mr. harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that amy groson, rosy a mano be granted for -- floor privileges for the remainder of today's session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: mr. president, there is one thing that every senator agrees on, democrats and republicans alike, with the economic recovery starting to gain strength, it's time to focus attention on reducing deficits. the current deficits are unsustainable and present a danger to our nation's economic future prosperity. however there is sharp disagreement as how best to achieve that shared goal. along with other democratic senators, i advocate a balanced approach that has spending cuts while continuing to make crucial investments in education, infrastructure, and research, the things that are absolutely essential if we're going stay competitive in a global economy. we know this approach can work because it's what we did under president clint

mr. harkin: mr. president? -- madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. arkin: i ask that megan cheney be granted floor privileges for the remainder of today's session much. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. harkin: madam president, the senate will have before it today or tomorrow, depending upon the flow around here, two very misguided bills. this will come about on our -- when we have our budget come up for a vote here under an agreement to get that budget up, we're going to have a vote on two separate bills. one bill would totally repeal and defund the -- the affordable care act, the health reform bill that we passed. the other one would prevent funding for planned parenthood. so i want to take a few minutes here on the floor of the senate to speak about how misguided these two bills are. first, let me talk about the bill that would defund the affordable care act. this bill that we would be voting on will prohibit any funds appropriated this year and any funds appropriated in any prior year from being used to carry out the affordable care ac

mr. harkin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. harkin: mr. president mr. president, i ask further further proceedings be dispensed with. many republicans in the house, spurred on by the tea party, are radicals and still threatening to throw a temper tantrum and shut down the government if they don't get all their demands. this morning's "washington post" reports that speaker john boehner received an ovation from the republican caucus when he told them that he had directed the house administration committee to prepare for a shutdown. to cut medicare, medicaid and social security and cut tax rates for the wealthiest in our society. this tea party budget is an unpress tkepblted assault on -- unprecedented salt on middle class and working americans. it would reduce access to health care and higher education and do grave damage to our public schools and our ability to prepare the next generation for the jobs of the future. let's be clear, this is not about reducing budget deficits. republican governors and republicans in congress are demanding budget cuts for t

mr. harkin: before i speak, i ask unanimous consent for five additional minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. grassley: since january, i have been investigating allegations from whistleblowers at the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. the allegations that i had received are shocking but sadly they appear to be true. and praise the lord for whistleblowers in this government because we don't know where the skeletons are buried, and they help us to do our constitutional role of oversight checks and balances of government. the a.t.f. is supposed to stop criminals from trafficking guns to mexican drug cartels, was actually making that trafficking of arms easier for them. that would be bad enough if it happened because of incompetence or turf battles, but it looks like the agency was doing this on purpose. the government actually encouraged gun dealers to sell multiple firearms to known and suspected traffickers. two of those guns ended up at the scene of a murder of u.s. border patrol agent in arizona. his name was brian terry, and his family dese