Nationwide Freight and Personal Mobility Act

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

I ask unanimous consent that instead of going in the order that the unanimous consent had requested, Senator Vitter from Louisiana be recognized for 5 minutes, then followed by myself, and then followed by Senator Thune.

Mr. President, I will spend some time tonight offering two amendments to the bill under consideration.

I begin by asking: Why is it in the midst of all the problems that face the country, the Senate is going to spend time on an omnibus lands package? It is no emergency. There is no crisis. There is nothing critical about it. Instead of working on the problems that are in front of this country, we will spend the next 2\1/2\ days or next 1\1/2\ days on a 1,243-page bill that has 170 separate bills in it that, in fact, for the average American doesn't come anywhere close to being a priority. One has to ask that question. Why are we doing this? We don't have anything better to do. We don't have anything more important to do. If that is the case, we probably should go on until we do have something that can make a significant change in the country.

I call up amendment No. 680.

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

I spent about an hour this afternoon talking about the problems of the National Park Service. They are severe. I introduced into the record the GAO report on the problems at the Department of Interior, as well as the testimony of the acting inspector general, Mary Kendall, about the significant problems that parks are experiencing. Our parks are falling down. The maintenance backlog, according to the Park Service, is $8.9 billion. But according to the testimony of the GAO, it is somewhere between $13 and $19 billion.

This is a very straightforward amendment. What it says is, before we start anything new and new parks, we are going to bring up-to-date what should be brought up-to-date in the parks we have today. That is important because they need to be fully operational. They need to be fully accessible to the public which many are not now because of maintenance backlogs. They need to pose no safety or health risk for both the employees of the parks and the Department of Interior as well as the American citizen, some 270 million who visit them every year.

This is a very straightforward amendment. It says we are going to do something we don't often do. We are going to prioritize how we spend money in the parks. What we are saying is, we are not going to do any new construction in terms of units of the national park system until the Secretary--and this is left to the Secretary, not us--determines that the existing sites, the structures, trails and transportation infrastructure of the National Park Service are fully operational, fully accessible to the public, and pose no health or safety risk to either the public or park employees.

We have thought about other things. We want to make sure there is an exclusion in there. If something is going to cost more to repair than to build something new, we say build something new. The other thing, anything that the Secretary deems is important for public safety that is new, we let them do that as well. All this is saying is with this $10 billion of new authorizations and $900 million of mandatory spending accompanying this bill, the first thing we ought to do is take care of what we have before we start off on another project.

The crown jewels of our national parks are fading. They are fading because we won't take care of them. The backlog since the last time we considered this bill has grown by $400 million. That is just what we know since the last time we considered this bill. The other thing we know from the GAO report is there is a marked risk to both employees and the public in many areas of our national parks. The other thing we know is many of our best parks, the Grand Canyon, for example, a large number of the trails are in such disrepair that they are closed. The people can't access them because we haven't said put the money where it needs to go to make sure we keep the things we have today operational and pristine. So it is straightforward.

What we also know is that the agency needs some help in terms of priorities. In spite of what we have had, oftentimes we are sending them messages to do something else that is not within these priorities. All we are saying is, we have these wonderful assets. Before we go create new assets and new things to enjoy, let's take care of the ones we have. We would not build a new addition onto our own homes when the whole rest of the home is collapsing from lack of maintenance. The first thing we would do is take care of the home, the maintenance of the home.

The bill in front of us actually has the potential to make the situation in our parks worse. It is because we are going to mandate certain things in the bill that will take away from true priorities of maintaining our existing structures.

A recent memo prepared by the Facility Management Division of the National Park Service reveals at least 10 States where the National Park Service backlog exceeds $100 million. At least 20 States have facilities with deferred maintenance exceeding $50 million. That excludes $4 billion that is sitting there for roads and bridges in our national parks. This is in spite of the historically high appropriations levels we have sent to the parks.

I listed earlier--and I will not list again--all the things the National Park Service is responsible for. But it is a litany that, when you look at it, is almost incomprehensible that one agency can take care of everything we have asked them to take care of.

The USS Arizona now faces a maintenance backlog of $33.4 million; the Gettysburg National Battlefield site, $29.4 million; the Statue of Liberty Park has a backlog of $196 million. Are we going to let it fall apart while we create something new or should we take care of what we have first?

What we do know from both the inspector general's report and the GAO is the Park Service is denying access in an increasing number of areas because of the growing maintenance backlog.

Representative Rob Bishop is from Utah. The Dinosaur National Monument is largely inaccessible due to its overwhelming backlog. The center is designed so a kid can go in there and see, within the mountainside, the fossils that are there and see what scientists say about those fossils and then be able to put all that together in their mind. Unfortunately, no one has been able to access this building for 10 years--for 10 years--because we do not have enough money to fix the building and it has been condemned.

So here is an area where there is great educational value, great historical value and for 10 years the building has been condemned and we have not put the money there. This amendment is meant to fix what is wrong now before we spend money on new things.

According to the inspector general of the Department of Interior, financial management has remained a top challenge for the Department, and their work--this is the inspector general--has documented decades of maintenance, health, and safety issues that place Interior Department employees at a health and safety risk, as well as the public.

A report by the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees found widespread evidence of major problems that will be evident, including decreased safety for visitors, longer emergency response times, endangerment of protected resources, and dirtier and less well- maintained parks. The problem will only grow worse in the coming years if we pass this bill and do not prioritize the maintenance backlog.

It is noted that at the Grand Canyon, the cross-canyon water line is deteriorating so badly that it had 30 leaks this year and is in danger of failing entirely. Yet we did not spend any money on that in this bill. We did not authorize them to fix it. We are not about taking care; we are about solving our own political situation.

At Yellowstone, 10,000 gallons of raw sewage this past year leaked from a broken pipe and flowed into a trout-spawning stream in Yellowstone National Park. It is the absence of maintenance. We know the life expectancy of many of these infrastructures, and

yet we have not done anything about it.

Carlsbad Caverns--a great experience. Sewer lines were actually leaking into the caves because of deferred maintenance. Superintendent Benjamin said: Believe me, if there's sewage dripping down into the cavern, people are not going to believe we are doing a good job.

No kidding. Well, that starts with us.

The National Park System has grown to almost 400 units, 84 million acres, and a $9.6 billion maintenance backlog. That is according to the Park Service. It is much higher if you look at the GAO's numbers.

We appropriated $540 million for new land acquisition from 2001 to 2008. We have increased the number of National Heritage Areas since 2000 from 18 to 40. We added 10 more in January of this year. In the 110th Congress, 35 bills were introduced to expand the National Wild and Scenic Rivers.

The National Park Service already manages over 3,000 miles of scenic rivers. This bill includes 1,200 miles. But yet the maintenance dollars, the dollars put there to take care of what we have, are not there.

In April of 2008, the Congress passed and the President signed the Consolidated Natural Resources Act. That was another big lands bill that impacted land and property rights in over 30 States. It authorized $380 million in new spending and not one way of paying for it and none of it for maintenance backlogs.

What we also know is this agency, the Department of Interior, is unable to prioritize the maintenance of existing obligations over new commitments. They get mixed signals. We say: Go do this new one. And then we send appropriations dollars and say: You have to spend it on this rather than taking care of a rotting sewage line.

Until we in Congress and the administration prioritize the maintenance of our existing national parks, these problems are going to grow. There is no excuse for it.

Amendment No. 679 to Amendment No. 684

So I would put forward this is a simple amendment. It does not cost us anything. It actually saves us money because to repair something that is falling down--before it gets to that stage--is much cheaper than waiting until it is a catastrophe. Consequently, if we were to plan appropriately, and if we were to direct the funds appropriately, we would be repairing that which we need to repair so we do not spend extra dollars once they have failed.

My hope is we will get positive consideration of this amendment. This is a commonsense amendment. People at home would do the same thing. They take care of what they have before they go and add something else that is going to take away money that is required to maintain what they have.

I would say, again, individuals do not build additions to their homes when the roof and the foundation is caving in and neither should the Park Service and neither should Congress.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside and that amendment No. 679 be called up.

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

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I wish to read this amendment because it is very short and very straightforward:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, nothing in

this Act shall restrict the development of renewable energy--

``Renewable energy''--

on public land, including geothermal, solar, and wind energy

and related transmission infrastructure.

Very straightforward. We had a great experience with the harsh reality that we are energy dependent this past summer. It is going to come back again. Unfortunately or fortunately--depending on how you look at it--in the West, where the Government owns 1 out of every 2 acres, the vast majority of geothermal land resides.

What you will see--as indicated on this map--through this area, through southern California, along the coast of California, and Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, some areas of Montana, Wyoming, and Arizona, is where the vast resources of a clean renewable energy exists: geothermal.

The only problem is, in this bill we gut a large portion of that and say we can never touch it. Well, why would we, if we believe in climate change--and I am a skeptic, but I will take that point for a moment. Let's say we believe in climate change and we want to have energy produced that does not increase the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Why would we pass a bill that takes and restricts a large portion of this area from geothermal?

We know in Nevada and Arizona, for example, solar is a massive source for clean energy. Yet in this bill, in both the wilderness areas and the heritage areas and all these other areas, we are going to restrict not only the utilization of geothermal and wind and solar but also the ability to capture it and move it somewhere else.

Well, if we take all this area for geothermal, and if you concentrate Nevada and Arizona in terms of the solar and then you look at the wind corridor that comes up through here, as shown on this map, and say you cannot send a transmission line anywhere across any of these properties, what we are doing is shooting ourselves in the foot. We do not want carbon-based energy. And now, where the Government owns 650 million acres, we do not want wind, solar or geothermal. Why would we do that?

I guess we are going to go all nuclear. We do not see any nuclear coming from the President. We do not see any nuclear coming from anywhere else. So what are we going to have? We are going to have no energy.

So we are going to limit hydrocarbon energy, and then we are going to take our greatest sources for wind, solar and geothermal and we are going to say: Sorry, that is off limits. You cannot use it here. You cannot extract it.

Geothermal is so powerful because it is a direct conversion. We capture steam and we capture a temperature gradient that turns a turbine that puts off nothing but water vapor--no CO2, no nitrous oxide, no sulfur dioxide. It is free energy. Yet in this bill we are going to take 2.2 million acres out of these areas and say: You cannot touch it for renewable energy. Why would we do that? So all this amendment says is you can do whatever you want on all these areas, as what we have done in the bill, but you cannot exclude it from renewable energy.

I am reminded, everybody wants renewable energy, but they just do not want it in their own backyard. Everybody wants us to have wind. We love wind. We have turbines like crazy in Oklahoma, like they do in North Dakota and South Dakota and several other States. We are happy to have it. But if you applied the same thing to Oklahoma, in terms of wilderness areas, we would not have any of the windmills that are generating a significant portion of our alternative renewable energy today in Oklahoma. More importantly, you would not be able to transport the energy you are creating that is renewable, that does not create CO2, that does not supposedly contribute to ``climate change.''

We are going to pass a bill that is going to significantly restrict that.

What are we thinking? Why would we limit alternative renewable energy access in all these Federal lands, this extra 2.2 million to 3 million acres? Why would we do that? It is almost like we have a death wish. Either that or we are not thinking, we are not considering what we are going to need in the future. We are considering the short term, but we are not considering the long term.

So this map shows us specifically where geothermal is available. If you look down in southern California, we have heritage areas. Knock it out. If you look in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, we have heritage areas. We knock it out, saying: You can never utilize this land to capture clean alternative renewable energy. That is ludicrous.

So all this amendment does is say: Yes, you can. We are going to do everything else under the heritage areas, under the wilderness areas, under all the other restrictions we put in this bill, but we are going to capture renewable, clean energy for the American people. We should do nothing, given the fact that we are in trouble on energy and we don't even know it right now.

What we know is the supply-demand glide is going like this and we are in a recession now, and we don't feel it, but as we lock in and cut exploration for natural gas in this country, we will see a twofold increase in natural gas within the next 18 months. We know that because we have built reserves every year until this year in natural gas. We know we consume 4.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas every year in this country. As they shut down the exploration for known areas of natural gas because the price is under $4, what we know is the demand is not going to decrease significantly over what it is because we have gone to alternative sources for power generation--a lot of it natural gas--that the demand is going to increase and the supply is going to become static.

What is going to happen? The price of natural gas is going to go up. What is that going to do to utility bills? Before we do a monstrous cap-and-trade that is going to severely raise everybody's electrical rates in this country, we are going to limit an alternative supply for electricity with this bill, because we are going to limit the access to geothermal, we are going to limit the access to wind, and we are going to limit the access to solar, and solar thermal electricity generation.

I have trouble figuring it out. It must be my commonness being from Oklahoma, but I can't figure out why we would--I know we are going to cut one leg off in terms of going green over the next 20 years. I can't figure out why we are cutting off the other leg. I am wondering what we are going to use for power in this country. If we are going to severely limit alternative renewable, nonpolluting energy that is clean and we are going to massively limit--as the Department of Interior is already--exploration for hydrocarbon-based fuels, and we are going to limit the significance of coal, of which we have over 300 years available to us, what are we going to use for energy? We are also going to slow down the permitting process and the loans for nuclear, so what are we going to use? What is going to keep the lights on?

This amendment is about keeping the lights on in a way that nobody should be able to object to. It is not carbon based. It is a renewable, it is essentially almost free, it is something we can capture without any significant greenhouse effect. Yet we are going to limit it with this bill. I think it is significantly foolish on our part.

What we know is that this 140 million acres we see here, if we add in what is already in wilderness areas, what is already off limits in terms of national forests and Federal lands, you add in--and this does not include except a small portion of Alaska--we are going to markedly limit our resources. Ninety percent of all the geothermal capability in this country--a clean source for renewable energy--is found on Federal lands. As we grow the limitations on Federal lands, what we are going to do is take that 90 percent and we are going to take anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of that and say you can't have it. There are 29 million acres with solar potential in six southwestern States--these six States. If you can't transmit the power through power lines, if you can't disturb the soil to build, whether you put it above ground or underground, if you can't cross a river with a power line either overhead or under the river, how are we going to transmit the power? What we are saying is we believe in renewable, clean energy, but we don't.

The other point I wish to make is we now have in this country in wilderness areas alone 108 million acres. Do you know how many acres we have in developed land in this country? It is 106 million. Not counting the Federal lands outside of wilderness, which is 650 million acres, we have 108 million acres of wilderness and only 106 million acres of developed land. Where do we stop to the point where we don't steal away from the future potential energy production in this country? I am not talking carbon based; I am talking noncarbon based. How do we get the power from geothermal from these concentrated areas to the west coast and back to the upper Midwest if we can't cross any of these areas? And then, what is the cost and what is the line loss load when we have to do something such as this and then go underground and then come back up? It becomes prohibitive, and then we lose all advantage from renewable energy.

The other area we know where we have tremendous potential in all of these areas and others is biomass. We have a tremendous source. Approximately one-third of the 747 million acres across the United States is covered in forest land. Fifty-seven percent of those forests are owned by the Federal Government. Also, 590 million wet tons of biomass are available in the U.S. annually--590 million tons. Sixteen percent of renewable energy generated right now from electricity comes from biomass and 3 percent of our total energy in the year 2000. I don't have the dates for where we are today.

Here is what the U.S. Forest Service says: ``The technology to generate energy from wood has entered a new millennium with virtually limitless possibilities.''

Yet, even if we generate it, we can't transmit it under this bill, or the difficulty of costs for transmitting it will be prohibitive.

Each of the designations in this bill--somebody challenge me on this--each of the designations in this bill specifically withdraw the land from future mineral and geothermal leasing. That includes the wilderness areas, the wilderness study areas, and the wild and scenic rivers. They are withdrawn. They can't be used. Right now, there are 708 federally imposed wilderness areas totaling 107 million acres of land in 44 States. That will go to 1.92 million acres with the passage of this bill. It is a small portion of the 2 billion acres in this country, but it still denies the fact that we have more land now in wilderness than we have developed. The prohibition from capturing clean energy, renewable energy, and nonpolluting energy is unfortunate.

One of the things that is wrong with this bill also is that we are viewing tomorrow's energy potential on all of these lands with today's technology. Just like when you go back and look at the old BLM studies and the Department of the Interior studies on the land, if you use old technology, you can say there is no energy there. When you use new 3D seismic and electromagnetic seismology, what we see is a whole great potential for all other sources, including geothermal.

The other concern I have with this bill, and the reason I have this amendment, is we recently had a Federal judge in Washington, DC issue a restraining order to halt the development of major oil and natural gas reserves on 100,000 acres of Federal land in portions of Utah, not because it was in a wilderness area, not because it was in a heritage area, not because it was along a scenic river, but because it was near there. So we are going to abrogate to the courts and the aggressive environmentalists the ability to stop even clean renewable energy sources by the wilderness area designations.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, a former colleague of ours, recently ordered a secretarial order calling for the production, the development, and delivery of renewable energy; that it would be a top priority of the Department of the Interior, but this bill restricts that order. So here we have the Department of Interior Secretary saying this is our priority

and we are going to pass a bill that undermines that authority and that priority.

Secretary Salazar claims that this effort will include the identification of areas of high potential renewable energy, including geothermal, wind, solar, and biomass. It also includes mapping out transmission infrastructure to connect power to consumers.

Well, as we create all of these wilderness areas and heritage areas, guess what we are doing. We are limiting the ability to map out power transmission lines. In total, the lands bill will withdraw over 3 million acres from energy leasing, placing them outside the scope of Secretary Salazar's endeavors.

Majority Leader Harry Reid summed up the difficulties imposed by these designations when he discussed energy resources in Nevada. He said:

We know that our State has immense clean energy resources.

However, the Federal Government's management of 86 percent of

Nevada lands makes it challenging to explore and develop our

enormous renewable resources.

The only area in this bill that does not affect geothermal is in the State of Nevada. It is the only area.

If we are serious about alternative energy, this amendment should be accepted, should be voted for, allowing us to have a wilderness area, but at the same time utilizing clean energy as a way to bring us to energy independence in the 21st century. So this is a very simple amendment. It says, OK, let's have what we have, but let's don't restrict it as far as renewable, clean energy. Let's use the renewable, clean energy that is available. This happens to be geothermal, but we know where the solar is, we know where the biomass is, and we know where the wind corridor is in this country. Why would we restrict it?

Amendment No. 675 to Amendment No. 684

(Purpose: To prohibit the use of eminent domain and to ensure that no

American has their property forcibly taken from them by authorities

granted under this Act)

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 675.

Mr. President, that is a straightforward amendment. The authors of this bill said we are never going to use eminent domain for any of this, even though they reference two or three statutes that give eminent domain. Well, if that is the case, if we are never going to use eminent domain to accomplish the purposes of this, there should be no trouble accepting this amendment. This amendment just says we can't. On this bill, you can't use eminent domain to take the property away from somebody who doesn't wish to give their property.

Amendment 5 of the U.S. Constitution says:

No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property

without due process of law, nor shall private property be

taken without just compensation.

That is the Constitution. But the father of the Constitution said it a different way. He said, in a word:

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be

equally said to have a property in his right.

Eminent domain is necessary and appropriate at times in this country for national defense, for the health and well-being of the country, for priorities that protect the public at large, and that makes sense. There are times when we have to use it. There is not a time associated with any of the parts of this bill that we should have to use eminent domain.

I have been assured by the authors of this bill that they have no intention of using eminent domain. If that is the case, then support this amendment, and we will never have a problem with it. The property rights folks in this country, of which about 100 support this amendment, would say that is great, so let's vote it up or down.

But if we vote against it, what is it going to tell them? What it is going to do is erode the confidence of landowners in this country. We say we are not going to take your land away from you without your permission, without there being a willing seller, but we have kind of a king's edge. We have our fingers crossed behind our backs because there may be some time when a bureaucrat has made a decision other than what we are saying tonight.

So the way to enforce that would be a straightforward message that says, according to this amendment, ``notwithstanding any other provisions of this act, or any amendment that is made to this act, no land or interest in land, other than an access easement, shall be required under this act by eminent domain.''

That is straightforward. Let's give them confidence that we are not going to take their land away against their will.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) are necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, for those who are following the action of the Senate, the debate over the budget resolution, this is an annual event that involves planning ahead for our spending for the next fiscal year, which starts October 1, and beyond. Presidents come forward and suggest what

they would like to see us do with the submission of the budget. Then it is up to the Congress to decide, within the confines of the President's budget request, what to do with the money--how to raise it, how to spend it. Naturally, it is a contentious process because there are a lot of different opinions on where money should be spent--how much should be given to this agency or how much should be in tax cuts.

President Obama came to this assignment with a very difficult set of circumstances--the worst economy in 75 years; a nation in recession; the need for us to put money into the economy to create and save jobs, good-paying jobs right here in America, which he did with his Recovery and Reinvestment Act; and then the question about what will our priorities be as a nation as we try to bring ourselves out of this recession and plan ahead.

This week, the Senate is going to vote on its version of the budget resolution for the fiscal year 2010, starting October 1, 2009. We are going to make fundamental decisions about what our economy and the prosperity of our country will be. Of course, those decisions will impact the direction of our Nation, not only next year but beyond.

We need to face facts. This is the hardest budget we have faced in a long time. Because of the deficit which the President inherited from President Bush--the largest in history--we are trying our best to spend our money wisely but not make the debt any worse in the long term. We have taken an important step with the economic recovery package, but there is a lot more we have to do to put the economy back on track.

Now we need to pass a budget that is smart and fair and responsible, one that helps our economy work again and invest in things that will pay off over the long run. The Senate budget resolution reported by Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota would allow us to do that. I certainly do not agree with all of the specifics in his budget resolution. I would write it differently. Every Member of the Senate can say that. But when I look, on balance, I believe this budget resolution really addresses the realities of what we face and the challenge of what lies ahead. It restores fairness for middle-class families, working families across America, it reestablishes responsibility in the budgeting process, and it makes some smart investments in America's future.

The Budget Committee followed the principles laid out in President Obama's proposal to Congress. It sets a path to regain balance that our country once enjoyed--careful investments in our future while creating opportunity for working families who have lost a lot of ground over the last 10 years. It provides the flexibility to authorizing committees to tackle our toughest challenges, and it starts to repair years of neglect and make critical investments in health care, education, energy.

Let's speak to the health care issue for a moment. Our Nation spends more than any other industrialized nation on health care. Yet the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not offer health care coverage to all of its citizens. We can't just throw money at this problem and hope everybody gets good health care. Instead, the President's budget identified specific changes in the current system to improve efficiency. The savings from those changes would then be applied to Congress's efforts at reforming health care. That is smart, it is fair, and it is responsible.

To implement the President's request, the Senate budget resolution includes a deficit-neutral reserve fund that allows the committees here in the Senate to take on the challenge of health care reform. We need to spend our health care dollars more sensibly, and we need to provide quality health care for all Americans.

Let me tell you about one program that kind of tells the story about the debate we have been engaged in over the last several years. President Obama has said we need to take a closer look at the Medicare Advantage program. He said it is time for us to end excessive payments to private insurance companies that administer that program.

From the beginning, Medicare Advantage was sold to Members of Congress as the private sector alternative to Medicare which will prove, as they argued, that if you let the private insurance companies do the Medicare Program, they are going to save the Government money. Those who argued for it started with the premise that when the Government bureaucrats get their hands on it, they are going to make a mess of it, it will cost too much, have too much redtape, and at the end of the day, if you just left it to the market forces and the private sector, you would come out with a much better and cheaper result. Taxpayers would save money if you took away the Government program and replaced it with a private sector program. That was the premise behind Medicare Advantage.

It was a good theory: The competition among private insurance companies would bring down the costs of traditional Medicare. But it turns out to be wrong. Congress passed legislation in 2003 and agreed to pay for-profit insurance companies 12 percent more per beneficiary than regular Medicare would spend to cover the same people. So the premise that private insurance companies would save us money was defeated from the beginning. We started off subsidizing private insurance companies to offer as much coverage as Medicare offered.

We gave them a 12-percent subsidy to prove that the free market works. Today, research from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, our official experts on Medicare payments, showed that Government pays private fee-for-service programs 119 percent of the average cost for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare.

If they were setting out to prove that they could do the job of Medicare with competition and private insurance cheaper, they failed, failed by 19 percent. What is it costing us? Last year, a report from the Congressional Budget Office said payments to private health plans in Medicare Advantage rose from $40 billion in 2004 to $56 billion in 2006, $75 billion in 2007.

Federal payments to these private insurance companies are expected to reach $194 billion by 2017. So for 10 years, from 2007 to 2017, the Federal Government is on the hook for $1.5 trillion in an experiment that was supposed to save us money. The share of Medicare spending for Medicare Advantage Plans will increase from 17 percent in 2006 to 27 percent in 2017.

So they end up proving, year after year, that they can reach into and grab more and more Medicare beneficiaries, lure them into private plans that cost the taxpayers more money, when they were supposed to be proving they could save us money.

Insurers claim they are paid more because they offer more than Government-sponsored Medicare. It is true that many plans do offer things that the original Medicare plan did not offer. But in a report issued last year, the Government Accountability Office noted that only a small share of the money that the Government will pay Medicare Advantage Plans over the next 4 years goes to extra benefits; only 11 percent.

It turns out there is much more in profitability and in offering services that do not benefit Medicare beneficiaries. Most of the rest of it goes to out-of-pocket spending, reducing out-of-pocket spending and copays.

Sounds good until you realize that to pay for this reduction, we are now charging higher premiums for the 35 million Medicare beneficiaries who enrolled in traditional Medicare. Follow it? Private companies that are going to show they can run rings around traditional Medicare, offer the same benefits at a lower cost, it turns out, were wrong, and we are paying 19 percent more for private insurance companies to offer Medicare Programs than if traditional Medicare offered it, and the 19 percent is being paid by the seniors in traditional Medicare. They are paying for the subsidy for the private insurance companies.

Each beneficiary enrolled in traditional Medicare sees their premiums increase $3 a month to pay for the reductions in out-of-pocket spending for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage. Worse, we do not even know if this program is working. In 2007, CBO Director Peter Orszag, now head of OMB, pointed out in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee that little information is available on the degree to which plans generate better health outcomes than traditional Medicare.

Now, you want to know why and how we are wasting money? Here is one good example. If we are going to bring down the cost of care and maintain its quality, we cannot afford subsidizing private insurance companies that charge us more than traditional Medicare and cannot prove that the outcomes are any better.

The President's budget proposes to cut Federal payments to insurers that run plans by requiring them to competitively bid to offer coverage in a given geographic area. Insurers will be paid according to the average of the bids. If they are as good as they say they are, let's have them compete.

This process will save us $177 billion over 10 years. It is a sacred cow. I recall an alderman from Chicago, a friend of mine, a Hispanic alderman, called me and said: Senator, I have to see you. I just have to see you.

I said: OK. We will set it up. I said: I am coming out of meeting over here in a hotel. If you can meet me in the lobby, I would be glad to talk.

And he did. We sat down and he said: Senator, you just have to save the Medicare Advantage program.

I said to my friend, the alderman: Why in the world did you come to lobby me on this?

Well, he said, it turns out, one of the major insurance companies called me and said that my people liked this plan. And they gave me the names of some people who liked this plan.

I said to the alderman: Do you know this plan costs more than traditional Medicare and your people are not getting anything more for it?

No, I did not know that, he said.

But they went to the lengths, the insurance company, of sending this alderman in, a nice fellow, trying to do the right thing for people he represents, trying to sell an idea that, frankly, costs the Federal Government more money.

That is how you get into the mess we are in with health care in America today. This $177 billion we could save by taking an honest look at Medicare Advantage we can use to expand health insurance protection to the 48 million uninsured people in this country. We can expand and build community health centers. God bless them. These are people who do great work in primary care all across America.

I tell you, I visit these centers, clinics, all across Chicago. Erie Health Clinic is one of my favorites, Alivio Health Clinic. I walk in there and I say to these doctors, face to face, eye to eye: If I were sick, I would be happy to walk through the door of your clinic and have your doctors and nurses see me. They are fine, quality care. And many of the people whom they serve are poor people, uninsured people, folks who have no coverage, no insurance. They are doing great work, and we need to have more of them providing primary care, keeping people out of emergency rooms.

The money we have spent and we have been spending to subsidize Medicare Advantage is money that is wasted, money that, in fact, goes to private health insurance companies. Well, President Obama said: The free ride is over. If you cannot compete and get your prices down to a reasonable level, we are going to stop this subsidy. You set out to prove to us how good the private sector was and how good the free market worked and then you are demanding a subsidy of the Government to keep offering your Medicare Advantage program.

I have a friend of mine, Doug Mayol in Springfield, IL, who knows too well the difficulty this economy can create for someone on their health care. I have a picture of Doug here. I want him to be seen on C-SPAN back in Springfield, IL, or wherever he is watching.

Doug, since 1988, has operated a small business in downtown Springfield selling cards, gifts, knickknacks. And as you can imagine, a self-insured businessman, his profits, many times, are at the mercy of the rising costs of health care. He is fortunate that his only employee in his little shop is over 65 years of age and qualifies for Medicare and also receives spousal benefits from her late husband. If that were not the situation, Doug does not think he could help her pay for her health insurance.

In terms of his own insurance, Douglas has a challenge. Doug has a preexisting condition and fears the possibility of becoming uninsured. Some 30 years ago, Doug was diagnosed with a congenital heart valve defect. He has no symptoms, but without regular health care, he is at the risk of developing a serious problem.

Like most Americans, his health care premiums have risen over the years. But recently it has been shocking. In 2001, Doug paid $200 a month for health insurance. By 2005, it had doubled to $400 a month. When Doug turned 50 years of age in 2006, the monthly rate went up to $750 a month for his health insurance. He tried to work within the system. He chose a smaller network of providers and a higher deductible and brought the monthly premium down from $750 to $650.

Unfortunately, last year, that premium for this small business owner in Springfield, IL, went to $1,037 a month. Only by taking the highest deductible allowed, $2,500, was he able to bring it down to $888 a month. He knows and we know the numbers are going to keep going up.

Because of his high deductible, Doug thought he should open a health savings account, but he could not set aside the $200 a month on top of the $888 premium every month, found it impossible to do.

You know what. He is not a sick person or costly patient. With his high deductible, the insurance does not even pay out, as Doug has never made a claim for an illness or injury except for routine primary care. Yet more affordable insurance carriers reject him because of his preexisting condition, the possibility of high expenditures in the future for things such as surgery.

This condition, or burden you can say, severely limits his choices when it comes to insurance. But he cannot afford not to have health insurance either. With his heart condition, antibiotics are needed before undergoing even a visit to the dentist. Although he should see a cardiologist periodically, Doug avoids it. He fears it would add another red flag to his already tainted medical record in the eyes of the insurance companies.

What kind of system are we operating in America that even those with coverage are delaying care because it costs and the way insurance is structured? Americans need peace of mind of knowing that health insurance companies will not be able to pick and choose whom they cover. We deserve the highest quality care our country has to offer, and President Obama has made a commitment to reach that goal.

This budget resolution lays the foundation for making that commitment a reality. Doug is living his American dream. He has his own business. Having health insurance should not destroy that dream. Doug should not be forced to choose between keeping the shop doors open and paying his insurance premium.

The budget resolution also offers a promising vision for education in America, closely following the President's proposals. The budget fully funds the President's request for a smart, fair, responsible investment in education and training and improves chances to learn.

First, the budget dramatically expands access to quality early childhood education programs. I listened on the floor while Republicans came and criticized the Senate budget resolution for spending too much money.

The major investment and expenditures in this resolution, in terms of new expenditures, are three. We put more money into veterans care because a lot of soldiers are coming back hurt; they need help. They need to have the clinics and hospitals and medical professionals that we promised them we would give them. We put the money in this budget resolution to keep that promise.

The second thing we do is pay for the census. This comes up every 10 years. We have to prepare for it. We cannot escape it. It is required. Let's do it right. We are doing what others have done in the past. That is one of the new areas of spending.

Third is education. This budget dramatically expands access to quality early childhood education. I believe and think most parents understand that the earlier you start teaching a child, the better chance that child has in school or to succeed. Unfortunately, a lot of kids come to kindergarten well behind the other kids in the class. This is especially true for kids from homes where families struggle economically.

That is why early childhood education programs such as Head Start can make a big difference. After a year or two in a preschool setting, these kids start kindergarten ready to learn. If you listen to the stories from Head Start teachers, you will understand how important these programs can be. I do not have a chart here, but I will tell you that Vamyah is a child in Chicago who began in a class taught by Ms. Hardy, as a tearful, timid little girl.

After 2 years in Head Start, Vamyah is singing and playing with the other kids and even attempting to write her name at the writing table. She has progressed so far, she is now helping other kids write letters, numbers, and puzzles. Ms. Hardy reports that when Vamyah goes to kindergarten in the fall, she is going to be missed. But she has a better future ahead of her because of the experience she has had at Head Start.

This budget will give other kids the opportunity to grow and learn before even entering school. Once they begin their schooling, the budget asks us to invest in teachers and innovative programs so all children can succeed in the classroom. We improve student assessments, teacher training, principal preparation, and programs that reward strong teacher performance.

These are initiatives we want to see in our kid's schools and every school. The budget will help us build the education system to compete in the challenging 21st century. Once these kids move on to higher education, the budget would help them afford the high cost of tuition by raising the maximum Pell grant award and streamlining student loan programs.

The cost of college keeps going up. Everyone knows it. This morning, NPR reported that record numbers of kids are enrolled in community colleges. It is the affordable alternative. But as the costs go up, we have to give a helping hand because otherwise these kids will end up with a mountain of debt, pushing them into jobs they may not aspire to.

If a young person wants to be a teacher, we ought to give them a helping hand. Making the Pell grant larger each year will reduce the ultimate debt they face. Financial aid has not kept up with costs. Some 30 years ago, a Pell grant covered 77 percent of public college costs. Now it covers less than half that amount. To fill in the gap, more students have taken out student loans to afford college.

In the early 1990s, fewer than one-third of college graduates had loan debt. Now that number has doubled, more than doubled, to 70 percent, to an average of $20,000 debt per student. This budget increases Pell grants to $5,550.

It currently helps 7 million American kids stay in college.

One of the students who will be helped is Kendra Walker at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. She grew up in St. Louis and had a difficult childhood. She and her brother were raised by a single mom who was a crack addict for 12 years. Kendra had to grow up pretty fast, taking care of a little brother and often taking care of her mom. Her mom eventually went to rehab, but things were still pretty tough at home. Kendra worked all through high school to pay the bills and buy groceries when the family needed them. Even as she struggled, she thought: I can do better in my life. She knew her future had to include college. She worked hard in school. She was on the honor roll and graduated fourth in her class from high school. She believed her hard work had paid off when she was accepted at Howard University.

Then reality set in and Kendra knew she would not be able to go because she just didn't have the money. Instead, she started college at St. Louis Community College with plans to transfer to a university.

When her mother passed away suddenly in July of 2007, she had to redouble her efforts. She enrolled at SIU Edwardsville and moved into student housing. Today she is a junior studying criminal justice and political science. She is still struggling to pay the cost of her education, and she has nobody to help her.

As Kendra says: It is just me and the Financial Aid Office.

She has Pell grants, work-study funds, a few scholarships, and too many student loans. It is becoming harder for Kendra to make ends meet. Paying the bills and keeping food on the table is pretty tough. She almost didn't start school because her Pell grant didn't cover all the cost. She was forced to take out even more student loans. She worries about the debt she is piling up, but she knows to quit now without a bachelor's degree is to end up with debt and no diploma. When she graduates next year, Kendra plans to become a probation officer for teenagers so she can help them turn their lives around. She also dreams of attending graduate school, maybe someday going to law school and becoming a defense attorney. What a remarkable young lady.

Look at what she has been through at this point in her life. If a budget talks about a nation's values, this budget shows that we care about students like Kendra. Our budget reflects it.

In her words:

Without federal financial aid I would just be another

statistic. With the help of programs like the Pell Grant, me

and others like me can obtain our goals and have bright

futures.

We need to help people such as Kendra achieve their college dreams by increasing help through the Pell grant. This budget will do that.

The Republicans come and criticize it: Why are we spending more money? It is another one of those overspending budgets.

We are spending more money to provide more Pell grants so Kendra Walker can finish college, get a job, and contribute back to society. Is that a good investment? I think it is one of the best.

This budget also provides a downpayment on weaning America from foreign energy sources. We know we have to cut back on foreign energy that generates greenhouse gases and makes us dependent on foreign countries. This budget proposes we spend less money heating and cooling with old, inefficient systems in Federal buildings and more money developing smarter ways to use power. It proposes we spend less burning conventional fuels and more money developing cleaner energy sources.

If this budget had already passed and this funding was already available, Lee Celske of Alito, IL, might have been able to put a small portion of that funding to good use.

In this budget, Lee Celske can be helped. Lee is an interesting and entrepreneurial fellow. He has figured out how to create greenhouses out of recycled glass. They can be framed for $30,000, quick to assemble, and a good option for communities. They are energy efficient, can withstand a category 5 hurricane. The factory that makes the houses would employ 30 high-tech, high-paying green-collar workers.

Over the past 14 months, Lee has presold nearly $2 million worth of houses, relying on loan guarantees from the bank that would underwrite the factory once sufficient sales were in place. But then the bank pulled the financing. Lee hasn't done anything wrong. His small company is ahead of schedule on growth targets, and it will create good jobs. Yet his progress has been stopped cold by the freeze in the credit markets. This budget will help finance entrepreneurs such as Lee in Alito, IL.

It contains a deficit-neutral reserve fund to advance the President's goal of expanding renewable energy use, ensuring 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025. There is also money in this budget to green Federal buildings.

Three weeks ago I was a visitor to what was then the Sears Tower, the tallest office building in America. It is now the Willis Tower. I was shown a demonstration where they are about to take this 35-year-old building and make it energy efficient. It starts with replacing 16,000 single-pane windows, energy-inefficient windows, with triple-paned windows, putting in new brackets to sustain the new weight on the building, changing the heating and air-conditioning system, generating electricity with the over 130 elevators that move up and down the old Sears Tower, now the Willis Tower. They will make this investment.

We need to look at our Federal buildings the same way and realize that sticking with old energy-inefficient

buildings is draining money from taxpayers' pockets. Money spent now creating good jobs, making these buildings energy efficient is money well invested. It will reduce the cost in the future of these buildings. Weatherization of homes and office buildings is a critical part of the energy agenda. Mr. President, 60 percent--some say 40 percent, but whatever it is--is a substantial portion of the pollution. It comes from buildings we live in, and we can reduce that pollution if we start dealing with these energy issues honestly.

I listened to the debate on the Senate floor as my colleagues on the Republican side criticized this budget. I will say, in their defense, that writing a budget is not easy. It is hard. There were years when we were in the loyal opposition and couldn't do it, couldn't write it. It diminished our ability to criticize because, frankly, we couldn't put a budget on the table. We just couldn't do it.

Well, the Republicans can't do it this year. They can't produce a budget. They certainly can't produce one to meet the goals they say they want in this budget. So there they stand, emptyhanded, criticizing our work effort, our budget resolution. It does detract from their credibility, if they can't produce their own budget. As I have said, it is hard. There have been times in the past where we in the loyal opposition couldn't.

I encourage colleagues to take a close look at this budget. It makes smart investments in the future. It is fair, particularly to working families. It is responsible. We put on line the actual cost of two wars which the previous President wouldn't even put in his regular budget. We are going to let the American people know what they cost and make sure we make allotments and allocations for them.

I hope when this comes up for a final vote, we can have the support of a sufficient number to pass this budget resolution and move America forward again.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, one has to wonder where the Senator was when they were doubling the debt over the last 8 years. But this solution is the most curious offered yet. What it says is we would make getting a budget resolution--which is the only prospect of disciplining the process--even more difficult. The cure is worse than the disease.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this wrongheaded amendment.

We already have the problems that President Obama has inherited. We are stuck with that.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote and to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Amendment No. 763

Mr. President, the next amendment in order is the Lieberman-Collins amendment. We have a 30-

minute time agreement equally divided on the amendment.

Mr. President, I yield 2 minutes off my time to Senator Kyl. I do that not because I am eager to hear from Senator Kyl but because I would like to maintain the overall time constraint we have put into place, given all the other demands. I am happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. President, look, I believe that, over the first 5 years, this budget resolution takes us in the right direction. The resolution dramatically reduces our deficits, reduces them by more than two-thirds, it reduces our deficit as a share of gross domestic product from 12.2 percent this year down to less than 3 percent in the fifth year.

The place where I would actually agree with my colleagues is in the second 5 years of either the President's budget or, frankly, mine, although mine would have substantially less debt than would the second 5 years of the President's. My own belief is getting down to 3 percent of GDP is not enough. Why is it not enough? Because at 3 percent of GDP, you stabilize the debt. That is why it is so critical to get there. At least that is what the economists tell us.

The problem with that, I believe, is I don't think stabilizing the debt at those high levels is an acceptable outcome. I think when the Senator talks about the Chinese Premier--when Senator Kyl talks about the Chinese Premier sending a warning shot, we had better take that very seriously. I think that when we see the U.S. gross debt approaching 100 percent of GDP--gross debt as distinguished from the publicly held debt--that is a real warning flag. I understand that Japan's debt is about 180 percent of their GDP and rising. I don't think it is healthy for them or for us to have public debt so high relative to GDP once the immediate crisis has passed.

Look, the problem I have with the Alexander amendment is not the sentiment behind it; it is the specifics of the amendment because what does it provide? The amendment says you are going to have a 60-vote point of order against the budget resolution when you are at those debt levels. Senator Alexander said it himself moments ago--we would not do a budget when we get to those debt levels. I don't think that is what he meant because that is not what his amendment provides. The amendment provides a 60-vote point of order against the budget resolution at those levels. I just don't get how that is the solution to the buildup of debt.

I think one of the last things you would want to do is make a budget resolution more difficult because the budget resolution actually has the disciplines, the points of order, and the supermajority points of order that help discipline the budget process, which makes it easier to prevent more appropriated spending.

Let me say this. I have been through this exercise of cutting $160 billion over 5 years from the President's discretionary proposal. I have the scars to prove it. I will tell you, if you want an intense experience around here, cut domestic discretionary spending. That is

what this budget does. There are a lot of people who are not happy about it--very much not happy. I don't know what else you do when you are faced with losing $2 trillion in revenue.

I say to my colleagues that I agree very much with the sentiment that Senator Alexander has expressed about the dangers of debt. I have said many times on the floor of the Senate that debt is the threat. The debt is the threat. I will just say this: In the previous administration, we never heard the word ``debt'' leave the mouths of the President or Vice President of the United States. Never did you hear them talk about the debt of the United States. Do you know why? Because they doubled the debt during their time. Our colleagues were complicit in that activity. They stood and voted with them to endorse the policies that doubled the debt of the United States. That was during good economic times.

In the final year of the Bush administration, the economy plunged into the worst condition since the Great Depression. That is true. But in the early days of that administration--well, the early days were recession, too. They began in recession and they ended in a very severe recession. But in between, we had a number of years of economic growth, but that growth was propelled by writing trillions of dollars of hot checks. That is what was being done during the Bush administration. The result is right here. This is what they did to the debt. They doubled it. That is the Bush legacy--doubling the debt of the United States and, again, during relatively good times. Our friends on the other side of the aisle were with them every step of the way as they took us right over the cliff.

Why did we wind up in this devastating economic downturn? I personally believe it was the result of four factors: No. 1, a very loose fiscal policy under the control of the Congress and the President of the United States. And I fought it every step of the way. I opposed this massive buildup of debt because I thought it would fundamentally threaten the economic security of the country.

No. 2, a loose monetary policy under the control of the Federal Reserve. After 9/11, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates low. So we had a combination--very unusual in economic history--of very loose fiscal policy and loose monetary policy. On top of that, we had a dysfunctional trade policy with trade deficits running well above $700 billion a year, meaning we were consuming substantially more than we could produce. We were sending vast sums of money to other countries to buy their energy, to buy their goods and to, in effect, make them our bankers, because guess what? We financed our budget deficits largely through foreign borrowing.

No. 4, we had a very loose regulatory climate in which nobody was watching these derivative instruments, these other exotic investment tools, the mortgage-backed securities that were created by people who lent money and did not care if they got repaid because as soon as they made the mortgage, they packaged it in these collateralized debt obligations and they took those packages and sold them around the world and got huge fees from it, made a lot of money from it, didn't care if the people who had the underlying mortgages paid them back or ever had any prospect of paying them back because they were not there to collect. They had shuffled it off to somebody else. They didn't shuffle it off just to American banks, they shuffled it off to banks all around the world, precipitating this crisis.

On top of it all, we had investment banks going from 11-to-1 leverage to 30 to 1. These guys were no fools. They thought to themselves: This is going to be great, we go from 11-to-1 leverage to 30-to-1 leverage. What does that mean? Let's say you bet on the price of oil and the price of oil goes up a buck. You make $11 if you have 11-to-1 leverage. If you have 30-to-1 leverage, you don't make $1, you make $30. But leverage works both ways. It works very well when things are going up. It does not work so well when things are going down.

What did these guys figure out? They figured out: Let's see if we can't find somebody to sell us insurance against the downside risk of the debt we are incurring, against the downside risk of the deals we are entering. So, in case the complicated packages of loans we're holding as assets begin to default, we will be covered.

That leads us to AIG, doesn't it? Because AIG, which had been a very strong insurance company, a highly respected company worldwide, had this little skunk works over in England, about 300 people, who started writing these exotic insurance policies called credit default swaps which insured owners of debt securities against default on the underlying loans. AIG sold that insurance at very high premiums and earned huge profits on those insurance sales. The buyers paid those premiums because having the insurance from AIG insulated them from downside risk. Or so they thought.

So what went wrong? What went wrong was that AIG never took any steps to cover their potential insurance obligations in case things went bad. They did not have the capital to back up the insurance agreements they entered into. So when things, in fact, did go bad, they could not come up with the money to provide the insurance that others had paid in expensive premiums to purchase.

It reminded me of the guy--remember back in the World Series when it was in San Francisco and they had the earthquake? We are watching the World Series and all of a sudden, the stadium starts shaking. I heard about a guy out in the Bay area who, after that, came up with a scheme to sell earthquake insurance. His earthquake insurance idea was that he would get you a helicopter within 15 minutes of the next earthquake to rescue your family, or rescue your top executives. He goes around and starts selling insurance to have a helicopter rescue you within 15 minutes, he starts collecting premiums. The problem is he did not have any helicopters.

That is basically what AIG was doing with their bogus debt insurance--insuring the debt of already heavily leveraged banks and investment banks against defaults on their debt securities. When it was revealed that AIG had not covered its bets, could not cover its bets, credit markets seized worldwide.

Shame on them. Shame on all of them. They put the world's economy at risk, and we are reaping the whirlwind today.

If I am right about this analysis that the seedbed for all of this is created by very loose fiscal policy, massive runup in debt, loose monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, irresponsible trade policy, and almost no regulatory oversight--that is the seedbed for the current precipitous decline. That is what I believe.

Senator, if you believe that, why are you writing a budget that has more debt? Very simply because when you are in a steep contraction, a steep decline, the only entity big enough to provide the liquidity to prevent a complete collapse is the Federal Government. Consumers cannot do it. They are tapped out. Companies cannot do it. They are tapped out. The only one left to do it is the Federal Government.

If we do not do it--if we did not do it--the precipitous decline we are already in could become a deflationary spiral that would suck this economy down, like the Great Depression.

Let's remember, we have 8.1 percent unemployment today. In the Great Depression, they had 25 percent unemployment. Ninety percent of the stock market's value was lost in the Great Depression. It took them decades to recover. We think we have problems now? Don't pursue the right policy options, don't have the Government provide liquidity, don't have the Government provide things such as guarantees to money market funds. I tell you, I was in the room with the previous Secretary of Treasury and the head of the Federal Reserve when they came one night to tell us--not to consult us, to tell us--they were taking over AIG the next morning. Leaders of Congress were there, the chairmen of the Banking Committees were there, the chairmen of the Budget Committees were there, and the ranking members of the House and Senate were there. We were told in no uncertain terms by the Secretary of the Treasury--not this one, the previous one--and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve that if they did not take over AIG the next morning, there would be a global financial collapse. That is what they told us. And they did not just use those words; they

provided a lot of specifics of the companies that would be on the brink of going under within 1 week if we did not provide the assistance required and if they did not make the decision to take over AIG.

Again, they were not there to consult us. They were not there to ask us. They were there to tell us what they were doing.

If this analysis is correct--and I believe it is--then our current economic circumstance is the result of an overly loose fiscal policy, overly loose monetary policy, dysfunctional trade policy, coupled with deregulation that provided no oversight.

These deals by AIG, those derivative deals--nobody even has a list of what these deals were around the world. There is not even a list because there was no requirement for any governmental agency anywhere to oversee it.

There are real consequences to policy failures. In the short term, there is no question in my mind we have to take on additional deficits and debt in order to give lift to this economy and provide liquidity to prevent a much greater collapse.

As this economy strengthens and recovers--and it will--we then have to pivot to get back to a more sustainable long-term policy. But honestly, I don't think the answer is the Alexander amendment. I think the answer is something much more like what Senator Gregg and I proposed, which is a special task force with everything on the table made up of 16 Members of Congress, members of the administration, everybody with some responsibility to come up with a plan to dig out. That is what I believe is the appropriate response.

Again, I would resist the Alexander amendment because I think it could in a strange way actually make things worse. Not to have a budget resolution, not to have the disciplines that are provided for in a budget resolution I think would be a big mistake because in a budget resolution, there is a whole series of points of order against additional spending, against excessive spending, 60-vote hurdles. Without a budget resolution, we would be left with simple majority votes.

Anybody who has been here, if we get an appropriations bill out on this floor and not have any of the budget protections that are in the Budget Act in a budget resolution--it is open checkbook, open checkbook. That is what would happen.

I have enormous respect for Senator Alexander and for Senator Gregg. They are well motivated. They are serious about this country's economic future. But I believe this particular solution, as I said earlier--this is a circumstance in which the cure is worse than the disease. I hope my colleagues will resist it.

I ask the Chair, how much time is remaining on the Alexander amendment?

No, I think not. They are counting the official 2 hours. That is not the agreement we are operating under. Maybe we should clarify. If we are at 60 minutes equally divided, including the time already used, would there be any time remaining on this amendment?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that following the use or yielding back of time on the Lieberman-Collins amendment, the next amendments to be debated are the following: the Alexander amendment regarding debt, with 60 minutes equally divided, including the time already used, and we will come back to the disposition of the remaining time on that amendment; the Sessions amendment regarding a discretionary freeze, 45 minutes equally divided, with Senator Inouye in control of 10 minutes in opposition; that upon the use or yielding back of time on the amendments, the amendments be set aside and the Senate proceed to a period of debate only with the following order: Senator Cardin recognized for 15 minutes; Republican members of the Joint Economic Committee recognized for 30 minutes; myself or my designee for 30 minutes; following the remarks of Senator Conrad or his designee, the Senate continue for debate only for Senators to speak for up to 10 minutes each on the resolution or on amendments they intend to offer at a later time; further, that speakers alternate between the two sides; finally, that the previous order with respect to Senator Conrad or his designee to offer a side-by-side amendment to amendment No. 735 remain in effect.

There is no objection to that.

Mr. President, that would take us, if I am not mistaken, to the Sessions amendment, and we understand he will be here shortly, so that leaves some time.

Mr. President, I can announce on behalf of the leader that as a result of this agreement there will be no further rollcall votes today. It will be our intention to try to stack votes at approximately 11 a.m. tomorrow. I think we will need to finalize and formalize that and announce it later in the evening, but that will be our intent.

Are we in agreement on that, I ask Senator Gregg?

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, one part of the unanimous consent request was that at the end of today, at the end of all the speakers and when we have exhausted all the time today, we will have 20 hours left on the resolution to be equally divided. Mr. President, one other caveat I would like to have as an understanding is with respect to Senator Inouye. If he is somewhat late because of other responsibilities, he would still have his full 10 minutes.

I thank the ranking member, and we thank Senator Sessions for being not only on time but ahead of time. He sets a very good example for our colleagues. We appreciate very much Senator Sessions being here early.

Madam President, when I hear the other side all of a sudden concerned about debt, it raises the question in my mind: Where were they? Where were they over the last 8 years when their administration doubled spending, doubled the debt as is shown in this chart, and they were voting for all of the policies that led to these results? Now they come and all of a sudden they are very concerned about debt. I have been concerned about debt the entire 22 years I have been here. But I also recognize that when you are in the sharpest economic downturn since the Great Depression, trying to freeze spending or trying to cut spending or raise taxes doesn't make a whole lot of sense. That would make the downturn only worse.

Senator Gregg, who is the ranking member on the committee, recognized that in a floor statement on March 11. I referred to this earlier today. March 11 is riveted in my mind because it is my daughter's birthday. My birthday is the next day. And this year--you know, typically Senator Gregg and I exchange birthday gifts. This year I got no present. I didn't even get a card. I did get this statement--which is very helpful. So I will take this as my gift. He said:

I'm willing to accept this short-term deficit and not

debate it because we are in a recession, and it's necessary

for the Government to step in and be aggressive and the

Government is the last source of liquidity. And so you can

argue that this number, although horribly large, is something

we will simply have to live with.

He was right then. I say it is very clear, if we are going to have any kind of rational economic policy, we have to be taking the steps necessary to prevent a much steeper slide. That is the near term. In the longer term we have to pivot and get this debt under control. That is critically important. This budget seeks to do that by cutting the deficit by two-thirds by 2014.

Under the budget resolution we go from $1.7 trillion of deficit this year--most of which is a responsibility of the previous administration because we are living off their last budget.

Then we are going to cut the deficit $500 billion in this resolution before us, the next year cut it another $300 billion, the next year cut it another $300 billion and get it down to $508 billion by the fifth year, a more than two-

thirds reduction. If you measure it the way economists prefer, we are reducing the deficit from 12.2 percent of GDP in 2009 down to 2.9 percent in 2014. That is a very substantial reduction, a reduction of more than three-quarters over the 5 years of this budget.

With respect to the question of spending, let me be clear what this budget does. On discretionary spending, both defense and nondefense, we bring the spending down as a share of GDP in both categories and by about the same amount. For example, defense in 2010 is 4.8 percent of GDP. At the end of the budget period, we will have reduced it to 3.7 percent of GDP. Nondefense discretionary this year is 4.7 percent of GDP. By 2014, we will have reduced it to 3.6 percent of GDP, a roughly proportionate reduction in both defense and nondefense discretionary spending.

On domestic discretionary spending, the percent of the GDP under the budget resolution is reduced from 4.3 percent in 2010 to 3.2 percent in 2014. On total domestic discretionary spending--and this excludes international--we bring it down from 4.3 percent of GDP to 3.2 percent of GDP.

Let me be clear: The average annual increase in nondefense discretionary spending under this budget resolution is 2.5 percent. That is a pretty tough budget. Anybody who doesn't think it is a tough budget, come and join me in my office for the next 2 hours and see the phone calls I am getting from colleagues and others who say: Won't you add a little more here or a little more there. I have to say: No, no, no. Why? Because we have to get on a more sustainable budget course.

The increases we do have, where do they go? Where does the money go? Thirty-seven percent of the increase in discretionary goes for regular defense funding. International is the next biggest increase, 14 percent; that is, 14 percent of the increase that we have provided in total discretionary goes for international funding. Why did we do that? Because, again, in the previous administration, they kept hiding money. They kept it out of the budget, and they kept putting it into supplemental appropriations bills in order to try to hide the ball. We are not hiding the ball. We are laying it right out there.

I had both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State call me the weekend before last, asking me to do more for international funding. It is very rare. I have never had the Secretary of Defense on any budget call me and ask me to have more funding for international accounts. Why did he do that? He made it very clear that we have been funding in the defense budget things that more properly belong in the State Department budget. I had to tell the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense I was having to cut that line by $4 billion from the President's request, still providing an increase but reducing the amount the President requested by $4 billion. Why did I do that? I did that because we lost $2 trillion from the revenue forecast. When you lose $2 trillion, guess what. You have to make some changes. Ten percent of the discretionary increase is for veterans. We have given veterans the biggest increase in the history of the Senate Budget Committee. We have done it because we recognize these vets are coming home, and they deserve the best health care we can provide. Ten percent of the increase is in education. Ten percent is in income security; 8 percent for the census. We have to do a census every 10 years. It costs money. So 8 percent of the increase was for the census. Six percent is for natural resources, to try to reduce our dependence on foreign oil; 3 percent for transportation; 2 percent is other. That is where the money has gone.

Again, I emphasize, here is the amount of spending increase for nondefense discretionary spending over the 5 years of this budget. It averages 2.5 percent a year. That is one of the most conservative budgets anybody has brought to this floor in a very long time. It is a response to the need to get back to more sustainable deficit numbers. We have done it, reducing the deficit by two-thirds over the next 5 years.

How much time remains on my side? I note the Senator from Texas is here, and we would like to accommodate her.

How much does Senator Sessions have?

How much time would the Senator from Texas like?

I yield the remaining 3\1/2\ minutes of Senator Sessions' and a minute and a half of my time so the Senator from Texas has 5 minutes.

On this amendment. But I am happy to yield the Senator a minute and a half of my time.

Madam President, I would like to correct a statement of the Senator from Texas. She said the only change we made to reduce deficits from what the President has proposed was, we went from a 10- year budget to a 5-year budget. That is not the case. We did go from a 10-year to a 5-year budget, because in the 34 times Congress has done a budget, 30 of those 34 times it has been a 5-year budget. The reason for that change is the second 5 years of forecasts are notoriously unreliable--notoriously unreliable.

The reason we have substantial savings from the President's budget over the 5 years of our budget--in fact, we have $608 billion of savings from the President's budget, comparing his 5 years to our 5 years--is because we cut spending, not only discretionary spending, but we cut mandatory spending, and we had revenue changes. The combined result is a savings of $608 billion over 5 years. So we have $608 billion less of deficits and debt. That is the fact.

I see the very distinguished chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Is he seeking time or would he prefer to--the chairman has asked to defer for a couple minutes until he is prepared to discuss this amendment.

Madam President, could I ask, how much time do I have remaining?

Nine minutes. Then the chairman of the Appropriations Committee still has 10 minutes?

All right. I thought there were 10 minutes, under the order, reserved for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Well, Madam President, I do not know how that would occur without my being notified, but let me ask unanimous consent that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee be given the 10 minutes that was intended.

Mr. President, I wish to speak on the economics of this issue and talk about it from the Joint Economic Committee perspective, as I am ranking member on that committee. There are a lot of problems within this budget as far as what it does to the overall economy, and I think we are going to see some of it as we go through a few of these charts.

The problem I see overall and one of the things we have to watch the most, as far as its impact on the overall economy, is what the percent of the Federal Government is of the overall economy. The problem with this budget and the deficits and the financing that takes place in future years is we are going to start moving this government from being roughly and normally somewhere below 20 percent of the economy as far as intake--the taking of taxes--to somewhere north of there, probably around 23 percent. We normally average around 18 percent of the economy being taken by the Federal Government in taxes. This budget moves us, over a period of years, to 23 percent. That is completely unsustainable. It is harmful. We have been somewhere close to that. We haven't been that high. We have been somewhere close to that in the past. Whenever we have been, it has had significantly bad economic consequences for our overall economy.

That is just the take. I am afraid what we have going on is too much a philosophy of ``spend it and the taxes will come,'' so that we go ahead and spend this money into the economy and taxes will build up and increase so that over a period of years we spend it in deficit form and start financing the taxes, so we edge up that percentage from 18 percent of what the Federal Government takes to 23 percent over a period of years, while we get people hooked to the spending early on and say, isn't this a great program? We have spent it on school buildings, and on this program, and on that program. Don't you love that? Isn't that great? Yes. We have to build the taxes up now to pay for it. We get a wholly unsustainable situation for the Federal economy. And that is not anything about the State or local share of it, which adds to it, and then people are working half of the year for the Government and not working enough of the year for themselves. That doesn't work.

I hope we can back up, philosophically, for a little bit and think where we want to be as a government. I think it is important that we look at it. Thomas Jefferson, in the first inaugural address he gave-- he is one of the greatest minds ever to be in this country and one of the great public policy thinkers. He said this:

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from

injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free

to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement,

and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has

earned. This is the sum of good government. . . .

So it is the limited focus of Government that everybody recognizes, which Jefferson said it should be, one of our country's great minds. It is this limited view of Government and a maximum view of personal responsibility and opportunity that has produced this vibrant, active, growth-oriented country for 200-plus years. Do we want to move away from that to an economy that is much more stagnant, more Government driven, rather than individual driven? Certainly we need to do things in particular areas, such as in the financial market structure, no question about that. But do you want to fundamentally move away from this idea Jefferson spoke of regarding what Government is to be about: ``A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuit of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. . . .''

Jefferson then warned about the perils of excess taxation, excess spending, and excess debt, all three of which are present in this budget. He warned that ``We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.'' We are getting close to that with this budget. ``We must make our selection between economic and liberty or profusion and servitude.'' He was saying, look, we either move forward as a free economy or there is going to be servitude in the process. His warning was that big Government, with its excessive spending and taxation, inevitably strips its citizens of their liberties. Yet here we are today, heeding the notion ``spend and the money will come.'' Spend it and people will attach it to a government program, and the taxes will flow thereafter. It doesn't comport with what Jefferson said. It won't work.

I believe it is a fatal error to assume that higher spending today will generate higher future tax revenues. The proposed budget amounts to an ever-increasing size of Government, and at some point we will have to face up to the massive Government we have created through massive tax increases, which will chip away at economic growth and threaten the principles of freedom and the pursuit of happiness on which our Nation was founded and has thus far prospered.

On top of this, you have this demographic nightmare coming of the full-scale retirement of the baby boomer generation. So you are upscaling your Government spending and your taxes, and then you are going to have a bunch of people getting into the retirement system, getting Medicare, Social Security, all of which they have paid for and earned, but adding more to the growth of government, more to the demand for more tax increases, and taking away more from the liberty of individuals.

More than any budget debate during the time I have been in Congress, this debate isn't simply about the spending priorities of the next 5 years; it is a debate about what kind of economy we will leave not just to the next generation but generations to come. It is a debate about whether we believe that what made America great will keep America great. It is a philosophical debate. It is about the proper role of Government. Do we believe that the strength of America lies in its Government and its political leaders or that the strength of America lies with the American people? That is a fundamental question. Is it better for the Government to decide who runs GM or is it better for GM to decide who runs it?

Do we believe that the best opportunity to rebuild this economy is a free enterprise system that encourages investment, encourages entrepreneurs to start new businesses, and empowers our citizens to pursue their dreams and aspirations or do we believe the Government should act as head of a household, determining what is in the best interest of our families? How we answer that question will determine if we begin the inexorable slide toward an America where the Government tells you how much you can earn or who will be deemed ``acceptable'' to run the Nation's enterprises. How we answer that question will determine whether we are willing to accept mediocrity and condemn future generations to an America with fewer economic liberties and opportunities. Make no mistake, as our economic liberties disappear, not just our children but our grandchildren and their children will see their political liberties slip further away. Government will become the master of the people, not their servant.

Unfortunately, the spending, taxes, and debt contained in the budget outline submitted by the President and the one reported by the Budget Committee represent a statement that Government knows best, and that we should trust in Government before we trust in a free people.

I will talk about the budget suggested by the President and reported by the Budget Committee interchangeably because they are essentially the same. The only true differences come from the use of budget gimmicks and sleights of hand that attempt to make this budget look more ``responsible'' than the one the President has put forward. They are almost identical. I have a chart that points that out where they are on discretionary outlays and total outlays. They are the same.

The American people deserve an honest discussion of the budget and the spending and taxes it contemplates. They deserve to know that the policies contemplated by this budget will add more to the national debt over the next 10 years than in all the years from the founding of this Nation until 2008. In fact, according to CBO's estimates, the publicly held debt of the United States will triple over the next 10 years under this budget.

It is not simply the dollar amount of the debt that should concern us, it is the size of the publicly held debt in relation to the size of the economy. According to CBO's estimate, the publicly held debt will rise to more than 82 percent of GDP by 2019. That is a level seen only once in our Nation's history--in the extraordinary time of World War II. Yet this comparably massive-sized deficit will come with a significant reduction in defense spending. We did that spending in World War II to pay for war. This has a cut in defense spending.

As bad as these numbers are, I am concerned that the situation this budget will put us in is likely to be worse, not better, to the overall economy. Not only were the economic assumptions used by the President overly optimistic, I am concerned that those used by the CBO in creating the baseline are too optimistic.

I want to talk about this chart. We talk too much about taxes and too much spending, and it goes too much in debt. This tells a lot of that situation. You can see about debt held by the public as a percent of GDP. This is the average--about 35 percent for a long period of time. You can see that at times, we dipped below that at different points, and then you can see what happens in 2008 and that this shoots up in a dramatic way--not to pay for war. What that debt number shoots up to is dramatic.

The point is that this is ``spend it and the taxes will come.'' What are you going to do if you cannot sustain the amount of debt? You are going to raise taxes to pay for that.

While CBO projects a larger decline in GDP during fiscal year 2009 than the blue chip consensus, CBO projects a brighter outlook going forward through 2015. CBO also projects lower inflation, interest rates, and unemployment than the private forecasters. I don't think that is probably likely assumptions to actually happen. For instance, these different assumptions result in significantly higher deficits than forecast by the administration. You can see on the chart of the Obama budget deficit what is projected. These are budget deficits under blue chip assumptions. Even that big number of deficit increases probably--it masks the true picture, which is much worse than that. It results in about $2 trillion more in publicly held debt by 2019 than projected by the administration. You can see these dollar numbers. You can see the side bar being trillions instead of billions and millions. You can see it goes from $8 trillion up to nearly $18 trillion. That is the likely scenario, actually, versus what the Obama administration is saying, around $15 billion, which it would be by 2019. That is $2 trillion more.

This budget spends too much. There are many important priorities that may have to be delayed. It is no different than what American families do when things get difficult. They figure out what the priorities are and they go with it.

Suggesting that the new administration's budget reflects a ``new era of responsibility'' is like bestowing claims of prudence and reliability on the mortgage brokers who contributed to the housing bubble and ensuing economic crisis by carelessly selling unscrupulous and inferior loans. It is neither responsible budget nor fair nor efficient to use the current economic crisis as a means to expand Government spending to unsustainable levels financed entirely through deficit spending and ultimately higher taxes on individuals. The Government is effectively charging its excessive consumption to the taxpayers' credit card, except that the beneficiaries of that consumption will not be the ones who pay off the debt. Rather, today's young workers and future generations will bear the burden of this Government's undisciplined spending. We are essentially forcing upon our young workers, our children, and grandchildren a massive credit card debt--if you can imagine that--resulting from our inability to live within our means. Would any of us do that to our children? Of course not. But that is what this budget does.

This budget contemplates permanently increasing the size of Government to unsustainable levels--especially when you consider the demographic-driven entitlement tsunami that is waiting to overwhelm the American economy. Under this budget, Federal spending as a percentage of GDP will be 28 percent of GDP in this fiscal year. Only 3 times since 1930 has the Government spent a greater share of the Nation's domestic output--1943, 1944, and 1945.

More disturbing than this year's spending is the escalating spending that this budget entails. Even if you give the President and the Budget Committee the benefit of the doubt for this fiscal year, since much of that money has already been appropriated, spending as a percent of GDP will average 23.7 percent over the 2010 to 2019 period. We will average a greater percentage of GDP over those years than we have spent in any single year, except the 1942 to 1945 timeframe. So you have a permanent growth in Government spending, not paying for war, paying for the excesses in our spending that we want to do.

We are going to have to pay that at some point or, more correctly, our children and grandchildren will. I have asked the staff to put together a quick estimate of how high marginal tax rates might have to rise if we are going to balance these budgets. You cannot sustain this amount of debt, and you have spent it, and ``there is nothing so permanent as a temporary Government program,'' as President Ronald Reagan observed. So you have started these on a temporary basis. They are going to balloon up and people get attached. So now you have to raise taxes to pay for it, because you cannot sustain that level of debt.

Here are the answers they came up with: projected tax rates that will have to go up, particularly on our top brackets because the President is saying we are going to tax the top brackets to do that. We are looking at a 65-, 69-percent marginal tax rate.

We have been there before as a country. We have had marginal tax rates up this high. It has never worked. It was economically stagnant for us as a country. People did not invest money, and basically the Government took this money and gave it to the Government instead of having it in productive sectors in the economy. We were looking at rates of 65, 69 percent.

Who is going to work and pay taxes at that rate? People working say: This is not worth it to me. We have been here before. This is a failed policy model. We have done this before. It has failed. We do not want to go back to that failed policy of the past.

Then there is the talk that we will do cap and trade, we will have an energy tax that will help pay for some of these programs. Consumers might not pay it directly, but they will certainly pay it at a rate of more than $3,000 per American family with an energy tax. The cost of living will rise, American industry will become less competitive, unemployment will rise, and the American people will suffer. We do not want that.

Particularly troubling was the suggestion of the majority leader that this is the right time to start health care reform and the same old Government game, trying to tell people: Look at this wonderful thing Government is providing you, and you are going to get it for free.

The reality of economics is that individuals pay corporate taxes in the form of higher taxes. That is simply a fact of life.

Equally troubling is the administration's desire to tax corporations that ship jobs overseas. It is nice rhetoric, but the policy is exactly opposite the one we should be pursuing. We should be pursuing incentives for multinational corporations to repatriate their earnings from abroad. One estimate put the amount of capital that could be repatriated if we instituted a 1-year tax rate of 5 percent on repatriated earnings. We could bring back as much as $500 billion into the U.S. economy.

Instead, the administration is going exactly the other way. We are going to raise these taxes, and instead of bringing that money home, we are going to

drive it overseas. That is what is going to take place. That is what has happened to date.

Over the last several years, many of us have tried working on another issue and put a great deal of effort into eliminating the so-called marriage penalty. I am concerned that the President's proposal and this budget will serve to create economic disincentives for family formation.

I have another chart to show this situation of the rate increases on increasing the marriage penalty that is going to take place under the President's proposed budget. A marriage penalty already exists in present law, and it gets worse under these policies.

The marriage penalty will nearly double in this particular wage earner's case from $2,900 to nearly $5,000. Is that the policy signal we want to send; that if you are going to get married, we are going to double your taxes? That is not a wise way for us to go, and our families are already stressed out the way it is now.

I know the President is calling for limiting deductions for higher income taxpayers. What no one on the other side of the aisle is saying, however, is that these limitations are a backdoor method of expanding the reach and scope of the alternative minimum tax.

Our economy cannot afford the kind of taxation that this budget is requiring in the future. The all-time high for the Government's take in revenue is 20.9 percent. That is the all-time high of the percentage we have taken of the economy, 20.9 percent. That has occurred twice; again, once during World War II and in 2000. The postwar average is 17.9 percent. Normally, we are taking under 18 percent of the economy, and that is high.

Since the spending under this budget and the President's budget is permanent, revenues will have to rise and be sustained at a level of 6 percent of GDP higher than the historical average in order to bring the budget into balance. That is a share of GDP, more than a third higher than the historic average. The historic average is 18 percent. This is going to be 23 percent. We have never been that high before. It is not sustainable. It is harmful to the economy. If you think the economy is in tough shape now, wait until you see the stagnation, the inflation, the unemployment this budget proposal will bring us at 23 percent taxation rates for the overall economy.

This is a bold new vision for America. Yet it is a vision that tries to deny the fundamental laws of economics. It is the same denial of risk on the part of financial institutions that put people in houses they could not afford and encouraged them to run up massive amounts of credit card and other consumer debt and led those sophisticated institutions to take on massive amounts of leverage that even the smallest of losses could not survive.

We are in the situation we are in because of excessive spending by Government and excessive risk-taking by institutions that were allowed to become too big to fail. It is time to face the facts. Too big has failed. This economy simply cannot afford this budget. The American people cannot afford this budget. Future generations cannot afford this budget. This budget asks the American people to buy into a Ponzi scheme based on the promise of returns that we will never be able to pay, while we divert massive sums in an attempt to socially reengineer the economy and the Nation.

Let us heed Thomas Jefferson's warning that I read at the outset and refuse to go down a road that enslaves our descendants for generations to come in the shackles of a mountain of debt, high taxes, and a government that has destroyed any vestige of economic freedom.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, if the leader would yield, I think the Senator

from Oklahoma will lay down his amendments, which would take up to a half an hour, 40 minutes. Whenever he concludes, I ask that I proceed.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for up to 12 minutes.

Mr. President, the Senate will in a couple of weeks take up the fiscal year 2010 budget. It is a defining document. In many cases, the budget establishes a blueprint for the agenda, what is going to happen in the Congress.

We normally get a budget proposal from the President, and the Congress takes it up and acts on it. We have gotten that blueprint from the new administration. The Congress will, as I said, in a couple of weeks take up our version of that budget, put it into legislative form, and take action on it.

I think what most Republicans in the Senate are going to take issue with in this budget is the fact that it does spend too much, tax too much, and borrow too much. We believe the budget as proposed is going to be very harmful to the economy at a time when we ought to be looking at creating jobs. In fact, this budget could do the exact opposite. It could cost the economy a significant number of jobs because it is going to impose all kinds of new burdens on that economy.

The first point I would like to make with respect to the issue of spending too much--as I said, it spends too much, taxes too much, borrows too much, but if we look at the amount of spending in the bill on the surface, discretionary spending would increase by $725 billion over 10 years. Mandatory spending would increase $1.2 trillion during the same period.

Total spending in this year's budget for fiscal year 2010 is $3.9 trillion or 28 percent of our gross domestic product. That means we would be spending more as a percentage of our gross domestic product than at any time since World War II.

That is a stunning and staggering fact when you think about it. At a time when a lot of Americans are being asked to tighten their belts in a difficult economy, this budget grows the size of Government by 9 percent for nondefense programs in fiscal year 2010, for a total of 20 percent growth in these programs since the year 2008.

There has been a lot of talk about revising the history of the past 8 years. But this budget spends more than the Bush budget every single year, and that is even after adjusting for inflation.

For those on the other side who have been critical of the overspending on the Republican side--and I don't deny the Republicans spent more than we should have when we were in control of this place, but this budget is staggering in terms of the amount of spending it includes--$3.9 trillion for fiscal year 2010, and, as I said, 28 percent of GDP, which would represent the highest level of share of GDP at any time in this Nation since World War II.

With respect to the issue of taxes--and as I said, it spends too much which, obviously, any person who looks

at this would agree with, but it also taxes too much. If you look at the taxes in the proposal, there is on the surface a whole lot of new revenue that is raised just by allowing previous tax policy to expire. We are going to see tax rates increase on people at the higher income levels.

The argument by the Democrats in the Senate has always been--and by the President, for that matter--that 95 percent of the people in the country are going to get tax cuts, and these new taxes on the economy are not going to impact that many people.

We are going to take issue with that because if you look at the total amount of new taxation--and when I say ``new,'' I am talking about net new taxes because that is independent of the tax relief. What they call the make work pay tax credit that is included in this bill does reduce the tax burden on some Americans by a certain amount. But the overall tax burden on the American economy is going to grow by $1.4 trillion.

Again, to put things in perspective, $1.4 trillion is equivalent to the annual GDP of Spain. We are going to raise taxes by $1.4 trillion in an economy that is in the middle of a recession.

Much has been made about the fact small businesses are going to be saddled with new taxes under this budget. There have been statistics thrown around. Make no mistake about it; if you are a small business with more than 20 employees and you are organized as a subchapter S corporation or an LLC and, therefore, the income you derive from that business flows through to your individual income statement, you are going to pay a higher level of taxes if you have a certain amount of income coming in.

So any company that makes $200,000 or $250,000 a year adjusted gross income because it flows through to the individual tax form, that individual could be facing much higher taxes. In fact, what has been determined through the analysis that has been done is that 60 to 80 percent of small businesses in this country will see their tax burdens go up because of the taxes included in this budget--$1.4 trillion in new taxes, which, as I said, is the equivalent of the annual GDP of Spain in the middle of a recession.

The other point I would make to those who say this is not going to impact average middle-income Americans is, if you look at the energy tax in this bill, I don't know how you can get around the fact that is going to hit everybody across the board.

The administration has said the revenue raised on the cap and trade-- we call it the energy tax component. It is going to be a tax on utilities because the utilities are going to pass this on. It is not going to be borne by the utilities. It will be passed on to consumers. The administration has indicated $646 billion or $650 billion in revenue will come in from this new cap-and-trade proposal or this new energy tax proposal. I would argue that based upon additional analysis that has been done, it will be significantly more revenue coming in from that, which means it is going to cost the economy significantly more as well.

I refer my colleagues to an MIT study that was done in 2007 where they looked at a proposal, the Boxer-Sanders proposal--S. 309, I believe it was--and made an assessment as to what that would cost the economy. Bear in mind the President, while he was a Senator, cosponsored that proposal, and his proposal for a cap-and-trade regime is modeled very much after that legislation.

What MIT found when they modeled this was that it would cost the average household in this country $3,128 in the year 2015 if this sort of cap-and-trade proposal were implemented and put into law.

As I said before, that assumes a much higher level of taxation, a much higher level of revenue coming in from this cap-and-trade proposal than does the President's budget.

I would argue that the President's budget dramatically underestimates the impact of the cap-and-trade proposal in terms of cost to the economy and the additional taxes that will be passed on, and that this represents a much more accurate review.

The Congressional Budget Office also has in their analysis concluded that by the year 2020, this could cost somewhere between $50 billion and $300 billion a year. The MIT study suggests it would cost more than $300 billion a year. I think as more and more analysis is done and more and more data is captured about this cap-and-trade proposal, we are going to find it is extremely more expensive than what has been anticipated and what has been assumed in the President's budget.

The energy tax piece of this is going to be passed on to everybody. If you are a middle-income taxpayer, a lower income taxpayer, or a small business, energy costs are going to go up. The argument has also been made the make work pay tax credit would offset that. That is true up to a point, but that is up to $400 for a single filer and $800 for a couple filing jointly and phased out so that people in the middle- income categories are still going to be faced with this significant energy tax that is paraded by the new cap-and-trade policy that is assumed in the President's budget. Not only does it directly raise taxes--the $1.4 trillion that I mentioned earlier which equals the annual GDP of Spain--the tax increase is going to be passed on to a lot of small businesses in this country. But there is this cap-and-trade tax, which is the secret job killer in this budget in terms of the enormous burden and cost it will impose on our economy, on small businesses, and on working families in this country.

As I said before, this budget spends too much, it taxes too much, and the other point I will make is that it borrows too much. If we look at the amount of borrowing that is entailed as a result of this budget and what it does to our national debt over time, again, the numbers are quite staggering.

This budget doubles--doubles, Mr. President--the public debt in 5 years and triples it in 10 years. The amount of borrowing that we are passing on to future generations is going to double in 5 years and triple in 10. Just to put this in perspective, this creates more debt. The President's budget creates more debt than was accumulated under every President in this country from George Washington through George Bush. In other words, from the inception of our country, from our very first President, George Washington, to George Bush, his Presidency included--a lot of people have criticized the previous administration for adding to the Federal debt. In fact, during the Bush administration, it was about $2.9 trillion that was added to the Federal debt. This is going to dwarf that by multitudes. It doubles the publicly held debt in 5 years and triples it in 10 years and accumulates more debt than was accumulated from the time of George Washington through the Presidency of George Bush.

That is a stunning amount of borrowing. We are getting to where even if the President's budget proposals and economic assumptions are accurate--and I would take issue with those--where the total amount of borrowing, the total amount of public debt is going to be about two- thirds of our GDP, those are numbers we have not seen at any time in this country since World War II.

There are incredible amounts of spending, incredible amounts of taxation, incredible amounts of borrowing, and lots of policy changes that we think are very bad for the country and very bad for our economy at a time when we need to be putting policies in place that will create jobs, stimulate the economy, and help expand it in a way that will make this country more prosperous and stronger for the future.

In the debate that will ensue in the next several weeks--and it will get underway in a couple of weeks--we are going to be making lots of arguments, as both sides will--those who are in favor of the President's budget proposal and those of us who are opposed to it-- about the substance of it. I hope when we focus on the substance of it, the American people will tune in because they ultimately are the ones who pay the costs.

For the taxpayers of this country who bear the burden and responsibility of financing the many new initiatives that are paraded in this, it does create a lot of new initiatives. It does away with guaranteed student loan lending, a program that has been very successful across this country and moves everything back into direct lending of the Federal Government. It, as I said, creates an entirely new energy program, a cap-and-trade program, which

is a tax. Let's call it what it is. It is going to impose an incredible cost on our economy, not to be borne by corporate America; it will be passed on to the American consumers. If the MIT study that was done a year ago is right, there will be $3,128 per household in this country to comply with the additional costs that will be imposed as a result of this new cap-and-trade proposal included in the President's budget.

It assumes some $600 billion for health care reform. We have not seen specifics and details about that, but we are concerned as well about the direction in which that may be headed. There are lots of reasons to be opposed to this budget. There are lots of things we could and should be doing to get this economy growing again, but clearly, raising taxes, spending more money here in Washington, DC, borrowing more from our children and grandchildren is not the way to go about this.

I wish I could say I was presenting the worst-case scenario. The numbers we are seeing here are probably optimistic. I think the President's economic assumptions with respect to inflation, unemployment, GDP growth, and all those sorts of things are overly optimistic. I think they have dramatically understated, as I said, the cost of the cap-and-trade proposal. They have understated savings that will be achieved by reductions in our military spending as a result of drawdowns in Iraq. I don't think that is going to be nearly what they assume it is going to be. I think the actual deficits and debt that are going to come as a result of this budget proposal that the President is putting in front of us is going to be way beyond anything we are even contemplating now.

I have to say, what we are contemplating now is way beyond anything we have seen throughout our Nation's history. It is not fair to future generations for us to be saddling them with this enormous amount of debt. As I have pointed out before on the floor, we have had a tradition in this country of one generation sacrificing for another; one generation going without things so that future generations can have a better life. We have turned that ethic completely on its head with this budget by the amount of borrowing and spending that we are doing and in the amount of taxing. We are taking from future generations and asking them to sacrifice so we can have a better life today because we have not been willing or able to live within our means.

It is high time that Congress started taking the steps necessary to get this budget under control, to not buy into the spending spree. Since we have been here--and it has been a little over 50 days in this new Congress and the new administration--the level of spending is now at $1.2 trillion--$24 billion a day or $1 billion an hour that we have spent already--and that is before we even get to this fiscal year 2010 budget, which includes historic levels of spending, historic levels of taxation, the largest tax increase in American history, and historic levels of borrowing that asks future generations to make sacrifices which are not fair to ask of them.

It is our responsibility to live within our means. We can do that. We can put policies in place that will be additive in terms of creating jobs and growing our economy and making our country stronger. Going down this path is not going to do that. I hope as we debate this in the next couple of weeks that it will become clear to the American people who is standing up for the American taxpayer and what the costs are-- the actual costs--that we are asking not only them to bear but asking their children and grandchildren to bear.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.