barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, how much time is left, may i inquire, on the republican side? the presiding officer: 13 minutes. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i just follow my colleague from utah who talked about getting the president engaged in this -- in these discussions, mr. president. i noticed a large story thursday's "new york times," the headline, "president on sidelines in crate ca critical e over debt ceiling." "president on the sidelines." mr. president, we are at a time when we are facing the largest threat to our national security and we cannot have the president on the sidelines. and when i talk about the single largest threat to our national security, not talking about a terrorist organization, not talking about wars in iraq and afghanistan, not talking about natural disasters, disease, epidemics, not famine. i'm talking about our national de

senator barrasso, thanks for being on right now.em as if republicans are pretty happy with what they are hearing. what is the holdup in the deal that you -- that you understand? >> as mitch mcconnell said earlier today on nbc, one of the morning shows, that, look, we're close, we're not there yet. we're still working out the details and that's what's going on now. i just came to the senate floor where harry reid's bill was defeated overwhelmingly and in a bipartisan way so he clearly didn't have the votes. republicans know what we want. we want to make sure there is no default that the social security checks continue to go out, that the military folks are paid and we also want to make sure that for any increase in the debt ceiling there is at least a dollar-for-dollar cut in the amount of money that we as a nation are spending. those are the tings that ahings fundamental for us. >> do you really think this super committee that's being created out of this deal -- frankly, all of the deals, whether boehner, reid, whatever, obama, boeh

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today as someone who is back in my home state every weekend. as i talk to people and say what's on your mind, they say what's on their mind are jobs, the economy, the nation's debt and the nation's spending. i say what do you think about things going on in washington? they say the problem with washington is tax is too much, -- taxes too much, borrows too much and the government grows bigger every day. and they say what are we going to do about it? when we talk about the debt, the people of wyoming have a clear understanding that the number is very, very large. and they say well, what about the budget? as we get into the discussion, it comes down to what budget, where is the budget? it has been 800 days since the budget has gone through this body, over 800 days. you're talking more than two years. why is that? i think there was a vote on the budget earlier this year that was the president's so-called budget, lost 97-0. not even one democrat voted for what

we have senator coburn, more with senator jon kyl, senator barrasso and so much more.y with us, we'll be back for another live hour. vytçf<

we just spoke with republican senate john barrasso, let's hear from the democrats now.r is a member of the senate finance committee. we are hearing that senator conrad is talking about the possibility of $4 trillion in deficit construction over the next ten years? do you know anything about how that is achieved? >> we may recall a year or so ago the president appointed deficit commission co-chaired by erskine bowles and by former senator alan simpson. 11 out of the 18 commission members recommended a path forward on deficit reduction that added up to roughly $4 trillion over ten years, roughly two-thirds of it on the spending side, a third on the revenue side. they did not call for raising tax rates. they did call for broadening the tax base and eliminating a number of so-called tax expenditures. so it turns out we have about $15 trillion worth of tax expenditures, tax breaks and credits, all kinds of things, add up to about $15 trillion over the next ten years. and if we could find maybe 10% of those to reduce, we could have a deficit reduction deal that did 4, four an

the vice chairman of the senate republican conference, john barrasso. you are also a doctor.want to is you about medicare and health care. it is one of the most controversial issues right now. polls show the american people don't agree with the republicans and their positions on medicare. are the american people wrong? >> the american people i've learned are never wrong. i practiced medicine for 25 years as an orthopedic surgeon in wyoming. they want care they need from a doctor they want at a cost they can afford. medicare has been a wonderful successful program. when they started in 1965, people then were live to 69, women to 70. because of the advances in modern medicine, women are living into their early 80s. men to late 70s. there's a huge challenge. the baby boomers who were teenagers when they formed medicare are now at 10,000 a day coming on to the medicare rolls. we need to strengthen medicare everyone the wakeup call was recently when the folks at medicare said we are going to be bankrupt five years sooner than we thought. 13 years from now. the truth of the matter

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barrasso: thank you, madam president. madam president, wish to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, madam president. madam president, our country is two weeks away from a deadline date and this deadline is approaching because of washington's constant inaction. now, to me, this deadline has to do with our national debt. now, the president, on the other hand, says it has to do with our debt limit, the amount of money that we are allowed by law to borrow. i believe it has to do with the amount of money we have already borrowed and the amount of money they want to continue to borrow. i believe as americans we can do better. i believe as americans we must do better. our country needs for us to act. you know, the president has repeatedly said that we have to deal with this issue now. last week he asked the most fundamental question. he said, "if not now, when?" the clock is ticking. we got a wake-up call from medicare not too long ago and we find out it will be bank

there barrasso. in pl baucus -- >> another roll call. we will go there as soon as we can. come back to that closing question. the how vote was delayed. planned for last night. the speaker said, zipdy do da and approaching midnight, had to pull it from the floor. that is embarrassing when you are the speaker of the house of representatives and do you believe, is there a weakness in the leadership team? did the whip not count the votes white? what happened? >> i in the speaker's finest hour has been in the last 24 hours. our speaker has shown strong leadership. he is willing to listen to the conference, making what is difficult come together and come together in time for the senate to act. i think speaker boehner is stronger than he has been. >> i have been around for a lot of negotiations like this. and the tools that the speakers have had in the past to hand out pork and earmarks this would have cost billions in the past. the speaker did haven't that ability and still, he was able to do it. we have more respect for the speaker than before. >> we are going to take a break.

barrasso: thank you.just about every week since the health care law was passed with a doctor's second opinion about the health care law. i have great concerns about the law that was forced through this senate, and i come to the floor today because it seems that the more americans find out and learn about this health care law, the less they like it. a majority of americans now in national polls say they want out. they absolutely want out. you know, since october of 2010, the administration has granted waivers -- waivers -- to unions, to businesses, to insurers and to actually whole states because they can't afford the health care laws burdensome mandates. the secretary of health and human services continues to release more waivers; did so again last friday. and they have now granted over 1,471 annual benefit waivers, limit waivers. and this has covered 3.2 million americans. and that's why i come to the floor today, mr. president, and introduce a bill that will allow every american -- every american -- to

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today as i have week after week -- the presiding officer: senator, we're in a quorum call. mr. barrasso: thank you. i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor as i have week after week since the health care bill was signed into law with a doctor's second opinion about the health care law, because the president repeatedly made promises to the american people as the health care bill was being debated and even after the health care bill was signed. and he promised to improve, not hurt, the quality of medical care in this country. we now know that the president's health care law actually makes the problem of health care in this country worse. in fact, since this bill was signed into law, we learned that it makes the cost of h

wyoming republican senator john barrasso was alongside senator mcconnell when he presented that proposalhank you so much for joining us today. is this dead now? is this proposal dead or is it possibly still the exit strategy out of this stalemate for both sides? >> well, as you say, this is the last chance proposal. it is not my first choice, second choice or third choice. the goal is to actually get significant savings out of this budget. we can't keep spending money that we don't have. no one's talking on my side about raising taxes and no one's talking about defaulting. what we are talking about, cutting the spending. americans know the problem is that we spend too much. we need to also make sure we do not default as a nation. that's why senator mcconnell brought this forth as a last option. >> well, what do you say to republican critics who say that this is conceding too much and taking the president off the hook? >> well, i'm not in any way ready to take the president off the hook. the president has been irresponsible. we have not seen a budget from this president that can get intro

barrasso: thank you, madam president. i followed my colleague who talked about the need to prevent default, the need we have and why we are here and why we'll have a vote in the house tonight and a vote in the senate as well and it has to do with our nation to prevent default and also our need to cut spending. our problem is that we spend too much. americans all around the country are calling in to members of the hess and saying -- calling in to members of the house and senate and saying let's get things under control and cut the spending. my friends on the other side of the aisle, i'm happy to see with proposals being brought forth understand what my constituents from wyoming have known from the very beginning. americans are not taxed too little. washington spends too much. now, the president seems to be more concerned about the next election than about the next generation of americans. i was just astonished last week when the president was addressing the nation, and he talked about what his bottom line was in this whole

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr.president, i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: i ask to speak as if in morning business, unanimous consent. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today because we are discussing the -- the cut and the cap and the balance act which, of course, i support and it gets back to a little poster that i've had at home with my kids over the years and it's -- and i have a copy of it here. it's called "the two penny difference." "the two-penny difference," two cents. it says, "if you earn a dollar and you spend 99 cents, you're okay. but spend $10.01, and you're headed for trouble." "yet today" this says -- and this was many, many years ago -- "yet today, spending seems more fashionable than saving. what once was called poor money management has now been called deficit spending. whatever it's called, it leads to inevitable headaches for people, for companies and eve

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, we just heard the senator from georgia talk about the upcoming predictable crisis, and our nation faces a leadership crisis right now, and it is a predictable crisis. back in 2006, then-senator obama called raising the debt ceiling, he called it a sign of leadership failure. so why five years later is it now president obama who is asking us to raise the debt ceiling? and why is he doing it with no plan on how to pay back the new debt that we continue to accumulate? in his press conference last week the president called on this body -- he said to go ahead and make the tough choices. when it comes to cutting spending, his allies in congress refuse to make any choices. the president has attacked this body nor not getting a deal done on time. yet he declined to meet with republicans about these very issues and about our ideas. according to the white house press secretary, press secretary said, that was not a conversation worth vsmg now, he has finally agreed to meet, wit leade

john barrasso is the chairman of the republican conference.er from 53 senate democrats to john boehner sounds like this bill is dead on arrival in the senate. is it? >> i don't think it is. it sounds like the democrat senators are doing the bidding of the obama reelection campaign. remember what the president said last week. he said the only bottom line i have, the only bottom line the president has he said is to extend the debt limit beyond the 2012 elections. i think the president is putting his own reelection bid above the things the american people are concerned about. the american people are concerned about jobs, the economy, the debt and the spending. and i support boehner's plan because it does the two fundamental things i'm concerned about. it prevents a default and it cuts spending. alisyn: senator, there are competing plans. in the senate put out his own plan. that pushes off the debate until after the 2012 elections. the john boehner bill has this debate again in less than a year. do you want to be in this position again in under a

anything that was shovel ready has already been done, and we worked with senator barrasso and, eventually, actually senator boxer and got a provision in the stimulus which said that when you're looking at how you're going to implement the environmental impact statements, you have to implement them in the most ec we dishes manner possible -- expeditious manner possible be. meaning if it doesn't have a problem, you don't go through a full-blown environmental impact provision. no one had any idea how many times that provision was going to be used. but in the end under the administration's own numbers, that was used for 180,000 projects. out of the 210,000 projects which gives you an idea how stuck it is. and then finally, to your last question what are some of the things you could do, the president could wake up tomorrow, do an executive order requiring one agency to be the lead agency and to coordinate the environmental impact statements and could start some form of an office where you begin to really track the permits and make sure that the agencies are moving them through the system in ti

we'll hear from mitch mcconnell, lamar alexander and john barrasso. followed by minority leader harry reid. >> good afternoon, everyone. we had a chance to talk to the republican members of the gang of six, and this was our first exposure to their work and we will be looking at this as we move forward. the issue on the floor is of the military construction bill. this will be a balanced proposal that we anticipate will pass the house tonight, and majority leader has indicated that it will go into that and before the week is out, we may be voting on a balanced budget amendment as well, with how long it takes to get through this process. we will spend the weekend the weekend working on other than unemployment, the most important issue in the country right now is doing something about the debt and the deficit and the spending problem. >> i participated in this with former governors, and we talked about balancing the budget. in my state, we have zero road debt, then we use our gas taxes to pay for this. we followed the budget proposal projections, and at t

barrasso, mr. bg, dr. jackson, the next threat of muslim radicalization of u.s.prisons we hear from kevin smith, leading professor burke you see and michael downing and we have another panel remarkable people with good in sight. and i just want to pull from what we learned in those hearings members that are testifying you can jump in. but the community and don't read and engagement is important in breaking the cycle and we have to bring some of the cultural norms and parker teaching american integration and develop an attachment to the community. we need to make sure that we focus on the youth targeted for the radicalization and all are targeted for radicalization. in fact i go back to the testimony of the testimony that our outreach efforts after a grueling two years have, as the hearts and minds of the somalis american community to come out to stopping the radicalization efforts of the few extremists and radicals in our community. and the testimony said that all of these agencies recognize that you cannot arrest or in force your way of the radicalization issue.

mcconnell has not signed on but we have so far as co-sponsors to this legislation senators ayotte barrasso lunt coburn corker demint graham hatch isakson johnson lee paul portman roberts rubio sin toomey vitter wicker and sessions. >> senator blunt speaker was at your lunch and some of the members left feeling a little optimistic after hearing -- [inaudible] and it to be but that impression [inaudible] can you give us some sense and are you more optimistic? >> i have probably been in at least hundreds of meetings. i don't know that i we get to thousands but it leaves hundreds of meetings with speaker before he was speaker. he is always an optimistic man that he was optimistic today so i think if you are a half-full kind of guy you heard that with optimism and if you are half-empty kind of guy you have heard that with less optimism but i do think and probably the right answer to anything about revenue or anything else is the president has i believe publicly said he is going to have the same group come back to the white house on sunday. there is a substantial belief that whatever is going to

and at this point senator barrasso, do you -- okay. then richard nugent. note. okay. and then jeff landry. >> thank you. i would be brief. there's no sense in telling you about my support for this bill. i like use my dad's, let's let our actions speak louder than our words. something the president doesn't like to do. a quick question many of you have, what with the impact of the present speech on american people? one of the first e-mail i got this one, i got from a lady down in my district and she said i listen to the president last night and as a good american, i had the intent of following through on his request. that is, to contact my member of congress. and so i ended i am contacting you by e-mail. now that i've contacted you let me tell you what i would like to support. cut, cap and balance. plain and simple. thank you all. >> there is a philosophical difference between the folks over at the white house we think we haven't spent a revenue problem. they are wanted tax americans more so they can spend more of america's tax dollars. then you've got a philosophical d

republican with johncock, lamar alexander and johnson who is the policy committee chair and john barrasso is the republican conference vice chair. >> [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] said republican leaders, this story from "cq" today from just a short time ago. senate budget committee chair kent conrad putting off release of the fiscal 2012 budget resolution. for at least another day. he said after meeting for more than a with budget committee democrats. the plan will trim trillions of dollars and could become a vehicle for raising the $14.3 trillion debt limit. i don't think today because we have got to make a presentation to the caucus and listen to them, he said. i hope to do it this week. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we are waiting as the u.s. capitol for the arrival of senate republicans to talk about the deficit and debt talks that are happening after this weekends, after this week's party meetings. that's the story from "cq." democrat

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to engage in a colloquy with my republican colleagues for up to 30 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. barrasso: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i come to the floor today as the nation watches the activities in the capitol and capitol hill, someone from a state, the state of wyoming, where we live within our means, balance our budget every year and as a result actually have a surplus in the state in contrast to what's happening in washington, with an incredible debt -- $14 trillion -- more than people can actually fathom. but people understand spending more than you have. and families all across the country realize you just can't do that. well, here in america we have as a nation been doing that for many years, been spending money we don't have, spending more, sending out more than comes in to the point we've had to borrow and borrow and borrow. and each time we borrow too much, which continues to happe

i'm glad to stand with you come and at this point, senator barrasso. then richard deutsch -- nugent. okay. then jeff lander. >> i will be brief in telling you about my support for this deal. i like to use my language of what our actions speak louder than our words, something the president doesn't seem to like to do but i will tell you i try to answer a quick question probably many of you have and that is what is the impact of the president's speech on the american people? one of the first got this morning was from a lady in my district and she said you know, i listened to the president last night, and as a good american, i have, you know, the intent of falling through on his request and that is to contact my member of congress. sallai trademark kunin contacting you by e-mail. now that i've contacted you, but me tell you i'd like you to support, cut cap and balance, plain and simple. thank you. >> from south carolina, there's a philosophical difference between the folks over at the white house who think we ought to spend a revenue problem. they want to

barrasso: thank you, mr. president. i come to the floor today of the united states senate specifically as a senator from wyoming. because in wyoming, our families know they have to live within their means and wyoming is a state where our state lives within its means. in wyoming, our very constitution requires that our state lives within its means. washington has a total debt now that is over $14 trillion and continues to climb every day. wyoming's total debt is zero. how did washington fail where wyoming succeeded? well, in washington, this city overspends. and you know in washington, there is nothing really to stop it. in wyoming, we live within our means because our constitution demands that we balance our budget every year. it is time for washington to take a lesson from wyoming and the other states that balance their budgets every year. you know, the president says that -- and he said, quote, he said, "all of us agree that we should use this opportunity to do something meaningful on debt and deficits." well, passing