coburn: i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. leahy: i ask unanimous consent that the time until 5:00 p.m. be for debate on the leahy-grassley amendment number 121, as modified. which i believe is pending? the presiding officer: it is one of the pending amendments. mr. leahy: okay. i ask unanimous consent that the time until 5:00 p.m. be for debate on the leahy-grassley amendment number 121, as modified, and the vitter-toomey amendment number 112 as modified en bloc and divided between the two leaders or their designees. that upon the use or yielding back of time, the senate proceed to a vote in relation to the leahy-grassley amendment number 121, as modified, that upon disposition of the leahy-grassley amendment, the senate vote in relation to the vitter for toomey amendment number 112, as modified, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate and there be no amendments in order to any of the amendments listed in this agreement prior to the vote. and, further, that the

coburn: thank you. i'm coming to the floor because we've not seen much action on the floor on this bill because we're hung up over the right of senators to offer amendments. the senate works best when we have a free and open process of offering amendments, and one of the amendments in particular that i was going to offer on the blending requirements for ethanol i plan not to offer at this time. i've made that known to the majority leader but have still not been able to get an agreement to offer other amendments. our country's in a pickle. we have $20 billion worth of cuts that under the vast majority of the people in the senate would vote for yet can't get those amendments up because people don't want to take the difficult votes. and i understand that. senator reid has been more than gracious in working with me. i understand his problem. but the problems are a lot bigger than the problems in the senate. the problems facing our country are tremendous. they're not only tremendous, they're also urgent. and

where is this dispute with your friend tom coburn stand now? >> americans for tax reform asks all candidates for federal office to sign a pledge. it is about no net tax increases brett we are very much in favor of tax reform, reducing rates, broadening the base, that's why we are formed. we drew a line in the sand -- don't ever use tax reform as a way to raise taxes and go after people. when i came into this town, ted kennedy was the advocate of tax reform. tax reform was code for raising your taxes. through ronald reagan, we changed that and now tax reform means revenue neutral tax reform. our pledge is the defender of that. we feel very strongly that nobody should poke holes in that line of defense against tax increases. the commission that obama put together which was not ratified by congress. , some for henpecked guys like simpson who he knew would support increased taxes, they came up with an idea, a plan that promised to reduce spending by $3 trillion in the future and raise taxes by $1 trillion. that was their numbers. paul ryan looked a

guest: i have not talked to senator coburn's staff.y sense is that they are not dumb enough to take pay, if the government is shut down. host: mark, an independent in kentucky. go ahead. caller: they have said that the republican people have spoken and they put them in power. that cannot be true. a lot of the voters, the 18 to 34-year-olds did not vote. the above -- the eight years of bush, the reason we are in this quagmire, is because we were in a war with iraq that we should not have been in. that's why our deficit skyrocketed over the top. i think it's a shame that republicans will say the american people have spoken. people never got out and voted. that's my comment. i would like to hear what you have to say. guest: not voting is voting. it's making a decision. you have an opportunity to vote in this country at the age of 18 or older. if you do not show up to vote, there should be no complaint about what the government is doing. i'm guessing the collar and most c-span viewers are reliable voters -- the caller and most c- sp

and i do respect senator coburn. no member has worked harder on the issue of deficit and debt deficit reduction. and i don't agree with everything, but i most certainly recognize effort when i see it. but when he says that the social security program is running a deficit in terms of the money in and the money out, he's correct. the reason is because the federal government used the surplus over the last 15 or 20 years to fund other operations of the government, but the social security program itself is intact and when that money is paid back, it will have a surplus, as senator sanders said. so using the fact that it's running an annual deficit to argue for either cutting benefits to social security or cutting benefits from education or from health to pay for social security, is not a legitimate argument. again, social security is intact. it is actually running a surpl surplus. if they would have a surplus right now in the account -- they would have a surplus right now in the account if the money had remained in there.

i want to thank senator coburn for requesting the report, first of all. i don't think most americans are surprised to hear that washington is wasting so much money. i do think some people might be surprised at how rampant it is and, frankly, the sheer idiocy, the sheer eut kwros is i of -- idiocy of some of the waste we've been to rating. i can't imagine anyone voting against a bill that would return to taxpayers money on the duplicative programs. programs which abc put it are chewing up billions of dollars in funding every year. it would be an embarrassment and double indictment of congress to not act on this. the report is damning but comes at a good time, right when we're looking to make cuts both parties can agree on, we learn that we've got a road map here. more than 100 programs dealing with surface transportation issues, 82 programs monitoring teacher quality, 80 programs for economic development, 47 programs for job training, 17 different programs for disaster preparedness. and here's my favorite: 56 programs to help people understand finances. ho

on this topic i want to go to petrolia california now where the editor of counterpunch alexander coburn standing by. there alexander we just showed a report that showed many many possible presidential candidates for two thousand and twelve heading to israel it seems like it's definitely a trend that's not only happened now but that's happened over the last few decades now what do you make of all this. it's a feature of american politics american politics are controlled by. you know factional groups obviously i mean we often talk about the israeli lobby the miami cubans for example it had a huge influence on american foreign policy ever since the late fifty's because it's an important electoral state the jewish vote in new york and california is extremely important politically for every political candidate to hust pious to be president of the united states aspires to be a member of the u.s. congress has to deal with the israeli lobby and be organized a should read a portion represent that look let's broaden this a little bit i can you make any comparisons in terms of what other groups ge

finally, i'd like to say a few words about senator coburn's proposal on fee diversion. i think his idea which is incorporated in the managers makes a lot of sense. that is, to let the p.t.o. keep the fees they charge so that they are self-funded and we don't have to spend taxpayer money to fund them every year. last year, when we were debating the wall street reform bill, senator jack reed and i made a similar proposal for the s.e.c. which ultimately didn't make it into the final bill. i just wanted to take this time to make a few points about this commonsense proposal. first, for the last 15 years, the s.e.c. hasn't spent a dime of taxpayer money. for 15 years, the s.e.c. has had no impact on the deficit. this is because congress in 1996 amended the securities law to provide that 100% of the s.e.c.'s funding come from registration and filing fees charged by the commission. second, even though the s.e.c. collects more in fees every year than it spends, the amount of the s.e.c.'s annual budget is determined by congress, which is continually -- which has continually short

so it's in that vein that i state my opposition to the coburn amendment. senator coburn's amendment would raise tax on domestic energy production by repealing an incentive for the use of home-grown renewable ethanol. i'm astonished that given our current situation, there are some who would prefer less domestic energy production. you know, with conflicts in the middle east and crude oil over over $100 a barrel. we should be on the same side. and i have always considered myself on the same side as senator coburn on energy issues. we should all be on the side of more domestically produced energy, and that would be nuclear energy, it would be alternative energy, it would be drill here and drill now, because the tremendous cost of america's dependence on foreign oil has never been more clear than when you have the conflicts and the revolutions going on in oil-producing regions of the world now in the pleased and northern africa. so we have this threat, and in light of that threat, we should have an energy policy that i would say -- quote -- unquote -- all of th

[applause] >> tomorrow, tom coburn of oklahoma will talk about his efforts to reduce the federal deficit. we will continue our conversation with philadelphia congressman. after that, reporters of politico joann s.. later, secretary clinton will be back on capitol hill to talk about the middle east. live coverage begins at 930 eastern. earlier, the house agree to a two week funding bill. it passed. the senate is expected to take up and pass the legislation on wednesday which would extend the authority. here is part of today's house debate. that the senate act on the hard-fought and thoughtfully crafted funding legislation that the house passed almost two weeks ago which saves the taxpayers $100 billion compared to the president's request, but it's clear the senate needs more time. so this short-term c.r. will provide an additional two weeks while cutting spending to show our continued resolve to get our nation's fiscal house in order. the bill before us terminates eight programs for a savings of about $1.24 billion. these eight programs were all targeted for elimination in the president's

while the president was naming his new ambassador, senators like oklahoma's tom coburn were urging the obama administration to crack down on chinese violations of u.s. intellectual property. >> the signal needs to be sent that their response thus far is highly inadequate. it's thievery. >> reporter: senators pressed the administration on other trade deals, too. the korean free trade agreement is ready for congressional consideration, but max baucus, the chair of the senate finance committee, urged action on pacts with colombia and panama, too. >> it's clear to me that none of the agreements are going to pass unless they're all packaged. >> reporter: the colombia trade agreement has been held up by labor union concerns over protections for worker rights in that country. but the american public is also increasingly skeptical free trade benefits american workers, a concern u.s. trade representative ron kirk says he finds around the country. >> i mean to tell you not only in cleveland, but i can promise you, you can find them in ohio, you can find them in montana, you can find them in texa

went to manhattan in the fall of 2005 and the big boss of the whole group, nancy shepherd and carlin coburn in publicity. we met in a little room and i stated my case and they said, this is your first book so you need to listen to a few things here. first of all only 12 percent of nonfiction books make a profit and 2/3 are pre chosen by the publisher. we'd like to put our marketing arm behind us but your having to fight tear riz m to this. since i grew up in africa and worked pakistan for many years you never settle a deal without driving a hard bargain so i said if the hard cover doesn't do well, i'd like the subtitle changed later on for the paper back. julia and our other board relently pounded away month after month. i was in pakistan of december of 2006 and there was a new editor on the book and they said they decided to change the title to one man's mission to promote peace. the hard cover didn't do that well. sold 20,000 copies. while the paper back came out on january 30th of this year and since out it's been on the new york times best seller selling over 700,000 copies now. and it'

coburn makes some very good points there.particular, that we do not know what effect the programs are having. an example would be, we talk about 18 domestic food assistance programs in the report. for 11 of them we do not have any idea how effective they are. that is something that we really need to know. if we look at these program areas, whether it is employment and training, food assistance, transportation, we need to start asking ourselves, what are -- what do we want to achieve, who we want to serve and what is the best way to do it. host: some of the discoveries in this report showed that there are 18 different programs focused on domestic food assistance. that comes to us from a recent gao report. but go to our next call. caller: two questions, please. if senator coburn had not requested, or demanded that the gao put out this report, would the gao have submitted it on their own? and secondly, what took you so long to realize we had over 100 government agencies attempting to solve the same problem? i will take my answer

coburn: thank you. would you kindly advise me when i have ten minutes left, please? the presiding officer: the chair will do so. mr. coburn: i'm coming to the floor today to talk about where we find ourselves. nobody has spent more time in the last six and a half years on this floor talking about the problem that's in front of us, and hopefully i can do that in a way that would never impugn the motives of my fellow senators. i find it really interesting where we are today, and i enjoyed the speech from the senator from nebraska because one of the things about it that he stated is we have to come together. you're not going to get coming together when you have the speech that we just heard, when you have a speech that impugns the motives of the people in the other body trying to solve some of the problems. the first point i'd like to make is we're at a place where we're going to vote on two bills with no amendments. since when did the senate give up its ability to try to amend bills going forward? and the

recently, senator coburn requested a general accountability office report that came back and said they identified over $100 billion in dupe my kate -- dupe duplicative programs. this gao report underscores the great negligence of the federal government when it comes to managing hard earned taxpayer dollars. let me give you a couple facts from that report. it says that the government spends $18 billion on 47 different job training programs, and yet, the president even requested another $400 million for a new program that will replicate proven strategies to develop even more job training programs. you know how many of these job training programs are measured for effectiveness out of the 47? zero are measured for effectiveness. zero, and yet we're going to create more. instead of eliminating a lot of programs and doing our proper oversight that this congress should be doing. there are 80 programs providing transportation to disadvantaged persons in eight different departments. the gao found that $2 billion in costs for just 29 of these programs, but the extent of fragmentation in this are

systems as well, senator coburn refer to that. we have the cost overruns in the i.t. system is because we continue to change the requirement and it's not uncommon here in the department, so it falls may be in the area of the culture change. dr. burke raised the issue of the current value and something we used to focus on a good deal more than we do now and he suggested we began to get back to that. competition i think we had a good discussion here on competition whether or not we actually have -- are we using it enough? , but to the extent we can make work will be honestly effective. a friend of mine used to say competition is like codliver oil. first of makes you sick that makes you better. and there is a lot of truth to that. he would appreciate me saying that. and the other thing that we talked about was whether or not there's an early indicator, some kind of early indicator [inaudible] 15% of was 25% trigger and i just want to work with you on helping to identify those. let me just close this down as part of our hearing i want each of you if you will just to make

out released video shot by a witness at the scene of the alleged punching incident it shows what coburn claims was a punch could best be described as a patter poke on the shoulder at the very most here judge for yourself. he told me she hates me because it makes me feel that situation here. you know why he could put you in this situation because you're being surrounded here and yeah you're being in there is your family is here. ok let me just let you know all right. and she just last week after gallup released a poll that shows sixty percent of americans opposed scott walker's plan to limit collective bargaining rights talking head brian kilmeade reversed the poll results and said sixty percent of americans were in support of walker. i think gallup of relatively mainstream poll has a differing view and here's the question that was posed should you take away or will you favor or are you in this favor of taking away collective bargaining when it comes to salaries for government workers sixty four percent in favor of taking away thirty three percent oppose six percent still up in the air m

and earlier i spoke to the editor of counterpunch alexander coburn i asked him why the road to the white house doesn't seem complete without a trip to israel he says take another composer take control. you know functional group so obviously i mean you know it could focus the israeli lobby the miami cubans for example about a huge influence on american foreign policy whether since the late fifty's because it's an important electoral state the jewish vote in new york and california is extremely important politically therefore every political candidate who has why is to be president of the united states who started to be a member of the u.s. congress has to deal with the israeli lobby and the organization to represent let's broaden this a little bit can you make any comparisons in terms of what other groups get this kind of treatment these kind of visits i mean christian right in this country muslims in another country or do you think that israel is sort of at the top when it comes to these visits that are becoming i mean i wouldn't say mandatory. oh they've been managed through for years o

unconstitutional so security is unconstitutional senator recall rand paul the chair and civil rights act tom coburn said the pell grants and federal student loans are all unconstitutional so i mean they are moving running to the right so fast you can't keep track of them i'm wondering. to what extent this current swing to the right on the court particularly since the death row warren. but arguably even bankwest who dissented in some cases you know of the first national bank first bill oddie i thought his disciples one of those brilliant i've ever read and he went after the twenty six santa clara case. the it to what extent might this be the result of the powell memo back in the early seventy's where lewis powell said that the it in his letters to his next door neighbor and best friend the president chamber of commerce we've got to get into the public sphere we've got to influence people and out of that memo came the heritage foundation the cato institute the federalist society you know which now has over half the judges in the country this whole huge right wing infrastructure and of course three mo

coburn's amendment on fee diversion. i also hope the senate will accept an amendment that i filed today which would remove the section of the bill dealing with venue. while venue shopping is indeed a serious problem, the current language in the bill risks stunting the further development of case law which has begun to address the problem of plaintiffs manufacturing venue in districts that have a reputation of being hospitable for had a tent suits. companies such as oracle and h.p. which initially supported the legislative version here, the tproerl of version in this bill, now fear this provision will do more harm than good. i look forward to debating this and many other in the amendments to be considered by the senate in the future. mr. president, let me conclude my remarks on senate 23, senate bill 23, the america invents act, by renewing my call to my fellow senators to carefully consider and support this critical legislation. the america invents act is complicated and the subject matter may seem daunting, but i believ

we do have some outstanding questions about one of the coburn amendments. we have not gotten cleared on either side, but we do -- i think -- i'm hoping, mr. president, that we can have that vote tonight and we'll know something in a few minutes. and i yield the floor. i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: quorum call: ms. landrieu: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. landrieu: and i ask unanimous consent that we resume consideration of the casey amendment 216, that there be 2 minutes equally divided before the vote to proceed to a vote in relation to the amendment, that there be no amendments in order to the casey amendment prior to the vote and the motion to be reconsidered, considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate and that vote would occur at about 5:25678:25. the presiding officer: is there objectio

coburn makes some very good points there. particular, that we do not know what effect the programs are having. an example would be, we talk about 18 domestic food assistance programs in the report. for 11 of them we do not have any idea how effective they are. that is something that we really need to know. if we look at these program areas, whether it is employment and training, food assistance, transportation, we need to start asking ourselves, what are -- what do we want to achieve, who we want to serve and what is the best way to do it. host: some of the discoveries in this report showed that there are 18 different programs focused on domestic food assistance. that comes to us from a recen gao report. but go to our next call. caller: two questions, please. if senator coburn had not requested, or demanded that the gao put out this report, would the gao have submitted it on their own? and secondly, what took you so long to realize we had over 100 government agencies attempting to solve the same problem? i will take my answer

. >> that's senator coburn. >> right. >> period, end of story. >> that's a serious incentive and. >> let me ask follow on question to the. if you freeze the pentagon budget and to have an audit, will you get something meaningful out of it or we just get some paperwork that, you know speedy's having somebody that will recognize a good odd it from the outside even. >> whitey had to ask questions like that? >> sorry, that's how i am. [laughter] >> what really worries me about the way the whole defense operation is working now is it seems to have totally lost contact with the idea that you define a threat, you project the threat out and you design your weapon systems to meet those threats. there doesn't seem to be any connection between where the money is going and where the threats are projected, at least for those in the public that see where the threats are, which are primarily religious fanatics and other fanatics around the world. how do you justify and f-35 and f-22, 81 in the face of those kinds of threats? and if you're not putting your money where those threats are how are we go

. >> senator coburn came up with the suggestion. >> yeah, freeze the budget unless you can pass. period, that's an incentive. that's a serious incentive. >> let me ask you the question. if you freeze the pentagon budget until you have an audit, will you get something meaningful, or are you going to get paper work that, you know? >> yeah, that's the problem. having somebody that will recognize the good audience from the outside. >> we might have to ask questions like that. >> sorry. that's how i am. >> the waste and abuse part is worrisome. what really worries me about the way the whole defense operation is working now is it seems to have totally lost contact with the idea that you define a threat, you project the threat out, and you design your weapon systems to meet those threats. there were doesn't seem to be any connection between where the money is going and where the threats are projected. at least for those in the public that see what the threats are which are primarily religious fanatics and other fanatics around the world. how do you justify an f-35, f-22, a b-1 in the fa

. >> your insights are certainly very helpful to us and i want to commend senator coburn are having sponsored legislation to result in this report in the important work of the gao and now following through on the assignment. and really what i see is the beginning of the process, the first of what will be opiate daylight between gao, this committee and support work. and tom come you touched on a perfect sustainability that we all just talked about these things, but then we follow through. and when you are chairman and now chairman ice, had the privilege of chairing the subcommittee on government organization efficiency and the nature of management. i assure you we will do our best as a subcommittee to sustain this effort from the legislative side and working with all the parties. on a specific issue, when you think about within the report, what is highlighted in the inefficiency and duplication, the waste of resources, teacher quality, education of kids come employment training, especially with unemployment for a most ears, dod, homeland security committees are all top priorities for our count

. >> let me just say we're joined on my side in these discussions by senator tom coburn of oklahoma, and mike craipo of idaho. the three of us have just been designated by national journal as three of the most, if not the most conservative members of the united states senate. we don't believe in raising taxes. but let me tell you, chris. this is such a massive problem, as senator mcconnell just stated, a $14 trillion debt that if we don't get our arms around it now, then we're going to become a second tier nation. and we cannot allow that to happen. so it's imperative that we put everything on the table for discussion. i don't know where we are going to wind up. we're not there yet. but if you look at the debt commission report, you have to address spending. we have to reduce spending in a major way. you've got to address entitlements. we've got to reform entitlements in a major way. and you've got to look at revenue and reform our complicated tax code in a major way. when you do that, everybody does have that skin in the game and everybody gets their score a little bit. >> chris: fo

to votes in relation to the amendments listed: nelson of nebraska, number 182, and snowe-landrieu-coburn number 193. there be two minutes of debate equally divided prior to each vote, that no amendments be in order to either amendment prior to the votes and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. further, i ask following those votes, the next first-degree amendments in order be the following: casey, 216, cornyn, 186, sanders, 207, paul, 199, a democratic amendment, and hutchison 197. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee on armed services be discharged from further consideration of s. res. 96. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 96, congratulating the army dental corps on its 100th anniversary. the presiding officer: without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsidered l

this amendment is a bipartisan amendment supported by chair landrieu, senator coburn -- the presidingfficer: would the gentlewoman suspend. can we have order in the chamber, please. can the conversations in -- on the floor please cease. can the conversations on the floor please cease. ms. snowe: thank you, madam president. this is a bipartisan amendment supported by chair landrieu, the former chair of the committee, senator kerry, senator coburn, and senator webb. basically, this is -- this amendment is based on a report that was conducted by the small business committee back in 2008 when senator kerry was chair of the committee and we both requested an investigation into the veterans development corporation and found egregious mismanagement. the presiding officer: will the senator pliewz suspend. the chamber -- will the senator please suspend. the chamber is not in order. will the senators please suspend their conversations. the senator from maine. ms. snowe: thank you again, madam president. this amendment is based on a report that was conducted by the small business committee in 20

another important change -- and i want to particularly thank senator coburn for this, for agreeing to an eight-year extension. we think, mr. president, for a program like this that is dealing with technologies that sometimes take years to develop can be very promising, but it takes some planning, it takes patience, that this is not a program that lends itself readily to two to four-year re-authorizations. it's too much uncertainty for a program like this. maybe other programs that the federal government should go through four-year, five-year reauthorizations, but we pressed, both senator snowe and i for a longer time. senator coburn was somewhat reluctant, but we are very grateful that he and others stepped up and said eight years would be a good compromise in that way, we are grateful. so this will be a very important authorization because it will set the direction for the next eight years for our federal agencies. we have also made an important change, and i'm very pleased about this because i think that you can have all the greatest programs in the world, but if you're not focused

this was a report that was put together at the request of senator tom coburn of oklahoma. there are 100 separate surface transportation programs, 18 food and nutrition assistance programs, and 20 agencies operating 56 different programs on financial literacy. guest: turn on the radio and listen to david ramsay. does the federal government need to be funding that? host: welcome to the conversation. good morning. caller: talking about bringing troops home and closing military bases, the only problem is if you bring them home, at least 5% of them are national guard. they are going to be looking for jobs so that gives us more on the unemployment line. the other thing is you keep saying we will raise the social security age. what'll we lower the age and -- why don't we lower the age and open up retirement for younger people? there are a lot of jobs taken by congressman that should of retired years and years ago. we need to open the jobs up, not close them. guest: i don't think it is open up jobs as much is it is of creating new jobs. we have gotten turned around. we are talking

i was delighted to hear that senator coburn agreed to do so. that means a great deal to me. and one of my concerns, and i just want to spell it out, has is made up of the best we can get. giants of our time, and that we not dumb it down. if you are able to make it. one thing i'm sure of, you will not dumb it down. so thank you very much for being here, and you are not excused. >> thank you, senator feinstein. >> u.s. senate is about to gavel and for the day. first up morning business speeches on any topic. they will speak for about an hour or so before turning to legislative work. on the calendar more debate on a patent overhaul bill. amendments and votes are expected throughout the day. the u.s. house also gaveling in at this hour to begin debate on small business reporting requirements. now live senate coverage here of c-span2. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, eternal and unchangeable, you have ordained that day follows night and that in trials we find our triumph. keep our lawmakers aware of yor goodne

recently senator coburn requested the general accountability office report that came backack and said they plicativ identified over $100 billion in duplicative and wasteful spending programs. $100 billion per year intive wasteful and spending programs. gao report underscores the great negligence of the federal government when it comes to managing hard-earned taxpayer dollars. let me just give you a couple facts from y that report.ort. ff spends $18 billion on 57 different job training programsr and yet the president even requested another $400 million for a new program that will replicate proven strategies to develop even more job trainingo. programs. you know how many of these jobmr training programs are measured for effectiveness out of the 47e zero. measured for effectiveness, cree zero, and yet we are going to create more.lot instead of eliminating a lot ofd the programs and doing our parts for the oversight that this doi. congress should be doing.tation there are 80 programs providingn transportation to disadvantaged persons in eight differentbiio

recently, senator coburn requested a general accountability office report that came back and said they identified over $100 billion in duplicative and wasteful spending programs. $100 billion per year in wasteful and duplicative spending programs. this g.a.o. report underscores the great negligence of the federal government when it comes to managing hard-earned taxpayer dollars. let me just give you a couple of facts from that report. it says that the government spends $18 billion on 47 different job-training programs and yet the president even requested another $400 million for a new program that will replicate proven stra strategieo develop even more job-training programs. do you know how many of these job-training programs are measured for effectiveness out of the 47? zero are measured for effectiveness. zero. and yet we're going to create more instead of eliminating a lot of the programs and doing our proper oversight that this congress should be doing. there are 80 programs providing transportation to disadvantaged persons in eight different departments. the g.a.o. found that $2 b

it's franken, lee, coons, coburn, blumenthal, sessions and cornyn.senator franken, you're up next. >> thank you, madam chair. um, mr. liu, i had the opportunity to speak to you in my office and read your writings, and i really believe you're one of the finest minds of your generation, and i hope that we as a nation can be lucky enough to have you as a judge and public servant. what i think is remarkable about your nomination is not its strength, but it's twersty of support -- diversity of support. a lot of people mentioned ken starr's letter supporting your nomination, and i'll get to that in a moment. but the one that caught my eye was a lengthy blog post from a university of minnesota professor, richard painter. this guy is a great law professor, and he's no liberal. he worked to support the confirmations of john roberts and samuel alito and served as president george w. bush's chief ethics officer. and anyone who has any doubts about your nomination should, i think, read this article. so, madam chair? with your permission, madam chair? with your p

president, i commend my friend, senator coburn. he had a paper showing redundancies.to cut money, let's do it. we're not in competition with germany on who can cut the most. we need to cooperate and figure out where we can cut the smartest. well, the house passed goals based on ideology, but ours is based on reality, not ideology, but reality. these are real decisions with real money affecting real lives. our budget affirms our determination that we also have to reflect our values, and we see our modestly recurring economy, today's news about employering hiring at the fastest rate in a year, and the gnarl unemployment -- national unemployment rate fell to a two year low. you can't squander that. there's positive news with counterproductive cuts. mr. president, i hope that when we have these votes next week, hr1 will be, it'll be -- people will run from that, run from that. people will vote with that and afterwords trying to live down having voted for that stuff, but this is what each senator will vote for or against next week. these votes like all our votes are about

senators bennet, coon, menendez, bingaman, coburn and kirk have all contributed. i thank them for working with us. i thank our ranking republican on the committee, the comanager of this measure, senator grassley. his staff, colin davis and rita laurie for their dedication to this effort. i want to thank my friend from utah, senator hatch, for having stuck with this bill for so many years. the two of us have been through more markups and more hearings and more meetings than we'd like to think. and senator kyl who has worked with us both in the hearings but also has helped us put together bipartisan meetings and interest groups and those who have an interest in the patent legislation. i want to extend my personal thanks as well to senator klobuchar of minnesota. she was active during committee consideration and she has helped manage this legislation effort in the senate and she has been outstanding, and of course like so many times the senate's action could not have been accomplished without the hard work of many dedicated staffers and individuals and companies. i'm

. >> your insights are certainly very helpful to us and i want to commend senator coburn are having sponsored legislation to result in this report in the important work of the gao and now following through on the assignment. and really what i see is the beginning of the process, the first of what will be opiate daylight between gao, this committee and support work. and tom come you touched on a perfect sustainability that we all just talked about these things, but then we follow throu. and when you are chairman and now chairman ice, had the privilege of chairing the subcommittee on government organization efficiency and the nature of management. i assure you we will do our best as a subcommittee to sustain this effort from the legislative side and working with all the parties. on a specific issue, when you think about within the report, what is highlighted in the inefficiency and duplication, the waste of resources, teacher quality, education of kids come employment training, especially with unemployment for a most ears, dod, homeland security commttees are all top priorities for our country

and i just would like to add that the chair and senator coburn are both cosponsors of this legislation- this amendment as well. and i thank the senator from california. mrs. boxer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer boxer: and i thank my friend and i'm happy she's got her amendment lined up so that we can get to that. i want to commend, first of all, the senator from louisiana for her measure that's before us. it's a very strong bill. it's a bill i support very strongly and, therefore, to say i was disappointed to see an unrelated amendment be offered is an understatement. but that's the way it is. and we're going to have to vote on this and, frankly, we've had votes similar to this before and i feel comfortable and hopeful that we will defeat this amendment. and in about five minutes, i'm going to yield for a question to my friend from new jersey, but before i do that, i want to make about five minutes worth of remarks. the amendment that is first pending on this bill has been named by senators mcconnell and inhofe, "the energy tax prevention

senators, republican and democrat alike, senators durbin, conrad, coburn and crapo, had the courage and the willpower it put on the table the whole set of choices when they embraced the debt commission's report that was appropriately entitled, "a moment truth." nobody liked every proposal that was set forth by the commission. not even the commissioners themselves, but they did it in order to put everything on the table for the discussion by us. we're the body responsible to make these choices, we in the house. and, yet, the budget sent us by the house is an unbelievably irresponsible exercise i in avoidance as well as a set of choices that will take america backwards. and i'm not exaggerating about that. and i'll go into that in a moment. let me just cite what the commission said to remind us about our responsibility. they said, that throughout our nation's history americans have found the courage to do right by our children's future. deep down every american knows we face a moment of truth once again. we cannot play games or put off hard choices any longer without regard to party, they