Travel Promotion Act of 2009

Mr. President, the legislation that is now the business of the Senate, on which we will have a cloture vote at 5:30, is legislation that probably demonstrates that agreement is near impossible in this body.

If you cannot agree on tourism, what can you agree on? Tourism ought not to be the subject of very substantial controversy. Yet it is.

Last week, in an article in Roll Call, it says ``Senate GOP still saying no.'' The quote is:

When they bring bills up, we are going to extend the debate

as long as we can, block everything.

So this legislation is simple, and it is bipartisan. Republicans and Democrats have both supported this legislation. I was the author of it. We have Republican and Democratic cosponsors. It is the Travel Promotion Act. Why should we promote travel?

If you watched the U.S. Open Golf Tournament today, you might have seen the country of Turkey advertising during that golf tournament. They were running an advertisement saying: Come to Turkey. We want you to travel to Turkey and see the wonders of our great country.

Why would they do that? Most countries are now aggressively involved in trying to attract international destination tourism to their country. Why is that the case? We know on average that an international traveler spends about $4,500 per trip, and that means they are purchasing hotel rooms and car rentals and going to see exhibits and parks and all kinds of things. The fact is, it is job creating in a country where international travelers visit. So most countries are now very active trying to attract people to their countries. Japan is, as are Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, France--you name it.

I have some charts. Here is an example of what is happening out there. This is an advertisement: ``Sweet secrets from Japan.'' To learn about Japan and its culinary arts and traditions, this is an advertisement saying: Come to Japan. Come and travel in the country of Japan.

Here is an advertisement from France. Picasso, Normandy Landings. Come and see France with the Eiffel Tower.

Here is one for Belgium. ``Travel to Belgium where fun is all in fashion,'' they say.

Brussels, ``Sophisticated simplicity, the capital of cool.''

This one says: ``One special reason to visit India in 2009. Any time is a good time to visit the land of Taj. But there's no time like now.'' Come to India.

The list goes on and on.

Here is Ireland. ``The Emerald Island. Go where Ireland takes you.'' And here is a beautiful picture of Ireland saying: Come to our country.

Finally, we have Australia. ``Arrive for an experience to remember. Depart with an adventure we'll never forget.'' Come to Australia.

I describe these and the fact that Turkey advertises on a golf tournament because here is what happened to visitors to the United States since 2000: Between 2000 and 2008, we have had a 3-percent decrease in visitors to our country from other countries. Mr. President, 633,000 fewer people have come to the United States to visit per year that existed in 2000. Over 8 years, we have actually lost ground and had fewer people visit the United States. Contrast that with the number of international visitors around the world, which is up 40 percent. The United States is down 3 percent.

We have constructed--Republicans and Democrats together--a piece of legislation, which I have brought to the floor, that attempts to get our

country into the game to say let's compete with Australia, France, Italy, Turkey, and Belgium and ask international visitors and travelers to come to our country to see the wonders of our great country. Spend some money here to create jobs here and create economic development here. We are not doing that now. We are not even in the game.

So we suggest a private-public partnership we believe could be very helpful in attempting to stimulate international visitors to our country. The Travel Promotion Act will encourage visitors from all around the world. We establish a corporation for travel promotion.

We fund it with a very small charge on international visitors coming to our country, as most countries do, by the way, a $10 fee on those who are coming from the countries that had the visa waiver provision with our country.

Here is what has been said about our country recently, and here is perhaps why fewer people are visiting the United States. The Sydney Morning Herald said, ``Coming to America is not easy.'' I think there was a feeling around the world post-9/11, we are very interested in trying to keep some people out of here. Obviously we wanted to keep terrorists out. But we made it pretty difficult for people to come visit, get a visa, stand in line, wait for months. The Guardian said, ``America, more hassle than it's worth.'' The Sunday Times in London says: ``Travel to America? No thanks.''

So a group of us, a large group, over 50 in the last Congress, put legislation together saying: Let's find a unique way to promote our country. We put together the Travel Promotion Act. And by the way, unlike almost every other piece of legislation that comes to the floor of the Senate, that costs money and would increase the deficit if not paid for, the Congressional Budget Office says: Enacting this bill would reduce budget deficits by $429 million--that is almost a half a billion dollars--between 2010 and 2019. So this would reduce the budget deficit. We are not talking about something that spends money. This reduces the budget deficit over 10 years by nearly $500 million.

We fund this, in large part, with a small $10 fee from the visa waiver countries in which visitors are traveling to our country. As I have described, Australia has a $37 departure fee; Guatemala, $30; the Philippines, $15; United Kingdom, $80 to $160. The fact is, this goes on all around the world. We are proposing a very modest fee on visitors from visa waiver countries.

Newspapers all across this country have supported this. Dallas Morning News: The Travel Promotion Act is a sensible first step toward putting the welcome mat back on America's doorstep.

The Detroit Free Press: Doesn't it make sense to encourage, at no cost to taxpayers, foreign visitors to come here and leave us some of their money? There is no good reason not to pass this bill.

The Los Angeles Times: Considering that the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars on public diplomacy with dubious results, and nearly nothing promoting tourism, we might do well to invest a little money in wooing travelers.

The Sacramento Bee: This country needs to reclaim its status as a global magnet for visitors, even in the post-9/11 climate. And Congress could help by passing the Travel Promotion Act by the end of this year.

This ought to be something that we bring up and almost pass by unanimous consent. Guess what kind of a tortured journey this bill has been on. First and foremost, the bill is reported to the floor--and you have got to have a motion to proceed. You cannot just bring it to the floor. If someone insists, no, no, you have got to have a debate and then a vote on whether you should even proceed to the bill.

So we did. Not because we should have had to do that, just because someone said: You know what, we are going to decide to be a human set of brake pads and slow down everything that happens in the Senate and prevent anybody from getting anything done.

So on a travel bill, the Travel Promotion Act, that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit and tries to attract international visitors to our country, which would be a good thing--there is a lot here to see and experience, and almost everyone who leaves after visiting the United States of America has an unbelievably good opinion of what we are about. This is a great country, yes, with a lot of attractions, but a country whose culture and character is something we need to exhibit to everybody in this world to say: Here is who we are. Here is what America is about. Here is the grand idea that is the most successful democracy in history. Come here. Visit here. Become a part of what we are experiencing on your international travels.

We are not doing that now. But we suggest we should. The bill that is broadly bipartisan to do that is to be brought to the floor of the Senate. We are told: No, you cannot do that. First you must have a debate, and then a vote on the motion to proceed.

So we have to file what is called a cloture petition, which takes 2 days to ripen. You lose 2 days. Then we have a vote. And the vote is 90 to 3 in favor of it. The implication there is we should not have had to have a vote and waste a couple of days. But we did.

Then, after the cloture vote, 90 to 3, we were told: No, you cannot go to the bill yet, there is 30 hours postcloture, and we insist on burning all 30 hours postcloture.

We had 2 days for the cloture petition, then a 90-to-3 vote, then we had 30 hours wasted time postcloture. Why? Because someone insisted upon it. And so now all of a sudden we are on the bill.

Well, last Thursday and Friday, I worked, Senator Reid worked, and many others worked to see, all right, we are on the bill. Now can we figure out what kind of amendments are going to be offered.

We had a discussion over there in the middle of the aisle with Senators McConnell, Reid, Martinez, and others. We agreed we would begin with amendments on each side. Perhaps we started with three and two, then we said five amendments on the Republican side and three amendments here at least to start the process.

Can you give us a list of your amendments? We got a list of the amendments, five amendments on what is called the TARP program, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, having nothing at all to do with this bill. We said: That is fine. Okay. You want to have five debates and votes on TARP. Okay.

Here are our three amendments, two of which had to do with the studies. The other was an amendment by Senator Sanders that said to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that we want them to use all of the authority they now have, plus any emergency authority, use the authority you now have to start finding a way to shine the light on these unbelievable speculators who are running up the price of gasoline. Not a very controversial amendment. It does not give the CFTC any new authority. It deals with the question of the runup in the price of gasoline. It does not give anyone any new authority. But the Republican side said: Nope, we are not going to allow you to offer that amendment. We are going to tell you which amendments we intend to offer. We said, okay, that is fine, whatever amendments you have, God bless you, go ahead and offer them.

But they say, but you cannot describe to us a set of amendments, three, five to three, and if the three includes an amendment to try to see if you can shut down some of the excess speculation using the authority that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission now has, we are not willing to do that.

Most people would listen to all of this and say, it is the same old thing. Nobody can agree on anything. But, you know, in every circumstance where there is disagreement, there has to be someone who is holding out. Right? We come to the floor today without an agreement on amendments, so the majority leader had to file a cloture petition. We have a cloture vote at 5:30 today.

This Congress cannot even agree on tourism, for God's sake. Unbelievable to me. How dysfunctional can a legislative body become? You cannot agree on tourism.

But let me at least talk for a minute, before I talk about the importance now of having a cloture vote and requiring to have a cloture vote on this, let me talk about what the other side objects

to with an amendment that my colleague wants to offer. I agree that the amendment does not relate to the bill, but their first five amendments had nothing to do with the bill either. So why should the minority be telling the majority what kind of amendments they can offer?

But here is the amendment. People remember when the price of oil went from about $40 up to $147 a barrel in day trading; went up like a Roman candle, then came right back down. The same hotshots, the same speculators, who made a fortune pushing up the price of oil, made a fortune on the upside, the same folks made a fortune on the downside. The victims are the people who drive up to the gas pump having to pay $4, $4.50 for gasoline.

Let me show you what has happened. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission--I mean nobody knows what that is much outside of Washington, DC, CFTC. We have all of these acronyms. Well, it is a group of people who have done their level best imitation of a potted plant for a long time. They decided to do very little in areas where much was needed.

The oil futures market is a very important market. You need to hedge, we understand that. The futures market is established for a very specific reason, and it is an important market. But speculators have broken the back of that market. Here is what happened. Thirty-seven percent of the trades in the oil futures market were by speculators in 2000. Now it is 80 percent. That is what caused the price of oil to go up to $147 a barrel. They were speculating on the way up; they turned it and were speculating on the way down and made money on both sides.

Before I show what has happened to the price of oil now--by the way, it is starting again. Demand is down because of the recession, and the supply of oil is up, and the price is going up.

What does that tell you? It tells you the same shenanigans are going on. And the CFTC, which is supposed to be our agency, that is the referee with the striped shirt and the whistle, supposed to be watching what is going on and taking action to shut some of it down, once again, not much going on. Senator Sanders says: We ought to ask them, at least ask them, to use all of their authority to shut it down.

We have a government agency called the EIA, Environmental Information Administration. It costs about $100 million a year, actually over $100 million a year. Their job is to know everything there is to know about energy, and to make the best estimates they can make. I want to show a chart that shows the runup to the $147 a barrel for oil.

This chart shows 2007-2008. The yellow line is the estimates by our agency, the EIA, saying: Here is where we think the price of oil is going. Each yellow line--this, for example, is January 2008. They said: Here is where we think the price of oil is headed. March 2008: Here is where we think it is headed. Of course, this was the price.

One would ask the question, and reasonably so: Who are these best informed people at EIA who are supposed to give us an estimate of what is going on? Well, what is going on now? What we see now is an EIA projection made in January of this year, the yellow line.

The EIA says: Here is where we think oil is going to go now. But, of course, anybody who drives a car and has stopped at a gas pump recently understands what is happening to the price of oil. The price of oil is something now over $70 a barrel, on the march from $37 a barrel. That is happening at a time when demand is down and supply is up.

I taught economics in college ever so briefly. But the supply-demand curve is something you can learn the first day. When supply is up and demand is down, price is not supposed to go up. If it is going up, there is something wrong. There is something happening. And that is what is happening now.

Where will it go? Will it go to $90? I notice one of our big investment banks thought it would go to $90. I would love, if I had subpoena capability, to find the position that investment bank was holding in oil futures as they made that announcement. But that is an aside for another day.

The question is: Is it reasonable to have an amendment by Senator Sanders to say: We want the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use all of their authority to try to understand what is going on? The other side says: Absolutely not. We do not intend to allow you to offer that amendment.

I mean, I do not understand why. Whose interests would they be supporting or protecting? The speculators? Big investment banks? Those who are holding oil offshore in ships? Those investment banks that actually have bought oil storage for the first time in history to take oil out of supply and store it, and wait as the price goes up and make money? Is that whose interests are at stake here?

Let me come back to the point I was making. We tried very hard Thursday and Friday to reach an agreement on amendments on both sides. We said: Absolutely. You want amendments. You want all five amendments on the TARP program? It has nothing to do with the bill. By all means, feel free. Start offering. We are ready. And the other side said: Well, you give us all we want, but we do not intend to agree to much of anything you want, kind of a one-way agreement that they would have known was destined to fail.

Again, I do not understand how we have gotten to a point on a piece of legislation that should be so noncontroversial, sufficient so that with a 90-to-3 vote on the motion to proceed, it is brought to the floor of the Senate, a bill that had over 50 cosponsors last year here in the Senate, a bill that deals with travel and promotion of travel and tourism, that we now have this unbelievable impasse.

We had to have 2 days with a cloture motion on a motion to proceed that passed 90 to 3 and then have 30 hours postcloture. Then we were going on this merry-go-round last Thursday and Friday with an absurd proposition that the minority wants to decide what amendments the majority can have, despite the fact that the majority says: You can have whatever amendments you want. They must have missed the last couple of elections. They apparently think they run the Senate.

What runs the Senate is consensus--consensus by people who care about getting things done on important issues. If you cannot do something on tourism, how on Earth are you going to do something on health care and energy and climate change and a lot of things that matter a lot about this country and the future? If you cannot do a tourism bill, what can you do? It is pretty unbelievable to me.

I know we can have people come and explain, even until they are completely out of breath, why they object to everything. I just described: Senate GOP still saying no. Democrats need to know when bills are coming up, we are going to extend the debate as long as we can--on and on and on.

How about just picking out one or two little issues--one or two issues--that would advance the country's interests and say: Do you know what, on this issue we will just park the politics at home. We have to leave the politics back in the office. We will come to the floor and say: What is good for the country?

I will tell you what is good for the country here on this issue; that is, in a very troubled world, where a lot of people have looked askance at this country and we have gotten some bad reputation around here and there--and some bad information about America--I will tell you what is good: to have people come to this country and just be around for a bit and experience this great country of ours and understand when they hit our shores this is a citadel of freedom. You can do everything you want.

This is an unbelievable place, and we need people in the world to understand it and to understand especially this: You are welcome to come here. We want you here. We want you to come and see and sample and understand what America is about. That is what this bill is. If we cannot even agree on that, how on Earth will we agree on the big issues of the day?

We will have a cloture vote at 5:30. My guess is, the minority will say: We believe this vote needs to be a leadership vote. All of you have to vote against cloture because we haven't offered the first amendment. Do you know why you have not offered the first amendment? Because you would not agree on anything. We tried Thursday. We tried Friday. You would not agree on anything. We agreed on all your amendments, and you would not agree on a thing. So here we are--I and

my Democratic and Republican cosponsors on this bill we have worked on now for 2 years--coming now to a cloture vote in which some will say to others: You can't vote for cloture because we haven't had any amendments.

I hope perhaps between now--10 to 4 o'clock--and 5:30, if there are well-meaning people in this Chamber who really wish to make progress for our country, we could have an agreement on amendments and then just go forward. Let's do that.

I was there when Senator Reid said to the minority leader: Look, let's just at least start. We do not have to have a whole list of all the amendments. Let's just start. If you want the first five amendments--whatever it is you want--bring them on. We will have the amendments. And we will give you three of ours. Let's just start the process.

We could not even get that done Thursday and Friday.

The American people deserve better than that from all of us. They deserve a Senate that works. And if the Senate cannot work on bipartisan legislation dealing with tourism, can you name a subject where it will work?

My hope is that in the next hour and a half, perhaps some will come to the floor who have the interest and the ability to reach an agreement, so we can begin the amendment process and finish the bill this week. We can do that. We should not defeat this cloture motion. In fact, we should vitiate the motion--if we could get the leadership of the other side to come to the floor and say: We agree with what you proposed last week.

Let's start. Let's start now. Let's have some amendments tonight and have some votes. We can do that.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, at 5:30 we will be having a cloture vote, and the cloture vote deals with the underlying legislation called the Travel Promotion Act. As I said earlier this afternoon, if the Congress cannot agree on something such as tourism, what is to become of the issues of health care, energy, climate change or so many other significant controversial issues that come before us?

This underlying bill is very simple. It is bipartisan. Over 50 Members of the Senate have cosponsored this bill in the last Congress. It actually reduces the Federal budget deficit by close to a half billion dollars. As I indicated, it should bear no controversy at all. It is simply the development of a public-private partnership that would begin to market our country, as most other countries are doing, in order to attract destination international tourism to our country.

All the other countries are doing this. If you watched the golf tournament today--the U.S. Open--in the middle of the golf tournament, they broke to a commercial. It was the country of Turkey saying: Come to Turkey. Come and visit the wonders of Turkey.

Well, good for Turkey. They are out trying to promote international tourism. But the same is true with France and Italy and Japan and India and Great Britain--so many other countries.

Why are they doing that? They are doing it because it is unbelievably job creating to have international tourism come to your country. On average, an international tourist spends about $4,500 on hotels and cars and tourist attractions and food. So it is unbelievably job creating and boosting to the economy of the host country.

But even more important than that, our country needs to do this. From 2000 to 2008, we now have 633,000 fewer visitors per year from overseas than we had 8 years ago.

Why is that the case? It is because some people believe we do not want them to visit our country. Quite the opposite is true. So we suggest, rather than to keep losing economic opportunities from international tourism, let's at least join the discussion and get in the game by promoting tourism to our country as a destination for international tourism. Let's at least get in the game.

So our bill creates this public-private partnership and establishes the capability to begin promoting our country. Why is that important? Well, obviously economic development and jobs. But even more important, at a time when there has been so much controversy about our country and actions abroad, and so on, to invite people to our country and have them come here and visit this country is to have them leave with a wonderful impression about the United States of America. There just is not any way to visit our country and leave with a bad attitude about what the United States is and what it means.

This is a great place, the greatest democracy in all of history, with unbelievable freedoms that many people in the world do not have. But it is a wonderful country, full of natural resources and wonderful people. To come here and visit is to leave and believe very positive things about our country. That, it seems to me, makes a lot of sense these days.

Madam President, a colleague was on the floor just a bit ago saying, well, he could not vote for cloture at 5:30 because he was not allowed to offer his TARP amendment. Of course, TARP has nothing to do with the underlying bill. We said that he could offer the amendment. The rules of the Senate allow somebody to offer a TARP amendment. He says, however, that the majority--that is us--is saying: We are going to obstruct your right to amend the bill.

This colleague must not have been around last Thursday and Friday when we were negotiating to try to get an agreement. Their side would offer the first five amendments. We said you can offer your first five amendments. All of them were so-called TARP amendments--the troubled asset relief program. Well, TARP amendments--having nothing to do with tourism and travel, but that is fine. We said: OK, you can offer that.

So how is it somebody comes to the floor of the Senate now and says they are being obstructed? We said: You can offer them. But then what they said was: Well, we want five TARP amendments, and here are your three amendments. One of your three amendments is one by Senator Sanders that we will not allow you to offer. We object to that.

What was the Sanders amendment? It was pretty simple. The Sanders amendment would require that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission use existing authority to begin trying to tackle this question of what is happening in the runup of oil prices. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has acted like a potted plant for a long time. Oil prices went to $147 a barrel in mid-2008. Yet, the CFTC was explaining to us: Well, that is just supply and demand.

That is total nonsense--total nonsense. It had nothing to do with supply and demand. It had to do with speculators breaking that oil futures market. So the CFTC did nothing about it.

Right now, the supply of oil is up; demand is down; and the price is going up. Once again, there is something wrong. So the Senator from Vermont wanted to offer an amendment. So I included it in the list of the amendments we would offer to the Republicans last Thursday and Friday, saying: OK, you want to offer five amendments that have nothing to do with the bill. That is fine. You can do that. Here are the three amendments we propose to start with.

They said: No, no, no. You cannot offer the Sanders amendment.

Wait a second. The minority is going to decide what the majority can offer? We have just said to the minority: You can offer your five TARP amendments that have nothing to do with this bill. That is fine. So now we have somebody coming to the floor this afternoon saying he has to vote against cloture because the majority says: We are going to obstruct your right to amend? Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the decision by the minority has put us in this position. So apparently we will have people coming to the floor of the Senate with the belief that somebody obstructed their right to amend the bill. But the TARP amendments they proposed were agreed to by us, that we would allow them, they were fine to be offered. Everyone thought that was the case. We will have some people come to the floor apparently deciding to vote against cloture on this bill because they say somebody obstructed their right to amend. That is just totally without foundation. It is Byzantine to me that here we are in the Senate on a piece of legislation called the Travel Promotion Act, which is designed to promote tourism, to create jobs and to promote this country's interests. It is

widely bipartisan. It has been around now for 2\1/2\ years or so, with no great controversy I know of. We have before us a bill for which we were required to file cloture and wait 2 days for a cloture vote just on the motion to proceed to it. Once we got to the motion to proceed, we had a vote--and guess what. Ninety to three we said: Yes, let's proceed to it.

Then the minority said: And, oh, by the way, no, you can't proceed yet because we are going to insist on the 30 hours post-cloture. So you have to wait 30 more hours. Total, complete, thorough delay.

So it does not sit well with me for anybody to come here to say that somebody is being obstructed.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that unless a member of the minority comes to claim time, that we be allowed to continue, I be allowed to continue. If a member of the minority does come to the Senate floor, I certainly would relinquish the time.

Madam President, it does not wash at all for somebody to suggest somehow they have to vote against cloture because they are denied their right.

Over in that aisle, on Thursday, we had a discussion--Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, myself, Senator Martinez--and then back and forth in the cloakrooms. We offered amendments back and forth just to get started on the bill. It was not a final list of amendments. It was just a way to try to get started. For all five of the amendments proposed to be offered by the minority, we said: Fine, they have nothing to do with the bill, but that is fine. If you want to offer them, offer them. But don't come to the floor on Monday saying the majority is obstructing your right to offer an amendment, which we said you could offer. How do you explain that contradiction?

Again, my point: If this Congress cannot even agree on tourism, how is it going to agree on anything. How are we going to make progress on health care? How are we going to make progress on comprehensive energy legislation or climate change or a range of difficult international situations? How are we going to reach some sort of understanding that we represent one interest in this country, and that ought to be the public interest in the United States of America?

We all work for the same people. Not everything has to be partisan. There is so much rancid partisanship these days. I was with the majority leader when we stood there. I understood what he was saying. He was saying to the minority: Let's get started. If you want amendments, fine, offer amendments. There was nothing but agreement by our majority leader to say to the Republicans, offer some amendments. Give us some amendments you want to offer and then go ahead and offer them.

I am happy to yield.

Madam President, rather than yield for a question, let me yield the floor so the Senator from Vermont can explain his amendment, and then reclaim the floor if there is not a Member of the minority present.

Madam President, as I have indicated previously, the underlying bill on which we are going to have a cloture vote is bipartisan. There were over 50 cosponsors here in the Senate in the last Congress. Republicans and Democrats alike have supported it. We are apparently going to have a cloture vote that some--judging by what one of my colleagues said earlier--will feel they have to vote against. They will vote to stop this bill because they feel their right to amend was obstructed, despite the fact that their right to amend was explicitly agreed to. Working on bad information is not a great way to vote, in my judgment.

Let me make an important point. I indicated earlier this is one of the few pieces of legislation that will be brought to the floor of the Senate that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit by $425 million. That is pretty unbelievable, but there are two other big issues. One is at a time when we are seeing hundreds of thousands of Americans a month losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing hope because we are in a deep recession, at a time when we have all of this unemployment, we should be voting to move forward with a piece of legislation that tries to boost employment by increasing travel to our country by overseas visitors. These visitors are going to spend a substantial amount of money--$4,500 per tourist. And we know we now have 633,000 fewer international tourists coming to America than we did 8 years ago. Why is that the case? The decline in tourism began after the terrible, tragic attack on this country on September 11, 2001. Following that, we obviously decided we wanted to try to keep terrorists out of this country. But we also made it harder for regular tourists. It was harder to get a visa. There were longer lines. Then the Iraq war began and a lot of people were upset with our country for unilateral actions in Iraq, and so on. We have gone through nearly a decade now in which people are traveling around the world more and more often, but they are going to Spain, France, Great Britain, Turkey, India, and Japan--all of which are advertising aggressively internationally to say, come to our country, be a part of our experience. See the beauty of India or Japan or Australia. But our country is not involved in that competition, and we should be, because there is no better place on this Earth. I know I am not objective about that, but to come here is to love this country and to understand the great character and culture that exists here.

This piece of legislation will create jobs and opportunity in this country, but even more important, it will create goodwill all across this world from people who visit here and go home and have a better understanding of what America is about. At a time when we are in a deep recession, do we want to create jobs? I hope so. At a time when we care about what the world thinks about us, do we want to improve our standing in the world? I hope so.

We will have a cloture vote in 3 or 4 minutes. I am told now, some who have cosponsored the bill, even, will probably come down and vote against cloture because they will claim they don't have the right to offer amendments. Well, they surely do. We agreed they could offer their first five amendments last Thursday. It is just that they said we can't offer our amendments because they object, for example, to the Sanders amendment.

We said: You can offer five; we will offer three.

They said: That is fine, except we won't allow you to offer the Sanders amendment. We won't agree to that.

Again, my question: If the Senate has come to the point where it can't agree on tourism, what hope is there for big, controversial, and important issues that we will confront later this year?

My hope is that perhaps some will understand the goodwill with which the majority leader and I and others offered the minority the right to offer the amendments they chose to offer. It was the minority that decided they didn't want to agree. It would be difficult for me to see some of those who were given the ability to offer the amendments come to the floor and vote against a bill they support because they say they weren't given an opportunity to offer amendments. It is pretty hard to square that circle, and my hope is they will understand that before they vote. It will be very nice if perhaps on this one vote, it wouldn't be considered a leadership or a partisan vote and it wouldn't be based on misinformation, but instead we decided that this is about tourism, it is about promoting jobs and economic opportunity in our country, and it is about boosting the reputation of this country around the world by having people visit the United States and understanding the full breadth of what the American experience is about.

I yield the floor, and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. President, about 2 weeks ago I spoke on the floor about the unprecedented budget deficits this country is now facing and the fact we are spending money we do not have. I specifically discussed the impact that is having on Treasury yields.

What we know is that President Obama's budget has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office, which is our group, and I think they do a pretty good job. They take pride in being independent and fair. The head of it was selected by the Democratic majority in the Senate. It is certainly not a Republican organization. They are just fair, trying to do the best they can to try to calculate the numbers.

What they calculated was that at the rate of deficit spending we are now undertaking, the total American debt will double in 10 years, from $5.7 trillion to over $11 trillion. In 10 years it will triple to $17 trillion.

That is a lot of debt. You might ask how do you do that? How do you spend more money than you take in? The way we do it is we borrow it, just like other people do. The Government borrows it. The way it does is, it puts out an auction or sale of Treasury bonds or bills, T-bills they call them, and people buy those things if they choose to do so, and the Government pays them a certain interest rate, whatever the interest rate is at the time.

On short-term debt instruments--short term are under a few months-- those interest rates are still rather low because people are panicked over the economic situation. They are afraid to put their money in the stock market, so they bought Treasury bills. Other people around the world did too. They are not getting much interest, but they believe the Government will pay them back in dollars, eventually.

So what has been happening to the 10-year Treasury bill, one of the foundations of our borrowing, is the rate has continued to go up. Two weeks ago, I pointed out that the 10-year Treasury yield had increased 54 percent this year, at that time from 2.4 percent in January, to 3.7 percent. Barron's, a major financial publication, predicted a few weeks ago that Treasury yields could top 4 percent this year.

Well, guess what. Treasury yields topped 4 percent last week. The Wall Street Journal in a front-page article on June 11 said that the 10-year Treasury yield briefly hit 4 percent yesterday afternoon before closing at 3.94 percent. That would be a 67-percent increase in the Treasury bill interest rate just this year.

Why are the rates going up? It seems there is some disagreement between Washington and Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal article says this:

Many policymakers see the rise in Treasury yields as a sign

that investors are optimistic that the economy is on the

mend. But many market participants say higher long-term bond

yields indicate investors are increasingly worried about

inflation.

So I interpret that to mean that the Washington politico crowd, looking to see a positive vision here, say it is because the economy is doing better. And that could be a factor. But the folks on Wall Street, who are buying the T bills, say differently.

Is the government responsible for this increase in interest rates? It seems that is a real possibility. The Federal Reserve is creating inflation concerns through its massive asset purchase program. The Fed plans to purchase $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, $200 billion in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae debt, and $300 billion in Treasury bills this year. Since there are not enough people who want to buy the Treasury bills, the Federal Reserve is stepping in and buying them in an attempt to keep the rate down.

So far the Fed has purchased $481 billion in mortgage-backed securities, and $130 billion in Treasuries. The intention of the program is to reduce the Treasury yield and interest rates, but it may be backfiring. A Forbes.com article on May 28 quotes former Federal Reserve Governor Lawrence Meyer on how this kind of action could actually have a different impact. It could actually cause inflation and even cause a rise in the Treasury bond yield.

This is what he said:

This can become counterproductive. To the extent that you

stoke inflation fears and you

get an inflation risk premium built in [to the bond yield]

you can't ease that away. You do have to be careful and more

measured than that.

In other words, when there is a perception which may be reality that not enough people are willing to buy these Treasury bonds at lower rates, because they think even 4 percent may not be enough because they may fear that inflation is going to be 6 or 7 percent down the road, they do not want to lock themselves in for 10 years at a 4-percent interest rate that is below the inflation rate. So the Fed steps in and buys some of this to keep it low, and that may be having the perverse incentive of causing a belief to occur in the marketplace that inflation is on the way, and scares people even more.

Also let me say this about the voluntary purchase of Treasury bills by citizens of the United States, people in China, the Middle East, and around the world. They do not have to buy Treasury bills. We are going to be offering amounts, these kinds of bills, in volume we have never offered before in the history of the Republic.

So the question is, who wants to buy them? Who wants to hold a mortgage on the United States? What if we inflate our currency? Maybe 4 percent is not enough. Maybe they want more. Maybe China, which had a huge trade surplus a few years ago, is deciding they are not going to buy so many Treasury bills in the United States. Maybe they decide they need to invest in their own economy, which is not doing as well as it has done in the past.

The same about the Middle East. They used to have huge reserves of American money as a result of the high price of gasoline and price of oil on the world market. That price dropped some. So perhaps they do not have as much money to buy our Treasury bills either.

So who is going to buy them? We are not talking about a little bit, we are talking about going from $5 trillion in total debt today to $11 trillion in 5 years, and $17 trillion in 10 years. So we are talking about over $10 trillion in new debt we have to sell to someone in the world market.

Also, what is the impact of the Federal Reserve, that entity we have created by law, when they buy Treasury bills? What occurs there? I remember hearing Mr. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman, talking about this on ``60 Minutes.'' Some of you may have seen him being interviewed on that program. I went back and had the transcript of that program called up, and we reviewed it. It is what I thought he said. In response to reporter Scott Pelley's question, Chairman Bernanke said about the Fed's programs:

It's much more akin to printing money than it is to

borrowing.

Mr. Pelley replied:

You've been printing money?

And Mr. Bernanke replied:

Well, effectively.

And he added:

And we need to do that, because our economy is very weak

and inflation is very low.

So if you want to know the definition of printing money, that is it. Some people say that is not a fair thing to say; we are not printing money. Mr. Bernanke says we are printing money. He is the Chief of the Fed. He is the guy who does it.

Why does this matter to the average American? Even those who are not planning to buy a Treasury bill any time soon will be affected. That is because mortgage interest rates--what we pay to borrow money to buy a house with--track the 10-year Treasury yield. So as the 10-year Treasury goes up, mortgage rates go up too, and it is much harder for people to buy a home or to refinance. Or if you want to sell a home, it is harder for the person who wants to buy it to borrow the money. He has got to pay considerably more for a house in the interest rate. In fact, according to the Wall Street journal, 30-year mortgage rates have gone up 16 percent in the past 2 weeks, from 5 percent to 5.79 percent. This is the money, when you go out, you have to borrow money to buy a house with. What we need to happen in America is people buying homes and taking them off the market.

There is a huge difference between 5 percent and 6 percent. On $100,000, 5 percent interest would be $5,000 a year you pay in interest; $400-plus a month. On 6 percent interest, it is $6,000 a year, or $100 more a month on $100,000. For a $200,000 mortgage it would be twice that. It would be $2,000 or $3,000 more a year you would pay in interest alone because the rate went up a bit.

We were hoping that the interest rates would stay low to encourage people to buy homes, encourage people to refinance, and be able to live a better life. The Wall Street Journal article said that this increase--from 5 to almost 6 percent--will cut the number of people with an incentive to refinance their homes and save money by paying less interest by half.

Let me mention one more thing. One of the things that is interesting in all of this is the impact our spending has had on the economy. We all hoped it would have a pretty dramatic impact. But it is not being nearly as effective as people thought. Even I thought we would have some impact in the short term.

But I believe that CBO is correct. When we passed the $800 billion stimulus package that was supposed to put money out into the economy to build roads and bridges, we found out only 4 percent of the money went to roads and bridges, 96 percent went to other kinds of government spending, but that $800 billion was supposed to create a good bit of jobs and get this economy moving.

I want to say things are not going as well as we would like. I remain optimistic. The Fed is doing all of these things, the spending is coming along. Surely we are going to have a benefit from that in the near term.

But this shows the deficit surge. The deficit, by which I mean how much more money we are spending than we take in. This goes through March of this year. You can see how the deficit is increasing, how much our shortfall is. And by March, it has already topped $953 billion.

That is more than twice the biggest deficit President Bush ever had. And he was criticized for his deficit. That is twice. We have not gotten to the end of the fiscal year yet.

What the CBO projects--this is our own Congressional Budget Office, their numbers, and they are running the tally of how much we are spending and how much is coming in. They calculate by the end of the year the deficit will be $1.8 trillion, which is about four times the highest deficit President Bush ever had.

I say that because people say: Well, President Bush had deficits too. Yes, he did. A lot of that was not justified, in my opinion. But we never had deficits like this in the history of the American Republic. And you do have to borrow this money.

This is in March. By September 30, we are looking at a deficit of $1.8 trillion this year alone. And the whole debt of the American Republic, since its founding, is about 5.7 trillion before this year started. What is that? That is one-third in 1 year.

We hoped that spending and this activity would help improve the unemployment rate. But you can see, it is going up. It was 6.6 and it has gone up to 8.5. Well, it is not 8.5 percent. That was in March. The latest number is 9.4 percent.

So I do not know how much real boost we have gotten from this reckless spending. So much of it we knew was not job creating, and we debated that. It was clear that a lot of this was the kind of spending that would not create jobs. As I said, you heard about roads and bridges. Well, only 4 percent of the money went to roads and bridges. A lot of it went to all kinds of programs that are not job-creating programs. So I am concerned about that.

This is a vibrant country, and I think we have the capability of bouncing back from hard times. I will just say, we are at 9.4 percent unemployment. Unemployment in the early 1980s, under President Reagan, when they had to break the back of surging inflation, they broke the back of 13-percent inflation. Unemployment hit 10.8 percent. So it is not as bad as it was in the 1980s, and we bounced back from that, and we can bounce back from this.

But I have to say to my colleagues, if we do not have fiscal sanity in how we do our business, if we do not have a possibility of showing growth in revenues from economic growth and the containment of spending--and our deficits are surging for as far as the eye can see-- then I am not sure we will have the kind of healthy, robust resurgence we would normally expect to occur after a recession.

Look at these numbers. This is very disturbing. We borrow all this money, and we spend it today. I know a great lawyer who has written a book, ``The Case for Character.'' He said: This is a question of character, what I am going to talk to you about here. It is a question about the moral character of the Congress and the President of the United States and how we approach our duties in a responsible manner.

In 2009, this year, we expect that the taxpayers of the United States--on the $5.7 trillion we have borrowed--will pay $170 billion in interest. That is a total loss. That is money that goes out to people who have loaned us money. It is interest, just like on your credit card or on your mortgage--$170 billion. And look how it goes up. This is a chart I have of the interest each year. And 10 years from now, if we follow the President's budget, it will be $806 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

All right. That is just money. How much is that? How much is $806 billion? Let me tell you what we do today. The Federal highway bill is about $40 billion. The Federal aid to education in all its forms is about $100 billion. So now, since we take money from the future, and we spend it today in a reckless way, I think, to get some sort of hope for stimulus we have not seen much of, we are going to saddle the people in 2019 with an annual debt payment of $806 billion--10 times the Federal education budget, 20 times-plus the highway budget. So we do need to be focused on this issue.

Let me say one more thing. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the deficit is supposed to drop down in 2 or 3 years, but already it looks as if we will not meet those numbers. The economy is not as strong as they were projecting. It was a rosy scenario. But they project about $600 billion is what the deficit will be 2 or 3 years from now--30, 40 percent higher than anything President Bush ever had-- $600 billion. Then it starts up again, and it goes up to the 10th year. And in the 10th year, under the scoring of the President's budget by the Congressional Budget Office, the deficit will be over $1 trillion in that year--$1.1 trillion.

That is not sustainable. And they are not projecting an economic slowdown. They are projecting modest growth over that period of time, solid growth for the last 5 years during this period. If we have a recession, presumably the deficits would be even larger than that.

I guess I would say to my colleagues, this is a matter we need to start thinking about. It cannot be ignored. Nothing comes from nothing. If you get money to spend today, you must spend every dollar of it with care because you have borrowed it from the future, and somebody has to pay it back. It is not free money. Maybe it feels as if it is free today because we did not have to pay higher taxes or we did not cut some other spending program to get the money to do what we would like to do with it. We just borrowed it. But borrowing has consequences.

Every year from here on out, that $806 billion will go up probably because in 2019 they expect not a balanced budget but an annual deficit of that year to be over $1 trillion. So the thing is going to continue to worsen. If we do not make some changes, this will continue.

By the way, this does not include the spending we are talking about on health care, which you heard a speech about earlier. I will say this about it: the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has released details on a bill. According to CBO, what they have released so far scores at $1 trillion. Oh, we just got another $1 trillion not calculated in these numbers. ``Well, everybody just needs to have health insurance.'' So who is going to pay for it?

We have to be smart. We have to see how we can improve health care, get more people insured, create a better system with the absolute lowest possible cost because we cannot continue this kind of reckless spending. Instead of learning a lesson from the already surging deficits, we seem to be blithely going on with a huge new spending program on top of that.

The American people, I think, are uneasy. They think we are out of control up here. They do not think they have ever seen anything like this: deficits the likes of which we have never seen in peacetime.

The U.S. Government passed a bill last fall that was supposed to buy toxic mortgages from banks, and now they bought a controlling share in General Motors. How did this happen? Did Congress ever vote on that? No. We did not vote on it. They took advantage of the language in that bill, which I was opposed to and voted against. One of the reasons I opposed it was because it was too broad and an unbelievable abrogation of congressional power to the Secretary of Treasury, who had already helped lead us into financial catastrophe. But people in panic, they all voted and gave him this power.

Did anybody know we were going to use that money to buy an automobile company? No. In fact, Secretary Paulson at one point was asked at a hearing: What about buying stock in banks? This was supposed to be helping the banks. In the House committee, he said, no, we did not want to buy stock in banks. But a week after that bill passed, he was buying stock in banks. And they have not yet begun to buy toxic mortgages. Maybe they will begin soon. They say they have a plan now.

I am saying the American people are right to be concerned about the reckless, irresponsible behavior of this government in Washington. I hope they will continue to watch what is going on. I hope the American people will speak out and let the folks up here know they expect us to do something more than deal with the problem next week. They expect us to be thinking about the long-term health of the American economy.

I heard a well-known financial expert say: Well, you know what? I am not saying there will be reckless inflation occurring, although some people are predicting that. He said: After President Reagan broke inflation and we got the economy on a sound track, the economy grew at about 3 percent a year and inflation was about 2 percent. He said: What I am worried about is that what we are going to see in the next 10 years is inflation at about 3 percent and growth at about 2 percent. That is not good. You want your growth to exceed the inflation rate.

I do not know what will happen. I cannot predict it. But I know this: We are going to have less money to spend on the things we need because we are going to have to be paying a huge amount in interest. Those are real concerns. This matter is not going away. I believe the American people are becoming more and more attuned to these matters. That is what the Tea parties were about--a sort of spontaneous reaction by the American people saying: What are you guys doing up there? Surely you know this is not the way to handle America's business.

I will say, I am going to continue to report on things that are developing. Surely we will begin to see some improvement in the unemployment rate and maybe some economic growth in the weeks to come. You would normally expect that when you pump the kind of money we have pumped into this economy. But in the long run, this begins to drag down the gains you make in the short run. That is what I am saying.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office said--analyzing the stimulus package alone--it would increase our GDP, our growth for 2 to 3 years, but if you took that over 10 years, the economy would grow less over the 10 years than if we had no stimulus package at all. That is because when you borrow money, not only do you have to pay interest on it, but it crowds out borrowing from the private sector.

If a corporation wants to borrow money through the issuance of bonds, they are having to compete with the Treasury bills that are now paying 4 percent, and they will have to pay a good bit more because people think the Treasury bills are better, safer investments than some private corporate bonds. It hurts the private sector because now they are paying considerably higher interest rates to get people to loan money to them instead of loaning it to the U.S. Government.

I thank the Presiding Officer for the opportunity to share this. I hope and pray we can all figure out a way to work together to do a better job of being stewards of this economy. It is a high responsibility we have. No one knows everything. No one has a perfect answer to it. We are going to have to go through some tough times. I think that is clear, and there is no need to sugar-coat that.

I am not blaming President Obama for everything that has gone wrong, and he inherited so much of this. I have talked about Secretary Paulson. I do not think Secretary Geithner is any better. He was Secretary Paulson's top adviser when they came up with this plan last fall.

But, at any rate, we need to get our heads together and know one fundamental thing: Nothing comes from nothing. There is no free lunch. If you borrow money to spend today, there will be a cost in the future, and those costs can outweigh the benefits that are occurring today.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to begin the discussion, then I believe my colleague, Senator Ensign, who has worked hard on this legislation, will follow. Then Senator Klobuchar who also has played a significant role in this will follow with comments. If others arrive, of course we want them to be able to involve themselves in the debate.

At a time when there is so much discussion about partisanship and how things don't work so well, this legislation, the cloture motion we vote on at 5:30 today, is bipartisan. Unlike some other discussions about partisanship, this is bipartisan. This legislation is called the Travel Promotion Act of 2009. It has 53 cosponsors. There are many Democrats and Republicans cosponsoring this legislation.

Just today the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to all Members of Congress saying they strongly support this legislation. The Chamber urges Members to support the legislation and to vote for cloture.

Let me talk just for a moment about what this is. First of all, at a time when we need jobs, this is about jobs. At a time when we need to find ways to address budget deficits, this is one piece of legislation that is not going to cost money. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office scores it as actually a $425 million reduction in deficits over a 10-year period. Let me say again, it is pretty unusual. It is bipartisan, doesn't cost money--actually saves money--and addresses one of the most critical areas of our need, and that is jobs.

What is the Travel Promotion Act and why the concern? Let me describe

it this way. We all know travel and promoting travel and tourism is job creating. It creates jobs in many areas--yes, hotels and gas stations and restaurants and tourist attractions, but with visitors just traveling across our country means people are spending money. It creates a lot of jobs.

Let me talk especially about the issue of international or foreign travel to the United States. Did you know foreign travel is up very dramatically in this world? There is a great deal of foreign travel--56 million more overseas trips were taken in 2008 than were taken in 2000. So in 8 years the number of overseas trips increased by 56 million people. But at the same time, overseas travel to the United States has decreased. We had 634,000 fewer foreign visitors to the United States. It means a lot of people are traveling, but since the year 2000 we have had a loss in our share of international tourists.

Why is that important? Because when overseas travelers come to this country, on average they spend about $4,500. That supports a lot of jobs and a lot of businesses in this country. So why do we have 600,000-plus fewer visitors to the United States? In 2001, after the terrorist attack against our country, we tightened visa requirements and so on. The Iraq war occurred. There was a lot of concern by people that maybe the United States didn't want them to come: They have tightened visa requirements.

All of a sudden we discover that more people are traveling overseas, but they are not traveling here. Incidentally, the tourism that is happening internationally is not accidental. Most other countries are very aggressively going after the international traveler, saying: Come to our country.

Let me go through a list of just a few of those. Here is a big travel promotion campaign that talks about ``Come to Australia. Arrived looking for an experience to remember, departed with an adventure we'll never forget.''

The country of Ireland saying: ``Come to Ireland. Go where Ireland takes you.''

The list goes on. Virtually every country is saying we want foreign tourists to come to our country. ``Sweet secrets from Japan.'' Come and visit Japan.

We have all seen these. All of these countries are very aggressive. Come to France. I can't read the French piece down here, but I know what it says. It says come to France. Come here, be a part of what we are doing.

Belgium, here is the Belgian approach: ``Where fun is always in fashion. Visit Belgium.''

Finally, India. ``One special reason to visit India in 2009. Any time is a good time to visit the land of the Taj, but there is no time like now.''

Virtually every country is saying: Come to our country; come visit us. But we are not, and we propose that we do promote our country because it will create a lot of jobs. Just as important, when people come here and experience what this country is about, they leave with a wonderful impression about what America is.

So what we have put together is a piece of legislation that is bipartisan. It is funded by and large with an entry-exit fee--that is imposed by most other countries, by the way--a $10 fee on visa waiver countries, the people who come from those countries who visit our country. It is a minimal fee compared to what many other countries are charging. We establish with that fee a corporation for travel promotion, an independent nonprofit corporation governed by an 11- member board of directors appointed by the Secretary of Commerce. It sets up this travel promotion fund financed by a public-private matching program.

In short, this is a very simple proposition. It will not only create a lot of new jobs in this country at a time when we desperately need new jobs by saying to foreign travelers come to our country, be a part of what America has to offer you, come see our wonderful country, experience what America is about, we know when they come to this country they have an unbelievably good impression of what they have just seen--the greatest democracy on the face of this planet by far, and they experience the magic and wonders of this country.

What we are saying to them is, at a time when travel around the world is up, that is visitors to other countries, and ours is down, let's solve this problem and let's do it without breaking the bank. In fact, this will not cost money; this will save money. Let's do it by working in a bipartisan way on one of the significant problems we face in America, and that is the loss of jobs.

In case someone thinks perhaps there are just a few of us who think this is a good idea, here are a few examples of others who think this is a great idea. The Dallas Morning News:

The travel promotion act is a sensible first step toward

putting the welcome mat back on America's doorstep.

What a wonderful way to put it.

The Los Angeles Times:

Considering the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars

on public diplomacy with dubious results and nearly nothing

on promoting tourism, it might do well to invest a little

money in wooing travelers.

Sacramento Bee:

This country needs to reclaim its stand as a global magnet

for visitors even in this post-9/11 climate--and Congress can

help by passing the Travel Promotion Act by the end of this

year.

Duluth News Tribune:

Ideas to bolster economic recovery without plunging the

Nation any deeper into debt would be welcomed by taxpayers

from coast to coast.

The Detroit Free Press:

Doesn't it make sense to encourage, at no cost to

taxpayers, foreign visitors to come here and leave us some

money? There is no good reason not to pass this bill.

I needn't go on. This is not rocket science. This is something our country should do. If, in fact, in a smaller and smaller world, more and more people are traveling, then why should fewer people travel to the United States of America? This ought to be one of the great destination places on the entire planet. I expect and hope most people want to come to this country and see what America has to offer. But I think post-9/11 what we have done with visas and so on, which we are now correcting and have corrected by and large--longer waiting times, we have made them shorter and so on--I think there was a notion out there somehow that the welcome mat doesn't exist. We are changing that. Republicans and Democrats can work together to change that. This legislation is good legislation, and I hope my colleagues will join me today in voting for cloture and moving this bill as soon as possible through the Senate, through the House, and to the President for signature.

When we do, those people who have had to come home to say to their spouse: Honey, I have lost my job--some of those millions of people, are going to be able to come home someday and say: I have a new job. There is some new activity going on in our State. I have a new job that relates to the substantial increase in international tourism to the United States.

That will be a good thing for our country. So as the principal author, along with Senator Ensign, of this legislation--and let me say also the chair of the Tourism Subcommittee, Senator Klobuchar--I am pleased to be able to work together with my colleagues to get this legislation completed today.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I yield 10 minutes of our time to Senator Klobuchar.

How much time remains?

Mr. President, first, let me thank Senator Klobuchar for her work, and Senator Ensign. I think they have said what needs to be said.

If 48 million more people are now traveling internationally, foreign travelers moving around the world, 48 million more, but 600,000 fewer are traveling in the United States as foreign travelers, then something is wrong and we need to fix it.

I want to market this country to foreign travelers, to say: Come to all of America. Yes, come to see the Statue of Liberty, and come to see New York City and its vibrancy, and the Empire State Building, and Las Vegas, and Universal Studios in Los Angeles, and the Golden Gate Bridge. And in my State, the Pembina Gorge, the Red River Valley, and the Badlands

I would love to have foreign tourists come to experience the history and the culture the values of all of our country. I have told the story before on the floor of the Senate about Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt was in his home in New York when on the same day, on different floors of his home, his mother died and his wife died. In his diary for that day, there is a big mark. It is just an X for that day. He lost both his wife and his mother. Same day, different floors of his house.

A broken spirit, he went to what was then North Dakota and began to ranch in the Badlands of North Dakota, in what is now the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

I would love to encourage foreign tourists to come to the heartland of America, the northern Great Plains, and see what restored the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt. What a great way to understand and see the history and the culture and values of this country. Isn't it interesting and alarming that 48 million more people are traveling around the world as foreign tourists and 600,000 fewer are traveling in the United States? The United States, which should be the premier destination for travel of anywhere on this Earth, and yet we have 633,000 fewer foreign travelers than we had 9 years ago. There is something not connected here. We propose to connect it with something that is bipartisan, something that doesn't cost money but

something that reduces the Federal budget deficit, something that creates jobs when we have lost so many, to be able to do that working together, to say: Here is something on which we can agree. Here is something we think would boost America's economic strength, here is something we believe would contribute to building new jobs, and, most importantly for me, here is something that when people come to our country and leave, it will allow them to leave America with a positive impression about what this country is, who the American people are, what they believe, what they practice. This is a remarkable place. To come here and then leave here after having visited America is to experience one of the great travel opportunities on this planet.

When we look at a problem and see that something is not working right, the question is, How do we fix it? I have said so often before, but I will say it again--because I know we have had some discussion today in opposition to this that I think mischaracterizes it--Mark Twain, when asked if he would engage in a debate, said: Of course, as long as I can take the negative side.

They said: We haven't even told you the subject.

He said: It doesn't matter. The negative side will take no preparation at all.

So it is with legislation. It is so much easier with no preparation to come and say: I am opposed to this; I don't support this; this won't work. The fact is, this is a problem that hurts this country. Losing our share of international tourism at a time when more people are traveling around the world, finding fewer people traveling to our country, that is a problem. We can fix it in a way that doesn't spend more, doesn't increase the Federal budget deficit, but attracts more people to this country and creates more jobs. What a remarkable piece of legislation that is a good investment in the future.

We have a lot to be proud of in this country, all of us. We take it for granted every day because we wake up in this country, but, boy, do we have a lot to be proud of. We want to show it off to foreign visitors.

Since 9/11, I understand there has been a notion somehow that it is harder to come to America. It is more hassle. What we want to say is: That is done. It is not a hassle. We invite you to come here. Come here and be a part of our experience.

Here is what we see in the Sidney Morning Herald: ``Coming to America Isn't Easy''; in the Guardian, United Kingdom: ``America--more hassle than it's worth?''; the Sunday Times of London: ``Travel to America? No thanks.'' These are all 2008 headlines. We want to say: This country has a welcome mat out for you. Come here. Experience what we have to experience in America. We invite you to be a part of our experience. We want you to come to the United States when you are considering traveling internationally.

That is what this legislation is about. This is not complicated. It is the right thing to do. It is the reason there are so many Democrats and Republicans who have joined together in something we think will strengthen the country.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I should also mention that Senator Reid, along with Senator Ensign, has played a significant role in working on this legislation. That is very important to mention. Obviously, both come from a State that relies a great deal on tourism. My State's tourism industry is second in the State. It plays a very large role in every State, even though most of us don't have a traditional tourist destination city like Las Vegas, for example.

Early on Senators talked about how companies advertise because advertising works. It is the case that companies advertise only on behalf of their company. I just described circumstances of aggressive efforts for countries to advertise on behalf of their countries saying: Come to Italy, experience what Italy has to offer. Come to France. Come to India. The countries are very aggressive in saying: If you are thinking of traveling around this planet, take a look at this; come to see the Eiffel Tower.

Our country is not doing that. We are not involved in trying to reach out to people to say: You are welcome in this country. We have so much to offer, so much for you to see. We want you to come here and experience it, to understand it.

This legislation creates a public-private partnership in which our country will advertise to the world and say: Come to America. Isn't that the case with respect to advertising of companies versus countries?

If the Senator will yield further, the fact is, we have lost a lot of jobs in the deepest recession since the Great Depression. All of us are striving to find ways to put people back to work. There is not going to be some Big Bang theory by which everyone goes back to work. We can do this incrementally. We need manufacturing to be restored. We need tourism, a significant job creator. A lot of people don't understand that it is not some big hotel that benefits from tourism. In most cases, it is a small business someplace struggling to make a living. It is a lot of small businesses, rental car companies, and so on. That is why we have such faith that if we do what we say we can do in this legislation, we will put a lot of people back to work.

Mr. President, let me mention again the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sent out a letter today in strong support of this legislation precisely because of the job-creating nature of this legislation.

Mr. President, this legislation is now in the 30 hours postcloture period. We had a cloture vote late yesterday afternoon, and I believe the 30 hours postcloture will expire sometime later this afternoon, at 4 o'clock or 4:30 or so.

Let me again explain what we are trying to do in this legislation. This is reasonably simple. In all of the partisan dust that is created in this country, I think this is one of the few pieces of legislation that has broad bipartisan support. We have, I believe, 53 cosponsors for this bill--Republicans and Democrats--and the proposition is very simple.

First of all, we have lost a lot of jobs in this country. We are in the deepest recession since the Great Depression, and a whole lot of folks have lost their jobs. This is a bill to try to create more jobs. But it is a bill that especially addresses a problem that has been created in the last 8 or 9 years.

Since the year 2000, here are a couple numbers. Since the year 2000, there are 56 million more people living on this planet who are taking international trips. Let me say that again. This is a big planet with billions of people living on it. By the way, half of them have never made a phone call. Half live on less than $2 a day. But on this big planet there are people who travel internationally, and there are 56 million more international travelers right now than there were 9 years ago. But there are 633,000 fewer international travelers visiting the United States than visited our country 9 years ago.

Why is that the case? And why is it important? Well, it is important for a number of reasons. It is important because international travelers--I am talking about overseas travelers--on average spend about $4,500 per person per trip. Their travel supports a lot of jobs in the tourism industry. It supports jobs in every State in our country. So it is important for that reason--it creates jobs.

But it is important for another reason as well. When people come here from other parts of the world and see America and experience the culture and the character of our country, they leave, almost inevitably, with a very positive impression of this country of ours.

So for two reasons this is important. We have fewer international visitors--633,000 fewer--per year than we had 9 years ago, even at a time when 56 million more people are traveling around the globe for overseas visits.

I described yesterday what other countries are doing. Other countries

are saying: We understand that international travel and tourism creates jobs. So other countries are reaching out with promotions. Japan, Italy, France, India, England--you name it--they all have aggressive promotions around the world, to say: Come to our country. Come see the Eiffel Tower. See the wonders of France. See the beauty of Ireland. Come to India and experience the interesting culture of India. All of these countries are doing very aggressive international promotion for the international traveler, to say: Come to our country.

Something happened in the year 2001. Obviously, on 9/11 we had a terrorist attack--a devastating terrorist attack. As a result of that, our country tightened up on visas. We made it more difficult to come to our country. At the same time as we tightened up on visas, those who did want to come often had to wait for long periods of time, and they waited in long lines in order to get a visa. Then with respect to the Iraq war and other policies, people became upset with our country. So the result has been a substantial decrease in international travelers coming to our country.

The purpose of this legislation is very simple. It is called the Travel Promotion Act of 2009, but it establishes a public sector/ private sector partnership to begin promoting international travel again to the United States of America.

This is one of the few pieces of legislation that actually saves the government money. The Congressional Budget Office scores it as a $425 million in reduction in the Federal budget deficit over the coming 10 years. So this is not something that expands the deficit. This reduces the Federal budget deficit--that's No. 1. No. 2, it is bipartisan. A fairly large number of Democrats and Republicans have joined together to say: We want to do this. The vote on the cloture motion yesterday was 80-19. No. 3, organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others have weighed in saying this is very important for us to do. Other countries are engaged in this kind of promotion for their countries and we need to do it for ours.

So I, along with my colleagues, have authored this legislation. In the previous Congress, as chairman of the subcommittee that deals with these tourism issues, I authored the legislation. My colleagues, Senator Ensign, Senator Klobuchar, Senator Reid, and many others, Republicans and Democrats, have joined in the legislation that would create an opportunity for this country to compete internationally for international tourism and travel.

Mr. President, we will, I think, for the next 5 or 6 hours, stand at parade rest listening to people talk about what they want to talk about on the floor of the Senate, and it is a procedure that is a bit Byzantine. Most people would not understand the procedure. On something as noncontroversial as this, as widely supported by Republicans and Democrats, something that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit and extends our ability to create jobs in this country, we got 80 Senators to vote for cloture, which meant we had to file a cloture motion. That meant 2 days intervened because it takes 2 days to have a cloture motion ripen. Then we got cloture with 80 votes. Now we stand at parade rest until sometime around 4:30 this afternoon because 30 hours--if the minority insists--30 hours has to expire. At the end of 30 hours postcloture, then we will, presumably, have a vote on the legislation.

I am pleased to work with my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats. This legislation is the right thing to do right now. At a time when this is an increasingly smaller planet, an increasingly smaller world in which we live, I think it is important for our country to reach out to the rest of the world. Doing so is in our self-interest because it creates jobs and expands our economy. But it is also in our self- interest because what we have created in this country is quite extraordinary.

This is not a circumstance where we would promote travel to America for one destination. It is travel to America to see all of this great country in its grandeur. There is so much to see and experience here, and we know from polls that have been done with international travelers that when people come to this country and travel here and experience what exists in our country and understand the character and the culture of our country, they leave with an unbelievably positive attitude about the United States. That is an awfully good thing, it seems to me.

So, again, this is a bipartisan bill that will save the Federal Government money; reduce the Federal budget deficit; combine the best ideas of Republicans and Democrats; and had 80 votes for cloture. I hope we have at least that on final passage. And perhaps we will start off this work period of September and October on a pretty positive note, stepping forward together to say, Let's do something that strengthens our country.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, perhaps while my colleague is on the floor, I think it would be useful to at least discuss a couple of things that are apparently in disagreement.

The issue of a $10 fee that could be used in a public and private sector partnership, again, supported by the Chamber of Commerce and all of the organizations that want to support this country as a destination for international tourism--let me put on the board a chart that shows the fees our U.S. travelers currently pay to visit the visa waiver countries. They charge us fees. We are talking about a $10 fee to people from these countries--$10. Here is what we are charged if we go to France: a $51 fee, Americans going to France. We don't propose that here. We can see that in Spain, $14; the Czech Republic, $27. They are going to retaliate? They already charge the American traveler a fee when we come and go, and we are talking about a $10 fee that would allow our country to promote our country as a destination just as their countries are doing. We are not even in the competition.

The thing I wanted to ask my colleague about is, he talked about international tourism. I wonder if we disagree on this: There is a very big difference between the classification of international tourists and overseas travelers, travelers from foreign countries abroad. International tourists include Mexico and Canada--and by the way, the research that the Senator seems to diminish tells us a lot about this information. On average, a visitor from Mexico and Canada to the United States on a trip is going to spend around $900. On average, a visitor to this country from a foreign country overseas is going to spend about $4,500, a pretty big difference in terms of visiting Arizona or North Dakota and spending that kind of money.

But I wonder if we have a disagreement with this: All of the data tells us that in the last 9 years, global travel has increased by 56 million more people moving around the globe doing international tourism travel, and that during the same time, the United States has actually had 633,000 fewer overseas visitors than 9 years ago. Do we disagree on that? Because my colleague from Arizona seemed to suggest that everything is at a record high. That is not the case. It is not the case. Overseas travel from people coming to this country is down. It is down at a time when overseas travel is booming all around the rest of the world and we have over a half a million people a year fewer coming to this country. Do we disagree on that?

I am also talking about a different classification. I am talking about overseas travel. The statistics my colleague quoted I believe are statistics that include Mexican and Canadian travel to the United States. Obviously those are contiguous countries. We have a lot of people moving in and out. But I am talking about overseas travel. The official numbers on overseas travel I believe are that we have 633,000 fewer people coming to this country from overseas for tourism than existed 9 years ago. Do you subscribe to that?

Mr. President, I would simply say, it is not a matter of reciprocating against us; they already impose these fees on American travelers. Our determination to impose a minor fee--$10 for an international traveler from a visa waiver country when they use the ESTA system once every two years, not every visit--it seems to me to suggest is much less than other countries charge US travelers. And the Senator described an op-ed piece by my colleague Senator DeMint which, in my judgment, is full of misinformation, full of it.

By the way, I am sending the Washington Post a response to it today. But, look: International travel. My friend from Arizona talked about research. The Commerce Department research shows that in the first quarter of this year, there was a 10-percent decrease in international travel to this country. That is the official data from the Commerce Department. So it is not the case that tourism is at a record high, that we are setting all of these records; and it is the case, in my judgment, based on empirical data and research, that we have far fewer overseas visitors coming to this country now than we did 9 years ago.

I am telling my colleague something that relates, in my judgment, to substantial lost opportunity for a number of reasons: jobs we should have that we don't have; and second, an awfully good impression about this great country of ours by people who come here and visit it.

I think my colleague will agree with me that post 9/11, there were a lot of things done that suggested to people around the world that it is going to take you a while to get to the United States because you are not very welcome there. It is going to take a long time to get a visa. You are going to wait a long time.

By the way, I have something I wanted to show my colleague. This is all 2008 material, by the way, but there were headlines such as these: The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, Australia: ``Coming to America Isn't Easy.'' The Guardian, United Kingdom: ``America: More Hassle Than It's Worth?'' The Sunday Times in London: ``Travel to America? No Thanks.''

There is something missing here that we ought to be concerned about because my friend from Arizona represents a State that has a lot of tourism and a lot of jobs related to tourism. Virtually every State in this country will benefit from being able to promote America's grandeur and opportunity for people to come here and travel here, and we are not even in the game.

Mr. President, I respect my colleague's views. I would only say this: The evidence is clear and

it is not debatable that fewer people are coming to this country from overseas than did 9 years ago. In my judgment, we ought to be concerned about that and do something about that by encouraging them. Yes, let's deal with the wait times on visas. We are working on that and we have made some progress on that. But it is also the case that if while India and France and Japan and China and others are engaged in very substantial promotional campaigns that say ``come to our country; come and see what we have,'' and if while they are doing that with aggressive promotion we are sitting back and saying, ``Well, we are not going to say anything much; we don't have a promotional campaign encouraging people to come to America,'' in my judgment, we lose that opportunity.

Advertising works; I don't care whether it is a television commercial or a promotion. All I am saying is don't diminish that, because promoting travel to the United States can work, but deciding we are not going to promote anything I know does not work. In fact, in this past decade, we have been in a circumstance where after 9/11, it was pretty clear that we were going to make it much more difficult for people to come to this country, and did. Then we went through a period of the Iraq war and other things when a lot of people were pretty upset, so we saw a very substantial reduction in the amount of tourism coming to this country from overseas.

Again, I am knowledgeable about the op-ed piece that was written in the Washington Post described by my colleague.

I am just telling you that there will be a response to that because much of that had no basis in fact. So all I hope is that the 80 Senators who supported this yesterday will continue to support the notion of creating jobs in this country, on a bipartisan basis, with a piece of legislation that actually reduces the Federal budget deficit. What a novel thing that is.

Again, I have respect for those who disagree, but I don't want there to be disagreement about the facts. We do research in the Commerce Department on who is coming to our country and how many. That is valuable research. Let's take advantage of that and understand what it says.

Overseas travel across the planet is up, up, up, way up, and to this country, it is down. There is something wrong with that, something unhealthy about it. We can change that. That is what this legislation is. It is an attempt to change it.

Let me quote Mark Twain. I probably should do this every time I speak on the floor because I am always trying to sell something. In this case, it is bipartisan legislation that I think advantages this country.

I will say this again. Mark Twain was asked once if he would engage in a debate being scheduled. He answered, ``Yes, as long as I can take the negative side.'' When asked why would he take the negative side when he didn't even know the subject matter, he said, ``The negative side will take no preparation.''

I understand it is easier to write a big-old op-ed whacking away at things than it is to construct something that has merit and will advance this country's interests. I believe this bill has merit, and so do the 79 other Senators who supported this legislation yesterday. Later this afternoon, I look forward to passing this legislation through the full Senate.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, in about an hour, we will be asked to vote on whether the Senate can continue to do what the Senate is supposed to do and that is to amend and debate. When I ran for the Senate, the people of Tennessee sent me up here to represent them. They expected that when I got here, I would have a chance to say what I had to say on their behalf, and sometimes what I think may not be so important but what they think is important. The people of Tennessee know the history of the Senate--as Senator Byrd has so often said--is distinguished only by a couple things. One is virtually an unlimited right to amend, and another is a virtually unlimited right to debate.

What is going to happen at 5:30 is we are going to be asked to vote to cut off amendments and cut off debate. A vote of yes will be a vote to obstruct our right to amend, obstruct our right to debate and to make it impossible for me to represent the people of Tennessee, who voted for me with the idea that I might be able to do that.

Let me explain a little more what I mean by that. A great many people write books about America, but unquestionably I think the best regarded such book is a book by Alexis de Tocqueville, entitled ``Democracy in America.'' When the young Frenchman came to this country, he ran across Davy Crockett and all sorts of people. When he wrote about what he thought might be, in the long term, the greatest danger to the American democracy, he said he thought it might be the ``tyranny of the majority.'' He was afraid that in our type of system, what might happen is that the majority would get control and run over the minority.

The Senate was one of the institutions created to avoid that. So when we get a situation where we have only 40 or 41 Republican Senators and 57 or 58 or 56 or more Democratic Senators, the minority always has a right to make sure there is no tyranny of the majority. It has been the other way and it will be again; when I first came here the Republicans held the majority, and we had 55 Republicans at one point. So a vote of yes at 5:30 is a vote to obstruct the right of Senators to represent the people who hired them to come and offer amendments and speak for them.

Ironically, this vote will give the majority the right to suppress a majority view--because what is the issue that is attempting to be suppressed? The issue is whether we ought to get the government in Washington out of the automobile business. I think most people in

the country are thinking we are having too many Washington takeovers. That is not the American way. We know we have had trouble in this country economically, but taking over banks, insurance companies, student loans, car companies, and now maybe taking over health care-- the American people don't like that.

We have a series of amendments to be offered--both Republican and some with bipartisan support--which would say: Let's get the government out of the automobile business and put it back in the hands of the American people and the free enterprise system of America. That is a majority view in this country.

According to an AutoPacific Survey in the Nashville Tennessean, 81 percent of Americans polled agree that the faster the government gets out of the automotive business the better; 95 percent disagreed that the government is a good overseer of corporations, such as General Motors and Chrysler; 93 percent disagree that having the government in charge of General Motors and Chrysler will result in cars and trucks Americans want to buy. Most Americans don't want a car that a United States Senator engineered, designed, and sold. That is not what we are here for. They know better than that.

According to a Rasmussen Poll of June 13 and 14, 80 percent of those polled believe the government should sell the government stake in the auto companies to private investors ``as soon as possible.'' And 71 percent of those polled believe the government should sell their stake to private investors as soon as possible.

According to the Wall Street Journal on June 18, nearly 70 percent of those surveyed said they had concerns about Federal intervention into the economy, including the President's decision to take an ownership interest in General Motors, put limits on executive compensation, and the prospect of more government involvement in health care. We have a situation where the President is calling the mayor of Detroit to get into the question of whether the headquarters of General Motors is going to be there or in Warren, MI. We have the chairman of the House bailout committee--the House Financial Services Committee--calling the president of General Motors saying: Don't close the warehouse in my district. And all of us in Congress are saying: Please build a car in my district. We will have some Congressmen saying: Don't buy a battery from South Korea; buy one made in my district. We have automobile company executives driving to Washington in their congressionally approved hybrid cars to spend 4 hours testifying and then drive home. How many cars do they design, build, and make while doing this? The American people know the car companies cannot compete if they have 435 congressional political meddlers, 100 senators, plus a whole administration, trying to tell them how to compete in a very complex business.

Senator Bennett of Utah and I, cosponsored by the Republican leader, Senator Kyl, and others, have a bill called the Auto Stock for Every Taxpayer Act. We would like to offer it as an amendment this week and get a vote on it. The Auto Stock for every Taxpayer amendment would say that the Treasury can't use any more TARP funds to bail out General Motors or Chrysler. Also, while the government owns stock in these companies, the Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee, has a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayer to maximize returns on that investment. And most importantly, our amendment says that within a year after General Motors comes out of bankruptcy, the government should distribute its stock to the 120 million Americans who pay taxes on April 15.

In other words, let's have a big stock distribution, the same way Procter & Gamble did when it distributed stock in Clorox or the same way other companies do every year. We have a core business, the car company, that has nothing to do with the owner, the United States government, and we should give the car company to the owners--the 120 million people who pay taxes. That is what we should do. And the rationale is: I paid for it, I should own it. That is the first amendment we want to offer.

Senator Corker, with a couple of cosponsors, including Senator Warner from the other side of the aisle, has another idea, which I am glad to support. It is a little different approach to the same idea. He would create a limited-liability corporation to manage the government ownership stake in companies in which the government owns at least 20 percent. By the fall of this year that will probably include AIG, Citigroup, and General Motors. The government's assets would be placed in a trust and managed by three independent, nonpolitical trustees. The trustees would have to liquidate the government's interest by December 24, 2011. And there is a waiver process in case the trustees think there is a problem with that deadline.

That is a responsible, interesting approach. Why shouldn't Senator Corker and Senator Warner have a chance to offer that amendment? That is what the majority of people in America would like to see done.

Senator Johanns, a distinguished former Governor of Nebraska, has his Free Enterprise Act of 2009. He has 29 cosponsors. He would like to require congressional approval before the Federal Government can use TARP funds to acquire ownership of an entity through stock.

Senator Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, has the Government Ownership Exit Plan Act of 2009. He would require the Treasury to sell any ownership of a private entity by July 1, 2010, and prohibit the government from acquiring any additional ownership stake in private companies.

Well, I think you can get the drift, Madam President. We have a number of Senators, mostly from this side but some cosponsored from the other side, who say that the American people are tired of Washington takeovers. They know cars aren't going to get better in this country if the government is meddling with them and designing them and building them and making them. I can just imagine what we will have if we meddle. We will have a purple polka dot car that gets 50 miles per gallon and will have a windmill on top and a solar panel on the side, and it will have this part made in this Congressman's district and that part made in that Senator's State, and it probably won't run 5 miles. Then we will lower the price to get people to buy it, all the while losing money, losing competition, and putting real competitors out of business. And then we will have no American automobile industry left. So we need to get the government out of the car business and stop the Washington takeover. And over 80 percent of the American people agree.

So what are we doing in the Senate? We are going to vote at 5:30 to say: No, Senators. No, Senator Corker. No, Senator Warner. No, Senator Alexander. No, Senator Bennett. We are going to say no to the other Senators, you can't continue to debate. You can't continue to offer your amendments. We are going to obstruct your right to do that. We are going to keep you from representing the people of Tennessee, the people of Utah, or the other people you were sent here to represent. We are going to stop the debate; stop the amendment.

That is the tyranny of the majority that Alexis de Tocqueville envisioned. That is not the way the Senate has been running this year. This year in the Senate, Senator Reid has made a good-faith effort, and Republican Senators appreciate that, in saying we are going to have some amendments. That means we are going to have some amendments offered on which some of us don't really want to vote. There have been some amendments I really didn't want to vote on, including some offered by people on my side of the aisle, but that is what we do in the Senate. So why are we doing this? Why are we saying suddenly, no amendments?

So I would hope Senators would agree that at 5:30 we should vote no. We should vote no. And by voting no, we would be saying: Let's continue to debate. Let's continue to amend. A vote yes is a vote to obstruct. A vote no is to continue to debate and continue to amend. And the issue is, shall we take the government ownership of automobile companies and put it, as soon as it is practicable, back in the hands of the American people, where it belongs, in our free enterprise system? That is the American way.

We have at least four different options. We have a whole menu here. If you don't like the Alexander-Bennet

amendment, vote for the Corker amendment. If you don't like that, vote for one of the other amendments. We have four ways to go about it, all carefully thought out, all in front of everybody. Why don't we do that? That is what the Senate does.

So I prefer the way the Senate has operated pretty much all the time, up to today, which is to say: Senators, offer your amendments, take your votes. Today is an aberration -a change away from the way the Senate should function. My old friend, the late Alex Haley, author of Roots, used to say: Find the good and praise it. Well, I can find plenty of good in the way the majority leader has conducted the Senate this year by allowing debate and amendments. I would consider this an aberration.

I hope we will vote to continue to amend, to continue to debate, and get the Senate back to the practice we had most of this year, which is to say: If you have an amendment, Senator, bring it on over, call it up, and we will vote on it, and then we will go on to the next thing.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from the American Spectator entitled ``Are There Obamashares in Your Future?''

I thank the Chair, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.