quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: madam president thank you very much. madam president, colleagues, i want to harkin back to last november's election, and i thought for some time -- the presiding officer actually heard me say this once or twice -- for me three takeaways from that election. one of those is that the american people want uts to -- us to work together here in the senate, here in washington. the american people want us to get things done. and most especially, the american people want us to get things done that actually strengthen our economic recovery. my own view is one of the things we can do to strengthen our economic recovery is to increase exports.

we work -- we worked very hard in this chamber, in the senate, with the president to try to pave the way to create a large new trading bloc which the u.s. and 11 other countries would be a part of, which when put together comprise about 40% of the world's customers. to be a big trading bloc that we call the trans-pacific trade partnership. and somebody sought by the president, supported by myself, democrats and republicans. still being negotiated, but it's an important part of growing and strengthening our economic recovery. grow exports. one of the other related areas there is the issue of how do we finance exports. one of the ways that we've done that for years in this country is through the export-import bank. and i -- we reach a point where the authorization of the export-import bank has expired. the legislation that's passed

the senate would renew that authorization. my hope is that when we finally find our way through the transportation gauntlet, that we will have also reauthorized the export-import bank to, again make available financing for exports. not for every business large and small, but for quite a few. other nations with whom we compete help finance their exports, and for us not to, we put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage. another thing that we could do to strengthen our economic recovery is to better protect our intellectual property, research and development whether it's from cybersecurity attacks, data breaches or whether it's through simply the way we combat controls. folks come up with ideas, they are delayed we end up in court. research and development is stymied in some cases as a result of all of that.

we worked on the -- in the environment and public works committee for years now on something called the toxic substance control act which provides predictability and certainty for businesses, especially in the chemistry but also at the same time i think works to protect our health as human beings, especially among the most vulnerable, the young the old and at the same time is good for the environment. that legislation may be coming before us even as soon as next week. there are a bunch of us who sought to -- to provide some certainty for businesses on the tax side by -- through international tax reform, an idea supported by the president by the house republican and democratic leadership, by finance committee working group led by senators portman and schumer. it's not comprehensive tax reform but it's a big piece of it.

and that at least provides some certainty and predictability there and would provide frankly a couple hundred billion dollars over the next ten years to be used for roads highways, bridges, transit rail and so forth. the -- and the last one i'll mention in terms of strengthening our economic recovery is transportation. there is an outfit called mckenzie major consulting company. they have something called the mckenzie global institute. not long ago earlier this summer they reported that if we were to make the kind of robust investment in infrastructure sought by the president and supported by house republican and democratic leadership, supported by our working group bipartisan working group on the finance committee if we actually were to do that, we could grow, according to mckenzie employment numbers by i have heard as much as almost 1.5 million jobs over the next

several years. and a lot of these jobs are people that aren't working or maybe they are working part time. they would like to be building something, they would like to be rebuilding something. that would be our roads highways bridges our transit systems, and so forth. the folks at the mckenzie global institute go even further to say if we were to do this kind of robust investment in transportation at large we would not only put a lot of people back to work, but we would grow our g.d.p. by as much as 1.5%. and that may not sound like a lot, but i think for the g.d.p. growth in the first quarter here of this year was zero. we struggled through a really tough winter. but it's bounced back nicely here in the second quarter but still only 2.5%. and the idea of being able to add 1% or 1.5% to that is 4% g.d.p. growth, which is about as strong as we've seen around here

in a while and that would be -- translate to a whole lot of jobs other than just the lobs for the people that would be building our roads highways, bridges in our country. i sometimes have been asked why -- why would our g.d.p. grow by so much by making investments in transportation? and one of the meetings i have had with a bunch of industry groups, one person from one company said to me, this is what he said. he said we move a lot -- we sell a lot of our products overseas. in order to be able to sell overseas we don't ship it out by air. we ship it out by ship. most of the exports that leave this country go by ship. he went on to say that we send our products to ports and we have a narrow window of time. in this case, he said we have about four hours. the ships that are coming into this particular port to pick up our stuff their goods their

products he said are going to be in port for about four hours. if we meet that window, we're good. if we miss that window, we're not good. as it turns out there are enormous delays in moving not just people in this country but in products, in freight and one of the great things about the environment and public works committee, six-year transportation reauthorization was a freight title. i give a lot of credit to senators barbara boxer for including, we're among the people who strongly recommend it but include a strong freight provision in the transportation bill, in order to help grow g.d.p. to help grow jobs. as it turns out one of the reasons why it's difficult to get anything done around here on transportation -- part of it is the cost, who's going to pay for it how are we going to pay for all these investments? although there are some pretty good ideas. i mentioned one. one of the things that makes it difficult is multiple committees

have jurisdiction over transportation. the environment and public works committee, on which i serve led by senators inhofe and boxer we have jurisdiction over roads highways bridges and it's a big piece of our transportation system, but it's not all of it. the banking committee has jurisdiction over transit, which is significant. the commerce committee has jurisdiction over freight rail, inner city passenger rail, has jurisdiction over safety in a lot of instances have jurisdiction over a fair amount of what happens in the air for our country. and then you've got the finance committee on which i am privileged to serve. the finance committee here, as in the ways and means committee in the house is involved, heavily involved in how do we pay for this stuff how do we pay for all these improvements that we need to make, and we need to make them badly. how badly? well -- as it turns out, there are some folks who actually

study the amount of time that we are delayed either sitting in traffic or moving very slowly in this country. the folks at texas a&m actually put out every year a report on congestion in our country. they find that the average commuter in the united states, average commuter wasted 38 hours every year. think about that. wasted almost 38 hours each year because of traffic congestion. and the -- some other folks the road information program an industry group. they estimate that the average driver in the u.s. pays about $375 each year in additional vehicle costs as a result of roads in poor conditions. and the world bank, in kind of a related report, the world bank has found that when a road is allowed to deteriorate from good to poor, each dollar we fail to

invest in road maintenance will increase vehicle operating costs by between $2 and $3. so among the reasons why we want to make these investments is one to grow employment for the folks that are actually building working on these projects. a lot of people. we want to grow our gross domestic product. we want to reduce the amount of time we just sit in traffic or go very slow in traffic. 38 hours just in congestion. the hours that we lose in our lives every year. and the amount of money that we spend on our vehicles. and i have been spent on my own vehicle -- my chrysler town and country minivan went over 400,000 miles, as we were driving from delaware. across the chesapeake bay bridge and it topped out at over 400,000 miles. people say how do you get a vehicle to go that many years and that far? i say every other week, we wash it. we take it to white glove and

they wash it. that's pretty much what i do. actually, we do a lot more than that. replace a lot of tires. a lot of potholes. a lot of realignments. it adds up. the money adds up for us, and it does for other people as well. so i -- i mentioned earlier that the environment and public works committee has jurisdiction over roads, highways, bridges. commerce has ground, including ground transportation with freight rail, passenger rail, air. banking has jurisdiction over -- over transit. and the finance committee has jurisdiction over finance how do we actually finance this stuff, these investments. and that's one of the reasons why it's difficult to come to -- to put a package together, all the different pieces, and to find common ground and come to an agreement on how to fund it.

one of the other things that makes it difficult is i'm not a huge advocate of earmarks, but one of the reasons why people are willing to vote year after year decade after decade for six-year transportation bills is because when they did they can actually point to certain specific provisions in that transportation bill which helped their congressional district or their state. and it's more difficult without the ability to say -- for representatives or senators to say these are the provisions, the specific provisions that i -- that are good for my state my district, and this is one of the reasons why i'm supporting this legislation. that doesn't mean we ought to go back to earmarks, necessarily but that's just one of the reasons why it's harder to build a supermajority to move legislation like this through -- through the -- through the senate. so where are we? the house has passed legislation that says the next three months

we're going to fund transportation projects in this country, roads highways, bridges and transit. they have outlined a couple ways to pay for that. they have not -- they have enough money to pay for projects for the next five months. they have authorized the -- the actual construction of those projects i think for the next three months. that's their little, -- that's their bill, and i think they have pretty much passed it and kind of said take it or leave it. and previously, they had -- they said they wanted to extend for five months the authorization and the appropriations for roads, highways, bridges and transit until sometime in december and to give us the time to spend between now and december to come to agreement on the administration's earlier idea embraced by house democratic and republican leadership embraced by our working group in the finance committee here about

international tax reform, something deemed repatriation. we passed out of here today a different plan that i did not support but a plan that would appear to authorize projects or a six-year transportation bill. as it turns out the money is good for maybe three years not for six. it comes from a lot of different sources some that i would deem inappropriate. others may differ with that. and it's not the way i think we should do business, but it's the way we've done business. and we passed a bill. we have different perspectives as to what we ought to do and what my expectation is that the senate will agree with the house-passed bill and will in the meantime go back to the

drawing board go back to the drawing board. one of the things that i think has value in the house-passed bill is it sets a stage for us to get serious about the administration's proposal again, embraced by the house and democratic and republican leader. it gives us time to find out can we do that. people in pretty powerful positions around here don't like that idea but there are others in high positions who think that is a very good idea and among the benefits it would provide doesn't address our transportation needs forever but it certainly would provide a lot of money for the next six years. why might that be a good idea? i think ultimately through the years we've used user fees, gas

taxes diesel taxes to fund most of road construction at the national level and for road repairs. over time the cars have become more energy-efficient. my question that i mentioned -- my minivan gets 24 miles per gallon on the highway. we have some that do better than that some that routinely do 40, 50 miles per gallon. to say the diesel tax and gas tax is the sole solution is probably not realistic. we have some vehicles on the road that are pretty much all electric. they don't buy any gas they don't buy any diesel. they need a refill, they pull up and charge their batteries. we have some folks that buy vehicles that are powered by fuel cells and they run on hydrogen or natural gas methane. so given the changing mix in the

way we move ourselves in goods and services around the country our sole reliance on user fees like gas tax and diesel tax forever is not a good idea. among the other ideas that are out there are tolling. people who come through my state on i-95, they pay a toll. a lot of them use e-z pass, so they don't have to sit in line and wait. their credit card accounts get charged for their travel, and we have a similar kind of arrangement on state route 1 where a lot of people come through our state on i-95 to head to our beaches or to the dover air force base. tolling is part of the future. another idea that is being experimented with by states is referred to -- different ways but i think of it as vehicle

miles traveled, is there a way we can figure out how much in terms of true user fee, how much we are traveling in our vehicle and assess some kind of fees on those that are driving cars, trucks vans and help at the federal level or maybe the state level. folks in oregon have been working on this, i think they have started this effort, about ten years ago they call it road user charge, another way of saying miles traveled. at the end of the day maybe not the end of the day but 10, 15, 20 years we will have figured out how to do vehicle miles traveled/road users traveled in a cost effective way. the other thing i think we'll do a better job is on tolling is moving to a highway speed e-s pass -- e-z pass if they want to

use a particular road they pay a toll. having said that, if at the end of the day we're unable to come to agreement at the end of this year if we're unable to come to agreement on some kind of national tax reform, the idea of using a lot of cats and doings to fund transportation improvements for the next two or three years, i don't think that's a good outcome. and i'm not -- if i were, i would go back and say we should look at least for the next six years user fees. we have been using user fees or taxing gas and diesel for a long time to provide for most of the federal share for these transportation construction projects and improvements. i think the last time we raised the federal gas tax was 1993, we raised it to 18.3%. and we raised it the same time

to diesel tax to 24.3 cents per gallon. we have not raised either of those for over 22 years. since that time the cost of asphalt, the cost of concrete, the cost of labor the cost of steel have all gone up. but the user fee the gas tax and diesel tax have not gone up at all. george voinovich former governor former senator here, and i worked together about five or six years ago on the simpson-bowles commission to suggest an increase on the gas diesel tax by putting a quarter putting every three months for about 15 quarters, roughly three or four cents a year for four years and index the gas tax after that through the rate of inflation so we don't have to readdress it every year or two or three or four years. that was an idea adopted in the simpson-bowles report. but the simpson-bowles report, much of what it concluded has

not been enacted. one of the things i'm going to be doing and i hope colleagues in the house as well as in the senate within the next day or two, is to introduce an increase in the gas and diesel tax of four cents a year for the next four years. that would be 16 cents over the next four years and to then index the gas tax and diesel tax to the rate of inflation. what would that cost the average family? what would that cost the average family the average driver in this country? on a weekly basis it would be i think about two bucks actually less than two bucks. i don't know what people pay for a cup of coffee, but i'm told you can buy -- i bought a cup of coffee today for $1.70. some people buy it for less. some people by it for $2 or more. but for roughly a cup of coffee

a week, we can have better roads, highways, bridges. a whole lot better. by doing that, we would raise over the next ten years $180 billion. $180 billion or maybe even more to be able to provide for our construction needs,s roads highways bridges and transit. we have a system in place. we know how to do it. the price of gasoline, i bought gas the other day in central delaware dover. it is down by about 20 cents over the past month. if the iran deal goes through as approved the iranians are already expected to add to a world already awash in oil the price of oil coming down, they will add another half billion barrels of oil to the marketplace and probably continuing to press push down the price of oil. and so i would ask to keep that in mind. some people say we never will be able to get the votes for an increase in the gas or diesel

tax even if it's phased in four cents a year for four years but there are six states last year across the country most with republican governors and republican legislators who did something like this. they didn't raise the gas tax by $1 or 50 cents or 25 cents but they raised it in some cases over several years. the question is can state legislators or members of the congress actually vote to do, to meet our transportation needs can actually vote for this and get reelected? as it turns out 95% of the republicans in six states, in state legislatures, 95% of state legislators who voted for this were reelected. and among the democrats who voted in those six states last year to raise user fees, 90% of them won their primaries. they won their general election. they were reelected. for people who say you can't vote for -- do tough things and

still get reelected, i would say look at those six states from last year, and other states are going to do it, following our footsteps this year as well. so i'll wrap it up at this point in time. i see senator grassley here on the floor. but long term, the worst option is to do nothing. the worst option is to do nothing. i have a glass of water here. i've had -- i will ask the pages to bring me a couple of glasses empty glasses if you will please real quickly. senator grassley is waiting. bear with plea. this-- bear with me. this is show-and-tell. i don't think this is against the rules. if it is maybe the presiding officer will cut me a break. we'll say this glass of water is world capital markets trillions

of dollars. some is from sovereign nations some from trust funds pension funds and so forth. thank you. this glass this glass is empty. this is the federal the transportation trust fund. it's empty. when we run out of money and we don't raise taxes and revenues to fill it up, we turn to the general fund and we say let's money out of the general fund and put some of it into the transportation -- this glass is empty too. our debt's down, our deficit's down but our debt is not down but our deficit's down but we're still running a deficit. there's just no money in the general fund to refill the transportation trust fund these days. what we do is we go out to the world capital markets here, where there's a lot of money and we borrow. treasury securities, a lot of them. as it turns out one of the best

buyers for those treasury securities is china. we say to china how about buying some of our treasury securities, and they do. and they do. and then when the chinese turn around and start pushing around the vietnamese or filipinos in south china sea around sprattly island, when the chinese were trying to dump some of their products in this country illegally, and we say you can't do that, china. you can't do that. and for the chinese it's very easy to say i thought you wanted to borrow money. i thought you wanted to borrow our money and it puts us in an awkward position as a nation. if things are worth having, they're worth paying for. i don't think the pay-fors that were used in not the six-year

authorization bill that passed here but the transportation bill really a three year, i don't think the idea of taking money away from customs fees and different other sources for purposes for transportation purposes for which it was never intended, i don't think that's the way to do this. we have the good news. the good news is this, the house is in one place the senate is in another and we've got several months to figure this out. i hope we use these several months to drill down on the idea of international tax reform to provide hundreds of billions of dollars for transportation over the next six years. if that doesn't work i want us to look at other alternatives. the worst alternative is to get to december and say well, let's just borrow some more money. let's just come up with patch this and kick the can down the road again. i'm going to work very hard as a member of the international tax

reform piece of the finance committee. senator grassley, if i'm not mistaken, senior republican on the finance committee and somebody who is a key participant in trying to find common ground. he's good at that, and i look forward to working with him on that. i'll close with this, the american people my message to me in the elections from last november threefold: people want us to work together. they want us to get important things done. and among the most important is to further strengthen an already strengthening economy. and a big piece of that can be transportation. the american people expect us to make tough decisions, and this is a tough negotiation. it's one we've got to have, and we have to have a good outcome in the end. with that, madam chair woman i thank my friend from iowa for his patience today and thank you for providing this time for me, and i yield the floor. mr. grassley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa.

mr. grassley: i often come to the floor to honor whistle-blowers, but more importantly, to talk about their very important role in making government function. on july 30, 1778, the continental congress passed the very first whistle-blower law in the united states. it read -- quote -- "it is the duty of all persons in the service of the united states to give the he recalliest information to -- the yerlest information to congress on a proper authority of any misconduct frauds, or mis-demeanors committed by any officer or persons in the service of these states which may come to their knowledge." end of quote. probably for the last six seven years i've been referring to this around the time of july 30.

so going back to 1778, we've had recognition of the important role that whistle-blowers can play in making sure that government is responsible. whistle-blowers have always been crucial in helping congress and the federal government route root out fraud and misconduct. it is simple common sense to reward and protect whistle-blowers who report waste of taxpayers' money fraudulent use of taxpayers' money and outright simple abuse. the false claims act does that. in fiscal year 2014 alone the federal government recovered nearly $6 billion under the false claims act. that makes more than $22 billion since january 2009 and more than

$42 billion since i got the legislation passed in 1986. these recoveries represent victories across a wide array of industries and government programs. those programs include mortgage insurance, federal student aid medicare and medicaid, as well as defense contracts. the department of justice credits whistle-blowers for their important role in the success of the money that has come back to the federal treasury and for the carrying out of the whistle-blower -- i mean the false claims act. according to the justice department whistle-blowers accounted for $3 billion in the recoveries under that act in just the fiscal year 2014. in fact, over 80% of false

claims act cases are initiated by whistle-blowers. clearly, the false claims act is working very well. of course, the act has no shortage of critics. typically the groups where you find perpetrators of fraud. but we have learned our lesson that a weak false claims act is not in the taxpayers' best interest. in 1943, congress bowed to the pressure to undo the act's crucial keytam provisions. amendments passed back in that era of world war ii then barred action where the government already had knowledge of fraud. the result was to block nearly all private actions. congress assumed -- and now we can say assumed wrongly -- that

the justice department could do a good job protecting fraud all by itself. as i said, they were wrong. between 1943 and 1986, when the false claims act was amended fraud against government skyrocketed. most of those accused went unpunished. in a 1981 report by the government accountability office it said -- quote -- "for those who are caught committing fraud, the chances of being prosecuted and eventually going to jail are slim. the sad truth is that crime against the government often does pay." end of quote. so in 1986, i coauthored much-needed amendments to the false claims act. the 1986 amendments once again gave citizens the ability to help the government go after

fraud in a meaningful way. for example the amendments provided protection for whistle-blowers and eliminated the impossible government international bar. seaningessentially, a relater's suit was only barred where the suit had already been publicly disclosed. the amendments also the -- claims not made just directly to a government agency, because it also covers fraud against grantees against states and other recipients of federal funds. whether or not the fund obligation is fixed. these provisions and others were intended to give the false claims act teeth again and it did. however, you know, it happens with a lot of legislation that passes. the courts chipped away at the heart of the false claims act and ignored the intent of

congress. the assault on the act came to a head in the supreme court's erroneous opinions in the well-known cases of allison engine and totten. the court held that the act required proof of intent, that the government itself pay a claim and that a claim is presented directly to the government. the problem with this logic is that it creates a loophole big enough to drive a truck through. a third party paid with government money would get away with fraud because a contractor -- not the government agency -- paid the claim. so in 2009 we passed the fraud enforcement and recovery act and made very clear that this was not consistent with the original intent of the 1946 -- or 1986

false claims act. that act reaches false claims for government money and property whether or not the wrongdoer deals directly with the federal government. it was never the intent of congress to give a free pass to subcontractors or other parties receiving government funds. in fact, those folks are some of the biggest perpetrators of fraud today. the inspector general of the department of health and human services has reported a 134% increase in complaints against medicare part-d in just the last five years. by not stopping fraud against programs like medicare part-d, the government is hemorrhaging funds. taxpayer money is taxpayer money money, just simply that. fraud does not magically become okay just because a third party

is involved. of course, the issue of presentment to government officials is not the only sticking point. there has been pushback in courts and from lobbyists about all sorts of issues, like the -- quote, unquote -- "public disclosure bar and settlement practices and award shares for relaters." through it all congress has had to stay vigilant in keeping the courts and federal agencies generally true to our original legislative intent. as an example just recently the justice department tried to minimize a relayer award in a medicare and medicaid fraud case. the relater contributed significantly to the case. the judge recognized that congress intended that the only measuring stick for an award is

the contribution of the relater and those are words that the judge used, and that judge was right. congress intended to empower, to protect, and to reward relaters who identified fraud against the taxpayers. history teaches us that weakening the relater's rights weakens the government's ability to fight fraud. all that does is let wrongdoers off the hook and it costs the taxpayers money. that is not the result that we intended in the false claims act. it is also not the result that the continental congress, so concerned about identifying in those words i gave you in the beginning of my remarks to report misconduct, fraud and mis-demeanors, the continental congress would not have wanted

those results that results that i just talked about. i want to real estate mind my colleagues to stand -- i want to remind my colleagues to stand strong for the effective tool that we have to combat fraud. i yield the floor. mr. enzi: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from wyoming. mr. enzi: i would like to ask unanimous consent for budget interns flora lipski and hanna oate to have floor privileges for the rest of the week. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. enzi: thank you. i yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. brown: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, madam president. i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brown: thank you, madam president. i just want to remind my completioncolleagues that tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of president johnson going to -- traveling to independence, missouri, to be with president truman who in the 19 40's had attempted to push through congress legislation to expand the social security act to include what we now call medicare. when president johnson went to independence missouri, and signed the legislation it's the one we pay most attention to is medicare, health care for the elderly. but probably equally important and certainly very important social security, creation of medicaid. and medicaid came out of several years of congressional debate where congress understood that low-income people -- especially low-income people who were

working and didn't have insurance, people that were poor people in nurseing homes as it evolved into, elderly people -- most of the people in medicaid goes to take care of the elderly in nursing homes that it would have such an impact on their lives. prior to 1965 this social insurance program this program that -- what we call medicare today, this social insurance program provided health care to almost every senior. prior to 1965, only about half of the senior citizens in the united states of america had health insurance. only about half. huge numbers of the elderly lived in poverty. they lived in poverty partly because -- for a whole host of reasons that they couldn't save enough, social security wasn't quite enough. many lived in poverty because of their health care costs that they'd go to the doctor and have to pay oust pocket pay oust pocket and couldn't afford that.

so what medicare did it provides today 50 million seniors with insurance. now, it wasn't easy. there were a majority of republicans in the house of representatives and senate that opposed the creation of medicare. the john birch society we now today as the tea party the john birch society in those days, we know as the tea party today opposed medicare, the creation of medicare. insurance interests medical interests opposed medicare. it was a huge struggle. as i said, a majority of republicans voted against the creation of medicare. but just like the affordable care act republicans didn't like the affordable care act -- don't like the affordable care act today. republicans didn't like medicare a generation and a half ago and opposed it. bob dole bragged -- then congressman dole, later senator dole later presidential candidate nominee dole bragged about opposing medicare, said it wouldn't work. bragged about that for a couple of decades after it took effect. but we know that social

insurance works. what is social insurance? social insurance is where everybody pays into something whether it is social security, unemployment insurance medicare. people pay into a government program of some kind. then when we need it, they get assistance. you pi pay into social security. if you become disabled, you get a benefit. once you retire, you get a benefit. you paid into it. it is called social insurance. you pay into medicare all your working life. but then when you turn 65, you receive a medicare benefit. er youyou get health insurance. you get hospitalization, a doctor's benefit. when you pay into medical insurance, another kind of social insurance, when you get laid of course, you get assistance so you can continue to feed your family and go on with not as good a lifestyle but at least have enough to get along. that's why social insurance matters. what's troubling about all this -- there are still people in this country particularly conservative republicans who just don't like social

insurance. they don't like social security, they don't like unemployment insurance, and they don't like medicare. they'll tell you they do. very few politicians running for office say they don't like medicare. but we know that because -- if in fact they get elected we know what they do in their office. they try to privatize social security as president bush d they--as president bush d they try to voucherize medicare, as paul ryan tried to do, and we know what so many republicans conservatives, the most conservative republicans think about unemployment insurance when they try to cut it back, when they've tried to weaken it, when they've tried to undercut it. so it isn't close to solving all our problems social insurance sets a safety net which protects the public, protects you in your old aiming with medicare, it protects you if you're disabled with social security, it protects you if you're laid off with unemployment insurance.

that's why when people hear my colleagues particularly, again, for the most conservative republicans who have never supported these programs when they hear my colleagues go after these programs understand what privatization means. understand what vouchers mean. it means shifting costs of health care to seniors instead of -- instead of this program taking care of those seniors it means privatizing social security in my state half -- half of senior citizens in my state in ohio rely on social security for more than half their income. so think what would have happened if a decade and a half ago president bush had actually been successful in trying to turn social security over to wall street which is what he wanted to do. if he had been successful in turning social security over to wall street think of what would have happened to people's social security checks in 2007, in 2008 in 2009, in 2010 and 2011 when the bottom fell out of wall street if our financial systems. that's why these social

insurance programs are so important. that's why when today -- actually tomorrow when we commemorate the 50th anniversary of president johnson traveling to independence, missouri, to the home of president truman when we commemorate his signing the medicare bill and how much it's meant to generation after generation my parents my grandparents the parents and grandparents of so many of us in this body and in the gallery why that matters so much to us. so i just wanted to say stop by the floor say happy birthday, medicare happy 50th birthday we want to see another 50 years where medicare makes a huge difference in the lives of so many americans. i note the absence of a quorum. quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

ms. collins: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maine. ms. collins: mr. president i ask unanimous consent that proceedings under the call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. collins: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise in support of the multiyear surface transportation bill before the senate. the current authorization is set to expire this friday when the highway trust fund will be depleted to levels that can no longer fully reimburse states for construction that has already been completed. unfortunately, it looks as though we are going to have yet

another short-term extension rather than immediately enacting a longer-term bill as the house of representatives is preparing to send the senate a three-month extension. mr. president, this is a critical time of year for many states particularly my home state of maine where peak construction work occurs during a very short construction season. it would be irresponsible for congress not to pass a bipartisan bill this week and keep those projects moving forward. i hope that this fall we finally will be able to come together with our colleagues in the house to send to the president a

multiyear surface transportation bill. now, the state of maine currently receives $170 million of federal highway funds annually and the maine department of transportation, i can tell you needs and obligates every single dollar. under the multiyear bill before the senate, maine would do even better and would receive nearly $190 million the first year increasing to nearly $215 million. the legislation before us also prioritizes bridge reconstruction and safety. this funding is critical, as 364 of maine's bridges have been rated as "structural deficient.

"the commissioner of maine's department of transportation tells me that if the highway trust fund is not fixed by july 31 the department will have to stop construction projects midstream within weeks. this would be devastating for the state's economy for the people employed in these good-paying construction jobs, and for the transportation infrastructure in desperate need of repair around rehabilitation. the lack of consistent multiyear funding for the highway trust fund makes it so difficult for states to plan causes construction companies to delay hiring