Of a perfecting nature.

AMERICAN JOBS AND CLOSING TAX LOOPHOLES ACT OF 2010

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senate will resume consideration of the House message to accompany H.R.
4213, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:

Motion to concur in the House amendment to the Senate
amendment with an amendment to H.R. 4213, an act to amend the
Internal Revenue Code of 1986, to extend certain expiring
provisions, and for other purposes.

Pending:

Baucus motion to concur in the amendment of the House to
the amendment of the Senate to the bill, with Baucus
Amendment No. 4369 (to the amendment of the House to the
amendment of the Senate to the bill), in the nature of a
substitute.

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, once again, we are here today to try to
help create jobs. That is what the underlying bill and substitute
amendment are all about.
But the Thune amendment would move in the wrong direction. Instead of
helping to create jobs, the Thune amendment would probably cost jobs.
The Thune amendment would reduce aggregate demand in the economy by
more than $50 billion. Instead of continuing the good that the Recovery
Act has done, the Thune amendment would stop it in its tracks.
The Thune amendment would, among other things, cancel unspent and
unallocated mandatory spending in the Recovery Act.
The Recovery Act is working.
This is what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in its
most recent report:

CBO estimates that in the first quarter of calendar year
2010, [the Recovery Act's] policies:
Raised the level of real . . . gross domestic product . . .
by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent;
Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage
points and 1.5 percentage points;
Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2
million and 2.8 million; and
Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 1.8
million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would
have been otherwise.

And the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Recovery Act
will continue to create jobs. CBO projects that the Recovery Act will
create the most jobs in the third quarter of this year. And then it
will begin to taper off.
We should not cut that job creation off. In this fragile economy, the
last thing that we should want to do is to cut back this proven job
creator.
We passed the Recovery Act to give a needed boost to our economy. We
designed the bill to work over 2 years. If we were to withdraw these
critical funds, we would risk causing further damage to a fragile
economy.
The Thune amendment would also cut other important spending programs.
The Thune substitute amendment would cut discretionary spending by 5
percent across the board for all agencies, except for the Department of
Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense.

[[Page S5055]]

This 5 percent cut would apply to the Department of Homeland
Security. It would apply to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Apparently, it would apply to the intelligence agencies.
The Thune substitute amendment would freeze the salaries of all
Federal employees, except for members of the Armed Forces.
It would freeze the salaries of civilian defense workers. It would
freeze the salaries of law enforcement. It would freeze the salaries of
border protection agents.
Another provision would cap the total number of federal employees at
current levels. If an agency needed to hire a new employee, it would
first need to fire an existing employee. That is not how to create
jobs. This would dramatically reduce the flexibility of agencies to
make hiring decisions.
I support finding ways to make our government more efficient. But
these cuts are arbitrary. They are mindless meat-ax cuts.
The Thune amendment would also make changes to the new health care
law. These changes would leave more Americans without health insurance.
The Thune amendment would do this by expanding the affordability
exception to the responsibility for individuals to buy health
insurance.
This expansion would eliminate coverage for millions of Americans.
And CBO tells us that this would raise health care premiums.
The irony of this proposal is that it raises money for the government
because the government would not provide as much in tax credits to
Americans to help them buy insurance.
But Congress has just enacted health care reform. Congress just
expressed our Nation's commitment to helping all Americans to buy
health insurance. We should let the new health care law take effect.
The Thune amendment would also propose changes to our medical
malpractice system that the Senate has rejected many times.
The Thune amendment would cap damages and make other changes to State
laws. This is the not the solution to medical malpractice.
The Congressional Budget Office has said that these kinds of ideas
would generate savings. But we need to ask: At what cost?
What would be the cost to patients? What would be the cost to the
States?
CBO relied on outside studies in calculating its cost estimate. And
those same studies point out that certain tort reform policies may also
increase the number of risky procedures performed. And these policies
may lead to more patient injuries and more patient deaths.
One study upon which CBO relied said that these policies would lead
to a 0.2-percent increase in mortality. These policies in the Thune
amendment could lead to more patient deaths.
That is an awfully high price to pay.
Our Nation's civil liability system has always been forged at the
State level. Nationalizing that system with damage caps would put
patients at risk.
The Thune amendment employs some of the offsets that it does because
it drops the oil spill liability tax. And the Thune amendment employs
some of the offsets that it does because it drops the tax loophole
closers in the underlying substitute amendment.
The Thune amendment thus would allow big oil companies to pay less
into the oil spill liability trust fund, to pay for oil spills.
The Thune amendment thus would allow investment managers to continue
to pay lower capital gains tax rates on their service income than other
Americans do on their wages.
The Thune amendment thus would allow some professionals who organize
as S corporations to avoid paying their fair share of Social Security
and Medicare payroll taxes.
And the Thune amendment thus would allow multinational corporations
to continue accounting dodges to avoid paying their fair share of taxes
here in America.
These decisions reflected in the Thune amendment are bad tax policy.
These decisions preserve unfairness and inequity in the tax law.
And so, the Thune amendment would put the recovery at risk by
curtailing the Recovery Act. It would cut the number of Americans with
health insurance and raise premiums. It would nationalize medical
malpractice law, putting patients at risk. And it would protect big oil
and multinational corporations that ship their jobs overseas.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the Thune amendment.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota is
recognized.

Amendment No. 4376 to Amendment No. 4369

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, as provided for in the order, I now call
up my amendment.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will report.
The bill clerk read as follows:

The Senator from South Dakota [Mr. Thune] proposes an
amendment numbered 4376 to amendment No. 4369.

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading
of the amendment be dispensed with.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, this amendment is, in my view, probably
the most important thing that we can do for the economy right now. The
Senator from Montana talked about job creation. Everybody in this
Chamber cares about that. I think Democrats and Republicans alike
believe we have to create jobs in our economy. We need to get economic
growth going again.
I think we have a fundamental difference about how best to do that,
and what my amendment would do is address what I think are the two
biggest problems we face--the sort of clouds, if you will, hanging over
the economy in this country. One is debt. We have this spiraling
Federal debt which is set to double in 5 years and triple in 10 years
on the current path under the budget that has been proposed by the
President.
If we include the debt that government agencies owe each other--in
other words, intergovernmental debt--add that to the public debt, right
now we are in debt $13 trillion. That is the total amount of debt we
have today. That is going to balloon in the next 5 years and the next
10 years. The budget window we use to do our budgeting around here
suggests it is going to be much higher than that.
So I think what the American people are saying, at least what I
believe the American people are saying--and I think we have probably
different interpretations of that, but what I believe the American
people are saying and what I see in poll after poll after poll is
people are concerned about the cloud this growing public debt imposes
on our economy and the burden it places on future generations. They are
also profoundly concerned about their jobs and about their economy.
They want Congress to take steps that will help grow the economy and
create jobs.
The best way to do that is for the government to get out of the way,
so to speak, and incentivize small businesses to do what they do best;
that is, create jobs. It is the small businesses in our economy that
are the economic engine. They are job creators. We should not be
imposing more burdens on them. We should try and keep taxes low. We
should try and keep regulations and keep from imposing new governmental
burdens on our small business sector and our economy.
So we have a piece of legislation before us today in which I think
both sides, Republicans and Democrats, agree we need to do something to
address unemployment insurance and extending the benefits of those who
have lost their jobs in the recession.
We need to address the issue of physician reimbursement cuts which
will occur if Congress does not take steps to address that. Of course,
we need to extend the expiring tax provisions that many of us support--
for example, the tax credit for investment in research and development,
which is one of the things companies use to keep us more competitive.
Those are all things that have expired, are expiring. Those are issues
that need to be addressed. I think both of us agree on that.
The question becomes, What is the best remedy, how best do we do
that? What the Democratic majority has proposed is a solution which, at
the end--and I think this is even under the best-case scenario, which I
do not believe we have a CBO score on yet--but the more

[[Page S5056]]

recent version of their piece of legislation would still add about $50
billion to the debt. So it would increase the amount of debt I just
mentioned earlier. It does raise taxes. It raises taxes on small
business. It raises taxes on investment.
It puts more taxes on oil companies by raising taxes that would go
into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. And, of course, because my
amendment does not include that tax increase, somehow we are painted as
being in defense of big oil. Well, let me point out one thing about
that--this was true in health care; it has been true with many things
that have happened here on the floor--and that is, it would be one
thing if the revenues raised by increasing the tax from 8 cents to 49
cents per barrel of oil were actually going to be used to clean up
oilspills. It is stated to go into the trust fund, the Oil Spill
Liability Trust Fund, but it will be used to fund other things. So,
again, you get this double-counting. You get this practice we have seen
employed here by the majority on a number of occasions where you are
raising revenue that is supposedly for a specific purpose, the proceeds
of which are going to be used for something entirely different. That,
of course, is coupled with the fact that the tax, as we all know, is
going to be passed on to the American consumers. So the American
consumers are going to be burdened with higher taxes. At the same time,
the other side can say: We are being tough on big oil. We are going to
stick them with this big new tax. Ironically, it is not going to go to
clean up oilspills; it is going to go to fund these things we are
talking about funding here.
We have a better way. We can reduce government spending and do this.
We can actually extend these expiring tax provisions by reducing taxes
by about $26 billion under my amendment. We can cut spending by over
$100 billion under my amendment. And we can actually make some progress
toward reducing the Federal debt. We have about $68 billion, under my
amendment, that can be used to pay down the Federal debt. So we reduce
the debt, we cut taxes, we extend unemployment benefits, we address the
physician reimbursement issue--and by the way, my amendment addresses
that through the end of the year 2012. The amendment now offered by the
Democratic majority extends it to the end of this year. So if you are a
physician out there who is looking for some certainty and looking for
something that is a long-term solution to this issue of cuts in
reimbursement, then you get, under my amendment, an extension to the
end of the year 2012. Under the Democratic majority option here today,
you get something that extends it only until the end of this year. So
you can do all those things and still cut the debt, cut taxes, and
reduce Federal spending. So what we are offering is a different way.
It seems to me, when you are sitting on a $13 trillion debt and you
are growing your debt at $1.5 trillion every year, which is what is
happening--the deficit this year is going to be about $1.5 trillion.
That is what it was last year. We are looking at trillion-dollar
deficits as far as the eye can see, to the point where the interest on
the debt at the end of the 10-year period we use for budgeting purposes
in the Senate will exceed the amount we spend on defense. We will spend
more on interest on the debt than we spend on national security in this
country if we continue down this path. In fact, we will spend, at the
end of the 10 years, 4.1 percent of our entire economy--our entire
gross domestic product--on interest on the debt.
Madam President, $13 trillion in debt--the other day, I tried to put
that in perspective so people can appreciate and understand it because
I think sometimes it is hard for most of us, myself included, to wrap
our heads around $1 trillion. It sounds like a lot in the abstract. But
to try to put it into a perspective that perhaps we can understand, I
used the analogy of, what is 1 trillion seconds? If you took 1 trillion
seconds, what would that mean in terms of total number of years? Well,
1 trillion seconds represents 31,746 years. If you took 13 trillion
seconds--which is what the debt now represents, the total debt our
country owes--you are looking at over 412,000 years, if a dollar equals
a second. So 1 trillion seconds: 31,746. Madam President, $13 trillion
is what our total debt consists of today. Again, you are looking at
over 412,000 years. I think that speaks to why we need to get the debt
and the spending here under control.
Interestingly enough, a while back here in the Senate, to much
fanfare, the majority passed pay-go rules. The assumption would be that
somehow going forward new spending would be paid for and reductions in
tax revenues would be offset somehow by increases in tax revenues and
all that.
Well, since that time, since the passage of pay-go, the Senate has
already approved well over $100 billion in new spending, not paid for
that is added to the debt. If this legislation is enacted, that number
will approach $200 billion since we passed pay-go--the much-touted,
with much fanfare, as I said, solution that was going to solve the
fiscal woes of our country and suggest a different way of doing things
in the Congress.
Well, anything but that has happened. On the contrary, every time we
have had a major piece of legislation, pay-go has been waived. We waive
it. We declare everything an emergency. Now everything is an emergency
and nothing gets paid for, and the debt continues to grow, and the
debt-o-meter, the spend-o-meter around here continues to spin faster
and faster and faster, and the credit card is handed to future
generations who are going to have to deal with our inability to live
within our means.
So the alternative we offer to the legislation before the Senate
today that is being put forward by the Democratic majority is, as I
said, very simple and very straightforward. It does a number of things.
It does all the things we need to do in terms of extension of
unemployment insurance, of the physician fee--making sure that cut does
not occur, that the physician reimbursement issue is addressed, as I
said, through the end of the year 2012--as well as extending these
expiring tax provisions that are very important to our economy and to
our economic growth.
But we do that in a different way. We take $37.5 billion of the $50
billion in unobligated stimulus funds and use those funds to extend
existing tax and benefit provisions. We cut money from the government
by reducing congressional budgets. I think it is fair that when the
American family, the American business community, and people across
this country are making hard decisions about their own personal
budgets--their family budgets, their business budgets--having to figure
out where they are going to cut back, the least we in Congress can do
is to scrub our budgets and figure out what we can do to reduce
spending.
So we cut money from the government by reducing congressional
budgets. We rescind unspent Federal funds. There are lots of
appropriated moneys out there that do not get spent that revert back or
get spent later. What this amendment simply says is, if moneys that
have been appropriated have not been spent, then let's use that money
to pay down the Federal debt. Let's do these things we need to do here,
and then let's make sure we are not continuing to spend and spend and
spend, particularly dollars that are not needed. It requires the
government to sell unused lands and to auction off unused equipment.
It also imposes a 1-year freeze on the salaries of Federal employees
and eliminates their bonuses and caps the total number of Federal
employees at current levels. I have a modification that would amend
this legislation because there has been a concern raised that it would
mean nobody could get a raise, even those who deserve it. What the
modification would do is allow Federal agencies and managers
flexibility to determine how they are going to work within their
personnel budgets to provide, perhaps, raises for those who have been
deserving. But, overall, their top-line number would be frozen. So it
is not as if no Federal employee ever would have to go without any kind
of a raise. But we think it is important that the Federal Government go
on a diet, just as the family budget is having to do right now as well.
We also collect $3 billion in unpaid taxes from Federal employees.

We encourage responsibility and prioritizing within the Federal
budget by requiring a 5-percent across-the-board discretionary spending
cut for all agencies, except at the VA and the Department of Defense.

[[Page S5057]]

Again, there has been a lot of suggestion that somehow this is going
to wreck the economy and force--as I saw some things out yesterday--
that this is going to force a government shutdown. What this amounts to
is a 2-percent reduction through the end of this fiscal year, which is
September 30. I do not think, out of a $652 billion budget, that if you
are a good manager at these Federal agencies, you could not find 2
percent to shave in order to achieve the savings we need to pay for
this legislation. It encourages responsibility and prioritizing as well
by saving $5 billion in eliminating what is nonessential government
travel. And it eliminates bonuses for poor-performing government
contractors.
Finally, it does create a new deficit reduction trust fund where
rescinded balances and moneys saved through this amendment will be
deposited for the purposes of paying down the Federal debt.
Now, I said this the other day, and I will say this again: I think
this ought to be a no-brainer for us here. Irrespective of which side
of the political aisle you are on, you undoubtedly are hearing from
constituents across this country who are very concerned about the
amounts of spending, the amounts of debt, who are concerned about
increasing taxes, particularly businesses. We hear a lot about
investment frozen on the sidelines because investors are concerned
about the uncertainty that exists out there with regard to taxes and
what they are going to do in the future.
Clearly, this bill, as I said earlier, raises taxes. It raises taxes
by about $50 billion in the current version of it. What we would do is
reduce the tax burden by extending these expiring tax provisions but do
it in a way that does not require new taxes on investment, new taxes on
small businesses, new taxes on our economy at a time when we can least
afford it, when we ought to be looking at ways to keep taxes low and to
make sure we are doing everything possible to lessen the burden on our
small businesses, those job creators in our economy.
One of the things that was mentioned, and we do in our legislation,
is we do address one of the issues with regard to health care. I think
the Senator from Montana characterized that lowering the affordability
threshold for the individual mandate will strike at the heart of health
care reform.
Well, first off, let me just point out that this amendment was taken
directly from an amendment that was filed by Senator Schumer during the
Finance Committee markup of the health care reform bill. I do not think
his intention was to strike at the heart of health care reform. I
thought the heart of health care reform was to make sure people have
access to affordable coverage. I do not think that was Senator
Schumer's intent. I think he was thinking we ought to make sure low-
income people were not forced to buy unaffordable coverage simply
because of health care reform and because they needed a way to finance
health care reform.
This amendment would make sure individuals and families are not
subject to an intrusive and burdensome new Federal mandate if they
cannot afford health insurance. So it is a fairly straightforward
modification to the health care legislation which takes away some of
the burden that is imposed on people at lower income levels. In fact,
it makes a lot of sense to me. If you look at the current health care
bill, under that bill low-income individuals--those under 300 percent
of the Federal poverty level--are slated to pay about $1 billion in
mandate penalties.
Now, the suggestion was that somehow, if we make this change,
insurance premiums are going to go up. Well, I am telling you
something. We tried to make this point many times during the course of
the debate on health care reform. Insurance premiums are going up. In
fact, PricewaterhouseCoopers predicted this week that health care costs
are going to continue to rise at an unsustainable rate--next year by
about 9 percent. So it is already clear that health care reform is not
going to live up to many of its promises. It is going to continue to
raise premiums for most Americans. And that has a lot more to do with
the health care reform, the substance of that, than anything else. It
does not have anything to do with what we are trying to accomplish here
by, as I said, reducing the impact of the individual mandate on low-
income individuals in this country.
So these are all fairly straightforward reforms. We do touch medical
malpractice reform. We think that is something that should have been a
part of health care reform and was not that would help reduce health
care costs for people in this country and achieve some savings we can
use to, again, help pay down the Federal debt, help address the
concerns we need to address with this legislation.
But bottom line, as I said earlier, what we are looking at here is a
very clear choice for U.S. Senators. U.S. Senators can choose to solve
the problem before us in one of two ways. The first way is through $50
billion in tax increases, $50 billion in additional debt, and over $100
billion in additional spending--or about $100 billion in additional
spending. The alternative I offer cuts taxes by $26 billion, reduces
spending by $100 billion, and cuts the Federal debt, reduces the
Federal debt by $68 billion, according to the Congressional Budget
Office.
In my view, as I said at the beginning of my remarks, there is
nothing more important to our economy than dealing with this cloud of
debt, this huge burden that hangs over our economy of out-of-control
Federal spending, out-of-control Federal debt, deficits that are over
$1 trillion or at $1 trillion as far as the eye can see, the concern
about tax increases on our economy and how those would impact our small
businesses and their ability to create jobs. So this legislation,
again, deals with the issue of the debt, deals with the issue of taxes,
deals with the issue of spending, and accomplishes all of the
underlying objectives we all have of extending unemployment benefits,
of dealing with these expiring tax provisions, and dealing with the
impending reduction in physician reimbursements.

So with that introduction, I reserve the remainder of my time. I
think we have other speakers who want to come down, and I look forward
to hearing from them as well.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I might ask if the Senator from New
Hampshire wishes to speak.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I appreciate the chairman's request. I
wish to speak for 5 minutes in support of the Thune amendment.
Mr. BAUCUS. Sure.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Mr. GREGG. Madam President, I rise to congratulate the Senator from
South Dakota for his amendment. This is a responsible way to approach
this issue.
The amendment to the bill that is before us, offered by the
Democratic leadership, adds $50 billion to the deficit; that is $50
billion to the debt. That is $50 billion our kids have to pay so we can
spend money today on politically attractive things. On top of that, the
bill, as proposed, has some onerous tax policy in it which will
significantly contract economic activity in this country by taxing
people at ordinary income for activity which has historically been
taxed at a capital gains rate, thus forcing people to be less
incentivized to go out there and be productive and create jobs. It is
poor tax policy.
So the Senator from South Dakota has come up with a proposal, which
is the way we should be governing now, which is to pay today for the
things we want to spend on today. We are facing a $1.4 trillion
deficit--$1.4 trillion--this year. Next year, we are facing an equally
large deficit. Under the President's budget and the budget of the
Democratic leadership, we are talking a $1 trillion deficit for as far
as the eye can see. The debt of this country is going to double in 5
years under the President's and the Democratic budget--double. It is
going to triple in 10 years. A child born at the beginning of the Obama
administration arrived in our Nation with an $89,000 debt--$89,000. By
the time my colleagues on the other side of the aisle get finished,
should the President be reelected, under the terms of his budget that
child is going to have a $200,000 debt to pay. Why? Because we keep
getting bills like this: $50 billion here, $100 billion here, $25
billion here; money being spent without being paid for and, therefore,
being added to the deficit

[[Page S5058]]

and to the debt. It is totally wrong. It is unfair. It is unfair that
one generation should do this to another generation, and it is
certainly not responsible government.
We had a big debate in this Chamber about 2 months ago now about how
responsible the other side of the aisle was going to be on spending.
They called it pay-go. It should have been called fraud-go because as a
very practical matter, that is what it has become. This bill games the
pay-go rules of the Democratic leadership to the tune of $50 billion by
declaring it an emergency on items that are not emergencies, that we
know exist and that have been spent on now for quite a while. Since
that bill was passed, that pay-go bill, which allegedly was going to
require this Congress to pay for all the money it was going to spend,
the other side of the aisle has brought forward, or is in the process
of bringing forward, $200 billion of spending which is not paid for--
$200 billion in spending which will be added to the deficit and to the
debt. That is totally irresponsible.
So the Senator from South Dakota has it right, as he so often does.
He has said: Let's do this responsibly. If we are going to spend this
money, if we are going to put forward these extenders, if we are going
to spend this money on these different social initiatives, let's pay
for them because they benefit us today and we shouldn't pass the bill
for them on to our children tomorrow, next year, and 10 years from now.
This is responsible budgeting.
I congratulate the Senator from South Dakota, and I look forward with
enthusiasm to finally voting for a bill around here that is paid for,
which is what we should be doing every day instead of spending money we
don't have and passing those bills on to our kids.
I yield the floor.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, could I inquire how much time we have on
our side.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There are 35\1/2\ minutes
remaining.
Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors of this
amendment Senators McConnell, McCain, Isakson, Bond, Enzi, Cornyn,
Barrasso, Roberts, Coburn, Chambliss, Scott Brown, and Judd Gregg.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from
Arizona.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I am pleased to be here to cosponsor and
support my friend from South Dakota, Senator Thune, on this amendment.
As the Senator from New Hampshire just stated, isn't it time we stopped
burdening our children and our grandchildren with massive debt?
Our office is being flooded with calls concerning the extension of
unemployment benefits. We want to extend the unemployment benefits
under this amendment until November, but we want to pay for it. We want
to do something groundbreaking around here that hasn't happened in a
long time: We want to pay for it. We want to pay for the expiring
unemployment provisions until November. We want to extend the expired
tax provisions, including a tax credit for research and
experimentation, and the State and local sales tax deduction through
the end of the year. We want to drop the tax increases, drop the $4
billion extension of Build America bonds, and drop the $24 billion in
State Medicaid bailouts. We want to fully pay for this with spending
cuts. The amendment does provide relief for the doctors by adding an
additional 2 years to the doc fix and reforming our broken and onerous
medical malpractice system.
Let me point out that day after day during the ObamaCare debate we
came to the floor and said: You are using phony assumptions as to
assessments of the entire cost of ObamaCare, and part of that was the
``doc fix'' which wasn't going to happen, which was going to cut
Medicare payments to physicians by some 21 percent. We said every time:
You are not going to do this. You are not going to cut physician
payments by some 21 percent for doctors who provide care for Medicare
enrollees. Over on the other side, they even admitted it. So now we
have to do the doc fix. We have to make sure doctors who treat Medicare
patients are adequately reimbursed; otherwise, they will stop treating
Medicare patients.
So it is kind of hypocritical for us to be blamed for the delay in
the ``doc fix'' when that was the assumption--that was the assumption,
that there would be a 21-percent cut in the selling of ObamaCare to the
American people.
This amendment saves the taxpayers $113 billion in unnecessary
spending. It rescinds $38 billion in the unobligated spending of
stimulus funds. It cuts wasteful and unnecessary government spending.
It collects the unpaid taxes of Federal employees. It freezes their
salaries and caps their numbers. It imposes a 5-percent, across-the-
board cut in government spending for all agencies except the VA and the
DOD, and it creates a new deficit reduction trust fund where rescinded
balances and monies saved through this amendment will be deposited for
the purposes of paying down the Federal debt.

Now, regarding the 5-percent across-the-board cut in government
spending for all agencies except Veterans and Department of Defense, do
Americans know the size of government has doubled since 1999; that the
cost of government has spiraled out of control? A 5-percent cut would
be minuscule as compared to the dramatic increases we have imposed--
yes, during the previous administration, as well as this
administration--including a $1 trillion unpaid-for Medicare Part D
prescription drug program.
So this amendment cuts taxes, it cuts spending, and it reduces the
deficit. The deficit has now spiraled so far out of control that there
is no rational economist who believes this is sustainable without some
kind of profound financial crisis. Now we are up to a projection of a
$16 trillion deficit by the end of the next decade. We are amassing as
far as the eye can see--I think now it is up to $1.6 trillion--debt
just for this year alone that we are laying on our children and our
grandchildren.
As I have said several times on this floor, there is a revolution
going on out there. It is a peaceful revolution. It has been derided by
the liberal left and many in the media. But the fact is, they are angry
and they have every right to be angry. They have every right. The
greatness of America is that every generation has passed on to the
following generation a better Nation than the one we inherited. With
this overwhelming burden of debt and deficit in the name of economic
stimulus, in the name of job creation--which, obviously, has not met
the predictions at the time of the passage of the stimulus package--
have turned out to be totally false.
So here we are. We are in a situation where we have an opportunity to
extend the expiring unemployment provisions, extend the expired tax
provisions, including an important tax credit for research and
development. It drops things such as Build America bonds. Build America
bonds. Please. Right now, that is just an additional $4 billion. We are
going to cut spending, and we will provide relief for doctors by adding
an additional 2 years for the doc fix.
Obviously, that fix needs to be enacted. I am in support of that. But
isn't it a little bit of a hypocrisy to come to the floor and say we
have to get this done, we have to have the doc fix, when all during the
debate on so-called health care reform, the 21-percent cut for Medicare
patients was part of our selling the American people that the cost of
ObamaCare would be less than $1 trillion? Isn't that a little
hypocritical?
I wish to quote from the New York Times recently:

If the economists are divided about what just happened, the
rest of the world is not divided about what should come next.
Voters, business leaders and political leaders do not seem to
think that the stimulus was such a smashing success that we
should do it again, even with today's high unemployment.

There is no better example than last May's unemployment numbers that
show a drop from 9.9 to 9.7, until you get into the not-so-fine print:
41,000 jobs created in the private sector, and 440 new jobs,
approximately, to hire census takers. That is what the stimulus is all
about? Give me a break.
So this is our chance. This is our chance to show the American people
that we are going to cut their taxes, we

[[Page S5059]]

are going to take care of the unemployed, we are going to make the doc
fix, and we are going to at the same time cut spending and start at
least a beginning attempt to get this burgeoning deficit under control.
It reduces the deficit by some $68 billion.
Are there tough things in this measure? Of course. Of course there
are tough things in this measure. But it is about time we started
making some tough decisions because we do have an obligation to our
children and our grandchildren which we have, up until now, clearly
abrogated.
I hope my colleagues will consider voting for this amendment and get
us on the path toward reducing this debt burden we are placing on
future generations of Americans.
I yield the floor.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. COBURN. Madam President, how much time remains?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Twenty-six minutes.
Mr. COBURN. Madam President, I wish to take over for Senator Thune,
if I may. I want to cover for a moment what Senator Gregg talked about,
because we are looking for the pea under the pinochle shell.
We passed, on February 12, pay-go. On February 24, we borrowed $46
billion outside of pay-go. We said it didn't apply. On March 3, we
borrowed $99 billion and said it didn't apply. On March 2, it was $10
billion and we said it didn't apply. In April, it was $18 billion.
Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
Mr. COBURN. Yes.
Mr. McCAIN. After passage of legislation that was trumpeted
everywhere that from now on we were going to pay for additional
spending, how could that happen?
Mr. COBURN. It happened because we waived the pay-go rules and we
were outvoted. The pay-go rules are a farce.
On May 27, $59 billion. With the new bill, another $50 billion. So 46
and 18 is 64, 74, 173, 193, 262, and now 50--that is $312 billion added
to the deficit this year above the $1.5 trillion we are already going
to run.
We get criticized all the time--and I specifically do--as the party
of no. Here is what we have offered: Reduce the national debt; this
body said no. Sell unused property; this body said no. Reduce the
printing costs, which is $4 billion, and we can save printing this,
which nobody reads, and it is all on line; this body said no. Freeze
total Federal pay for right now until we get out of the mess we are in;
this body said no. Living within our means--an amendment that said we
have to live within the revenues that come in--this body said no.
Complying with pay-go; this body said no. Cut agency overhead costs;
this body voted no. Cut Congress's own budget; this body said no. These
are all recorded votes. Eliminate corporate welfare; this body said no.
Stop the bridge to nowhere, that happened 4, 5 years ago but this body
said no. Make Federal employees pay taxes; they owe $3 billion in
unpaid taxes and we have no enforcement, but this body said no.
Consolidate duplicative government programs that do the same thing.
There are 70 programs to feed the hungry, 105 programs for math,
education, science, and technology incentives--6 different agencies--
this body said no. Eliminate bonuses for failed contractors in the
private sector who don't perform, which is $8 billion a year; this body
said no. Decrease nonessential government travel, which saves $5
billion a year; this body said no. Require the Department of Energy to
save energy; ironically, they are the worst offender in the Federal
Government in terms of wasting energy, and this body said no.
Isn't it interesting that, with 41 votes, we offer these things and
every time they are rejected? They are commonsense things that
everybody else in America expects us to be doing, but this body says
no.
Why should we do the Thune amendment? I heard the chairman of the
Finance Committee say a minute ago that having a 5-percent cut across
the board in all of the agencies, except the VA and the Defense
Department, would wreck the Federal Government. He obviously isn't
aware that President Obama has asked his own agencies to do exactly
that. All Senator Thune is doing in this amendment is what the
President is asking the agencies to do. But do you know what. This body
is going to say no. We bring forward a bill that only spends $50
billion of our children's money instead of $78 billion or $88 billion,
which was defeated yesterday, as if that is some big deal.
This body is going to pass it. They are not going to say no to
growing the government, to spending money that we don't have, to giving
advantage to those who are well heeled and connected. They are not
going to do that. We have lost control of what is important in America.
If we were to pass the Thune amendment today, do you know what would
happen? The international financial community would get the first
signal from the American Congress that we are starting to make some
steps toward austerity--the first signal. We don't have any out there
now.
Yesterday, it was reported that the M3 money supply in this country
is at the lowest level of GDP since 1932. Do you know what that
predicts? It predicts that the economy is going to slow rather than
increase. That predicts a double dip recession. We have tried
everything Japan tried for 10 years, and it didn't work. It is a lost
decade in Japan. It is stimulus money and not failing to cut the
spending of the government. We are going to do that again. We are going
to continue to increase the government.
People may say, why would you want to freeze total Federal wages?
Well, it is easy. The average Federal employee in the United States
today makes $78,000 a year. They have benefits of $40,000 a year. The
average private sector employee makes $42,000 a year and has $20,000
worth of benefits. Shouldn't we, when we are running a $1.6 trillion--
it is not $1.4 trillion because we have added $200 billion, and we are
going to add another $50 billion with this. When we are running that
kind of deficit, shouldn't we say, time out, no increases, except for
stellar performance, in the Federal Government, until we get our house
in order? But this body is going to say no again. They are going to say
no.
The question is, what can we do to fix our economy? Borrowing money
that we don't have to spend on things that we don't absolutely need is
not the answer to solving the problems with our economy. The answer is
for us to live within our means, create a stable environment where
business will invest and can plan on what is coming next from Congress.
We have them so skittish that they won't spend. That is the reason we
are going to have a double dip recession. That is the reason the money
supply has shrunk in spite of zero percent interest rates at the
Federal Reserve--because people will not take a risk, because we are
not leading with something that gives them confidence about the future.
We have to change that.
I will end with this. That is the party of yes. Increase the national
debt, yes. Violate pay-go, yes. More corporate welfare, yes. Increase
the debt limit, yes. Fund the bridge to nowhere and every other earmark
like it, yes. Increase Congress's own budget at a time when we should
be austere, yes. Tax breaks for special interests, yes. Borrow
billions--not billions, but trillions--from our grandchildren, yes.
Create duplicative government programs, yes. Finally, create a lower
standard of living for us, our children, and our grandchildren.
That is not what we are about, except that is what the Baucus bill
does. It thinks in the short term and ignores the long term. It ignores
the reality that this government has to get smaller for us to not
become Greece. It plays the games that are typical of Washington, which
the American people are rejecting.
One final word about doctors, having been one and practiced for over
25 years. What is happening out there right now? What is happening out
there now is the same kind of confusion that is happening in the
business community. Doctors are saying: I can no longer take a Medicare
patient. You are going to give me an extension for 6 months, but there
is no guarantee that in 5 or 6 months I am going to have the revenue I
need to keep an office open to care for Medicare patients. So what is
happening? Medicare patients all across this country are going and
finding out their doctors no longer take Medicare.

[[Page S5060]]

We saw, earlier this week, when HHS released the first of the
thousands of regulations that between 87 million and 127 million
Americans aren't going to get to keep the insurance they have. They are
not going to under the grandfather clause. So what we are doing is
sending every mixed signal possible to not create stable planning,
positive input, and positive attitudes about what can happen positively
in this country. We have to send a signal to the doctors. The Thune
amendment pays for a doctor fix until 2012. It gives them a chance to
say, yes, I will stay in Medicare; I can afford to stay in Medicare. If
we don't do that, we are going to have hundreds of thousands of
Medicare patients who no longer have the doctor they have had for
years. It is not because the doctor wants to turn away the patient, but
because the doctor has to turn away the patient because they can no
longer afford to care for Medicare patients.

So we play this game and bring to the floor a bill with $50 billion
that we are going to charge to our grandchildren, and we have bought
the votes off so we can pass it, and we are still doing the same thing.
We are still expanding the Federal Government, we are borrowing against
our future, we are lowering the standards of living of our children,
and we are creating a mockery of the American dream.
I reserve the remainder of our time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
The Senator from Montana is recognized.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from
Delaware.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Delaware is
recognized.
Mr. KAUFMAN. Madam President, I may need 3 or 4 or 5 more minutes.
Mr. BAUCUS. I yield as much time as the Senator wishes to consume.
Mr. KAUFMAN. I thank the Senator.
Madam President, when I was appointed to the Senate, I made a promise
to myself not to let this opportunity pass without helping to recognize
the contribution made to this Nation by its government workers. This is
why I began my weekly ``great Federal employee'' series last May.
In all my years working as a Federal employee, I have met so many
wonderful individuals who have dedicated their careers to working for
the American people. So many are deserving but will not make it onto
the poster I bring to the Senate floor each week commemorating great
Federal employees simply because there are so many of them.
Over the years, as I have witnessed countless acts of personal
courage, devotion to country, and real sacrifice, I have also seen and
heard such disheartening and baseless attacks against those who choose
to serve.
The pending amendment is just the latest assault. It comes on the
heels of a new myth being peddled on television, on talk radio, in
print, and on this very floor--the allegation that somehow Federal
employees are overpaid; that their salaries have been rising unfairly
compared to those with similar jobs in the private sector; that we
should freeze or cut their pay or lay them off; that we should make it
nearly impossible to hire any new government worker at all.
Before I rebut these arguments piecemeal, I remind my colleagues and
the American people what we are talking about. This is not an exercise
in the abstract. There are concrete facts. There are names, faces, and
real life stories of achievement and hard work.
Nearly 2 million wake up every day and go to work for the American
people, for their neighbors, their friends and family, for folks they
have never met or will never meet.
They do it for substantially less pay than the same job in the
private sector and with considerably more at stake. As I have said
before, there are no Wall Street bonuses, and there is rarely ever
recognition for their hard work. For many, working as a Federal
employee is a tough choice.
In his keynote address at the annual dinner on Monday honoring the
winners of this year's Arthur S. Flemming Awards for public service,
NIST physicist Dr. William Phillips--whom I honored as a great Federal
employee this past December--told his audience about a colleague who
decided to work for the Federal Government. This scientist had been
working most of his early career in the private sector. At a certain
point, he realized it was more important for him to make a difference
and serve his country, so he went to work in a government lab.
He told Dr. Phillips that, to do so, he took a pay cut that was a
factor of 10.
That is 10 times less pay. I am sure it was a difficult decision, but
ultimately he made the choice to work for his country.
I met an appointee the other day who is taking a 95 percent pay cut.
I have constantly been amazed by the number of highly skilled and
highly experienced individuals willing to take 20, 40, 60 percent
salary cuts to work in the Obama Administration. These political
appointees join the career personnel, so many of who would also be
making much more in the private sector.
Just look at some of those I have honored as great Federal employees
this past year.
By the way, I do not pick the people at the top of the spectrum. When
I honor a great Federal employee, it is at any level in the government.
Anybody who does their job well should be honored. We have so many
great Federal employees who operate at all levels of government that I
try to honor them all.
I am hard pressed to think of any who would not be making a lot more
in the private sector. Not only do we have brilliant physicists such as
Dr. William Phillips who won a Nobel Prize. We also have those such as
Brian Persons, the executive director of NAVSEA who has spent his
career designing and maintaining our Navy's ships and who holds an
engineering degree from Michigan State. Or Erica Williams, an
enforcement attorney with the SEC with a degree from the University of
Virginia Law School, who I am sure could be making a lot more if she
worked for a Wall Street firm. Or Judge Timothy Rice, a Temple Law
School graduate who could have chosen to work as an attorney in private
practice but, instead, went to work for the Justice Department and on
the Federal bench.
I am not saying that all Federal employees earn 10 times less than
their private sector counterparts. I am not even saying all Federal
employees earn less.
Still, those who claim that Federal employees are making more on
average than private sector counterparts simply don't have all their
facts straight. We know how these things happen. In this case, much of
the data used to make these claims are from a USA Today study a few
months ago, which analyzed findings from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
The big problem with that study is that it is both highly selective
of the job categories compared and it fails to take into account the
demographics of our Federal workforce.
The number of employees in various private sector job categories
dwarfs that of the Federal Government, skewing salary data lower for
the private sector, where there are more minimum wage jobs. Also, a
large number of Federal jobs require highly specialized skills and, as
a result, employees are often older and more educated than the average
worker in comparable private sector roles.
Many Americans do not realize that about 20 percent of Federal
employees hold a master's or professional degree, compared to 13
percent in the private sector. Fifty-one percent of Federal employees
have at least a bachelor's degree, while this is true for only 35
percent of the private sector workforce.
In the words of Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for
Public Service which, by the way, is a nonpartisan organization this is
``not an apples-to-apples comparison.''
You cannot simply ask what the average salaries for budget analysts
are in the private sector and for budget analysts in government. The
same goes for librarians or statisticians or paralegals.
The occupational categories might be called by the same name, but the
work is very different. There are different skill sets required,
different types of experience necessary.
When actual job tasks are compared, few government jobs have exact
equivalents in the private sector.
Contrary to what many have said, Federal workers' salaries are
actually

[[Page S5061]]

lower, not higher, than those in the private sector.
Indeed, the Federal Salary Council reported last October that Federal
employees were making an average of over 26 percent--less--than those
in the private sector doing comparable work. Moreover, this represents
a widening of the private-public pay gap from the previous year,
continuing a recent trend.
However, this line of attack continues from those who routinely
disparage the role of government. Unfortunately, it has become all too
common to criticize Washington by defaming the civilian employees who
work across our government.
Federal employees continue to serve as a convenient scapegoat. That,
essentially, is what this amendment does. It assigns blame and does not
really address the budgetary problems we face.
It reminds me of an amendment proposed by one of my friends on the
other side of the aisle when we were considering the health insurance
reform bill. It would have mandated that ``for each new bureaucrat
added to any department or agency for the purpose of implementing the
provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the head
of such department or agency shall ensure that the addition of such new
bureaucrat is offset by a reduction of one existing bureaucrat at such
department or agency.''
In effect, we would have to fire a Federal worker to hire one. This
so-called ``bureaucrat offset'' amendment--using a word that has
become, unfortunately, pejorative in our political discourse--was bad
enough.
The Thune amendment, with its blanket pay freeze and hiring caps,
takes this a step further, prohibiting any Federal agency from hiring a
new employee until one retires.
At a moment when we are faced with a difficult choice about how to
reduce our deficit and get our economy moving again, this amendment
represents an easy cop-out.
All those who blame Federal employees for our Nation's problems or
believe that cutting their salaries or capping their number will in any
way solve those problems remain averse to making difficult decisions.
The cuts to the Federal workforce in the Thune amendment would only
save the taxpayers a meager amount compared to what we need to save.
Its provisions on the Federal workforce and the ongoing, gratuitous
disparagement of America's public employees from many directions
constitute a dangerous distraction from the very tough steps we as a
nation must take.
The greatest challenges we face today--the gulf spill, two wars,
carbon pollution, illegal immigration, market volatility--all of these
will be tackled by hardworking Federal employees.
All of these challenges require a readiness on our part to make
difficult choices. Scapegoating and playing the blame game won't get us
anywhere.
Federal employees know firsthand about making tough choices. They do
so every day. Many of the great Federal employees I have honored from
this desk came to my attention because they faced difficult tasks, took
risks, and achieved great accomplishments. Some of those I honored have
served overseas in dangerous regions; one gave his life while working
for USAID. One left a lucrative private sector job after September 11th
to join the Justice Department as an anti-terror prosecutor. Others
immigrated to this country from places like Afghanistan and Vietnam and
became Federal employees because they wanted to give back to the
country that took them in as refugees.
These stories go on and on. They are as diverse and numerous as this
great country of ours.
Additionally, all of my honorees share with every other government
employee the experience of making that initial decision to pursue
government work hardly an easy one to make considering the sacrifices
involved.
Ultimately, those who support Federal salary cuts and hiring caps
mistakenly view our civil service as a cost. Rather, it is an important
national resource with real benefits for all of us.
At the end of the day, I must remind my colleagues that it is our
outstanding Federal employees who will carry out the programs we pass
everyday in this Chamber. We will continue to count on the Federal
workforce to keep our skies safe for travel, our troops provisioned and
veterans cared for, our schools held to high standards, and our
homeland secure.
Woodrow Wilson, as a young political scientist during the civil
service reform debates of the 1880s, advocated for a system of public
administration because he believed that the conditions of modernity
require it in order for a democratic state to function at its best.
Indeed, our civil service has developed into one uniquely suited to
our needs and incorporating America's best constitutional traditions.
We have a Federal workforce of which we can be proud.
Federal employees play a critical role in our national life and,
through their work, exemplify so many of our Nation's great values.
These include exemplary citizenship; industriousness; a willingness to
take risks; perseverance; modesty; and intellect.
Contrary to popular myth, most Federal employees work outside of
Washington. In fact, no State--and I include the District of Columbia--
no State is home to more than 8.5 percent of the total Federal
workforce. Our government employees work in communities large and
small, spread out from coast to coast and overseas.
One of the challenges we face is a Federal retirement boom. As the
baby boomers get older, the Office of Personnel Management has
estimated that one-fifth of the Federal workforce will retire by 2014.
This comes at the same time that more new hires are needed in mission-
critical jobs dealing with public health, national security,
transportation safety, financial regulation, and many other important
areas.
Now is not the time to talk about laying off Federal workers or
freezing their pay. We should be talking about how to invest in
recruiting the next generation of Federal employees.
The scapegoating and baseless attacks against Federal workers only
serve to demoralize those who are on the front lines of confronting our
national challenges. It also discourages talented young Americans from
making that difficult choice whether to start a career in service to
their country.
Let me reiterate. Federal employees make less than those in the
private sector, not more. They represent some of our very best and
brightest, a dedicated and hard-working group of Americans across this
country. We need to recruit a new generation of government workers to
help us tackle great challenges, and unfairly labeling Federal
employees as a problem fails to realize their important role in finding
so many solutions to the very difficult problems we face. The pending
amendment's pay freeze and hiring restrictions will do almost nothing
to reduce our deficit; rather, its effect on our government's ability
to address serious issues will be disastrous.
For those looking to shift the blame for our troubles and who have
their sights on America's Federal employees, I suggest look elsewhere.
For those who want easy, let's-deal-with-this-later answers and are
looking for a convenient distraction, I say look elsewhere.
For those who support this amendment, for those who habitually shy
away from making the tough choices we in this Chamber need to make, I
say, though, look no further than the public employees you so casually
fault.
They know how to make tough choices.
I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum and ask
unanimous consent that it be charged against both sides.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, in response to the comments of my
colleague from Delaware, I do not think anybody is denigrating the
quality of Federal employees. To the contrary. We are all Federal
employees. We all know Federal employees. We are all friends of Federal
employees. And we

[[Page S5062]]

have a lot of Federal employees who do a great job.
All we are simply saying is when you are in a tough economy,
everybody ought to look at what they can do to live more within their
means. When we are running a $1.5 trillion deficit this year and
trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, Lord knows we ought
to be looking within to figure out what we can do to try and find some
savings that we can use to either pay for the things we need to do or
perhaps pay down the Federal debt which, as I said, my amendment does.

Amendment No. 4376, as Modified

Also, because I think there is a concern that somehow every Federal
employee is going to be frozen, I have a modification to my amendment
that addresses that concern.
Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the changes at the desk
be incorporated into my amendment. For the information of my
colleagues, these are changes to section 403, and they address the
criticisms.
The amendment would prohibit increases in salaries or bonuses for
Federal civilian employees. The changes that are at the desk will allow
such increases and bonuses to occur so long as agencies do not exceed
their fiscal year 2009 budget for salaries.
This is a unanimous-consent request. This would address the concerns
raised by some of my colleagues on the other side about making sure
Federal agencies have adequate flexibility with salaries and bonuses to
address those employees they think are deserving of pay raises. All
they have to do is live under that top-line number that gives them
flexibility as a Federal manager and to work within it.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. BAUCUS. Reserving the right to object, I may say to my friend
from South Dakota that this sounds a lot like wage price controls,
where the Congress is trying to decide the wages of all kinds of
different sectors based on, I don't know what. A lot of trap lines have
to be run before this request can be granted. So at this point, Madam
President, I object.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Objection is heard.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I simply offer that modification to my
amendment to address the concern that every single Federal employee is
going to be capped at some level for some foreseeable period of time.
That is not the intention.
In fact, what the modification would do is ensure that within the
overall budget--within the top line--a manager could make adjustments
to individual employee salaries or bonuses if that is something they
desire to do. It just means the Federal Government--the agency--is
going to have to live within a certain number at the top line. They can
work within that salary number beneath that top line. That is all it
does.
Again, what I have said before, and I will reiterate for the benefit
of my colleagues, is that I think we have a responsibility to be
fiscally responsible in Washington, DC. As I said before, we have
people all over the country making hard decisions with regard to their
personal and family budgets, with regard to their small businesses, and
they are having to reduce employee salaries, for example, and they are
having to make reductions in force and let people go. Those are hard
decisions to make. Surely in Washington, DC, where we have seen year-
over-year increases in Federal spending, in discretionary domestic
spending, that exceeds inflation by six times--look at the fiscal year
2010 and fiscal year 2009 appropriations bills and the increases that
were allowed--21\1/2\ percent in those two appropriations bills, at a
time when inflation was 3\1/2\ percent. How can we justify increasing
spending over 20 percent in Washington, DC, when the rate of inflation
in our economy is 3\1/2\ percent and people all over the country are
having to make cuts? It is high time Washington, DC, and the Federal
Government went on a diet.
That is not to say anything to denigrate or impugn the quality of
Federal employees. As I said before, there are a lot of Federal
employees who do a great job. All this is simply saying we in
Washington, DC, ought to lead by example. There is great power in
example, and we have not been providing the example for the American
people. We are asking them to make these hard choices, but we are not
willing to make those choices ourselves.
So I think this amendment gives Members of the Senate an opportunity
to say yes to fiscal responsibility, yes to living within our means,
yes to paying for what we spend money on, and yes to not handing the
credit card to our children and grandchildren. These are not Draconian
ideas; these are fairly straightforward savings that we would achieve
simply by shaving a little bit from these Federal budgets--making sure
we rescind those stimulus funds that haven't been spent or haven't been
allocated to pay for this new spending. We use those funds that have
been appropriated but not spent to finance some of what we are doing
and then apply that to pay down the Federal debt and freeze some of the
Federal agencies in terms of their budgets and ask for a 5-percent
reduction in some of these agencies over the course of the next
foreseeable years.
Those are all fairly straightforward steps I think anybody would take
if they were trying to get back within a reasonable budget to address
what are very serious concerns about the amount of spending and the
amount of debt we are piling on future generations. So I am sorry the
majority is resistant to accepting the amendment. It would address the
concern that was raised by a couple of our colleagues on the other
side.
It wasn't my intention to impose a very restrictive straitjacket-type
approach on Federal managers. On the contrary, we think there should be
a top line budget, that we ought to be able to live within it, and
certainly managers can make decisions within that about how best to
allocate those resources. Congress has actually blocked its own pay
raise in the past 2 years, so it seems to me that is at least something
we could apply to other areas of our Federal Government as well.
So, again, I think the whole purpose behind this amendment is simply
to create an opportunity for Senators to vote for fiscal
responsibility, to vote for paying for the things we spend money on in
Washington, to vote for living within our means, and to vote for not
adding billions and billions of dollars to the Federal debt, which is
already at $13 trillion and growing by the day.
It seems, at least to me, this is an opportunity for us to
demonstrate to the American people that we are serious about getting
Washington's spending and debt under control. This amendment addresses
the issue of unemployment insurance and extending that, addresses the
issue of expiring tax provisions, reduces taxes by $26 billion,
addresses the impending cut in physician reimbursements that would
occur if Congress doesn't take action, but it does it for 2 years
longer than what the legislation of the majority would do. We address
that up to the end of the year 2012.
So it takes care of all those things, and it does it in a fiscally
responsible way by reducing spending by over $100 billion, as I said
before, by reducing taxes, by keeping taxes low on small businesses,
which are the job creators in our economy. According to the
Congressional Budget Office, it reduces the Federal debt by $68
billion. That is a win-win for the American people--the American
taxpayer--and it should be a win-win for the Senate.
I hope my colleagues will support this amendment, and with that,
Madam President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, may I inquire as to how much time remains
on each side?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota has 6
minutes, and the majority has 34 minutes.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I
ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum be equally
divided.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Madam President, I ask unanimous
consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

[[Page S5063]]

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I might ask the Senator from South
Dakota, through the Chair, whether he wishes to renew his request to
modify his amendment because I might tell him, through the Chair, that
the amendment has been cleared on this side.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I will renew my request to so modify my
amendment, and I appreciate the manager accepting that change.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The amendment is so modified.
The modification to amendment No. 4376 is as follows:

SEC. 403. TEMPORARY ONE-YEAR FREEZE ON COST OF FEDERAL
EMPLOYEES SALARIES.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the total
amount of funds expended on salaries for civilian employees
of the Federal Government in fiscal year 2011 shall not
exceed the total costs for such salaries in Fiscal Year 2009:
Provided the amounts spent on salaries on members of the
armed forces are exempt from the provisions of this section;
Provided further, nothing in this section prohibits an
employee from receiving an increase in salary or other
compensation so long as such an increase does not increase
any agency's net expenditures for employee salaries.

Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I
ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum be equally
divided.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BAUCUS. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Arizona.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. KYL. Madam President, first let me thank Senator Baucus for
yielding time that he has for me to speak. I appreciate that very much.
I want to support the Thune amendment. The Thune amendment is a
responsible approach both to the things we need to do but also that
need to be offset in ways that do not add to our deficit or raise
taxes. It includes all of the major priorities that have been accepted
by both sides here--by the Democratic Party's version of the extender
bill as well as the things Republicans wish to do--but it is fully paid
for. It cuts wasteful spending and doesn't raise a dime in taxes.
The underlying proposal that the chairman of the committee has
presented to us would increase spending by $126 billion. It includes
over $70 billion in new taxes. That, by the way, is a net tax increase
of $48 billion. It increases the deficit by $79 billion over the next
10 years.
That is the approach that we think is wrong. That is why Senator
Thune has proposed an alternative that we will be voting on here in
about 25 minutes, that I think takes the correct approach. It cuts
taxes by $26 billion by extending current law. It cuts spending by over
$100 billion. It actually reduces the deficit by $55 billion, all
according to the Congressional Budget Office, which of course is
nonpartisan.
I want to add a point about the notion of offsetting spending
increases or so-called paying for those increases. There are a couple
of things that are done in the Baucus substitute that I think need to
be pointed out because they are not an appropriate way to offset the
costs of spending under the bill.
In one of them, we take the oilspill trust fund that is supposed to
contain money in it to take care of oilspills when the company's
money--for example, British Petroleum's money--runs out and have the
Government assist in cleaning up an oilspill when that fund is supposed
to exist for that purpose, to clean up the oilspill. Today this is a
tax--it is 8 cents per barrel--for the companies to pay into that fund.
Under the Baucus substitute that would be raised to 49 cents per
barrel. It may well be that we need to raise the tax on the oil
companies for the trust fund to pay for oilspills but that is what it
should be raised for, to pay for the oilspills, not to pay for
something totally unrelated in this legislation. Because if we do that
then when it comes time to tap the trust fund to pay for the oilspill,
the money has already been spent on things other than what we raised
the money for in the first place. So that is not an appropriate way to
pay for part of this legislation.
The second thing is, this is putting off the problem to the future in
order to take care of a more immediate need. It has to do with the fact
that we have to pay for physicians who take care of Medicare patients.
This was a problem that should have been addressed in the health care
legislation. It was not. As a result, all of the payment for physicians
in Medicare was put off to be dealt with at a later time. Now is the
later time except we do not want to do it now either, apparently.
The payment for Medicare has already expired. There is not enough
money and has not been enough money for the last couple of weeks to pay
doctors to take care of Medicare patients. We are simply holding their
bills. But within the next few days we are going to have to pass
something that allows payment of those doctor fees to take care of
Medicare patients. The idea here was to try to get that to at least a
2- or 3-year period. The last version coming from the Democratic side
was, I think, 18 months or so. The idea is to try to deal with that
problem so we do not have to come back and keep dealing with it every
couple of months or so.
As I understand the latest proposal, we are now only going to deal
with that to November of this year. Clearly right after the election we
are going to have to come back in a lame duck session. That will make
certain we will have a lame duck session because we will have to act on
this yet again. Why would we do it that way? It is not the responsible
way to do it, obviously. It is to reduce the cost of the legislation
here so we do not have to have as much in the way of offsets.
I appreciate the fact we are trying to reduce the size of the bill,
but we are only fooling ourselves by reducing this particular element
of the bill. We ought to be reducing other elements of this legislation
rather than the physician payments because we know those bills are
going to come due and we are simply putting off the inevitable.
The final point of criticism of the chairman's bill is the way it
deals with something called S corps. These are generally small
businesses run by an individual--a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant who
has a couple of employees. We are trying to raise--not we, not we, the
majority is trying to raise money by changing the tax treatment for
these particular legal entities. In order to do what? To raise $11
billion.
I submit that rather than trying to find a way to raise $11 billion,
and in this particular case it does not work, we ought to be reducing
the cost of the legislation by $11 billion or finding offsets, such as
Senator Thune has found in his legislation, that do not result in bad
tax policy.
The net result is that, with all due respect to the chairman--again I
thank him for yielding his time so that I could speak against his
legislation--I do not think it is the right approach. I think we are
going to have to go back and get this right or we are not going to be
able to move forward or to proceed to the consideration of his
proposal. I think a better approach is the Thune proposal.
As I said, we will have a chance to vote on that here in a minute and
I hope my colleagues will support the Thune proposal as more fiscally
prudent, as not adding to the deficit, not increasing taxes, and not
making bad tax policy.
Again, I thank my colleague for yielding his time and suggest the
absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BAUCUS. How much time is remaining to each side?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 20 minutes 40 seconds.

[[Page S5064]]

Mr. BAUCUS. There is 20 minutes 40 seconds on our side; zero seconds
on the other side?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. That is correct.
Mr. BAUCUS. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, my understanding is that we are headed
toward a noon vote, perhaps a little bit ahead of that. I ask unanimous
consent to have about 3 minutes to close debate on our side.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
Mr. BAUCUS. Reserving the right to object, actually I think we are
going to probably vote earlier than that. I just wonder how much time
is remaining on the other side?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Zero minutes remain.
Mr. BAUCUS. No time remaining on the other side. There is no time on
the side of those who wish to speak in favor of the amendment.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. There is 15 minutes on the
Senator's side.
Mr. BAUCUS. And no time remaining on the side of those who wish to
speak in favor of the Thune amendment?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Correct.
Mr. BAUCUS. There is about 15 minutes remaining on this side. I
wonder if my friend from South Dakota, who wishes to speak in favor of
the amendment, even though his time has expired, may want to speak
favorably about the Baucus substitute, or, if he wishes to speak on his
own amendment, he can point out some of the good points of the Baucus
substitute at the same time; otherwise, I have no objection.
But to be fair to my side, too, and given the time constraints that
we might have, I can only give 2\1/2\ minutes.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. I will proceed accordingly and try to conclude this in
2\1/2\ minutes. That, unfortunately, does not give me enough time to
say favorable things about the substitute of the Senator from Montana.
But I do want to close the debate on this amendment by saying that I
do think this presents to us a very clear choice about how to
accomplish what this legislation strives to accomplish; that is, as we
have all talked about--something I think both sides agree on, Democrats
and Republicans--extending unemployment benefits to those who have lost
jobs; extending expiring tax provisions that are currently in law, such
as the research and development tax credit, that are important to our
economy and to our competitiveness; and, finally, making sure the
reduction or the cut in physician reimbursements under Medicare does
not go into effect.
So those are basically the elements we are talking about today in
terms of the things we are trying to get done. The difference occurs as
to how we would propose paying for that. The Democratic majority has
put forward their proposal which does include tax increases, about $50
billion now in the current version of it in tax increases. It does
raise the debt by about $50 billion, adds more onto the Federal debt,
notwithstanding the commitment to pay for things under the pay-go rules
that were enacted in the Senate, and it does increase spending
substantially.
What I am offering as an alternative for Senators to vote on is an
approach that is very different. It reduces taxes. There are no tax
increases in it. The tax reductions occur because of extending existing
tax law, actually reducing taxes by $26 billion.
It reduces the Federal debt, according to the Congressional Budget
Office, by $68 billion, and it reduces spending by $100 billion. As I
said earlier, I think it is important the Federal Government go on a
diet. We have all kinds of issues, and Americans across this country
have lost jobs, unemployment is at a high rate, people are having to
make decisions. There has been a loss of income. They are reducing
their personal budgets, their family budgets, their business budgets.
Here in Washington, DC, we continue to spend and spend and spend like
there is no tomorrow and hand the bill to future generations. So this
is the debate. It is a clear difference in approach, and I hope my
colleagues will vote in favor of fiscal responsibility, vote in favor
of paying our way, vote in favor of living within our means, and vote
in favor of reducing the debt on future generations.
So I would ask my colleagues in the Senate to support this amendment.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Montana.
Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I think it is good to again remind my
colleagues what is in the Thune amendment and why it is not good policy
and why it should not be adopted. First of all, it would call for a 5-
percent cut in most of government. The Defense Department is exempt;
the Veterans Department is exempt but not other sections. Homeland
Security comes to mind. Law enforcement comes to mind. Border Patrol
comes to mind. There are various areas that would be cut 5 percent
across the board arbitrarily.
Second, it would impose harsh caps on medical malpractice damages,
the so-called tort reform. The Thune amendment includes tort reform in
a way that is unthought through, very harsh caps that would, frankly,
result, according to the CBO, in more deaths in America.
The Thune amendment would also cut the number of people insured under
health care reform. It would reduce the number of people insured under
health care reform. I do not think many people would like that part of
the Thune amendment to stand alone and of itself.
Moreover, the Thune amendment cuts back Recovery Act funds. That
endangers jobs. The Congressional Budget Office made it very clear that
the Recovery Act does create jobs; it lowers unemployment. The Thune
amendment would go in the opposite direction of preventing job
creation, of encouraging high unemployment. That would be the effect of
it.
The Thune amendment also shields the oil companies and multinational
corporations from paying their fair share of taxes. I do not think,
especially with the gulf oilspill, many Americans want to shield the
oil companies from paying their fair share of taxes, from paying funds
into an oil liability trust fund to pay for future oilspills. I think
Americans also do not want to shield multinational corporations from
paying their fair share of taxes.
There are loopholes in current law that multinationals take advantage
of. I think most Americans would not like these loopholes to continue.
The Thune amendment continues those loopholes.
So for all of those reasons, I strongly urge my colleagues to not
support the Thune amendment.
I yield back the remainder of my time, and I raise a point of order
against section 701 of the Thune amendment pursuant to section 403 of
S. Con. Res 13, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year
2010.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from South Dakota.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, pursuant to section 904 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and section 4(G)(3) of the Statutory
Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, I move to waive all applicable sections of
those acts and applicable budget resolutions for purposes of my
amendment, and I ask for the yeas and nays.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there a sufficient second? There
appears to be a sufficient second.
The question is on agreeing to the motion.
The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Minnesota (Ms.
Klobuchar) is necessarily absent.
Mr. KYL. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator
from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from South Carolina (Mr.
Graham) would have voted ``yea.''
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Hagan). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 41, nays 57, as follows:

[[Page S5065]]

[Rollcall Vote No. 193 Leg.]

YEAS--41

Alexander
Barrasso
Bennett
Bond
Brown (MA)
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Collins
Corker
Cornyn
Crapo
DeMint
Ensign
Enzi
Grassley
Gregg
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Johanns
Kyl
LeMieux
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Murkowski
Nelson (NE)
Risch
Roberts
Sessions
Shelby
Snowe
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Wicker

NAYS--57

Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Begich
Bennet
Bingaman
Boxer
Brown (OH)
Burris
Byrd
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Franken
Gillibrand
Hagan
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kaufman
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Menendez
Merkley
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sanders
Schumer
Shaheen
Specter
Stabenow
Tester
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Warner
Webb
Whitehouse
Wyden

NOT VOTING--2

Graham
Klobuchar
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 41, the nays are
57. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted
in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to.
Under the previous order, the amendment is withdrawn.
The Senator from Florida.
Mr. LeMIEUX. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Gulf Oilspill

Mr. LeMIEUX. Madam President, I come to the floor again today to talk
about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico.
Yesterday, I came to report on my meeting with the President of the
United States, as well as Jeff Miller, our Governor, and ADM Thad
Allen, that we had on Tuesday in Pensacola. I am pleased to report what
the President has done with this fund. It is a good idea to get the $20
billion in claims that can be made and can be paid.
However, there is another issue. The most pressing issue right now is
keeping the oil off the coast of the gulf. We do not have a handle on
this situation with the skimmers. We just met with Admiral Allen, and
the information isn't any better than it was 2 days ago. In fact, for
Florida, the information appears to be worse.
On Tuesday, there were 32 skimmers, according to the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida incident command
off the coast of Florida--32. There is a plume of oil 2 miles wide and
40 miles long off the coast of Pensacola. There is another plume that
ranges from Pensacola, FL, all the way over to Fort Walton, and we had
32 skimmers. Today, the report is we have 20 skimmers--20 skimmers.
That is like me and my buddies getting in our boats out there and
trying to clean this up. That is not the Federal Government doing its
best effort to clean up this oilspill.
The incident command from the Coast Guard's report says there are
100-some skimmers off the coast. It is unclear whether those are off
the coast of Florida or completely off the coast. It could be the coast
of all of the States. I asked Admiral Allen to clarify that. He said he
would.
Admiral Allen tells us there are 2,000 skimmers in the United States
of America. Why aren't those skimmers, where available, steaming toward
the Gulf of Mexico? He said he is going to put a process in place where
we can request them. It has been 60 days since the oil started
spilling. Why are we waiting until now to request skimmers? Why are we
contacting Governors now to request skimmers? Why are there only 20
skimmers off of my home State when we have this huge mass of oil?
The State Department reported Tuesday morning that 21 requests have
come in from 17 countries--rather, 21 offers of support from 17
countries to give us skimming equipment. The State Department says they
have been declined. I talked about it to the President on Tuesday and
Admiral Allen, and they say: No, it is not true; we have gotten things
in from other countries. What is the truth? What is the answer? Are we
refusing foreign country assistance or not?
Now there is this thing about, we are going to have a process to let
people request waivers of the Jones Act. We are 60 days into this. On
Monday, I sent a letter to the President, along with Congressman Jeff
Miller, asking for the Jones Act to be waived. Why aren't we doing
everything possible to bring skimmers to the Gulf of Mexico? What is
the problem?
I am going to come to the floor of the Senate every day we are in
session until this oilspill stops, until every drop of oil is cleaned
up, and make a point about this skimmer issue. It is not acceptable.
Who is in charge of this? Is it the President? Is it Admiral Allen? Is
it BP? Who is in charge? There are only 20 skimmers off the coast of
Florida. It doesn't make any sense. Somebody has to do something about
it. In my position, what I can do is complain, and that is what I am
doing today and will continue to do. I am going to press Admiral Allen
and this administration to get as many skimmers there as possible. We
need engagement from this administration on this issue, and no other
question should be answered until we find out where all those skimmers
are.
Thank you, Madam President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I wish to thank Senator LeMieux for
raising this matter.
I was at the Alabama gulf coast on Friday. We were told there was a
batch of oil 30 feet wide, 2 miles long that they could see coming onto
the shores of the beaches that had not yet been hit in any significant
way. In my mind, a good skimmer, even at 1 or 2 miles per hour, could
get every bit of that, virtually. I first thought skimmers wouldn't be
that effective. I assumed the oil would be very thin and it would come
in and be hard to skim, but apparently it is coming in patches and
bunches, which makes it more skimmable than I had originally thought.
The admiral, whom we spoke to less than an hour ago, indicated that
he was requesting of the Navy, as I heard what he said, a certain
number of skimmers, and they had 400, and we haven't gotten them yet.
Perhaps some plan somewhere calls for them to have skimmers in this bay
or this harbor in case something happens, but when we have a national
catastrophe as we have going on, every one that could possibly be
spared should have already been moved to the gulf coast. I really feel
as though this is a frustrating event. It is more serious than I had
realized.
Also, I think there are several thousand worldwide that have not been
asked for that could be asked for. So I think we can do better. I am
going to find out if the decisionmaking process is so bureaucratic that
for no good reason, we have been delayed in receiving help that could
make a big difference on the gulf coast.
I asked him about President Obama's speech last night. As a result,
he made comments----
Mr. REID addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Mr. REID. Madam President, would my friend yield?
Mr. SESSIONS. I would be pleased to yield.

____________________