To modify the training requirements for certain fire departments applying for Federal grants.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise to briefly do three things. No. 1, there are a lot of politicians and pundits and economists who are proclaiming all over the country that the recession is over. They have some economic models by which they determine that the recession is over. I suggest those pundits and economists and politicians take a look at the booklet we recently produced in my office. It is called ``Struggling Through the Recession--Letters from Vermont.''

We have also received letters from other States, people in other States as well. We sent out a request for people to tell us, as we enter the third year of this recession, what is happening in their lives. We got, from my small State, over 400 responses. That is a lot from a small State. We probably received an equal number from around the rest of the country.

The problem I had with these letters, some of them are so painful to read that it is hard to read more than a few at a time because you get sick to your stomach hearing what good and decent and hard-working people are going through.

I wish to take a few moments to read a handful of the letters I am receiving from Vermont, in answer to the question: Is the recession over?

This comes from a young lady from central Vermont. She says:

I have been fortunate to hold onto my job throughout the

past 3 years, especially since I have about $42,000 remaining

on my school loans.

One of the recurring themes we hear from all over Vermont--and I suspect it is true in New Mexico and all over the country--is a lot of young people are graduating with a heck of a lot of debt. The jobs they are getting are not sufficient, in terms of pay, to help them pay off that debt.

She writes:

Anyway, what I want to write isn't about me--it's about my

boyfriend, a talented mechanical engineer that graduated with

about $80,000 in school loans.

We are telling the young people of this country: Go out and get an education. They are coming out with huge loans, having a hard time getting a job.

He was laid off in November 2009 and it has not only caused

financial hardship, but it has put all of our future plans on

hold. He fortunately has temporary employment now after

nearly a year of searching, but my qualm is with the high

cost of education and how people in their twenties are

supposed to move forward with their lives with school debt

lingering over them.

That is a very significant point.

Here is another one. This is a young man from Barre, VT, in the central part of the State.

In 2002, I received a scholarship to Saint Bonaventure

University, the first in my family to attend college. Upon

graduation in 2006, I was admitted to the Dickinson School of

Law at Penn State University and graduated in 2009 with

$150,000 of student debt.

That is not uncommon.

In Western New York I could find nothing better than a $10/

hour position stuffing envelopes.

Another example of a young person graduating from college, doing all the right things, and yet ending up with very substantial debt.

That is from some of the younger people. Then we got letters from middle-aged people. This is from a woman from the central part of the State.

My husband lost his job in 2002 and has been self-employed

as a carpenter ever since due to the lack of jobs in central

Vermont.

I should tell you the recession has been less disastrous in Vermont than in other parts of the country. These are stories from a State that has not been hit as hard as other States.

He's had no insurance and we have not saved a cent since

2002. We've depleted our savings account paying for property

taxes. We've been burning wood to save money heating the

house. The cost of fuel for the house and vehicles puts a

huge burden on making ends meet. Being self-employed is

extremely challenging due to the economic situation.

Again, she is touching on an issue that millions of people are aware of. The price of gas to get to work is going up. The price of home heating fuel in States such as Vermont is going up. Wages are low for millions of people. How do they survive in that crisis?

We also have stories from older people. This is from a woman named Beth, who lives in the northeastern part of our State, a very rural part of Vermont. She is 69 years of age. She writes:

I don't know what kind of a future my grand kids will have.

How will they be educated if we can't help them? It is great

there are loans out there for education but they are being

charged more for the schools than I paid for my house. They

will be in debt their whole lives.

Here is a woman who is worried about her grandchildren. Here is another woman, Ellen, who lives in Rutland County.

All I can say is I still have a job for all it is worth. I

feel making $8.81 an hour at 17 hours per week is ridiculous!

This woman is 63 years of age.

I don't bring home enough to help out with the major

household expenses I used to pay half on. I'm lucky if my

paycheck reaches $130 a week. By the time I pay a few bills

gas up and pick up a few needed items I'm lucky if I have any

left for spending. I earned less than $8,000 this year. It

[is] just about what I made back in the 1970's and lived

better.

So the point here is, A, if folks tell you the recession is over, read some of these stories. These stories are available on my Web site: ``Sanders.Senate.gov.'' These are mostly from Vermont, but I think they touch the same themes that exist all over our country. For millions and millions of people, not only those who are unemployed--those who are underemployed, those who are working full time and not making a living wage--trust me, the recession is not over.

The reason I ask people to send me these letters is I think it is important as a Senate to understand we have to address these economic issues. When 16 percent of our people are either unemployed or underemployed or have given up looking for work, when millions more are working with inadequate wages, we cannot say we should not be vigorously going forward in creating millions and millions of jobs that our people desperately need.

Social Security

I also want to say a word on Social Security. What I want to say is, I get very tired watching the TV or hearing some of my colleagues tell me that Social Security is going bankrupt, that Social Security will not be there for our kids or that Social Security is part of the serious deficit and national debt problem we face. Let me say a few words on that.

No. 1, Social Security has existed in this country for 75 years, and it has been an enormous success. We take it for granted. But for 75 years, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American in good times and bad. When Wall Street collapsed a few years ago, millions of Americans lost all or part of their retirement savings when the stock market crashed. All over America, during the last 10, 20 years, corporations that had promised defined benefit pension plans to their employees rescinded on that promise. People had worked for years, expecting a pension from a company. That pension never came. Yet during all of that period, Social Security has paid out every nickel owed to every eligible American at minimal administrative cost. That is a pretty good record. Our job now is to make sure Social Security is strong and vibrant 75 years from now and continues to do the excellent job it has done in the past 75 years.

People say: Social Security is going broke. Social Security is in crisis. A lot of people believe that because they hear it over and over, and it is repeated in the media again, again, and again.

What are the facts? The facts are that not only is Social Security not going broke, Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus--a $2.6 trillion surplus--which, by the way, is going to go up before it goes down.

Social Security, according to the Social Security Administration and the Congressional Budget Office, can pay out every nickel owed to every eligible American for the next 25, 26, 27 years, at which point it will pay out between 75 and 80 percent of all of the benefits. The challenge we face, therefore, is how, in 25 or 30 years, do we make up that 20 percent gap? That is the challenge.

So Social Security is strong and will pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 25 or 30 years. People say: Oh, yeah, well, that is just worthless IOUs, that Social Security trust fund.

Absolutely not true. The U.S. Government, from the day of its inception, has paid its debt. Social Security is backed by the faith and credit of the United States of America. We have never yet--and I certainly hope we never will--default on our debt.

So the first point I want to make is, Social Security is strong. Social Security will pay out benefits for the next 26 years. For people to come forward and say we have to privatize Social Security, we have to raise the retirement age, we have to lower benefits, is absolutely wrong, to my mind. We made a promise to the American people regarding Social Security, and that is a promise we have to keep.

In the dialog around Washington, people lump the very serious problem of a $1.5 trillion deficit and a $14 trillion national debt with Social Security. So let's ask a very simple question. How much has Social Security contributed to our national debt? How much? The answer is, not one penny--not one penny--because Social Security is not paid out from the U.S. Treasury. Social Security comes from the payroll taxes that workers and employers contribute into the Social Security trust fund. That trust fund today has a $2.6 trillion surplus. So when people say we have a very significant national debt and, therefore, we have to cut Social Security, that is absolutely a wrong thing to say.

Let me say, I will do everything I can to protect a program that has worked extremely well for the American people.

Why are we hearing all of this opposition against Social Security? Where does it come from? It does not come from ordinary people. They know Social Security has been successful, it is worth preserving, worth protecting. By the way, as we all know, Social Security is not just there for the elderly, the retirees; it is there for people with disabilities; it is there for widows and orphans through the survivors fund.

Where is all of this opposition coming from?

It is coming from two places.

No. 1, it is coming from folks on Wall Street--from Wall Street--who are saying: Gee, we could make many billions of dollars if we ended the Social Security system right now and Americans had to invest in retirement accounts on Wall Street. And we can make all kinds of commissions doing that work.

That is one of the areas, one of the sources of the opposition to Social Security.

Second is from many of my very conservative Republican friends. Very honestly, they do not believe government should be playing a role in making sure elderly people have a secure and dignified retirement. They do not believe much in government. They do not think government should be playing a role in those areas, and they want to get government out of those areas.

I understand where they are coming from. It is an honest position. I strongly disagree with them. I think in a civilized, democratic society we have to make sure when you get old it has to be guaranteed-- guaranteed--as it has been for 75 years, that you are going to get the help you need. I believe government should be playing that role.

I would remind you, Mr. President, before Social Security was developed in the mid 1930s, 50 percent of the elderly people of our country at that point lived in poverty. Today, that number is too high, but it is 10 percent--50 percent before Social Security; 10 percent today. That is a pretty good record.

So I would respectfully disagree with my Republican friends who say: Well, if people want a retirement account, let them invest in Wall Street, let them do it through the private sector. I do not agree with that. I think Social Security has worked well for 75 years. We have to make sure it works well for another 75 years. I will do everything I can as chairman of the new Defending Social Security Caucus to make that happen.

The Deficit and National Debt

The last point I want to make: I want to talk a little bit about the deficit and our national debt.

I think it is appropriate for the American people to be reminded about how we got into the very difficult situation we are in right now. I have to tell you, I find it a bit amusing that some of the ``loudest'' deficit hawks in the Congress are precisely the same people who helped drive up the deficit and the national debt--the same people.

Let's try to determine how we got into the recession.

No. 1, in the midst of a recession, by definition, less money is coming in. That is obviously an important part of why we have the deficit and the national debt we have today. But there are other factors.

Mr. President, you will recall that this country, during the Bush administration, began two wars--a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq. The war in Iraq is estimated, by the time we take care of the last veteran, to run up a tag of about $3 trillion. Does anybody quite remember how we paid for those wars? Well, the answer is we did not pay for those wars. Those wars were put on the credit card. President Bush said: We are going to go to war, but we do not have to worry about how we pay for them.

The second area: As a result of President Bush's tax policies, which have recently been extended, against my vote, in the Obama administration, we provided many hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires. The wealthiest people in this country are doing phenomenally well. The effective tax rate for the wealthiest people in this country is lower than at any time on record, in many cases lower than what working people are paying. Yet we decided, against my vote, to give them hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks, driving up the deficit.

Congress voted, against my vote, to bail out Wall Street--unpaid for, driving up the deficit. Some years ago, Congress, against my vote, decided to pass an insurance company-written Medicare Part D prescription drug program--very expensive program, unpaid for.

So all of these things are unpaired for. The national debt goes up, the deficit goes up. Then our Republican friends say: Oh, my goodness, we have a very large deficit. What are we going to do? We are going to have to cut back on programs that are important to working people and lower income people.

I think that is absolutely unacceptable.

So the first point I would make is, I regard it as incomprehensible that there are folks who supported hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires and then they tell us they are concerned about the deficit and the national debt. That is absolute hypocrisy.

In my view, the Congress should not be about cutting back on programs for low- and moderate-income people after we have given huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country.

Second of all, I think the time is long overdue that we start ending a lot of the corporate tax loopholes which now are preventing this country and this government from getting the revenue we need. Before we talk about major cutbacks for our kids or for the elderly, maybe we should end the absurdity of the tax havens that exist in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, where the wealthiest people in this country and large corporations are stashing their money away, to the tune of about $100 billion a year--$100 billion a year--in taxes that are not being paid because of the tax havens that exist.

I would also argue it is somewhat absurd we have a situation where last year ExxonMobil paid no Federal income taxes at all and got a $156 million rebate from the IRS, after earning $19 billion in profits.

What I would say is, yes, deficit and national debt are very important issues. But it is important for us to understand how we got to where we are. It is important for us to understand that the top 1 percent today earn more income than the bottom 50 percent and have enjoyed huge tax breaks. So before we start slashing programs the middle class and working families of this country need, let's take a look at some of those issues as well.

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

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I wish to catch up the membership on the floor and off the floor a little bit about where we are. We are at midweek for a third week of consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill. Last night, Senator Reid filed cloture on this bill. In a perfect world we would have finished this bill already without filing cloture, but we need to finish and that is what cloture motions are for. I will support cloture, needless to say.

Senator Hutchison also filed cloture on an amendment that will bring conclusion to a debate on slots at National Airport. I will talk about that issue in more detail later. But I am saying right now slots are very important but they do not need to consume all of the arguments and all of the discussion on the floor about this bill. They are a very small part of the bill--an important part of the bill, recognizing the West has to be served much better than it is being--but it is not the entire bill. It is a very small part of the bill.

Last night we disposed of two pending amendments by voice vote. I believe we have made progress to resolve some of the pending amendments, but votes will be required on several of them and I expect we will have those votes today. Senator Hutchison and I are trying to clear a number of other filed amendments. There were at one point 100 of them. I hope we can accept a number of them. I have heard from any number of my colleagues on their amendments and I am trying to be helpful in getting them adopted where they contribute to the bill.

I know Senator Hutchison is committed to supporting the bill. We need to resolve the issue of slots. She has been working--we have all been working diligently and almost exclusively on that matter, and we will do this with a vote. We will resolve that issue.

After that vote we will vote on cloture, which I believe will pass and I am extremely hopeful we will reach agreement to get this bill done this week. The farthest possible day and most unhappy thought would be if we had to go through the recess and do it on the day we came back. I think it is far better that we get it done this week. There is no excuse for not doing it.

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

I appreciate my colleague's concerns about how supplemental carriers have been treated in the FAA's rulemaking process dealing with pilot flight and duty time. As you are aware, modernizing the pilot flight and duty regulations has been one of the highest priorities of the FAA as well as many in Congress. In fact, when H.R. 5900 was signed into law last year by the President, Congress mandated the FAA complete the final rule overhauling these regulations by August 1 of this year.

I agree that all the regulated parties affected by this and other rulemakings should be treated fairly. I am willing to work with Senator Inhofe, Senator Murkowski, and other interested parties to ensure supplemental carriers receive fair and thorough consideration, and that their industry data be considered, before any new rules for those carriers are promulgated.

Let me catch up a bit on where we are. The Senate has been working on this national slots issue for close to 1 year or it may be 10 years. I don't know. It has been an awfully long time. But we have been unable to achieve a resolution so far on the matter. That is a problem.

When we began consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill, Senator Hutchison and I decided we should focus on helping consumers. Everybody was talking about helping airliners. We were talking about people. Airliners fly around. People have to be able to do it. So we decided to focus on them.

So we both believed the growth of Western States must be recognized. I come from an Eastern State, sort of. The Presiding Officer comes from an Eastern State, totally. But the growth is in the West. They are underserved. That cannot be debated. It is embarrassing how few flights there are back and forth between National and them. The National Capital is a fairly important place. People need to go there, either for tourism or for business or whatever, and we need more access to the National Capital to be provided to the citizens from there on a ``both- way'' basis.

So time is running short for the consideration of the FAA package. This bill is too important to the country to let it languish over this issue. It is virtually all we have talked about, and I regret that because it does not reflect the nature and the priorities of the bill.

Unlike the national slot issue, the FAA bill has direct impacts on the whole Nation all the time. It will help our economy now. It will help our economy in the future with immediate job support and long-term impact on our role in the global marketplace.

To move forward on the bill, Senator Hutchison offered a slots amendment, a national slots amendment, that I feel offers a fair and reasonable solution on this issue. Over the past 2\1/2\ weeks, she and I have worked closely with other Members and their staffs in an effort to achieve a compromise on this issue.

Many of their needs and ideas have been incorporated into her amendment. It still may not be perfect, but it represents an attempt to fairly balance the competing needs of Members and their constituents inside and outside the perimeter. It is fascinating when people have it in their minds that something has to happen. They have to have so many flights or flights have to go to this city or that city or whatever. Then people sort of get attached to airlines. They feel they have to represent an airline.

I sort of thought we were here to represent the people of the States from which we come but, more importantly, in some sense, the entire country, particularly on an issue such as this.

Her amendment will permit some additional beyond-perimeter flights shortly after enactment of the bill. Then this very interesting part about the Department of Transportation, we have introduced that into the bill. It is a very good part of the bill. The Department of Transportation, which is neutral, which is professional, which is fully engaged in all of this, is required to study the effect of those flights over the next year.

Some people will say that is kind of a dodge. It is not kind of a dodge. Because slots are so controversial, it takes the Department of Transportation and their analysis to guide us about whether there is an overload at National, whether there is an underload. My own view is there is an underload at National, lots of slots available. But that is not the prevailing view on the part of some. They

feel we cannot have a single additional flight.

So DOT can study that. If they find there is no negative impact, a limited number can be added at the appropriate time or not, depending on what we want to do.

Specifically, the amendment provides network carriers an opportunity to swap existing flights they conduct within the perimeter and use them for flights to Western States beyond the perimeter. Seven round-trip flights could be converted under this provision.

Under this construct a carrier could use flights to large hub airports within the perimeter where significant service already is provided. This protects States and small communities within the perimeter and limits the number of new flights at the airport as requested by local officials.

The amendment also provides five new flight exemptions that would only be distributed to new entrant or limited incumbent carriers. To provide maximum flexibility for the carriers, these could be used for new flights within or beyond the perimeter. All of this is kind of opaque, like a puzzle, but it does happen to work.

We have had approximately 100 amendments filed to the FAA reauthorization bill. Much of the talk is focused on slots at National Airport. There are lots of airports, but National Airport has received the bulk of the amendments. I don't resent that or regret it. I just wish we could get to the rest of the bill, which I think is probably going to be entirely acceptable to people because it is a very reasonable approach.

Only three other amendments have been filed that directly address the issue of west coast access to National. The Ensign amendment would allow carriers to have unlimited conversions or swaps beyond the perimeter. I believe this proposal goes too far and could have a significant negative impact locally and for small communities serviced within the perimeter. I do think Senators Ensign and Kyl, with whom I have worked on this issue over the past year, can appreciate this position and will receive opportunities for their constituents through passage of our amendment.

The Merkley and Wyden and Cantwell-Murray-Merkley-Begich amendments are the only other two amendments that have been filed with a focus on the issue of beyond-perimeter flights at National. They would both allow for new flight exemptions at the airport that would favor distribution to limited incumbents or new entrants. The Merkley amendment would provide eight new round-trips for beyond-perimeter service. The Wyden amendment would add 12 new round-trips beyond the perimeter and 4 new round-trips within the perimeter for a total of 16 new flights. While the Hutchison amendment may not provide the same level of opportunity for services to their States that they desire, her amendment does provide ample room for their constituencies to obtain new service with 5 exemptions rather than 12 beyond perimeter.

I believe we must strike an appropriate balance. We have no choice. We can't make everybody happy. Senator Hutchison's and my approach has been to go down the middle. People who don't want anything more and people who want a lot more, kind of edge them together and go right down the middle. That is all we can do in a bill of this sort where emotions run very high.

I do believe we must strike an appropriate balance between new service from incumbent carriers and service from limited or new-entrant carriers if we are going to give consumers the greatest options on choice and competition. Consumers are really what this is about. Airlines are obviously important. They are going to fly where the business is. That makes all of us--the Presiding Officer, for part of her State which is not in the New York area--very sensitive to rural situations. West Virginia is entirely rural. It has no city larger than slightly over 50,000 people, that being the State capital. Flights in and out of that State are very important to me. Most of them are done by propeller. Most of them are not particularly comfortable. But they do get one to where one wants to go. Now we have switched to Dulles so we can feed out from Dulles to anywhere in the world. Taking care of rural areas is incredibly important to us.

Again, the DOT study included in the amendment will also provide valuable insight into the impact of additional flights at National Airport on this or any other aspect of it. Under the amendment, if DOT finds that more access is appropriate, it can permit up to four additional flights at National. These would be provided to incumbent carriers to swap service from large hubs within the perimeter, resulting in no new air traffic at the airport. Senator Hutchison and I would like to emphasize those words, ``no new flights.'' They have room for flights. A GAO study showed that, really quite a lot of flights. But the prevailing wish is not to have noise and disruption.

The fact is, the planes are getting quieter, and they will get much more quieter as they are entered into all markets.

In total, as few as 12 or as many as 16 additional beyond-perimeter flights could result from the amendment over a 2-year period. If the DOT determines the initial 12 flights have had a direct negative impact on the DC market--I emphasize, we are putting DOT right on the case so they can watch it closely; whatever people might think, they are neutral and professional and they do this for a living--it will limit the likelihood of adding additional flights in future FAA reauthorizations. That makes sense. Let them be the arbiters of that rather than us battling it out here.

This type of review is long overdue and will provide far greater understanding of local needs by any carrier seeking access at National. If DOT finds there is enough room for up to 16 flights, the amendment would seek to balance them among various stakeholders. Eleven of these flights would be swaps or conversions of service to incumbent carriers already providing this, resulting, again, in no new traffic at that particular airport--there are other airports in the country; I have to keep telling myself that, but it is hard to recognize that looking at the debate so far--and minimizing the impacts of flights on a local basis generally.

Five of the flights would be dedicated to new entrants or limited incumbents to receive new exemptions. These could be used for service within or beyond the perimeter so all communities in the country would have an opportunity to obtain a flight.

In closing, I recognize every amendment addressing slots at National will be considered flawed in some corners. That is in the nature of our world. However, I do think it is important that we have votes on these amendments to determine a Senate position on this issue.

I believe the Hutchison amendment is a very reasonable offer. I hope it will obtain the support of the majority of the Senate.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate resume consideration of the Baucus amendment No. 75, as further modified--this is the amendment for the finance title of the bill we are on which was reported out by the Finance Committee last week-- further, that the amendment, as further modified, be agreed to; and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

I will be objecting to your amendments because you objected to the pending amendments, and there will be no reason to add more unless you lift your objection.

I am very happy to listen to what you have to say.

I think the order has to be reversed.

I cannot assure that at this point. We have not arrived----

If you have amendments you wish to offer--I think five--I am constrained to object to them.

There is objection.

I would say to the Senator from Oklahoma, most of the pending amendments which are now pending have been objected to from his side of the aisle. I don't have any objection to looking at some of his amendments and seeing if we can vote on them. But I can't do that right now. I obviously can't give him any kind of consent right now.

It is a difficult situation. It is a sort of rolling veto type of situation. If objection is made, we can't have votes on amendments which are pending. I am willing to look at what he has suggested. As he talked through some of them, they sort of stung pretty hard in my State of West Virginia, but I am willing to look at them. But I can't do that without consent from folks on my side. So for the time being, I object.

Mr. President, is there a pending amendment?

Thank you. Let me confine my remarks for a few minutes to how I see where we are from my perspective. My hope is that I can offer some amendments, at least get them pending, and then discuss with the chairman--I just discussed them with the ranking member--the disposition of those. I wonder whether the chairman has any comments on that.

I told them I would be happy----

I told Senator Leahy last night that I would be happy to lift my objection once my amendments were pending, and we can have a debate on his nongermane amendment.

Well, if the chairman will assure me I will have the opportunity to, No. 1, debate Senator Leahy's amendment----

Then I will continue with my objection.

It is interesting. We have a nongermane amendment that is outside the bounds of the Constitution, doing something that is not the role of the Federal Government, that we are going to expand the cost at a time when we are bankrupt, and five germane amendments that actually lower the cost of the airport improvement fund, actually help NextGen in terms of money, help preserve the airport trust fund, and we are not going to be allowed to bring them up? If that is the way we are going to operate, then you can count on me, knowing procedure around here, that we will have a very difficult time moving ever to a Leahy amendment.

Mr. President, I came to the floor to discuss what we are trying to do and to be helpful in moving that along. I have now heard that I will not be allowed to offer these amendments or at least bring them up. I am going to discuss each one of them, and I will object to any unanimous consent moving forward on any area until we have an opportunity, as is the Senate tradition, to have a debate and bring up amendments. If we are not allowed to do that, then I am sure we are going to start going backward again.

Passing an FAA authorization bill, as the chairman and ranking member have tried to do, is a significant priority for Congress. We have a system of air traffic control that needs to be modernized. We have monies that we are putting forward to do that. We have not had the oversight, according to the inspector general, that is necessary for those programs.

In this bill, we have authorizations for moneys that are not priorities for this country at a time that we are facing a $1.6 trillion deficit, we have an unemployment rate in excess of 9 percent, and interest rates that are going to rise in the future.

My amendments, which I am happy to have voted on and voted down, lead us to a path that secures and enhances the airport improvement fund and the trust fund, makes common sense that 99 percent of the American people would agree with, excludes Alaska because it is a totally different animal when it comes to the Essential Air Service requirements, and will, in fact, enhance the trust fund. So I am very sorry the chairman refuses to allow my amendments to come up, but I will offer them and have him object in total.

What has to happen with every program in this country is that wasteful spending, low-priority spending, and duplicative spending has to be eliminated. Although I think the chairman and ranking member did a fairly good job on this bill, there are areas where we can eliminate wasteful spending, there are areas where we can eliminate duplicative spending, and there are areas where we can say: This can't be a priority now given the financial fix in which we find ourselves.

During our current budget deficit, the revenues coming into the airport trust fund are lower than expected, and we have this very real need on NextGen development. Congress has to limit somewhere and make a priority next year, and I think they have tried to go in that direction, and these amendments will do such a thing.

The first amendment I would like to talk about is the airport improvement Federal cost share reduction amendment. Across this country, we now have money being spent on low-priority projects in airports that have very little traffic or minimal traffic, and we are not spending money on the airports for safety and for the airports in which we have the vast majority of traffic. We have seen one program in particular where billions of dollars for low-priority projects have been spent.

I would just tell you, if we are ever going to get out of the jam we are in, some common sense has to be applied in that we cannot do everything everybody wants, and there is going to have to be some sacrifice in these areas.

The whole goal of this first amendment is to discourage low-priority, wasteful aviation projects that would not be funded by increasing the non-Federal cost share to just 25 percent over 3 years. In other words, it is 5 percent now, and so it is 95 percent of the government's money, and all we do is, over 3 years, move it to where you have to pay 25 percent. It is going to discourage a lot of low-priority projects because the communities or the States have to have a greater participation.

There is no program in the Federal Government that has a grant process and a funding process where the Federal Government pays 95 percent other than this program--not one. So we are encouraging money to be wasted on low-priority projects by maintaining 95 percent Federal funding. This gives us 3 years to adjust to 75 percent, which probably should be 50 percent but 75 percent given our fiscal issues.

Nonprimary airports could initially have up to 90 percent of their airport improvement projects covered by the Federal Government. In recent years, we raised that, under Public Law 108-176, to 95 percent. This is 20 percent higher than the same cost share for other airports qualifying for this $4 billion program. It is $4 billion a year.

Lest you think I am too critical, let me give you some examples. Two flights a day--two flights a day, noncommercial flights, just two private flights a day--is the average for Kentucky's Williamsburg- Whitley County Airport. We spent $11 million there to build an airport with a 5,500-foot lighted runway, a colonial-style terminal, and hundreds of acres for growth even though it does not have one airline passenger and averages two flights a day. Now, tell me, if you ask the average American: Should we spend $11 million there or should we make sure we can take care of the kids who do not have what they need in this country, should we spend $11 million there or not borrow another $11 million from the Chinese, should we spend $11 million there or should we, in fact, make sure the airport trust fund has the money to do high-priority projects, such as large airports or NextGen, which one would the average American think we should do?

Lest you think I am picking on Kentucky, Halliburton Field in Duncan, OK, got $700,000 for a pilot room and a reception room. We are building for private aviation with taxpayer money--a low priority. We are building a nice pilot room and a reception room for the private pilots who fly there. Now, tell me how that is a priority in our country today. That is my own State.

We are sending money down a hole because we refuse to make tough choices. All this amendment does is say: Let's move it from 95 percent, over 3 years, to 75 percent so we do not get the lower priority projects funded, because we are too generous with what

the Federal Government contributes. The chairman may not like it, but I will bet you the average American thinks it is a pretty smart thing to do given the state we are in.

All bets are off on the politics of this. I have never been accustomed to playing the politics of it at all, but there are just as many people on the left who think we ought to cut spending as there are on the right. America gets it. The only place that does not get it is here. And this does not do anything except enhance what can be done for higher priority issues within our aviation community. That is all it does. It is a small, simple step. And by rejecting or not allowing an amendment such as this to come forward, what we are saying is that we are going to keep kicking the can down the road; we are not going to pay attention to the American public. We are going to hide from the reality that is coming very soon for this country. We will not have any money to put into airport improvement programs. We will not have the money to fund a NextGen program. It will become a low-priority program unless we wake up and start doing what the rest of America recognizes we have to do; that is, start living within our means.

The next amendment is an amendment that is a bipartisan amendment between the Senator from Alaska and myself.

It is an earmark rescission amendment. All it says is the earmarks that have been out there, that the money hasn't been spent for over 9 years, giving 1 year for the agencies to decide whether they think that is so, should be rescinded. It puts $500 million, a half a billion dollars at a minimum, back in the public Treasury. Why would we not want to do that? We have $2.6 million sitting in Atlanta that can't be spent on anything except the 1996 Olympics. Why wouldn't we take back that $2.6 million? It was earmarked. It didn't get spent. But it is sitting out there in a hole. We can reverse that. Estimates are we will save a billion dollars. The conservative estimate at a minimum is $500 million. Yet we are not going to allow this amendment to be considered? It makes no sense.

The next amendment calls on us to sacrifice a little bit. The Essential Air Service Program has multiple subsidies where people can easily drive 1 hour and 20 minutes and get to a regional airport that doesn't require any subsidies. All this amendment does is move it to 100 miles from where it is today, which is 70. It moves it to 100 miles and says if you are less than 100 miles, you ought not be eligible, sometimes to the tune of $4 or $500 per person per flight, to have a subsidized flight when you could drive 70 minutes, 80 minutes, and have access to a ton of flights.

Again, it is priority. Is it priority for us to continue to spend money on a small group of airports, 36, that in no way pay for themselves, that are readily accessible throughout the country to major airports, and spend the kind of money we are spending?

Another amendment says if you have less than 10 emplanements a day, we ought to think about whether we are subsidizing Essential Air Service.

All these amendments are saying is, will we make the tough decisions. We can't do everything we want to do. Is it nice that we have an Essential Air Service Program so some people don't have to drive an hour? I guess so. What are we willing to sacrifice to get our house in order? These are little bitty amendments that will send a wonderful signal to the American public that we get it, we absolutely get it. And because we get it, we are going to make choices about priorities. We are going to enhance the airport trust fund. We are going to enhance the airport improvement program because we are going to take lower priorities off the board, which is exactly what they want us to do. They want us to focus on the big things, the important things, and they want us to cut the spending that is not absolutely necessary.

I can tell my colleagues, it is not absolutely necessary that we subsidize some of these smaller airports that are very close to regional airports or have less than 10 passengers a day. It is not absolutely essential. Would we ask some Americans to sacrifice? Yes. But do you know what will happen? We will all have to sacrifice before we get through this. The problem is the resistance in this Chamber and in this city. We don't want to make the hard choices. It is disappointing that we have not done that. We will have to do that. And we are either going to do it or somebody from the outside is going to tell us what we are going to do.

Then a fifth amendment--and I know the chairman will be against this amendment because it is his program that I am trying to eliminate--in the year 2000, we created another program called the Small Community Air Services Program. This is an amendment to repeal that. It was geared to help smaller communities enhance their air service in addition to Essential Air Service; in other words, make it more effective, to try to promote utilization, which is a good idea except it is not working. When we see the funds from this program, after the grant is over, do you know what happens? The airlines leave. They don't stay. They leave. So we are kind of spending money in a market that won't sustain what we are trying to put there, and then we are putting more money on top of it to try to promote it. When it doesn't work, what happens? We lose the Essential Air Service anyhow. It has happened in Oklahoma.

In this day and time that we live, we have to have an FAA bill. We can't continue to not have an FAA bill. Even if my amendments are voted down, considering that they are going to get a vote, I will probably support this bill. But it should be noted that we haven't gone far enough. We haven't made all the tough choices we need to make. I am highly disturbed that we take amendments that are absolutely germane and say they can't be offered because a time agreement, even though it has been agreed to, isn't disagreed to yet because the Senator from Vermont isn't on the floor.

I am going to offer the amendment and let the chairman object. Then I will utilize the procedures that are available to me as a Member of the Senate.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 91.

I thank the chairman. I will go on and allow him to object to further amendments I have so it will be in the Record that I did attempt to offer them.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 80.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 81.

I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 82 and set the pending amendment aside.

I thank the chairman for his words. I will take him at his word and work with him and allow him to look at some of these. There are only two airports in West Virginia that this would have an impact on. Both of them are less than 75 miles from the regional airport. They both have minimal emplanements daily. They are

over 10 but not far over that. The point is, we ought to help who we can help, and it ought to make economic sense. They are not targeted because there are 36 airports in here, actually, where the average American would say, this is nuts to spend the kind of money we are.

I thank him for the time.

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 ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor today because, on Monday, President Obama introduced his new budget. What we saw in that budget is, for the most part, more of the same--more spending, more taxes, more borrowing. We see this budget from a President who doesn't seem to understand the gravity of the Nation's fiscal crisis.

When we start digging down into the budget the President proposed and look into the Internal Revenue Service component of that budget, what we see is the Internal Revenue Service is starting to focus in and audit ObamaCare. There is a glaring difference in the budget this year from previous years because of the President's new health spending law. The IRS now has unprecedented power over health care in America.

In fact, when we take a look at this budget, and specifically the Internal Revenue Service's fiscal year 2012 budget request, over 250 times the Affordable Care Act--known in the budget as the ACA but known by people all across the country as ObamaCare--is mentioned. Over 250 times.

To me, the goal of the health care law has been to let people all across this country get the care they need from the doctors they want at a price they can afford.

As a member of my party, looking at our economy, looking at the deficit, looking at the incredible debt, what I think we need to do is make it cheaper and easier to create private sector jobs in this country. That is the way we get the economy going again. But when I read this budget, and specifically IRS requests, it seems to me it is making it harder and more expensive to create private sector jobs in our country.

The people of this country are not taxed too little. The problem is that the government spends too much. When I take a look at this budget, that is exactly what I see being rejected by this administration because it seems this administration is more interested in taxing, in raising taxes, rather than cutting spending.

When you take a look at what the IRS says in the budget, it says:

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act of 2010

presents a major challenge to the Internal Revenue Service.

This is the IRS talking about the law that was crammed down the throats of the American people in the middle of the night, written behind closed doors. We are all familiar with it. Now it is presenting a major challenge to the Internal Revenue Service.

The Internal Revenue Service goes on to say:

This law represents the largest set of tax law changes in

more than 20 years, with more than 40 provisions that amend

the tax laws.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the budget gives the IRS the ability to hire 5,000 new workers. After taking a close look at the IRS's plans, we know they will have to hire over 1,000 new IRS bureaucrats, Washington bureaucrats, to implement ObamaCare measures. What are some of those that we are now going to have IRS agents coming and looking into? One is the tanning tax, the component that promotes compliance with the new excise tax on tanning facilities. The IRS is requesting another $1.5 million and requesting 81 more full-time equivalents to go ahead and implement this tanning tax. For oversight--they call it ``strengthen oversight of exempt hospitals.'' These are tax-exempt hospitals, hospitals that do not pay taxes, but to do an oversight of these hospitals, they want another $9.9 million and another 84 full-time employees. For the new health coverage information reporting, they want $34 million and 100 full-time employees. For something I call ObamaCare 101--assisting taxpayers in understanding the new provisions--the IRS is requesting $22.2 million and hiring another 150 full-time equivalents. And then, of course, for the call centers, IRS call centers--so if someone has a question, they can call and ask a question--they want another $15 million because of the complexity of this new health care law that is going to be difficult for people to understand.

The American people and small business owners--and those are the job creators of this country--want the IRS to make their lives easier, not tougher, not audit their health care choices and health care decisions. But adding hundreds of new jobs and millions of new dollars to the IRS is not going to make health care better. It is not going to make care more available for anyone.

I am going to continue to come to the floor with a doctor's second opinion to fight to repeal and replace this health care law and to do it with patient-centered reforms that help the private sector, not the IRS, create more jobs.

This morning, we had a little event called Wyoming Wednesdays where people from Wyoming who are here come together in Senator Enzi's office, and we have coffee and doughnuts and visit.

One of the people here from Wyoming said: I saw a sign that was worrisome.

I said: What is the sign?

He said that this location where they are putting in offices used to be a parking lot. When you are replacing a parking lot with more offices for more Washington bureaucrats, that is not a good sign for the rest of America.

Here we have the IRS saying they are dealing with a major challenge because of the health care law. It represents the largest tax law change in more than 20 years. More than 40 provisions are being amended in the tax law to go after things. They want this kind of money to implement the tax changes with regard to the indoor tanning services-- 81 new full-time equivalents--and they say what is involved in this. The IRS says there are as many as 25,000 businesses that provide indoor tanning services they are now going to tax, including about 10,000 businesses that offer tanning services along with other services such as spas, health clubs, and beauty salons.

We are here in the Senate, in Congress, with 9 percent unemployment in this country, with people looking for work, and more government jobs are being created, and these people are creating government jobs to make it harder on small businesses. It gets right to the crux of it right here because the IRS even says these entities, all these tanning entities, typically do not have experience filing Federal excise tax returns. So what is the government going to do? Come in, make them file claims and forms they do not have experience with. It is going to be costly; it is

going to take time; it is going to increase taxes. That is not a way to create new jobs.

They want 10 million more dollars to strengthen oversight on tax- exempt hospitals. These are tax-exempt hospitals. Why are the American taxpayers being asked to pay another $10 million to hire 84 full-time equivalents to deal with tax-exempt hospitals? Because, according to the law that was crammed down the throats of the American people, the IRS is now required to review at least every 3 years the benefit activities of tax-exempt hospital organizations, which number about 5,100 in this country. They actually say in the budget request by the IRS, as part of the President's budget that was submitted on Monday:

These are new requirements for tax-exempt hospitals which

include a majority of hospitals in the United States.

We are going to increase taxpayer dollars going for more IRS auditors and make it harder and more burdensome on the tax-exempt hospitals in terms of paperwork and what they need to do.

It goes on and on. That is why the American people are fed up with what is happening in Washington.

Let's talk a little bit about the CLASS Act because there is a whole component of the budget wanting 30 staff members added to the health department office overseeing implementation of what is called the CLASS Act. That stands for community living assistance services and supports.

The President's own debt commission--remember, the President appointed this commission about a year ago to say: Let's look into the debt. People thought that was a bold move, a bipartisan move, a lot of people coming together to take a look at this debt. For a year, the President said: We have a debt commission looking into this, so he did not deal with the debt. Now that the debt commission came out with its report in December, the President has mostly ignored it. Yet the debt commission--it was bipartisan, chaired by Erskine Bowles, a former Chief of Staff of the White House for Bill Clinton, and Al Simpson, a former Senator from my State of Wyoming--came out, took a look at the health care law, and specifically honed in on this CLASS Act.

One of the Members of this Senate, a colleague on the opposite side of the aisle, someone who voted for the health care law, called it a Ponzi scheme that Bernie Madoff would be proud of.

The President's budget commission, the bipartisan budget commission, looked at it, and they have significant concerns about the sustainability of the program and called for the program to either be repealed or reformed because it is not sustainable. They have raised concerns. People on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns. Yet the Secretary of Health and Human Services has, in her budget, money for 30 additional staff members added to the health department offices. Why? To go over the details of this act that people say ought to be repealed because, as it says, the details of the CLASS Act--they want to spend $93.5 million informing and educating people about the CLASS Act. I can tell them right now it is unsustainable, it is irresponsible, and it is something that should be repealed. Yet the Department of Health and Human Services wants to spend over $93 million of taxpayer money to inform and educate the public about this component of the health care law that people on both sides of the aisle think needs to go away.

Finally, as someone who believes this health care law is bad for patients, bad for providers--the nurses and doctors who take care of those patients--and bad for the taxpayers--what we saw in the President's budget that came out Monday, coming out for next year, is it is asking for over 1,000 new IRS agents to go ahead and implement the various components and responsibilities that have been put on their heads by this health care law. This is only the beginning. The entire health care law does not really come fully into play until 2014. That is when Americans are going to have more IRS agents, more money being spent looking into their own personal lives, looking into what kind of insurance they have.

Is it acceptable to the government? Is it government approved? That is why Senator Graham and I have introduced legislation called the State Health Care Choice Act, to let States decide. Let States decide if Washington ought to be telling the people in their States that they must buy, that every individual must buy government-approved insurance. Let the States make that decision. Let the States opt out if they would like. Let the States decide if all the businesses in their States must provide government-approved insurance to their workers. Let the States decide as to Medicaid, a program for low-income Americans which is being expanded significantly by cramming 16 million more Americans into Medicaid. Governors all across the country in a bipartisan way are saying: Our States cannot afford this.

A New York Times story shows Jerry Brown from California and Andrew Cuomo from New York complaining about the mandates Medicaid is putting on their States, the additional burdens in terms of taxes and the mandates and what it is going to do to the people of the State who are trying to educate their kids and the cost and the pressure on education dollars because they are getting shifted to Medicaid, the cost of dollars shifted away from public safety, from firefighters, police officers, other public safety officers. As to this health care law, I think people at the State level ought to decide that, no, we don't want this to apply to us.

That is why I come today, again as a physician who practiced medicine in Wyoming for a quarter of a century, took care of thousands and thousands of patients and families, trying to help people get better, all in a way that now I think is being taken in the wrong direction by this health care law, and why I think we want to continue to look for ways to make sure people get the care they want from the doctors they need at a price they can afford. The health care law that was passed by this body fails in all of those respects, and now we see, with the President's budget, a request for money for another thousand IRS agents, not to help people get better, not to help people get the care they need from a doctor they want at a cost they can afford--no, not at all--but to audit the health care of the American people.

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

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

I ask to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, we have had sort of a dustup, I guess you could say, in the Budget Committee yesterday with Mr. Lew from the Office of Management and Budget and a very likable individual, but we had a serious disagreement, a fundamental matter that I do not think can be brushed over and needs to be confronted and settled. There is only one way to settle it, I believe; that is, for Mr. Lew and the President to cease saying their budget does not add to the debt and somehow changes the trajectory on which we are going.

Mr. Lew, on a Sunday morning program, said: ``Our budget will get us, over the next several years, to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we're not adding to the debt anymore. . . . ''

``Our budget will get us to the point where we can look the American people in the eye and say we're not adding to the debt anymore; we are spending money that we have each year, and then we can work on bringing down our national debt.''

That is my goal. I believe that is achievable. But it is clear this budget does not do that.

Troubling, additionally, was the President, in his radio address Saturday, said the same thing. Then, again yesterday, while we were having this discussion, presumably at a similar time, the President said this: ``What my budget does is to put forward some tough choices, some significant spending cuts so that by the middle of this decade [2015] our annual spending will match our annual revenues. . . . ''

Our annual spending will match our annual revenues. We will

not be adding more to the national debt.

That is an unequivocal statement. No matter what, it can have only one meaning to American citizens who hear it, that his budget calls for a situation in which our annual spending will match our annual revenues and we will not be adding to the national debt.

Those of us who have been wrestling with the budget know how hard it is. I believe we can achieve that in 10 years, but it is very hard. I have to admit it. I wish it were not. The Presiding Officer is on the Budget Committee and he

knows how hard that would be. It would be a heroic effort. I think we can do it. I think the American people are ready to do it. But it is not easy.

The President says that is what we are going to do and that is his plan. But, sadly, it is not correct. I asked Mr. Lew, was he not concerned and was not this misleading to the American people who heard it. He refused to say his statement was misleading.

What does the budget do? These are the numbers in his budget, the document they presented to us, written by the White House, the President's budget he is required by law to submit to Congress. This is what happens to the debt. The quote up there again is: ``We will not be adding more to the national debt.''

We add more under his plan, to the national debt, every single year. The numbers are stunning in size. They are consistent and, unfortunately, in the outer years of his 10-year budget, his numbers show the annual debt--annual deficit increasing, not going down. So this is what it amounts to in terms of total debt.

His plan, by his own budget that they submitted to us, would add, without dispute, $13 trillion in new debt, doubling it to $26 trillion. It started out at $13 trillion; in 10 years, it doubles to $26 trillion. How can this possibly be a position in which you will not be adding more to the debt? What world are we living in? What kind of fantastical accounting situation can occur that we can make such a statement as that?

I am going to ask my colleagues in the Senate, any single one of them who can defend this statement, I would like them to come down here and do so. Otherwise we need to call on the President to be honest with the American people. We have a serious debt crisis. To waltz out there in a press conference yesterday, to send out to speak on his radio program Saturday or to have his Budget Director on Sunday, and even at our committee hearing yesterday, insist that somehow they are not adding to the debt is not a way to begin a dialog about how to confront the serious problems this country has. I have to say that.

I do not think it is a little bitty matter. I don't think it is subject to gentlemen's disagreement. I don't think it is subject to anything other than black and white, yes and no. Is that an accurate statement or not? It is not true. The debt is added to every year. In fact, President Bush was criticized for his deficits--and I think rightly so. The highest deficit he ever had was $450, $460 billion. The lowest deficit in the 10 years, by the President's own budget document he sent to us, is over $600 billion--the lowest. It averages $720 billion a year in added debt. This is why we are on a dangerous course.

The essence of what we are talking about is can we get off this wrong road? Can we get on the road to prosperity? Can we get on the road to progress that gets us out of the debt disaster area we are headed toward?

Let me read a couple things because this is the real test of the budget. We can argue over the finer details. But the question is, Can we continue at the rate we are going? What I would say about the budget is that these numbers, this $13 trillion added debt, is what was being predicted before. According to the President, it would have been $14 trillion. He has reduced it to $13 trillion, which is not enough change, if it were to happen. But when the Congressional Budget Office independently scores the President's budget, it is going to show he doesn't have a $1.1 trillion reduction in spending--probably none. There is probably no reduction in the debt.

What I am saying is, this budget keeps us on the course we were on. I do not think that can be disputed. It does not alter the basic debt totals each year from what has been projected, and those are the numbers, the debt totals, that are unsustainable.

For example, in 2009, President Obama called the current deficit spending, on this basic trend, unsustainable--himself--and warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the United States continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries. This is Bloomberg:

``We can't keep on just borrowing from China,'' Obama said

at a town-hall meeting at Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside

Albuquerque. ``We have to pay interest on that debt, and that

means we are mortgaging our children's future. . . .''

That is correct.

Mr. Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, warned in June of last year that ``the federal budget appears to be on an unsustainable path.''

Mr. Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, in February--actually February 15--a couple days ago on ABC, said this--this is what the Secretary of Treasury said, Mr. Obama's Secretary:

Our deficits are too high. They are unsustainable, and left

unaddressed, these deficits will hurt economic growth and

make us weaker as a nation. . . . We have to restore fiscal

responsibility and go back to living within our means.

Peter Orszag, who was President Obama's Director of the Office of Management and Budget, said that the CBO report--he said this in June of last summer:

. . . concludes that we are on an unsustainable fiscal

course. About this, there is no ambiguity.

We are on an ``unsustainable fiscal course,'' there is no doubt about it, said Mr. Orszag last summer.

What I would say to you is, the President's budget does not change that direction and we have to change it. We have to be honest with the American people that we are not changing it, that the President's plan is his plan for the future. He can change the numbers any way he wants to. He can change the trajectory we are on. It is a voluntary thing. The numbers he put forth are his numbers, and they are a call for our country to follow his plan. That is not an acceptable plan. It is not an acceptable plan, and we have to change it.

Briefly, I will add this. The warnings that are out there--Alan Greenspan, our former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said in December that it is a little better than 50-50, but not much, that we won't have a debt crisis in this country in 2 to 3 years.

Moody's, the organization most famous for rating government debt and private company debt--you know, AAA is the highest rating--Moody's, in December, sent a warning letter that, unless the United States changes its trajectory of debt, our debt could be downgraded from AAA in less than 2 years.

The International Monetary Fund has said we have to reduce our structural deficit more than Greece. They have to go to a 9-percent improvement; we have to go to a 12-percent improvement. Only Japan, says the International Monetary Fund, is worse off than we are and has to take stronger action.

So this budget is no action at all. It is no alteration of the trajectory. It is unacceptable. As Congressman Ryan said, it is debt on arrival.

We cannot pass this budget. It is unthinkable that we would. The American people are ready for change. They are supporting Governors and mayors around the country who are making tough choices, bringing their States and cities up to speed and being more effective. They are doing that. These cities are not ceasing to exist.

We increased discretionary spending, nondefense discretionary spending, in the last 2 years under President Obama's leadership and the Democratic majority in both Houses, 24 percent--12 percent a year, on average. Well, at a 7-percent-a-year increase, the total budget doubled in 10 years. I guess at 12 percent it will probably double in 6 or 7 years. This is the trend we are on. We have to come off of that. We are going to have to reduce those numbers because we do not have the money.

But I will tell you, this economy has vibrancy. It is trying to come out of this recession. If we create some stability and permanence in our rules, eliminate unnecessary regulations, allow our energy prices to be competitive and create more American energy and all of the things that make sense to bring down costs and increase productivity, bring this debt under control, we will be surprised how strong we can bounce back. But this is not the path to do it. This is the unsustainable path that can lead to danger. The closer we get to it, the more dangerous we are.

So I believe it is time to change course. Where we are going to go, I just cannot say. I am rather stunned that the President's budget--I did not expect a very strong budget, but I expected one that would make a lot more progress than this. So I guess we are

all befuddled right now what our choices will be. All of us have to work at it, though, because the future of our country is at stake.

I yield the floor.