Overseas Private Investment Corporation Reauthorization Act of 2008

I have an amendment I would like to send to the desk and ask that it be read.

I ask unanimous consent that further reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, this amendment is a reprise of what we did last year in offering to reform the estate tax, sometimes referred to as the death tax.

Now, in the budget itself, and in an amendment that has been offered by the other side, there is a provision to allow the death tax to be changed from the current law to a top rate of 45 percent and an exempted amount of $3.5 million, and there are some other features. My amendment, as with the proposal that had significant support last year, would reduce that top rate to no higher than 35 percent so that if you had more than one rate, at least the top rate could not exceed 35 percent, and both of the two spouses would have a $5 million exempted amount before the estate tax would kick in.

In addition, this provides for a step-up in the basis of the property. It would enable the estate tax to be paid over the current period of time, and the amounts of money in the exempted amount, or unified credit of the estate gift tax, would be indexed for inflation.

Now, the reason for my amendment is, I think most agree even in this body, either allowing the estate tax to continue under current law-- getting up to a high rate of 55 percent and an exempted amount of either $2 million or $1 million, probably $1 million--or the proposal of the Democratic chairman of the committee would result in a continued unfair burden on primarily America's small businesses and farms, but, in any event, anyone subject to the potential liability of estate tax for which there is a tremendous amount of money spent in attempting to get around the obligations of the tax or to plan against its eventual required payments.

As a result, we look for ways to further reform the estate tax so that burden would be limited to only a few estates--the very highest estates--and that most people without a huge estate would not have the burden of trying to plan around it--to buy expensive insurance and hire lawyers and accountants and estate planners and the like.

The object, in other words, is not simply to limit the estate tax liability but provide some certainty in the Tax Code so that most people realize, as their homes have gotten more valuable simply because of the increased value with inflation, and as their businesses have accumulated some capital wealth even though it may not be disposable in the sense of liquid income, they are not going to have to worry that their estate is going to be subject to a tax and so they are not going to have to worry about spending this money to deal with the tax.

That is why we need to increase the total for a couple that would be exempted from the tax to $10 million and provide that the upper rate, if that rate kicks in, could be no higher than 35 percent. Above that, you are going to find people feeling that they have to try to prepare for or to get around the payment of the tax. And the irony is, Mr. President, those we are most concerned about really don't have the assets to try to spend a lot of money, whereas those who have enormous wealth can hire all the accountants, estate planners, and lawyers they want and buy insurance so that the ultimate impact of the tax does not hit them.

Last year, when we proposed this same proposal of the 35-percent highest rate or an amount of $5 million exempted for both spouses in a motion to instruct conferees, 56 Senators, obviously both Democrats and Republicans, voted for that motion to instruct. Now, it was never carried out, but I think it demonstrates the will of this body that we want to have some reform that is more realistic and that exempts more estates from the payment of the tax and the consideration of the tax.

According to the Joint Tax Committee, in the tax year 2011, 131,000 estates alone will be subject to the estate tax--131,000. Mr. President, that is too much of a burden on too many people in this country who are not extremely wealthy. By 2015, that number goes up to 177,000 estates. The advantage of my amendment is that it would protect approximately 119,200 family businesses and family farms from the estate tax each year. It would dramatically reduce the number of estates that have to worry about paying the tax.

If we fail to act, in other words, about 131,000 families and family businesses and farms will be subjected to the tax in the year 2011 and thereafter. Under our proposal, we would, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, reduce the impact of the tax so that only 11,800 estates would be required to file estate tax returns each year, if the exemption is set at $5 million each. So, that is a huge change. It is necessary to protect the folks I think everybody in this body would like to protect from having to worry about the estate tax.

Now, it is interesting that when public opinion surveys ask people what they think about the tax, almost uniformly the results come back that the majority of Americans believe the estate tax is unfair and it ought to be eliminated. I remember a Gallup poll, now 3 or 4 years old, that said 60 percent of Americans believed it should be repealed. That is my preference, to repeal it. We haven't been able to get enough votes in this body to repeal it, but that is where the American people think it should be.

Interestingly, there was a survey conducted after the last Presidential election, and people who supported both Senator Kerry and President Bush were asked what they thought about the estate tax. The interesting thing is that while 70-some percent of the people who voted said they thought the tax should be repealed, roughly 80-some percent of the people who voted for President Bush thought it should be repealed and 60-some percent of the people who voted for Senator Kerry thought it should be repealed.

So this is not a partisan matter among the American people. They believe, whether they supported Senator Kerry or President Bush in the last Presidential election, that the estate tax should be repealed. I daresay surveys even now, to this time, demonstrate the American public opinion remains the same. The interesting thing is even those who understand they will never be subject to the tax because their incomes are simply not such that they will accumulate the wealth necessary to have to worry about the tax believe the tax to be unfair and believe it should be repealed.

But even if you leave aside the issue of the morality of the tax and people's understanding that it is not a fair tax, it hits people at the absolute worst time--when a loved one in their family has passed away and they are having to consider whether pieces of the business or farm may have to be sold off to pay the tax--they recognize that, at a minimum, it should be reformed and that is all we are trying to do.

For years, we have been trying to get a reform that basically accomplishes two objectives: It would increase the amount of the estate that is exempt from the tax so you don't have to worry about filing forms or having to try to plan around it; and for those who would still be subject to the tax above that amount, it would at least put a lid on it at a maximum of 35 percent.

Now, again, the numbers in the current law, if we don't do anything, go up to 55 percent. And under the proposal of the chairman of the committee on the other side of the aisle, that would be reduced to 45 percent. That is still way too high, and the exempted amount would be $1 million, which is way too low. Because of inflation today, there are a lot of homes that have a value of over $1 million, especially in places such as California, New York, and some other places. So, clearly, an amendment along the lines that I will be introducing to make room in the budget for this kind of reform is necessary.

I would like to make just about three other quick points.

Last year, even though the budget could accommodate estate tax reform, the majority did not bring a bill to the Senate. And despite my best efforts, it wasn't possible to get anybody to allow consideration of a bill to reform the estate tax. As a result, in the Finance Committee at the end of last year, I asked that the chairman hold hearings and seek to have a markup this spring so we could actually pass a bill and not simply deal with it in the budget that we pass each year.

The American people need to understand what is really going on. Each year we pass a budget that, theoretically, allows for a reform of the estate

tax, but then we don't do anything about it. And the budget itself isn't law. The budget is merely a goal, a blueprint of where we want to go for the year. If you don't follow it up with a bill, you haven't done anything. But Members here pat themselves on the back and go back home and tell their constituents that they voted to cut the estate tax. Oh, that is wonderful, people say. But it is never followed up with an actual bill.

So the chairman of the Finance Committee said: Well, he would have the goal of marking up a bill this spring. He has since advised me he has no plans whatsoever for a real bill on estate tax, and said: It won't happen.

It is going to be in the budget. His amendment will provide for an estate tax reform in the budget, but he has advised that he has no plans to allow that to happen, to make it, in reality, a bill that would pass and become law. So all of this is an exercise in show, with apparently no real intent to follow through and provide relief for America's families and small businesses and farms and the like.

What I would like to do, Mr. President, with my amendment, is not only demonstrate in the budget that this is the level that we want to set it, at a $5 million exempted amount per spouse and no higher than a 35-percent rate, but also ensure that the rules of the budget enable us to consider the bill during the year and not have it subject to some point of order that would enable people on the other side to say: Gee, we wish we could do it, but we just can't do it under the budget rules.

My amendment will make it possible to consider such an amendment, and I serve notice on my colleagues that I intend to try to bring it up. We are not going to sweep this under the rug year after year. If we are honest with the American people about putting it in the budget, we ought to be honest about bringing it to the floor for a vote so that we can actually pass a bill, send it to the President, and get this job done.

It is interesting that compared to other countries the United States is one of the worst in terms of the amount of money it takes from estates. The rate in the Democratic version would be 45 percent. The average around the world is 13 percent. There are a lot of countries that don't have an estate tax, and they understand why.

The irony is, I had to leave a hearing of the Finance Committee just now, Mr. President, where an individual was testifying about countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and places such as that, where people have decided it is not a good idea to have an estate tax, and it has been repealed in many of these countries. The United States should take a leaf out the book of some of these countries that have found it is inimical to their development and their ability to compete with other countries.

We know it is not good in terms of savings. The irony is that a lot of my colleagues are concerned about reducing the fact that our savings rate in this country is too low and are concerned about the fact that as a result we have to end up borrowing from countries such as China, for example. Yet having a big estate tax is exactly what is allowing that to happen because it discourages savings. If you save the money, you are just going to get taxed on it when you die, so why not just spend it?

Incidentally, the Treasury Department estimates the estate tax reduces the amount of money that we contribute to charity. Treasury estimates that the estate tax reduces bequests by about 14 percent. Individuals are either choosing to save less or rely heavily on estate planning which, of course, is a deadweight loss to the economy unless you are in the insurance business, in which case you think it is a real nifty idea because people have to buy insurance against the estate tax obligation that they otherwise would have.

Finally, it is an irony that the amount of money the Treasury collects--something over 1 percent of our revenue comes from the estate tax--is actually an equivalent amount of money to what is spent by people to try to avoid paying the estate tax. So, in effect, the money is paid twice. People buy insurance, they hire accountants and lawyers, and they try to find ways to get around the payment of the estate tax, and the amount of money that costs each year is almost exactly the same as what we pay in the estate tax to the Federal Government. This was according to a study by Henry Aaron and Alicia Munnell who are economists who have made this point over and over.

The other interesting aspect of the cost of the estate tax is the amount of money it costs to try to plan around it. If you are a closely held business, the estate planning is estimated to range anywhere from $5,000 to $1 million. Again, if you are a lawyer or estate planner or you are selling insurance, that is probably a great thing. But it is not great for the people who have to pay the money, and it is not the best use of the money for the economy. The IRS estimates it takes 38 hours to complete the form, which is form 706. You may have an obligation, you may not, but you still have to fill out the form. The tax preparation fees can range from $5,000 to $50,000, and 52 percent of the estates that filed a return were required to incur a sizable legal and accounting expense and other expenses even though they owed no tax. Bear in mind, over half of the people who have to file the forms end up with no obligation.

What we should do is have a tax that is predictable and clear with a large enough amount exempted so you know whether you are going to have to file the form. Hopefully, you would realize you don't have to file it because we have adopted the reforms I am talking about. We would go from something over 130,000 filers down to something over 11,000 filers. You would be catching the people with the big estates, those people who can really afford to pay the estate tax, but you would not be requiring everybody else to have to engage in this expensive planning and have the potential of having to pay part of the tax.

Again, the summary numbers to remember are, under the amendment that will be filed--or has been filed, I gather--it would freeze the rates where they will be at the end of 2011, at 45 percent. That is only 10 percent less than the top rate of 55 percent under the previous law. And it will provide an exempted amount of $3.5 million. Far more estates will be caught in the estate tax trap with the amount at that level than they will be if both spouses subject to the tax have $5 million exempted as part of the unified gift and estate tax credit.

I hope as with last year when 56 of our colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, supported instructing conferees to include in the budget the precise proposal on estate tax reform that I have identified, we will get that kind of support out of this budget as well.

The last thing I want to say is, I think it would be better for the debate and discussion if we had followed past practices and actually offered amendments and had debate on those amendments and then voted on those amendments. Instead, what is happening this year is the majority is not allowing any votes on any amendments until tomorrow, when we get into what we affectionately refer to around here as the vote-athon, when every 10 or 12 minutes we have a vote after 1 minute of discussion of the amendment, 1 or 2 minutes. I think it is 30 seconds per side, 1 minute equally divided. Great debate. Great debate.

We have time to talk about these things now, but what you can't do is offer an amendment, have a vote on it, and know whether you have won or lost so you can determine what you want to do next. If you win, then you don't have to do two or three other amendments. If you lose, you may have to do those amendments. But we are not going to do that because the majority decided it would like to put pressure on the Members of this body to offer fewer amendments because they will have to all be voted on on Thursday and, of course, everybody knows the Easter recess begins as soon as we finish our business. So there is great pressure to offer fewer amendments, to hurry up and get out of town, rather than, in my view, spending the time necessary to do the people's business.

One of the first things we ought to be willing to do is do what is necessary to both debate and vote on an estate tax reform that would be meaningful for literally hundreds of thousands of American citizens.

I will. I will conclude saying, I hope my colleagues will in a bipartisan way, as they did last year, support the proposal I have just laid down. And while we will be doing it on Thursday, I gather, they will be able to listen to a little of the debate if they are listening now.

I am happy to yield.

Mr. President, I appreciate that. In suggesting another reason for this, I do not think I am wrong in that, but I do acknowledge that certainly what the chairman of the Budget Committee has said is true. I appreciate his acknowledgment of our courtesy with respect to Senator Byrd. I know the Democratic side would do the same thing. That was done on a previous occasion last year as well. It is one of the better traditions of the Senate.

It is also true probably this is not the first time this year because, for the first time in the history of the United States, I am informed, two Senators will be running against each other for the Presidency so that there may be other occasions where, when there are very close votes, our schedule may to some extent need to accommodate their schedules. Of course, as Members of this body they need to be here to do business as well, but we understand that is not always possible. If we could adhere to a slightly more set schedule that might be possible, but since we don't and it is almost impossible to have that kind of schedule, that issue is one that has to be accommodated, and I appreciate what the chairman said.

I do hope the trend we have seen from 2 years ago to last year to this year of not having votes early on during the week that we consider the budget, but bunching them all at the end, a process which I don't think anybody in this body really likes, would not continue; that certainly the reason the chairman indicated will not pertain next year and that we can revert to the practice next year that we have traditionally followed, which is to try to have debate on amendments, votes, and then debate and then votes, and so on, hopefully, thereby minimizing the number of votes that we consider in this so-called vote- athon that, as I said, nobody in this body likes very much.

Than this year.

I ask the chairman to yield for a question. The additional $45 billion, would you have an estimate as to--well, first, what policy in the estate tax would be attached to that? And if it is to add to the exempted amount, what would that take the exempted amount up to?

Mr. President, if I might further, I had understood an amendment such as this might be offered. My understanding was it would accommodate both an increase in the exempted amount to $5 million per spouse, and I also believe to reduce the rate further from 45 down to 35, which would make it identical to my amendment. I might be wrong on that. If you can ask the author of the amendment here if that is true, it would conform it to the levels set in the amendment I have laid down as well.

I wonder, as long as I have interrupted the chairman, if I might make one or two other points.

Will the Senator yield?

I think it would be fair to let me answer.

Mr. President, I would be happy to have the ranking member of the committee make a comment. But I wish to correct some of the facts. I can do that either on the Senator's time or on our time.

Mr. President, I appreciate the fact that the chairman of the Budget Committee and the majority whip have done some extrapolation from the number of people who die and two-tenths of a percent of this and that and, therefore, they have come up with a number. Why don't I quote the actual numbers according to the Joint Tax Committee. These are the officials numbers we deal with every year when calculating the effect of our legislation. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, if my amendment were to be adopted, 11,800 estates each year would be required to file at the exempted levels that are set forth in my amendment. If we fail to act, 131,000 families, not 7,000--family businesses, farms and so on--will be subjected to the death tax each year, starting in the year 2011.

The point is, these are not individuals. These are families or businesses with a lot more people affected by the tax than the number of filers. The filer represents all the members of the family or the employer of a company. That may be 50 or 60 or 200 people who may be out of a job. But that is how many will be subjected to filing this, 131,000.

You might make fun of this and say it is a small percentage of the number of people in the United States. If you are unfortunate enough to die and your heirs have to deal with this problem, it is a very real problem to every single one of them. Over a 10-year period, obviously, you are talking about way more than a million people. You may say that is not a significant enough number to worry about, but it is enough. We worry about a few people who suffer from all kinds of things that we try to deal with. If you have a million Americans over a 10-year period subjected to an unfair tax, it is a problem we ought to address and not just make fun of the fact that it is only a million instead of 50 or 60,000. So let's get the numbers right. You can argue, if it is only 131,000 people, should we be worried about it. I say yes, somebody on the other side might say no, but at least let's get the numbers right.

Yes.

That is correct, on the motion to instruct conferees, 56 Democrats and Republicans voted for this identical proposal.

That is correct. The rate would be reduced from 55 percent, if we don't do anything, to 35. I believe the majority proposal is 45. This would make the top rate no higher than 35 percent.

The answer is yes. If I could expand on that with a true story, some friends of my wife and mine in Phoenix had a printing business. The head of the household came out from New York in the late 1940s and from

scratch built this business which, at the time he died, employed about 200 people. They didn't take a great deal of money home because in this business, you have to plow all your profits back into buying the very latest laser printers and all the other equipment to keep it competitive. But they did all right as a family, well enough to be a major giver in the community. That is how we became friends with them because they were contributing to charities significant amounts, probably more than they could afford, boys and girls clubs and a variety of other charities. They were great contributors to the community, both in terms of their business, the people they employed, what they did, and how they supported the community. He died. When he died, his family found that despite the fact that they had spent millions on insurance and other ways to try to plan for his eventual death and the estate planning, in order to pay the tax, they had to sell the business. They did, and they got enough money to pay the tax. The company that bought it, to my knowledge, never contributed a dime to any charity in Arizona. It eventually closed the operation. So all the people who worked there no longer had a job, no contribution to the community. The family literally had to sell the business to pay the tax. While they were well off in terms of the average American, they were exactly the kind of people you want in your community to provide employment. That is the real story.

We can make fun by saying: Well, it is only 131,000 each year in that category. But these are real families who are contributors to the economy and to our communities, and we ought to give them a break. Most people, even though they know they are not subjected to the tax, still, when you ask them the questions in public opinion surveys, say they know it is not fair. They like families such as the one I mentioned and would like to see this tax either reformed or repealed.

If I may respond, as an expert in the Tax Code, the Senator from New Hampshire knows the technical name of the doctrine which applies in this case, except we have made an exception in the case of death. If you are robbed or if your house burns down and you collect insurance to pay for that unanticipated loss--not an economic activity; you didn't decide to invest and get a return on the investment when your house burned down--that is something you did not anticipate. It is noneconomic. The Tax Code treats that in a very good way for people, as one would expect. You get the insurance on it. You are not taxed on all that as income.

This is the third. Of the three areas that apply here of noneconomic activity with a tax consequence, this is the only place where we don't give people a break for these unanticipated activities, these noneconomic activities such as death. No, you do get taxed. And, yes, the Senator from North Dakota is absolutely correct. The dead person is not the person----

Mr. President, if I may conclude, I am answering a question of the Senator from New Hampshire.

My train of thought with regard to the answer to the question was interrupted.

As a matter of tax policy, I will answer my colleague, we can differ about the kind of taxes that should apply to economic activity, but we do agree that is the kind of activity that should be taxed, if it is on a sale, if it is on income, if it is on a return such as capital gains or dividends. But where the American people draw the line is with regard to death. I recall now the final point I wished to make. It is true the dead person doesn't pay the tax, but the people who are left to deal with his affairs at the worst time in their life do have to deal with this. What we are suggesting is, we ought to make it a little bit easier on these folks and not impose the kind of penalties that the current Tax Code, if it reverts to this because we don't act, goes to the 55 percent tax rate. I am talking about 131,000. According to the Joint Tax Committee, the number by the year 2015 will be 177,000. So this keeps increasing with respect to the number of estates each year that will have to be concerned about the tax.

It is actually not quite that. It is $5 million. The way this is written, if one spouse, let's say, the person who is not running the business, dies first, you can plan so you can get most of the effect of $10 million in the unified credit between the estate and the gift tax, but it is actually a $5 million exempted amount. So, for example, if a single person owns a business, it is only $5 million. It is not the amount that would relate to a couple of $10 million.

Of course.

I believe that is exactly the case. By the year 2015, it would be 177,000 estates.

Mr. President, I would say to the chairman he is correct. I cannot verify the number 7,000 the chairman is

talking about, but I can verify the number I am talking about. The Joint Committee on Taxation projects that 11,800 estates would be required to file estate tax returns each year. So that is a correct statement.

Of course, the additional point I made earlier was that not everybody knows exactly what their liability is and, therefore, you have about 10 times as many people who have to end up filling out the forms, going to the expense of anywhere between $5,000 and $1 million to complete the forms, the 38 hours it takes to do it, only to find some of them do have a tax liability at the end of the day. Some of them do not. The fact that you may not be subject to the tax does not diminish the fact that you will be obligated to spend the money to file a return and do all the work to try to figure out that, in fact, you don't owe the tax.

Mr. President, if I might respond with one final point, when you got to calculating how many--the lucky 7,000, and all that--I think there was some extrapolation going on, and I think the chairman is right, we should stick to the numbers from Joint Tax. That way at least we know exactly what we are talking about.

Mr. President, I thank the leaders for the action they have taken for a short-term extension of the farm bill so that we can conclude action on it. It has been a negotiation that has gone on well over a year. That is not unusual for a farm bill which is extremely contentious.

I wanted to comment briefly on the Republican leader's statements this morning about our budget. As I was driving in this morning, I heard another Republican on the air saying that we have a trillion- dollar tax increase in this budget. I don't know what budget they are talking about because it certainly is not the budget we have presented here. There is no trillion-dollar tax increase here. There is no tax increase assumed here. Honestly, if I would go down to the Senate dining room and come to this floor and introduce the dining room menu as the budget for the United States, our Republican colleagues would say it was a trillion-dollar tax increase.

This is what they said last year, and we hear the same mantra again this year: It is a trillion-dollar tax increase. When they said it last year, we didn't have a record of a Democratic Congress to refute their claim. Now we do. We can look back and see precisely what happened with Democrats in control. How much did taxes increase after the Republicans asserted repeatedly we were going to increase taxes a trillion dollars? What happened? What happened on the record, not a projection, not a forecast, not rhetorical, what is the fact? It is very interesting. Democrats controlling the House, controlling the Senate, cut taxes $194 billion--not a tax increase, a tax cut that overwhelmingly has gone to the middle class. That is the Democratic record.

Let me say about this budget, we don't have the vast spending increases they are talking about. For this year, if you look at total spending, we have 1 percent more than the President's budget. Where is that money going? We put it into energy, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We put it into education, and we put it into infrastructure because we don't want any more bridges, like the one in Minnesota last year, collapsing into the river with people driving home from work. That is a fact.

In terms of revenue, the truth is that over the 5 years, we have 2.6 percent more revenue than in the President's budget. We believe that can be obtained not with a tax increase--don't need a tax increase to get it--you can go after the tax gap, the difference between what companies and people owe versus what they are actually paying. You can go after these offshore tax havens which the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has told us are costing this country $100 billion a year. You can go after these abusive tax shelters where we have the spectacle of companies in the United States, banks buying foreign sewer systems and depreciating them on their books in the United States to reduce their tax bill here, and then they lease the sewer systems back to the European cities that built them. My goodness. We are better than that as a nation, better than letting people abuse the vast majority of us who are honest. That is not right. That is not fair.

I have shown on this floor many times a picture of a five-story office building in the Cayman Islands called Ugland House. That 5-story building is home to 12,800 companies. I would say that is the most efficient building in the world.

Mr. President, 12,800 companies claim they are doing business out of this little five-story building in the Cayman Islands. They are not doing business there. The only business they are doing is monkey business. What they are doing is evading their taxes.

Now we have seen, according to the Boston Globe, another building down in the Cayman Islands--this time a four- or five-story building too--and we know KBR, who is the biggest contractor for security forces in Iraq and additional workers in Iraq for the U.S. military effort there, is running an operation out of that building to evade the Social Security taxes and the Medicare taxes of thousands and thousands of workers they have employed for Iraq--another tax scam.

It is exactly the kind of thing we on this side think should be closed down. Over and over, when we have tried, this President said: No, you can't do that. That would be a tax increase. Really? Is that a tax increase? I do not think so. Making people pay their fair share, like the vast majority of Americans already do--I do not think that is a tax increase. I think that is making those folks pay like all the rest of us do. That is fair.

Mr. President, we have Senators on the floor ready to offer an amendment. I want to go to that at this moment.

I ask Senator Bingaman, how much time----

Mr. GREGG addressed the Chair.

Mr. President, I will withhold. Senator Gregg is seeking recognition.

Mr. President, I thank the ranking member for his continuing courtesy and graciousness. This is my 60th. As I left the house this morning, I told my wife and our son, who is there visiting, I have to question: What have I done wrong in my life to have my 60th birthday spent here managing the budget? But I will get over it.

I appreciate the many courtesies of the ranking member. This is a special day for me, and I am looking forward to a good debate.

With that, we want to go to the next amendment, unless the Senator--

Fair enough.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, if you can give us a heads up at some point what your next amendment will be, that would be helpful as well.

Now we will turn to Senator Bingaman and Senator Alexander, who I think have a very constructive amendment. We welcome their description of it.

I ask unanimous consent that the time come off the resolution.

Mr. President, I think the amendment the ranking member has set up for Senator Specter doesn't actually have full repeal. Instead, what it does is change the individual alternative minimum tax from its current two-rate structure of 26 percent and 28 percent to the single 24-percent rate that was in effect prior to 1993. I believe that is what the Specter amendment does.

The first priority, of course, for dealing with the AMT is to protect families who have not been subject to it previously. So our resolution acknowledges this priority and provides a 1-year patch to prevent the alternative minimum tax from affecting another 20 million American households. That is at a cost of $62 billion.

I would prefer that cost be offset, but last year that was not the will of the body. It was not the will of the body in the very clear and compelling vote. So we don't have it offset in our resolution this year.

Our resolution acknowledges the political reality that the will of this body is to extend alternative minimum tax relief without paying for it. Restructuring the AMT, as Senator Specter proposes, is even more expensive. The Specter amendment would lose $185 billion in revenue, and it is not paid for in any way--by spending reductions or other revenue--and therefore it simply gets added to the deficit and debt. If it were adopted as is, the resolution would be in deficit in every year of the budget window.

Mr. President, I don't think that is fiscally responsible, so I am offering an amendment that accomplishes the same policy purpose but requires that it be offset, paid for, so that it is not

added to the deficit and is not added to the debt.

I inquire of the Senator, did he send up the Specter amendment?

Mr. President, I send the Conrad amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I think it might be useful here that we enter into a unanimous consent agreement that when we go to a fuller debate, the debate on the Specter and Conrad amendments be limited to 1 hour. Is that acceptable?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that there be a half hour each on the Specter and Conrad amendments, a total of 1 hour.

Then we will go to the Kyl amendment, and there would also be a side-by-side for that amendment. That would be, at this point, an amendment in my name or by my designee.

I also ask unanimous consent that there be a half hour on each for those amendments.

Our understanding is the same. Look, we are going to have to be flexible. We have other committees that are meeting, and other Members who are involved in these amendments are at other meetings. They won't be here until later. It is our intention to have that amount of time on these specific amendments, but it may not occur all at once.

Correct. Our amendments are side-by-sides. Our amendments would normally be second-degree amendments. They are not being offered as second-degree amendments here because we don't do that on the budget resolution. But those amendments that are the side-by-sides would be in the regular order. That means they would be voted on first.

We also have the Bunning amendment. Do we want to put that into the queue?

Maybe we should have a discussion and make sure we are on the same page with respect to that. Do we want to have the Bunning amendment next?

All right. That is an amendment that involves Social Security, correct?

There would be a side-by-side on our side. Would we want to limit debate on those to a half hour each?

All right. That will be the order. The colleagues who want to offer amendments and want to have floor time, it is a very good time to contact us to get time allocated because time is going to go very quickly. Please don't come tomorrow and say: Gee, where is our floor time? This is the time, this is the moment. If you want floor time, we urge you to come now.

Amendment No. 4191

Will the Senator yield on that point?

If I can address one of the concerns of the Senator, when we vote--this is a very awkward question, I say to my colleague. Let me be very direct about what it is. We are missing two of our votes. We have a third Member who is ill. So what we have said is we would defer votes on these major matters until at least some of our Members are back. The body is very closely divided. We are completely ready to have votes on other matters throughout this day. The problem is, with the major votes on these consequential issues where we are missing two of our Presidential candidates until tomorrow--they will be here Thursday and Friday--and we are missing Senator Byrd who, as you know, is ill, that is the reason we have asked to defer votes on these major amendments until tomorrow. It is a difficult situation. It has been throughout.

I do thank the Republican caucus for the extraordinary courtesy they extended to the Budget Committee by allowing Senator Byrd to vote--to allow proxy voting in our committee. Our committee does not allow proxy voting, and for a very good reason. We are the only committee that can report a fast-track vehicle to the Senate floor directly. But I do thank the Republican side for doing that. It was very gracious. I think it was in the best tradition of the Senate.

Here on the Senate floor, of course, there is no ability to allow that accommodation to a colleague who is ill. That is the circumstance. I regret it. I just say to my colleague, we are happy to have as many votes as you want to have. The reason we have deferred these major votes until tomorrow is for the reason I have given.

Mr. President, I would just say to my colleague, last year we did much better.

You remember last year we did more votes earlier. Just in line with what the Senator is thinking because that is the best way. I think all of us would agree that is the best way to do our business, to do the votes earlier. You will recall on the vote-arama on that Friday we actually finished at 2 o'clock in the afternoon because we did have more votes earlier. I am entirely, 100 percent in agreement with the Senator. I would far prefer to do it that way. I think it is easier to follow the debate and to have the votes then coincident with the debate.

(Mr. DURBIN assumed the Chair.)

Mr. President, if I might, just on the underlying amendment offered by the Senator, this amendment as we understand it-- we have just seen it--would virtually eliminate the estate tax. Let me say why. Let me first say there is no death tax in the country. Of course, if you poll people and you ask them: Do you want to eliminate the death tax? they will say sure. I had a baggage handler stop a colleague of mine, and he said: My No. 1 priority is to eliminate that death tax. My colleague, who is the current occupant of the chair, told him there is no death tax here. You are not going to pay any tax when you die unless you have $2 million.

The guy was very surprised about that because he heard all this talk about a death tax. There is no death tax in America. There is a tax on estates. At today's level you would have to have $2 million to be taxed. That affects only one-half of 1 percent of estates. When the exemption increases, as it does under current law, and reaches $3.5 million per individual, $7 million a couple in 2009, which is next year, only two-tenths of estates will be taxed.

If you are out there and you are hearing about this death tax, don't worry. It does not apply, next year, to 99.8 percent of people who pass away. It only applies to two-tenths of 1 percent of estates.

We already have a tax structure that has overwhelmingly benefited the wealthiest among us. The amendment by the Senator would cost an additional $478 billion over 10 years, and none of it is paid for. That means it goes on the debt. That means we have to borrow that amount of money, and where are we going to borrow it? We are now borrowing over half the money at our bond auctions from abroad--most of it from the Chinese and the Japanese. So we would have, if the amendment of the Senator is agreed to as is, the unusual situation of borrowing this money primarily from China and Japan to give a tax advantage to two- tenths of 1 percent of the people, but the borrowing would be in the name of all of the American people. So 99.8 percent of the American people would be borrowing this money, primarily from China and Japan, to give it to the Warren Buffets, the Paris Hiltons, and others of enormous wealth in this country.

I do not think that is a good policy. In the underlying budget, we have improved the estate tax situation, reformed it in what is, I think, a reasonable way. This is the bizarre circumstance that is in current law. The exemption now, in 2008, is $4 million--$2 million a person. OK? So if you are a husband or wife and you pass away at the same time, you have $4 million of exemption that applies today. You don't pay anything if you have estates of less than $4 million.

In 2009 that will go up to $7 million. Then in 2010, under current law, there is no estate tax, it is repealed. Then, in 2011--it is utterly bizarre--it goes down to $2 million per couple, $1 million a person.

In the underlying budget we are saying, no, that makes no sense at all to go back down to $2 million a couple, $1 million a person. It should be at $7 million a couple, as it is in 2009. If, in fact, we adopt those levels, virtually no one will pay the estate tax. That is a fact.

Here is what has happened under current law: The number of estates that are taxed is falling very dramatically. In 2000, there were 50,000 taxable estates. In 2006, that has been reduced to 13,000. In 2009, we are now expecting there will only be 7,000 estates that will pay anything. As I indicated, that is two-tenths of 1 percent; 99.8 percent of estates are completely exempt. That is a fact.

Now I am going to lay down an amendment.

I would be happy to yield.

No, this is this Tax Policy Center, I say to my colleague, and they estimate the number of estates in any year, and then they do a further analysis of how many would actually pay an estate tax, and what they have concluded is two-tenths of 1 percent.

I know the Senator is pulling my chain. Even as slow witted as I am, I can recognize when a Senator is pulling my chain, and here on my birthday, my friend and my colleague is doing that.

What we have tried to do is come up with an alternative. I will send this amendment to the desk to provide an alternative approach to that which the Senator from Arizona is offering, to go over and above what is in the Baucus amendment.

I say to my colleague, it provides another $45 billion, so that in addition to extending the estate tax exemptions of 2009, $7 million a couple, $3.5 million an individual, instead of dropping down to $2 million a couple or $1 million, we stay at the $7 million; index it for inflation.

But in this amendment I am sending to the desk, I say to my colleague, it also provides another $45 billion in a reserve fund, which means it would have to be offset either by a spending reduction or other revenue to further close the gap between what Senator Baucus provided in his amendment the other day, and the amendment Senator Kyl has laid down here.

That would be $45 billion in additional room in order to further reform the estate tax. I want to make clear that would be in a reserve fund, so it would have to be offset, it would have to be paid for.

I do not know. This is not my amendment. This is an amendment Senator Baucus and others have crafted. So I apologize to the Senator, I do not know how much more of an exemption that would permit. But others who have crafted this amendment hopefully will have an answer that can be provided when they are available.

Maybe I can conclude this part and go back to the Senator from Illinois who is also inquiring and answer his question.

Mr. President, I send this amendment to the desk. I have styled it Conrad No. 2. In fact, it is not my amendment. It is the amendment of the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who is at this very moment chairing a hearing on this subject, so he could not be here. That is why I am sending it to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

I ask that Senator Baucus be permitted, when he is able, to further discuss his amendment. I know we have got time reserved for that purpose.

Yes, that is true, under the exemption rates for next year. Under the exemption rates for next year, it will be two-tenths of 1 percent. I believe this year it is five-tenths of 1 percent; there are 99.5 percent this year that are exempt. Next year it will be 99.8 percent exempt, as the rate goes up.

That is the correct math.

My understanding is--and the Senator might correct me-- that under the Kyl proposal the cost would be approaching $200 billion over--$458 billion over 10 years.

Well, first, in terms of the gross debt of the United States, under this President's watch, the gross debt has nearly doubled. The foreign holding of U.S. debt has more than doubled.

This is it. It took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up $1 trillion of external debt. Perhaps this is the chart the Senator is referring to. It took 42 Presidents, all of these Presidents pictured, 224 years to run up $1 trillion of debt, U.S. debt held abroad. This President, as you can see, has far more than doubled that amount in 7 years.

Well, if his amendment costs another $458 billion, it is not offset. And in a typical bond auction now conducted by the United States, over

half of the money, well over half now, is money from abroad. So you can take well over half of the $458 billion, and it would be added to this external debt.

Well, that is the unfortunate part of, as I see it, the amendment of the Senator from Arizona. What he is doing is saying--he is asking all of us, all Americans, to put our name on the bill. But the money is only going to two-tenths of 1 percent of us. I think that is unfortunate.

I think that is clearly correct.

Yes, I think that is undeniably the case. The problem this country confronts now is we have massive deficits and, under this President, a dramatic increase in the debt. So all of these provisions are based on borrowed money. So why would we go borrow this amount of money, which is increasingly from foreign countries, in order to give a benefit to two-tenths of 1 percent of the American people, when 99.8 percent of the estates in this country are already exempted from the taxation? That is lost on me.

No, this is all put on the tab. This is all borrowed money.

I still have the floor. The Senator from Arizona was seeking to ask me a question.

I am happy to yield to the Senator from New Hampshire if the Senator wishes to engage in this debate or any other debate.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I would like to try to harmonize the numbers because I don't want to leave people with the misimpression that we have some difference on the numbers because I don't think we do. The Senator is talking about 131,000 estates possibly being affected. But that would be at the million-dollar-a-person exemption level; is that not the case?

But that is assuming we have a million-dollar-per-person exemption. Under what is in the budget, we would have $3.5 million per person--$7 million a couple--which, according to our figures, would give only 7,000 estates out of 3.5 million any tax. I think the difference between your 11,000 and my 7,000 was, you are talking about estates that have a filing responsibility. I am talking about estates that would actually have a tax liability. As the Senator well knows, there are some additional people who have a filing obligation even though they don't have a liability.

The numbers the Senator and I are using are actually quite close. We are using somewhat different assumptions. He is talking about if we went down, which current law does, to a million dollar exemption in 2011, 131,000 estates would be affected. What we are seeking to do is to make certain that does not occur, that the exemption amount be $3.5 million a person, $7 million a couple, which would exempt 99.8 percent of estates.

That is absolutely fair. I didn't want to leave some impression that you and I had some great difference on the numbers. I think our numbers are actually very close.

Mr. President, I say to the Senator, may I be recognized for a moment? I have a housekeeping item we need to address.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that amendment No. 4196, which I sent to the desk, be restyled as being offered on behalf of Senator Salazar. I sent it to the desk in the name of Senator Baucus.

That should be in the name of Senator Salazar. He is the mover of that amendment.

Mr. President, why don't we do this out of courtesy to Senator Bunning, who is already here: If we could go to Senator DeMint--how much time would Senator DeMint require?

Could we reach an agreement on up to 25 minutes?

Because Senator Bunning was put on notice earlier he could come at roughly this time. I would be happy to withhold on Senator DeMint's amendment.

Maybe we could get him in the train as well so he would know when he was up.

How much time would the Senator from Kentucky require?

Well, shall we enter into an agreement: up to 25 minutes for Senator DeMint, followed by Senator Bunning for up to 15 minutes. And then, I say to Senator Specter, how much time would you like?

Up to 15 minutes there. That would take us another hour down the road. We will do it off the resolution. Is that fair?

OK.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for his courtesy and for his work on the Budget Committee. Senator Martinez would like time on a separate matter, not a budget-related matter. This might be a very good time to do that. We hate to have dead time on the floor. How much time would the Senator need?

Mr. President, we will give him up to 15 minutes off the resolution.

Mr. President, might I thank both Senators for their courtesy and their graciousness.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Next, we have the Senator from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan.

We can do that perhaps momentarily. We have worked out what we would like to be the order.

Amendment No. 4204

I send an amendment that is the side by side to the Bunning amendment to the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Menendez.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Next, Senator Gregg will have an opportunity to send up Senator Specter's amendment.

Amendment No. 4203

With one alteration, if I could, that we would--if you recall, we talked about this--I would then discuss the side by side to Bunning, then the Alexander group would be recognized.

After I give brief remarks on the side by side I have sent up. Senator Dorgan can offer his amendment.

Amendment No. 4198

By the sequence we have gone through, we have gotten you in the queue. And so that will be--as we work down the amendments that have already been in order, yours is now in order. And that will be the order that is followed. So the Senator can expect when we turn to amendments, yours will be in line. We very much appreciate the extraordinary courtesy of the Senator from North Dakota, who, as I know, has had to wait a couple of times here because of various snafus. We apologize to him and thank him.

That is precisely correct. I thank my colleague. I will take a few minutes to describe the side by side to the Bunning amendment earlier offered.

The Bunning amendment would repeal the 1993 increases on Social Security benefits--tax increases on Social Security benefits. The amendment would offset the $89 billion 5-year cost with reductions to function 920. What does that mean? Mandatory 920 offsets would lead to an across-the-board cut in all mandatory programs, programs such as Social Security and Medicare. I do not think that is the intention of the Senator.

If discretionary 920s were offset, it would reduce programs affecting education, veterans health, homeland security, and law enforcement. In addition, the amendment would remove a dedicated source of revenue through

the Medicare trust funds, adding to the financial problems of that key program.

Our alternative, the alternative I have sent to the desk, would provide for a reserve fund that would allow for the repeal of the 1993 increase on Social Security benefits in a way that would protect Social Security and Medicare, and not increase the deficit over the period of the resolution.

The budget resolution already includes a reserve fund with the primary purpose of providing a mechanism for enacting tax relief, provided it is paid for. This alternative would establish a new deficit-neutral reserve fund that specifically highlights repeal of the 1993 tax increase on Social Security benefits.

Over the 5-year period covered by this resolution, the cost of repealing the 1993 tax increase is about $89 billion as I earlier referenced. We have already acknowledged in the course of the debate on the resolution we have to limit ourselves when it comes to additional spending or additional tax cuts, because we need to balance the budget.

There are places we can go to cut spending or to raise revenue. I have addressed those repeatedly in terms of the tax gap, the offshore tax havens, and abusive tax shelters.

I ask my colleagues to support the alternative that I have sent to the desk that would not lead to a cut in Medicare or Social Security or other elements I identified.

With that, we would be prepared to go to Senator Alexander for the presentation of his amendment. I see Senator Alexander is in the Chamber. Would the Senator like a moment, or would the Senator prefer to proceed?

I thank the Senator and indicate that the intention would be, after Senator Alexander and Senator Domenici--Senator Alexander, do you have anyone else whom you wish to speak on your amendment?

About 20 minutes or so.

Exactly.

Thank you, Mr. President. I wish to make sure my time is counted against the resolution and not the amendment that was just brought up.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I rise this morning to speak on an amendment I will offer to the 2009 budget resolution on behalf of myself and a bipartisan group of reformers in the Senate.

This amendment creates a 1-year moratorium on all earmarks. It does so by establishing a 67-vote point of order against bills, joint resolutions, conference reports, and messages between Houses that contain congressional earmarks for the fiscal year 2009.

This is very important to the budget debate. As we look at this budget, with planned spending over the next 10 years, we have clearly-- both parties--helped to wreck the budget at the Federal level, while every month we expect families across this country to balance their budget.

I would like to start with a little background. Before I came to Congress, one of my jobs was training quality development people in organizations. We worked on quality improvement--quality process improvement--for a number of years. One of the great consultants in that field, Tom Peters, wrote a book ``In Search of Excellence.''

One of the examples he gave in the book, related to improving quality, was a person who got on an airplane and pulled down their tray and saw a coffee stain there. People could say a coffee stain on a tray in an airplane is not a big deal. But many times we get our cues about quality, or about whom we can trust and why, from things that are different than the real substance.

But his point was, if you see a coffee stain, you not only are concerned about how the cleaning service does in that airplane, you wonder: If they are not able to clean up a coffee stain, are they maintaining the engines? Is this a safe plane to fly in?

For us in Congress, our coffee stain is earmarks. Earmarks tell Americans we cannot be trusted to spend their money in a way that is efficient and for the good of our country. Americans know if we continue to throw their tax dollars at bridges to nowhere or hippie museums--or a number of things I will talk about today--that if we cannot be trusted to do those things, certainly how can we be trusted to do the big things in this country.

We have lost our moral authority. We have undermined the trust of the American people. A lot of that goes right back to our coffee stain, which is earmarks.

In 2006, many in this body, particularly my friends on the other side, promised to clean up earmarks in Washington. But after 1 year, things have gone back to business as usual. The number of earmarks had fallen to 2,600 in 2007 because we were able to stop this huge omnibus spending bill that was going through. But now earmarks are back up to all-time highs. This year, there are 11,612 earmarks, costing $17.2 billion, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. It is the highest level of earmarks in history.

It came through in this Omnibus appropriations bill, which we were given less than 48 hours to review. No one read it. It was full of earmarks, full of wasteful earmarks and wasteful Government spending.

We still expect the American family to balance their budget while we continue to wreck the budget at the Federal level.

Last year, we worked together to pass earmark reforms, but, unfortunately, many of these reforms have been gutted or ignored. As many of my colleagues know, the earmark rule we passed 98 to 0 was watered down behind closed doors and then passed despite our objections. Those in this body who oppose change insisted on continuing business as usual.

I would like to review a little bit the history of the debate so everyone knows how we got to this place. For Americans who may be looking in and still wondering what earmarks are--and I, frankly, confess when I came to Congress I did not know what an earmark was--it is when every Member of Congress and the Senate feel like it is their responsibility to take a piece of taxpayer money and designate it to a particular favorite project or cause or organization back in their congressional district or State. Instead of doing what is good for the country, we do what is good for our next election,

and we use taxpayer dollars to enhance our image back home.

Mr. President, 2007 started off with a pretty hopeful note. I actually offered Speaker Pelosi's earmark transparency measure as an amendment to the Senate ethics bill. But, unfortunately, the leadership on the other side tried to kill the Pelosi transparency language which would have required disclosure of all earmarks instead of 5 percent, as we had on the Senate side. But the effort to kill my amendment failed, and we won the day.

Republicans voted with me and a few brave Democrats--Claire McCaskill and some others--joined us in saying: Enough is enough; America needs to know what we are spending. We were able to pass that transparency bill. But the original Pelosi-DeMint transparency rule that was part of Senate bill No. 1 last year, and agreed to unanimously, said authorization earmarks could not be added or airdropped into conference reports with the House. But that provision has been gutted and ignored.

The original Pelosi-DeMint transparency rule gave Senators the right to force a vote on individual earmarks that were added into conference reports in the dark of night. But that provision was secretly gutted.

The original Pelosi-DeMint transparency rule said bills containing earmarks could not be brought to the floor until we had at least 48 hours to read the bill online in an easily searchable format. That was not easily searchable with this bill you are looking at on the table. But that provision, too, has been gutted and ignored.

In fact, in less than 24 hours we brought this bill to the Senate floor--the largest appropriations bill in our history--that contained over 11,000 earmarks, and it passed in less than 48 hours. No one read that bill.

We are wrecking the Federal budget, and we still expect Americans to balance their family budget.

The original Pelosi-DeMint transparency rule said neither the Senator nor his or her family could financially benefit from an earmark, but that provision has been changed to the point where it is almost meaningless.

The original Pelosi-DeMint transparency rule said the Parliamentarian, who is nonpartisan and whose job is to make impartial rulings, would be responsible for determining if bills brought to the floor complied with earmark transparency rules. That was a good rule, but that has been gutted. The provision has been changed so that now the majority leader and the chairman of Appropriations verify if it has met the rules.

The list goes on and on.

The Senate also passed legislation last year to ban the practice of what we call phone-marking or letter-marking, which occurs when Senators secretly request earmarks by pressuring agencies with phone calls or letters without complying with the earmark disclosure rules. That provision has been gutted.

Last year, the majority promised to cut the number of earmarks in half. But they did not. Instead, we passed the second highest level of earmarks in history. You can see from this chart, Republicans did a lousy job containing the number of earmarks, but we were able--by stopping an Omnibus appropriations bill before we left the majority--to reduce the number to 2,600. But last year it went back up to the second highest level in history--a lot of broken promises.

I also wish to review some things about the earmark system and why it is broken. In the last 20 years, porkbarrel earmarks have exploded. In 1987, Ronald Reagan vetoed a bill that had only 121 earmarks. Here is what he said:

I haven't seen this much lard since I handed out blue

ribbons at the Iowa State Fair.

Mr. President, 121 earmarks. We are dealing with tens of thousands of earmarks now every year. By 2005, earmarks had skyrocketed to about 14,000 wasteful earmarks into our spending bills. In fact, since 2000, Congress has spent more than $188 billion of Americans' taxpayer dollars on over 77,000 porkbarrel projects.

Americans are outraged about a system that hands out their tax dollars based on political influence and congressional seniority instead of on the merit of the projects. Here are a few examples of the results of the earmark favor factory over the last several years. Keep in mind as I read these earmarks, this is hard-working American tax dollars coming to us. We are expecting the family to use their money responsibly to balance their checkbook. Here is what we are doing with their tax dollars:

The International Fund for Ireland, funding the World Toilet Summit, $13.5 million; Richard Steele Boxing Club, $100,000--this is at a time we are creating debt and waste every year--animal waste research and management, $4.75 million; a study to determine if poultry litter can generate electricity, $225,000; the Tiger Woods Foundation--he is hurting for money--$100,000; golf charity, $3 million taken out of the Department of Defense budget for a golf charity; Museum of Glass, $550,000; a fake prison museum, $100,000; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame--a clear national priority--$200,000; The Historic Coal Library, $800,000; wine research, $11 million; Baseball Hall of Fame, $750,000; the National Wild Turkey Federation, $500,000; grasshopper research, $775,000; bike paths, $6.8 million; Montana Sheep Institute, $400,000; National Peanut Festival, $200,000; ornamental fish research, $600,000; Grammy Institute, $800,000; the American Film Institute, $90,000; DNA study of bears, $1 million; study to analyze bear fur, $300,000; wood research, $9.5 million; Cowgirl Hall of Fame, $90,000; Indoor Rain Forest, $50 million; water-free men's urinals, $2 million; Charlie Rangel Monument, $2 million; Teapot Museum, $500,000; an 85-foot speedboat the Navy didn't want and refused to use, $4.5 million; Woodstock Hippie Museum, $1 million; Coconut Road highway project that was unwanted by the city it was sent to, $10 million; shirts for the U.S. Marine Corps that were found to melt in battle and caused severe disfiguring burns, $2 million; National Drug Intelligence Center that duplicates work already done by 19 other Federal agencies and which the OMB asked to be shut down--we still gave them $400 million; and, of course, the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska, $320 million.

Folks, there are people who come to this floor during this debate and cite earmarks that they say are good, and certainly we can find some. But for every one earmark that could be justified, we could find hundreds that sound just like the ones I read today. At a time when our country is in severe deficit, when we are at war and the American family is straining every month in their budget, we are throwing their money away--coffee stain after coffee stain, demonstrating to the American people that we don't have the commitment to do what is best for this country.

This is just scratching the surface. Did I read a couple of dozen? There are almost 12,000 right here that Americans will never know how their money is spent.

Besides the waste, earmarks have also led to corruption. Let me say that I have spent enough time working with my colleagues to know that most are not corrupt. They love their country, and they want to make it a better place. But the system of earmarking has taken our energy and diverted it away from solving national problems and wasted it on the task of steering tax dollars back home. This perversion of purpose has undoubtedly led to real corruption scandals that have caused the American people to lose trust in Congress.

In 2006, former Congressman Duke Cunningham was sentenced to 8 years in prison for trading earmarks for over $2.4 million in personal bribes. As reported by ABC News at the time, Cunningham actually kept a bribe menu where he listed what payments he demanded in return for earmarks from Government. This card here shows an escalating scale for bribes, starting at $140,000 and a luxury yacht for a $16 million Defense Department contract. Each additional $1 million in contract value required $50,000 in bribes. The rate dropped to $25,000 per additional million once the contract went over $20 million.

Also in 2006, former lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison for corruption and fraud. Abramoff pleaded guilty to defrauding numerous Indian tribes for which he helped secure earmarks. It was Jack Abramoff who called the congressional appropriations process the

``earmark favor factory'' for his ability to secure millions in taxpayer funds for his clients.

There are thousands of lobbyists who are sent here by towns and universities, small colleges, organizations that are up here trying to get a piece of these Federal handouts that we call earmarks. It is corrupting the whole process.

Why is it so easy for this earmarking system to lead to corruption? It is because there is so little oversight. Rather than being funded based on merit, they are chosen based on political influence and congressional seniority. Is a sewer or a highway project in West Virginia more worthy than one in Wyoming simply because the State's Senator holds a high-ranking appropriations seat? I don't think so.

Americans are frustrated with Congress. Congressional approval is at alltime historic lows. Voters threw out the Republicans in 2006 hoping for a change, but not much has changed. Wasteful Washington spending hasn't stopped. We continue to wreck the Federal budget as Americans are struggling to balance theirs. The congressional favor factory hasn't been closed; it is just under new management.

When Members of Congress are sworn into office, we take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. This Constitution prescribes a limited role for the Federal Government, whose purpose is to ``form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty.''

This purpose statement should give Congress a clear focus on national priorities and the good of the Nation as a whole. Unfortunately, many in Congress have forgotten that oath and lost sight of our congressional purpose. I did not raise my hand and swear allegiance to the State of South Carolina and promise to get them as much Federal money as I could. Those who say it is a constitutional responsibility to earmark are not using quotes from this document, the Constitution. In fact, everything in here suggests a national priority. It suggests a uniform way in collecting taxes. It says: No preference should be given to a State when money is appropriated, and it says this, which is key: that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of appropriation made by law.

Over 95 percent of the earmarks we produce here in this Congress are not law, they are not constitutional, and there is no excuse for them at all. We can't hide behind this Constitution. It does not give us the authority, explicitly or implicitly, to take on a local and State role, decide where water and sewer plants go, where bike paths go, which local museum should be funded. That is not our job, but that is a reason we are not dealing with a broken Tax Code, a broken Social Security system, a broken Medicare system, how we deal with keeping jobs in this country, because we are spending most of our time trying to figure out what needs to be done back in our local communities.

The primary culprit of most of the problems we are dealing with here is the addictive power of congressional earmarks that we are trying to stop today. My objection to earmarks is not to specific Members. The requirement that earmarks now have names on them makes them more personal, but it is really the earmarking system that is the problem.

When Members of Congress invest their time in securing Federal funds for sewer plants and bike paths, as I have mentioned, they are doing more than assuming a Federal role for a local responsibility; they are locking themselves into voting for whatever bill contains their projects. That is how leadership here in Congress gets us to vote for bills that are billions over budget and contain lots of bad policy-- they cram in their projects that make it very difficult for us to vote against. For this reason, Congress has repeatedly, regardless of which party is in charge, demonstrated an inability to curb out-of-control spending. Members who may otherwise vote against a massive, wasteful spending bill end up voting aye because it contains a project for a special interest back home.

In January, the first baby boomer received her first Social Security check. In just 3 years, she will qualify for Medicare. With 77 million Americans in line right now behind her, now is the time for Congress to address the long-term fiscal crisis that lies ahead. Social Security and Medicare are trillions of dollars underfunded. Yet we are focused on using earmarks to deal with local issues such as determining the location of local parks and community centers, and we are failing to address these serious national problems. We are wrecking the Federal budget while Americans are struggling to meet their family budget.

I didn't come to Washington to fight against earmarks. I didn't even know what they were when I got here. I came here to work on tax reform and fixing Social Security and Medicare. But the culture of earmarks is distracting the attention of Congress from much needed national reforms. So I have made eliminating earmarks an urgent and immediate goal.

One of the things I found out in trying to improve the quality culture in organizations is you have to understand the root causes of problems and not spend your time treating symptoms. The root cause of many of the problems, particularly the wasteful spending in this Congress, is earmarks.

Already in this new Congress, which promised to be more transparent and to cut earmarks in half, we have seen many shameless requests for pork projects, including taxpayer-funded monuments to individual Members of Congress. Worse, Members of Congress insist on hiding these wasteful pork projects behind some of our Nation's most important priorities. We have held hostage health care for poor children, veterans benefits, and funding for our troops in order to sneak through porkbarrel projects.

We have basically made human shields of our most vulnerable Americans, giving Members of Congress two bad choices: Either we vote for bloated bills that are billions over budget and full of wasteful earmarks or we vote against national priorities and needy constituents. This is no way to run the most important Government in the world.

So we ended another year with a lot more debt and a lot more broken promises. We have not helped Americans buy health insurance; in fact, we have made it harder. We haven't cut spending; we have raised it. Our antiquated Tax Code continues to chase jobs overseas, and we have not addressed the huge entitlement crisis. Meanwhile, we increased the number of special interests and wasteful earmarks from last year, and both parties are bragging that we did better than expected. Instead of keeping promises, we have let the earmarking system pervert our purpose as Members of Congress.

The purpose of the amendment that I have with the budget is to take a timeout. When you have a problem, when you have an addiction, you have to agree you have a problem and you have to get into rehab. Congress needs to get into rehab. We need to stop earmarking this year, take a timeout, and figure out how to reform the system. Those who continue to give excuses, who say: No, we don't need a timeout, we will fix it, I have been listening to for 8 years. They keep saying there is a problem we need to fix, but they never do. It is time to take this issue seriously, to get earmarks off the table so that we can look at it objectively.

I would encourage all of my colleagues to join me, the Republican nominee for President, John McCain; the two Democratic possibilities for President, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; and Claire McCaskill and vote for this amendment and show America we can be trusted.

I thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Pennsylvania, both of whom I think are to be recognized, I be recognized for 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I ask that the request be so modified. I do want to talk to the two Senators about being able to offer the amendment about which I will speak, but I will do that at another time.

If the Senator will yield, let me ask unanimous consent that I be recognized following his completion of 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I will want to visit with Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg, the chair and ranking member, to try to determine when I will be able to offer my amendment. I wish to speak about the amendment. My understanding is I am not yet able to offer it because of an objection, but my hope is we will be able to work this amendment into the list of amendments very soon.

I have often described this budget process. One hundred years from now, we will all be dead--not a pleasant thought--but historians will look back at what we did and who we were and could evaluate a little something about us and our value systems by looking at how we spent our money. What did we think was important? What did we invest in? What did we spend our money on? That is true for families and individuals, and it is especially true for governments--what the Federal Government thinks is important. What is its value system in this budget document? It will tell historians a lot about who we were, the kind of people we were.

I want to talk about an amendment I am offering to provide funding for the Indian health care system. I am going to tell you why I am doing that. American Indians were here first. We all came later. They were the first Americans. Because we took their land, in most instances, and put them on reservations, we signed treaties with them. Our Government said to them: Here is what we are going to do. Yes, we are taking your land, but we are going to have a trust responsibility for certain things we are going to do for you, and we will even put it in treaties and sign the treaties. We are going to provide for your health care. So we have a responsibility here in the Federal Government to provide for Indian health care. If someone wondered why that is the case--we promised. We signed treaties, we signed up, we said we will do it.

So we have a couple of million American Indians in this country who rely on the Indian health care system. Guess what. We do a pretty miserable job. We spend half as much money providing health care to American Indians, per person, as we do to those who serve in Federal prisons. When we incarcerate someone in a Federal prison, we are responsible for their health care. We spend twice as much more on Federal prisoners' health care per person than we do for American Indians. We are not nearly meeting our responsibility. We are not even close to keeping our promise, and nobody seems to care very much. There are people dying as a result of it, and still nobody seems to care very much.

We passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act on the floor of the Senate recently. I am proud of that because it has been many years since this Congress has addressed the issue of Indian health care. If the funding available for Indian health care had kept pace with inflation, here on this chart is where we would be. Instead, we are down here, dramatically underfunding the health care system for American Indians, and as a result, we have full-scale health care rationing. It ought to be a scandal. It ought to be on the front page of the Washington Post, but it is not. It is a scandal, as far as I am concerned. Health care rationing? That is unbelievable to me.

Let me describe this health care rationing, if I might. My colleagues have heard me speak about this before when I talked about the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, but repetition is fine, as far as I am concerned, when you are talking about something this important.

Ardel Hale Baker was having a heart attack. She was a member of the three affiliated tribes, the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribes. She is a member. She was having a heart attack. They put her in an ambulance and sent her to a hospital 85 miles away. When she got to the hospital, they pulled her off of the ambulance gurney to put her in a gurney for the emergency room, and they found a piece of paper taped to her thigh. The piece of paper taped to her thigh said this, it said to the hospital: This is Ardel Hale Baker. If you admit this patient to the hospital, who is having a heart attack, by the way, understand you probably will not be paid for it because there is no contract health funding left for this individual Indian.

So Ardel Hale Baker is having a heart attack, and she is wheeled into an emergency room with a piece of paper taped to her thigh that says: Oh, by the way, hospital, admit this woman, and you may not be paid.

I described the need for Indian health care in the names of two children, one 5, one age 14, both dead. Let me tell my colleagues about them, as I have before. If, after we understand these issues that are going on all around the country in Indian Country, we still say there is no need here and it doesn't matter, then there is something coldhearted about this institution.

Let me describe Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. This beautiful young girl loved to dance, as you can see from the costume. She used to go to the powwows and dance. She was 5 years old and very sick. She was taken to the Indian health clinic again and again and again and again. They diagnosed her illness; depression, they said. So this 5-year-old girl was treated for depression. Then one day she could not bear the pain any longer. They took her to Billings, MT.

By the way, she was on the Crow Reservation in Montana. The way I know about this young girl is her grandmother came to a hearing I held with Senator Tester on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana, and she held up a poster this big with a picture of her grandchild, and she described her death.

After being treated for depression, after going to the clinic time and time again and being treated for depression, one day she couldn't bear the pain, and they rushed her to Billings, MT, to a hospital there, and then they rushed her to Denver, CO, to a hospital there, and they said she had 4 months to live because she had terminal cancer-- this, after having been treated for depression for so many months.

Ta'shon Rain Littlelight said to her mom when they were in Denver that the one thing she wanted to do was to go see Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. The Make A Wish Foundation

took this little girl and her mother to Disney World in Orlando, FL, to see Cinderella's Castle. The night before, in the hotel, as they arrived in Orlando, the night before visiting Cinderella's Castle, Ta'shon Rain Littlelight said to her mother: Mommy, I am sorry I am sick. Mother, I am going to try to get better. She cuddled up in her mom's arms and never again woke up. She died in her mother's arms the night before she was to see Cinderella's Castle.

Her family told me this little girl spent the last 3 months of her life in unmedicated pain with a terminal illness, diagnosed as having depression. Her grandmother and her parents wonder, with decent health care, would this young girl have died? Would Ta'shon Rain Littlelight perhaps have lived? Maybe so.

Does it matter that a 5-year-old girl dies because she doesn't get the health care most all of us would expect? It does to me.

There was a 14-year-old girl named Avis Littlewind. She was on the Spirit Lake Nation Reservation. I talked to her family. I talked to her classmates in school. I talked to the Indian tribal council. I did that because Avis Littlewind was a 14-year-old girl who spent the last 3 months of her life curled up in her bed in a fetal position, desperately ill, desperately emotionally ill, with no treatment whatsoever. At the end of that 90 days, she took her own life in her bedroom.

Her sister had taken her own life 2 years prior. Her father had taken his life. She came from a very dysfunctional situation. But somehow a 14-year-old girl is not missed for 90 days? Not in school? On that reservation, they didn't have any mental health treatment capability. They told me they would have had to borrow--had someone known that Avis Littlewind, this child, was lying in bed for 90 days feeling hopeless and helpless, before she took her life--had they been able to find some mental health treatment somewhere, they would have had to borrow a car because there is no vehicle to take someone to treatment. It is a completely dysfunctional system.

These are two children who should not have died among us, but they did, and others will--perhaps today--because we have a health care system in the Indian Health Service that is not working. It is dramatically underfunded.

My colleagues who oppose the bill on the floor of the Senate recently, the Indian Health Care Improvement Act--a couple of my colleagues who voted against the act said we need reform but we are going to vote for additional funding. We are at least $2 billion short of just providing the kind of thing we would expect for us and our family.

Let me ask you this: If your aunt or your grandmother went to a doctor with bone-on-bone in a knee, so she couldn't even walk, it was so painful, a knee condition that was so unbelievably painful she could hardly move, what would we expect? Our families would expect she would get a knee operation and perhaps a new knee joint, have a replacement with a new knee.

I will tell you what happened to a woman who contacted me from the Indian Health Service. She went to the doctor with this unbelievable pain and the inability to move. She was told to wrap that knee in cabbage leaves for 4 days and it would be fine. That is not medicine, that is malpractice. What we would expect for our family would be to have a knee replacement. That is the kind of medicine we would expect. It is not the kind of medicine that is now being delivered.

Yes, there are some good people in the Indian Health Service. There are some who should not be there as well. There are people who work hard and long hours and do a great job, and my hat is off to them. There are some who, long ago, should have been fired, and no one seems willing or able to do it.

In this case, I say people are dying because we are rationing health care. That is a scandal.

I have offered an amendment that would restore $1 billion to this account. The money would be paid for by--I believe it is function 920 that will provide the payment for this. The question is, Will we decide this is a requirement, this is a responsibility? I don't know the answer to that. I have tried before. I guess some are willing to just blithely go along and act as if this doesn't exist, people are not dying, people are not suffering, or if they believe it exists, to say: You know what, it is a tough life out there, it happens. We don't have the funding.

It would have been nice, perhaps, to have told those first Americans, the American Indians, when they sat down at the table and signed the treaty and expected the Federal Government, the United States of America, to keep its promise--it would have been nice, perhaps, when the American Government signed it if they had just said: Look, we are going to try really hard, but we are not sure we can do what we are promising you we will do. We will do our best, but we are not sure we can do that.

We don't have the money, apparently, to help Ta'shon Rain Littlelight or Avis Littlewind, and we don't have the resources or the will, I guess. That is what we are told. I happen to know how much money we have to build health clinics in Iraq. I happen to know we are building 950 water projects in Iraq right now. I know how many electricity projects we are building in the country of Iraq. I know how much we are spending on road projects in the country of Iraq right now.

I went to a hearing yesterday and heard that $18 billion, most of it American money, is unaccounted for in Iraq and wasted. I went to a hearing yesterday to hear that $4 billion, most of it American money in Iraq to provide for additional equipment for Iraq's armed forces, is unaccounted for, and the head of their military who could not account for $4 million is now living in London, a big property holder. So don't tell me there is not money. How about taking some of that money and investing it here at home? How about taking some of that money and deciding to take care of our obligations and our commitments and our promises in this country?

We are going to have a long, tortured trail over this budget. I understand it. Everybody has their own sense of what is important and what is not. But if the health care for children and elders on our Indian reservations, for whom we have a trust responsibility for health care, with whom we have treaties--if that is not an urgency, if that is not something we are willing to commit to do, then, in my judgment, there is something wrong with the value system here.

I know there are so many other priorities. I look at this S. Con. Res. 70. It doesn't contain much but numbers. It is 69 pages of numbers. There are no jobs in here. There is no blood here. There is no health care here. It is just numbers. But all of these numbers mean something in a profound way. These numbers tell the American people what our priorities are and whether we are willing to keep our promises. I hope the answer from the Senate at last, at long, long last, is we will begin--at least begin to keep our promises.

If you few decide you want health care to continue as it is with respect to Indian Health Services, then you must stand up for saying: I believe in health care rationing; we are going to make a decision to withhold health care from people who need it.

The Indian Health Service--let me give an example, on the Fort Berthold Reservation, you go to a clinic that is open from 9 to 5 o'clock 5 days a week. You get sick on Saturday at 6 o'clock, or at night on a weekday, you are in trouble. You are 85 miles from the hospital.

So you go to the hospital in an ambulance that is paid for with contract health care, because they do not have that kind of capability on the reservation. So contract health care. What do they say on Indian reservations? Do not get sick after June, because there is no contract health money. If you are going to get sick, it has got to be before June. If you get sick, otherwise you end up on a gurney with a heart attack with a piece of paper attached to your leg. And the paper says: By the way, hospital, admit this woman and you may not get paid.

That is an unbelievable way for us to meet our obligations. The fact is, we are not keeping our promises. I hope somewhere in the long trail of paper, somewhere in the deep abyss of all of these numbers, perhaps there is a value system, somewhere there is a value system deep in the recesses that will get people here in the Senate to say:

You know what, one of the first obligations of this country is to keep its promises. One of the first obligations of the Senate is to stand up. It is too late for Ta'shon Rain Littlelight, it is too late for Avis Littlewind, but other children will survive and other children will live if we decide to do the right thing.

Now, I wish to say to my colleagues that I would like to offer this amendment. I am told that at some point I will be able to. If I can have a dialog with them, I wish to find out----

I have an amendment I have filed. It is amendment No. 4198. It is at the desk. I ask for its immediate consideration.

I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I have described my amendment at some length. I shall not do so again. But I do appreciate the courtesy of my colleagues, Senator Conrad and Senator Gregg.

I ask that as you consider what you would intend to vote on as we move along this process, that you will give me the opportunity to have a recorded vote as early as is possible.

About 10 or 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Budget Committee. I appreciate this opportunity. It is something that I am doing in conjunction with Senator Menendez. Senator Menendez is at a Banking Committee hearing and will be here shortly to participate.

Today, I rise to speak about a man who is best described as a defender of freedom and human rights, a consistent voice for change, and a shining point of defiance within a country rife with oppression.

This man is Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet--a Cuban who has made his life's work being an advocate for democracy and a defender of human rights. This individual risked jail time for publicly denouncing the countless human rights violations performed by the Cuban regime.

As a result, Dr. Biscet is today locked in a jail cell as one of Cuba's hundreds of political prisoners--people held for crimes not against society but for speaking out against the systematic repression of the regime. What was Dr. Biscet's crime? He called for freedom.

I bring attention to Dr. Biscet because I believe, even in his relatively young life, he has exhibited actions that rise to the level of the extraordinary and worthy of our recognition.

This is why today I, along with my colleagues, Senators Bob Menendez, Bill Nelson, John Ensign, and Norm Coleman, will introduce a measure to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet. This is in recognition of his courageous and unwavering commitment to democracy, human rights, and peaceful change in Cuba.

Over time, Congress has recognized many individuals who have made contributions to advancing freedom around the world.

Among these individuals are proponents of peace and liberty, including Nelson Mandela, Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. All have been awarded the highest award bestowed to civilians by Congress. Dr. Biscet is equally worthy of this distinction. In fact, he has modeled his efforts after those of Dr. King, the Dalai Lama, Thoreau, and Gandhi.

We should recognize him for speaking out, even though he knew he risked the regime's harassment, censure, and incarceration, and for drawing the world's attention to the regime's horrific record of human rights and disregard for human dignity and for always conducting his work through peaceful means.

He is a hero among his people and deserves Congress's recognition for his courageous commitment to the principles we hold dear: democracy, human rights, and freedom for all.

Throughout his life, Dr. Biscet has served others and has helped to bring the regime's injustices to light.

As a physician, he provided care to those living in his hometown of Havana, doing his best to practice in the poor conditions that are common in Cuba's hospitals and state-run health care facilities.

In 1997, Dr. Biscet founded the Lawton Foundation for Human Rights--a group named for the neighborhood in Havana in which he lived, and an organization whose main objective is to establish in Cuba a state based on the rule of law.

In the talks he gave before being imprisoned and in his letters smuggled out of prison these last few years remains a common theme involving the intrinsic value of liberty and human rights.

In establishing the Lawton Foundation, Dr. Biscet wrote that the purpose of it is ``to defend the inalienable rights of the human race we understand the need to put limits on government to prevent the undermining of those rights. It is because of this that we have become activists in this organization--to establish in our country the rule of law, so that each man and woman may be fulfilled as complete human beings.''

And for defending these universal principles of freedom, the foundation's members are often harassed, censured, and incarcerated.

The foundation's mission and objective may be simple; yet it is so important. ``It promotes the defense of all Cubans through nonviolent civil disobedience''--a practice set forth by Henry David Thoreau, who wrote that ``the individual is [a higher and independent power] from which the state obtains its power.''

This is Dr. Biscet's belief; it is his guide; it is a truth he continues to promote today--even from the confines of a Cuban prison.

In 1998, after publicly criticizing the quality of the Cuban national health care system, the doctor was summarily thrown in jail and forbidden from practicing medicine anywhere in the country.

Even though he has been publicly disparaged and ostracized by the regime, he has always remained committed to advancing a message of peaceful political change and nonviolent disobedience.

In 1999, he was arrested for displaying the Cuban flag upside down at a political rally and, as punishment, he was again thrown into a prison and savagely beaten, kicked, and burned.

For his work, he was arbitrarily detained 26 times in 18 months. This is without the benefit of a grand jury, an indictment, or counsel, and without the benefit of the types of protections that are commonly afforded to prisoners in most anyplace in the world, or certainly the kind of opportunity that those detained in Guantanamo had to have: the Red Cross visit and view and examine their conditions. None of these things are permitted in Cuba's gulag of prisons. After his most recent arrest in 2003, following a peaceful protest in Havana, Dr. Biscet is now serving the fifth year of what is called a 25-year sentence. There was no fair trial, there was no counsel. This was a sentence issued by nothing more than one of those courts that the Castro regime has utilized now for almost half a century.

The Castro brothers have described Dr. Biscet as a ringleader of counterrevolutionary activities. The reality is Dr. Biscet wants his people to be free. Amnesty International has declared Dr. Biscet a prisoner of conscience--someone who has been imprisoned solely for the peaceful expression of their beliefs.

The Cuban regime has put Dr. Biscet and his family through the kind of anguish few in this country could ever imagine. He has committed no crimes, and yet he sits in prison fighting for a freedom he and most of the island's 11 million Cubans have never known.

As a human rights activist, Dr. Biscet finds inspiration in the words of many men who share his desire to achieve peaceful change. He speaks of the Dalai Lama's message of peace, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s mission of tolerance, and Mahatma Gandhi's lifetime of unwavering faith.

This is a picture of Dr. Biscet. It is a picture before the last 5 years have transpired, because now we cannot obtain a picture of him. He is given very few visits, and those visits are closely monitored. It would be unthinkable to have the opportunity to take a picture of him. I will speak a little more about his confinement in a moment.

We both share a passion to one day see a free and peaceful Cuba, one where the people can hold free and fair elections so they might choose their own leaders, so they will not live in fear under an oppressive and illegitimate dictatorship.

The Cuban regime, sensing the hope brought about by Dr. Biscet's efforts, sought to make him a tool of the regime. The regime offered him a choice: He could stay in prison or he could leave Cuba and never return. He could leave the country or he could remain behind. Instead of leaving his jail cell, Dr. Biscet has courageously pleaded to stay and sacrifice his own well-being so he might continue providing hope and encouragement to the Cuban people.

This is a replica of the cell Dr. Biscet is in today. It is a mock-up because we could not take pictures of that cell, but it is faithfully drawn from the types of cells the regime commonly holds prisoners in. As you can see, it is completely closed. There is no light when that door is closed inside, the 3-foot-by-4-foot space that is provided for a prisoner.

As a result of his refusal to abandon the cause he so dearly believes in, Dr. Biscet remains in deplorable conditions, in a rat-infested cellblock, and in fact is needing medical care and getting none. This replica of the cell was described by Dr. Biscet in a letter to

his wife. He once described the conditions he lives in today. This is what he wrote:

I'm arbitrarily confined in a cell with characteristics

that violate the law; there are no windows, only walls; a

gloomy space lacking sunlight and the sky's visibility. This

is humiliating and illegal. Of the 8 months I have been in

prison in Pinar del Rio, I have seen my family only once,

during 2 hours, in the month of August. I am not allowed to

have any type of communication with my son and daughter who

live abroad.

These are conditions no one should ever have to endure.

In his most recent letter, dated March 1, 2008, a few weeks ago--and, by the way, he writes on whatever he can find, toilet paper or any other means, because he is not provided paper and pencil to write--he again called on the regime to change. He called for:

Freedom of all political prisoners and prisoners of

conscience without deportation; participation with the same

rights for all Cubans; allowing the legalization of all

political parties, to revoke the absolute rule of the

Communist party over society and a commitment to carry out

free and democratic elections.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have Dr. Biscet's full letter printed in the Record.

Mr. President, in a recent column discussing the disaster that the Castro regime has visited upon Cuba, columnist George Will wrote about another Cuban, Armando Valladares, who withstood the regime's brutal prison system for 22 years. Of the prison's conditions, Will wrote:

Some doors are welded shut and prisoners are fed watery

soup sometimes laced with glass, or dead rats, or half a

cow's intestine, rectum included, containing feces.

This is the ugly reality of what speaking openly against the Castro regime gets you in Cuba. Today there are hundreds of political prisoners in the many prisons that have cropped up since the Castro regime took power. Dr. Biscet is one of those prisoners, a noble and decent man choosing to fight for a cause greater than his own, risking everything in the process.

Throughout U.S. history, Congress, as an institution, has recognized those who stand up for democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. We owe Dr. Biscet and those he inspires the honor of knowing that we support his worthy efforts and that Americans share his desire for seeing freedom take root in a country plagued by oppression for far too long.

Awarding this honor to a man with such courage and conviction will strengthen his cause and the cause of all Cubans and send a message to the Cuban regime that they are on the wrong side of history, and they are on the wrong side of what is good and is right.

I urge my colleagues to support this man who seeks democratic change and the recognition of human rights by bestowing this honor of a Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet.

Mr. President, I appreciate the indulgence of time on this busy day on the floor. I know Senator Menendez wishes to speak on this issue, but at this time I yield the floor, and I thank the chairman for the time allowed.