mr. coburn for himself and mr. mccain proposes an amendment numbered 2697. mr. coburn: i ask that the amendment be considered as read. the presiding officer: without objection. byrnmr. coburn: i see senator menendez is now on the floor. this amendment is going to lay additional outlays over the next five years with no outsets. the bill is offset over ten years. it relies on a budget gimmick that assumes that the congress would not raise the nfib cap. the program would delay payment of insurance claims until additional resources became available. so in reality this bill will add another $2.1 billion in debt to the nfip while making no dhiengs addressing affordability issues. even the administration states that delaying implementation of these reforms would further erode the financial position of the nfip, which is already $24 billion in debt. this delay would also reduce fema's ability to pay future claims made by all policyholders. nfip is unaffordable as the current program is already more than $24 billion in debt. madam president, i -- the pending makers a bill

mr. coburn. a senator: mr. president? mr. coburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: what the sponsors claim about my amendment is factually incorrect. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. the senate will be in order. the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: all the states and everybody wants to do the narab bill. i agree, we should do it. but if all the states really want to do it, my amendment has no effect whatsoever because it allows an opt-out for a state that they want to dpoivment either it's true they all want to do it or it's not true they all want to do it and we're going to force some state not to do it. an opt-out keeping the 10th amendment privileges of the state is highly required to make sure we do not go outside the bounds of our legal obligations and i reserve the balance of my time. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from montana. mr. tester: mr. president, we've been here before. gram-leech-bliley 15 years ago offered what the good senator from oklah

mr. coburn: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are, sir. mr. coburn: i ask it be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. coburn: i believe when i left my amendment was pending, amendment 2697, and i'd like to spend a few minutes talking about that. i know somebody else is coming to the floor here rather quickly and i have about five minutes i've been told by the cloakroom. congressional creation of the national association of registers agents and brokers, the bill that has been attached to the flood bill, usurps the rights of states' authority over insurance, licensing and licensd regulations. congress established the mccarran ferguson act that states should retain the regulating authority over insurance laws. while narab 2 was crafted to retain primacy of insurance regulations and enforcement actions within the states, this bill will nevertheless compel states to accept a national license within their jurisdiction. the nonpartisan congressional budget offic

mr. coburn is on that don't speak with yes. we do a lot of a person bills. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> we now go -- go ahead. dr. coburn. >> last but definitely not least the gentleman from missouri. mr. clay. >> thank you, senators, for being here today. could you quickly tell us what you think the challenges are of the federal government when it comes to the purchasing and procurement of information technology. is it that the federal government doesn't have the expertise to purchase it? when you look at agencies like dod and hhs, and all of the others, and do we have the expertise in those agencies do know what we are purchasing, to be able to identify the products that we should be securing from vendors? and just how -- how do we approach that? >> the answer is this is difficult. is not just difficult in government. i have a son-in-law that works for one of the large firms that does this. and his reports as ge, big companies, have the same difficulty. the difference is, is they have stops. they have stop losses. we don't have any. we spend $82 billion a year on i.t., and

mr. langford. dr. coburn, if you make a vote on it with your chairman, i'll make sure our committee brings the same bill and voted out to the full house. you pick something out of the book or something not in the book and if the two of you are prepared to hold a committee vote on it, i'll guarantee you you a ful full body on the same bill. and hopefully if we can suggest wednesday we can come to send agreement and i'll begin today scheduling that every week if we have a bill that we agree on, no matter how small, falls within our jurisdiction, completely or partially i will guarantee you a vote. hopefully that will give you an opportunity to go through the book and see if we can't find it. let's find something and do something every week if necessary. >> briefly, mr. chairman, i'm very glad to here you say what you just said. because there's an old song this is you got me going in circles. and you never -- you can go in circles and never get off the merry-go-round. >> doesn't ago i'm dizzy? [laughter] spent o

mr. coburn, thank you very much for that. because, you know, i know many of us have concerns about individual property rights and we want to make sure we're not infringing on those while we're protecting the second amendment rights. and i think there's a way to do that, and i just want it clear. thank you very much. >> mr. chairman? >> senator levin. >> has the postal service been asked for their view on this? >> i'd welcome -- >> no, but have they been asked up until now? >> i don't know. i think informally, yes. but i ask, mr. strohman, would you go ahead and -- >> we haven't asked them for their views on the amendment. >> could we do that while we're rewriting it? >> ron -- >> also, i'd like to know whether this covers post offices in federal buildings which have courthouses. is this, is there a rule for federal courthouses about carrying guns? >> ron, these take, please -- please take, please come to the witness table. let's just go back to the original question. i think that senator levin raised. i don't think we've aske

mr. coburn: thank you. i want to address my remarks first to the chairman and the ranking member of the appropriations committee. i think you've done a lot of hard work and you've done something that even though i'm not in the consensus you've done what the senate was designed to do is build a consensus around a bill and there's no question this bill will pass today so my congratulations to you and my sincere thanks for some of the things that you put in the bill that we've been working on that are good government projects. i just wanted to say that from the start. and i'm not going to talk specifically about the bill, i'm going to talk in bigger, broader terms, the problems that are facing us as a country. i had my hands, a book that contains $9 trillion worth of cuts. not hardly anybody in the senate's read it. they may not agree with 50 or 60% or 70%. but there is certainly somewhere in here consensus to save a whole whole lot more money than what we're doing. in 2009 a young little lady by the name of m

mr. coburn was a doctor and businessman before he entered politics and now will return to other productivees need to replenish their ranks with more tom coburn's who enter politics to do something other than hold power. >> amen. amen. and amen. tom coburn was just a great conservative. joe, you're going to the rnc's winter meeting. there is going to be a battle out there to take his place. thad cochran down in mississippi also a battle down there and sort of a tug of war for the republican party. it's happening in iowa. front page of "the washington post" this morning. which way is the republican party headed? >> well, the way i hope we're headed is being successful. i mean, i'm a volunteer in this position. i mean, i'm not in here just to have something to do. so what i want to do is win l elections. i know chris christie is having a hard time right now but he is smart and answer the questions without using talking points. i think people appreciate that about tom coburn and think they appreciate that about something like chris christie as well. >> tom is independent. it doesn't matter whe

coburn. doctor testa, do you want to say anything? >> thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member coburn. i would just say this first of all. welcome, i appreciate our opportunity to visit. as has been said earlier, i think you are ultimately qualified to do this job and do it very well. this is going to be a challenging position, as we talked yesterday. the ig's office and dhs is, well, let's just say it needs some leadership, and the fact that we've gone as long as we have without a senate confirmed leader is a travesty. that being said, hopefully he will be out of this committee said in an off the senate floor soon, confirmed in this position. because i think you have an incredible skill set for this job, and dhs is again will the fda's laws. i just want to thank you for being willing to serve. i appreciate your excellent credentials and i look forward to having a qualified individual in the ig's office of the department of homeland security. thank you, mr. chairman. >> again, i want to welcome our witness, john roth, today. in fact, i think we have two john roth in the audience today.

mr. chairman, and ranking member coburn. the federal government faces a dismal fiscal future with rising spending and debt. if you look at the cbo log range projection, that looks bad enough but for reasons i go through in my written testimony our fiscal future is much worse than the cbo baseline shows. the upshot to me that we need to look at every federal agency and cut and terminate waste and low priority programs. what is waste? is government spending where the cost is higher than the benefit created for citizen. in my view it's also federal activities that the federal government does a poor job at that could be much better carried out by state, local government and the private sector. as i think congressman duncan mentioned, there are stories in the media, gao report of the week about wasting the federal government. my research shows there was waste and cost overruns and fraught cost overruns and fraud and abuse all the way back to the beginning of the republic in the 19 century full of examples of wasteful spending. wh

coburn sitting in mr. arnold's chair was talking about the army and they have these software problems because they by software and try to mold it to the army's model instead of being good off the shelf software and molding their needs to that. what has happened to the justice system in america that i cannot walk into court as a citizen and avail myself of the protections? should we be changing the government to adapt to a very complicated legal system or change the complicated legal system to make it accessible to us as individuals. i don't know how to get started without the projects. but let me ask you rbgs you have timber sales of the service. they are not in the conservation business they are in the management business. one of your opportunities for savings is to say the forest service is losing more money on their timber sales than they begin gain. is that anning of something that -- is that an example of something that should go away because it is a bad use of government resources or still needs to b

coburn, thank you. >> senator enzi, you are next. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and my amendment, the one i put in, ma follows on the discussion that we just had. but it doesn't just refer to rural post offices. this would refer to all post offices, and my only regret is, and this comes from the way that the last closings were kind of handle. we got this list of post offices that were going to be closed. we had no idea what the costs were, nor did the people who lived in those communities. and there was a lot of angst over it, and eventually they were persuaded, i guess, to hold some hearings in those towns, and they did get some suggestions. of course, that resulted in none of the post offices being close for a variety of reasons. but what we're talking about calls, some the urban post offices have a whole lot more costs than the rural post offices. those costs ought to be looked at, too. and it shouldn't be just on the basis of getting a hold of him and say, here's some cost and we're looking at closing you down. any business is supposed to look at al

i was there is there with two of my colleagues, senators richard burr and tom coburn, dr. cobourg . mr. -- this represents our vision to an alternative to obamacare. let me start by saying something that most americans from utah to north carolina to oklahoma note to be true. obamacare just is not working. as you know president obama will not be able to convince the american people that his health care law is anything other than an unmitigated disaster. this horribly misguided law puts government between people and the doctors. it includes over $1 trillion in new taxes and new, unsustainable -- and a new, unstable entitlement. includes mandates and regulations that have forced to many americans of their health plans and businesses to cut back on hiring. it has done next to nothing to put a brake on skyrocketing health care costs that are hitting every family in this country. no, we knew there is another way, a better way, a way that does not leave 2700 pages of government programs and mandates to common-sense reforms of the american people. and let me say, mr. president, that these two

as my friend and colleague, senator coburn, recently noted in the "wall street journal" -- quote -- "mr. reid had already used senate rules to cut off debate and prevent the minority from offering amendments 78 times more than all other senate majority leaders combined." why? it appears designed to advance a partisan political agenda. show votes in an election year. in other words, let's airdrop bills on the floor and prevent any form of modification or improvement. that seems to be just routine business around here these days, and it is shameful. it's my hope that in this new year all thoughtful ideas will get a vote. it is my hope that in this new year we'll actually get a chance to amend bills. that's the only way that we can actually pass legislation to improve the lives of the american people. i look forward to putting forth my own proposals to fulfill my duty to the people of nebraska to get our friends and our neighbors back to work rather than focusing on issues that divide us, i hope that my colleagues, republicans and democrats, will come together to support policies that prom

paper, the publications of coburn and others have put out that congress can introduce legislation and pass it and stop these things from taking place. >> i think the gentlelady. >> mr. lankford. >> i want to ask about incentivizing agencies, and agency individual. the incentive for agency is to add more staff and try to chase down $4 to spend as much as you can at the end of the year. how do we split the incentive? you mentioned spending caps, sequestration caps another gaps hit at every single program. there are some programs that run more efficiently than others. but a catholic sequestration hits all of them with equal amount of pure. if i handed the authority said i needed to get 7% or 27% from your budget, there's very little oversight of which programs they're going to get and to keep the ones they like the best and they look at the ones that probably i like the best. so talk through different options that you've seen for incentivizing agencies in reduction. >> i think ultimately for reasons i go into in my tests when i was 15 reason why the public sector will never wear be anywhere as efficient as the private sector. the profit motive is hugely powerful, and

coburn amendment is not in order. the presiding officer: the appeal is debatable. mr. toomey: and i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: ms. landrieu: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: i ask unanimous consent to dispense with the quorum call, please. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. landrieu: thank you. madam president, i come to the floor this morning to talk about another very important bill. there was an hour exchange about unemployment, which is extremely important for the nation, and i think people got to hear arguments on both sides, and they can continue to try to process that. but came to the floor this morning to talk about another very important piece of legislation that we do have very deep and very genuine bipartisan support for, and that is the flood insurance provision, the homeowner affordability act, which will correct some of the more egregious provisions of a bill that passed a year and a half ago called biggert-waters. the bill biggert-waters that was passed, named for the tw

. -- tom coburn's seat. .enise is calling in caller: i absolutely disagree with mr. huckabee.peech.d his [indiscernible] republicans are judging women. women are doing with their bodies would god gave them their bodies for. stop talking about women issues. michelle is a republican in church than, maryland. churchton, maryland. caller: i am listening to these caller's this morning. i totally agree with huckabee. country has ahis personal responsibility. take responsibility for yourselves. i don't believe the government should be paying for everybody's birth control. caller saysd -- a women are smarter then democrats are making them out to be. they are trying to dumb down women in this country. i don't understand how so many women can hear and believe what the republican party is saying. the government is there to help. it is not a crutch. you don't have a baby so the government can pay for it. host: when you hear the phrase "war on women" what do you think? caller: it angers me. i don't believe there is a war on women. they want you to believe it. thatjust want you to think the

coburn had already said this would be his last term. >>> first lady undertaking a new effort teaseuber students going on to college. mrs. didn't know how to pick the right classes or find the right buildings. right classes or find the right buildings. i didn br >> reporter: her3s at pla she said there are so many kids just like her who wouldn't think to dream that big. >> if i hadn't seen that he could succeed on a li that, never would have occ to me to apply to that school. never. >> reporter: first lady and steps that more than 100 colleges and universities have agreed to take to expand access to higher education. there was a veg therh ting. veg she told a group of educators how moved she was by a coming age fil city boys. >> can't help but laugh and look in horror, for these two young kids because they represent all of our kids. >> reporter: president obama said he'll push for access to education in what he calls a year of action. and if lawmakers don't join him, he says he'll do it without them. said he will push to access in karen travers, abc news, washington. >> karen, thanks. >> and, of course, the first lady ce

mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: i rise in a support of the truth in settlements act. this legislation which i introduced earlier today with my colleague from oklahoma, dr. coburn, will help the public hold federal agencies accountable for the settlements they make with corporate wrongdoers. i am honored to partner with dr. coburn on this bill. he has been a leader in the fight for greater government transparency. dr. coburn and i do not agree on every issue, but we strongly agree that citizens united is a crit -- that sunlight is a critical component of good government. i am proud tophyt to fight alone dr. coburn to advance this legislation. when companies break the law, federal enforcement agencies are responsible for holding theme accountable. in nearly every instance, agencies choose to resolve cases through settlements rather than going to a public trial. the government agencies defend this practice by arguing that their eagerness to settle is in the best interests of the american people. but their actions paint a very different picture. if agencies were truly confident that these settlements were good deals for the public, they would be enthusiastic about

mr. coburn: i came to the floor to spend some time on the unemployment insurance but i have to comment after hearing my colleague mention his esteemed favor of the bill that's going to be in front of it, i would just have to say that my perspective is really totally different. you have a 1,500-page bill that nobody's read other than my staff and we've read it completely and outlined it completely. have you a bill that's dishonest because you still changes in mandatory funding and programs and you created $17.09 out -- $17.9 billion that allows us to spend $17.9 billion and you transfer that sleight of hand to our children. but it doesn't seem to bother anybody on the appropriations that we actually lie to the american public about how much we're going to spend. the bill actually spends about $63 billion, more than we did last year, about 6.5%, 7%. it's loaded with parochial benefits, which is the pleasure of the appropriators, i understand, but it really doesn't pass muster in terms of no earmarks. so -- but there's one point that i agree with. this has been an agreement between republicans

mr. mcconnell: i ask unanimous consent to call up the coburn amendment, number 2606. the presiding officer: is there objection? mr. reid: i object. the presiding officer: objection is heard. mr. mcconnell: parliamentary inquiry. is it correct that no senator is permitted to offer an amendment to the unemployment insurance bill while the majority leader's motion to commit with instructions with further amendments is pending? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. mcconnell: further parliamentary inquiry. if a motion to table the reid motion to commit, would this still be reid amendments pending that would prevent anyone from offering an amendment? the presiding officer: the senator is correct. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i have an important amendment that i would like the senate to debate and vote on. the reid amendment is currently blocking consideration of those amendments in order for the senate to start considering amendments, including the coburn amendment 2606, i move to table the pending reid motion to commit with instructions and ask for the yeas a