vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to change their vote? or to vote? if not the yeas are 84, the

nays 13. the motion is agreed to. there are now two minutes equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the motion offered by the senator from hawaii relative to same-sex marriage benefits. mr. enzi: on this motion, i think we're willing to yield back all time and accept it on a voice vote. the presiding officer: without objection, all time is yielded back. mr. enzi: all time is yielded back. the presiding officer: question is on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed? the ayes have it. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to.

the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you mr. president. i rise to offer a very simple motion to instruct the budget conferees to encourage the conferees to address the economic and national security threats posed by climate change. during our consideration of the budget i offered an amendment that outlined these threats and highlighted the need to act. that amendment passed the senate by a 53-47 vote margin with support from both democrats and republicans. the same language should be included in the final budget conference. during the markup, the budget committee adopted a complementary amendment which discussed the importance of climate change initiatives at the department of defense much the language should be included in the final budget resolution. let's make it clear that the congress plans to respond to the serious economic and security threats posed by climate change. i urge a "yes" vote on this motion to instruct.

i yield the floor and i'd ask for a voice vote. mr. enzi: we would be willing to accept it on a voice vote. the presiding officer: if there is no further debate, all in favor say aye. all opposed? the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. there are now two minutes equally twieded prior divided prior to a amendment by the senator from nebraska relative to equal pay. mrs. fischer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you mr. president. this motion takes an important step forward by providing necessary updates to current law regarding nonretaliation. the chang supported on a bipartisan basis during our recent budget debate. this motion reinforces current law banning gender discrimination under both the equal pay act and title 7 of the 1964 civil rights act. contrary to the claims of some,

both these laws enable women to sue for discrimination. furthermore, my motion contains language similar to president obama's april 2014 executive order stating that employees cannot be punished for exercising their first-amendment rights by speaking with employers or cooh, coworkers about their wages. i cannot support the senator from maryland's motion. it removes merit pay which i believe provides women with opportunities to advance in their careers and merit pay recognizes a woman's hard work and her contributions. it also eliminates any liability cap under the senator from maryland's motion, which i believe benefits only attorneys and not families. for the first time we're able to do this. thank you mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. who yields time? -- who yields time in

opposition? mrs. fischer: i ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? is there a sufficient second? therethere does not appear to be. there appears to be. the yeas and nays are ordered.

all time has expired. the yeas and nays have been ored on the motion. -- on the motion. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not the ayes are 57. the nays are 40. the motion to instruct is agreed to. there are now two minutes equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the motion offered by the senator from maryland relative to equal pay.

the senator from maryland. ms. mikulski: mr. president, i have an alternative and far more comprehensive approach than the gentlelady from nebraska just offered. though i respect her and her advocacy for women the mikulski amendment in the well would really take this, finish the job we started with lilly ledbetter. yes, it would deal with the harassment on the job issue if you deal -- if you ask for information, which the fischer amendment only dealt with. my amendment would go farther several steps farther. number two, it would provide punitive damages for women who have been wrongly denied equal pay for several years. and number two, it also eliminates these false reasons that people give for not paying

equal pay for equal work. the mikulski amendment is more comprehensive, more robust and will really finish the job close the loopholes that big corporations have had for years. so i really -- if you like fischer, you're going to be crazy about the mikulski amendment. go all the way not just part of the way. i yield back my time. the presiding officer: who yields time in opposition? mr. enzi: we yield back our time and take a voice vote. yeas and nays are requested. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second?

there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: s vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there there any senators wishing to vote or change their vote? if not the yeas are 44, the nays are 53.

the motion to instruct is agreed to -- is not agreed to. there are now two minutes equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the motion offered by the senator from nebraska relative to paid sick leave. the senate will come to order. the senator from nebraska. mrs. fischer: thank you mr. president. workplace flexibility is a necessity and senator king and i have come up with a proposal that addresses this in a way that is voluntary and incentivizes businesses to truly help families, help those hourly workers to meet the needs that they are facing in this workplace environment and their family environments. i would ask that i yield the rest of my time to senator king.

the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: i rise in support of this amendment in support of the united states finally joining the civilized nations of the world are in providing for family leave for our citizens. i know that this amendment doesn't go as some would like but i believe that it is a very credible enforceable piece of legislation that can move forward and really change the lives of thousands and millions of people across this country. i commend the senator from nebraska for bringing this amendment forward and i intend to support it and urge my colleagues to do likewise. mr. enzi: if all time is yielded back we would be willing to take a voice vote. the presiding officer: is there objection? all time is -- with no objection, all time is yielded back. hearing no further debate, all in favor say aye. all opposed. the ayes appear to have it.

the ayes do have it. the motion is agreed to. a senator: mr. president? mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: under the previous order there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the motion offered by the senator from washington relative to paid sick leave. the senator from washington. ms. murray -- mrs. murray: we've got to build an economy that works for owl our families not just the wealthiest few. when americans are sick they have to choose between losing money ought of their paycheck or tusk it out and showing up to work. i was delighted during our budget debate a bipartisan majority, 61 senators strong, agreed that congress should allow workers to earn paid sick days. the amendment that was just passed was voluntary would only benefit a select number of people who work for employers who already do the right thing. this amendment will make sure that we boost worker

productivity reduce turnover which are benefits to both employers and employees. and i urge my colleagues to vote for this in a strong vote. thank you mr. president. i yield our time back. the presiding officer: who yields time in opposition? mr. enzi: we'd be willing to accept this on a voice vote. and we yield back time. the presiding officer: all time having been yielded back the question occurs on the motion. all in favor say aye. all opposed? the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the motion is adopted. under the previous order there will now be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to a vote in relation to the motion offered by the senator from washington relating to sequestration elimination. mrs. murray: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from washington. mrs. murray: democrats and

republicans agree that the automatic spending cuts across defense and non-defense investments are terrible policy and need to be fixed. the bipartisan budget act we passed last congress did exactly that for the past two years and offered us a template for how we can tackle this challenge in a bipartisan way once again. we do not need to rely on gimmicks in this budget or the hopes that we'll somehow get solved later. we should fix this now in this conference. i urge my colleagues to support this vote instructing the conferees to roll back sequestration, allow the appropriations committee to do their work and not kick this can down the road for all of us to address later. i urge its adoption. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: mr. president there's a difference between how it got balanced last year -- how it got voted through last year, which was actually an appropriation rather than a budget. this does raise tax in order to

overcome the sequestration so i'm urging a "no" vote and we've agreed to have a voice vote on this one. we'd yield back our time. the presiding officer: all time having been yielded back the question occurs on the motion. all in favor say yea. all opposed? the noes appear to have it. the noes do have it. the motion is not agreed to. mrs. murray: mr. president under the previous order there will be -- the presiding officer: there will now are two minutes of debate on the motion offered by the senator from michigan related to medicare. ms. stabenow: mr. president my motion would instruct conferees to remove from the final budget resolution any medicare cuts that would increase out-of-pocket costs for senior citizens eliminating guaranteed

benefits or making structural changes to medicare by turning it into a voucher-based system or premium support system. i think one of our greatest concerns in this budget, among many is the fact that when you add it all up, there are $566 billion in medicare cuts in this senate resolution. shockingly it's more than even the house cut. and so i would urge that we stand with people who have paid in to a health care system that works. they've earned these benefits. they are counting on these benefits and seniors and people with disabilities across the country need to know that medicare is an intact guaranteed health care system for them. i would urge support for my motion. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i'm going to urge my colleagues to reject this motion to instruct. i credit senator stabenow's instincts to approach the

question of medicare seriously and i'm sure that she knows we all take medicare's future seriously. there are some problems in medicare that need to be solved. the budget shows medicare's rate of growth for an average annual rate of 6.4% to 5.5% over the next 10 years. why does the budget resolution adopt these numbers? because republicans and the president agree that we must act on policies which extend the life of the medicare trust fund. the budget does this by adopting the president's goal of extending the life of medicare's hospital insurance trust fund by at least five years. according to the medicare trustees themselves, the hospital insurance fund could be solvent as early as 2021, just six years from now. so independent actuaries of the centers for medicare and medicaid report that over the next 75 years, the federal government has promise the more than $35 -- promised more than $35 trillion in medicare benefits.

so republicans joined with the president in looking to extend the life of the hospital insurance trust fund and make the medicare program sustainable. so i ask that you reject this motion to instruct. ms. stabenow: mr. president if i might just take one more moment. i don't think i used all my time. i just want to say for the record the president of the united states is not supporting $566 billion in cuts to medicare. the presiding officer: the question occurs on the motion. ms. stabenow: ask for the yeas and nays. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote:

vote:

the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not the yeas have 45. the nays are 52.

the motion is not approved. the chair appoints the following conferees on the disagreeing votes of the two houses. the clerk: senators enzi, grassley sessions, crapo graham portman toomey, johnson, ayotte, wicker, corker, perdue sanders murray, wyden stabenow whitehouse, warner, merkley baldwin mccain. mr. enzi: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i ask unanimous consent that the senate be in a period of morning business with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed

to executive session at 2:00 p.m. on thursday, april 16, to consider the following nominations. calendar number 1 and calendar number 51. that the senate vote without intervening action or debate on the nominations the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table that no further motions be in order that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the record, the president be immediately notified of the senate's actions and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 10:00 a.m. thursday, april 16, following the prayer and pledge the morning hour deemed expired the journal of proceedings be approved to date and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day. following leader remarks the senate then resume consideration of s. 178, with the time until 11:00 a.m. divided in the usual

form. finally, that filing deadline for all second-degree amendments to the cornyn amendment be at 10:30 a.m. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m.

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 there remain in this country 35 million americans who have no health insurance. when they get sick they may not be able to go to the dr. and end up going to the emergency room. a very high a very high cost. i have talked to doctors all over this country the tell me that when people don't have health insurance sometimes because the delay going to the dr. by the time they go in it is too late. why didn't you come in here six months ago when you notice your symptoms? i don't have any health insurance. we we are losing tens of thousands of people every year who die or become much sick or than they should be because they don't have health insurance 's. the united states remains the

only major country on earth that does not guarantee healthcare to all people. 35 million americans have no health insurance. the solution to this problem they we will and the affordable care act $440 billion cuts in medicaid which will result in 27 million americans losing health insurance's on top of the 35 million we already have. you won't you won't see it on network tv. that is the reality. 16 million people in the affordable care act would lose there health insurance because this bill ends it. $440 billion cuts. sixteen plus 11 is 27 million. what happens to those people? how many of them die? how many of them suffer? not an issue for them. them. they are working on something, have been for

about 15 years. that is in this budget. this budget denies over 2.3 million 2.3 million young adults the right to play on their parents health insurance plan's. plan's. we used to have this absurd situation that my wife and i have health insurance. when they are 18 they are not on the plan. right now young people on the plan to the 26's. we finally overcame what is so vulgar and hard to imagine that it existed in america. that is that is that people had serious illnesses, heart disease, diabetes. walk into an insurance office and sandy insurance and insurance company would say, "we can't cover you for your diabetes, heart disease, cancer because of pre-existing condition and

we don't want to pay out all that money if it occurs. think about how crazy that is. they want insurance they want insurance to cover their needs. breast cancer or colon cancer five years ago i want i want to make sure my insurance company covers that. a pre-existing condition under the affordable care act. act. they did away with that. so all of you with serious health illnesses when the body goes budget goes into effect insurance company can reject you. mr. president, not only has this ended $140 billion in cuts to medicaid. it would also increase prescription drug prices. persons with disabilities' on the medicare part d by reopening. that means poverty is

increasing. i suspect it's the same in wyoming. living on living on 13 $14,000 the year. i have to heat my home in the winter. buy food, pay for medicine. i can do it all. what we did is close the so-called doughnut hole. that reopens a whole. all over the statute are paying more more for prescription drugs. mr. president your republican budget not only undertakes a vast attack on healthcare in this country which we will decimate life for millions of people but then on another issue of

great consequence, consequence, education, it is equally bad. my state of vermont a couple months ago i helped three town meetings are colleges and universities to talk to young people about the cost of college and student that. and in and in vermont, and i suspect the other 49 states you have families who are struggling to afford to send their kids to college then you have others who are leaving college terribly deep in debt. just yesterday i was flying hear here from burlington, vermont as set next to a woman. six kids went six kids went to college and graduate school, all of them deeply in debt. clearly what a sensible budget does is two things 1st how do we make college affordable so that young people will be able to get a higher education and 2nd of all when they graduate how do we lower student debt which yesterday so oppressive?

the republican budget does exactly the opposite. but the republican budget people the republican budget cuts $90 billion over ten years intel grants. tell 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 to more than 8 million americans. think about it just. our. our job is to lower the cost of college. this budget increases it at a time when preschool, working-class families, all over this country are having a hard time finding good quality affordable preschool childcare. the republican budget make significant cuts in head start which would mean that 110,000 fewer children would be able to enroll in an important program. under the republican budget

1.9 million fewer students would receive the academic help that they need to succeed in school by cutting about $12 $12 billion in cuts to the title i education program. dropout rates and lower income communities all over this country for a school kids is atrocious. the republican budget cuts significantly the funding that we put into public schools and low income communities. at a time when the middle class is disappearing and we have more people living in poverty today that almost any time in modern american history today there are millions of families who are struggling to put food on table. maybe on capitol hill people don't know that, but that is the reality.

people making nine, ten bucks an hour. they got a few tips. having a difficult time affording food store basic nutrition. we have an estimated 40 million people what they call food insecure, people who on any given week any given month depending on what is happening have a hard time fitting the families. the republican budget would make massive cuts and nutrition programs in this country by among other things cutting $10 billion to the women infants, and children program over the next decade. i honestly have a hard time hearing people talk about family values and how much they love families and children and you have a program which has done a really good job in terms of prenatal care pregnant women making sure they get

the health care and nutrition that they need make need to make sure that the babies get the care that they need. who really thinks that we should cut these programs? what kind of nation are we? what kind of senate are we? people would vote to cut these programs, not to mention massive cuts in the food stamp program. mr. pres., in the midst of all of these devastating cuts in health care, education, nutrition it impacts working families, the republican budget is something else and i suspect people who are listening brace and is being partisan doughnut tire truth. can't be this bad. one of the one of the problems we have is convincing people this is reality. it's it's the media does not write about it much but that is what it is. in addition to making massive cuts in health care, education, nutrition what else they do?

at a a time when the wealthiest 400 american 400 americans paid a a tax rate of just 16.7 and 2012 at a time when hedge fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than working families and truck drivers are nurses the republican budget based on an amendment is abolishes the estate tax. the estate tax provides a $269 billion a $269 billion tax break for home? the middle class? low income people? that's great. not so. this repeal of the estate tax applies to the wealthiest not 1 percent but the top two tenths of 1 percent. republicans passed a tax

proposal which impacts the top 2/10 of 1%. it means nothing it means nothing for 99.8 percent of americans. cut education, cut health care, cut cut nutrition, give the tax breaks to billionaires. by repealing the estate tax the average tax breaks for multi millionaires and billionaires would be about $3 million. go around vermont go around vermont, go around america, what we need, what our major priority is not to feed the hungry, not to make college affordable, not to create jobs but 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

give? they raise taxes on lower income and working families, folks to families, folks to do not make a whole lot of campaign contributions. paying more in taxes. but we estimate that tax hike for low income and middle income families will be about $900 apiece for more than 13 million families. taxes on lower and moderate income families, families, lower taxes for billionaires. anyone believe those are the priorities that should be in the budget for the american people? mr. pres., i we will have more to say about this budget later. not only 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 living wage how we address equity so that women workers don't make $0.78 an hour compared to men how we rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. it does not address any of those issues, but what it does is make a bad situation worse. and i would hope is that my colleagues who have the courage to stand up to wall street, street, to stand up to the big money interests and start defending the working families of this country and vote no on this resolution. with that i will yield.

>> mr. president. >> senator from wyoming. >> as part of this discussion i want to mention something significant that happened last night. it happened after the press went to bed i think, but very important thing a thing called the doc fix past this body last night. a very bipartisan way. a series of amendments and open floors that is what is supposed to happen around here. one of the reasons i mentioned that is that i have always said if you can see a dr. you don't have insurance all. we have been driving them out of the recession.

because of what congress is doing, holding them hostage every six months. back at taking care of us night. evan doing that for about 18 years. have the doctors to somewhere to go. public is a gun to participate. that was part of the budget the reconciliation in the budget which is a special way of passing something without 60 votes. in that budget they took $714 billion for medicare. they didn't put it in the

medicare. 400 million in medicare savings. that medicare that medicare savings is what the president suggested should be done in medicare savings, and we put that medicare savings back into medicare. that is the only way that you can save. so we have taken into consideration a lot of these things cost of college used to be the chairman of the committee. the biggest suggestion i can have for people living in the east is send your kids west.

checking to see why more people could get in the committee college and the east coast. i'm not talking about the big colleges which also have a very big problem a number of students that they can take. found out that most of the community colleges will fill that here. consequently some for profit colleges were able to charge considerably more, and we looked in two ways to eliminate that practice. of the practice. of course the way that he got eliminated if we did that to the public colleges well who put them out of business. i would mention that is less expensive for an out-of-state student to go to the university of wyoming most of the places in the united states. a recommendation that gets put into the deficit neutral thing.

not sure where the taxes on the poor comes from except that the comment the exemptions. there's a good reason why those aren't in there. .. 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 inefciencihere. they talk about >> the proper committee needs to take a look if they have adequate revenue to do their job and when they audit they are able to get four to $6 for every dollar that they spend. and public auditors when they go into the company expect to get 15 to $20 per dollar and they have to come up with a better selection procedure for who needs to be audited. so there are a number of things that the irs ought to do. we have tried to talk to different agencies and i had a

lot of time to do some other things. one of the other agencies that i wanted to look at as an accountant was the irs. and we had some hearings here about being taxpayer friendly. people could recall that the people that serve as witnesses and that had to be voice modulated and that that should not happen in america. we should have a tax system that people can comply with without the gestapo kinds of tactics that some are trying to do. we are trying to make this more fair and the chairman and the ranking member and the committee are going to do some other things on taxes and i think some

other people will like it. if they can and those complications which can make the irs's jobs a lot easier and also make it better for hard-working taxpayers of america and i'm hoping that we will will be able to do this and i yield the balance of my time. >> let me just pick up on a couple of points. a couple of points that senator enzi made. republicans often say and i have said it now that democrats caught $714 billion for medicare. and to the best of my knowledge

not 1 penny involved in that cut any benefits to the american people, what the affordable care act attempted to do as the senator pointed out last night. it is to make medicare more efficient. so what is wrong with saving money? what the american people want us to do is make this more efficient. and he is right. but the idea of the implication that those resulted in benefit cuts is not part of this. but what those savings went to is putting the doughnut hole so that seniors would not have to pay money out of their own pockets for prescription drugs. you can save money in a bureaucracy and god knows the

united states health care system health care system is the most wasteful and bureaucratic of any in the world if we can make the system more efficient, save money, but that money into a seniors support prescription drugs what is the problem with that? i don't think so. he talked about the irs and people having difficulty making connections, which is clearly not right. and there are very and most people say if i could get for $6 in return for every dollar that i invest, let's do it. i looked over to working with the senator and other republicans who do just that. we can argue about the tax code and we will, but