliminate this fund would lead to a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases in every state due to the pect expd loss of vaccines and 1,100 skilled public health workers. so again, eliminating the prevention in public health fund, eliminating vaccines for our kids, eliminating public health workers who know how to deliver these vaccines and visa- and respond to outbreaks -- we would be losing public health staff at the state and local levels. eliminating this fund would end support for increased calls to

the tobacco quit line, meaning smokers would not have the support to keep that quit line going. and if current smoking rates persist, six million kids living in the united states today will die from smoking, will ultimately die from smoking. we'll be forced, if we eliminate the public health fund and prevention fund, we'll be reducebereforced to reduce -- we forced to reduce the ability of mental health services. eliminating the fund, the prevention fund, as the republicans want to do, would reduce investment in public health laboratory capacity at the state and local levels, thereby reducing the speed with which we can detect and respond to outbreaks and, yes, maybe even terrorist events. it would cut the number of disease detectives a detectivesn

deploy. these disease deckive detectiver first line of defense against infectious diseases. eliminating this fund would result in the layoff of public health officials in every state and community that are working on chronic disease prevention, immune disairks health care-associated infections and other health problems. and elimination of the prevention fund -- again, i use the word "elimination." the republican proposal wouldn't just take some money from the prevention fund, it would kill the prevention fund; it would take every single penny oust it. now, my friends on the republican side said the other day, well, president obama took money out of the prevention fund. democrats joined with republicans earlier in year in taking $5 billion out of the

life of this fund to help pay for the -- extending the unemployment insurance program for the remainder of this year and also extending the payroll tax cut. well, they use that example as something like, well, then we can just kill the whole thing. and i was not, i must be very frank -- i was not in favor of that $5 billion cut. but be that as it may, as i used the analogy yesterday, there's one thing about taking a couple pints of your blood and taking all your blood. a person can live. you take a couple pints of blood, you can live and get healthy. that's what's happened to the prevention fund. the fund is alive and well and doing its job even though some money was taken out of it. what the republicans want to do is take all the blood out, kill the whole program. the president has said -- president obama has said that he

would veto this bill if there are any cuts in the prevention in public health fund, veto it. so there's been a line drawn. we took some money out of it before. but that's it. no more money is coming out because of the good that it is doing in this country. and elimination of this fund, which the republicans want to do would stop efforts to address the risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and cancer, the leading causes of death. just yesterday i read from a report that finds that if we could prevent the obesity freight increasing past its rate right now, we could save nearly $550 billion in the next 20 years. in 1980, the obesity rate was right at about 15% in this

country. today, as i said, it is 34%. 34%. if it increases at the rate that they expect looking at everything out there now, 42% of all americans will be obese by 2030 and one out of every four of them will be severely obese. that means a huge increase in adult-onset diabetes and all the accompanying health costs -- heart disease, stroke. that's what the prevention fund does. republicans want to kill t they say, no, just get rid of it. just get rid of it. cuts to our chronic disease

prevention program -- it would mean 120 million americans, one in every three citizens would lose access to preventive services. $103 million is no longer available to states and counties and local jurisdictions to provide these services. over 20 million americans in rural areas, rural areas in new york, rural areas in iowa and all across this country, would no longer have access to preventive services and programs. madam president, the american people get it. they -- our citizens that we represent, they get it, they understand. a poll was taken said that voters overwhelmingly support more investment in prevention. this is this was a 2009 poll, public opinion poll. 371% of americans polled said yes, do more. invest more in prevention.

71%. our fell will he citizens are crying out to us -- our fellow citizens are crying out to us for help. they want to know what to do, how do they change, what can we do in our communities, our schools, our workplaces, our clinics, our community health centers, what can we do so that i don't get sick? so that i don't get obese, don't get diabetes, so that i don't have heart disease? because most people don't know what to do. they need help, they need information. they need support. that's what this prevention fund does. and we know that it works. we know. we have evidence-based programs out there that work. the center for disease control and prevention is doing an outstanding job across this country in these programs, from

community programs to public health infrastructure to clinical preventive services, research, tobacco prevention programs, detection and prevention of infectious diseases, training and preparing public health workforce; all of this. that's why prevention is not just something that you go into a doctor's office and get a shot for or you get a prescription for and you get a pill. prevention encompasses a lot of different things, everything from newborn screening, immunizations for children, school-based programs, better food and nutrition in our school meals for kids, communities change the way they operate and they do things, more walking paths, more bike paths. the other day there was some, something being said about

illinois had used some of this for signage and walking paths for kids. i pointed out, yes, they did. and what happened is the number of kids walking to school increased and that cut down the number of buses they had to use and it saved the school system money and the kids got healthier. ii often use the example that when i first moved here to washington in 1979, when i was in the house, my wife and i purchased a home out in virginia. we still live there. one of the reasons we bought it, because we were about a mile away from the school, high school. we thought that's great. the kids can just walk to school. little did i know, there were no walking paths to school. there was a busy street. there was a sidewalk a little ways and then there wasn't one. the kids couldn't walk. so they had to take a bus just to go a mile. again, communities putting in the kind of sidewalks, safe

passages for kids to do that. that's healthy living. i've seen instances in my own state where communities have put walking paths for the elderly, for senior citizens. they don't have a lot of steps and things to go up and down, and you would be amazed how many people use that and stay healthy. supporting systems in our workplaces, making our workplaces work. helping businesses understand what they can do to provide a healthier workplace for people. examples abound all over this country. i'm sure i don't know all the instances in new york state, but i'll bet you communities there have gotten together and thought about how do they make life a little bit more healthy? how do they support a more healthy infrastructure for their people? some communities are coming up with very ingenious ideas. i say more power to them. that's what the prevention fund is for, is to help them, to encourage them, to give them the

kind of support that they need to provide that healthy living. i've said many times that it's interesting that in america it's easy to be unhealthy and hard to be healthy. you would think it should be the other way around. it should be easy to be healthy and harder to be unhealthy. it's just the other way around. what we're trying to do with some part of prevention fund -- not all of it, some part of it -- is to make it easier to be healthy, to make that an easier option for people. so, if we both agree, republicans and democrats, on the fact that we need to keep the interest rate on student loans at 3.4%, the debate is on the offset. and as i've said, the republicans want to kill the prevention fund. the american people have said loudly, no, we don't. we want more investment in

prevention. we don't want to get sick. we don't want to be obese. we want to quit smoking. we want our kids to be healthy, have better food, better exercise. and the republicans are saying, well, we're just not going to do that. i guess we'll pay more for it in chronic illnesses and diseases down the line. well, our offset is one, i think, that is legitimate and sound, proposing a loophole in the tax code. that means more money would go into social security and the medicare trust fund. it would help us keep the interest rates at 3.4%. education, as always, and i hope will always remain a bipartisan issue here. i urge my republican colleagues to come to the table with a serious offset, a serious offset. if they don't like what we have proposed, please, come with something that's serious. eliminating the prevention fund is a no-starter, as the president said. he would veto it, so why push

it? so this is an opportunity, i think, for all of us to come together and show the american people that this body is not broken. we can work with each other and get things done for the good of our people. again, i encourage my republican colleagues to allow us to move forward on the bill. don't keep blocking it. if they want to offer a different offset, fine. not this one. not the elimination of the prevention fund because that's not serious. that's not going anywhere. if they have some other ideas, bring it forward. as of yet, we've seen nothing from my republican colleagues, other than stopping the bill. stopping it, stopping it, stopping it. so i hope that they will come to the table. i hope we can move this bill forward. madam president, i yield the floor. mr. levin: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. levin: i commend my friend from iowa for his being such a phenomenal champion of

preventive health care. he's been fighting for this as long as he's been in the senate, and he's had some great victories. he's had some setbacks, but mainly victories, because of his energy and effort that we're where we're at today in terms of getting money for preventive health care and his continued effort here to fight for it and preserve this fund is notable. it's going to succeed. if it does and when it does, it's going to be mainly because of our friend from iowa. madam president, our republican colleagues could have allowed us yesterday to begin debate on legislation to fix the looming increase in student loan interest rates. they could have helped us avoid adding to the already crushing weight of student debt that the families of our country face. they could have joined us in taking a step toward letting parents do what parents desperately want to do, which is to help their kids to a better

future. american families are waiting for us to act. july 1 the interest rate on student loans is going to increase from 3.4% to 6.8%. it's going to double unless we act. that's going to cost over -- over seven million college students and their families over $7,000 a year. -- over $1,000 a year. more than seven million students nationwide would be affected so the need to act is urgent. what has come to be a damaging ritual here in the senate, republicans have filibustered a motion to proceed to important legislation. republicans have voted against even allowing the united states senate to begin to debate a bill. why not debate it? why not offer relevant

amendments? why not address this important issue? by their filibuster, our republican colleagues have refused to let the senate even start this process. republicans say that they too want to prevent this increase in student loan interest rates. they differ with us, they say, on how to pay for it. republicans say the only way they're going to support this legislation to prevent this rate increase is with cuts from a fund that helps to prevent infectious and chronic diseases. now, the program that republicans seek to eliminate has provided more than $8 million to my state to help fight major health problems such at influenza, diabetes, h.i.v., heart disease and cervical cancer. these funds even help to provide funding for childhood immunization programs. so what the republicans propose is this: choose between helping

college students and their families and helping to prevent expensive and debilitating health problems. choose between education and health care. choosing to allow more health problems in order to help students and their families is not a choice at all. democrats are offering a different alternative. we recognize that the tax code is full of loopholes and special breaks that allow some individuals and some corporations to avoid paying taxes. in this case what's identified as a tax break, it allows some professional service providers, such as lawyers, to avoid paying their payroll taxes by organizing their businesses as so-called "s" corporations and then paying themselves in the form of dividends instead of salaries. the government accountability

office recently examined this issue and found widespread problems costing taxpayers and the treasury billions of dollars each year in uncollected revenues. what our bill would do is require that professional service providers with incomes above $250,000 a year pay payroll taxes on the income that they derive prosecute these "s" -- derive from these "s" corporations. we would use the revenues from closing that loophole with those with incomes above $250,000 to prevent the interest rate hike that's going to hit middle-income families. at the same time we're going to be able to do that, we're also going to avoid increasing the deficit or slashing important programs. our republican colleagues have accused us, to quote one of them, of raising taxes on -- quote -- "the people that are doing some of the very serious job creation in this country."

not long ago, madam president, republicans were saying something different about this loophole. for starters, they actually called it a loophole. that's what former vice president cheney called it during his 2004 vice presidential debate. he called it -- quote -- "a special loophole." he accused his debate opponent of dodging $600,000 in payroll taxes using this loophole. likewise, a republican candidate for senate not long ago called this a -- quote -- "deceptive tax scheme to get around the i.r.s." there were no republican cries then about raising taxes on job creators. the fact of the matter is that this loophole ought to be closed no matter who is taking advantage of it, democrats or republicans, and closing it at least for those with incomes above $250,000, in order to

avoid another blow in a long series of blows to middle-income americans just makes sense. it is fundamentally fair. hundreds of thousands of students in my state of michigan depend on student loans to help afford college. they and their families know that college is not going to get any cheaper. they don't need a doubled interest rate on top of tuition increases. for many, an affordable loan is the difference between staying in school or giving up the dream of a college education. we should not let this loophole stand in the way of those dreams. i urge our republican colleagues to end their filibuster of this vital bill. if republicans think they have a better way, let us debate their alternative and let us vote. let us end this filibuster. let us end it today. madam president, i yield the floor, and i note the absence of

a quorum. i yield the floor and do not note the absence of a quorum. mr. webb: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. webb: madam president, i ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes as in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. webb: thank you, madam president. madam president, i rise today to address perhaps the most important constitutional challenge facing the balance of power between the presidency and the congress in modern times and also to offer a legislative solution that might finally address this paralysis. it is an issue that has for far too long remained unresolved and for the past ten years the failure of this body to address it has diminished the respect, the stature, and the seriousness with which the american people have viewed the congress to the detriment of our country and to our national security. the question is simple: when

should the president have the unilateral authority to decide to use military force? and what is the place of the congress in that process? what has happened to reduce the role of the congress from the body which once clearly decided whether or not the nation would go to war to the point that we were viewed as little more than a rather mindless conduit that collects taxpayer dollars and dispenses them to the president for whatever military functions he decides to undertake? we know what the constitution says. most of us also know the difficulties that have attended this situation in the years that followed world war ii. we are aware of the debates that resulted in the war powers resolution of nearly 40 years ago in the wake of the vietnam war, where the congress attempted to define a proper balance between the president and this legislative body. i have strong memories of the policy conflicts from that era.

first as a marine infantry officer who fought on the unforgiving battlefields of vietnam, on which more than 100,000 united states marines were killed or wounded, and later as an ardent student of constitutional law during my time at the georgetown university law center. but it was in the decades following vietnam that our constitutional process seems to have broken apart. year by year, skirmish by skirmish, the role of the congress in determining where the united states military would operate and when the awesome power of our weapons systems would be unleashed has diminished. in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, especially with the advent of special operations forces and remote bombing capabilities, the congress seems to have faded into operational irrelevance. congressional consent is rarely discussed. the strongest debate surround the rather irrelevant issue of whether the congress has even

been consulted. we have now reached the point that the unprecedented and, quite frankly, contorted constitutional logic used by this administration to intervene in libya on the basis of what can most kindly be called a united nations standard of humanitarian intervention was not even the subject of a full debate or a vote on the senate floor. such an omission and the precedent it has set now requires us to accept one of two uncomfortable alternatives. either we as a legislative body must reject this passivity and live up to the standards and the expectations regarding presidential power that were laid down so carefully by our founding fathers, or we must accept a redefinition of the very precepts upon which this government was founded. this is not a political issue, madam president. we would be facing the exact same constitutional challenges

no matter the party of the president, and in fact unless we resolve this matter, there is no doubt that we someday will. the conflict in the balance of power between the president and the congress has always been an intrinsic part of our constitutional makeup. article 1, section 8 of the constitution provides that the congress alone has the power to declare war. article 2, section 2 of the constitution provides that the president shall serve as commander in chief. in the early days of our republic, these distinctions were clear, particularly since we retained no large standing army during peacetime and since article 1, section 8 also provides that the congress has the power, and i quote, to raise and support armies. a phrase that expressed the clear intent of the framers that large ground forces were not to be kept during peacetime but instead were to be raised at the direction of the congress during a time of war. our history confirms this as our

armies demobilized again and again once wars were completed. only after world war ii did this change when our rather reluctant position as the world's greatest guaranteor of international stability required that we maintain a large standing military force, much of it in europe and in asia, ready to respond to crises whose immediacy could not otherwise allow us to go through the lengthy process of mobilization in order to raise an army and because of that reality made the time-honored process of asking the congress for a former declaration of war in some cases objects less ent. but any proposition can be carried to a ridiculous extreme. the fact that some military situations have required our presidents to act immediately before then reporting to the congress does not have and of itself give the president a blanket authority to use military force whenever and

wherever he decides to, even where americans are not personally at risk and even where the vital interests of our country have not been debated and clearly defined. this is the ridiculous extreme that we have now reached. the world is filled with tyrants. democratic systems are far and few between. i don't know exactly what objective standards should be used before the united nations government would decide to conduct a so-called humanitarian intervention by using our military power to address domestic tensions inside another country. i don't believe anybody else knows either, but i will say this -- no president should have the unilateral authority to make that decision either. madam president, i make this point from the perspective of someone who grew up in the military, whose family has participated as citizen soldiers in most of our country's wars,

beginning with the american revolution. i was proud to serve as a marine in vietnam. i'm equally proud of my son's service as a marine infantryman in iraq. i'm also grateful for having had the opportunity to serve five years in the pentagon, one as a marine and four as assistant secretary of defense, secretary of the navy. and i have been benefited over the years from having served in many places around the world as a journalist, including in beirut during our military engagement there in 1983 and in afghanistan as an embedded journalist in 2004. as most people in this body know, i am one of the strongest proponents of refocusing our national involvement in east asia and i was the original sponsor of the senate resolution condemning china's use of force with respect to sovereignty issues in the south china sea. the point, madam president, is that i'm not advocating a retreat from anywhere, but this administration's argument that

it has the authority to decide when and where to use military force without the consent of the congress, using the fragile logic of humanitarian intervention to ostensibly redress domestic tensions inside countries where american interests are not being directly threatened is gravely dangerous. it is a bridge too far. it does not fit our history to give one individual such discretion riducules our -- riducules our constitution. it belittles the role of the congress. for anyone in this body to accept this rationale is also to accept that the congress no longer has any direct role in the development and particularly in the execution of foreign policy. madam president, there are clear and important boundaries that have always existed when

considering a president's authority to order our military into action without the immediate consent of the congress. to exceed these boundaries as the president has already done with the precedent set in libya is to deliberately destroy the balance of power that were built so carefully into the constitution itself. these historically acceptable conditions under which a president can unilaterally order the military into action are clear. if our country or military forces are attacked, if an attack, including one by international terrorists, is imminent and must be preempted, if treaty commitments specifically compel us to respond to attacks on our allies, if american citizens are detained or threatened, if our sea lanes are interrupted, then and only then should the president order the use of military force without first

gaining the approval of the congress. at least until recent months, the congress has never accepted that the president owns the unilateral discretion to initiate combat activities without direct provocation, without americans at risk, without the obligations of treaty commitments and without the consent of the congress. the recent actions by this administration, beginning with the months-long intervention in libya, should give us all grounds for concern and alarm about the potential harm to our constitutional system itself. we are in no sense compelled or justified in taking action based on a vote of the united nations, or as the result after decision made by a collective security agreement such as nato when none of its members have been attacked. it is not the prerogative of the president to decide to commit our military and our prestige

into situations that cannot clearly be determined to flow from vital national interests. who should decide that? i can't personally and conclusively define the boundaries of what is being called a humanitarian intervention. most importantly, neither can anybody else. where should it apply? where should it not? rwanda? libya? syria? venezuela? bangladesh? in the absence of a clear determination by our time-honored constitutional process, who should decide where our young men and women in our national -- and our national treasure should be risked? some of these endeavors may be justified, some may not, but the most important point to be made is that in our system, no one person should have the power to inject the united states military and the prestige of our

nation into such circumstances. our constitution was founded upon this hesitation. we inherited our system from great britain but we adapted and changed it for a reason. one of our strongest adjustments from the british system was to ensure that no one person would have the power to commit the nation to military schemes that could not be justified by the interests and the security of the average citizen. president after president, beginning with george washington, have emphasized the importance of this fundamental principle to the stability of our political system and to the integrity of our country in the international community. the fact that the leadership of our congress has failed to raise this historic standard in the past few years and most specifically in libya is a warning sign to this body that it must reaffirm one of its most solemn responsibilities. madam president, i have been working for several months to

construct a legislative solution to this paralysis. the legislation would recognize that modern circumstances require an adroit approach to the manner in which our foreign policy is being implemented, but it would also put necessary and proper boundaries around a president's discretion when it comes to so-called humanitarian interventions. where we and our people are not being directly threatened. my legislation requires that in any situation where american interests are not directly threatened, the president must obtain former approval by the congress before introducing american military force. this legislation will also provide that debate on such a request must begin within days of the request and that a vote must proceed in a timely manner. i would remind the leadership on both sides of this body that despite repeated calls from myself and other senators, when

this administration conducted month after month of combat operations in libya with no american interests directly threatened and no clear treaty provisions in play, the congress of the united states, both democrat and republican, could not even bring itself to have a former debate on whether the use of military force was appropriate, and this use of military force went on for months and was never proved. the administration which spent well over a billion dollars of taxpayer funds dropped thousands of bombs on the country, operate our military offshore for months, claimed that combat was not occurring, rejected the notion that the war powers act applied to the situation. i am not here to debate the war powers act, madam president. i am suggesting that other statutory language that covers these kind of situations must be enacted. the legislation that i will be introducing today will address this loophole in the

interpretation of our constitution. it will serve as a necessary safety net to protect the integrity and the intent of the constitution itself. it will ensure that congress lives up not only to its prerogatives which were so carefully laid out by our founding fathers, but also to its responsibilities. and with that, i yield the floor and would suggest the absence of a quorum. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from alaska. mr. begich: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: no. mr. begich: madam president, i have eight unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have approval of the majority and minority leaders. i would ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. begich: madam president, i come down to talk about the issue of the student loans as someone who has two ends of this

equation, one first as a former chair of the student loan corporation for the state of alaska for seven years. i took that corporation from the brink of bankruptcy, junk bond rating, you name it, it was in dismal condition. we turned it around and seven years later, the corporation ended up paying a hefty annual dividend to the state of alaska for higher education, had one of the lowest interest rates in the country and increased the capacity for students to borrow money, not only for two-year, four-year masters but also for career education, something that most people told me when i became chair of that corporation it would never be able to be done, good luck, we wish you the best, and off they went, and most of them got off the board very quickly. we were able to bring it together and in the process my experience around the issues of education and making sure young people had the capacity to borrow money at reasonable rates and i think we were at one point down to about 2% which was a pretty incredible rate for a

student to borrow money at. also i was chair of the postsecondary education committee for two years, copartner with the student loan corporation making sure we had strong institutions to provide career, college and other types of education for young people. i come with that experience but i also come from experience as a small business person which i'll get to in a minute with regard to how we're trying to pay for this interest rate, and making sure they don't rise. as you know interest rates for subsidized stafford loans will rise from 3.6 mfdz to 6.8% in july. that would increase cost over the course of a loan. students and families are waiting as kids are graduating right now across this country from high school, getting ready to move on to higher education, making their plans, may they be scholarships or grants or loans or whatever they can cobble to

amount of money they need to move on to higher education. the interest rate is part of the equation. doubling the interest rate would be damaging to our young families who are making sure their kids get on and have an opportunity to be educated. as you know, many of us, madam president, have gone on to our facebook page and twitter accounts and said tell us your story from our districts. tell us what's happening. in this happens, what will happen to you? one anchorage resident said her granddaughter graduated from charter college, a privately run college, has incredible placement rate, almost 90%. it's an intensive program, like a job. you're there 8:00 to 5:00 every day, all day, all week for several months and they consolidate the time but she has been working on her accounting

degree. now six years later because she had to work two jobs trying to faye pay for this and borrowing money her total debt is $72,000. she's 31 years old. her family is truly wondering how she will ever get out of debt if this bill doesn't pass because if the interest rates adjust, it's truly money that comes out of her pocket into literally to pay off interest and the net result is she keeps deeper and deeper in debt. we know the costs of college is more and more expensive every year and how we are going to be able to make sure students can afford this is making sure we do not double the interest rate. we had a vote earlier this week, did not succeed. we tried on this side to move it forward. it was interesting to me, before i say this next comment i want to say also, why is it important for to us make sure every kid has access to education, no matter higher education, career evacuation,

voc education, whatever the new title they like to use around it, because we are in a global economy, we need to be comef competitive, we need to make sure our young people have a the access to education and that means affordability. yesterday i was listening -- listening to the debate and some of the people talking and i want to be clear about this. this is where my small business part comes in. i've been in small business since the age of 14. i've operated and owned a variety of businesses, some successful, some not so successful but hopefully you learned from those not so successful and i think i have. the democratic pay-for, the majority's pay-for was to close a tax loophole used by high-income earners, lawyers, consult ands, no disrespect to their field but they use the system to avoid paying medicare taxes that all of us pay. i mean all of us that sit here in this chamber and the people

who work at the restaurant outside here and the people who drive the bus and everyone else pays that tax. but they use this to organize under an s corporation. it's a technical term under the i.r.s. code that allows those profits to go right to the individual. so they decide instead of taking it as a wage, they take it as profit or dividend, thus avoiding medicare taxes. that all of us pay. getting a free ride. i heard on the floor yesterday, a bump of new taxes. these aren't new taxes. these are taxes that are owed. they just found a loophole, again, consultants, lobbyists, lawyers, who weave their way through the writing of the laws and they probably wrote them, actually they did if you look at the history of this. they wrote the law so they could avoid the medicare taxes that everyone else has to pay. so when i heard people saying it's the restaurant owner, the retailer, the plummer, that's

a bunch of baloney. that is so misinforming the public, it's unbelievable. i know this. because as a former retailer, who had an s corporation, we pay our taxes. we pay with a wage. we pay it all. this loophole is clearly -- all you have to do is looking at it. they have to meet three standards. modified gross income above 250 for joint filers, 200,000 for individuals, and shareholder and s corporation that derives 75% or more of gross revenues from services of three or fewer shareholders, services defined as lobbying, law, engineering, architect, accounting, actuarial science, which is a science, performing arts, athletes, brokerage services. i'm looking here, i don't see it. doesn't say retailers.

doesn't say the mom and pop folks working every day. they pay their taxes. so for members to come down here and trick the public, because that's what they did. they convoluted the words because are people are getting the sound bites, the ten seconds, saying it's going to raise new taxes and cause all these small businesses not to hire. baloney. this is not lawyers, lobbyists, and consult antsz who wrote the law -- consult antsz who wrote the law to make sure they didn't have to pay a dime. that's what it's about. for people to come down here and say we're going to raise the interest rate on hard-working families who are trying to get their kids through college is unbelievable. i hope we take this up again. i hope we vote on it and get this thing resolved, make sure work force can -- working families can afford to get their kids into college and afford the high cost he should sew they can become productive parts of this country and open their small

business and pay their taxes like every other small business does. so i was just appalled when i heard some of the people coming down here and they sounded so -- so logical. but to be frank with you, there's not many in this body, no disrespect to my colleagues, that have owned and operated a true small business. one that you start with a few nickels and dimes, you get turned down by the bank because they tell you your idea is a dumb idea, and a few years later i sold it for three times. i don't know i thought it was a good idea, the banker didn't. but had to scratch together two nickels to make a business successful. had to work 12, 15 hours every day to make sure it was successful. that's a small business person. there's not many in this body. and when they come down here, when people come down and sound so professional about their description of how it's going to affect certain people, it's just incorrect.

and one thing i wouldn't mind in this body is just really factual debates, because that's what the public deserves. not this kind of ten-second media bites they can get away from with it and say back home we didn't raise taxes, we didn't do this. what they're really doing is jacking up rates on students. that's what's going to happen at tend daft day here. by july -- and we have taken action here on this side -- the end result will be that families, hard-working families, middle-class families will pay for more education. students will pay for for their education because of a simple law that all we have to do is close a loophole that lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants are taking advantage of and wrote to their advantage to stick it to the middle class. it's time to reverse the trend for once around this place, just once, and give the middle class a little break here. a break they deserve and will

build our economy in the future because we will have a highly educated work force meeting this global economy. last thing i'll just say, madam president, is i know another alternative. they have a new pay-for. here's what that does. it takes away prevention funds for health. $226 million to reduce diabetes and heart disease. i don't know about you, if you don't prevent it, you pay a higher cost later. those are preventible diseases. $93 million for antitobacco education, and they don't like the one that closes the loophole on lobbyists, lawyers, and consultants but they do like the one that takes away prevention programs that once again help our middle class, our young families who might be experiencing signs of preventible disease, heart disease, and a little prevention might save their lives but also will save health

care costs in the future. it's -- it's -- i see these proposals as crazy talk. i don't know how else to describe it. i'm trying to keep it simple. let's get on with closing loopholes, people took advantage of by lobbying and wheeling and dealing in the halls of congress, fix that, and protect our working families, our middle-class families and make sure we're doing the right thing. that's what they sent us here to do, madam president. i think we have an obligation. i hope, again, that we move forward and make sure that we're not going to double the rates. i'm not for doubling the rates. 3.4% is a good rate. swee swhee ensure that students can get that as they prepare for the fall session and borrowing money to get on with higher education. madam president, thank you very much and i yield the floor. i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mrs. gillibrand:

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york.

mrs. gillibrand: i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. gillibrand: i rise to call on my colleagues for a solution to the impending student debt crisis. yesterday we had a chance to stand with millions of young americans all across our country by investing in their future and preventing these interest rates from doubling on stafford loans in just 52 days from now. but instead, our colleagues across the aisle chose to stand in the way of a commonsense proposal. as a result seven million students are facing higher interest rates that will cost them each an extra thousand dollars a year in interest for their pushing access to a quality higher education out of reach for too many and sadly others with unmanageable debt when they get out of college and join the work force. you don't have to take it from me how tough this is going to

be. take it from the students and families themselves. just as your office heard from thousands of families all across alaska, we've been hearing the same on line, through email, about what this would actually do to their families. i heard from one new york parents who has a child in college and another heading there this fall. thñ -- their older child spent a year in americorps. the younger is about to start the same. he said "these kids are serving america. both of my kids will leave college with around $25,000 in debt if we can afford to keep it down that much. we should be able to all agree that adding another $1,000 or more per year in debt for kids who are only looking to serve this country, get a good education and help rebuild this economy is just wrong. i heard from a woman in the bronx. she has a job as a social worker. she's on track to pay off her student loans in the next 10 or

11 years, just in time for her twin daughters to start college. she said "doubling my student loan interest will keep me in debt at a time when i am going to need every single penny to get my kids through college with as little debt of their own as possible. the more interest i pay, the more they'll have to borrow for their own educations, and this cycle will continue indefinitely." i heard from a woman in saratoga with a bachelor's degree in hotel resort and tourism management. despite making good money, she says paying her $800 a month in student loans on top of her everyday bills makes getting by nearly impossible. she said, "my choice is to instead decide what bill am i going to pay this month, making me fall behind on other payments and destroy my credit in the future. if my interest rate was any higher, i honestly do not know

how i would survive at all. pretty much all the money i'm making is going straight into student loans. we need all the help we can get." these are just a few of the stories that i heard yesterday, and the families expect better from us. when we price young people out in college education, we all are going to pay the price. when we limit their opportunity, we rob ourselves of those future engineers, biology gists and small business -- biologists and small business owners. america's ability to lead the economy relies on our ability to outeducate the global competition. let's open doors to higher education to anyone who's willing to work for it, and let's keep it affordable. let's reward hard work and responsibility instead of risk-taking. there is no excuse for an action. so let's have a real debate in

good faith to solve this problem we know is within our reach. students and families across america can't afford any more delay. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: mr. alexander: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: madam president, i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. alexander: tha*eu, madam president. madam president -- thank you, madam president. this week is the 13th national annual charter schools weeks. on tuesday senator landrieu and i of louisiana joined with ten other senators introducing a resolution praising teachers, the administrators, the parents,

the students who are part of the charter school movement across our country. let me begin by explaining exactly what a charter school is because sometimes we stand up and start talking without talking about the -- without explaining the subject. a charter school is the memphis academy for science and engineering. i visited there three or four years ago. it was during spring break. during spring break, most of the students in memphis were somewhere else, but not in the memphis academy for science and engineering. these were sophomores studying advanced placement biology. these were children who had been in other schools the year before that were deemed to be low-performing schools. in other words, these were among the students in memphis least likely to succeed. but they have been fortunate. they have been allowed to go to this charter school. their parents had chosen the school. and here's what was different

about it. the union rules, the state rules and the federal rules had been relaxed so that the teachers had the freedom to do in that school what they thought those children needed. in this case, many of these children didn't have as much at home as other children do, so the teachers decided the school ought to be open 12 hours a day and it ought to be open on saturday morning and it ought to be open more weeks a year. and they were there, as i said, on spring break studying advanced placement biology which is not what many sophomores do anywhere in this country. and these children were succeeding. the school was able to pay some teachers more than others. it was able to have some classes that are larger than others. it meant that some -- some scheduled classes were longer than others. and some children got special attention. you may say, well, that makes so much common sense, why aren't

they able to do that in every public school in america? and that's a very good question. because in a way, every one of our 100,000 public schools in america should be a charter school in the sense that the real definition of a charter school is one that gives teachers the freedom to use their own good sense and judgment to deal with the children whose parents choose to send to that school. i have a little bit of a personal interest in charter schools. 20 years ago i was the united states secretary of education. i was in my final year. the last thing i did in 1992 as united states education secretary was to write a letter to all the school superintendents in america urging them to try what a small number of minnesota public schools were doing, which they were then calling start-up schools. these were the first, the first

charter schools in america. and the origin was primarily from those who were part of the democratic farmer labor party in minnesota. but at the same time on the conservative side of the ideological spectrum, there were many calling for getting rid of union rules, state rules and regulations that were making it harder for teachers to teach. so there was a happy convergence of support for this idea of start-up schools. i remember albert shanker, the late head of the american federation for teachers, supported the idea from the beginning. but many of those in the teachers unions opposed it. many of those in the education establishment didn't like it. they were afraid of what might happen. well, here's what has happened over the last 20 years. instead of a handful of schools in minnesota, we now have about 5,600 charter schools in america today, or about 5% of all of our public schools are charter schools. the way they work is very

simple. they are public schools, and the money that the state and local government would ordinarily spend on the school follows each child to the charter school. so it's just a public school organized in a different way. the first one was in 1992, city academy high school in st. paul, minnesota. in 1997, president clinton called for creating 3,000 charter schools by the two. this was after the -- by 2002. this was after the first president bush called for creating break the mold schools in every school district in america, another name for what we call today charter schools. and then the second president bush in 2002 called for $200 million in federal dollars to support charter schools. today there are 41 states which have charter schools, and the schools serve two million students, about 4% of the 50 million students in our public schools today. i'm proud to say our own state of tennessee has had a strong

charter school movement, and only recently has the state charter law which was passed in 2002 been amended to remove the cap on a number of schools in the state and on limitations on student eligibility. we currently have 40 charter schools operating in tennessee, 25 in memphis, 11 in nashville, nearly 10,000 students in the state. our first to the top plan, tennessee won the president's race to the top plan for education, included $14 million to expand high-performing charter schools. the achievement school district which govern haslam has created to turn around schools that are failing has approved three charter operators to turn around priority schools. and we could expect more from that. so the question often is asked: well, are charter schools really helping students? and in some ways the jury is still out.

charter schools are relatively new, and there are many factors that go into the success of a student in a school. the number-one factor being what happens at home. but there are good, encouraging indications. a study by stamford university found two-thirds of the charter schools in tennessee are improving student peformance in reading and math at a faster rate than competing traditional district public schools. 67% of charter schools in tennessee have been improving the overall growth of their students for the last three years. but that means that 30% of the schools included students who weren't performing as well or were performing worse. so the fact of the matter is that not every charter school is going to be successful. not every start-up business is successful. but we have a model in our country that reminds us of what can happen when we have autonomous institutions where administrators and teachers have the privilege of using their own judgment and common sense to

make things happen and we call that higher education. in the united states of america, we have 6,000 higher education institutions. there are all kinds. yashevi, vanderbilt, university of tennessee, there are many different kinds. nonprofit, public, nonpublic. but they are all autonomous and the students choose the school. and what has happened? everyone in the world agrees we have not only the best colleges in america, we have almost all of the very best colleges in america. so our goal should be, i think, gradually to increase the number of charter schools. at the same time it's important that there can some accountability. i know that in tennessee, they've got a tough review board and the charter school is not working, it's closed down. that should be the case in many other places. you might say why would you go through that struggle? we should be doing that with some of the noncharter public

schools as well and we're beginning to. charter schools should be held to the same standards that other public schools are. and charter schools shouldn't be allowed to pick and choose. they should be required to enroll all eligible students, and if more students want to come than they have room for, there could be some fair method for choosing the student, such as a lottery. and maybe that makes a very good case, that if charter schools are so popular that more families want their children to go there, then we need even more charter schools. so, madam president, i'm happy to come to the floor today to praise the teachers and the innovators, the presidents of both parties, including president obama currently and arne duncan, his secretary education, who strongly supported charter schools; just as president bush and president clinton and the first president bush did. this is a movement that has broad bipartisan support. it has grown from a handful of schools 20 years ago in minnesota to 5% of all of our

public schools in the country. what we have found is that when you give teachers more freedom to use good judgment and when you give parents more choices of schools, then good things happen. the charter school movement is proving that. this is a week to salute their hard work and to hope that over the next year, five years, ten years, that more and more public schools become charter schools where teachers are free to exercise their judgment and parents are free to choose the schools. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you, madam president. in less than two months, 53 days to be precise, the interest rate on subsidized student loans will double to 6.8% unless congress acts. if rates on subsidized stafford loans are allowed to rise, as many as 7.4 million students across the nation, including approximately 43,000 students in rhode island, will pay about $1,000 more each year. and that is on top of already

significant debt. and some have argued that keeping the interest rates low, that the increase would not be a significant financial burden. students and families beg to disagree. this would be a significant impediment to completing their education, for younger students starting their education. for those seeking educational opportunities, for job transition in midlife. those opportunities would be frustrated also. right now students and their families are sitting around the kitchen table making a tough decision about next year. can they afford to go to school if this interest rate is doubled. one rhode island mother wrote me, in her words, please do not raise the interest rates on student loans. my son will be in his last year. i cannot afford to pay any more, in fear that he will not be able to graduate and still have all of the loans to pay back. so this would be in addition to

frustrating educational advancement, it would leave many, many students across the country with lots of debt. hundreds of thousands of young people, parents, educators, members of the faith community and other community leaders have come to us with one simple request: don't double the rate. some on the other side have argued that low-cost federal loans have contributed to rising college costs and increased student debt. this does not make sense. the maximum amount that undergraduate students can borrow in subsidized loans has remained unchanged at $23,000 for the last 20 years. there are many causes that are accelerating tuitions, but the amount of available accessible federal borrowing to students has remained unchanged for 20 years. but increasing the cost of these loans by doubling the interest rate will certainly make college

more expensive for families and for students. we need to address college costs, but having the federal government double the interest it charges to students, particularly low and moderate income students, is not the solution. in fact, it complicates the problem dramatically. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they want to stop this from happening. governor romney, the presumptive nominee, says he wants to stop this from happening. yet they are blocking moving forward on these issues, so they can offer to pay for the procedures for what we agree to stop the doubling effect. they are blocking debate because they refuse as much as on an ideological basis and a practical basis to change the tax code, to close a loophole that is egregious and should be closed in order to allow us to help middle-class families. i think they have taken this pledge with respect to no new

taxes to a degree that defeats practical, pragmatic solution to a problem that they know has to be solved and has to be solved before july 1. this decision is fairly clear. it's a choice between allowing young people to get their college degree or is it obedience to a pledge never, ever to raise anything that grover norquist says is connected remotely to attacks. unfortunately, this simplicity is undercutting the hopes and dreams of thousands of american students, and that's what it's coming down to. one of the other ironies in this debate is that what we propose to do closing this subchapter s loophole for high wage earners and professional endeavors is something that has long been criticized by conservatives. in the 2004 presidential

campaign, the late conservative columnist robert novak described the subchapter s loophole as -- quote -- "one of the last loopholes left in the internal revenue service code, and it is a big one." i don't think anyone would accuse the late robert novak as being anything but staunchly conservative in all of his views. "the wall street journal" calling out former senator john edwards on the use of this loophole in 2004 called it a quote clever tax dodge. so, again, we have a clever tax dodge pitted against helping students go to college. helping students go to college should win. in fact, the wall street editorial points out how this in practice this loophole is used. in their words, while making his fortune as a trial lawyer, referring to senator edwards, in 1995, he formed what is known as a subchapter s corporation with himself as the sole shareholder.

instead of taking his $26.9 million in earnings directly in the following four years, he paid himself a salary of $360,000 a year and took the rest as corporate dividends. an obviously much lower tax rate but also avoiding payroll taxes. that's what we're trying to close here. i think it should be closed on its merits anyway. but i think the added benefit is we're able by closing this loophole to prevent the doubling of the interest rate of student loans. so this is a loophole that should be closed. and again, this money will require people to pay directly to the social security trust fund and the medicare trust fund these funds which otherwise were avoided through subchapter s so it doesn't weaken social security, but it allows us through the scoring mechanism to prevent doubling of loans. it's a win-win proposition. now, what they have proposed is going after the preventative

care funds that president obama has passed in health reform. it seems to me sort of an unfortunate pitting of one program that benefits middle-class families versus another program that potentially benefits us all, but particularly middle-class families, and frankly i think there is another concept here which we all agree about in theory, is that if we don't enhance prevention activities, the costs of health care will keep going up and up and up. what is unsustainable now will become more unsustainable. it's not an appropriate way to deal with this issue. so at a minimum, i hope, we can at least get to a serious debate about this. if that's the proposal that the republicans have, let's get it on the table. let's take a vote. let's take a vote whether you want to close loopholes for very specialized, very wealthy lobbyists and lawyers and professionals, or do you want to impact the potential savings on

health care through prevention that the president has proposed? i think and hope we can come to a bipartisan agreement. the clock is ticking. the time to act is now. we need to do the right thing and fix this problem. with that, madam president, i would yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from tennessee. mr. alexander: i have enjoyed listening to the senator from rhode island and his passion for education is always on his sleeve and always front and center. i admire him for that. a couple of things i'd like to make clear, though. if you're a student and you already have a student loan, what we're talking about has nothing to do with you. in other words, your rate is not going up. what we're talking about only affects new loans. so before you think about not going to college next year because of all this talk about student loan rates going up,

that's not a problem. we're only talking about new loans. second, for 60% of the students who get new loans, we're not talking about you either. so you don't have to worry about student loan rates going up. and third, for those of you whom we are talking about, the 40% who have these subsidized student loans, what we're talking about saving you is $7 a month in interest payments over the next ten years. $7 a month can add up, which is why governor romney as well as president obama, republicans as well as democrats, want to keep the rate at the rate it is now, 3.4% for another year, but it's $7 a month. it's important to know that. it's also important to know that there is an easy way to get this done. the house of representatives has already passed a bill that would keep the 3.4% at the current level for new loans for these 40% of the loans for one more year. so all the majority leader has

to do is bring up the house-passed bill and enact it. in other words, we agree. we only have a difference of opinion about how to pay for it. i have an alternative supported by most republicans which is the same as the house bill, which simply says we want to keep the rate where it is, 3.4%, and we want to do the logical thing to pay for it. we want to give back to students the money that the government is taking from them to help pay for the health care bill. you may think what in the world does the health care bill have to do with student loans? that's what we thought, that's what we thought when the health care law came up. so what our friends on the other side did during the health care law was take over the whole student loan program and turn the united states secretary of education into the united states banking commissioner, almost. he has the job of making $100 billion of new student loans every year. the idea was the government can make it better than the banks. our friends on the other side

said to the students the banks are overcharging you, we're going to take it over and we'll be doing you a favor. well, what did our friends do? they did take it over. they didn't do the students a favor. according to the congressional budget office, there was $61 billion of savings, money that the students shouldn't have been paying, i suppose. when we took it over. and what did the democrats do? they spent it, all except for $10 billion, and they spent $8.7 billion helping to pay for the health care law. so the way the congressional budget office looks at it, $61 billion in savings resulted from -- and these are my words -- borrowing money at 2.8% and loaning it to students at 6.8%. we want to take that profit, that overcharging the students, give it back to students. that's the way to pay for the 3.4% that we're talking about. so we're in agreement.

republicans as well as democrats, governor romney as well as president obama, say keep the 3.4% at 3.4% for another year. students should know it doesn't affect anybody who has a loan today and it will save you $7 a month, and we want to do that, but the way we want to do it is to give back to you money that the other side took from you to help pay for the health care bill. that's the right way to do it instead of the typical reaction we often hear from the other side is we have something we want to do so we'll simply raise taxes on people creating jobs in the middle of a recession. thank you, madam president. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: mr. president, i have the utmost respect for the senator from tennessee. no one is as knowledgeable in education programs as he, the former secretary of education, and someone who has a deep, deep commitment to education, with respect not only to his remarks

on charter schools but his remarks to education always. but he refers to what the house has done. the house in the ryan budget maintains this increase, this doubling of interest rates. they foresaw, anticipated and supported the increase to 6.8%. only recently have they apparently had a change of heart and decided that that is not appropriate. the other aspect i think that's interesting to note about the house is that they have proposed significant reductions in tax rates and they have said they will pay for it by closing loopholes. this is one of the most egregious loopholes that you can find and yet of course they won't use this to pay for something which makes a great deal of sense, which they now agree there should be no doubling of the student interest rate. the senator is absolutely right. this doubling will not apply to

loans that are outstanding. it will apply to loans going forward. but if we establish the principal which was embedded in the house ryan budget which i think was supported by most if not all of my colleagues on the other side, that this rate is gift going to be doubling to 6.8% going forward, that will be a significant impact on students that have years to go in college, on people who are contemplating going to college, and so the $6 or $7 it may be per month becomes significant overall. again, i would -- we can get into a discussion about where does this money come from ultimately in terms of was it prart of -- part of funds for health care, et cetera, but we are facing the choice today of closing an egregious loophole that benefits the wealthiest americans, that benefits people. it is being criticized by "the

wall street journal," criticized by robert novak, the late columnist, and helping students or practically going in and targeting prevention programs that again i think conceptually we would agree, if we don't get a handle on prevention, diabetes, of cancer, of diseases that are costing us billions and billions of dollars, then our tasks of dealing with health care will be immensely more difficult. and so it's very clear, but what is also very clear is i think procedurally the answer is quite quite straightforward. let's get on to the bill. let's put these two different proposals on the floor and take a vote. i would hope that the proposal to close the sploal would pass, but if it -- it did not, at least we would be in the position of preventing the

doubling of interest rates on student loans. so with great respect to the senator from tennessee, i hope we could move forward, have a vote on the different proposals to pay for it and then move forward and let people know that their rates will not be doubled. mr. wyden: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: madam president, i strongly support this legislation, s. 2343, the stop student loan interest rate hike act. i appreciate the leadership, particularly of senator reed of rhode island who has been so eloquent on this subject, and i also would note that senator alexander and i have worked together on a host of issues, and i think he brings great expertise to this discussion as well. the bottom line for me, madam president, is that millions of young people are hurting right now in america.