mr. coburn: i would yield for a question. mr. harkin: first of all, i just want to say, imansed on the floor the other day that i spent this weekend in iowa at two early learning -- and what became clear to me is the number of different conduits of funding and the different programs and the different qualifications and requirements and paperwork. i said at the same time, i said, i'm confused. he said, if you think you're confused. how do you think we feel about it? that's why i was very supportive of the enzi amendment that he offered. i don't know all the details of the senator's amendment, but the enzi amendment came in and said, look -- it was a mandate on h.h.s., i believe, to take a look at all these things and have a report back within a certain amount of time -- i think it was one year -- on how do we collapse these? how do we -- i agree with the senator. there's way too many conduits into child care, and it is horribly confusing. and all these different requirements and stuff like that, that overlap. it's just confusing.

mr. coburn: thank you. mr. wyden: i want to pick up on another aspect of what i think both the senator from virginia and the senator from oklahoma have talked about, and that is that at this rate, you have to be concerned that after page 17, there wilpatch 17, theh 18, and after patch 18, there will be patch 19. and i'm sure there are some young people up in the galleries who are light years away from medicare. in fact, the distinguished president of the senate is a number of years away from the program, and i don't want to see him looking at patch 30 or 31 or 32. the reality is, if all you do is take what you got and extend it, we're not going to turn this situation around. and my colleague from virginia and i started talking about one of the key concepts in our repearepeal-and-replace strateg. that's making sure we have a hard date -- really for the first time -- to start paying for value in health care, and repeal-and-replace has that hard date. it's long, long overdue. and until then, i think in much of our

mr. coburn: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. coburn: i thank senator blunt. i did not get to hear all of senator inhofe's comments but as an oklahoman, we couldn't have a finer company or a finer corporate citizen than the greene family in terms of their chains of stores around the country and in what they've do done. the reason they're successful is because they actually care, nurture and support every one of their employees. and they work on some principles that they -- they truly believe in, and it's really been the key to their success. they're never open on the sabbath. they believe you pay somebody a livable wage. they're big in the community. as a matter of fact, some of the largest contributors to organizations that are funded in the charitable realm that go down deep to actually help people. so they come with pure motives. the senator from missouri mentioned thomas jefferson. here's what he said in 1809. "no provision in our constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against

mr. coburn: thank you. i will try to make my remarks short. i know several of my colleagues have a place they need to be. i was at a committee hearing this afternoon and could not contribute to the debate on the floor on the flood program. i have about eight months left in the senate and i want to remind us of what we've just done. we've solved a very short-term problem and made it a long-term problem, significantly worse. and we didn't really do our work because we were in such a hurry to take the political pressure off of the increases in the flood rate insurance. addressing that issue was important, and i agree that we had -- we needed to make some adjustments. but what we did is we chose politicians to win and the future to lose in this country when it comes to flood risk mitigation and flood risk costs to the american public. there are some positive things in the bill? yes. but what we did once again in this country was we put our political positions ahead of best interests of this country. the biggert-waters bill was a great reform bill,

coburn's question -- i believe this was you, mr. dougan -- you have an internal investigation going on the issue of aiding and abetting tax evasion and conducting interviews and looking at documents and so forth. you indicated there's not going to be a written report. i don't understand how you can have something as serious as you say you're undertaking and not have a written report, but that is your testimony. under oath oath. there are no written reports -- >> we have nod hat a summary written report. we have had a number of reports but we do not have a summary report. we view this as ongoing. >> we have asked you for those ongoing written reports, have we not? >> i believe you have and i think we have given -- many -- had many sessions with the subcommittee, updating them on the projects and the subcommittee's report today chronicles in great detail through many, many pages, all of the different efforts we have made over the past five years to get at this problem and get it right. >> let me go back to my question. you say you hav

mr. lee. there's a time not that long ago when dr. coburn and i were not the chair or the ranking member of the full committee, but we took turns leading a subcommittee called financial management. subcommittee.e we were interested in -- less interested in the homeland security piece of this and more interested in the governmental affairs side. still interested in both of them, but still continue to the a strong interest in governmental affairs side. when we were leading that smaller subcommittee, i used to helps we struggle to nature we got better results for less money, better results for the same amount of money, i would opine on the need to gain leverage in terms of what we were trying to do. we figured out if we were able to be on the same page with omb and the president's management objective, that would help. legs could somehow tie our together with gao, particularly with the high risk list a put out at the beginning of the congress, that might help. dr. coburn has been very much involved to make sure that we have inspectors general i

jeremy coburn he joins us live now from london mr cohen you're live on r.t. international thank you for being with us what was your reaction when you learned about the league and what it revealed. what was your initial reaction when you learned about the leak and what it actually revealed . well the link that came out yesterday was something where of journalists are taking a photograph or document and and released it was apparently some kind of position paper of what the british government may or may not do and subsequently the foreign secretary made a lengthy statement to parliament yesterday and the prime minister took questions on it. and obviously meetings and happening with the you. my own view is that what is happening in the ukraine is going to have to be resolved politically the end of the day i think military intervention by anyone who is wrong and i think expansion of nato beyond its existing area is also wrong i regret sloops the organization for security and cooperation in europe wasn't given the premier role it should have been given the end of t

mr. coburn. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote: vote: the presiding officer: on this vote the yeas are 100, the nays are zero. the amendment is agreed to. the senator from iowa. without objection. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2827 offered by the senator from ohio, mr. portman. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes appear to have it, the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2834 offered by the senator from montana, mr. tester. all those in favor say aye. all opposed, nay. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2838 offered by the senator from south dakota, mr. thune. all those in favor say aye. all opposed say nay. the ayes have it. the amendment is agreed to. under the previous order, the question occurs on amendment number 2842 offered by the senator from massachusetts, ms. warren. all those in favor say