mr. conrad: very well. senator wicker. the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi is recognized. mr. wicker: thank you for recognizing me and i appreciate the time. i want to agree with my friend from rhode island to this extent. he said the debate today is based on a false premise. i agree with him in this respect: this is not a real debate about a budget resolution. these are show votes, mr. president. these are messaging votes that we will have today. you can argue all you want to that we have a budget that's in place that we passed last year. there's just no getting around to u.s.c. 631, which is the budget law of the united states of america passed back in 1974, and that budget law requires congress each year to pass a budget resolution. as a matter of fact, it says on or before april 15 of each year, congress completes action on a concurrent resolution on the budget. now the last time this senate did that was 2009. we missed that april 15 deadline in 2010. the leadership of this body missed that deadline in 2

mr. durbin: my thanks to the senator from conrad. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. mr. durbin: the retirement of senator conrad is great loss to the senate and to the nation. we have only six or seven months left to do something significant, and it will be easier to do it when kent conrad is with us and i hope we can achieve it. i want to say for those who have said over and over again it's time for a budget resolution, it bears repeating that we passed the budget enforcement act which is a law. a resolution is just that, a resolution passed by the house and senate recommending our spending levels. a budget law passed by congress, signed by the president has the force of law, and it in fact is going to determine our spending levels for the next year. so the people who come to the floor and say isn't it about time we had a budget resolution so we knew what we were going to spend next year? we do. we passed it on a bipartisan basis. in fact, the republican senate leader voted for it. so it isn't like it wasn't a bipartisan effort. it was all the way and the president signe

mr. conrad: mr. president, this budget proposal has the most serious mistakes i have seen in 26 years of dealing with budgets in this chamber. this budget starts with an $8 trillion mistake on the size of the deficit. mr. president, if we put up the calculation, this budget has federal revenues of $27.5 trillion. budget outlays of $37.2 trillion. for a difference of $9,750,000,000,000. but it claims deficits of $1,750,000,000,000. mr. president, that is an $8 trillion mistake. number two, it has $5.7 trillion of mistakes with respect to budget authority. if you add up the individual budget function totals, they are $5.7 trillion less than the aggregate budget authority totals in what is being offered by the senator. number three, this requires some committees to cut more spending than they have available to them in their resources. for example, the "help" committee is instructed to save $2.7 trillion, and they only have $510 billion available to them to cut. the presiding officer: the senator's time

mr. conrad: mr. mr. president? the presiding officer: does the senator so modify his request? mr. objection has been heard on our side. the presiding officer: there is objection to the modification. is there objection to the original request? without objection, so ordered. mr. conrad: mr. president, just on the note that the gentleman raised, i want to make clear -- i've heard over and over no budget resolution has passed in 100 days. what has not been said is that instead of a budget resolution last year, the senate and the house passed the budget control act. the budget control act is not a resolution. it is a law. a resolution, as all members know, is purely a congressional document. never goes to the president for his signature. last year instead of a budget resolution, this body and the other body passed legislation called the budget control act that set a budget, budget limits, spending limits for this year and next. actually, it went even further. it set ten years of spending caps. a budget resolution usually only sets one year of spending caps. so, mr. president, i want to

mr. conrad: i ask unanimous consent to terminate the quorum call. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. conrad: and i'd ask for the yeas and nays on the nomination nominations -- just on the first one, the yeas and nays on the first nomination. the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the question is on the nomination of -- on the nguyen nomination. the clerk will call the roll. vote: votevote: vote vote: vote: vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators wishing to vote or to change their vote? seeing none, the ayes are 91, the nays are 3. the nomination is confirmed. the question is on the baker nomination. all in favor say aye. opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed. the question is now on the lee nomination. all those in favor vote aye. opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed. under the previous order, the motions to reconsider are considered made and laid upon the table. the president will be immed

mr. murdoch admitted mistakes had been made in an e-mail to staff, but said the company is working hard to put things right and would emerge better and stronger from the phone hacking scandal. conrad black will be allowed to live in canada after he is released from prison in the u.s., even though he gave up his canadian citizenship 11 years ago. his imminent return to canada has led to criticism that he is receiving special treatment from the government. he was convicted in 2007 on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice. a verdict is expected shortly in the in quest of the death of british mi6 intelligence officer whose body was found in a sports bag in his flat. the coroner said he would not consider the verdict of unlawful killing of gareth williams. instead, he is expected to give a negative verdict summarizing the circumstances of his death. >> gareth williams, described as a prodigy who had made a valuable contribution to british intelligence, but found dead in a locked bag. central questions -- how and why did he die? his body was found in the bathroom of the flat. it was in the fetal position with no sign of a struggle. a set of keys were underneath him inside the bag.

conrad today. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. sessions: it's unthinkable that we would not only spend more than congress agreed to, but would institute instead the numbers derived from president obama's budget, which in this chamber when i brought it up a few days ago, was rejected unanimously. this is another example, i'm afraid, i have to say, of the sleight of hand tactics that have been utilized in this congress for too long. that say we've got an agreement and we're going to do better and we're going to spend less. and as soon as the ink is dry, before the ink is dry really on the agreements, people start manipulating ways around them. trying to spend more than the amount allowed. it seems to be since i've been in the senate for 15, 16 years, these -- we have members of congress that take it as a personal challenge to see how they can defeat, get around and spend more money than they're allocated. the american people are being misled in this attempt. we're not following the budget control act. and it's not a partisan matter.

mr. reid: so we -- there is six hours of debate time allowed under the consent agreement approved earlier today. i certainly hope that we can get this done expeditiously. we'll have senator conrad will be leading the efforts on our side, opposed to this, and once we get this out of the way, we should move forward. mr. president, after tomorrow morning, after we understand that morning business will be deemed expired and time for the two leaders reserved for their use later in the day, i ask unanimous consent i be recognized at that time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: if there is no further business to come before the senate i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until senate stands adjourned until instead accelerated plans for back up oxygen system for the f-22 fighter jet. some f-22 violence of experienced dizziness and other symptoms of oxygen deprivation while flying but the air force does not know what is causing the problem. spokesman john kirby and george little brief reporters this afternoon for about 40 minutes. >> good afternoon and thank you all for coming. we will make a brief statement

murray, begich, blumenthal, nelson of nebraska, leahy, conrad, johnson of south dakota, brown of ohio, cardin, whitehouse, kerry, akaka, and harkin. mr. reid: i ask unanimous consent that the mandatory quorum under rule 22 be waived. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. reid: madam president, this is the -- i have spoken before, madam president, abouts the importance of the f.d.a. bill, something we have to get done. literally, people's lives dpep depend on it. it addresses so many things with the f.d.a. to make it a better position. we have to get this done. as i've said before, if my republican colleagues don't like the bill, offer an amendment, offer an amendment to take that out, put something in, if you don't like it. but i would hope that we don't have to go through voting on cloture on monday night. we should be legislating this coming monday. so i am stunged that once again our motion to proceed when there's been an agreement that we would proceed to this with relevant amendments, which everybody says that that's what they want to do -- it's not germane amendments, which is very narrow;s it relevant amendments. it gi

mr. conrad: madam president, this is a consequential discussion today, because it really is a question of the future economic policy of the united states. that's what we're talking about here today. i just heard the republican leader say there is no budget. i really -- i don't know how to say this, but sometimes i wonder if colleagues pay attention to what they're voting on here. last year in august, we didn't pass a budget resolution. instead, we passed a budget law. now, anybody that's had tenth grade civics knows a law is stronger than any resolution. a resolution is purely a congressional document. it never goes to the president for his signature. a law has to pass both bodies and be signed by the president. last year, instead of a budget resolution, we did a budget law called the budget control act. the budget control act set the budget for the next two years, for this year and next. more than that, it set ten years of spending caps, saving $900 billion. madam president, in addition, the budget control act gave a special committee the authority to reform the tax system and the entitl