Directing the Architect of the Capitol to place a marker in Emancipation Hall in the Capitol Visitor Center which acknowledges the role that slave labor played in the construction of the United States Capitol, and for other purposes.

Mr. President, I rise today to concur with my good friend from Arkansas with respect to H. Con. Res. 135, which acknowledges the role slave labor played in constructing the U.S. Capitol and thank her for her leadership on this issue. Once again, she and I had an opportunity to work on an issue that is important to America and to Americans.

Senator Lincoln has been a true champion for the common man, as well as for all Americans, on any number of issues. It has been a great pleasure to work with her on any number of issues over the years. I do thank her for her great leadership on this resolution.

The story of the very building in which we are standing is a story of freedom. It is a story of how people from every corner of the globe arrived to have a chance to steer their own lives, shape their own destinies, and toil at tasks of their own choosing, not those dictated by birth or caste.

Sadly, however, that shot at freedom was not given to everyone. For those who were brought here against their will and forced to toil for someone else's gain, freedom was a vague concept--for others but not for them. Slavery will forever remain a shameful tarnish on the shining city that is America. Unbeknownst to most Americans, slave labor helped build our Nation's Capitol. It is one of the saddest ironies of our history that the very foundation of this building in which we have debated the most fundamental questions of liberty was laid by those in shackles. They labored in the heat, cold, and dust of quarries in Virginia and Maryland to cut the stone upon which rests this temple of liberty.

We know very little about these workers and artisans, and of the few records that were kept at the time, only several first names survived, next to those of their owners and sums paid for the grueling labor. From 1793 to 1826, up to 800 slaves at one time painted, roofed, sawed, glazed, and perfected this building which represents a freedom most of them were never to know. They laid the foundation still visible at the Capitol's east front. They carved the marble columns that witnessed so many of the deliberations on the future of our Nation in the old Senate Chamber. They erected and polished the tall marble columns that lend Statuary Hall such elegance and grace.

As the Civil War ripped this Nation asunder over the very issues of human liberty, a slave artisan named Philip Reid cast the statue that crowns this very building, aptly named ``Freedom.'' I am pleased to join with my colleague from Arkansas and my House colleague from my home State of Georgia, Congressman John Lewis, in the submission of S. Con. Res. 135, which directs the Architect of the Capitol to place a marker in Emancipation Hall of the Capitol Visitor Center acknowledging the role these slave laborers played in the construction of this building and to accurately reflect its history. I would especially like to thank Congressman Lewis for his work in heading the Slave Laborer's Task Force, which recommended that such a marker be designated and erected.

This marker is a small way of showing our gratitude to these Americans, but it is a necessary and proper one.

Amendment No. 1469

Mr. President, I now wish to move to another issue. It is the issue of the McCain-Levin amendment that is before us on the Defense authorization bill. In the Defense authorization mark, we filed an amendment seeking to add seven F-22s for additional procurement by the Air Force. And as a part of that amendment, we provided all the offsets necessary within the budget to purchase those seven aircraft. That amendment passed in the full committee and now is a permanent part of the mark. The amendment by Senators McCain and Levin seeks to strip those seven airplanes out of that mark and to deny--to basically shut down--the production line for the F-22.

First, with respect to this debate, let me put it in context and draw from a statement by a Washington expert in this area who is known for being bipartisan and level-headed, and that is John Hamre, President and CEO of CSIS, and a former Pentagon Assistant Secretary under the Clinton administration. In an April newsletter, Mr. Hamre stated as follows:

All of the systems proposed for termination by Secretary

Gates in his budget have valid missions and real

requirements. None of them is a wasteful program. This is a

case of priorities. Secretary Gates has decided that these

programs don't enjoy the priority of other programs in a

constrained budget, but Congress can and should legitimately

question spending priorities. Every individual has a unique

calculus for prudent risk. Secretary Gates has rendered his

judgment. Not only is it appropriate but necessary for

Congress to pass final judgment on this question.

Mr. Hamre goes on to say:

I admire Secretary Gates, but it is the duty and obligation

of Members of Congress to question his recommendations. These

recommendations merit serious and dispassionate debate, not

sloganeering. Secretary Gates has made a series of

recommendations. Only the Congress can decide what to do for

the Nation.

Congress is the branch of government most directly connected to the American people. We have a crucial role in the budget process, which we should not shy away from. Some will say this

is a debate about jobs and pork-barrel spending, unnecessary spending and powerful defense contractors. Hopefully, Mr. Hamre's statements have at least partially dispelled what is truly a myth in this respect.

Clearly, jobs are at stake--lots of jobs--and good-paying jobs at that. About 95,000 jobs are going to be lost if the McCain-Levin amendment passes--95,000 good-paying jobs across America. Several thousand of those jobs are in my home State.

But this is not a debate about jobs. This is a debate about the security of the United States of America, and I am going to talk in greater detail about that in a minute.

Since the Korean War, our military has been able to maintain what we call air dominance and air superiority. And what that means is that our Air Force has been able to control the skies, to rid the skies of any enemy aircraft. We have been able to control the skies by having the capability of taking out any surface-to-air missile that might seek to shoot down one of our planes in any conflict with an adversary. Since the Korean War, the United States of America has not lost a foot soldier to tactical enemy aircraft because of our ability to maintain air dominance and air superiority. Well, if we do not have the F-22, our ability to maintain air dominance and air superiority is in jeopardy.

Over the years, we have been in conflicts in different parts of the world with different adversaries, and there will be additional conflicts down the road at some point in time. We hope not, but we know one thing, and that is if we have an inventory--the capability of taking away the enemy's ability to come after us--then it puts our enemy in a difficult position from the standpoint of ever wanting to engage us.

Let me respond now to some comments that Senator McCain made yesterday, and which he and others have made often, about the power of the military industrial complex. Our industrial complex is powerful, but it is not all powerful. If there were not serious national security interests at stake here, we wouldn't be having this debate.

Also, there is absolutely nothing unique about the role of outside interests in the case of the F-22. Anyone involved in the current debate we are having in this body over health care, and even this week's hearings regarding Sotomayor, knows that outside interests, including industry, are intimately involved in trying to influence the process in regard to those issues. It is simply part of the process in a democracy, and there is absolutely nothing unique to it in relation to the F-22. We wouldn't be here if there were not serious national security issues at stake that are worth debating.

However, most importantly, this debate is about what kind of military we need today and what kind of military these young people who are sitting before us today are going to need in the future. It is about the balance between needing to maintain both the ability to win current wars and guard against future challenges. The United States is a global power, with global commitments and responsibilities that exceed Iraq and Afghanistan. We are also a nation that has fought and won wars through the use of technology and not just a total reliance on manpower.

Lastly, we are a nation for whom the basic war-planning assumption for the last 50 years has been that we will control the skies--air dominance and air superiority. If that assumption goes away, so does one tenet of American military strategy and the planning assumptions attached to maintaining air dominance.

A criticism of the F-22s in the bill is that it is funding something DOD does not want. Defense budgets, as enacted into law, always--and I emphasize always--contain measures, be they weapons systems or other programs, that DOD does and does not want. As John Hamre said, it is the job of Congress to assess what DOD requests and to render judgment thereon. If we do not do that, we have given up our oversight role with which the constitution entrusts us. Congress is the branch of government most connected to the American people. It has an important role to play, and we should not shirk that role and be afraid to challenge DOD's priority, when necessary, and when we know they are wrong. This is a debate about military priorities and what kind of military we need. We cannot and should not assume that future challenges will be like today. In predicting where the next threat will come from, the United States of America and our tacticians have a perfect record: We have been wrong every single time.

Jobs are at stake, and a variety of different interests are at stake but, most importantly, what is at stake is our national security and our ability to execute our global responsibilities. That is what is at stake and that is what I am going to focus on in my remarks today.

I would also like to rebut one point critics make about the F-22 not flying in missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senator McCain and Secretary Gates have made this point often and over and over again. But there are numerous and very expensive weapon systems in this budget that we are going to be voting on in the next couple weeks that have not, and hopefully will not, be needed in Iraq and Afghanistan--the Trident missiles, the ballistic missile system, the DDG 1000. There is a long list of items that are not going to be used in Iraq and Afghanistan that are very expensive and that are contained within this authorization bill. That does not mean these systems are not needed. It is merely that they are intended to address a different threat. To argue against the need for a system because it is not being used in the current conflict is shortsighted and betrays a very short-term perspective on our national security.

Frankly, if the Pentagon had wanted to use the F-22 in the current conflicts, they could have been used. I don't know whether a conscious decision was made otherwise, but the conflict in Afghanistan is not over, and we are going to be in that area of the world for a long time to come. I suspect that before it is over, we will have F-22s flying in the region.

Let me just add that these numerous projects that DOD did not request--and there are several DOD projects which DOD did not request-- have drawn little or no attention. For example, $560 million for unrequested FA-18s, $1.2 billion for unrequested MRAPs, and significant funds to support a pay raise above what was recommended by the President. We spent a lot more money on these items than what DOD requested. So to come up here and say: Well, DOD didn't request any F- 22s and, therefore, we are to salute and go marching on is something we have never done, we did not do in this bill, and we should not have done in this bill.

Let me also address the veto threat regarding the F-22 funding. A veto is a serious step and one that should only be taken when the welfare of our troops or national security is at stake. After doing extensive research of Defense bills as far back as data is available, I have been unable to find one single example where a veto has been threatened or issued in relation to funding that correctly supports an unmet military requirement, as funding for the F-22s in this bill does. It is regrettable the administration needs to issue a veto threat for funding intended to meet a real national security requirement that has been consistently confirmed by our uniform military leaders.

Specifically, in his letter to Senators Levin and McCain, President Obama states as follows:

The Department conducted several analyses which support

this position to terminate F-22 production at 187.

I am not sure who was advising the President on this, but that statement is simply not true. Of the countless studies--and I emphasize study after study after study--that DOD has done, only one recommended 187 F-22s, and that study was based on one major contingency operation that has not even been factored into our national security strategy.

There are numerous other studies--again, numerous other studies-- including one commissioned by the DOD itself in 2007, which support buying a minimum of 250 F-22s, not 187.

I would also like to offer a few comments on the letter from Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen. Like General Cartwright did at last week's hearing, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen talk about the importance of UAVs in obviating the need for F-22s. That means taking pilots out of the air

when it comes to destroying critical adversarial weapon systems that are on the ground or in the air trying to take out our men and women.

What they don't note is that of the UAVs we are procuring in this budget--and I am a big fan of UAVs; we need them in certain scenarios, but of the UAVs we will be procuring in this budget, that we will be procuring in additional budgets, virtually none of them will have any stealth capability, and they will be useless in a situation that requires penetrating denied airspace.

In other words, if we need to fly a UAV into a country--and there are a number of countries in the world today that have the Russian-made SU- 30 surface-to-air missiles--those UAVs get shot down every single time. The F-22 is the only weapon system in our inventory that has the capability of penetrating that airspace and firing not one shot, not two shots, but three shots and getting out of that enemy territory before the enemy ever knows the F-22 is in the theater. There is nothing in our inventory or on the drawing board that has that kind of capability--certainly not the UAVs.

As they did in hearings before the Armed Services Committee, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen also do not address the issue of surface-to-air missiles and that the F-22 is more capable against those systems.

Lastly, their letter notes the decision to terminate the F-22 program at 187 has been consistent across administrations. Again, let me just say it was Secretary Gates himself, as the Secretary of Defense at the end of the Bush administration, who decided to procure additional F- 22s. We just procured those four F-22s in the supplemental we passed a month ago, or 6 weeks ago--that is additional F-22s beyond the program of record--to keep the option for additional F-22 procurement open for the next administration. So that has not been a decision of previous administrations. It is this administration that is making the decision to terminate the best tactical airplane ever conceived in the history of the world.

In relation to the letter sent yesterday from Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, I would like to quote from a letter I received from Rebecca Grant, a military expert who is at the Mitchell Institute for Air Power Studies. Here is what she says:

In the letter of July 13, from Admiral Mullen and Secretary

Gates, the characterization of F-35 as a half generation

newer aircraft than F-22 and more capable in a number of

areas such as electronic warfare and combating enemy air

defenses is incorrect and misleading. Air Force Secretary

Donley and General Schwartz have repeatedly stated, ``The F-

22 is unquestionably the most capable fighter in our military

inventory.'' And citing a Washington Post article of April

13, 2009:

The F-22 was designed with twice the fighting speed and

altitude of the F-35, to preserve U.S. advantages in the air

even if adversaries can test our countermeasures or reach

parity with us. If electronic jamming fails, the speed,

altitude and maneuverability advantages of the F-22 remain.

The F-35 was designed to operate after F-22s have secured the

airspace, and does not have the inherent altitude and speed

advantages to survive every time against peers with

electronic countermeasures. America has no unmanned system

programs in production today that can cope with modern air

defenses such as those possessed by Iran. The Navy UCASS

demonstrator program may produce such a system in several

years for carrier-based operations only. However, together,

China and Russia have 12 open production lines for fighters

and fighter bombers. Only 5 F-35s are flying today. The F-35

has completed less than half its testing. Developmental tests

will not be complete until 2013. It is impossible to assess

the full capabilities of the F-35 until operational test is

complete in 2014.

Let me just add right here, in the history of the United States of America, when it comes to tactical aircraft, we have never ever purchased a tactical air fighter while it was still in test and development stage. We always allow that to be completed because we know there are going to be deficiencies.

Going back to the letter from Ms. Grant:

The United States Air Force will not have a robust F-35

force structure for another 10 years. In addition, the

Pentagon removed funding for the F-35 to reach the rate of

110 per year as desired by the Air Force. Departing Air Force

Secretary for Acquisition Sue Payton recently warned of

potential cost growth in F-35, upon her departure. Cost

growth, or a Nunn-McCurdy breach, could slow down the rate at

which the United States Air Force takes delivery of the F-35.

The letter misrepresents the position of former Chairman of

the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers.

I ask unanimous consent to have that letter printed in the Record.

As I mentioned earlier, we see this debate and vote about the need to maintain the ability to win current wars and to guard against future challenges. While respecting Secretary Gates and his desire to emphasize winning current conflicts, we feel his stance with respect to the F-22 does not adequately account for other kinds of threats.

Specifically, I find DOD's assumption that F-22s will only be required in one major contingency or theater to be totally unrealistic. This is the assumption the 187 number is based on. Given the ability and proliferation of advanced surface-to-air missiles which require stealth to counter, and numerous hostile nations' desire for these SAMs, the likelihood of an adversary outside east Asia requiring these systems in the near to midterm is increasingly likely.

In fact, in the press recently there have been reports about a potential adversary seeking to buy the S-30s from Russia. The F-22 is the only weapon system America has that is capable of penetrating the S-30. There is a follow-on, more sophisticated surface-to-air missile being produced by the Russians today. That missile, again, will proliferate around the world at some point in time, and the only weapon system in the inventory of the United States that has capability of penetrating airspace where those weapons exist is the F-22.

The administration's current plan for F-22 basing would result in no F-22s being stationed in Europe or being

available to address a crisis situation requiring penetrating denied airspace in the Middle East.

At the press conference announcing his budget recommendations on April 6, 2009, Secretary Gates said there was no military requirement-- I emphasize that, ``military requirement''--beyond 187 F-22s, and the Air Force agreed.

On this specific issue, either Secretary Gates misspoke or he was given incorrect information. In any case, this statement has been repeatedly contradicted by his Air Force leadership.

The Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General Schwartz, in February of 2009, said he suggested he would request some additional 60 F-22s and present analysis supporting that number to the Secretary of Defense during formulation of the fiscal year 2010 budget. He commented that this request was driven by analysis as opposed to some other formulation and spoke of 243 as being a moderate-risk number of F-22s.

On April 16, 2009, after Secretary Gates's budget announcement, while speaking at a National Aeronautics Association event, General Schwartz stated, regarding the F-22: ``243 is the military requirement.'' He commented that 243 would have been a moderate-risk inventory.

On May 19, 2009, before the House Armed Services Committee, General Schwartz testified 243 is the right number of F-22s. Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 21 of this year, General Schwartz said he gauged the risk of a fleet of 187 F-22s as ``moderate to high.''

Mr. President, 187 F-22s puts America in a ``moderate to high'' risk category, according to the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.

There have been other generals who have made statements with respect to the F-22. I commend these gentlemen because they are, frankly, putting their military future at risk. I know they probably received some harsh phone calls from the leadership. But I know this too. They have also received a lot of calls from majors and captains and lieutenants and Air Force academy students today, as well as Army foot soldiers, just like I have. I know they have gotten those phone calls because I have gotten those phone calls thanking me for being willing to stand up and say: Mr. Secretary, you are wrong about this, and we need more F-22s.

Air Combat Command holds the need for 381 F-22s to provide air superiority to our combatant commanders and protect against potential adversaries.

General Corley, who is the Commander of Air Combat Command, stated that a fleet of 187 F-22s puts execution of our national military strategy at high risk in the near to midterm. Air Combat Command analysis shows a moderate risk force can be obtained with an F-22 fleet of approximately 250 aircraft.

The F-22 underpins our ability to dissuade and defer. Simply put, 243 gives us the required global coverage with 180 combat-coded jets versus 115 to 126 combat-coded jets that we are going to get if we terminate this program with 187 F-22s being purchased.

Mr. President, 180 combat deployed F-22s allows us to quickly win major contingencies with a moderate risk. Lower numbers of F-22s would sacrifice global coverage during a major contingency, encouraging adversaries to take advantage of a diminished ability to ensure air sovereignty. Out of dozens of studies conducted by DOD regarding the F- 22, every study except one recommended procuring at least 243 F-22s.

The one study that did not was conducted by the DOD staff without any Air Force input and was based on the assumption that F-22s would only be required in one scenario, which, as stated earlier, is an unrealistic assumption.

General Schwartz and Secretary of the Air Force Donley have spoken often on this issue in the last several months, including an op-ed they put in the paper on April 13. I understand there is another letter coming from them. I look forward to reading it, although I am not sure it can say anything new.

In order to better understand his position, I, along with six other Senators, sent General Schwartz a letter on May 4 of this year. Let me quote from his letter. General Schwartz stated:

We have been consistent in defining a long-term requirement

of 381 F-22s as the low-risk fleet, and 243 as the moderate-

risk for both warfighting capability and fleet sustainment.

The F-22 program of record represents the minimum number for

current force planning at higher risk. While 60 more F-22s

are desirable, they are simply unaffordable.

I think these comments from General Schwartz confirm what we all already know, that the decision to limit production to 187 is budget driven, pure and simple, and 187 is a high-risk fleet and does not meet the full military requirement.

I would simply like to ask my colleagues: Why should the United States of America accept a moderate to high-risk situation in our ability to carry out the mission of the United States Air Force in the first place?

Substituting F-22s with other aircraft will not serve the Nation's interest. Some have suggested filling the remaining F-22 requirements with other aircraft such as the F-35, the Joint Strike Fighter. I am a big fan of the Joint Strike Fighter. It is going to be a great airplane. But as Ms. Grant stated, we have five flying today that are being tested. We are simply a long way away from the F-35 reaching a full production rate and having the capability for which it was designed. That mission that the F-35 is being designed for is entirely different from the mission of the F-22.

The Joint Strike Fighter is designed for multirole strike missions and not optimized for the air dominance mission of the F-22. All the force structure studies have determined that a complementary mix of F- 22 and F-35s is the best way to balance risk, cost, and capability. The F-22 is the only proven fifth-generation fighter in production.

The Air National Guard is charged with providing homeland air defense for the United States and is primarily responsible for executing the air sovereignty alert mission. In addition to the over 1,600 Air National Guard men and women who carry out this mission on a daily basis, the Air National Guard relies on legacy F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft.

The projected retirements of these legacy aircraft--and we have in this budget that we are going to retire 250 F-15 and F-16s. I have no reason to think we will not retire at least another 250 next year, and this trend is going to continue.

Those retirements leave the Guard short of the required number of aircraft to execute this mission. GAO has commented:

Unless the Air Force modifies its current fielding

schedules or extends the service lives of the F-15s and F-

16s, it will lack viable aircraft to conduct ASA operations

at some of the current ASA sites after fiscal year 2015.

The F-15 has been a great airplane. The F-16 has been a great airplane. It has served us so well over the 30 to almost 40 years we have been flying those airplanes. In my home State at Robins Air Force Base, we have an Air Force Depot, a maintenance depot for aircraft. Last year, an F-15 literally fell out of the sky. It crashed.

Those airplanes were immediately sent to Robins Air Force Base. A number of those airplanes were sent to Robins Air Force Base to be checked out. They figured out what the problem was. We have now fixed the problem. But that is the kind of aircraft we are putting our brave men and women who are flying for the U.S. Air Force in today, and we are talking about extending the life of those airplanes for a period of time to meet the mission of the National Guard.

No plan has been developed to fill the shortfall through either modernized legacy aircraft or new aircraft procurement if we stop the production of F-22s at 187. Some 80 percent of the F-16s will be gone in 8 years.

According to LTG Harry Wyatt, the Director of the Air National Guard, the nature of the current and future asymmetric threats to our Nation requires a fighter platform with the requisite speed and detection to address them. The F-22's unique capability in this arena enables it to handle a full spectrum of threats that the Air National Guard's current legacy systems are not capable of addressing. Basing F-22 and eventually F-35s at Air National Guard locations throughout the United States, while making them available to rotationally support worldwide contingency operations, is the most responsible approach to satisfying all our Nation's needs.

So the F-22 is not just needed to counter international threats, but as

we look at a map of the United States and we look at our various Air National Guard locations around the country, we need the F-22, according to the Air National Guard, to supplement the support that is going to be required for the mission of the Air National Guard.

Let me, for 1 minute, talk about another issue that is a part of this overall long-term mission of the F-22, and that is foreign military sales. The F-22 is such a technologically advanced weapons system that a decision was made several years ago that we were not going to share this technology with other countries, as we have done with the F-16 and the F-15, and heretofore basically all our aircraft.

That was probably the right decision, to a point. But today, with respect to the F-35, we are sharing technology on that airplane, which is based upon the technology of the F-22, with the Brits, who are our primary partner with respect to the development and the production of the F-35.

So we have made a decision we are going to share the stealthy technology primarily that is available on the F-22 and the F-35 with the Brits. The F-22 and the F-35 contain a lot of other technologically advanced assets. But we now have the opportunity to develop and produce a somewhat toned-down version of the F-22 to other countries. For the last several years, we have had interest expressed in a very serious way from other countries. One of those countries has been to see me, about 3 weeks ago, and said they are dead serious about looking it purchasing the F-22 as soon as the foreign sales version can be made available.

I happen to know there are other countries that have talked to the contractor as well as the Department of Defense about the potential, down the road, for the purchase of that airplane. Obviously, the contractor cannot get involved in it, but the Department of Defense has consistently said: We have made a decision to this point that we are not going to share that technology with other countries.

Well, we live in an entirely different global world today than we did 10 years or 20 years ago. So it is time we started thinking about the potential for foreign sales of the F-22. Japan has been a very trusted and reliable ally. They need the best aircraft available to defend themselves over the long haul. Because they are an ally of ours in the part of the world in which they exist and because that part of the world has the potential for the development of future adversaries, it is critically important that we continue--and I emphasize that because we have sold them tactical aircraft in previous years--it is important that we continue to share the latest, most technologically advanced weapons systems with friends and allies such as the Japanese.

Let me read you a statement from former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Richard Myers regarding the need for an exportable version of the F-22. General Myers stated:

Japan's F-15J force, once top of the line, is now

outclassed by the new generation of Chinese fighters such as

the SU-30MKK. Moreover, China's air defenses, which include

variants of Russian-made long-range SA-10s and SA-20s, which

is the S-300 family missiles, can only be penetrated by the

fast, high-flying stealthy Raptor or the F-22. Japan's

defense ministry has studied the problem closely and has

produced a very impressive tactical rationale for buying the

F-22 if its sale is approved by the United States Congress.

Only under the umbrella of air superiority that the Raptor provides can U.S. military endeavors succeed.

Let me quote from another well-recognized individual, retired GEN Barry McCaffrey, on the need for adequate numbers of F-22s. This statement is about a year and a half old, but it is applicable today.

There is no single greater priority for the coming 10 years

for the U.S. Air Force than funding, deploying, and

maintaining 350 F-22 Raptor aircraft to ensure air-to-air

total dominance of battlefield airspace in future contested

areas.

The F-22 provides a national strategic stealth technology

to conduct--long-range (Cruises at high supersonic speed

without afterburner) penetration (at altitudes greater than

15 kilometers)--undetected into any nation's airspace at Mach

2-plus high speed--and then destroy key targets (aircraft or

missiles on the ground, radar, command and control, nuclear

stockpiled weapons, key leadership targets, etc)--and then

egress with minimal threat from any possible air-to-air or

air defense system. It cannot be defeated in air combat by

any known current or estimated future enemy aircraft.

That is coming from a ground soldier, somebody who depends on that F- 22 and, heretofore on the F-15, to maintain air dominance and air superiority so the ground troops under his command can have the assurance in knowing that they can move freely without the threat of enemy aircraft.

Without more than 187 aircraft, we are not going to be able to guarantee the foot soldier on the ground that capability. The F-22 Raptor is in production and is operationally deployed around the world. Continued F-22 acquisition is low risk, as the aircraft has successfully completed its development program and passed a stringent set of real-world tests. By all measures, the F-22 is now a model program and continues to establish industry benchmarks for an aircraft production program.

The F-22 program is on budget. The contractor team is currently delivering 20 F-22s per year under a 3-year multiyear program that was approved by Congress 3 years ago. The multiyear contact is firm, fixed price, meaning that the U.S. Government is buying a proven capability with no risk of cost growth. It is ahead of schedule. In 2008, every F- 22 delivery was ahead of contract schedule.

This ahead-of-schedule performance continues into 2009. Since early 2006, every F-22 has been delivered on or ahead of contract schedule. The contractor is producing a high-quality aircraft. In military aircraft production, the highest standard for quality is zero defect. A zero-defect aircraft is evaluated by the customer to be perfect in all respects. In 2008, nearly one-half of the F-22 deliveries were evaluated to be zero defect--an exceptionally high level of aircraft quality.

Still to this day, no one can say for sure, with any analysis to back them up, that 187 F-22s is enough. The F-22 should be viewed in the collective as a tool in the toolbox.

Detractors argue that the F-22 is single-purpose. Throughout history, we have been effective in adapting the tools we have to the needs we have. All one has to do is to look at what we are doing today with the B-52. That airplane is 50 years old--older than that; it may be 60 years old. There was a point in time when we thought we would retire all of the B-52s. It is a bomber. What are we doing with the B-52 today? Today, the B-52 is flying close air support for our troops in Afghanistan. The SSBNs are being used by our special operations men and women, and they are doing a very effective job.

A general once said that the most tragic error a general can make is to assume, without much reflection, that wars of the future will look much like wars of the past. If we are going to pass a budget and develop a weapons system inventory that is based upon the wars of the past, then we are headed in the wrong direction. The war we are fighting today is entirely different from any conflict in which we have ever been engaged. We have been wrong every single time when it comes to predicting the next adversary we will have.

Senator McCain mentioned the July 10 Washington Post article on the performance and maintainability of the F-22. Let me say that we know nothing appears on the front page of the Washington Post by accident, particularly the week before an important vote. I guess I ought to be flattered by the attention. But for the record, the same reporter who wrote that article on the day of an important hearing in relation to the F-22 multiyear contract in 2006 is the same author of the July 10 article.

The article in question bore absolutely no relation to the issues at stake. Nevertheless, it led to a new study on the savings that would be achieved through a multiyear contract, a study which was conducted at government expense. Despite the article's obvious attempts to obscure the facts and issues in the situation, that new study, done pursuant to request of this body, concluded that the multiyear contract would save twice as much as the previous study.

Just briefly in relation to the Washington Post article, by close of business the day the article was published, the Air Force had already issued a rebuttal. It concluded that of the 23 claims in the article, only 4 were true,

4 were misleading, 10 were false, and 5 required greater explanation and context beyond what the Post article reported.

I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Air Force statement in rebuttal to the article in the Washington Post be printed in the Record.

The Washington Post article is unique in some ways. I guess it may be SOP for articles that are somewhat vicious and where they contain as many errors as the Air Force has pointed out with the facts supporting the errors that were made; that is, the July 10 Washington Post article was based upon unnamed sources. It was based upon a couple of folks who said they were fired either by the contractor or by the Air Force. We take that for what it is worth.

One of the complaints cited in that article was the fact that there are problems with the skin on the F-22. Let me back up a minute and talk about the sophistication of this airplane. There is a problem with the skin. That has been a problem. What we have to remember is that we have never had an airplane that could fly with the capability that this airplane has, that could fly completely undetected, completely through any radar system of the most sophisticated nature of any potential adversary in the world. The reason this airplane can do that is because it is made of substance and material that is unique and different to this airplane, including the skin on the airplane. Are we going to have problems with something that is that unique and has never been used before on any tactical air fighter? You bet we are.

The position of the folks who are in support of this amendment is that we ought to stop production of the F-22 and buy the F-35 at a faster rate. Even if we do that, if we have F-35s flying tomorrow, they are going to have exactly the same maintenance issues as the F-22. The F-22 is the model upon which the Joint Strike Fighter is based. So let's don't kid ourselves. We are not taking an airplane that costs X and substituting it with an airplane that costs half or three-quarters of X. That is not going to be the case. Mistakes have been made-- surely--but it is the first time we have ever had a weapons system like the F-22 manufactured by anybody in the world. From the mistakes we have learned. We are going to have a better F-35. But that F-35 is going to have the same skin problem. It is going to have the same weight problem the F-22 had, the F-15 had, the F-16 had, and probably every airplane we have ever developed. It is going to have the same maintenance issues we are having with the F-22 today.

Although the article was wrong in one major area with respect to maintenance, the article says the maintenance of the airplane was having a success rate of 55 percent. That is wrong. As the Air Force points out, between 2004 and today, the successful maintenance rate on those airplanes has gone from 64 to 69 percent.

The future of TACAIR for the United States likely does reside in the F-35 and not with the F-22. Even if we keep buying F-22s, it will never match the number of F-35s we will eventually buy. Everyone hopes, as I do, that the F-35 succeeds. But as the chair and the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee themselves have stated, there is a good deal of risk in the F-35 program, and there is additional risk in what we need to put in place today when it comes to the lives of our men and women who are fighting our conflicts and who are flying these airplanes.

The history of Defense programs, and aviation programs in particular, has been remarkably consistent, particularly when it comes to building programs that represent a leap in technology. They cost more. They take longer. They have more problems than we expect. GAO has criticized the F-35 approach, and they, as well as the leadership of our committee, have stated that not performing sufficient development testing before we proceed to procurement is one of the primary drivers for cost increases and schedule delays in major programs. That is exactly what is being proposed with respect to the F-35.

I am a supporter of the F-35. We are going to build far more of them than we are F-22s. But I am not the only observer to state that we should think twice about staking the future of our TACAIR fleet on a program that has only five test aircraft flying today.

I wish to talk briefly about the offsets included in our amendment which are in the mark used to fund the purchase of these additional seven F-22s. Senator Levin talked about the offset at length. I would like to respond to some of his comments. Most importantly, there is absolutely nothing in the offset we used and nothing that has not been used by the Senate Armed Services Committee or the chairman himself in previous bills.

Just last year, Senator Levin reduced military personnel funding by $1.1 billion, which is significantly more than what my amendment reduced it by. For the MILPERS and O&M reductions in my amendment and the markup, in each case the amendment takes either less or approximately the same amount as the House Armed Services Committee bill did for this year. In every case, the amendment takes less than the GAO reported average under-execution/unobligated balances in those accounts. This includes the cuts the Senate Armed Services Committee already took in their mark.

The SASC bill itself notes that GAO estimates that DOD has $1.2 billion in unobligated O&M balances and $588 million under-execution in the Air Force civ pay accounts. This is from actual language in the Senate report.

In the civilian personnel area, the GAO reports conclude that more funding is available than what my amendment takes. The GAO report takes into account the expansion of acquisition personnel who will be hired this year.

Regarding MILPERS, GAO analysis suggests that there is on average $1 billion available. My amendment leaves a balance of $200 million in that account.

The chairman also commented on the provision in my amendment that assumes savings based on acquisition reform legislation authored by Senators Levin and McCain. Let me say that my inspiration for this particular offset was Senators Levin and McCain. I thought they did a great job with that bill. I hope we can continue to improve it because it is an area where we have to work harder to avoid wasteful spending.

The chairman included a nearly identical provision as mine in S. 1416, which was the Senate version of the fiscal year 2002 Defense authorization bill. That bill assumed a savings of $1.6 billion based on acquisition reform bills and the SASC bill for that year. However, unlike my provision, which assumes savings already in law because of passage of the Levin-McCain bill, savings assumed by the chairman were based on provisions that were not yet enacted and, based on the conference process, may never have been enacted. Based on inflation and large increases in the DOD budget since then, that is probably the equivalent of $2 to $2.5 billion today. In any case, this is a tremendous amount of savings, and my amendment would assume far less. The offset is based upon predicted savings in the fiscal year 2010 budget based on recently passed acquisition reform legislation such as the Weapons System Acquisition Reform Act, Public Law 111-23, also the business process reengineering provision in the SASC mark and other management efficiencies and business process reforms.

Senators McCain and Levin and President Obama are correct. Savings from this acquisition reform measure could greatly exceed that number, because in their press conference after the successful passage of that bill, they all three talked about the tremendous savings. I agree with them. That is going to happen. That is what we used as part of our offset.

I want to end where I started, by agreeing with John Hamre. John Hamre says:

Congress can and should legitimately question spending

priorities.

Not only is it appropriate but necessary for the Congress

to pass final judgment on this question.

Secretary Gates has rendered his judgment. . . .But it is

the duty and obligation of members of Congress to question

his recommendations [and his analysis].

There is absolutely nothing unique or in the least bit wrong about what we are doing. Not to do so would be to abdicate the role with which the Constitution and the American people have entrusted us. If President Obama believes the additional funding for these F-22s warrants a veto threat, even though that funding addresses an unmet military requirement, then that is his decision. Our job in Congress, as John Hamre has indicated, is to look at the facts, weigh the risks, and render the judgment. That is our role--our independent role--in the process, and we should accept it and use our best judgment to decide what is right for the Nation.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning business to speak about the health care deliberations we are undertaking. I know we are under the Defense authorization bill. My remarks should not take that long.

Mr. President, as I indicated, I rise today to talk about health care reform and the hard truths that have so far been not hidden but I do not think have been very much aware to many Americans.

I was inspired to come to the Senate floor today because we are holding hearings in the HELP Committee--and we are holding hearings in the Finance Committee--and a series of events in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee made me recall the observations of a well-respected public opinion analyst, pollster Daniel Yankelovich, founder of the New York Times/Yankelovich Poll.

The HELP Committee has been struggling--well, we have been working hard; ``struggling'' probably is not the right word; and many thanks to the chairman, Chris Dodd, our ranking member, Mike Enzi, and the members of the HELP Committee--but we have been going through a multiweek markup that I think has been characterized by some very wishful thinking on the part of the majority members of that committee; namely, the hope or the wish that they can somehow not reveal the very real costs and tradeoffs raised by their health care reform bill. I think the American people ought to become more and more aware of this.

The bill the HELP Committee is marking up establishes all sorts of new government programs, all sorts of new government mandates and controls--all justified by the need to ``rein in health care costs'' and ``increase health insurance coverage.'' I know those are two very good and noble pursuits, which I support wholeheartedly. As a matter of fact, I think Republicans now have about six bills to do the same thing. They do not get much attention, but we have six bills.

But there is a big problem with this bill. It does neither of these things, in my opinion. It neither reduces costs, nor does it significantly increase coverage. In fact, it significantly increases costs for very little gain--``costs,'' c-o-s-t-s. Remember that word. But my colleagues on the HELP Committee continue to wish and to hope they can obscure this reality through a barrage, really, of speeches and rhetoric and what I call misleading figures.

It has been this behavior that has caused me to recall Mr. Yankelovich's observations on something called the evolution of opinion. I am going to use that as the basis of my remarks--the evolution of opinion. The article was in Fortune magazine, and it jogged my memory in this regard. But, in any event, I think it serves as an important illustration of the health care reform process so far. Mr. Yankelovich observed that the evolution of a person's opinion could be traced through a continuum of seven stages. That is a fancy way of saying there are steps you go through when you are trying to think something through.

First, we have had daunting awareness: the realization that our health care system was not working for every American and needed to be addressed. I think everybody understands that.

The second stage, greater urgency: the economy began to go south and people who used to rely on their employer for health insurance began losing their jobs.

Then there is the third stage: reaching for solutions. Our committee has held hearings and began to meet with stakeholders. The administration met with stakeholders. The stakeholders, I think, probably met in good faith. And it has only been recently they have discovered they may have signed on to something that is very illusory, to say the least.

Fourth, the stage where many on the HELP Committee and elsewhere have arrived at today: the wishful thinking stage, the well-intentioned, romantic, simplistic, perhaps naive moment where all one sees are the benefits, without considering the consequences--the law of unintended effects. For example: the totally misleading claim by the majority that the new data from the Congressional Budget Office revealed a much lower score for this bill, $597 billion--a lot of money--while still expanding health insurance coverage to 97 percent of Americans. This claim is the very definition of ``wishful thinking.'' But facts are stubborn things. The actual CBO numbers say this bill leaves 34 million people still uninsured. That is not 97 percent coverage. In order to gain anywhere near 97 percent coverage, we would have to significantly expand Medicaid--a very expensive proposition which, according to CBO, adds about $500 billion or more to the cost of this bill.

More wishful thinking: The $597 billion cost was further artificially lowered through several budget maneuvers, such as a multiyear phase-in and a long-term care insurance program that will increase costs significantly outside the 10-year budget window CBO is required to use. Here we are passing a long-term insurance bill that goes beyond 10 years that CBO cannot even score.

After taking these realities into account, a more accurate 10-year score of this bill is closer to $2 trillion. I said that right: not $1 trillion--$2 trillion.

This is when we should arrive at the fifth stage of opinion making: weighing the choices. Since the true cost of this bill is approximately $2 trillion, we must own up to the American public about the tradeoffs. We must finally understand that the tradeoffs threaten a health care system that polls tell us has a 77-percent satisfaction rate.

This is not to say we should not undertake any reforms, but we need to honestly discuss the costs and benefits of reform proposals. And the majority's proposal is high on cost and low on benefits.

The No. 1 tradeoff that Americans need to know is, higher taxes. Remember when the President promised: If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increased, that you would actually see a tax cut. Well, like so many other pledges, those promises had an expiration date, and that date is rapidly approaching.

The bill raises $36 billion in the first 10 years in new taxes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance. That is a penalty. It raises another $52 billion in new taxes on employers who do not offer their employees health insurance.

As an aside, guess who suffers when the employer's taxes get raised? It certainly is not the employer. It is the employee who gets laid off or does not get a raise. It is the applicant who does not get hired. Even President Obama's own Budget Director admits this fact.

At least one economic survey estimates that an employer mandate to provide health insurance, such as the

one in the Kennedy-Dodd bill, would put 33 percent of uninsured workers at risk for being laid off--33 percent of uninsured workers. The study went on to say that ``workers who would lose their jobs are disproportionately likely to be high school dropouts, minority, and female.'' It is a job killer for the very people whom the bill ostensibly seeks to help.

These new taxes do not come close to paying for this bill, and the ideas that have been coming out of the Finance Committee, on which I am also privileged to serve, the House of Representatives--the so-called people's body--and the administration prove that these new taxes will be just the first of many.

One option: a new and higher income tax on taxpayers with earnings in the top income tax brackets--there is some press on that as of now-- including small businesses--essentially a small business surtax--to pay for government-run health care. Keep in mind that this surtax is in addition to the higher income taxes the President is already calling for in his budget.

The President's budget proposal calls for raising the top two individual tax rates in 2011. Many small businesses file their tax returns as individual returns, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, NFIB, estimates that 50 percent of the small business owners who employ 20 to 249 workers fall into the top two brackets. When these higher income taxes are combined with the proposed surtax to pay for the government-run health care, it means that a small business could see its tax bills go up by as much as 11 percent--11 percent--when this health care reform bill finally takes effect--an income tax rate increase of about 33 percent over what they pay today.

But it does not stop there. Under the proposal the House is expected to unveil, possibly today, they leave the door open for even more tax increases on small businesses. That proposal is expected to allow, in 2013, for the small business surtax to be raised by several additional percentage points if health care costs are higher than expected, which is likely.

These higher income taxes would be a devastating hit on our Nation's small businesses--the same small businesses that create roughly 70 percent of the jobs in this country and are the backbone of our economy. We should not be raising taxes on these job creators if we want our economy to rebound and grow and expand.

Small businesses in Kansas tell me they feel they are already stretched to the limit, and they worry that to pay the additional taxes called for in the President's budget, not to mention an additional small business surtax to pay for a government-run health care program, they will have to cut back elsewhere--``cut back,'' meaning layoffs; cutbacks, meaning really it is the worst thing you could do for the economic catalyst of our country, the small business community. Make no mistake, these will be difficult choices. They will have to reduce the wages and benefits of current employees. They will have to pass their costs on to their customers. They will have to lay off workers or not hire new employees. None of these are good options for workers, small businesses, or our economy.

But higher taxes are just one of the ways the majority wants to pay for this massive expansion of government. The other method? The other method will be cuts to Medicare. You heard me right: Medicare, cuts to Medicare, cuts to the reimbursements to providers to our senior citizens, cuts we have been trying to prevent, where we have added money in almost every session we have been in.

There would be $150 billion from the hospitals. The hospitals have agreed to this with their national organizations but funny thing: The hospitals from Kansas came back to me and said: Not on your life. For a person who has worked hard to prevent cuts in that market basket of provider reimbursements to keep our rural health care delivery system whole, it comes to me as a great surprise that their national organizations would sit down and say: OK, we are going to give up $150 billion, only to learn a couple days or weeks later that some in the House say: That is not enough. So they didn't have a deal--and another few hundred billion from the physicians. I haven't heard any agreement on that from the physicians.

Tens of billions from home health care agencies and radiology and home oxygen and PhRMA. Let's don't forget PhRMA, who agreed to a certain amount of cuts--I think it was $80 billion--but now they have learned that figure isn't firm. So whoever else gets strong-armed or weak-kneed into making a deal with this administration, you better be careful.

Again, when doctors and hospitals and pharmacists and home health agencies get their reimbursements slashed by Medicare or Medicaid, who pays the price? It is not the provider, at least not at first. It is the people with private insurance who pay a hidden tax to make up the difference--some $88.8 billion per year, according to a recent Milliman study. Once the provider runs out of private payers to shift this cost deficiency onto, who pays? It is the patients who lose access to a doctor or a hospital or a pharmacist or a home health agency.

In addition to cutting Medicare payments, this bill will dump, by some estimates, well over a million new people onto a government-run health care plan which will never pay providers enough to cover their costs, despite any rhetoric otherwise. As this number grows and the private market shrinks, the decrease in the number of doctors and hospitals and other providers will be inevitable. We see that already. We already have rationing. We already have shortages. We already have doctors and providers who say: I am sorry, I am not reimbursed to the extent I can stay in business and offer you Medicare. So rationing is not a scare word, it is something that is happening now. It will simply not be possible for them to keep their doors open on the margins that the government will pay them. And that is when rationing of health care will become a way of life in this country.

Oh, I can see it now. It will either be by age or by test or by the comparative effectiveness research golden ring that CMS--that is another acronym--an outfit that works for the Department of Health and Human Services. These are the bean counters who look in this way at health care and don't look at the real effects, and I see what can happen.

These are the tradeoffs the American people need to know about in this bill. Yep, $2 trillion in new spending, higher taxes, job-killing employer mandates, and rationed health care. And for what? To overhaul a system with which 77 percent of Americans are satisfied.

I offered several amendments in the HELP markup just this morning, attempting to force the committee to face stage 5--remember my Fortune magazine and my stages of evolution of thought--to truly weigh the choices, that is the next stage. My amendments would have prevented Federal health subsidies from being funded through higher taxes on employers, higher taxes on individuals and families or through cuts to Medicare. All three were defeated in a party-line vote. I wasn't alone in trying to get the committee to weigh the choices in this bill. Senator Alexander spoke very credibly as a former State governor about the fiscal catastrophe that expanding Medicaid eligibility will cause for the States. Again, he was defeated by a party-line vote.

How can we ignore the very real consequences of raising taxes on individuals and employers in a recession--some say the worst recession since in the 1930s? How can we deny that further cutting Medicare will increase costs for everyone else and possibly eliminate access to health care for our seniors? How can we turn a blind eye to all the States that are already facing a financial meltdown and force them to take on billions of dollars of new Medicaid obligations?

Some are still stuck in stage 4, still hanging on to their wishful thinking.

Well, I am ready to move on to stage 6, and probably everybody else is as well here on the floor. It is called taking a stand. I hope we can all take a stand to preserve the system that works well for the vast majority of Americans and to consider a more cost-conscious, realistic, and patient-friendly approach to greater health care reform.

By far the most important stage for us is--yes, the final stage-- stage 7:

making a responsible judgment. The policies in this bill are very expensive, and the American people need to know that someway, somehow they will have to pay for them. So we must thoroughly examine the cost and the tradeoffs in health care reform. We cannot simply engage in wishful thinking. The American people expect us to make responsible judgments. There is simply too much at stake.

I understand the leadership of this body is in a dash, a rush to finish the hearings in the HELP Committee to produce a bill, as well as to force the Finance Committee to come up with a markup of a bill to pay for all this. I don't know how you pay for $2 trillion while the Finance Committee is talking about $350 billion and those are very controversial. I have a suggestion. I think we ought to put a big banner right up here where the President is not, right over there. I don't think the President would mind very much, and it could just say, ``Do No Harm.'' Then maybe we could put something underneath that and say: ``Slow Down'' or maybe in the language of my State ``Whoa.'' And then put that in the back of the HELP Committee, put in the back of the Finance Committee, and let's do the job right.

I am delighted to yield.

If my distinguished colleague--well, I will take back my time and yield back for any comments he may want to make. The person on the other end of the phone call, was he for the health care bill or was he against it?

Whether for or against, I hope the Senator from Mississippi would have explained that we both have some real concerns, and we hope we can get real health care reform.

I also thank the Senator.

Let me just give one quick example of what I am talking about with regard to Medicare. The President of the Kansas Pharmacists Association is from a very small town out West. We conduct a lot of listening tours, and we go into the pharmacy. The pharmacists, we ought to give them a GS-15 salary because they are the people who deal with Medicare Part D. That is the prescription drug program we give to seniors; it is very popular.

Let's say a lady named Mildred came in to see her pharmacist there and Mildred talked to Tom, the pharmacist, and said: What is this doughnut hole? And Tom says: Well, that is where you have to pay a bigger copayment. And she says: Well, can't I get a new kind of program or something else that will help me out here? He said: Yes, there are 47 new programs you can choose from. Mildred, the one that you want is right here. She says: Good. Then I am not going to get hurt with the cost of the prescriptions I need. He says: But I can't offer it to you? Why? Because I only get reimbursed 71 percent.

That is about the national average. How on Earth can we expect every pharmacist all around the country to administer--and they are the ones doing the administering; it isn't the Area Agency on Aging or the 1- 800-Medicare. So he had to tell her that the program in Medicare Part D that would cover the doughnut hole, he didn't get reimbursed enough and couldn't offer it. Well, he helped her out. All pharmacists try to do that. That is where we are.

Or if Mildred goes to the doctor and the doctor says: I am sorry, I can't take any more Medicare patients--that is happening. It is real. This bill exacerbates that--exacerbates it. That is why I am so upset and why I came to the floor today.

I will go back to the HELP Committee in good faith to work with my colleagues and we will try to make it bipartisan. I know on Thursday we are supposed to have a markup in the Finance Committee--marching orders from the leadership around here, right in the middle of a Defense authorization bill. We don't need marching orders. We need to slow down. We need to slow down and get this right.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, President Obama was in Warren, MI, today, and a little while ago he made an announcement. He announced a new $12 billion national community college initiative. That sounds very good at first. As a former Governor and Secretary of Education for the United States, I am a big fan of community colleges. I think they are our secret weapon for helping men and women in this country go from one job to the next and to improve our workforce.

But I respectfully suggest that what the President, his Education Secretary and his economic advisers--and I think his Education Secretary may be his very best appointee of all--I say this with respect, I think they ought to be asked to stay after school at the community college and write on the blackboard 100 times that in a year in which we have run the Federal deficit up by another $1.8 trillion, I will never again add another penny to entitlement mandatory spending. Then I think we in the Congress, as we legislate this year, ought to do some truth in lending. To do that, we would have to put a little card with every 1 of the 15 million student loans, if the President's proposal goes through, and say: The interest you are paying on the money you are borrowing is almost all being used to pay for somebody else's scholarship in the President's community college initiative.

I think it is important to say that because, as good as it sounds to say: Let's help the community colleges, I am afraid this is a familiar refrain we have been hearing from the White House for the last 6 months. Instead of reducing entitlement spending the President is again adding to mandatory spending. Entitlement spending, which is driving up our debt to unbelievable numbers, a situation where the President's proposal for the next 10 years is more new debt than we spent, three times as much money as we spent in World War II. This is one more Washington takeover, in addition to banks and insurance companies and car companies and maybe health care. It is now the student loans of the country.

It also changes the way we fund higher education, which is usually to take almost all our money and give it to students in Pell grants and student loans and let them choose the college, rather than to give grants the way we do with K-12.

Let me take a few minutes to explain why I am saying this. The idea the President has is to spend $2.5 billion for community college facilities, buildings. Every State has community colleges. One of our major jobs as governors and state legislators is to fund those community colleges. Traditionally, the Federal Government gives scholarships, and the Pell grants often pay for almost the entire tuition at a community college, making them very important to American students. But this moves the Federal Government into construction and renovation of community colleges, as well as $9 billion for competitive challenge college grants to increase graduation rates and $500 million for online curriculum. So the choice is, instead of more money for Pell grants and administration of student loans, we are going to spend it on direct grants to some community colleges. In other words, we are going to start funding higher education, community colleges, in the way we fund kindergarten through the 12th grade.

Despite the fact that higher education is by far the best in the world, the most admired system--and one reason is because we don't have a lot of Federal direct programs for it; we give the money to students, they choose the school--we are going to start doing it more like K-12, which is not the most admired system in the world.

The $12 billion would be paid for out of savings from the regular student loan program we have now because under the President's plan all new student loans would go through the U.S. Department of Education. So let's take that idea first.

We have about $75 billion in student loans every year. That is a huge bank. Fifteen million students borrow money for student loans. Twelve million of them borrow through 2,000 different institutions--banks--and spend the money at 4,000 institutions of higher education. Three million choose to go through the government, where they get a direct loan directly from the government.

I was the Secretary of Education when this program was created. I didn't see any reason for the Direct Loan Program because I didn't think the U.S. Department of Education ought to be a bank. I thought the Secretary of Education ought to be trying to be the educator of the year, not the banker of the year. But the argument is, well, we can borrow money more cheaply in the government. We can borrow it for a quarter of 1 percent and then we can loan it out at 6.8 percent to students. Banks can't do that. So we will do it, and we will take it over and do it all here. We will do all 15 million loans from the U.S. Department of Education. We will be the banker of the year.

Mr. President, the Federal Government is getting real busy. This is becoming the national headquarters for automobiles, where we own 60 percent of General Motors; we are running a bunch of banks; we run some insurance companies; we are talking about a government-run health care program; and now we are going to take over and make a huge national bank out of the U.S. Department of Education. The reason is because we can borrow money more cheaply here.

Well, why don't we just abolish all the financial institutions in America and say: We can borrow money more cheaply than you can, so you go away and we will do it all.

That is not the American way. In fact, most Americans would like to get the government out of the car business, out of the banking business, and out of the insurance business. I can guarantee you that as soon as 15 million students start lining up outside the U.S. Department of Education to get their student loans, instead of going through their local banks and dealing with their local universities, they are not going to be very happy about this either because they have had a choice for nearly 20 years, and they have chosen to go to their private lenders.

So that is the first problem. We are canceling the choice that 12 million students are exercising this year to get a federally backed student loan from a bank even though they could have gotten a student loan directly from the government.

Then we are saying: All right, because we are canceling that, we are saving $94 billion and we have money to spend. Well, in the first place, that is not right, Mr. President. By my calculation, according to the Congressional Budget Office estimate of what it costs to operate the current Direct Loan Program, it will cost about $32 billion over the next 10 years, at least, to operate the entire student loan program out of the U.S. Department of Education.

My common sense tells me--and I have thought this for years--that there is not any way a group of educators in the Department of Education--a relatively small department--are going to operate more efficiently than banking institutions across America in making loans. That is not their business. They know about scholarships and graduation rates, not about being bankers. My common sense tells me that, and I think it does most Americans. Plus, we have a free market system, or at least we did, where we try to get things out of government, not into government.

So that is the proposal. Yet 32 billion of the dollars over the next 10 years are

illusory savings, so we are really adding to the debt. Then the President is saying, well, let's take some of that $90 billion as mandatory spending. I know this gets a little complicated, but it is really not that complicated. He is saying the money we now spend to pay the costs to the government of loaning out this $75 billion every year is automatic mandatory spending, so let's take it away from how we now spend it on the administration with banks, and let's spend it instead on mandatory spending for community colleges.

In other words, he has an opportunity to say let's take away some money that is being automatically spent every year and save it. Let's save it. Or he could say, let's put it for students. But I think most of us would say--and he has said in his summit on entitlement spending--that we need to stop adding entitlement spending. But that is not what he is doing.

Indeed, his other proposal--which is not announced today but is the rest of his proposal--is to say we have this $94 billion--which I think is closer to $60 billion or $50 billion--that we could save, and he is going to say we will make Pell grants entitlement spending. Well, Pell grants are terrific grants. There are 5 million of them. We appropriate them every year for low-income students. There was $19 billion appropriated for that purpose last year. The Congress has always been enormously generous with that. We appropriate a certain amount. It is almost automatic, but it is not automatic.

In other words, we appropriate what we think we can afford, and then we spend it on the students who need it. This proposal to shift Pell grants to mandatory says it doesn't matter what we can afford, we are just going to do it. Again, it is exactly the kind of thing that most economists, most Americans, and the President himself has said we need to stop doing. Yet in the full light of day, we are saying and announcing that we are going to create a community college program, and later a Pell grant program, and we are going to pay for it with mandatory automatic entitlement spending.

While the President says it is $94 billion that could be saved over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said it is $293 billion-- nearly $300 billion--in automatic spending over 10 years that we could avoid. Yet the President is saying we should spend it. I am very disappointed with that.

Then here is the last point I would like to emphasize--well, there are two points really. The President is saying: I am here today to do a favor for you. I am going to spend $12 billion on community colleges. But what he doesn't tell you is the people paying for that are the people borrowing money to go to college.

So if you are getting an extra job at night so you can go to college, and you are taking out a student loan, the government is going to borrow money at a quarter of 1 percent and loan it to you at 6.8 percent and use the difference for its own purposes. We are making money on the backs of students who are borrowing money to go to college and then taking credit for spending it for somebody else's scholarship or some community college program and we are not telling anyone that. So we need a little truth in lending.

Finally, I am concerned about the changes in direction from the way we support higher education. We are very fortunate in America to have this terrific higher education system, including our community colleges. In a way, we got it by accident because with the GI bill, when the veterans came home from World War II, we just gave the money to them and they went anywhere they wanted to. That is not the way we do with kindergarten through 12. We have all these programs. It is command and control, and we support the institution instead of the student. We call the argument about that ``vouchers.''

When we have arguments like that, we get all excited. We did in the Appropriations Committee the other day, and the Senator from Illinois and I argued--we each got 15 votes--about the DC voucher program: Shall we give our money to students and let them choose a school or shall we support the school? Well, in higher education, 85 percent of the dollars we spend, or some figure about like that, goes to the student, who then chooses the school. It may be a community college or a Jewish school or an African American school or a Catholic school or a public school or a private school or a for-profit school. We don't care, as long as it is accredited.

As a result, we have a higher education system that attracts the best foreign students anywhere in the world and gives Americans choices. As a result we have almost all the best colleges and universities in the world.

So this proposal is a little shift from that to say the Federal Government would take all the money--which I would argue we don't have--but this $12 billion we are going to give to grants in higher education instead of to students. I would rather give it to students.

So I applaud the President for his interest in higher education and community colleges, but I would suggest to him that we have too much debt and too many Washington takeovers, and we shouldn't be funding this program on the backs of the students who are borrowing money and working an extra job to go to college. I don't think they would appreciate knowing that the interest they are paying is mostly going to pay for someone else's scholarship. They might ask: Why do I have to do that? Why isn't that person in the same shape I am?

The President was in Warren, MI, in the middle of the auto business, and we have some suggestions--or I would have--for other ways to deal with the problems we have with the economy today. One would be that since we are near the General Motors headquarters, to celebrate their emergence from bankruptcy by giving the 60 percent of the stock the government owns in General Motors back to the taxpayers who paid taxes on April 15; that we should focus on cheap energy so we can reindustrialize America, including our automobile industry, by 100 nuclear powerplants; that we could take the mandatory spending and instead of spending it, save it and have less debt. That would be a real favor to the students.

To revitalize housing, we could have Senator Isakson's $15,000 tax credit to help get the housing market going again. Then in our health care debate we could stop talking about more government takeovers and, instead, take the available dollars and give the money to low-income Americans and let them buy their own insurance, like most of the rest of us have.

So this is a big difference of opinion we have. As noble as the idea of supporting community colleges is, this is not the way to do it.

Another Washington takeover and too much debt. There is a better way.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on another amendment I have filed that is at the desk, but I know there is a pending amendment, so I suppose I should ask to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, this amendment I rise to speak about is numbered 1528. I am hopeful before too long it will be the pending business. I know it has now, and I believe it will, enjoy broad bipartisan support.

This amendment would increase the authorization for the Active-Duty end strength of the U.S. Army over the next 3 years by 30,000 additional soldiers. I wish to say right at the outset it is an authorization; it is not an appropriation. It says within its terms that it is contingent on a decision by the Secretary of Defense that he chooses to fill these positions, and if he does, then he has two major options.

One is to reprogram from other funds under his control to support these additional troops, and the second, of course, is to return to Congress for a supplemental appropriation.

In my opinion, for all we have said and done in expression of our concern about the stress the members of the U.S. Army are feeling and their families are feeling, based on the fact that they are carrying the overwhelming burden of the wars in which we are involved in Iraq and Afghanistan--we have done a lot to improve living conditions, to offer more support for physical and mental health services, to provide better housing for families, but this is about how much time the soldiers can be back at their home bases and back with their families. I will get to this in detail as we go on.

Last month, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees voted to give the Secretary of Defense the authority to increase the Army's end strength by an additional 30,000 soldiers for fiscal years 2011 and 2012 but not 2010, for reasons that I will describe as somewhat arcane. This new authorization will provide the Secretary of Defense with the ability to increase the size of the Army to the extent he thinks it is necessary for the national defense or for other purposes such as reducing the stress to which I have referred on our troops today.

I was privileged to introduce the amendment along with Senator Thune, my ranking member on the Airland Subcommittee, during the Senate Armed Services Committee, as well as Senator Graham, to provide this authorization, and I am glad to be joined in introducing this amendment No. 1528 with my bipartisan group, including the two formerly mentioned Senators, and others.

This amendment would extend this authorization where it logically must begin to fiscal year 2010 beginning on October 1 of this year, 2009. We introduced this amendment because it will provide our soldiers with the reinforcements they will need to execute the missions we as a nation have sent them on. Indeed, our soldiers will be under even more stress in the coming months because of this fact. As we begin the responsible strategy for drawdown in Iraq based on the extraordinary success of our troops and the Iraqis in turning around the war in Iraq, we are also deploying additional soldiers under the direction of our Commander in Chief, President Obama, to Afghanistan at an even faster pace than they are returning home.

GEN George Casey, the Army's Chief of Staff, warned us in the Armed Services Committee earlier this year that the effect of these two facts--a slow and methodical drawdown in Iraq of our Armed Forces, Army, and an increase in deployment to Afghanistan--means that the total number of soldiers deployed to combat will be increasing through the rest of this calendar year and into the next.

As General Casey said to us, this matter of dwell time, which I will speak about in more detail in a moment, is a matter of supply and demand: How many soldiers do we have, and what is the demand for them in the battle zones, the war zones.

GEN James Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently confirmed the critical challenges the U.S. Army will face in the near term and the importance of increasing Army Active Duty end strength. Speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee just last week, General Cartwright said:

There is that period of 2010 and 2011 in particular where

that stress is going to be there. During 2010 because of

execution, and in 2011 because [units will be] coming back,

refilling and trying to retrofit. You're going to have stress

on the Army in a significant way.

And I add, stress on the Army means stress on the families of those who serve us in the Army.

General Cartwright continued by stating that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are working with the Army to find a range for growth that would reduce this strain on the service. ``We have looked at this, we have worked in a range''--and I add here of increasing Army Active Duty-- ``from about 15,000 to 25,000 . . . 30,000 would give us the range in which to work to allow us to do that.''

That is exactly what this amendment would do, give the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs, and the Secretary of the Army the latitude to increase the Army temporarily by as

much as 30,000. Why? To increase the dwell time. That is the time our troops can spend at home and, thereby, reduce the stress in a most significant way imaginable.

I deeply appreciate that General Cartwright would speak so clearly about the Army's requirements of additional soldiers in the coming months and how hard he and Secretary Gates are working to support our troops. I believe it is our duty to make sure they have all the authority required to do so.

Let me speak more about what dwell time is. Dwell time is time soldiers have between Active Duty deployments, time they spend recovering and preparing for their next deployment and, most significant to our soldiers, I would guess, precious time they can spend at home with their families. This dwell time ratio for many of our soldiers today is little more than 1 to 1, which means they have but 1 year at home for every year they spend in the theater. Everyone agrees--everyone agrees--that this dwell time is absolutely unacceptable. It may also be unsustainable.

When General Casey testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year, he said it is his goal to get to a point where we have at least 2 years back home for every year our soldiers spend deployed. In fact, he said his ultimate goal at which he believes the Army would be most effective would be to have 3 years at home for every year in the field.

General Casey hopes that a responsible drawdown from Iraq will allow him to achieve that goal. I share the general's hopes. But, frankly, I do not believe we can bet the well-being of our Army on them without providing authority to the Army and the Secretary of Defense to expand the troops to reach those dwell-time goals of at least 2 to 1 about which General Casey talked.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, told our committee this year that the ``light at the end of the tunnel'' is still more than 2 years away for the Army, and that is only if everything goes according to plan in Iraq. I believe that 2 years is too long to wait, especially when we can take steps now to turn on the light, if you will, to provide our soldiers with the reinforcements and relief they need.

I think it is important for my colleagues to know this amendment has the strong support of many of our soldiers and those organizations that fight for them.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record two letters, one from GEN Gordon Sullivan, president of the Association of the U.S. Army, and, second, from ADM Norbert Ryan, writing on behalf of the Military Officers Association of America.

Mr. President, General Sullivan is a retired former Chief of the U.S. Army, a great American soldier. I quote, briefly, from his letter to me about this amendment supporting the amendment:

As you know, the troop increases in Afghanistan will

precede decreases in Iraq, causing the number of deployed

soldiers to increase into next year. The Chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff testified to Congress that it will be

difficult to increase dwell time at home over the next 18 to

24 months within our current end strength. Factor in the more

than 30,000 soldiers who are on the rolls but not deployable,

and it's obvious what a strain that would be to our current

troop levels. . . . I hope your floor amendment [and the

debate of it] will help your fellow Senators see [that].

The Army is in dire need of sufficient troops to increase

dwell time for active duty soldiers, increase support for

operational missions, and help the Army achieve

reorganization objectives.

He concludes:

We say that we want to ease the stress and strain on

soldiers and their families, and now is the time to do the

one thing that will provide immediate relief.

And that is to increase the authorization of the U.S. Army end strength as the number of troops it can have actively deployed by 30,000 and to fill that 30,000 increase.

Second, Admiral Ryan, another distinguished servant of the United States, a patriot, says:

On behalf . . . of the Military Officers Association of

America . . . Today's combat forces and their families are

paying a terrible price.

This is a very personal letter. I will start again.

Today's combat forces and their families are paying a

terrible price in family separation and stress for our past

failure to grow our armed forces at a pace sufficient to

accommodate the extraordinary wartime deployment requirements

of the past seven years.

For years, we have relied on the patriotism, dedication,

and resilience of our men and women in uniform to bear 100

percent of the Nation's wartime sacrifice. But with thousands

experiencing their third or fourth combat tour since 2001 and

the prospect of a decade of persistent conflict ahead,

reasonable leaders must take responsible action to ease the

extreme strain our military members and families have been

required to absorb for so long.

And then he says:

[This] amendment recognizes that the only way to do so in

the face of increasing deployment requirements in the near

term is to authorize a substantial increase in Army end

strength for FY2010.

That is exactly what this amendment would do. The authority provided in the amendment is temporary in nature and will expire in 2012. We hope and pray that by that time, we will be able to return the Army end strength to 547,000. If Congress increases the end strength of the Army now, as this

amendment would authorize, we would be able to reevaluate that judgment as conditions on the ground and in the world justify.

I say, in conclusion, again, there is no money attached to this amendment. This gives authority to the Defense Department to raise the Army end strength, the number of troops on Active Duty by 30,000. If Secretary Gates decides, in his judgment, it is necessary to do in our national interest, then he will either have to come back and ask us for the money to do so or he will reprogram funds that are now under his control.

I ask my colleagues for their support when this amendment comes up, and I hope it comes up soon.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I will perhaps come back later to speak on the F-22 and the work my colleagues, Senator Levin and Senator McCain, have done. But I want to speak about another amendment I have offered that I hope might gain acceptance as we move forward, and that is an amendment to the Defense authorization bill that would require contracting officials in the Pentagon to take into account evidence of bad past performance by a contractor when deciding who should get future contracts.

You might think that contracting officials would already be required to take past performance into account. But the fact is, that is not now required over in the Pentagon. I want to go through some thoughts with you about this issue very quickly.

I have held 19 hearings on contractor waste, fraud, and abuse. I have to say, going back some years now, we have had the greatest amount of waste and fraud and abuse by contractors than we have seen in the history of this country. Let me give you some examples.

Shown on this chart is a man named Efraim Diveroli, 22 years old. Oh, by the way, he is the CEO of a company. That is right, the president and CEO of a company. The company is a shell company his father used to have. But he took it over, and he hired a vice president, as a matter of fact. The vice president's name is David Packouz, 25 years old, the former vice president of the company. He is a massage therapist. So this is a company in Miami, FL, that does business out of an unmarked door. Through the best evidence, there are only two employees--a 22- year-old president and a 25-year-old massage therapist who is the vice president. Well, guess what. These two guys got $300 million in contracts from the U.S. Government. Can you imagine, $300 million in contracts from the Pentagon?

There have been arrests in this case. But the question is, Why? I called a three-star general to my office to say: How on Earth could you have done that? How could you possibly have done that? Did you not check?

I checked. These guys also had some small contracts with the State Department which turned out to be bad contracts. But they could have at least done a small amount of checking before committing $300 million of the American taxpayers' money. What they did for that money was ship a bunch of shoddy products over to Afghanistan to the military, bullets and guns that were dated from the 1960s. That is one of the reasons this company and these fellows ran afoul of the law. But the question is, How did all this happen?

This guy, as shown in this picture, with a striped shirt is named Frank Willis. This is he, in the striped shirt. He is holding a Saran- wrapped pack of money. This is part of a couple million dollars that went to a company called Custer Battles. This is he, by the way, in Iraq. He said: Our motto was, You bring a bag because we pay cash. He is talking about defense contracting.

Custer Battles is alleged to have taken--they were going to provide security for the Baghdad Airport, which had no commercial airplanes flying in and out. It was alleged they took the forklift trucks off the airport and put them in some sort of machine shed and repainted them blue and then sold them to the Coalition Provisional Authority. So you bring a bag because we pay cash, it was said.

Here is what the guy over at the Baghdad Airport said. I am just telling you all this because I held 19 hearings. I have done 19 of them. Here is what the guy who is the airport director of security said in a memo to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Here is what he said about Custer Battles, which was given the contract. They got over $100 million in contracts.

Custer Battles have shown themselves to be unresponsive,

uncooperative, incompetent, deceitful, manipulative and war

profiteers. Other than that they are swell fellows.

Think of it. So what do we think of these contractors? They got a lot of the taxpayers' money.

This is a picture of Cheryl Harris with her son Ryan Maseth, a Green Beret, Special Forces. Ryan, unfortunately, tragically was killed in Iraq--no, he was not shot by some insurgent; he was electrocuted in the shower. His mother Cheryl was told that they thought maybe he went into the shower carrying a radio and therefore was electrocuted. It turns out that was not the case at all. The fact is, he took a shower in a place where the wiring had been done improperly. Why? Because Kellogg, Brown, and Root, which was paid to do the wiring, hired third-country nationals in most cases who could not speak English and did not know the wiring codes, and they wired up a shower and this poor soldier lost his life because he was electrocuted in the shower.

I held hearings about that. Eric Peters, who was working in Iraq as an electrician, said: Third-country nationals performed the majority of KBR's electrical work. Most have absolutely no knowledge of the National Electric Code or British Standards, and the quality of their work reflects that. Much of this work is not clearly inspected by licensed electricians. I personally have refused to sign off on work they have performed because I knew it was not up to code. That is what we paid for, and some soldiers have lost their lives.

This list goes on and on and on.

Eric Peters, a brave soul who worked in Iraq to do electrical work, worked for KBR. He came back and testified: I concluded that KBR was not capable of performing quality, legal, electric installations in Iraq. I worried every day that people would be seriously injured or killed by this defective work.

The reason I want to tell you about this is, not only have soldiers lost their lives, but the task orders for which that work was done resulted in award fees, bonus fees, to the company that did shoddy work.

As a result of my hearing, they sent a task force over to investigate all of the buildings in Iraq. The fact is, we have testimony and evidence that there was a massive amount of wiring that was done improperly that put soldiers at risk. Yet the Pentagon provided award fees, which are fees designed only for excellent performance, of $83 million of the taxpayers' money to a company that did shoddy work; work sufficient so we had to come back around and do what is called, I believe, a corrective action request order, where you had to go back and inspect everything and redo the work. The question is, How is all this going on?

Let me describe the story of Bunny Greenhouse. A lot of people do not know Bunny Greenhouse. What an extraordinary person she is. She grew up in southern Louisiana in a family who had nothing. Two in their family teach college. Her brother is Elvin Hayes, one of the top 50 basketball players of all time. Bunny Greenhouse has a couple of master's degrees, is very well educated, and rose to become the highest civilian in the Corps of Engineers over in the Pentagon. Here is what she testified to with respect to some of the contracting that went on. She lost her job as a result of having the courage to speak publicly.

I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to

contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and

improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of

my professional career.

For that, she lost her job.

It is not just KBR. I mentioned Custer Battles, Efraim Diveroli. How about Parsons Corporation?

This, by the way, is a photograph every American should remember when you talk about waste and fraud and abuse. This is called ``The Whale.'' This picture is a picture of a prison in Iraq that was never completed and will never be used. Mr. President, $31 million was paid to the Parsons Corporation for building a prison the Iraqis said they did not want and would not use. The $31 million was colossally wasted in unbelievably bad construction. That is after this same company was given a couple hundred million dollars to rehabilitate 140 health clinics in Iraq, and we were told later that most of those health clinics are imaginary, quote/unquote. They do not exist. Well, the money is gone. The $200 million is gone. But the health clinics are imaginary.

Well, the same company was contracted to build the prison in Iraq. It is called the Kahn Bani Sa'ad prison, but it is referred to as ``The Whale.'' Here is what it looks like, as shown in this picture. We spent $40 million. The first $31 million was paid to Parsons. Another $9 million was paid to an Iraqi contractor. And here it sits in the desert, never ever to be used, paid for by the American taxpayer, and paid to contractors who did shoddy work and were kicked off the site.

The question is, What do we do about all that?

I have proposed an amendment that is pretty simple. It is interesting. There is currently no requirement that contracting officials over in the DOD have to take into account shoddy work practices or shoddy performances by contractors. There is a requirement they take into account criminal actions, civil fines, that are leveled against contractors. But there is no requirement they must consider bad past performance. It is unbelievable, but it is true.

I offer an amendment that says, Do you know what, the time is past when bad performance by big contractors gets you a slap on the wrist and a pat on the back and another contract. It is time--long past the time--we put an end to this.

I know my colleagues, Senator Levin and Senator McCain, feel strongly about this issue as well. I appreciate the work they have done. All of us need to do everything we can to assure the American taxpayers they are getting their money's worth. Defense is something we invest in for this country. It is very important.

As I conclude, I want to say this: I put together a chart, and I am going to speak about it in the next day or two. But it relates to this question of the F-22. This chart shows Federal budget deficits. We are on an unsustainable path. It is not a Republican path or a Democratic path. It is just an unsustainable path that cannot work for this country's future.

Take a look at this chart. Here is the middle of a deep recession, $1.9 trillion in deficits, and then it gets a little better, and then goes back down.

We are on an unsustainable path, and it does not matter what you are talking about, whether you are talking about an airplane or some other area of Federal budget responsibility. We finally have to decide: Things have changed. We have to invest in things that provide dividends for this country's future. We cannot continue to spend money we do not have on things we do not need. That is not a sustainable course for this country.

So I will speak more about these issues, including the F-22, at some other point. But let me thank my colleague, Senator Levin, and my colleague, Senator McCain as well.