my mother, god bless her had a theory that one of the things that might cause polio was playing in the street after a rain storm in the flooded waters. she would just ban me from doing that. that can use cause polio she said. that was my mother's theory. it was as valid as any other theory in those days. no one knew what was going on, what was causing it. many americans lived in fear of that infectious viral disease that attacks the nerve cells and the central nervous systems causing paralysis and sometimes death. in 1952, nearly 60,000 children in the united states were reported to have polio with more than 20,000 cases of paralysis. there was a panic about this epidemic. families were afraid for their kids, and the scientists struggled to understand the disease. dr. jonas salk, a fine ear in

the field of vaccine research, was recruited in 1947 by the university of pittsburgh to be the director of virus research and to work on finding a polio vaccine. his work caught the attention of basil o'connor, the president of the national foundation for infantile paralysis now known as the march of dimes foundation. the organization decided to fund dr. jonas salk's work to fund a vaccine against polio. for five years dr. salk worked tirelessly on this effort while the country donated their dimes to the foundation to support his work. and then on april 12, 195 dr. thomas frances jr. an epidemiologist at the university of michigan and a mentor to salk announced that salk had discovered a polio vaccine that was safe and effective. when the announcement was made, it was as if time stood still. i still remember it as a kid. americans turned on their radios

and tv's to hear the details. department stores set up loudspeakers and judges suspended trials so everyone in the courtroom could hear this good news. april 12 was deliberately chosen for the announcement because it marked the tenth anniversary of the death of the most famous polio survivor of all former president franklin delano roosevelt. roosevelt also founded what would become the march of dimes foundation in 1938 without which salk might not have been able to complete his work. a massive field trial the first of its kind, was conducted on over 1.8 million children to prove the vaccine was 89% effective. church bells rang across the country. factories observed moments of silence. parents and teachers wept to finally be relieved of this fear. but it had only just begun. the u.s. government invested heavily in the mass production of the polio vaccine and led campaigns across the nation to see every kid was vaccinated. i hated the thought of getting a

shot, but the notion that i would be protected from polio for life was certainly worth it. as a result, polio was eradicated from the united states in 1979. sunday, we marked the 60th anniversary of the announcement of the discovery of the first safe and effective polio vaccine. in commemoration of that announcement i introduced a resolution last month celebrating the discovery of a polio vaccine and supporting the efforts to eradicate that disease around the world. the resolution also encourages federal funding for the global polio eradication initiative for biomedical and basic scientific research so more life-saving discoveries could be made. thanks to the work of scientists funded by the c.d.c. and nonprofit organizations like the bill and me linda gates foundation polio has been eradicated in all but a handful of the world's poorest nations. the success of the polio vaccine shows us what medical research can accomplish. if we can do this with polio

then we can do it again. i want to thank senators kirk, leahy, shaheen murray, boxer coons, markey, isakson ayotte and reed from rhode island for cosponsoring my resolution. i want to thank the march of dimes, the american academy of pediatrics the rotary club end results for supporting the resolution. but today's america's place as world leader in cutting-edge biomedical research is at risk. we no longer invest as we should in basic scientific research. from 2003-2012 the united states' investment in n.i.h. research didn't even keep up with inflation and the number of research grants awarded by the national institutes of health has declined every year for the past ten years. mr. president, this is shameful. it is shameful in a great nation like the united states where we've seen achievements like a

polio vaccine for us to walk away from medical research. a decade ago 30% of qualified n.i.h. grant proposals were funded. today it's half that. 15%. the lowest rate in americans' modern history. dr. francis collins who directs the national institutes of health told me that inadequate funding of basic medical research will cause some of america's best young researchers to take their talents to other places and even other countries. it's already started. we're on the verge of losing a generation of medical researchers in america. in 1982, listen, 18% of n.i.h. primary investigators, medical researchers, were under the age of 36. 1982 18% under the age of 36. today 3% under the age of 36. young researchers have given up. if congress and the president don't want to put money in the

n.i.h. they're going to go someplace else. how many jonas salks are we losing because of our cuts to basic medical research? how many life-saving discoveries are being delayed and ignored? with the right commitment, we can change this. i tried to gather on the floor during the debate on the budget resolution a dozen different senators who cosponsored amendments calling for more money on medical research. they were from both sides of the aisle. senator collins on the republican side of the aisle interested in alzheimer's. senator wicker from mississippi also interested in medical research. and i brought them all together and said why don't we cosponsor the same amendment? we're all trying to reach the same goal. and they agreed to, and it passed on a voice vote unanimously, as i hoped it would. here's what we need to do, and dr. collins spelled this out in clear terms. we need to increase the funding of biomedical research by 5%

over inflation every year. 5% over inflation for ten years dr. collins tells me, will dramatically change medical research in america. can we afford it? can we afford a 5% real growth in biomedical research? think about it for a second. do you know what that's going to cost us over ten years 5% real growth in biomedical research? it's going to cost us $150 billion. that's a lot of money isn't it? do you realize that once every 68 seconds in america someone is diagnosed with alzheimer's? i didn't believe that when my staff told me. i checked it. it's true. once every 68 seconds an american is diagnosed with alzheimer's. and we know what that means. for most of those patients, a steady decline to death. and for their families, the heartbreak of losing communication with someone they love and then caring for them in this -- this state of

alzheimer's disease. once every 68 seconds. and do you know what it costs us as a government to care for alzheimer's victims last year? medicare medicaid. we estimate $200 billion. now, step back. 5% growth in biomedical research over ten years will cost us $150 billion. what if, what if that research could find a way to delay the onset of alzheimer's for months, maybe for years. and god willing find a cure. what i'm telling you is whether it's alzheimer's cancer, heart disease, diabetes, each and every one of these is praying for and depending on medical research to give americans who are stricken a fighting chance. it's up to us. we have to make that decision. i would take this question to

the iowa caucus, to the new hampshire primary any state any city in the nation and ask the crowd that you had assembled, anyone assembles what do you think is a high priority? do you think biomedical research by our government is a high priority? i know the answer, because every one of us lives in fear that someone we love will be diagnosed with a serious illness. and you know the first question you'll ask that doctor. doctor, is there a medicine? is there a surgery? is there something i can do, something that can be done? and you pray, pray to god that the doctor said yes, we have a new medication in clinical trials at the n.i.h. it's very promising and this may be the answer for your son your daughter, your wife, your mother your father. that's what this comes down to. real life, real family challenges. the american cures act i introduced a couple of years ago

sets this 5% funding goal, and i have talked to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and asked them to join me on this. this shouldn't be a democratic idea not a republican idea. this is as basic as it gets. the next great scientific and medical breakthroughs will be discovered by researchers if we fund the research, but it isn't just a matter of biomedical research at the n.i.h. i had a visit with the secretary of energy secretary moniz and over breakfast we talked about the american cures act. he said senator let me put in a word here. you know who develops the technology for diagnostic evaluations, whether it's m.r.i.'s and pet scans and things of that nature? do you know who develops the technology for the application of radiation therapy for cancer victims? a lot of it's done right here at

the department of energy. and he awakened me to the fact that although we think about n.i.h. in biomedical research, and we should, there is more to the story. so i have really reached out and said american cures act 5% growth for biomedical research isn't enough. we need 5% growth when it comes to innovation, the next breakthrough when it comes to diagnosing breast cancer at an early stage treating cancers with radiation other things. the american innovations act would provide an annual budget increase of 5% for the national science foundation, the department of energy office of science, department of defense nasa. and you say to yourself can we afford it? i'll tell you what i know. i know that when we embark on scientific research of real value, it not only can cure disease, in the process it'll create a company. it'll create many companies. it could create many jobs in the

right fields and develop our economy in the right way. we're debating this now on the floor of the senate. they're not debating it in beijing. they've decided they're going to pass this. the chinese have embarked on a research program in medical research and other research, determined within the next 20 years to pass the united states. will we let that happen? the men and women of the senate will make that decision. the men and women of the house and the president. all told, the american innovations act would invest $100 billion over ten years. the american cures act $150 billion. $250 billion. how much money will we spend in our budget in that ten-year period of time? somewhere in the range of $18 trillion to $20 trillion. this is a tiny little decimal point, but what a difference it could make. some of my colleagues talk about burdening our children and grandchildren with debt.

i agree we shouldn't. but the way to reduce our deficit and grow our economy is not by killing research and innovation that pays for itself many times over. we've cut the budget deficit by two-thirds since the start of the recession which we just went through seven or eight years ago. now it's time to close the innovation deficit. in the last years of jonas salk's life, he was searching for an aids vaccine. he didn't need to do that. his place in history was assured. but jonas salk wasn't content to rest on past achievement. after all, he was an american, and when his early efforts failed, he was undeterred. jonas salk said you can only fail if you stop too soon. this is a decisive moment of historic opportunity for america and for congress. we must continue to invest in basic science and research in order to reap the rewards of decades of work by the best

scientific and medical minds in the world. the only way we can fail is by stopping too soon. mr. president, i yield the floor. i'd suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from south dakota. mr. thiewb: thank mr. thune: i ask

unanimous consent the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: it has been said april is the cruelest month. i think that pretty much catches how americans feel as tax day approaches each year. this year, americans will spend 114 days working to pay their federal, state and local taxes. in other words, americans may have submitted their federal tax returns or getting ready to submit them tonight but they're still not done working off their taxes. in fact, americans won't start iraq a dollar for themselves until april 25, almost one-third of the way through the year. americans spend 6.1 billion hours every year trying to comply with the tax code. that's an average of 19 hours for every man woman and child in the united states or an average of 76 hours for a family of four. almost half of small businesses spend more than $5,000 each year on tax compliance. that's $5,000 on top of their

tax bill. mr. president, paying taxes is never going to be on the top of americans' list of favorite activities but it doesn't have to be the torturous process it's become. the tax code takes too much time to comply with, it takes too much money from hardworking americans. comprehensive tax reform is long overdue. unfortunately, instead of tax reform under the obama administration americans have just gotten more taxes. the president's health care law created to raise taxes to the tune of more than $1 trillion over the first decade. and several of those taxes have hit families meg lisa than $250,000 a year despite despite the president's campaign pledge not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000. let's take the obamacare medical device tax. thanks to this tax families are facing higher prices on lifesaving medical equipment like pacemakers and insulin

pumps. obamacare taxes are also depriving up prices for families on essential drugs like epi pens and asthma medications. other obamacare taxes are costing american families in other ways. the obamacare employer mandate tax is discouraging employers from expanding and hiring which means fewer jobs and opportunities for american workers. and then there's the individual mandate tax that last year began hitting american families without government approved insurance. for 2015 the tax penalty is 325 tours per person or 2% of household income, whichever is greater. in 2016, that tax penalty with ill rise to $695 per person or 2.5% of household income, whichever is greater. but that's not all that obamacare is bringing to tax season. this year, a full half of

americans receiving obamacare health insurance subsidies discover they have to pay back some or all of their subsidies because they didn't estimate their income correctly. ultimately just 4% of households receiving subsidies have the correct subsidy advanced to their insurance companies. unfortunately, the confusion and mistakes are part for the course for obamacare. the administration apparently finds the law so confusing it sent out incorrect obamacare forms to more than 800,000 people. and yet the administration wants us to believe that obamacare is somehow working. mr. president, we need to repeal this broken law and its trillion dollars worth of taxes. and we need to reform our bloated tax code. we need to cut rates for families so that americans can spend more of the year working for themselves and less of the year working for the federal

government. and we need to cut rates for businesses both large and small. the u.s. currently has the high est corporate tax rate in the developed world. that puts american businesses at a huge disadvantage compared to their foreign competitors and american workers suffer the consequences. lower wages and fewer opportunities. reforming both corporate and individual tax rates would go a long way toward making american businesses more competitive and opening new opportunities and higher-paying jobs for american workers. and, of course, any tax reform measure should include reforms to the i.r.s. from mishandled customer service to the agency's most serious offenses the first amendment violations involving the deliberate targeting of groups for execute any based on political beliefs this agency this agency, the i.r.s. is long overdue for reform.

the i.r.s. commissioner himself himself, john could have been aanyone -- could have been athen was quoted as saying we certainly can't afford to have taxpayer service be any worse than it is. although it's hard to imagine it being much worse than it is, end quote. that's why the i.r.s. commissioner himself. when even the i.r.s. commissioner admits the taxpayer services can't get much worse that's a signal that the agency is ripe for reform. mr. president, before i close i'd like to take a moment to talk about what i think is a bright spot for our economy. and that's bipartisan trade promotion authority. previous free and fair trade agreements have been a boon for the economy giving american farmers like many of those i represent in south dakota and manufacturers access to new markets for their goods. nearly one of these trade

agreements -- nearly every one of these trade agreements was negotiated and enacted using trade promotion authority. the idea behind trade promotion authority is very simple. congress sets negotiating priorities for the administration and requires the administration to consult with congress during that negotiating process. in return, congress promises a simple up-or-down vote on the legislation instead of a lengthy amendment process that could leave the final agreement looking like nothing like what was negotiated. that up-or-down vote, mr. president, is the key. that's what gives our trading partners the confidence to put their best offers on the table which allows for a successful conclusion of negotiations. trade promotion authority expired in 2007 and republicans have been trying to get it reauthorized ever since. currently the administration's negotiating two key trade agreements, the trans-pacific

partnership and the u.s.-e.u. trade agreement that are unlikely to be concluded unless trade promotion authority is renewed. these agreements will expand opportunities for american workers and open new markets for american goods. a bipartisan reauthorization of trade promotion authority will help bring these agreements to a speedy conclusion. and, mr. president that will be good news for american workers and american businesses. the challenges facing our nation are best solved when members of both parties come together to find solutions for the american people. and i look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on trade promotion authority and other issues that will grow our economy, create better-paying jobs for american workers and increase the take-home pay of middle-income families in this country. mr. president, i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from missouri. mr. blunt: mr. president yesterday the senate foreign relations committee reported the iran nuclear agreement review act of 2015 to the surprise of many people, including me, it was unanimously reported, which makes me begin to wonder just how much iran nuclear agreement review there will be in this act. i was an original cosponsor of the corker-menendez bill that would give congress and the american people a voice in what's likely to be the most significant nuclear arms agreement in this decade. i think the likelihood, as we move toward the agreement as it appears to be structured, is you won't be able to contain the

desire of other people in the neighborhood and maybe other places in the world but certainly in the neighborhood to want to be just as capable of producing a nuclear weapon as we allow iran to be. supporting this bill does mean that i think the congress really gives the opportunity for these negotiation to advance -- negotiations to advance not congress putting the brakes on these negotiations. specifically, the bill would give congress the opportunity to review and weigh in on a deal that's already been made. it does appear to prohibit the administration from removing sanctions while congress reviews and while congress votes on a final deal if that's what congress decides to do, it doesn't require congress to vote, as i read it, but i look forward to having the people who unanimously voted for this in

the foreign relations committee explain how it really does involve the congress as the constitution would suggest the senate would be involved. this does permit removal of sanctions only if the congress passes a joint resolution approving the agreement i've been told. the new bill reported out of committee makes the following changes in the original bill. under the new bill the congressional review period isn't going to be 60 days, it would be 30 days. the new bill removes the provision requiring the administration to certify to congress that iran is not providing material support to terrorists plotting against the homeland or against united states entities. we were -- we continue to be told well, that's a different topic. i don't know why that's a different topic at automatic. a nuclear-capable iran that is

supporting terrorism is obviously more dangerous than a nuclear-capable iran that's not supporting terrorism. the weapon that you can see being built the weapon that would compare to weapons that we may have built and other powers this the past, perhaps not nearly as dangerous as the weapon being built that could be used by some terrorist, this bill does appear to give the congress the ability to intervene but only to intervene after the parties have made the deal. i'm not particularly offended by that. the administration if this was a real treaty, would obviously be negotiating that treaty and then would bring the treaty to the senate for approval, as the constitution requires, as has happened over and over again on treaties involving nuclear capacity nuclear ability nuclear buildup our nuclear

build-down that's not a thing for the senate to deal with but apparently nobody in the administration wants this to be this kind of treaty. now, there is apparently a way to weigh in before it's implemented but in a way that i think we're going to have to look at very carefully if and when that legislation comes to the floor. a nuclear-armed iran, an iran that is nuclear weapons capable, whether that's in six months or 12 months or monitored or unmonitored, a nuclear weapons capable iran is a major threat in my view, to the united states. it's a major view to our allies -- major threat to our allies in the region, and lift ing these sanctions only empowers iran to have more influence in the region. the sanctions did bring iran to

the negotiating table but they've been given a lot of breathing room since these negotiations started a couple of years ago. we wouldn't be negotiating, i don't think if the sanctions hadn't been working and with what's happened to oil prices, those sanctions would have even had a more dramatic effect on an economy of a country where we have every reason to believe that the population is inclined to be very friendly toward the united states. they're educated, they've capable, they have long-term ties with many of their family members in this country but of course, the population is not in control of the country the country is is controlled by a small group that has only one view of how the world can work and, frankly appears to have only one slew about what they think of the united states of america and if you listen to the comments that the leader, the supreme leader, the religious leader makes over and over again, that view is dependably

negative about our country and our people and our system of government and our ability to live side by side with each other. so we should be concerned about that. the agreement would allow them to continue to enrich uranium. it would allow them to retain centrifuges -- which we said, by the way we wouldn't do, that was a point we wouldn't negotiate away. it would allow them to continue to have thousands of centrifuges, something else we said we wouldn't allow them to do. it would allow them to continue developing new and better and more sophisticated ways to enrich uranium to weaponize, to have the ability to create a weapon and frankly it's not even clear mr. president what agreement has been agreed to. if you listen to our description of the agreement that's a very different description of the framework. there's no agreement. everybody agrees to that, but

there's supposedly a framework. this framework would be -- would build two very different houses. if you listen to their description of the agreement and you listen to our description of the agreement you're looking at very different things. this week, for example the supreme leader saw this very differently than the president. the so-called deal with respect to when the sanctions would be removed, what would be -- what would be happening. president obama and secretary kerry have put a tremendous amount of effort into reaching an agreement. in fact, such amount of effort that it's been clear from the very start of the negotiations who wanted an agreement the most. what hasn't been clear and what is clear to me is why we're so eager to just check the box and move on ear and assume that sometime in the next few years iran will become a friendlier state and will not want to head in this bad direction. i know no one heads iran in a

nuclear weapons direction but it heads many other people in the neighborhood in the direction of wondering if they have this capacity why wouldn't we have this capacity? most americans don't believe that iran will stick to a deal, and frankly mr. president i had great questions about that myself. whether the president likes it or not, this is an international agreement with wide-ranging consequences. the congress and the american people have a role to play here. the foreign relations committee has made a proposal about what that role should be, but it seems to me that proposal is still a long way from the constitutional protection that should be involved when we reach an agreement of this kind or when we negotiate a treaty. now, mr. president a number of us sent a letter that got a lot of attention a few weeks ago and i thought the reaction to that letter was pretty interesting. the immediate reaction from the secretary of state was well, this isn't a treaty, it's just

an agreement. the senate adopt have to approve -- doesn't have to approve an agreement. the president would be bound by it and it will be such a good agreement, according to the secretary of state, that the next president would want to be bound by it as well. this is a pretty significant moment to decide that we may or may not be bound by what's decided. the iranian foreign minister then was able to give us some sense of his understanding that -- i think the phrase that he said the next day is we know international law is what really matters here, not the law of any given country. i have been all over my state as many of us have in the last couple of weeks and i don't think there is any courthouse or any coffee shop or any gathering of people in missouri where they would say well, really, international law is what we care about. we don't care about what the constitution says when you're dealing with other countries and then the president's chief

of staff mr. president, 72 hours after that letter was sent said that really the president probably would want to take this to the u.n. but he probably wouldn't want to take it to the united states senate. we'll see how this debate goes on the proposal that the foreign relations committee the foreign affairs committee is making, but it clearly does not go in the direction of a treaty approved by two-thirds of the members of the united states senate. in my view, we're still a long way from the final agreement. there seems to be a lot of disagreement as to what the framework means but as we move toward that final agreement our number-one priority should be to do everything possible to prohibit iran whose influence in the world and the region is already disproportionate, to prohibit iran from having the capacity to ever have a nuclear weapon. i hope our negotiators continue to keep that in mind and i hope

there's not nearly as much disagreement about the final agreement as there is about what the framework itself says, and i would yield the floor mr. president. it looks like our colleague from vermont is here. mr. sanders: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you. mr. president, later today we are going to begin a discussion of the budget, and as you know the budget is a set of national priorities.

a budget has to do with our vision of where america is and where america should be. and we are now in the process of moving the budget to a conference committee between the house and the senate mr. president, when i think about a budget, i think about a document which is designed to address the problems facing our country, and in that regard i find the republican budget that will likely pass to be totally totally inadequate and a budget whose priorities are way way way out of place with where the american people are. when we talk about the needs of america, the most significant need and the most significant economic problem we face is that

for 40 years the american middle class has been in decline. today we have over 40 million americans living in poverty almost more than any time in the modern history of america. real unemployment is not 5.5%. real unemployment is 11%. and despite the modest gains of the affordable care act we still have 35 million americans who have no health insurance. and while millions of americans work today longer hours for lower wages than used to be the case despite a significant increase in productivity, what we are seeing as a nation is an obscene level of income and wealth inequality. and that reality speaks to the fact that since the wall street crash of 2008, about 99% of all

new income today is going to the top 1%. i know people find that amazing but it is true. which means that no matter what the g.d.p. may be, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% it doesn't really matter because all of the new income, virtually all of the new income goes to the top 1%. mr. president, in terms of distribution of wealth, what we are seeing in america today is worse and more unequal than any major country on earth is worse in america than any time since the late 1920's. today we have the top .1% owning more wealth than the bottom 90%. unbelievable. top .1% owning more wealth than

the bottom 90%. today we have one family owning more wealth than the bottom 42% of the american people. that is the walton family of walmart. a recent study came out a report came out by "forbes" magazine chn pointed out -- and this is almost beyond belief, that the wealthiest 14 people in this country bill gates, warren buffett, koch brothers and others saw their wealth between 2013-2015 a two-year period, their wealth increase by $157 billion. that's just an increase in their wealth. the presiding officer: the senator's time is expired. mr. sanders: mr. president i will be back on the floor dealing with the budget as the ranking member, but i'm happy to yield the floor at this point. the presiding officer: the majority whip. mr. cornyn: mr. president for

the last several weeks, we have been trying to get unstuck on an important piece of legislation that would combat modern-day slavery. at a time when -- when i think most people are unaware of this phenomenon of sex trafficking primarily of teenaged girls between the age of 12-14 i think the country has become much more aware about this scourge, this dark side to our culture and our society and much more interested in trying to figure out what we can do to address it. you know, at a time when we are really beginning to see some true bipartisan cooperation and progress here in the senate, and i say that because of things like the budget we passed last night was a very, very important

piece of legislation we passed to reform medicare particularly to improve access, for our seniors to medicare services performed by doctors and hospitals, by making sure that they had a predictable and sustainable reimbursement rate. what happened yesterday in the foreign relations committee where we had a unanimous vote on the iranian -- on congress' prerogative to represent our constituents in having a voice on the very important negotiations taking place between tehran and the united states and our allies on iran's aspirations for a nuclear weapon. and then when i think about other things that are happening that are encouraging here after a long period of stagnation and dysfunction over the last few years, i think we're on the cusp of a breakthrough on trade. why in the world wouldn't we want to open our markets open -- be open to markets when

we occupy -- when we basically 80% of the purchasing power in the world and 95% of the world's population lies outside of our shores? why wouldn't we want to open those markets to our farmers and ranchers and our manufacturers people who grow things and who make things. wouldn't that be great for our economy and job creation. so imagine my surprise when after these past few weeks we have been stuck on something that has enjoyed such broad bipartisan support as combating human trafficking. senator after senator has come to the floor and talked about this and why we ought to act to do something about it, and just to refresh everyone's memory of what we are trying to do is pass the justice for victims of trafficking act. what it would do is create a

victims compensation fund, in essence, from the fines and the penalties assessed against people who are engaging in child pornography and other sex-related crimes. in other words it would address the demand side and take the money from the fines and penalties assessed against the demand side and use that to help the victims to help them be rescued and to help them heal and get on with their lives. this legislation has enjoyed broad support outside of these chambers. more than 200 different organizations, law enforcement organizations, victims' rights organizations, people who have -- faith-based groups, people who want to lend a helping hand to provide beds and a secure place to stay while people heal, and unfortunately there is just not enough money. there is a huge need across

america for the resources that this legislation would provide. we estimate that based on historic data that there could be as much as $30 million generated from the fines and penalties associated with the justice of victims of trafficking act that would then be available to be granted by the department of justice and to help these victims. so imagine my surprise when after we had senator after senator on both sides of the aisle endorse this legislation i think at last count we had 30 cosponsors almost equal number on the democratic side as the republican side, and then this legislation sailed through the senate judiciary committee and got the unanimous vote of all democrats and all republicans. then it came to the floor and at

least initially we bypassed the traditional procedures to bring legislation to the floor because all 100 senators agreed that this was important enough and significant enough and urgent enough that we needed to act on it quickly. so imagine my surprise when all of a sudden it was brought to my attention that some people objected to a provision in the legislation known as the hyde amendment which had been the law of the land for 39 years. now just to refresh everybody's memory, in the very polarizing debate over abortion, this is the one consensus item that at least has been the law of the land for 39 years that republicans and democrats have voted for repeatedly. and what it says is that no taxpayer dollars can be used to fund abortion except in the case

of rape or in the case of the mother's health. those are basically the exceptions and you know what, i can't imagine that those exemptions wouldn't apply in the vast majority of cases involving human trafficking. because tragically, they do involve rape certainly sexual assault of a minor that is incapable by virtue of their tender age unable to legally consent and personal people who are coerced into this activity that don't want to be. but notwithstanding the fact that the hyde amendment itself would provide broad exceptions to provide health care services to the very victims we're talking about, some of our colleagues across the aisle said what this bill does is it expands the hyde amendment and the way it does it, they

claim, is that it now would apply to the fines and penalties that would be assessed to criminals, primarily child pornographers, consumers and purveyors, and other people guilty of various sexual crimes. they claim that that is somehow an expansion of the hyde provision. well this is getting more and more baffling because actually last night in an overwhelming vote i think it was 92 votes in favor of the so-called doc fix, the -- and also funding of community health centers an extension of the children's health insurance program, the very same hyde-type provision that was contained in the bill that we voted on last night is

contained in the amendment we're going to vote on tomorrow on the senate floor. so if this provision is good enough for doctors and hospitals, why in the world isn't it good enough for victims of human sex trafficking? well i think the answer is obvious, it is and it should be. and in an effort to try to get us unstuck, in order to try to catch a wave based on what we're doing generally here in the senate finally being productive and making things work i have tried to take something that virtually all democrats have voted for previously and to put that in the provision in order to eliminate -- put that in the bill in order to eliminate their cause for concern. i'm not going to question at this point whether it's a legitimate complaint. i frankly disagree, but let's

get on with getting the bill passed and getting something important done. and then i heard this morning again, a familiar argument, that was made by the democratic leader senator reid, and the good news is i have made a change in the legislation that would directly address what the democratic leader said is their main objection. here's their objection -- i don't agree with it, but here's what it is and here's what i've done to try to address it. their claim is the fines and penalties are private dollars not public dollars and so by then attaching the hyde language to those fines and penalties it's somehow an expansion of the hyde provision. well like i said, i disagree with that but what i would ask my colleagues to do is look on page 3 of the legislation

lines 3 through 7. what we've done to address their concern is to say no longer will the fines and penalties associated with this fund be directly appropriated and paid out in grants to the victims of human trafficking. instead, what page 3 of our amendment says that we'll vote on tomorrow, s. 178, this paragraph is entitled "transfers." it says in a manner consistent with section 3302-b of title 31 there shall be transferred to the fund from the general fund of the treasury an amendment equal to the amount of the assessments collected under this section which shall remain available until expended. what we've try tried to do in order to maintain the status quo on the hyde amendment is say that the money that will

actually be used to help the victims will now come from the general fund and it will be an amount equal to the fines and penalties that were going to be available under the original bill. but because of the objection because of the stated concern we're trying to find a way to get unstuck and to try to keep our focus on these victims and not on some phantom objection based on -- that, again i'm not going to reargue here today, i'm just going to say we need to get this done and this provision does. mr. president, may i ask what the order of business is. the presiding officer: the time reserved for 29 majority under morning business has expired. mr. cornyn: i ask unanimous consent for an additional five minutes to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without

objection. mr. cornyn: mr. president i'll wrap up. so as i told -- as i've told a number of our colleagues across the aisle who believe passionately in the importance of this topic, i think this amendment that we will vote on tomorrow addresses their stated concerns. it certainly addresses the stated concerns of the democratic leader this morning. and i would just say that of all the senators who agreed to cosponsor this legislation on the other side of the aisle who previously objected to voting on the bill and passing it, i would ask them please to take a close look at that provision. again, page 3 on lines 3-7 of my amendment and now would provide that instead of the fines and penalties being directly appropriated into these

programs for grant purposes, now that money would come from the general fund of the treasury in an equivalent amount of the fines and penalties. so money being fungible, there is no loss of funds but what we've done is we've tried to address their concerns. i think in a way that eliminates them. for all the senators who have cosponsored this legislation which i'm very grateful for senator klobuchar senator wyden, senator coons senator udall, senator casey senator feinstein, senator gillibrand, senator heitkamp, senator schumer, senator blumenthal, senator peters, senator durbin to all of our democratic friends who previously objected based on the original provision, i hope they will take a look at this change because it does address directly their stated concerns. so let's get this done, mr. president. we will vote on this tomorrow,

but i'd rather not wait for that time i'd rather try to get this done today if we can and we might be able to do that by agreement if everyone agrees that this provision this change addresses those stated concerns. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senate will receive a message from the house of representatives. the majority secretary: mr. president, a message from the house of representatives. the presiding officer: mr. mr. clerk. mr. hurricane i have been direct -- the house reading clerk: mr. president, i have been directed by the house of reaps to sentence test the senate that the setting forth the congressional budget for the united states government for fiscal year 2016 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2017 through 2025 and ask a conference with the senate on

the disagreeing votes of the two houses thereon. the presiding officer: the message will be received. mr. cornyn: mr. president i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the

senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i'd move to waive the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: i move to close morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. morning business is closed. mr. enzi: i ask the chair to lay before the senate the message from the house requesting a conference on s. con. res. 11, the budget resolution. the presiding officer: the chair lays before the senate a message from the house of representatives. the clerk: resolved that the house insist upon its amendment to the resolution, s. con. res. 11 entitled "concurrent resolution setting forth the congressional budget for the united states government for fiscal year 2016, and setting forth the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years" -- mr. enzi: move to set aside the rest of the reading. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: i move to disagree in the house amendment agree to the request by the house for a conference and authorize the presiding officer to appoint conferees. the presiding officer: the

motion is pending. mr. enzi: mr. chairman, i'll continue by making some comments about the budget and the process. last month the senate budget committee took an important first step in helping to change the way we do business here in washington by reporting out a balanced budget. this is crucial as we begin to restore the trust of the american people. this week we take the next step and start to work on a joint balanced budget resolution with our colleagues in the house that will expand america's economy and increase opportunities for hardworking families. a balanced budget approved by congress will help make the government live within its means and set spending limits for our nation. a balanced budget will also boost the nation's economic output by more than $500 billion over the next 10 years. that's according to the

nonpartisan congressional budget office. why the urgency? hardworking families are fed up with the president's spend now/pay later policies and are closing following our efforts to produce a balanced budget. senate democrats could only muster two budgets in eight years and we'll soon have one after only four months. it's time to show taxpayers that congress is committed to a balanced budget to make our government more effective and accountable but we're running out of time. recent media reports note that the lawmakers in 27 states have passed applications for a constitutional convention to approve a balanced budget amendment. and i have to add that their are new applications to do that same amendment in nine other states and they're close behind. now, seven of those nine states approved moving forward on the balanced budget issue.

it would bring the number of applications to 34 states. that would mean the two-thirds requirement under article 5 of the constitution would force congress to take action. and it's no wonder hardworking taxpayers across the country are feeling anxious. federal revenues have hit record highs yet we're on track to overspend by nearly a trillion dollars a year. i think we're in the $560 billion -- $560 billion level of overspending this year. now, how much does congress get to make decisions on? congress spends about $4 trillion a year but only gets to make decisions on $1.1 trillion. now, if we overspend by over $500 billion we're using half -- we're spending half more than what we take in. no family can exist very long

spending half more than they take in year after year after year. we looked at the president's budget and the president increases taxes by $2.1 trillion and still gets a wider and wider and wider gap of overspending as time goes by to that trillion-dollar mark out there in 10 years. just this week headlines around the country reported -- quote -- "budget deficit in the u.s. widens as spending exceeds record revenue." "record revenue." on monday, the treasury department reported that spending by the federal government exceeded its revenue by more than $439 billion from october through march. which is $26 billion more compared to the same period last year. in fact, c.b.o. is forecasting that for march our nation spent more than $44 billion up 19% from last year.

we're getting more money we're spending more money. american taxpayers understand that we overspend and the more we overspend the more debt we owe and the more debt our children and grandchildren will owe. in fact, we have done this so consistently that it's not just our grandchildren and our children that are faced with the crisis. it's us as well. everybody in america. i mentioned that we get to make decisions on $1.1 trillion a year. that's $1,100 billion. anybody knows how big a billion is, they know how big $1,100 billion is. but that's all we get to make decisions on. now, the amount of interest that we paid last year was $235 billion . interest doesn't buy you a thing but we spent $235 billion on interest. now, that's pretty close to 1%

for the fee for that borrowing. so if $235 billion is 1% interest, what would the normal 5% cost? every single dime we get to make a decision on. that means no defense no education no health -- everything by the wayside just to pay the interest debt. that's why we have to be concerned about the overspending that's happening. american taxpayers understand that the more we overspend the more debt we owe and the more debt our children and grandchildren owe. and if that tax rate goes up, how soon we'll be responsible for paying off that debt. at the expense of everything else america expects. this is why republicans in congress are focused on passing a balanced budget that will ensure washington will once again live within its means just like hardworking families do every day.

now, we don't get that balance for 10 years but it moves toward that goal every year. ten years is too long. for next year's budget, we're going to have to figure out some better things to do to get it back into a framework where our interest won't exceed our expenditures. that's the interest exceeding the expenditures not the revenue. and, again, we have record revenue. so that's why we're focused on passing a balanced budget just like hardworking families do every day. what does the senate-passed budget do? well here's what it does. it balances the budget in 10 years with no tax hikes. it protects our most vulnerable citizens. it strengthens the national defense. it improves job growth and opportunity for hardworking families. it slows the rate of spending growth. now, it doesn't recede the

spending growth, it slows the spending growth. that's the best we've ever been able to do in washington. when we talk about a cut in washington, what we're talking about is giving them less than what they asked for not less than what they had. it preserves social security by reducing spending in other areas to fully offset the social security's rising deficit and encourages our nation's leaders to begin a bipartisan/bicameral discussion on how to protect social security and avoid the across-the-board social security benefit cuts that will occur later under the law unless we take action. but that's something that has to be done jointly. there would be too much blame otherwise and as far as the the reason that we have to preserve social security by reducing spending in other areas to offset social security is, in the budget we're not allowed to do anything with social security this budget will also protect our seniors by safeguarding

medicare from insolvency and extending the life of the medicare trust fund by five years. it ensures medicare savings in the president's health care law and makes sure that those savings are dedicated to medicare. it comes from medicare, it ought to go back to medicare instead of saying that those go to more overspending on new programs that are outside of medicare. our balanced budget continues funding for children's health insurance program and creates a new program based on chip to serve low-income working-age able-bodied adults and children who are eligible for medicaid. it increases state flexibility in designing benefits and administering medicare programs to encourage efficiency and reduce wasteful spending and provide stable and predictable funding so long-term services and supports are sustainable both for the federal government and the states. so as the senate and house begin

budget negotiations next week it's worth noting that the strong economic growth a balanced budget can provide will serve as the foundation for helping all americans -- all americans -- grow and prosper. one of the goals the republican balanced budget is to make our government more efficient more effective and more accountable. if congress does its job we can have some flexibility and eliminate what isn't working starting with the worst first. then we can eliminate and streamline what's left. the reason i emphasize that "worst first" is one of the things we talk about here constantly is the need to prevent the sequester. and in some cases, it is absolutely essential to prevent the sequester. but the sequester needed to be done in the efficient way of eliminating the worst first. instead, there was a memo that went out and said, make it hurt.

that should never happen in america. that's how you saw some of the decisions that came down that seemed pretty ridiculous. one of the ones that affected wyoming is -- i hope everybody will come see the grand tetons. marvelous mountains. it looks like part of the alps were transplanted over there and made a little bit taller. and a lot of people like to stop and take pictures of that, regardless of the season, whether it's snow covered or the aspens are golden in the foreground or whether everything's lush and green. and, of course, you see wildlife all through that valley. and people like to stop and take pictures. well a bunch of signs were printed up that said you cannot use the turnouts. a bunch of barricades were bought so that you couldn't pull out on the turnouts and the signs said that it would be illegal to park along the highway. now, where did the money come from for the barricades? where did the money come from

for the signs that said you couldn't use the parking lots to take your pictures? well i called to find out whose brilliant idea that was and why parking lots would be closed and i would told that there wouldn't be any garbage pickup. i suggested that they just removed the garbage cans. people in wyoming and people across the nation when they visit a national park, i think they can haul their garbage another 20 miles before they needed to throw it out. and then the beautiful vista could still have been photographed instead of people still parking along the highway to take those pictures and then getting ticketed? that's just one small example of cutting the most important first instead of the worst first. and i'm sure there are examples in every state h. and it didn't just -- every state. and it didn't just happen with facilities like that.

the people with head start came to see me and said, we've got a 7.5% cut in the sequester. i said, it's supposed to be 2.3%. how did it get to 7.5%? well in checking, it ps athat the -- it appears that the washington bureaucracy decided to keep more than their fair share of the money instead of the kids that were in the program across america. that did get restored but the discouraging part was when i told the -- when i asked the people that had talked to me before how things were going they said, well, we got the extra money but in order to beat the employee requirements in wyoming for obamacare -- meet the employer requirements in wyoming for obamacare, we had to spend all that money so none of the kids happened to go back on to head start. very disappointing. that's not the way to run a government. that's not the way to run a business. it should never have happened. so we need a budget that can eliminate waste and streamline what's left and start with the worst first. of course, another of my suggestions is that we have a

biennial budget. $1,100 billion is too much money to look at in one year. 12 bills to allocate that money to the different agencies are too many bills for us to handle in one year particularly if they're going to get scrutiny. and so i've suggested that we write break -- break the number of bills down that we do into two packages, two packages of six. and we do the six tough ones right after an election because we have a little appetite for doing it then. and the six easy ones just before an election. then we'd be able to get all 12 done, be able to scrutinize all of them. and why is that important? well in -- in going through this budget process -- and like i say i only had about eight weeks to start putting a budget together -- one of the things i discovered was that we have a whole bunch of programs that respect out of authorization. the ability to spend for them has expired. expired. but that doesn't stop us from

spending on them. it should at least constrain us a little bit. some of those programs go back to 1983. expired in 1983 1987 and the on up to the present day. how many of them? 260 programs. 260 programs that we haven't looked at to see if we ought to continue to spend money on them or if we ought to revise how we've been, as, aswe've been spending the money. most have been in existence for at least six years before they expired. in that six years we should have been a i believe to find if there were any flaws any changes. hopefully there was somebody that was looking out for it and found some efficiencies that help with the spending. okay 260 programs. you know how much that amounts to that we're still spending that there's no authority to spend for?

z$293 billion a year. that's a year. usually when we talk about the budget we're talking about over ten years so that would only be $29 billion a year if it were over ten years. but it's not. its $293 billion a year of expired authorizations -- expired permission to spend money. we have to get that corrected too. but one of the ways we can do that is through a biennial budget so that we're looking at half of them in a year, instead of everything a government does every year. the dollars have gotten so big that we can't get through them efficiently, effectively and scrutinizing them as good accounting in a year. now, one exception on that would be that we would look at defense every year. defense is the most important constitutional rirlt given requirement

given to this body. so we would continue to do that each year. and incidentally, defense is the one authorization that is not out of authorization and that's because we do it every year. i don't know how many decades we have done the authorization the permission for spending for defense. now, i know the troubling thing that i discovered through this process was that there's some things that aren't authorized that were in defense that we're spending money on anyway. and i get comments from the people on the committee that looks over defense saying, how can they spend that money when we just did an authorization that said, no, that's not one of the authorized things? so there are some things that we need to work on definitely with budgets, and that's what we've done putting this budget together is try to eliminate some of the inconsistencies that we have. but we have not touched that $293 billion of unauthorized

stuff. so when people say, we need more money for the non-defense things i want them to take a look at that $293 billion and see if they can't find $29 billion, $90 billion whatever, out of $293 billion that they think might be more effectively spent in a different way. i know when i came to congress, there were 119 preschool children's programs. everybody has ideas for preschool programs, and they're good ideas and we know that if you teach kids better before they go to school, they do better in school, they have less dropout, and there's less crime and the whole world is better. but 119 programs. ans i got to say that senator kennedy and -- and i got to say that senator kennedy and i worked 0en that a understand we -- worked on that and we got it down 69 programs. in the meantime, i've been able to work that down to 35 programs and in the child-care

grant program last year i got an amendment passed -- it was one of 14 amendments that were even considered -- and what it did is require that those 35 go down to just five. and all five be put under one department. i'm hoping that that's what the administration is doing. that would save enough money to do the programs that are really preschool education really well, and that's we need to do. -- and that's what we need to do. a lot of money right there. so if congress does its job, we can have some flexibility and eliminate what isn't working starting with the worst first then we can eliminate waste and streamline what's left. but to do this, first congress must do something it hasn't done in the past eight years: it has to scrutinize every dollar where which they have a responsibility. if government programs are not delivering results, they should be improved. the and if they're not needed --

and if they're not needed, they should be eliminated. it is tomb to prioritize and -- it is time to prioritize and demand results from our government programs. when these programs are reauthorized -- i'm hoping there is a matrix in there saying, this is what we plan to do. this is how we know if you got it done. then we'll have an easy evaluation of whether they're getting their job done. it's an efficient way of doing it in the public sector ans private--and private sector. i had one young man come to me and say, you know, i hate to say this but the job i'm doing isn't worth having anybody do, because i am a but i'm reluctant to do it because if they eliminate the job, i'm probably fired. well i took his suggestion and i talked to the right people, and that got eliminated. and he got promoted. that's what's got to happen. we've got to take the people that are innovative in government, that are figuring

out ways to do things better and more efficient more effective and move them into the positions where they can really do the job job. so that's what i'm counting on. and in the coming weeks hard-paying taxpayers will get to see something they have not had the chance to experience in the last eight years: that's an open legislative process. we're starting that today with the appointment of the conferees for the conference committees and we'll have amendments this afternoon. members of congress from both the house and the senate will come together as part of the senate-house budget committee to create a balanced budget that'll boost our nation's economic output and help real estate store the promise of -- and help restore the promise of government that's more effective and put more people to work. a balanced budget will allow americans to spend more time working hard to grow their businesses or to advance their jobs instead of worrying about taxes and inefficient and

ineffective regulations. most importantly it means every american who wants to find a good-paying job and a fulfilling career has the opportunity to do just that. i look forward to joining my colleagues in both the senate and the house republicans and democrats, as we take this next step in delivering a government that's more accountable to each and every american. i yield the floor and reserve the balance of my time. i have a unanimous consent request. i have nine unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. and i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and that these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: thank you. i yield the floor and reserve the balance of my time. mr. sanders: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from vemplet vermont. mr. sanders: mr. president let me applaud senator enzi and his staff for their very hard

work, and let me say that certainly i agree with senator enzi that we need a government which is accountable that we need to get rid of waste in government and that we need to get rid of duplicative programs. i don't think there is any debate on that. i look forward to working with senator enzi and others to make that happen. but, mr. president the republican budget is far far more than that. and today i rise in strong opposition to the motion to go to kfns conference on the budget resolution. the budget resolution that the senate passed on march 27 moves this country in exactly the wrong direction. and the house budget resolution, in many respects, is even worse. mr. president, the federal budget is more than just a long list of numbers though god knows there are a long list of

numbers in the budget. the federal budget is about our national priorities and about our values. it is about how we assess the problems facing our country of which there are many -- ans i'm -- and i'm not sure that senator enzi would disagree with me if i laid it out -- and how we go forward in addressing the problems of which there is a fundamental divide. and that is what the senate is now dealing with. what are the problems facing our country ans how do and how do we go forward? let me beginning by saying that despite the modest gains of the affordable care act there remain in this country 35 million americans who have no health insurance. that means when they get sick, they may not be able to go to

the doctor or they may end up going to the emergency room, at very very high cost. i have talked to doctors all over this country who tell me that when people don't have health insurance sometimes -- because they going to delay going to the doctor's office -- by the time they go to the doctor's who was itdoctor's -- thedoctor's office, it is too late. the doctor says, why didn't you come nerallercome in earlier? i didn't have any health insurance. people become much circumthan they should be because -- much sicker than they should be because they don't have health insurance. 35 million americans have no health insurance. what is the republican solution to this problem? that's a brilliant idea -- they're going to end the affordable care act make $440 billion cuts in medicaid, which will result in 27 million

americans losing their health insurance on top of the 35 million we already have. i know the newspapers are in the particularly interested in it. you won't see it on network tv. that's the reality. they don't deny it. you got 16 million people in the affordable care act that would lose their health insurance because this bill ends it. $440 billion cut in medicaid, another 11 million gone. 16 million plus 11 million is 27 million americans. what's their idea? what happens to those people? how many of them die? how many of them snufer not them suffer? not an issue to them. they've been work on it for 16 years. that's in this budget. this budget denies over 2.3 million young adults the right to stay on their parents' health insurance plan until the age of 26. we used to have this absurd situation that my wife and i

have situation to cover our kids but when they're over 18, they're not on our plan. it's gone. but right now young people are on the plan until they're 26. it's gone under this republican budget. we finally overcame what is so vulgurgull vair,vulgar it's hard to believe it existed in cancer. people that have cancer, diabetes hard disease would walk in and say i need insurance. the insurance company would say we can't cover you because it is a preexisting condition and we don't want to pay out all of that money. -- if it recurs. think about it, how crazy that is. what do people want insurance for? they want insurance to cover their needs. if i had breast cancer or colon cancer five years ago sure, i want to make sure my insurance company covers that. it is a preexisting condition.

under the affordable care act we did away with that discrimination. that was come back. so all of you have serious health illnesses know that if what they put into this budget goes into effect, insurance companies can reject you. mr. president, not only has this republican budget ended the affordable care act and made 4 $440 billion in cuts to medicaid it would also reopen the doughnut hole. that means at a time when senior poverty is increasing, so many seniors in vermont -- i talk to them all of the time. i suspect it is the same in i would i would maybe not are saying i'm living on $13,000 $14,000 a year. i got to heat my home in the winter -- if you live in vermont, you do -- i got to buy

food i got to pay for medicine. i can't do it all. so what we did is we closed the so-called doughnut hole we means that seniors will not have to pay out of pocket for their prescription drugs. that reopens the hole. all over seniors will be paying more for their prescription drugs. mr. president, the republican budget not only undertakes a vast attack on health care in this country, which will decimate life for millions of people but then on another issue of great consequence education, it is equally bad. in my state of vermont a couple of months ago i held three town meetings at colleges and universities. -- in the state to talk to young people about the cost of college and about student debt. and in vermont -- and i suspect the other 49 states -- you have

families who are struggling to afford to send their kids to college, and then you have others who are leaving college terribly deep in debt. just yesterday i was flying here from burlington, vermont sat next to a woman, six kids went to college and graduate school. all of them are deeply in debt. so clearly what a sensible budget does is two things. it says, first how do we make college affordable so that young people will be able to get a higher education? and second of all when they graduate, how do we lower student debt, which is too so oppressive? the republican budget does exactly the opposite. what the republican budget does is cut $90 billion over ten years in pell grants. pell grants are the major federal program making it possible for low-income and

working-class families to get grants to go to college. this would increase the cost of college education for more than eight million americans. think about it. our job stho lower the cost -- our job is to lower the cost of college. this budget increases it. at a time when preschool working-class families in vermont, all over this country having a really hard time l finding good-quality, affordable preschool, child care, the republican budget makes significant cuts in head start which would mean that 110,000 fewer children would be able to enroll in that important program. under the republican budget, 1.9 million fewer students would receive the academic help they need to succeed in school by cutting about $12 billion in cuts for the title 1 education program. dropout rates in low-income

communities all over this country for high school kids is atrocious. the republican budget cuts significantly the funding that we put into public schools in low-income communities. mr. president, at a time when the middle class is disappearing and we have more people living in poverty today than almost any time in modern american history today there are millions of families who are struggling to put food on the table. i know maybe on capitol hill people don't know that, but that is a reality. people are making $9, $10 an hour they got a few kids; they are having a very difficult time affording food, basic nutrition. we have an estimated 40 million people what they call food insecure. that means people who on any given week, any given month

depending on what's happening have a hard time feeding their families. the republican budget would make massive cuts in nutrition programs in this country by, among other things, cutting $10 billion to the women infant and children program over the next decade. w.i.c. i honestly have a hard time hearing people talk about family values, how much they love families and children, and you have a program which has done a really good job in terms of prenatal care for pregnant women, making sure they get the health care, the nutrition they need make sure their babies get the care that they need. who really thinks that we should cut these programs? what kind of nation are we? or what kind of senate are we that people would vote to cut these programs? not to mention massive cuts in

the food stamp program. but, mr. president, in the midst of all of these devastating cuts in health care, education and nutrition that impacts working families the republican budget does something else which is quite incredible, and i suspect that people who are listening are saying bernie sanders is partisan, not telling the truth. it really can't be this bad. one of the problems we have is convincing people this is reality. this is reality. this is the republican budget. i know the media don't write about it much, but that is what it is. so in addition to making massive cuts in health care, education nutrition, other programs, what else do they do? mr. president, at a time when the wealthiest 400 americans -- 400 americans -- paid a tax rate of just 16.7 in 2012, at a time when hedge fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than

working families, than truck drivers and nurses, what the republican budget does based on an amendment they did is it abolishes the estate tax. the estate tax provides a $269 billion tax break for whom? for the middle class? good. low-income people? that's great. not so. this repeal of the estate tax applies to the wealthiest not 1% but the top .2%. republicans passed a tax proposal which impacts the top two-tenths of one percent means nothing for 99.8% of americans. cut education, cut health care, cut nutrition. give tax breaks to billionaires.

by repealing the estate tax the average tax breaks for multimillionaires and billionaires would be about $3 million. you go around vermont, you go around america people say what really we need, what our major priority is not to immediate the hungry not -- not to feed the hungry not make college affordable, not to create jobs, but it is to give a tax break to billionaires. that is in their budget. now not only do they give a huge tax break to the wealthy what else do they do? they raise taxes on low-income and working families, folks who do not make a whole lot of campaign contribution. what the republican budget does is increase taxes by not extending the benefits we put into the earned-income tax credit and the child tax credit.

it allows those additional benefits to expire, which means that low-income and moderate-income families will pay more in taxes. in fact, we estimate that that tax hike for low-income and middle-income families will be about $900 a piece for more than 13 million families. raise taxes on low- and moderate income families. lower taxes for billionaires. anybody believe that those are the priorities that should be in a budget for the american people? so mr. president i'll have more to say about this budget later, but not only does the republican budget not address the significant problems facing america, how we create the millions of jobs we need, how we raise the minimum wage to a living wage, how we address pay equity so women workers don't make 78 cents an hour compared to men how we rebuild our crumbling infrastructure; it doesn't address any of those

issues. but what it does is make a bad situation worse. and i would hope that my colleagues would have the courage to stand up to wall street, to stand up to the big-money interests and start defending the working families of this country and vote "no" on this resolution. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: who yields time? mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: as part of this discussion, i want to mention something very significant that happened last night. it happened after the press went to bed, i think but very important thing and that's a

thing called the doc fix passed, s.g.r. passed this body last night in a very bipartisan way. after a series of amendments and an open floor amendment. that's what's supposed to has been around here. one of the reasons that i mention that is that i've always said that if you can't see a doctor you don't have insurance at all. and with the way that we've been setting up medicare payments for doctors, we've been driving them out of the profession. we've been eliminating doctors. we've been having doctors tell their kids don't become a doctor because of what congress is doing and holding them hostage every six months. that got taken care of last night. i don't know; we've been doing that for i think about 18 years just a step at a time. and so it's nice that we are

finally able to make that permanent and have the doctors see somewhere to go. now i mentioned that that was medicare. this is the first budget that the republicans have gotten to participate in in many years. but the democrats got to work on the health care bill, and that was part of their budget. in fact, it was part of the recognize sil education in the budget -- reconciliation in the budget which is a special way of passing something without 60 votes. in that budget, they took $714 budget from medicare and they didn't put it into medicare. there were just some comments about how the budget that i worked on has a little over $400 million in medicare savings. that medicare savings is what the president suggested should be done in medicare savings and we put that medicare savings

back into medicare. that's the only way that you can save the fund. so we've taken into consideration a lot of these things. the cost of college i've been through numerous hearings in help education labor and pensions. i used to be the chairman of that committee. i've been the ranking member on that committee and i've expired my time as ranking member on the committee. but we did a lot of hearings on the cost of college. probably the biggest suggestion that i can have for people living in the east is send your kids west. i was checking to see why more people couldn't get into community college on the east coast. i'm not talking about the big colleges which also have a very big problem on number of students that they can take it's very selective in what they take. but i found out that most of the community colleges were filled out here.

and consequently some for-profit colleges were able to charge considerably more than the community college. and we looked into ways to eliminate that practice. of course the way that it got eliminated, if we did that to the public colleges as well, we would put them out of business. but, i would mention that it's less expensive for an out-of-state student to go to the university of wyoming or one of our community colleges than it is to get in-state tuition in most of the places in the united states. there was a mention of state tax. that's a recommendation that gets put into the deficit-neutral thing and i'm not sure where the raising the taxes on the poor comes from except for the comment that the extensions that we do annually on that weren't in there. there's a good reason why those aren't in there. we have provided a

reconciliation instruction that would allow for tax reform. although the chairman of the committee said we're going to do that in a bipartisan way we're going to have tax reform that will take care of fairness and simplicity and accountability in our tax system. this is a particularly important time to talk about that. today is tax day and i hope that everybody in america has or will file their taxes today. i know that there's been some difficulty getting through on the lines to be able to talk to the i.r.s. about tax problems. and i want to chastise the i.r.s. a little bit for that. they're trying to show that they need more money instead of allocating personnel to where they really need it. if they answer more questions right now they don't have as many things that they need to do later. and they will collect more money than if they don't answer those questions. the proper committee needs to take a look at whether they have adequate revenue to do their job. but again, there are

inefficiencies there. they talk about needing more money because when they audit they're able to get $4 to $6 for every $1 they spend. they should be embarrassed. public auditors, when they go into a company expect to get $15 to $20 per dollar that they audit. they have got to come up with a better selection procedure for who needs to be audited and go after the big bucks. so there are a number of things that the i.r.s. ought to do. when i first came to washington, i tried to talk to different agencies about inefficiencies that they had. i was a freshman so i had a lot of time to do some of the things. and one of the agencies i wanted to look at as an accountant was the i.r.s. as a result of some of my meetings with the i.r.s., we had some hearings here about being taxpayer-friendly. people might recall that the people that served as witnesses in that had to be voice

modulated and behind screens. that should not happen in america. we should have a tax system that people can comply with without the gestapo kind of tactics that are sometimes used. so we need to do something to make our tax system more efficient, more accountable and fairer. and i am convinced that senators hatch and senator wyden the chairman and the ranking member of the committee are going to do some things on taxes. and i think the american people will like it. they're past due. if they can end those complications, they can get more accountability which will make the i.r.s.'s job a lot easier and also make it better for the hardworking taxpayers of america. so there are a lot of things the budget can do and i'm hoping

that we will do them. i would yield the floor and reserve the balance of my time. mr. sanders: mr. president let me just -- the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: i'm sorry. thank you. let me just pick up on a couple of the points my friend from wyoming, senator enzi, made. republicans often say and senator enzi said it now that democrats cut $714 billion from medicare. to the best of my knowledge not one penny involved in those cuts cut any benefits to the american people. what the affordable care act attempted to do -- and maybe we made some progress, as senator enzi pointed out last night with the so-called doctors' fix -- is to make medicare more efficient. what's wrong with that? what's wrong with saving money?

what the american people want us to do is make programs more efficient. in fact, senator enzi was talking about that a moment ago and he's right. but the idea the implication that those cuts resulted in benefit cuts is not accurate. furthermore, what some of that money those savings went to is filling, plugging the doughnut hole so that seniors would not have to pay money out of their own pockets for prescription drugs. so if you could save money in the a bureaucracy -- and god knows the united states health care system is the most wasteful and bureaucratic of any in the world -- if we can make the system more efficient save money, put that money into helping seniors afford prescription drugs what is the problem with that? i don't think so. senator enzi talked about the i.r.s. and people having difficulty making connections

which is clearly not right. he's right. and he also mentioned quite correctly, that for every dollar we invest in various parts of the i.r.s. who do audits, we can make -- what was the number, $4 to $6 i think? that's a pretty good investment. most business people would say if i could get $4 or $6 in return for every dollar that i invest, let's do it. i look forward to working with senator enzi and other republicans to, in fact, do just that. we can argue about the tax code code -- and we will -- but i think we don't argue that when people owe it, they should pay it right? we should change it if we don't like it. so if you could invest a dollar into the i.r.s. and get $6 to $4 back, i think that is a pretty good investment. and senator enzi was right in saying that last night we passed a pretty good piece of legislation. not perfect by any means -- and i had have some serious concerns

about it -- i voted for it. one of the reasons that i voted for it is that it extended for another two years a program that i worked very, very hard on and that is the federally qualified community health center program which is playing a huge role in providing health care and dental care and low-cost prescription drugs and mental health counseling to many, many, many millions of americans in all of our 50 states. and we got a significant increase. i fought very hard for a significant increase in that program as part of the affordable care act that was going to expire, and as a result of yesterday's legislation, in addition to the doctor fix we've extended -- and i see senator blunt here, who's been active in that as well -- we were able to extend for another two years funding for the community health center program. and something that i think was important. but senator enzi is right, i think that's a step forward.

but that should not be confused with the budget. the republican budget is an unmitigated disaster. tax breaks for billionaires cuts in programs that americans desperately need raising taxes for low-income working families. and with that, mr. president, i would yield the floor. note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i'd ask that further proceedings under the quorum call be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator has one minute remaining. mr. enzi: the senator would yield back all time. the presiding officer: all time has been yielded back. the question occurs on the motion to disagree in the house amendment agree