women. critically, this legislation wants to promote more data collection. the bill would require the bureau of prisons to collect data on the use of solitary confinement a understand would create a natural resource center under the bureau of justice assistance. look, this is an issue, the issue of solitary confinement, that has been a priority for me here in the senate from my beginning months. in fact, over a year ago in august of 2015, i worked with members of the senate committee on homeland security and government affairs on an oversight hearing to explore current practices at the federal bureau of prisons. i requested this hearing because of the urgent need to shine a spotlight on our broken criminal justice system, including what occurs within the walls of a federal prison that the general public does not see, that's being done in the name of the public. the hearing was a good first

start to improve transparency on solitary confinement. at the hearing we heard testimony from a wide range of stakeholders, including the head of the bureau of prisons and advocates. hud i ofer testified that our nation has seen a dramatic increase in the use of reliance on solitaire confinement over the last couple of decades. i also introduced the mercy act, a bill that would prohibit the use of solitary confinement on youth adjudicated delinquent in the federal system unless it is a temporary response to a serious risk of harm. -- to the juvenile others. our justice system must ensure justice in the deepest, richest meaning of that word. it's what we swear an oath to, that we will be a nation of liberty and justice for all, not just some but for all, and it

means that we need to begin to expose the practices that are happening in our prisons and understand the consequences to all of us: increased financial expenditures, increased risk to our security and our safety, increased risks of recidivism. our justice system should not be engaged in practices that people across the spectrum in america politically, medical leaders, and others really do view as harmful and inefficient and ineffective. i'm proud to sponsor the act. i urge my colleagues to advance this bill in the senate. i thank the leadership of senator coons. but this is a time where we need national urgency on this issue.

there's something unfortunate about what happens in our prisons as being something that, hey, we as a public wash our hands, throw away the key. that kind of logic doesn't solve problems, it perpetuates them. it doesn't make us safe, it makes us less safe. it doesn't save us money, it costs us more. these kinds of practices undermine the foundations of common sense as well as moral rectitude. we stand for more than this as a country. we should set an example that ultimately as a nation we are not about retribution. we're not about disproportionate punishment. we are about restorative

justice. solitary confinement as a practice being done now is an assault on justice. it is an offense to our moral values as a nation. it calls for reform, and i'm proud to stand with my colleagues today to introduce legislation that begins us down that important road to justice. -- for all. thank you. mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. booker: i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. purr purr mr. president, i -- mr. perdue: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: i rise today and ask for unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy for my republican colleagues for the next hour. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. perdue: mr. president, what we're going to talk about over the next hour is one of the most important issues i think facing our government. we've set here today and listened to a very valid pleas

really for hope from the federal government. and the reality is, we don't have the money. there are four words that i have not heard in the united states senate or congress actually since i've been here over the last year and a half, and that is, "we cannot afford it." the problem is right now we have a budget crisis. we have a debt crisis. now, let me say this. fixing the budget process will not solve the debt crisis. let's be very clear about that. but we will not solve the debt crisis unless and until we address the dysfunction in our budget process. the problem is that in the last 42 years, since 1974, the budget act of 1974, the budget process here has only worked four times. this is a chart, mr. president, that charts this out. the yellow lines here -- and i hope the people at home can see; i hope my colleagues are focus on this.

only four times in the last 42 years has this budget process that was enacted in 1974 actually functioned at all to fund the federal government. now, one of the major responsibilities of our jobs here in the senate and in the house is to fund the federal government, to take care of discretionary needs like we've heard today from flint, from louisiana, from west virginia, from maryland. these are valid needs. but, mr. president, every dime that we spend in our discretionary spending is borrowed, and i'll talk about that a little later. we've got some speakers today that are going to talk about the the result of not having a had budget process that works. and this chart explains that over the last 42 years, since 1974, four times have 13 times -- appropriations bills -- actually been passed and we've funded the government we're supposed to. now, the blue lines are the actual appropriations bills. now, since 1998, somewhere in

there, we went from 13 imils to 12 -- 13 bills to 12 bills that actually fund -- these are aeption pros bills that fund the federal government. and they fund $1.1 trillion of a $3.9 trillion spend of the federal government. and this chart shows that over the life of this law, these are the laws, the appropriations bills that have been passed each year. and the average is the red line. it is very light, you probably can't see t but the average over this period of time is $2.6 billion of the -- is 2.6 of the 12 bills that have to be passed to fund the government. we've used 107 continuing resolutions to get passed the fiscal year to make sure we fund the government on the fishes day of the new fiscal year -- on the first day of the new fiscal year next monday is the first day of the new fiscal year year, fy 2017. we sitting here are voting ogee

the c.r., the continuing resolution, show the government doesn't have to shut down next week, those dreaded words of irresponsibility and intransigence. quite frankly, this is part of the problem because what happens is what happened last year. the dysfunction in the system is centered around this: the budget is not a law. it is a resolution. that means that the majority, with 51% of the votes in in this body, can pass its political statement. that's exactly what happened last year. let me say this before we go any further. everything you hear today is nonpartisan. this should be about a nonpartisan exercise that we have in funding the government. yes, we're going to have debates based on our partisanship and based on our beliefs and principles. but the basic process should be a politically neutral platform that allows us to argue our differences out in the budget process, get to a budget, move to the appropriations, and fund the government by the end of the fiscal year. and we have only done that four times in the last 42 years. the dysfunction is centered

around this: if you look at this chart, if every year we just don't have enough time -- it is not just time but it is the process. if the budget is based on -- it is a resolution and 51% can vote for t 4r569 year, as an example example-- the republican majority, by the way, voted for a bill that took $.5 trillion oust president's budget over the next ten years without one democratic vote. then we got to the authorization process and the authorization process, oh, by the way is a law and they have to have 60 votes. so guess what? the people on the other side of the aisle, my friends, have stood up and said, well, you didn't ask our opinion in the budget process, why do you want our help now? so they don't let us get on appropriations. we've got some $310 billion that we're funding today that are not authorized. over 2567 agencies and -- easer 256 agencies and programs. the minority request stop us by

floating us get on the bills. we have a situation right now that the defense appropriations bill, whiched fund funds -- whih funds our military, was passed unanimously in committee, the way it was supposed to operate. democrats and republicans came up with a bill that funded our military. yet we tried six times to get it to the floor. there are political reasons why it hasn't gotten to the floor. it shows the dysfunction we have in this process. mr. president, the time has come for us to address this process, and i'm so excited to have various members of the freshman class. we have the chairman of the budget committee coming down. we have some other senior members who have been working on this for years. but i notice my good friend from the state of north carolina, senator thom tillis, is here. and i'm going to ask him to give us his perspective. they have a big military effort in their state and tom has been a soldier in this, not only in the senate but in his time as speaker of the house in north

carolina. mr. tillis: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. i want to thank my colleague and friend from the great state of georgia, and taking a leadership position and really pointing to the dysfunction, the problems that's going on heemplet now, -- that's going on here. now, senator perdue, you're actually a 2-year-old politician, aren't you? i shouldn't be talking -- mr. president, senator per dpiew is about two years old. he spent time in business where you didn't keep your job if you couldn't balance your budget. you didn't keep your job if you couldn't make the difficult decisions every year to year, make payroll, make strategic investments, do the kinds of things that good business leaders do. that's all he's done all of his life. now he's found himself in the u.s. senate where that's almost the exact opposite of what we do. we just had to pass a continuing resolution today for a few weeks because we can't come to terms on long-term spending measures,

over a dozen bills passed out of appropriations with strong bipartisan support within the constraints of the bipartisan budget. and now we can't get them passed. why is that a problem? because when you have the world's largest and most complex entity that's ever existed, that can't figure out how much money it's going to spend or commit on more than about a 12-amongst cycle and sometimes over a few months, how on earth can you save money and make long-term investments? how on earth -- we were in a committee hearing ned where we heard right now it takes an average of 15 years from the concept of a new satellite to the time that we're launching it in space. well, how on earth can you make those long-term investments when you can't even be clear that you're going to spend the money but every 12 months? this is a threat to our national security. this is a threat to our economic security. this is a threat to the security of every man and woman in the

united states because they can't rely hon a government that will provide businesses or individuals with any kind of certainty whatsoever. it's tough to make budget decisions. but they need to be made. i know a little bit about this because i became speaker of the house in north carolina in 2011. we had a budget crisis. we had a $2.5 trillion debt and six mofntses to solve it. unlike the federal government where you can run up a deficit, you can run uma deficit en-- run up a deficit every year,, most states with the exception of maybe one or two have a constitutional obligation to balance their budget. so we did. and what was the result of the providing that long-term certainty? living within our meanings, actually having a transparent and decisive budget process. one of the greatest economic turnarounds of any state in the nation over the last five years. being decisive, making the tough

decisions accrues a benefit to the business community and every man or woman who lives in the united states. it actually settles the global economic conditions more than what most people will know. at the end of the day, let's start doing our job. let's not just create a budget, like we did, a bipartisan budget, then passed several appropriations bills and kill them on the floor. that's what h is going on here. i think my freshmen colleagues think it's time -- there are a lot of people who want to put posterings up here "do your job." but they're failing to do their jobs by preventing us from doing one of the most important things we can do: make the tough long-term fiscal decisions that are necessary for this great nation. so, senator perdue, thank you for allowing me to speak on this. i thank senator perdue. i shouldn't be conversing on the floor. want to thank the senator to bringing up this subject. we need to stay in front of this and recognize doing our job is

tackling this budget crisis, tackling the uncertainty that we by failing to do our jobs are placing on every hardworking american and business in this country. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. perdue: mr. president. senator tillis, i thank you for coming down around talking about this. with your experience in the state of north carolina, 44 states have a balanced budget law. guess which states don't have a financial problem? thank you for coming down. i note that my colleague from oklahoma, senator lankford, is here. he's been a warrior on this budget. he was in the house before and now in the senate for the last two years. and i welcome his comments to speak about this as well. senator lankford. mr. lankford: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. lankford: mr. president, this is a long-term issue. this is not something new. i'm amazed at the number of times that i run into people in

oklahoma and say why can't we seem to get the budget done now? what's happened? i say let's back up for a second. since 1974, we've done a budget and done it correctly four times total. the budget act was created in 1974 right after watergate to try to create this more transparent process. what they created was a process so incredibly difficult to work that it's worked four times since 1974. we've only had two years since 1974 that we haven't had a single c.r. that's a continuing resolution. this body just passed another continuing resolution, meaning the appropriations process won't be done on time again this year, and that was settled today. the issues that we face with budget is not new. it's been 20 years since we've had no c.r. at all. this constant issue of putting the big budget issues off and trying to figure out how we're going to navigate through the senate procedures and get the

budget does has to stop. and at some point we have to have a determination to say we can't just keep saying next year this will improve, next year this will improve. we're not going to get a better product until we get a better process. and we have a very bad process right now and we need to admit it's a bad process. what i'm proud of is that multiple members of this body from the leadership of the budget committee through freshmen that are here, brand-new senators, that are all focused on the same thing. let's solve how we do budgeting and to actually get to a better product by improving the process. what do we have? almost $20 trillion in debt and everyone argues about what we're going to do on a few things to try to do management but no one is stalking about how we -- is talking about how we get us back to balance and pay off the debt. it's a common conversation i have with people in oklahoma. this conversation with people that say can we ever get this resolved? is it too late?

americans believe on the whole nothing will get better in washington, d.c. dealing with the budget, and their question is when and how does it get better? i wish i could give them a lot of hope on that. what i typically tell people, mr. president, is that let's just do a for instance. right now let's say the budget, the balanced budget piece that we have, if we took the balanced budget piece that we put out earlier this year and actually took ten years, chipped away at the deficit and in ten years chipped away at it and got back to a balance where we had no deficit that year, it was balanced, then let's say the next year we actually had a $50 billion surplus. it would be a pretty good surplus. so we chip away in ten years, get to balance. the next year we have a $50 billion surplus. mr. president, do you know how long it would take us to pay off our debt if we had a $50 billion surplus. if we had a $50 billion surplus every year for 460 years in a

row, we would pay off our debt. 460 years in a row of $ 50 billion surpluses, and we can get on top of this. everyone says that's unreasonable, and i would say it's certainly unreasonable if we don't change the way we do process. it just continues to get worse. there are some basic things we can do. we can do budgeting every two years. and people may say how does that solve anything. that's predictability and planning. it creates greater oversight. right now we do this every single year and in the speed of what has to be done, how it has to be done, there's very little oversight on our spending. we can actually put all the areas we have in spending all accountable every year. right now there's about 25% or so, 25% to 30% of our budget that we actually focus in on every year with the appropriations process. the rest of it's on auto pilot.

and it's never touched until we get everything in front offing everybody -- get everything in front of everybody every year to be able to look at oversights we're not going to solve big issues. we've got to look at budget gimmicks. i've been at war with a budget gimmick called the chimp. it's my favorite of the gimmicks. there are a lot of them out there. changes in mandatory programs. chimps. the changes in mandatory programs is a budget gimmick that's out there that says we were planning to spend this much when we really weren't, but on paper it said we were, but instead we said no we're not going to spend that much this year, so we'll spend it on something else. guess what? the next year they come back to the exact same dollars again and say no, we're planning this year to do it, but we're really not, and so we'll spend it on something else. so it just adds debt every year. and we'll have billions of dollars in chimps built into our budget. and claim that the deficit is even lower than it is. it's not. it's just this budget gimmick,

and in real dollars it makes it even bigger. we've got to deal with those budget gimmicks in there and to be able to take that away so is that when the appropriations process is done, you get real numbers. the hardest thing to get in d.c. is the real number. so you're going to deal with all these gimmicks that are out there to remove those. you get with a longer time period to be able to plan, create some certainty, but one of the key things that we have to have is an actual deadline. this town doesn't if much -- doesn't function on anything other than deadlines and pressure points and when it's time we have to get it resolved, we get it resolved. but if we don't have to resolve it now, we say tomorrow, we'll get it done next week, next session. the question is how do we create those pressure points? how about a skimp -- skimp, a simple idea that says if we don't get the appropriations done on time it goes to an

automatic c.r. so we don't have a government shutdown because government shutdowns waste money on the whole. so it automatically kicks in to last year's budget amount. here's what changes: all the members of congress, our budget, our staff for how we function, our operating expenses, all of our committees and the executive office of the white house -- that's the three groups, the house, senate and the white house -- all of our budgets drop immediately let's say 4%, 5%, 6% the first day. and that does that for 30 days. then if you still don't have the appropriations process, it cuts again another big percentage. it puts the pressure where the pressure needs to be. it's not the fault of the agencies or the american people the job wasn't done. it lies squarely in the house, the senate and the white house and our negotiations not getting it done on time. it's a simple mechanism to say if the task has not been done, put the pressure where the pressure needs to be. the cuts in the house, in the senate, and on the white house. and puts all of us to the table

and get it resolved. the goal is to do appropriations in a transparent process so the american people can see how their money is being spent and to be able to do it wisely and to be able to create a process where you can actually solve the problem. currently we don't have a process that solves the problem. this magically doesn't balance our budget. it still takes hard decisions, but at least creates a format where we could solve the problem. right now we don't even have that. so step one, like an a.a. group, let's at least admit there's a problem. there is a problem. step two, let's get to work on fixing it and actually resolve the process and then let's actually get to work balancing this and paying off our debt. mr. president, i appreciate the opportunity to be able to talk about this. mr. perdue: thank you very much, mr. president. i think my colleagues can see the passion and the history that he has had here and a lot of great thought. i note that the chairman of our budget committee in the senate is here, senator mike enzi from wyoming. and i'm going to turn it over to

him and ask him to give us his comments. he's been fighting this for years as chairman of the budget committee last year, he managed to get a budget out of our committee that actually took over $7 trillion out of the president's budget at that point in time. so, senator enzi, thank you so much for joining us. mr. enzi: thank you. thank you for your comments. i don't get invited many places to speak because i talk about what you've been talking about, and it depresses people. but it's about time that we got depressed over the budget and got some changes. and i appreciate everybody on the committee and those who are not on the committee who have been working to solve this problem. i know that most of you ran on getting a balanced budget, getting to a balanced budget. balancing it now if we could. i get real frustrated because i know that we're $20 trillion in debt and headed to $29 trillion, and then i hear people say, yes, but we cut the deficit in half. that's not the debt.

i don't like the word deficit. i call it overspending. that's what we're doing. and we just got the report that we're going to be $590 billion overspent this year. and as senator lankford pointed out, 70% of the budget's on auto pilot, so that 30% that we get to make a decision on, that's 1,$070 billion. we've got to worry -- that's 1, $070 billion. that $200 year we're throwing in a rat hole. if that goes to 5%, we're now $1.7 billion a year in interest. we get to make decisions on $1, 700,000,00 billion. we could be at 5%, i think,

within three years. i think that defense is over $500 billion, and that's not enough. so we definitely have a problem, as has been pointed out by the chart in 40 years, since the budget act was passed, we've only completed all 13 bills four times, we've been holding hearings in the budget committee and this group of people have been holding other meetings to see how it's done in the private sector, how it's done by other countries, how it's done by the states and nobody does it like the federal government. what i was trying to figure out the first budgets i fount out that the format is not the one the appropriations committee uses and definitely not the same format that the president uses. then i found out that that's intentional. that's so you can't follow the dollars. but there are a lot of problems besides that in following the dollars. for instance, we have 120

housing programs, and they're administered by 20 different agencies. that is not seven per agency or one having more than the others. that means that the 120 programs are administered by all 20 of the agencies. nobody's in charge. there's no goals set. we don't know if they completed what they set out to do and no way to make a correction if they did. and i pointed out a lot of times how far behind we are on actually approving the things that we do. we don't ever go back and look at the old stuff. we're paying for a program from 1983 that has expired. another one from 1987. a whole bunch of them from before 2006. so we've got to get off this auto pilot and get to a new format. and i want to congratulate this group and particularly senator perdue. i remember introducing him the first time that we had a budget

committee meeting, and i said senator perdue knows how to balance a budget. he's been working in the private sector. and he said, no, in the private sector you have to show a little bit of a profit. well, we're going to have to show a little bit of a profit around here if we're ever going to get rid of the debt. we better do that or our kids are really going to suffer. in fact, in the private sector, we're having some pension problems. but we've been making the private sector put money away for the pensions. invest the money so that they'd be able to meet the promise that they made. the federal government doesn't do that. we just take it out of this budget. now if we spend one thousand billion dollars on interest and there's only one thousand and seventy billion, what do you think is going to happen to federal employees who are expecting retirement? that could be in worse shape than the multiemployer plans. we're going to have to come up with some solutions, and i appreciate this approach where we're looking at what the

private sector does, what the states do and what other countries do. and they have had success. now it's a little difficult because it causes some reorganization of what we're doing. maybe we wind up with one or five housing programs and they'd all be under one agency, so we can have goals. we're going to have to have a portfolio method of budgeting so that we know what we're trying to do and whether we get it done. there are already some laws on the books that say that we do that, but we don't. so i congratulate you for doing this, and i'm so pleased that we have senator perdue heading up this effort because i mentioned he has saved some businesses before. they took his advice and reorganized, and i think that a lot of us have looked at this and said it could be done, it's going to be difficult because we don't even go back and look at old programs, let alone reorganize. so i hope people will pay

attention to this, see if they have some other ideas to throw in, but listen carefully to what's being said here today because this has to be fixed and it has to be -- i was hoping we could fix it before the elections because we were getting cooperation from the other side of the aisle, a lot of good suggestions, one of the reasons we were able to participate in a very bipartisan way is because none of us knew who the majority was going to be in the senate nor did we know who the president was going to be, and i think that made all of us a lot more reasonable. i hope after the elections, we can still be reasonable and do something that will save this country. thank you. mr. perdue: mr. chairman, i thank you for your comments but more importantly thank you for your heart in terms of running the budget committee and leading us into this observation and recognition that, you know, as this chart says, we have a dysfunctional system, and i think we don't have an alternative to find a better plan, and with that, i note that my good friend and esteemed colleague from tennessee,

senator corker, is here. he's chairman of the foreign relations committee, but more importantly he lets me sit next to him on the budget committee. i will say this about the foreign relations committee -- it is a very bipartisan committee. under bill clinton, just 16 years ago, we spent about $20 billion on the state department and usaid, and currently we're spending about $54 billion. that's just one department, those are constant dollars to show you how government has sort of exploded in the last 15 years, both under republican leadership and democratic leadership. i'm so glad that senator corker is here. senator corker, i look forward to your comments. mr. corker: thank you. i'm thrilled to be here. i thank you for your leadership on this issue, and i want to start by thanking chairman enzi also for the way he conducts committee business, as you just mentioned, on a committee where basically the way that it's set up binds both its arms and its legs hyped its back. meaning that just the processes that we have in place make it

impossible for us to really deal with our country's fiscal issues, so with you joining the committee, having been a person who has dealt with business throughout the world quickly seeing these frailties that chairman enzi has to deal with, you have thrown yourself in to trying to deal with those issues. i admire you for it. i think you and i both know that this is going to take a while, because in essence we're talking about a total reordering. we really don't have a budget process. i mean to even call what we do a budget per most human beings' understanding of what a budget is, is not realistic. so i thank you for that. i'm an advocate of what senator perdue and senator enzi are trying to do. we have to in essence get a process in place that actually works. it's impossible for the process that we have today to work. today's the perfect example of that. we pass a c.r. through december 11, and by the way we

make no policy change. think about an entity the size of our federal government. we spend $4 trillion of money each year of the american people's money, and yet we don't do the authorization process which lays out policies. if you can imagine, i.b.m. or apple or google or any company like that just continuing each year to do things exactly the same way and thing that there is going to be a different result, that's not possible, but worse than that -- and spending the $4 trillion that we spend each year, we only budget $1.2 trillion, $1.3 trillion. the rest of it is on auto pilot. it is the part that is on auto pilot that is the greatest threat to our country's national security. so i actually think we need to do two things at once. one is we need to continue working through the processes that senator perdue and chairman enzi are working on. it's going to take a while to get that done. it's going to cause a -- we will have to have a total reordering of how we do business.

that affects senate careers and staffs. we understand how difficult that is. we're dealing with human beings. we're dealing with people who have an investment in what they have been doing for years, and it's going to take us a while to overcome the culture that's been established here. but simultaneously, as my good friend, senator gregg from new hampshire has laid out, we also need to begin putting in place policy changes that begin saving our nation. one of the problems with the budget pass, we pass a budget that makes assumptions, but those assumptions never become reality, and so we say the budget balances over ten years, but we never do the tough things that it takes for those policies to actually be put in place. so a forcing mechanism -- i know several thoughts have been put forth -- to force us to do that, to force us to do that, to keep government open, to keep functioning is something that has to occur. so i'm proud to be a part of this effort as a wingman.

i appreciate all the meetings that are taking place. i hope that we are going to get to a result. i agree with senator enzi. it would have been good to have done it when we didn't know who the president was going to be or who was going to be in the majority. that's not going to happen, but things like this that matter, that save our nation take years to happen. and you are a young senator here by tenure. these things take a long time. i look forward to working with you to ensure that we get the right outcome, to save our nation and to keep us from this moral depravity that's taking place where in essence every day that goes by we're involved in generational theft where because we're not doing this, we're really laying a huge burden on future generations. so i yield the floor and thank you for your effort. mr. perdue: thank you so much, senator corker. moral depravity is so prevalent here, and it's no more -- it's no more present and no more

important than in the area of funding our military. i notice that senator ernst from iowa is here. i appreciate her leadership as a fellow freshman in the senate. let me just highlight one thing quickly. senator corker just mentioned that about a third, 30% of what we spend, 35% over the last eight years is borrowed and projected over the next ten years about 35% will be borrowed. and about 30% of what we spend is discretionary. that means that every discretionary dollar that we spend as a federal government is borrowed. let me say that again. every dollar that we spend in our discretionary budget is borrowed. that means in our military, our veterans administration, our military construction, our domestic programs, all of the things we're talking about are borrowed. and that means that we have got to get serious. we have disinvested in our military because of this budget crisis, and it's another reason to get at the budget process. so senator ernst, i can't tell you how much i appreciate you being here. i look forward to your comments.

mrs. ernst: wonderful. i'd like to thank you, my colleague from georgia, for spearheading this very, very important effort. we have heard discussions about getting back to regular order. we have heard discussions about the difference between the debt and the deficit. and where do we go as america? so i am glad that you were taking the time, investing your time in this effort, and we look forward to walking through that process, but it's good to see so many of us here todayen gauged and very active in this effort. so i'd like to thank all of my colleagues today. i know a number have already spoken, but truly our nation faces some very serious challenges, and challenging budgetary times, all of that coming at us in the future. if we aren't honest about where we are right now and where we are headed in the future and fix

it, our children and grandchildren are going to be handed a very heavy burden. we are already over $19.5 trillion in debt, and a level that is growing rapidly every single day. i'm from iowa, and back home in iowa, we generally don't talk about things in trillions of dollars or even in billions of dollars. so when you break it down, that debt load represents about $60,000 per person in this great country, and that's quite a number and one that all of us should be concerned about. the american people are concerned and they are frustrated with washington for a reason. washington doesn't seem to be serious about stopping the

reckless spending habits this town has, and that's why i think this proposal is a very interesting one and one that could provide opportunity as we move into the future. and so as we stop and look about the reckless spending habits -- and most americans agree that we have reckless spending habits here in washington, d.c. -- well, i tend to agree with those americans. i agree. since coming to the senate last year, i've worked to cut down wasteful and duplicative spending. let me give you just one example of taxpayer money that has been wasted. earlier this year, i introduced a bill that would limit the perks that wealthy former presidents receive. in twist, taxpayers spent $2.4 million -- in 2015, taxpayers spent $2.4 million on travel office space,

communications, personnel and other expenses for past presidents. i might add wealthy past presidents. at a time when they receive well-compensated book deals, speaking engagements, all kinds of activities, hardworking americans shouldn't foot those bills, and they shouldn't be expected to. so, mr. president, we passed that bill in the senate and in the house, bipartisan work on that effort, but unfortunately president obama decided to veto it, and while we are still working on a path forward, it leaves me just as frustrated as all of the other iowans who know we can't continue spending money. -- money we don't have on things that aren't necessary. washington can't even do the basic business of balancing our own budget.

plain and simple, we should. families in iowa do it every day, and they expect us here in washington, d.c., to do the same. after all, it is their tax dollars that are being spent, and it deserves to be spent wisely. unfortunately, it might just take a complete overhaul of washington's ways to help us solve this problem. and again, i want to thank my colleagues for joining us in this effort. and while some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have certainly made it very difficult if not impossible to conduct business in any sort of regular manner, the reality is excess spending in this town seems too often to be bipartisan. and i know my colleague from georgia mentioned earlier that our debt has ballooned under both republican and democratic

administrations. we are far too often unable to take a good, hard look at the money that's being spent because we often will get a 1,900-page bill at the last minute, and we're given the options of either taking it or leaving it. normally, that's for funding most of our government. that kind of practice doesn't really show us a good way forward. it really forces us to make difficult choices about how we are spending our taxpayers' money, and it certainly doesn't give us opportunity to cut wasteful spending. we really have to do better by our taxpayers. and so i'd like to thank my friend from georgia and my other colleagues that are joining us here today to help us in a way that we start thinking about how we solve this crisis and do it

in a creative way. so i want to -- to again thank you, senator, for leading this effort, being at the tip of the spear, and hopefully we are moving towards a smarter way of doing business in washington. if we don't do better, i'm afraid the future of this great country will be a lot dimmer. so thank you, senator. i appreciate the opportunity to be here. mr. perdue: thank you, senator ernst. i really enjoy your leadership here in the senate. with that, i'm going to move to -- i notice that senator rounds from south dakota, who was a governor, who dealt with this budget issue as an executive of a legislative body in south dakota, i'm looking forward to your comments, senator rounds. thank you for being here. mr. rounds: thank you, senator. first of all, i'd like to just start by thanking my colleagues that are here with us today, particularly chairman enzi who leads the budget committee, as well as you, senator perdue, for the -- not only are you the only freshman that serves on the budget committee but for leading

us on this floor in this discussion of this very important topic of our broken federal budget system. once again today congress has just met our deadline to fund the government past the end of the fiscal year. while many of us here in the chamber as well as the american people are rightly frustrated by this requirement for a last-minute reprieve, it is a reminder of our broken federal budget process and why we can no longer afford to continue down this dangerous path. i spent a great deal of time holding constituent meetings across south dakota during august, meeting with folks from all over the state. during that time our soaring national debt and runaway spending continued to be a concern to many. what i relayed to them about our country's fiscal future, what i will relay to you now is, it's just not very pretty. i shared with them a report from the congressional budget office which in january of this year released an indepth analysis of our debt and our deficit.

that found that by 2026 annual deficits will double as a share of g.d.p. to 4.9% and more than triple in dollar terms to 1.37 trillion -- $1.37 trillion or $1,370 billion as the chairman of the budget committee likes to put it. it's also found in 2026 which is ten short years from now, 99% of revenue that comes into the federal government, income taxes both personal and corporate, all the gas tax, all the fees, 99% of it will go back out in mandatory payments and net interest spending leaving no room to pay for roads or bridges, health care, our armed forces and other vital needs within our nation. that 99% number as they projected in ten years is a crisis. i would suggest to my colleagues that clie sis is not -- crisis

is not in ten years, that crisis is now. earlier you heard senator corker explain very, very eloquently, i believe, the fact that it takes time to move things here. i would suggest that time is of the essence and we no longer have a ten-year cycle in which to make these changes. we have to begin the process of fixing this broken system and we need to begin now. in 2026 our country turns 250 years old. wouldn't it be a marvelous goal if by that time we not only had this process fixed but it was actually working once again. the report concluded this is the c.b.o. report concluded that the driver for this rising debt is largely from growing mandatory payments, as you've heard my colleagues say. that's medicare, medicaid, and social security as well as interest on our debt. yet here in the senate when we

work through the appropriations process to determine the best way to spend america's hard earned money, well, we don't even vote on mandatory payments which are mandatory payments on mandatory programs. today those mandatory payments account for nearly three-quarters of all of the federal spending. that means that the continuing resolution that we just did is based upon about 28% of the total amount that we'll spend next year. simply not acceptable that we continue to look at and try to balance a 500-plus billion dollar a year deficit every single year and we only look at 28 mrs of -- 28% of the total spending that goes on. let me just suggest this, that in order to fix this as my colleagues have said today, we have to begin a process with expectations that the process actually works once again and that there are timelines established well in advance of the end of the fiscal year. but even more than that, any process that we use in the future also has to bring in

accountability, authorization, and appropriation together. why is it that when we talk about social security, medicare, and medicaid, we just don't talk about it? there is no place in which we can actually sit down and a committee who is assigned specifically for social security or a committee assigned specifically for medicare or one for medicaid. why is it that in states like south dakota where we have a south dakota retirement system, retirement system which is one of the best funded and best run in the entire united states and it's been there since the 1970's gets looked at every single year and yet social security which is such a huge and important part of a lot of peep's lives in the -- people's lives in the united states we're afraid to touch. it's not a matter of cutting. it's a matter of managing and making it more efficient and delivering the services and keeping it up to date. revenues and expenses, so that the people a generation from now can count on it being there. it's irresponsible for us to sit back here and say we're going to balance our budgets this year or make a commitment without

looking at all of the programs that are out there because we simply can't balance a budget and we can't take care of those programs, social security, medicare, or medicaid unless we actively participate in managing them and in making good decisions and getting the buy-in from the public that what we're trying to do is make it better for them long term and that we have their best interests at heart. with that i just want to take the time to say thank you. i think this is a critically important thing for all of us. last year we did an omnibus bill at the end of the year and a group of us got together and said no more. in fact in our freshman bear den as we call it, it's time that we have a meeting with our leadership. i cannot tell you how pleased i was with the reception that we received by our leadership who said, look, we agree. if you guys can put together and work this through and senator perdue, i give you huge accolades for actually working through the hard work to get this done. this is important to our country and this is one way in which we can begin to build credibility

once again with the citizens of our nation. i thank you for the work that you're doing and i most certainly looking forward to working with our colleagues to fix a broken budget system not only in the senate but in congress and get on with sending back to the american people a regular basis a budget that they believe in and that they can count on. with that i would yield back. a senator: thank you for your comments. mr. perdue: i really appreciate your leadership particularly on this topic. i note senator sullivan from alaska is here. he's been very outspoken about this since he got here last year with us, another member freshman. senator sullivan, i look forward to your comments. thank you. mr. sullivan: thank you, senator perdue and thank you for your leadership on this important colloquy. you know, as some of us you've seen down here, senator rounds has mentioned it, there are a lot of members of the senate who are very concerned about it but what you're seeing here are a lot of the new members, a lot of freshmen. there's 12 new republican

freshmen, mr. president. good to see you. you're one of them. and we're very concerned about this. and we were concerned because a lot of us ran for office, a lot of us for the first time because we saw what was going on with this budget process. we saw that with all due respect, with all due respect to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, they didn't even attempt to even pass a budget for a number of years. they didn't even try. think about that. you're back home, a state government like senator rounds is talking about or household or business, you're not even going to try to pass a budget? that's what was going on in the u.s. senate. remarkable. so what we're trying to do is we're trying to fix that. the first thing we did and senator enzi was on the floor a little bit ago but we came here and we passed a budget. hadn't happened in years. we passed a budget resolution. that was an important start. then we started to pass

appropriations bills. as a matter of fact, this year to the majority leader's credit rgs we started work -- credit, we started working on appropriations bills at an earlier time than any time in decades. and we got 12 appropriations bills passed out of the appropriations committee. and then what happened? we tried to start bringing them to the floor to vote on them, to move them and the vast majority of those bills, all of which were very bipartisan were filibustered by the minority leader of the u.s. senate. again i'm new here. i still don't understand why they did that. a lot of us came down on the floor were really upset when the minority leader of the u.s. senate filibustered the defense appropriations bill, the bill that funds our troops six times in the last year and a half. six times. a disgrace in my view. so what are we doing down here?

more delay. more delay. we just got through a continuing resolution which is not how to run the government. and they're looking at opportunities for more delay. for example, at the very end of this discussion there was the idea maybe adding additional funds for flint, michigan. well, mr. president, nobody cares about clean water as much as i do. my state has huge challenges with communities that not just have aging infrastructure like flint, michigan, but no infrastructure. i have over 30 communities in the great state of alaska that don't have clean water and sewer, don't have flush toilets. americans, if you can believe that. so i certainly wanted to focus on that. but that's what we did in the regular order through the e.p.w. committee with the wrda bill. for flint, michigan, and the state of alaska and other communities that have challenges

with clean water, we're going to address those through the regular order. and that's what senator perdue is leading on right now in the senate. through the regular order getting back to a budget process that can handle the enormous challenges that you've heard about on the floor here. $20 trillion in debt, an exploding deficit. that's what we need to do. and i really want to commend senator perdue for his leadership. you know, what he did is something that takes a lot of courage here. a white board approach. we just need to look at everything anew. with his leadership, his experience, a number of us led by senator perdue have been working on this for months, for months. and this is what we need to do to finally get a hold of these enormous budget challenges. i want to encourage all my coo

colleagues, republicans and democrats, to join in this process, to bring your ideas to fix what is clearly, clearly a broken process that is not helping our nation, that is driving up the deficit, that is saldzing the next -- saddling the next generation with trillions of dollars of debt. we have the beginning of a way to start fixing this. again, i want to thank senator perdue, senator daines for their hard work on this. i'm certainly going to be part of their important efforts as we look to put our country on a fiscal path of sustainable economic growth and budgets which we're not on right now. mr. rounds: senator sullivan, you're a war year -- warrior. it gives me hope we'll get this done. to help us close this out, my good friend from montana, senator steve daines who has

real world experience. a senator: both as a consultant but running a high-tech company. he understands what profit is about. more importantly he understands what meeting needs is about. i'm so glad he can help us close this out. i have a few remaining comments but thank you so much for being here. mr. daines: senator perdue, thank you for your leadership. what an honor to be on the senate floor surrounded about i freshmen. we have the presiding officer from colorado. lieutenant colonel dan sullivan, united states marines from alaska. david perdue who is also a c.e.o. of a company before he came to the united states senate. we had lieutenant colonel ernst from iowa, joni ernest, proud to serve with joni here and thank you for your service to our country and now in the u.s. senate. we had mike rounds, a governor from south dakota formally who had to balance his budget there or he'd lose his job. and as senator perdue mentioned when i first came to washington,

i did come equipped with the skill that was familiar to montanans like hunting and fishing are. that was how to balance a budget. because before i came here, i spent 28 years in the private sector, 13 years at proctor & gamble and 12 years with a start-up company. in between that three years in a family construction business. i know what it takes to make a payroll. i know what it takes to make a family household budget work and yet balancing the budget is a skill this body has not embraced for nearly 20 years. as senator perdue has mentioned, four times out of 42 years has this process worked. that is broken. in fact, think about this. it's september 28. on saturday it's october 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year of the united states federal government which will spend about $4 trillion this next fiscal year. we begin the next fiscal year in two days without a budget. now, we were all here last year at this same point in time, the

last week of the fiscal year, the last week of september, and we moved into this fiscal year what? without a budget. there's no wonder we're $20 trillion in debt when you don't have a budget. there's an old saying in business, if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it. we do not have a budget here. what has that created? $20 trillion in debt. in fact, when the congressional budget office issued its 2016 report last month, it said this year's projected budget deficit is increased from a staggering $3 billion in its january report. they raised it to $5 billion, an increase of 34%. if i was running a business, i could not get away with this. in fact, i would be out of business. in fact, serving on a board of a publicly traded company, we'd be firing the c.e.o. we've -- we'd be firing the board with results like n. here's something to think about.

deficit spending is nothing short of age discrimination because this excessive spending is at the cost of our children and our grandchildren and that's what we are passing down. we're racking up the credit card debt figuratively speaking and passing it on to our kids. and and the american people are asking themselves why aren't the people they've elected able to ensure the future for our children? how can balance ago budget be so difficult? being here for two years in the senate, i've come to realize the biggest hurdle to balancing the budget are the very rules, the very process that guides this institution. they're broken. unless we fix the process, the leadership of senator perdue, who is getting out in front of this issue -- unless we fix that, we will continue to repeat the growing deficits because this process is yielding the results it was disiengdz to deliver. it is unacceptable. it must change. the c.b.o. told us that the -- this budget system we've

inherited that was adopted back in 1974, the national debt then was $484 billion. we're now approaching d 20 trillion -- $20 trillion, which is 105% of g.d.p. the first bill i introduced when i came to congress -- in fact i walked down to the chamber here, laid the bill on the desk for the clerk much it was called the balanced budget accountability act. it says simply this: if members don't balance the budget, they shouldn't get paid. let's bring some real-world accountibility to this institution. let's put the pain on the members of congress instead of the american people. i thought perhaps if our pay was on the line, it would force us to be held accountable. not only balance the budget but get on track for long-term responsible spending. if we do nothing, we know what will happen. we'll be right back here. mark it on your calendars. come back to this body the last week of september. we'll be here debating a c.r., pushing it into december with some big omnibus vote.

it will happen again, guaranteed, unless we change this process and change the people that serve in this institution. we need action. we need accountability. we need it now. in conclusion, i will say this: i have one distinction perhaps, and that's i'm the only chemical engineer that serves in the united states house or senate. when you are trained as an engine -- as an snrng, you are train -- as an engineer, you are trained to take a look at the problem. we came here not to accept the status quo but to reject it and to change the way this country operates, truly to change the future of this country for our kids and grandkids. let's get this country back on the right track. senator perdue, it is an honor to serve with you. thank you again. mr. perdue: thank you, senator daines. with that, i have hope that we're going to get there.

in light of the time and the other business that is before this senate tonight, i will abridge my closing comments. there is a four-letter word that's missing in washington today. h-o-p-e. people sent this class -- 12 members of the republican caucus. it is almost 25% of our caucus are freshmen this year. we ran on this topic but we had the leader -- the chairman of the budget committee here. we had the chairman of foreign relations. these people are very concerned about this topic. but we're not just complaining about the status quote. and again we're not complaining about the other side. there are no innocent parties when this comes in this debt crisis. if you look at the last 75, 80 years, this country has lived and benefited from the greatest economic boom in the history of mankind and yet here we are today $20 trillion of debt, over $100 trillion of future commitments already made by this government. its basically $1 million for

every family in america. we don't need to talk about the need anymore. what we need to talk about is what do we do? that's what we came up here for. we need to focus on results. it is what we're proposing, and this is -- we put it in language now. we're moving to put it into a bill on the floor. we have democratic input. the goal here is not to solve the debt crisis. that's the need. the goal in this process is to create a politically neutral platform where both sides, whether they're in the majority or minority, can make their points during the budget process, move to an appropriations process and get the government funding every year without all this drama. that's what the people of america want. it will protect our military. it will protect our national security. it will let us take care of the domestic needs we need and will let us invest in our infrastructure to get this economy going again. but without this exercise, we will not start down the path that may take 30 40r years -- 30 or 40 years to bring this debt under control.

that is large. let me emphasize one more thing. if this debt is not addressed soon, the rising interest rates that we all know are coming -- we are living in a false world today of zero interest rates -- if we just get back to 30ur-year average of -- to our 30-year average of 5%, it is simply not workable. and all things coming into the conversation. this is what's going to happen. we're going to start debating this on the floor hopefully soon. it may run into next year. it neigh go the following year. i would commitment to my people back home is that we're not going to give up until we get something done about this. we proposed basically a couple of things. three guiding principles were developed by a small group of people. it has been welcomed by a growing number of people. the budget needs to be a law. number two, everything we spend, all $4 trillion of it, need to go into the budget. they need to be debated and covered in the budget by both sides. and, third, if we don't fund the government by the end of the fiscal year, there have to be serious consequences. you heard one proposal tonight

by senator lankford. there may be others. but we are going to put on the senate and the house for that matter real consequences if we don't get the federal government done. again, this is an exercise that we hope will be bipartisan. we want no advantage i in this. we want a process that doesn't advantage either party. it gives both equal standing in the budget process, leaning to a reasonable and effective fundings of the federal government. politically neutral platform --. that's our goal. if not us, who. i thank the forebankers of the president tonight. thank you for allowing us to do this. i yield my time and i see we have other speakers on the floor. thank you. mr. heinrich: mr. president, i rise today to introduce the two-generation economic empowerment act alongside my colleague and friend from maine,

senator susan collins. we're going to hear from her in a few minutes, but i want to say a few words about an issue that is all too familiar to many of our states, those represented by democrats, those represented by republicans, from coast to coast. earlier this month, we saw positive economic data from the census bureau that showed that over the last year american middle-class and low-income families saw the largest growth in their income in generations. but, unfortunately, many of us know -- and i want to thank my colleague from maine for her incredible work on the legislation that we're going to be introducing today -- but there are simply far too many families in my home state of new mexico and across in nation who are still struggling to make ends meet, even to put food on the table and certainly to

escape multi-general rigsal poverty. -- multigenerational poverty. last year nearly one in five new mexicans lived below the federally defined poverty rate. think about that. one in five. these are mothers and fathers. they're grandparents trying to support themselves and their families. they're young adults trying to get ahead and lay the groundwork for the future that they've envisioned for themselves. but often the dreams we have of going to school and getting a job are cut short by the reality that these once rites of passage on the way to the american people are fathe farther and far out of reach. awful us have a responsibility -- all of us have a responsibility not to accept this status quo. without programs like medicaid or the national school lunch program, even more families in new mexico would be struggling

to overcome poverty in the wake of the great recession. but it is time to recognize that the federal government's current approach to poverty is far too disconnected, it's too fragments and too disjointed to truly address the needs of these working families. and too often it simply ignores the very nature of the family itself. i'll tell you what i mean by that. i grew up on a small farm and ranch operation, and in addition to tending our cattle, both of my parents worked full time, often more than full-time. my dad was a utility lineman, my mother worked in a factory inspecting wheels on an assembly line. like a lot of americans, i learned the dignity of hard work long before i ever held my first job. i learned it at home. and as a father of two children, i understand the challenges of parenthood today, especially

when both parents work, and in many cases in new mexico, that means both parents may work more than one job. much of our time is centered on our jobs and our children, and for many of us, this leaves very little time for yourself or your own educational pursuits. and if parents are able to find time to attend school and better themselves, they have to fit their class schedule around those jobs. they have to fit their class schedule around their child's school and their child-care hours. all of this limits parents' access to a full and rigorous class schedule. and it extends the number of semest theirs a parent -- semesters that a parent is in school and it increases their student loan debt. the way the federal government tries to help increase opportunities for working families isn't working well enough to address these daily challenges that tse families

face. when multiple programs exist to help low-income parents and children, they have individual funding streams causing silos and fragmentation. low-income families trying to access these benefits often have trouble just navigating the system and the multiple eligibility requirements, the multiple service providers, families simply get discouraged and lose out on benefits because each one has its own set of requirements. and even the local service providers who are trying to help families get ahead are finding this disjointed federal landscape difficult to navigate. addressing the needs of children and parents separately and without a comprehensive strategy is leaving too many children and parents behind and diminishing the whole family's chances of reaching economic security.

that's why i've teamed up with my republican colleague from maine, senator susan collins, to introduce the bipartisan two-generation economic empowerment act. our legislation will increase opportunities for working families through programs targeting parents and children together. with support aimed at increasing economic security, educational success, social, capital, and health, and well-being. by aligning and linking existing systems and funding streams, our legislation will lead to improved outcomes for parents and children while improving the effectiveness of service delivery. our legislation will make federal agencies coordinate more effectively through a new interagency council on multigenerational poverty. the council will align and link departments that are already working to address poverty in order to reduce the redu the ren

dan saingdz the rate -- redundancy and the rate tape we see. and to make sure that programs are working in a complimentary fashion. we are also looking for new ways to incentivize investments in comprehensive two-generation programs. our bill will encourage federal, state, tribal and local governments to test innovative ways of using federal resources by allowing increased flexibility and blending discretionary grant funds across multiple federal programs in exchange for greater accountability. we'll create a social impact bond pilot project to encourage private foundations and investors to fund new two-generation programs. over the last year, i visited programs in my home state of new mexico that are already using a two-generation approach. in albuquerque, i met with

participants of the cnn connect services program at central new mexico community college. this program assists students, many of whom are parents, or children of parents a. sending cnm with academic support, financial kowchg coaching and career services. and it connects families with behavioral services and chielt care. by streamlining and coordinating all of these support services for students and their children, families are able to learn and grow together. at ynm, i met -- at cnm, i met montecelo who was a full-time mother who couldn't focus on her own education until her two children started an even-start and head-start early childhood education program. thanks to a two-generation program that connects parents to child care and education, she

earned her g.e.d. and she started taking courses at cnm to become a social worker. she was working with other parents to help them raise healthy families and receive an education. in santa fe, i toured the united way's early learning center. this hub of early learning and family support can serve as a model for creating a path of opportunity for all hardworking americans, using a comprehensive two-generation approach. at at state-of-the-art facility, the center offers yearround, full-day services for children and families, including hot meals, a health center, teaching and learning technology, employment and social service assistance for parents and the home visitation program. one mother i met there, brenda olivas, was connected with united way when she was four

months pregnant. the home visitation program supported her as she and her husband raised their young son. when i talked with her, brenda had just started working at the early learning center, helping care for children. brenda said she hoped to enroll in classes in santa fe community college and put hearse on a path towards a successful career. i talked with representatives of service providers at a head start. i heard from working parents and service providers about the challenges and the obstacles that stand in the way of their educational and career opportunities. and just last month i visited la clinica de familia early head

start childhood center. the center cares for parents while their parents work. and i got to read "brown bear, brown bear" which is not only one of the children's favorite books, it's also one of my favorite books. my kids loved that when they were little. but i think, mr. president, it's time to build on the progress that we've seen demonstrated through the data at programs like these. it's time to bring in more stakeholders and to start actively changing the trajectory of these families and these communities. this type of challenge that will have to be fought on the front lines through public-private partnerships on college campuses and community centers, on ball fields and in health clinics and in our towns both large and small, no matter what your zip code is, you should have an

opportunity to use already existing federal resources or attract private investment to implement the two-generation approach in your community, because as the data suggests, it works. and that is exactly what the two-generation economic empowerment act aims to achieve. i would like to once again thank my colleague, senator collins, for her hard work to help create this legislation. and i want to thank the great minds at places like ascend at the aspen institute and voices for children for working with us and our staff on these real innovative solutions to create more economic mobility. as we work to advance this bipartisan bill in the senate, i hope that the rest of our colleagues will see why this is an issue that should not only be

bipartisan but should command our urgent attention, because the status quo is not something any of us should accept. it's important to note that our proposal doesn't add any new federal spending or add to the deficit. our legislation simply takes existing funding programs that we already have in place and makes sure that we're investing more wisely, more efficiently, more effectively to meet the needs of our children and their families. this is a fiscally responsible way to proceed, and it is a moral imperative. we all know that all the potential we could ever ask for sits in homes and in churches and in classrooms across this great nation. by helping parents and grandparents and children overcome poverty and pursue their dreams together, we can

put whole families on a path towards economic security and create a greater economic future for all of our communities. mr. president, i would yield back. ms. collins: mr. president? thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i'm pleased to join my colleague from new mexico, senator heinrich, in introducing the two-generation economic empowerment act of 2016. it has been a great pleasure to work with him together to craft this important legislation, and i commend him for his leadership. our bipartisan bill proposes a new approach to fighting poverty, one that focuses on addressing the needs of children

and their parents together, two generations in order to help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. mr. president, more than 50 years after president lyndon johnson declared a war on poverty, poverty remains a troubling reality for millions of americans who struggle to find the resources they need for the basic necessities of life. in the time since that worthy war was first declared, the federal government has spent trillions of dollars, taxpayer dollars, on programs to combat poverty. yet the truth is the poverty rate has barely budged.

in 1966, the poverty rate was 14.7%. just this month the u.s. census bureau announced that the poverty rate for 2015 was 13.5%. i would note that that's actually one percentage point you -- one percentage point higher than the year before the start of the 2008 recession. the point is, mr. president, that despite our good intentions and despite the expenditure of trillions of taxpayer dollars, we have made very little progress in lifting families out of poverty. every state in our nation is affected by poverty. in my state of maine, the

poverty rate stands at 13.4%, just slightly below the national rate. poverty spans rural towns and urban centers, race and ethnicity, men and women, old and young. it diminishes the chances of a bright future for far too many of our children. just this weekend the maine sunday telegram reported on a heart wrenching story of a five-year-old girl named ariana who lived in a makeshift tent in the woods outside of portland. this is a picture of arianna, a darling little girl, only five years of age, living outside in

a very crude tent. thanks to the involvement of a state social worker and the maine homeless veterans alliance who were committed to keeping the family together, this story fortunately has a happy ending. arianna and her mother now live in an apartment in auburn, maine, and she finally has just started kindergarten. we know that the well-being of children like arianna is tightly linked to the well-being of their parents. just last week i chaired a hearing of the senate subcommittee on housing and transportation. we examined whether there's a better way to provide housing

assistance to vulnerable families and individuals. both o.m.b. director shaun donovan and h.u.d. secretary hiewlan -- julian castro have often pointed out to our subcommittee that the single biggest predictor of a child's opportunities and even that child's life expectancy is the zip code of the community where the child grows up. federal programs have certainly helped many of those living in poverty to manage the day-to-day hardships that they face, but the fact is that these programs have failed to achieve their promise of breaking the cycle of poverty that that has trapped to many families. we should not accept such

outcomes here in the land of opportunity. so, mr. president, our bipartisan legislation proposes a fresh approach that is aimed at equipping both parents and their children with the tools that they need to succeed and to become self sufficient. it marks an important first step toward reevaluating our approach to poverty-reducing programs and encouraging innovative, more effective uses of tax dollars. encouraging programs that allow us to tailor them to the needs of specific families, programs that will work. too often today our federal

programs address certain issueses in silos overlooking the fact that the needs of families in poverty are almost always interconnected. they shouldn't have to try to navigate the various programs that are available to put together the funding streams that they need to lift themselves out of poverty. our bill would change that. it encourages an integrated personalized approach. let me give an example. helping a mother secure safe, high-quality child care can have a positive impact not only on her ability to succeed in the

workforce, but also by improving her child's readiness for school. while that child is receiving care and education, her mother can be connecting with the skills training program to help her improve her family's income. connecting these various federal programs has the potential to lift entire families out of poverty and break that vicious cycle of intergenerational or multigenerational poverty. the two-generation economic empowerment act would create an interagency council on multigenerational poverty to coordinate efforts across federal agencies and departments aimed at supporting vulnerable

families. the council would also make recommendations to congress on ways to improve coordination of antipoverty programs and to identify best practices. similarly, our legislation would instruct the government accountability office, g.a.o., to study and report to congress and the council on the barriers that prevent grant recipients from collaborating and by identifying opportunities for more coordination. our bill would also authorize a pilot program to provide additional flexibility for states and local governments to improve the administration of programs using two-generation models. it would authorize five states

to participate in two-generation performance partnerships. this would allow, for example, states like maine and new mexico to blend together similarly purposed funds across multiple federal programs in order to help poor families. it aims to reduce duplicative reporting and application requirements. this kind of red tape and bureaucracy often deters local agencies and organizations from making the most effective use of tax dollars. to ensure accountability because that is what this is all about. this bill would also require that these pilot programs be targeted at specific programs

designed to reduce -- reduce poverty, and it would measure the outcomes and the effectiveness of these programs. finally, our bill would create a pilot program to incentivize public-private partnerships around poverty solutions through social impact bonds. these partnerships harness philanthropic and private sector investments to implement proven social programs. this concept is based on legislation that's been introduced by two of our colleagues, senator orrin hatch and senator michael bennet. i would note that through these partnerships, government funds are only paid out when the desired outcomes are met.

mr. president, with this bill, we have the chance to make a permanent difference in the lives of millions of families in this country who are struggling and living in poverty. we have the opportunity to finally break the multigenerational cycle of poverty. we have the chance after 50 years of pouring trillions of dollars into well-intentioned programs that have had some good benefits but have not produced the kinds of lasting results that we need. we have the opportunity to

change that. just as a child's zip code should not determine his or her future success, so should the bureaucratic siloed approach to poverty not make it so difficult for families to get the help they need to escape lives of poverty. we don't want more cases where a 5-year-old girl is living in a make-shift tent outside of the largest city in my state. it the federal government can be an effective partner in providing funding, in providing opportunities for parents and their children, lifting up families and in turn building

stronger communities. state and local governments, the laboratories of experimentation in this country, can be at the forefront of these efforts, and the increased flexibility proposed by our bill would help reform practices across government. building public-private partnerships would also help to spur innovative approaches and would help generations to come to take part and be full participants in the american dream. again, let me thank my partner, senator heinrich, for his leadership on this bill. i urge our colleagues to take a look at the fresh, innovative approach that we have developed to moving families out of

poverty by breaking down the silos in federal programs, by encouraging local and state and private sector and nonprofit organizations' collaboration and by giving them the tools that they need to succeed. mr. president, let us not be here 50 years from now noting that the poverty rate is the same as it was when lyndon johnson declared the war on poverty 50 years ago. it would be 100 years, 50 years from now. let's try a different approach. thank you, mr. president.

the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you, mr. president. too often, this body talks about supporting our veterans while doing far too little to pass critical legislation that would actually help them. the senate committee on veterans' affairs, of which i'm a member, i'm joined by my colleague on that committee, senator tillis, with whom i have done a number of issues in our time together in the senate. chairman isakson and ranking member blumenthal have done, this committee perhaps has had the best cooperation of maybe any committee in the senate. we continue to work to address challenges facing veterans and the veterans administration. through hearings and legislative markups, we have listened and learned from veterans. as a result, we have worked together across the aisle to produce legislation that reflects the needs of those who served our country. it's the minimum we ought to be doing, and we generally are doing that pretty well, i think. one result of our efforts has been the bipartisan veterans first act. it's a good bill and

comprehensively addresses a host of issues facing veterans, education benefits, homelessness, health care, v.a. accountability. as we see too often, even commonsense legislation like vets first can't make its way to the floor. our inability to act on this doesn't mean we shouldn't try to address specific issues that have bipartisan support. one of those issues which i hope we can agree on is the need to provide relief to veterans who throw through -- through no you will fault of their own, were bilked by the for-profit school i.t.t. veterans and other students were betrayed and bilked. taxpayers were fleeced. veterans attending i.t.t. at the time of its closure lose the g.i. bill or v.a. benefits used to pay for their education. meanwhile, all other students who are enrolled at i.t.t. are eligible to have their federal student loans discharged. so if you were not a veteran and you had federal student loans, you could get those loans discharged. if you were a veteran under the

g.i. bill or v.a. benefits, you couldn't. it wasn't anybody's intent to do that, but that's what the law says. and i know senator isakson, the chairman, we're joined by senator carper on the floor, too. he's interested in this. i know senator tillis has cosponsored my bill actually to fix this. it is something we need to do. we're here today -- we're not the only ones who believe action needs to be taken. governor mike pence, the governor of the state next door to mine, indiana, the republican nominee for vice president, supports this. the closure of i.t.t. was the fault of the management of that school who -- who spent a lot of money on marketing and a lot of money on helping people -- students get financing, but not much money on education and even less on job placement for their -- for their students. the closure of i.t.t. was not the fault of the veterans, for sure, not the fault of the students, but now veterans are worried about being able to pay their rent and pursue their education, which is what this legislation is going to allow them to do.

520 veterans in my state of ohio have been -- have had -- have been impacted by i.t.t.'s closure. there are some questions of finding a way to pay for this legislation, but i believe finding a pay-for is a red herring. we are simply giving the v.a. the authority to provide relief to veterans. no one is running around to try to find a pay-for for the federal student loans that are going to be discharged, so we're saying we're just going to do the discharge on the nonveteran students. we have got to find a legislative little sleight of hand pay-for to take care of the veterans. that just doesn't make sense. why should veterans be treated differently? why should veterans be treated worse than nonveteran students? all we're looking to do is make sure veterans are treated the same as all other students who attend an institution like i.t.t. or corinthian, another scam institution that shut down. veterans are promised g.i. benefits when they signed up to serve our country. i.t.t. has cheated them out of the quality education they earn.

if we fail to act today before leaving town, we abandon the responsibility to our nation's heroes. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate veterans' affairs committee be discharged from further consideration of s. 2253. i ask that the bill be read a third time and passed, that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: is there objection? the senator from north carolina. mr. tillis: thank you, mr. president. reserving the right to object, my colleague from ohio and i have worked on a number of different measures on the veterans committee and i hope to continue to work with him, but i want to talk a little bit about the process here. it may seem odd, a bill that i'm one of the lead republican sponsors, to come to the floor and object to the u.c. but let's talk about structurally what's going on here. we said well, it doesn't -- it's the only reason there is a problem is there is no pay-for. in other words, we're trying to pass a policy that we haven't

taken the time to make a decision about how to pay for it. we can say that we're authorizing the v.a. to pay for it, but what are they going to do? we haven't provided them with any funds to do it, so what potentially suffers as a result? that's one piece. we just did a number of speeches here with republican freshmen and a couple of veteran members on the floor talking about being responsible in the budgeting process and actually living within our means and paying for things. now i'm in the uncomfortable position of having to object potentially, reserving my right to object, to a measure that the policy i'm going to support. what i don't want to do, though, is send something half-baked to the house and pretend that somehow it's going to be taken up before we get back from the recess. it won't. and as a matter of fact, if we don't do our job here, it will probably not move in the house, so why not work with senator isakson who has done a remarkable job of trying to work

with the veteran service organizations who have a concern with the direction we were going with the pay-fors to find a legitimate way to pay for this policy before we send it to the house. make it more likely that before we get out of the end of the year, that this bill will be passed. this is just about being responsible and doing both parts of our jobs. coming up with good policy and then coming up with a way to pay for it. and so for those reasons, mr. president, i do object. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: i thank senator tillis. i understand his view on this. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. brown: thank you. i'm sorry, mr. president. i appreciate senator tillis', my colleague on the veterans committee, his position. i just fundamentally, though, say -- well, first of all, the senate shouldn't leave town. we should finish our work. we should confirm the supreme court nominee or at least have hearings. we should finish our work that we haven't done this year. we have been in session less

this year than any senate in the last 60 years. i know that senator mcconnell wants to send his members home so they can campaign for re-election and spend their koch brothers money that they benefited from. but more than that, i -- what i don't get here is we're giving the v.a. the authority, only giving them the authority to provide relief to these veterans. we're treating veterans worse than other students at i.t.t. or corinthians. if you were at i.t.t. and you found out three weeks ago that school was closing -- two to three weeks ago, something like that, you are a veteran, you have a friend who is a nonveteran, and the nonveteran gets their loans -- gets it discharged and you as the veteran don't with your g.i. benefits because they had federal student loans and you had g.i. benefits. it's just not fair to them. i don't know -- i don't think we should ever leave this place having treated a veteran worse than a nonveteran in the exact same situation. so i don't really understand the opposition. i would hope that we could

re-engage and figure this out and take care of these people who -- these 500 or so ohioans who served their country well. mr. president, i -- i thank the presiding officer, and i yield the floor. mr. carper: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from delaware. mr. carper: i stand before you this evening as a veteran, a veteran of the vietnam war, who returned to this country after a third tour in southeast asia and moved from california to delaware, enrolled there at the university of delaware in their business school, in their m.b.a. program, and the -- i was fortunate enough, along with many other vietnam era veterans, to receive a g.i. bill benefit. it was about $250 a month. college tuition was a lot less in those days. i was happy to have every penny of it, but today we offer a g.it that's far more robust and far more needed than it was when i

came back from southeast asia. today veterans returning, often throughout the course of the year in delaware, the governor, our congressional delegation, senator coons, congressman carney and i will either send off national guards men and women off to deployments around the world or we might welcome them home. whenever we welcome them home, i say to the returning national guards men and women, army guard, air guard, welcome home to the guest g.i. bill benefits in the history of the country. if they want to go to the university of delaware, tuition paid for. delaware state university or delaware technical community college, tuition paid for. they need books, they probably do, fees paid for. they need tutoring, paid for. and they also receive roughly $1500 a month housing allowance. that is a great benefit. and the folks who go to those

schools, they generally get a very good education and they get a lot of help in job placement after they've completed their education. that's not always the case in some of our for-profit colleges and universities. some of them do a good job. some of them don't. and one of them who hasn't done a good job is called i.t.t. tech. we've heard it talked about here this evening on the senate floor. there are about 7,000 veterans using the post-9/11 g.i. bill benefits that i.t.t. -- at i.t.t. tech when the school suddenly collapsed earlier this month. in addition to providing roughly $22,000 per year in educational assistance to private -- nonprivate and for-profit colleges the bill provides a housing allowance that our veterans depend on to support their families while they attend class. when i.t.t. tech closed its doors, it also meant that this housing allowance came to an

abrupt halt. and i've urged the department of veterans affairs to work closely with the department of education to ensure that i.t.t. tech student veterans have the same resource, the same guidance they need to transfer and continue their education at high quality institutions of learning. but some veterans won't be able to transfer to another school this month or next month. we want veterans to make smart decisions about their educational future. and that's why passing this bipartisan bill or some similar bipartisan bill to restore lost educational benefits and temporarily -- underline teferl rairl extend -- temporarily extend the housing allowance for students that attend schools that suddenly close like i.t.t. tech, it's so critical to our nation's veterans and their families. we want to make sure the student veterans have enough time to decide not an endless period or unending period of time but enough time to decide whether it's best to transfer to another

school, to discharge their student loans or to start at another school like a community college. this legislation is really about making sure the veterans continue to receive the benefits they've earned in service to our country. our nation's veterans did not cause i.t.t. tech to collapse. our nation's veterans and our nation's taxpayers deserve better than they received at the hands of i.t.t. tech. the least that we can do is to provide at least some very modest relief during this tough period of transition, and i think passing this bill or something similar to this legislation is the least we can do. my hope is when we return from the recess after the elections, he hope we can start crossing across the aisle about doing more to protect our student veterans in the post-9/11 g.i. bill. it's ironic that folks who are not veterans but who are the recipient of federal aid for education, they're in a similar situation, they would essentially be made whole. that's not the case here with our veterans. i'm not comfortable with that

situation. i suspect a lot of my colleagues are not either. i would just close on this part of my remarks, mr. president, by saying most subscribe to the golden rile, treat other people the way we want to be treated. i know how having been a veteran myself got great education, graduate school at the university of delaware, but i know how i would want to be treated if i were in the shoes of these thousands of veterans that are -- that have been i think mistreated at the hands of i.t.t. tech. we need to do something about it. i hope when we return we will. and with that, mr. president, i would ask unanimous consent that ian foss, a detailee on the help committee, health, education, labor, pension committee for senator murray be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. carper: thank you, mr. president. and, mr. president, as some of my colleagues know, nearly every

month for more than a year now, i've come to the senate floor regularly to highlight the diverse and difficult work performed by the men and women at the department of homeland security. i've been privileged to be at times in recent years the chairman of the senate committee of homeland security and today serve as the senior democrat, the ranking member of that committee. the department of homeland security is part of the government that we have direct jurisdiction over and it's one that i have a great privilege to work with and to have the opportunity to oversee the operation of that department. but the department of homeland security has more than 230,000 employees stationed around our country, at our ports of entry, our major transit hubs in major cities and small communities alike. each day department of homeland security employees perform some of the most challenging jobs in the federal government, from securing radiological materials to protecting our cyber networks to responding to the natural disasters, such as flood, fires and tornadoes. the department of homeland security employs work around the

clock to stay ahead of the threats to our communities, to our homes and to our families. i commend their secretary jeh johnson, deputy secretary and their entire leadership team for their continued efforts to bring the department together and to make the department of homeland security more than just the sum of its parts. in fact, last week the 2016 viewpoint survey was released with good news. the annual survey is provided to hundreds of thousands of federal employees every year to gauge their satisfaction with their jobs and their engagement with their agency as a whole. after six years of declining morale numbers, the tide has begun to turn at the department of homeland security. that's a good thing. since last year morale has increased overall throughout the department by some 3%. i believe that's probably more than any other department in the federal government over the last year. it's a significant one-year improvement and again a better result than the nerl government

average over the -- federal government average over the same period. like turning an aircraft carrier, an old navy term, a large diverse agency takes some time. you can turn an aircraft carrier's course but it takes a while. so does changing the morale and improving the morale at a department with a quarter million people spread all over the world. i leave the -- believe the latest survey shows the hoard walk done by -- hard work done by the secretary, their work has begun to put this ship on a better course for the future. while more work needs to be done to improve the morale at the department of homeland security, this effort does not fall on secretary johnson alone. each member of congress and every american can help support the department and its employees by simply acknowledging the good work that the employees there do every day. whether we simply say thank you to a t.s.a. agent or officer the next time we pass through an airport or give an indicational -- occasional speech on the senate floor like i'm doing tonight and other occasions, our

support makes a difference. mr. president, each september the federal emergency math agency which we -- management agency which we call fema makes -- throughout the month fema encourages all americans to prepare for natural disasters and emergencies. to continue highlighting national preparedness month and to recognize the important life saving work done by fema and its people, i want to take a moment tonight to thank just a few of the employees at fema. one of the 22 component agencies all told that make up the department of homeland security. as my colleagues may know, just last month historic flooding inundated much of the state of louisiana. what some may not know even before the flood waters had peaked, even before the flood waters had peaked. fema employees and personnel were on the grownlsdz. they were setting up incident support bases to provide supply, coordinating with state and local officials, and supporting

first responders and rescue efforts. fema also set up discovery disaster recovery centers to assist residents seeking federal aid to get back on their feet in the aftermath of this storm. one of the first fema employees on the ground there more than a month ago was a fellow named husto hernandez. his picture is right here. husto goes by the name teto, is a team leader of the east two national incident math assistance team -- management assistance team with 28 years of experience with fema. he leads his team in immediate response efforts to natural and manmade disasters whenever ndz -- and wherever they occur. they're experts in disaster response specializing in operations and logistics and planning and recovery. they put their experience to use by supporting state and local

officials as they work through the most trying of situations. the members of teto's team say he is bay far the best manager and supervisor they have ever worked for. as a leader, teto leads by example, not afraid to get his hands dirty, never turning down a task large or small. with their team expected to be deployed nearly nine months out of the year. he has a deep respect for his team member's personal time. when he does get time back at home, he enjoys spending every moment with his wife and children. his family is incredibly generous and we're grateful to you if you happen to be listening for lending our nation, your husband rgs your father, so that he may undertake his important work in many parts of america on behalf of all americans. as a fema employee, he embodies the spirit and dedication, in caring, shaking hands with each individual he comes into contact with asking them how are you doing. as with most of the men and women of fema, teto doesn't just

stop there with asking that question. he then goes on to do all the he and his colleagues can do to help people. last month i visited fema headquarters here in washington, d.c. i met a number of the thousands of dedicated employees who work there. got a picture here from that fema visit where i'm talking with some of the exceptional people who work and really serve us and help us in some of our drkest -- darkest hours. while many are not directly involved in the response effort in louisiana, they felt obliged to do all they could for their colleagues who were on the ground in louisiana or coordinating from around the country. in fact, fema headquarters established a backup call center and their -- in their offices and dozens of fema employees volunteered during and after their regular working hours to man the phones and tell people, talk to people through some of the toughest situations imaginable. one fema employee who asked how she could help was melissa forbes. she has a ph.d. in public policy

and serves as director of enterprise resource planning in fema's office of policy and program analysis. melissa's day job is to ensure fema has the resources needed for challenges it expects to face in the months and years ahead. but for 27 hours over the course of five days, that's more than five hours a day, melissa put her regular work on hold and came to the call center. in those 27 hours she took countless calls answering questions, connecting people with her colleagues at fema who could get them immediate help. in the navy when someone does a truly remarkable job, we say these words. bravo zulu. and so to melissa, to all of whom you work, volunteer with at fema headquarters, i say a great big bravo dual lieu. as i mention -- zulu. fema is made up thousands of men and women who ask every day how are you, how are you doing and how can we help? while teto, his team and others

from fema were on the ground in louisiana, melissa felt compelled to do all she could do to support them. more than a year ago secretary johnson launched his unity effort initiative to bring the department of homeland security employees closer together in their shared mission. last month melissa and teto were reunited from a thousand miles away in their efforts to help the people of louisiana. every month i come to the senate floor and highlight the amazing dedication of two or three people, in some cases entire teams of men and women who are united in their shared goal of keeping americans safe. in closing, let me just say i don't think the results from this year's federal viewpoint survey are a fluke. i believe the improvement and morale that's been reported by hundreds of employees at the department of homeland security, actually thousands, i think they represent their growing unity within the department of homeland security. the youngest and third largest cabinet department in the

federal government. and i for one look forward to next year's viewpoint survey as well as to those in the years to come because i believe they will continue to put on display an ever more united and effective department. so to teto, to the east two team, to mel liss sarks the volunteers at neem ma -- fema headquarters we say a great big thank you. thank you for coming together not only to ask how are you doing but by going to work to make things better for all of us. keep up the great work that you're doing. god bless you. i'm joined on the floor by the majority leader. before i yield the floor, let me say to another person who joined us, my colleague from new hampshire, who is the ranking democrat on the appropriations subcommittee for homeland security. you and the chairman, former governor hogan, chairman, senator hogan now, do a wonderful job supporting the department of homeland security. on behalf of melissa and teto and all the hundreds of thousands of people who work with them at the department of

homeland security, thank you for being there for them. thank you. mr. mcconnell: mr. president? the presiding officer: the majority leader. mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider the following treaties on today's executive calendar en bloc: numbers 9 and 10. i further ask unanimous consent that the treaties be considered as having passed through their various parliamentary stages up to and including the presentation of the resolutions of ratification that any committee conditions, declarations or reservations be agreed to as applicable, that anany statements be inserted in the "congressional record" as if read. further that each treaty be voted on en bloc but considered voted on individually. the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid on the table, the president be notified of the senate's action, and that following the disposition of the treaty, the senate return to legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection.