i think the whitehouse amendment is likely to get another 100 votes. so every time we address a concern from the republican side of the aisle and say the bill addresses that concern or a separate amendment addresses that concern, they protest it's not enough, we need more. i think they protest too much. and i would also say that i am troubled today as i have been for several weeks by the position taken from the republican side of the aisle about health care reform. now, for about 13 or 14 days, this bill in its entirety has been available to the american people. you can find it by googling senate democrats and it will direct you to our website, and you can click on this bill. 3590, h.r. 3590, and read it page after page, all 2,074 pages of it. that's the way it should be. there was a lot of angst and worry last august at town meetings, well, are you going to get this bill sneaked by us, are we going to get a chance to read it? everybody has a chance to read it. but then i would recommend to those who are searching the internet to read health care refor

whitehouse: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: i know the senator from rhode island wishes to speak very shortly, and i will yield to him very shortly when he is present on the floor, but i did want to react to two points that were made by the very distinguished senator from utah, and i say that with true sincerity. he has been a friend to me since i have been in the senate. he sets a very valuable standard in this institution for collegiality and dignity and bipartisanship and scholarliness, and he comes from an extremely distinguished career prior to his distinguished career in the senate as a lawyer, a leader of the utah bar. so -- but i do think that as much -- as easy as it is to make fun of a 2,074-page bill, the house bill, which is not significantly different in scale from this bill, was reviewed, and if you look at the substantive language in it. in a bill, of course, there is a lot of language that simply connects things into place and is ta

whitehouse: mr.resident, may i now call up amendment number 2870, an amendment to protect the social security surplus and class program savings in this act and ask for the amendment's immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: the senator from rhode island, mr. whitehouse, proposes an amendment number 2870 to amendment number 2786. at the appropriate place -- mr. whitehouse: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. whitehouse: may i ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with? the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection. mr. whitehouse: i yield to the distinguished majority leader. mr. durbin: i have listened to the profound and eloquent statements of my friend and colleague from new hampshire, senator judd gregg. he has frequently invoked the name of the ponzi family, and although i'm not personally familiar with them, i believe they have had some skeletons in their closet by vir

whitehouse: mr. president, may i ask unanimous consent that the distinguished senator from iowa be recognized for 20 minutes and that i be recognized following the conclusion of his remarks also for up to 20 minutes. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. whitehouse: i thank the chair and yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from iowa. mr. grassley: mr. president, the senator from illinois is still on the floor. last week i pointed out the plans that republicans have introduced right here. the only way that the senator from illinois can have an out is he was cute -- he was cute in modifying it that it hasn't been scored by the congressional budget office, but here's the fact on what the congressional budget office can do and not do. they were busy since may with the senate health bill, getting it scored. they were busy working with us in the group of six to try to get a bipartisan bill scored. and since october 2 until now, they have been working

whitehouse: nothing. ms. stabenow: if i could add, i think one of the most telling ways to approach that is the fact that the american medical association, the physicians of this country support what we are doing. they are the last ones that would support putting somebody, somebody else, i should say, because i believe we have insurance company bureaucrats tpraoebgt fully between our doctors and -- frequently between our doctors and patients but they would not be supporting us if it were doing what we're hearing. mr. baucus: what about procedures doctors might want to choose for their stphaeurbts is there anything in this legislation which at all interferes with the position a physician might have as to which procedure to prescribe in consultation with his or her patient? ms. stabenow: as a member of the finance committee with the distinguished chairman, we have written nothing that would in any way interfere with procedures. in fact, what i believe through the fact that we are making insurance more affordabl

whitehouse: mr. president? mr. president, i will just speak for a moment because i know the distinguished senator from pennsylvania wishes to speak, and when he comes to the floor, i will quickly yield to him, but while there is a moment in between, i did want to speak to some of the arguments that we have heard. there is the question always of the substance of an argument. there is also the question of the credibility of an argument, and i think as people who are watching this debate discuss the credibility of the concern expressed by our friends on the other side of the aisle about the deficit impact of the class act, it's worth considering a few facts just to evaluate that. the first thing is that the class act is required to be actuarially self-sustaining. people pay into it and from those funds under the insurance principle, funds come back out. it is required to be self-sustaining that way. second, it is voluntary. nobody has to contribute. if you want to contribute, then you become eligible for the benefit o

senator whitehouse mentioned are the legal basis adequate? adequate for effectiveness on getting the information we need and have in place we need a protecter nation but also privacy. we look at einstein, too, there is a concern that there's personally identified information that may be available. we're not sure that we had in place. adequate oversight to make sure that we minimize invasion of individual privacy. and now as we move towards einstein 3, those same concerns are in place. so we want you to work with us to make sure that we institutionalized the protection of privacy for american citizens on personal information that's not needed for our security. but then secondly, we want to make sure that we have in place adequate laws and structures so that we can counter the vulnerability that bad players are trying to perpetrate on the united states. i'm particularly mindful that nsa located in maryland, the premier collection agency in the world is actively working on this. and i just call to your attention to give this matter the highest a

senator whitehouse. >> thank you chairman. welcome.if you don't mind that would like to briefly shift the topic. >> senator whitehouse, senator kyl, i see him standing there and he is actually supposed to be next. >> mr. chairman he is the senior member of our class of senators who came in two years ago so i owe him-- >> i appreciate the courtesy and i am prepared to wait for senator whitehouse and senator cornyn's and i will be prepared to testify. >> senator, go ahead. >> on cyber we had a hearing and it is good that senator cardin is here. he held that in his judiciary subcommittee. your deputy undersecretary from dhs was there, associate deputy attorney general james baker was there, and a senior official from nsa and the fbi were there and i asked them if any of them were satisfied with the existing legal structure within which the cyberdefense effort currently operates, and i got a unanimous the array of no from each of them. there is understand an interagency process that is led by or through the national security council, but g

senator whitehouse. >> thank you chairman. welcome.f you don't mind that would like to briefly shift the topic. >> senator whitehouse, senator kyl, i see him standing there and he is actually supposed to be next. >> mr. chairman he is the senior member of our class of senators who came in two years ago so i owe him-- >> i appreciate the courtesy and i am prepared to wait for senator whitehouse and senator cornyn's and i will be prepared to testify. >> senator, go ahead. >> on cyber we had a hearing and it is good that senator cardin is here. he held that in his judiciary subcommittee. your deputy undersecretary from dhs was there, associate deputy attorney general james baker was there, and a senior official from nsa and the fbi were there and i asked them if any of them were satisfied with the existing legal structure within which the cyberdefense effort currently operates, and i got a unanimous the array of no from each of them. there is understand an interagency process that is led by or through the national security council, but gi

while these numbers are encouraging, senators rockefeller, whitehouse, and i think we can and should do more. that is, the cost containment numbers. my colleagues introduced earlier this year the medp.a.c. reform act -- the medpac reform act which created an independent authority, a separate, nonpartisan body to mix critical health care cost decisions or make remgz about them. in the current senate health care reform bill, their idea appears centrally as the independent medicare advisory board. it will bring together a panel of experts whose mission it will be to extend the solvency of the medicare trust fund by seeking out new efficiencies, new cost containments and improving the quality of care delivered by medicare and the private sector. the board will have the authority to make recommendations to the president and congress to reduce medicare spending in particular ways, and those recommendations will be fast tracked through congress with strict requirements for the committees of jurisdiction to review them, report the recommendations to the full congress, and then be subject, th

senator whitehouse. >> thank you for your extraordinarily powerful testimony.nk you for your voice on behalf of victims across the country and thank you for your service in law enforcement. clearly the science of d.n.a. has speed far, far ahead. my first realization was a murder case where we were able to get d.n.a. off a beer bottle that the perpetrator of the crime had taken a swig out of during the course of his time in the home of the murder victim. and i suspect it's rocketted forward in the years since then. so i think it's a very valuable tool. and i assume that all of you would support mandatory d.n.a. testing of violent criminals. >> yes, i certainly would, senator. anyway that we can get the d.n.a. from a person who has committed crimes and been arrested as i said, get into a data base of convicted offenders along with a larger data base of crimes that have been tested. when they are searched against each other, we get more hits, the bigger they are. >> the record reflect that all five heads were nodding in agreement. yeah, because at that point, you'

whitehouse as we are here today, -- mr. whitehouse: as we are here, washington rests under a blanket of snow, reminding us of the christmas spirit, the spirit of bringing families together for the holidays. unfortunately, a different spirit has descended on this senates. the spirit that has descended on the senate is one described by chief justice john marshall back in the burr trial, those malignant and vindictive passions which rage in the bosoms of con tending parties struggling for power. two-time pulitzer prize winner captured this in an essay called the paranoid style. vindictive passions often arise, he points out when an aggrieved minority believes that america has been taken away from their kind. though they are determined to try to repossess it and try to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. does that sound familiar, madam president, in this health debate? 40 years ago he wrote that. hoffstetter continued those aggrieved fear what he described as the now familiar conspiracy. familiar then. 40 years ago

whitehouse: thank you. i would love to interject a question to the distinguished senator from michigan at this point. we are in a situation in which the other side is repeatedly coming to the floor to ask us to delay, to stop, to slow down, to start over and i'm curious, as somebody who's watched this debate closely, what the senator from michigan thinks about where we would be if we acceded to that wish, bearing in mind that one of the sort of ideological fire brands who seems to be leading a measure of the debate on the other side has indicated that this isn't about health care and people. this is about giving president obama a waterloo, this is about creating a political defeat for the president of the united states on their side. nothing to do with health care. entirely about creating a defeat for this new president and when in the face of all of the obstruction that the distinguished senator from michigan described so eloquently, this recordbreaking, unprecedented in the history of the senate, obstruct

delighted to be here with my colleagues, senator menendez and senator white blue but -- senator whitehouse. thank you for moving this bill forward and many other things they have done. as all of you know one of the main selling points of the senate health care reform bill is we will protect medicare by protecting solvency for five years, fear that medicare would run out of money and cause enormous problems for our senior citizens both now because they are worried and when we actually run out of money. how do we do this? simple. we get rid of fraud, waste and abuse in the system. these are dollars that don't go toward improving seniors benefits one bitch but instead go to assurance companies or otherwise flip through the cracks and jeopardize the fiscal future. i ask anyone to read their bill and they will find all kinds of costs, doctors they never met, this and that. everyone knows the waste and fraud and abuse in the system. if we don't get rid of this waste we do nothing, this system will go broke in seven years. to fix the system we have to reform it. that is why the aarp has hailed th

whitehouse: 50%, 5-0. half of the staff of the community health center was dedicated to fighting with the insurance industry and the other half was actually providing the health care. in addition, they had to have a contract for experts, consultants to help fight against the insurance industry. that was another $200,000. $200,000 for a little community health center plus half their staff. and what you've seen in the past -- i think it's eight years -- is that the administrative expense of the insurance industry has doubled, and that's what they're doing. it's like an arms race. they put on more people to try to prevent you from getting care because it saves them money when they do. they have a profit motive to deny you. in the case of my -- the member of my family who they tried this on, he had the fortitude to fight back and eventually they caved. but for every person like him who fights back and actually gets the coverage that they paid for, that they're entitled to, there are going to be some who are to

whitehouse as we are here today, -- mr. as we are here, washington rests under a blanket of snow, reminding us of the christmas spirit, the spirit of bringing families together for the holidays. unfortunately, a different spirit has descended on this senates. the spirit that has descended on the senate is one described by chief justice john marshall back in the burr trial, those malignant and vindictive passions which rage in the bosoms of con tending parties struggling for power. two-time pulitzer prize winner captured this in an essay called the paranoid style. vindictive passions often arise, he points out when an aggrieved minority believes that america has been taken away from their kind. though they are determined to try to repossess it and try to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. does that sound familiar, madam president, in this health debate? 40 years ago he wrote that. hoffstetter continued those aggrieved fear what he described as the now familiar conspiracy. familiar then. 40 years ago. persistent

i predicted as early as july when senator whitehouse and i wrote this public option language in the h.e.l.p. bill in july, i predicted then it would stay in the bill, it would get to the president's desk. i still think it will and i think it will be a good, strong public option that keeps prices down, that makes the insurance companies honest. and that's the whole point of it. >> imagine you're harry reid. how do you get either, "a," you get four conservative votes from the democratic caucus, or, "b," pass the bill with viewer than 60 senators supporting it? >> well, you get those four -- those 60 votes, all four of them, all 60 of us by continuing to talk, continuing to be in these meetings as all of -- many of us are that care so passionately about this. ultimately you bring people together and say we need this, you're leaders in the party. four of these people we're talking about, three of them are committee chairs. all of them are on one of the two most prestigious committees in the senate. they're getting all kinds of push from home to vote for this. the public wants the public option

whitehouse: would the senator from illinois yield for another question.i was elected just about three years ago and i came in with a new majority. so i did not have the chance to serve in this body when there was a republican president and a republican majority. and i wonder if the senator who was here at this time would reflect on how the other side viewed defense appropriations for our troops during the iraq war when they were in the majority. were they desirous of delay and obstruction and debate an procedural -- and procedural maneuver on defense appropriations at that time or is this a new strategy of their? mr. durbin: i would say to my colleague from rhode island, exactly the opposite was true. they wanted to move quickly to pass any appropriation bill to make certain that there was no question in the mind of our men and women in uniform that we are standing with them. and we did. even though who voted against the invasion of iraq, stopped the proceedings from funding the troops regardless of what our votes might be. and so i think it would be cons

irmator whitehouse? ouldhank you chairman. we'll come. if you don't mind don't like hitehoefly shift. >> senator cardin i did not see him stand there and he ext.upposed to be next. >> the senior member of our class of senators who came in two years ago. >> i appreciate the courtesy but i am prepared for a senator white house. to >> go-ahead. i think both senators. we had a hearing it is good h in his or cardin is here he held it with the subcommittee. your deputy undersecretary torneyere. the associate attorney from nsajames baker was d ire and also from the nsa iof themere there. i asked them if any of them were satisfied with the existing legal structure ntly which the cyber defense unart currently operates? of n and that unanimous array of the word no. from each of them. erste is, as i understand the interagency process lead byugh th through the national security council. but given all of the l, ionsibilities of the national security council i am not entirely comfortable governmea good and lasting structure for our cyber s. security ef

with that, i give to my colleague sheldon whitehouse. >> thank you bobby and thank you jack. the republican party has been an exceptional institution in american life. it was the party of abraham lincoln. it was the party of theodore roosevelt. and now this grand old party is out there doing the limbaugh limbo and causing mystified americans to look at their antics and wonder to the old limbo question, how low can you go? and i have my opinions, but let me share some opinions of others. the editor of the manchester journal acquire page devoted to gop which he called this once great and now mostly shameful party that it has gone crazy, that it is more and more dominated at the lunatic fringe and that it has poisoned itself with hate. he concluded they no longer want to govern. they want to emote. a very well regarded philadelphian columnist wrote at the republican right, if they can get the mileage that the mouse matters. and he went on to quote conservative paranoia and lunacy a foot in our national debate. the respected maureen of "the new york times" and her friend the late

senator whitehouse? >> thank you, madam chair. thank you, ms. smith for your extremely powerful testimony and your voice for victims around the country and thank you ms. stoiloff and mr. redding for your service in law enforcement. clearly the science of dna has sped far, far ahead. my first realization of it was a murder case where we were able to get dna off a beer bottle that the perpetrator of the crime had taken a swig out of during the course of his time in the home of the murder victim. and i suspect it's rocketed forward in the your since then. -- in the years since then. so i think it's a very valuable tool. and i assume that all of you would support mandatory dna testing of violent criminals. >> yes, i certainly would, senator. any way that we can get the dna from a person who's committed crimes and who has been arrested, as i said, get that in the database, a larger databases of convicted offenders as long as with a larger database of crime which have been tested. when those databases are searched against each other, we get more hits,

senator whitehouse of rhode island who came to congress with a class of senators elected with a strong mandate to change the way washington works has proposed an amendment based on common sense and accountability. it says that the money dedicated to the health care of american seniors and people with disabilities can be used only for those precise purposes. unfortunately, some republicans are less interested in solving problems than they are in creating them. the day before this floor -- the day before this floor debate began, mr. president, the assistant republican leader, the junior senator from arizona, said -- and i quote -- "there's no way to fix this bill." of course he's absolutely totally wrong. all senators know there is a very reliable way to improve legislation, to improve this bill. it's been in use for 220 years. it's called the legislative process. it's called doing our jobs. as this bill continues to improve, i once again remind my colleagues not to lose sight of the bigger picture. as we delve into the details and debate the fine print, let's not forget why we're here.

senator whitehouse heads that task force.senator mikulski and senators snowe are members, and they will be probably talking with you any more serious nature at a later time. but it is of major importance to this committee and i just want to have the opportunity to say that. senator wyden? >> thank you, madam chair, and welcome to both the nominees. ms. wagner, it seems to me there are some very serious problems that are now facing the department of homeland security's intelligence unit. and i want to ask you specifically about your response to several of those. let me start by reading you a brief excerpt from a report that the committee approved unanimously earlier this year. and i quote here. the committee has raised a number of concerns with reports issued by the department of homeland security office of intelligence and analysis that inappropriately analyze the legitimate activities of u.s. persons. these reports raised fundamental questions about the mission of the office of intelligence and analysis, and often used certa

senator whitehouse. >> thank you for your extraordinarily powerful testimony.nk you for your voice on behalf of victims across the country and thank you for your service in law enforcement. clearly the science of d.n.a. has speed far, far ahead. my first realization was a murder case where we were able to get d.n.a. off a beer bottle that the perpetrator of the crime had taken a swig out of during the course of his time in the home of the murder victim. and i suspect it's rocketted forward in the years since then. so i think it's a very valuable tool. and i assume that all of you would support mandatory d.n.a. testing of violent criminals. >> yes, i certainly would, senator. anyway that we can get the d.n.a. from a person who has committed crimes and been arrested as i said, get into a data base of convicted offenders along with a larger data base of crimes that have been tested. when they are searched against each other, we get more hits, the bigger they are. >> the record reflect that all five heads were nodding in agreement. yeah, because at that point, you'

senator whitehouse? >> one of the things that always bothered me is the lack of planning, the fiasco and a few others. and lucky that toward the end we got our act together. it seems to me that we're doing a much better job of preparing for our mission in afghanistan. do you have a critical path in place? you mentioned that in terms of iraq that who's going to leave say in the green zone and how much is being provided by the military there gone and how are those people going to be taken care of? i don't think very much is said about the number of people that are going to leave in iraq may continue with what prts that we got going there. has somebody really sat down with a piece of paper and scoped it out so that you have confidence that once this takes place in '11 that you're going to be taking care of your folks? >> yes, we are, senator. as i mentioned, there's a very, very actsive planning program that is going on that is going on not only in the department but involves ambassador chris hill's staff i

i believe i have this right and if i don't we will correct it but what happens before the event whitehouse staff will give a list of the people that have been inflated and we will take that list and they will provide name and date of birth and social security number. we will then do the appropriate record checks for those individuals. if anything does come up that would lead us to believe somebody should not be led into the white house we would get back to the white house staff on that. once that -- once all that is done we will get back to the white house staff and they will give back a complete list of who is currently attending the event. >> so for the social service office or anyone from the white house, any influential individual to walk up and say this individual should be allowed in. you said you think it's been done in the past without vetting or they would have to say this individual has been vetted before? >> i would say that would be very rare occasion. i would say perhaps it was a member from the hill or some other individual who is a family friend this would have to be somebod

along with senator hutchison, this is a bipartisan amendment sponsored by senators franken, whitehouse, and specter. please join us in voting for this. i yield the floor. mr. kaufman: mr. president, i ask consent to speak in morning business for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kaufman: my colleagues have heard me speak in recent weeks about the troubling trends in our financial markets. the growing use of dark pools and high-frequency trading, increasing market fragmentation and looming potential regulatory gaps in the securities and exchange commission. today i want to talk about an economic threat that encompasses these developments and why i think they are negatively affecting the long-term health of our economy. after suffering through the most severe recession in decades, we are now in the midst of the most fragile of roeufrs. mr. president -- recoveries. mr. president, it's evident to all that we are in a jobs crisis. we need a laser-like focus on innovation policies that encourage industry to create jobs. this challenge comes not just from the fin

i was joined in that resolution by senator dodd, senator rockefeller, senator brown, senator whitehouseand senator sanders. and we filed that resolution just to make this point, with a couple of more words than "no child worse off," but that was the fundamental point, to guide us through this process. sometimes on an debate on something this significant, and parts of it are complicated to be enacted into law. as it challenge to pass health care reform. i think we will. i think we must. but you do need guiding principles, and i believe one of these should be no child worse off, poor and special-needs children. a lot of the child advocates across america have told us for many, many years, something so simple, but something very meaningful in terms of providing further guidance for this debate. that children are not small adults. now, that doesn't sound so profound. but it really matters when it comes to health care. we can't just say, if you've got a health care plan for adults, it will work for kids. don't worry about it. unfortunately, that's not case. and if we don't do the right thing

i remember senator whitehouse and i were there. it was literally a year and a half ago and so many of the ideas that are now incorporated in this bill that senator bennet of colorado just so eloquently went through are in this bill. so many of the bipartisan ideas to really kick off cost reform, to start rewarding high-quality care. to start bringing down those costs in a way that gives you the high-quality care. now, we all know that rising costs are not sustainable the if we don't act, these costs are going to continue to skyrocket. so what was the vote last night about? well, the vote last night was to say we're not going to put our heads in the sand anymore. we're not going to let these costs go up. 10 years ago the average family was paying $6,000 a year for their health insurance, now they're paying $12,000 a year. 10 years from now if we don't do anything about this, they're going to be paying $24,000 to $36,000 a year for theirish 0 health insurance. look at these numbers. in 1999, a single person was paying about $2,100 fo

, udall of colorado, leahy, akaka, durbin, brown, shaheen, kerry, reed of rhode island, harkin, whitehouse, gillibrand, merkley, lieberman, boxer, and stabenow. mr. reid: i now withdraw that motion. the presiding officer: motion is withdrawn. mr. reid: i now move to recess until 10:01 a.m. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, parliamentary inquiry. the presiding officer: the republican leader. mr. mcconnell: before we proceed to the vote, i'd just like to make a parliamentary inquiry. i believe it is the case that a simple motion to recess or adjourn is not amendable. is that correct? the presiding officer: the republican leader is correct. mr. mcconnell: further inquiry, i also believe that a motion to recess or adjourning to a time certain is amendable with time changes. the presiding officer: the republican leader is correct. mr. mcconnell: i'll not offer an amendment to change the time to convene until later tomorrow, but just so everybody will know with regard to their own personal schedules, you know, this vote could occur at any time tomorrow t wouldn't have to be at 1:00 a.m. the majority

senator whitehouse?hings that always bothered me is the lack of planning, the fiasco and a few others. and lucky that toward the end we got our act together. it seems to me that we're doing a much better job of preparing for our mission in afghanistan. do you have a critical path in place? you mentioned that in terms of iraq that who's going to leave say in the green zone and how much is being provided by the military there gone and how are those people going to be taken care of? i don't think very much is said about the number of people that are going to leave in iraq may continue with what prts that we got going there. has somebody really sat down with a piece of paper and scoped it out so that you have confidence that once this takes place in '11 that you're going to be taking care of your folks? >> yes, we are, senator. as i mentioned, there's a very, very actsive planning program that is going on that is going on not only in the department but involves ambassador chris hill's staff in baghdad. i thi