mr. brownback: okay. madam president, i'm happy to go back and forth if that was the agreed-upon order of things. that would be certainly acceptable to me. i just wanted to make sure what time we had on our side. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator from vermont. mr. sanders: thank you, madam president. madam president, in a little while, we are going to be casting votes on an issue of enormous consequence and that is whether we reappoint ben bernanke as chairman of the fed. and i'm here to argue that that would be a very bad decision, that we should reject this nomination, that we need in this country a new wall street which understands that its function is not simply to make as much money as it can for extraordinarily wealthy people on the street but begin to integrate the functions of wall street into our productive economy, make credit available to small- and medium-sized businesses so we can break out of this horrendous recession which is causing so much pain from one end of this cou

mr. brownback: i ask further proceedings under the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. brownback: i rise to speak on the budget deficit and a mechanism that this body has embraced in two prior budget agreements that i think is time to put into place now. it's called the karfa -- carfa mechanism. it is a brac process on spending. and we passed it in a budget resolution twice with votes on both sides of the aisle for it. and what it does is it basically says we've got to look at all federal government, places that aren't working we need to eliminate. and the rest then we can use to pay down on our debt and deficit. if ever there was a time to do this, this is the time. i've argued for a decade we needed to do this, and i've put this bill forward for a decade. and this is my last year in the senate, and i hope we can get it done this year. it is -- it has received bipartisan votes, as i mentioned two times before in the budget. it's a simple mechanism. it has an eight-member commission, four appointed by each side of the house

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from kansas is recogniz. brownback: thank you y much, mr. president. i think this is a really healthy discussion we're having. we don't usually discuss much, the fed chairman, the appointment or nomination of the fed chairman. yet monetary policy affects all of us in a huge way and it dramatically affects the world. this is, to me the sort of debate we ought to be having. i'm glad we've got some differences of opinion. it seemed as if everybody treated monetary policy as something in the theoretical world of economists and mathematicians and central bankers and they're the only ones that understands the language and the only ones affected by it and the only ones who discuss it. i'm not at all -- we ought to discuss the people an principles involved and the people we appoint to these government positions and this government position, which is so critical and so important to all of us in this country and around the world. so i'm delighted we're having a discussion about -- about the fed chairman and appointment of the fed chairman in this part

mr. brownback: thank you very much. i thank my colleague from north dakota n. dakota. i'll miss his voice. he and i are leaving this body at the end of this year. i enjoyed working with him and on many different issues of concern to this country. he has a strong voice and did an excellent job of representing his constituency and his point of view. i'll miss serving with him. mr. president, right now that the very minute hundreds of thousands of people are amassing in this town for the 37th annual right to life march. it will be a crowd where 80% is under the age of 25. it's a young movement. it is a movement that believes that human dignity and life begins at conception and goes to natural death. they're energized and motivated and here. they plan to speak for the voiceless. to stand for a cause that they believe in. that they believe in is right and i believe that they are right and i believe they are wing this cause. 1973, the supreme court banned most impediments to having an abortion in the united states and since that tragic decision many experts estimate that bet