Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we heard an announcement today that the so-called ``Biden talks'' have broken down. It is not something that surprises me terribly. I have always said that I didn't think this was the right approach--to negotiate in secret some of the most important decisions this Nation has to make.

In truth, we have never been in a more severe financial condition than we are today. Many remember the government shutdown in the 1990s and the fact the Nation ended up, out of that difficult contentious time, balancing the budget in 3 years. Well, I serve on the Budget Committee--the Presiding Officer is an able member of the Budget Committee--and we know it is not going to be easy. It is going to be very difficult to get this country on the right financial course. So I think the decision of the House majority leader and Senator Kyl to withdraw from the negotiations over the debt ceiling underscores the inherent problems with this kind of nonpublic meetings, designed to come up with some global, comprehensive settlement of apparently all our financial difficulties. It is just not easy.

I think it underscores additionally a very important fact: that a President cannot lead from behind in dealing with the most pressing crisis our Nation faces--our exploding debt and the increasing damage that the debt is doing to the American economy right now. It is taking too long for a proposal to be presented to the Congress, and it is clear now that optimistic statements about progress have been too generous. It will be unacceptable for the White House talks, or any talks, to produce a controversial agreement at the eleventh hour and to then come before Congress in a panic and say: You have to enact this solution we came up with in secret, or the country will have a serious debt crisis.

That is the path we are heading down, just as we did with the CR--the continuing resolution--that was passed. That is not what the American people want; that is not what they deserve. They want regular order. They want Congress to have the opportunity to debate and vote. If it takes weeks--and it should take weeks for us to work through a challenge as serious as this one--then so be it. It just takes weeks. If it takes hundreds of votes, with people going on record and being criticized back home by one group or another for the vote they cast, so be it. That is what we are paid to do, and we are not guaranteed reelection. That seems basic to me.

Congress and the American people deserve an opportunity to fully review and consider any debt limit deal that is struck behind closed doors.

It has also been reported--in one publication at least--that in order to make the numbers look better, we are going to resort to certain budget gimmicks. In other words, let's say we eliminate a $100 million program. Well, we have been talking about how much that would save over 10 years, whether it would save $100 million over 10 years. That would be $1 billion. One of the gimmicks that was floated around, and was in fact used in the President's debt plan, was to say that we are going to do it over 12 years instead of 10 years as the deficit commission recommended. So we haven't actually cut any more; we have just added a couple of years to the timeframe that we are considering to make it seem like we reached the goal.

We have had gimmicks in which a big military payment to soldiers or a Social Security payment falling near the end of the month is pushed over to the next fiscal year--so it is due on September 30, and they make it payable October 1--and the numbers look better. We don't show the expenditure, but it is still there. The money is still going to be spent. Nothing has been changed except the date when the money is paid. These so gimmicks are unacceptable. Any plan that is presented on this floor, however it comes forward, must be free of gimmicks and accounting tricks. It must be an honest, fact-based budget. Additionally, raising the debt ceiling should not be accomplished by tax hikes. A punishing tax increase would not only threaten the growth we have to have in our economy, but it would also give a free pass to the egregious overspending of Washington. It would bail out the big spending excesses that have been put in place here. This overspending behavior is morally and economically culpable for our current crisis.

Federal Government spending already controls nearly 25 percent of our economy. It amounts to that much--the highest we have ever had. Some of that is because the economy is down. Some of it is because spending is up. But 25 percent of the economy is now driven by the Federal Government, with tax money and borrowed money. Sixty percent of what they spend is tax money; 40 percent-plus is borrowed. We take in $2.2 trillion, and we spend $3.7 trillion. That is why all the experts tell us this is unsustainable--and we know it is true. That is why we cannot do business as usual. That is why we have to do something. And that is why the House of Representatives produced a budget that cut spending. Some people didn't like it, but unless we have massive tax increases-- tax increase that will damage the economy--we have to reduce spending; right? Certainly this is correct. So that is where we are.

The difficulty is the spending and the resulting debt that is projected by the Congressional Budget Office--at least as they have analyzed the budget presented by the President. The current spending path, if it is just continued, is very dangerous. They are setting us on an even worse path.

Now, the President did submit a budget to the Congress. I offered it, and it was voted down 97 to 0. It made the already unacceptable debt path we were on much worse. Indeed, it would have doubled the country's debt, from $13 trillion to $27 trillion in 10 years. That is the path they projected, and the debt in the out years would be increasing, not decreasing; an unsustainable path.

So, ultimately, the numbers we have been hearing--like $2 trillion in cuts--are not sufficient. It is only a part of what we would have to do to get our country on a sound fiscal path. We hear this figure--that we need $2 trillion in cuts. A lot of people don't realize that the House budget reduces spending by $6 trillion over the next 12 years. By the way, over the next 12 years we are projected to add $13 trillion to the national debt, doubling it. So cutting $6 trillion is pretty significant. It requires us to take firm action.

This makes some people uneasy. They think we can't cut that much. But many of our States and cities and

counties have been cutting more than that on a percentage basis, and they are going to survive. They know they have to live within their means, but Washington has not gotten that message.

It is rumored that an unseen draft of the Senate Democratic budget proposes only $1.5 trillion in cuts. This is according to reports. They have tried to make the number bigger by counting interest savings, including those from tax hikes. This is a gimmick, because $1 in spending cuts is not equivalent to $1 in tax hikes. It just simply is not.

Cutting spending restores economic confidence and makes room for private sector growth. Studies show that this approach results in more significant deficit reduction. Cutting spending allows us to pursue a more competitive Tax Code. Hiking taxes is a less successful way to trim the deficit. That is the reality. Hiking taxes punishes families for the waste of Washington, and it enables a bloated government that needs to be trimmed and whipped into shape.

Raising taxes to pay for excessive government spending is a refusal to recognize there are limits to how much we can spend and how much we can tax. There is a limit to how much we can spend and how much we can tax if we want to be a government of democratic ideals, freedom, and free markets; and limited government is what our Founders intended.

A plan to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion and only cut $2 trillion in actual spending contains only a fraction of the savings we can and must achieve. That is my firm view, and I think we have many people in Washington, including, I have to say, our President, who are in denial about the challenges and difficulties we face.

This is not a situation in which a few little cuts here and there can put us on the path to fiscal solvency and get us off the path to fiscal destruction. It is going to take stronger steps, the kind of steps they are taking in New York State, the kind of steps Governor Christie is taking in New Jersey. We are not even reaching the level of cuts Governor Brown has achieved in California or what the English are doing in the U.K. We have to wise up. We cannot continue down this path.

Let me share a few other thoughts about debt because debt is a dangerous thing. It hurts us right now. Most of us have gotten into the habit of saying we are worried about our children and our grandchildren, and certainly we are worried about their future because of the debt burden we are placing on their shoulders. But the truth is, the debt threatens us right now. It is a danger to our economy. It is a danger and it is a drag on the economy. Let me explain how debt destroys jobs and why this Senate should pass a budget.

The House of Representatives has passed a budget; they have made it public and they have defended it and explained it. Let's see what the Senate Democratic majority will do about a budget.

Higher debt leads to slower economic growth. Empirical studies show that high levels of government debt inhibit economic growth by creating uncertainty, displacing needed private investment and placing upward pressure on interest rates and raising burden on the government itself through interest payments on the debt.

For example, the very well-respected and much commented-on study by Reinhart and Rogoff, Harvard and University of Maryland economists, found that in advanced economies with gross government debt above 90 percent of GDP--in other words, a total debt equal to 90 percent or above the size of the American economy--median economic growth tends to be between 1 and 2 percent lower, depending on the time period analyzed, when compared to countries with lower debt-to-GDP ratios.

What do we mean by 1 percent to 2 percent lower? In the first quarter of this year, we were expecting almost 3 percent growth. In reality, it was shockingly lower. It adversely impacted the stock market. What did it come in at? 1.8 percent. The second quarter may not be so good either. We are already above 90 percent of debt to GDP; so presumably, if this study is accurate, we should have been at 2.8 percent growth. In a sense, it is not a 1-percent reduction; it is 36 percent less than the growth we need to have.

Another study has shown that 1 percent growth in the gross domestic product, 1 percent growth in our economy, creates 1 million jobs.

When asked about this Reinhart-Rogoff study, President Obama's Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, told the Budget Committee he considered it an excellent study--not only that, he told us in the committee he thought it underestimated the problem. Because when you get debt the size of 90 to 100 percent of GDP--and we are projected to reach 100 percent of GDP as our debt by the end of this year--he said it creates the danger of an economic crisis, some sort of spasm like we had when we had the financial crisis or even something similar to Greece. Something that could put us into another recession, which would be the worst thing that could happen to our economy.

That is why this is serious business. We are feeling the impact of this debt right now. It is pulling down economic growth. It is costing us jobs. It is creating uncertainty and fear in the marketplace. We have to get off of it.

President Obama appointed the fiscal commission, cochaired by Alan Simpson, a former Senator, and Erskine Bowles, former chief of staff to President Clinton. Erskine Bowles and Senator Simpson told the Budget Committee we are facing the most predictable debt crisis in this Nation's history--the most predictable economic crisis in our Nation's history.

In other words, they explained that the debt trajectory we are on guarantees an economic crisis. The question is when.

So that is why we have to change. We don't want to have to cut any spending. The last thing politicians want to do is cut spending. The reason we are talking about this is because we have to. I do believe President Obama deserves severe criticism for not being out front leading on this, not telling the American people what his own experts are telling him. This was his expert, Mr. Bowles, and his Treasury Secretary, Mr. Geithner, telling us we have to change the debt path we are on. He needs to help explain to the American people why this is necessary, while it will be painful in the short run, but it can put us on the road to prosperity and not on the road to decline.

Other studies, including Caner, Grennes, and Koehler-Geib's 2010 study of 99 countries between 1980 and 2008, reached a similar conclusion about debt.

Successful debt-reduction measures relying on spending cuts, not tax increases, have consistently resulted in stronger economic growth. Research from Harvard economist Alberto Alesina, as well as a Goldman Sachs report, found that fiscal consolidations--reductions in spending--that focused on cutting government spending, including on subsidies, transfer payments, and government worker pensions, were successful in cutting fiscal imbalances, typically boosted economic growth, and were followed by improved equity--that is the stock market--and bond market performance. That is what their study found, an empirical study by Goldman Sachs and a professor from Harvard, economist Alberto Alesina--not Jeff Sessions. These are independent analyses.

Examples of successful spending reductions include Canada, which is in some ways doing far better than we are. We are at 9.1 percent unemployment and our unemployment numbers still seem to be going up; whereas, Canada is at about 7.1 percent and going down.

New Zealand had a dramatic turnaround in the early 1990s. They went from 22 consecutive years of deficit spending to now 16 years of surpluses. It was a deliberate, systematic decision by the people of New Zealand through their government to change what they were doing. They reduced spending. They created ways to make sure the government was productive and saved money. They privatized a lot of activities the government had taken over that didn't need to be government functions, and the country has been progressing solidly ever since.

Financial markets have issued dire warnings about the consequences of our inaction. Against the backdrop of a spreading euro zone debt crisis, the International Monetary Fund--certainly not a rightwing organization--the International Monetary Fund recently urged the United States to act

swiftly to address its soaring budget deficits saying: ``You cannot afford to have a world economy where these important decisions are postponed.''

The credit rating agencies Moody's and S&P have warned that they may place the U.S. Government's AAA bond rating under review for a possible downgrade within months.

Bill Gross, the head of PIMCO, the largest bond fund in the world, with hundreds of billions of dollars invested, has ceased buying U.S. Government Treasurys. None of that is in his portfolio. He said recently that what we are doing with our economy through the Fed, with this quantitative easing, and the government with its worthless stimulus package, is what he called a sugar high, not real, a temporary surge that has not changed the circumstances we are in. He is a man who deals every day with investments, and he has ceased to invest in U.S. Treasurys.

Yet the Nation has operated without a budget now for 785 days. The Democratically led Senate, even when they had a huge majority last year, perhaps the biggest majority in my lifetime--I can't remember a party having 60 votes in the Senate, when that last occurred--didn't pass a budget. You can pass a budget with just 50 votes. It was given priority. We know we need a budget. So we set up a Budget Act that allows even a bare majority of Senators to pass a budget, and set a plan for our Congress.

The Senate has not even allowed the Budget Committee to meet this year to mark up a budget resolution. The Budget Act calls for the Budget Committee to hold a markup by April 1. It calls for the Congress to pass a budget by April 15. The House passed their budget by April 15. We have not yet even had a markup to work on a budget resolution, and the leadership in the Senate has refused to pass a budget since April 29, 2009, 785 days ago. We wonder why this country is in a financial crisis when we will not even get together to pass a budget, as every city, county, and State has. I don't know of a single one that hasn't.

Over this time that we haven't passed a budget, the Nation has spent $7.1 trillion and added $3.2 trillion to the gross Federal debt.

The majority leader, my friend, Harry Reid--I know he has a tough job, but he made a big mistake. He recently said it would be foolish for the Democrats to produce a budget.

Foolish to produce a budget? Is this the kind of leadership the American people expect out of Washington, that the No. 1 Senator, the leader of the majority party, who has the power to control the flow of legislation in this body, says he is not about to produce a budget? Indeed, he says it is foolish to produce one, and he has basically sent word to the Budget Committee we are not to even have committee hearings.

I think nothing could be more foolish than refusing to provide the Nation's job creators, investors, and taxpayers with a solid blueprint for our fiscal future. A blueprint in which the American people can see we have gotten it, we understand the debt course we are on is unsustainable, and now we have a plan to get us on the right track.

Why wouldn't the people who wanted to be in the majority, who asked to lead, step forward and lead? Why will they not lay forth a plan that can be analyzed and shown to the American people? Why aren't they proud to present their vision for what America should be like and how we should handle their future?

I will say in conclusion that the breakdown of the talks does not surprise me. The Gang of Six tried. Those talks seem to have fallen apart. Then we went to the Biden talks. Once again, people said that we were about to reach an agreement any minute, that all the rest of us Senators could relax and all we needed to do is walk up and sign our name to what these wise few have decided our financial future should be like.

I think most of us realize we were elected. We are Senators. We are not rubberstamps for Vice President Biden and some of our fine colleagues. The Presiding Officer is an independent American citizen. He is going to make up his own mind. So am I. But when you are talking about a budget, a financial plan, a program to raise the debt ceiling in this Congress, we ought to read it, we ought to know what is in it. Not only us, the American people should know what is in it. They need to have time to absorb what it means for them and their future, that there will be no gimmicks or tricks, and it will be honestly presented. That takes some time.

I am worried and have been worried if they reach an agreement, even if it is a somewhat good agreement--I don't expect it to be a great one, but if a decent agreement is made, it is going to be brought forward and we will have to pass it within days because of a panic that we will have an economic problem if we do not raise the debt limit and we cannot spend so much money. I don't think we should head that way.

I don't know what is going to happen now. It is late, I will acknowledge, for us to go back to the regular order and have Budget Committee hearings and amendments in the Budget Committee and have people stand up before the world and explain their view and offer amendments. I don't think it is necessarily too late. I do not know where it will go. But this has not been a shining hour for the Senate, and after this last election in which Senators and House Members took a shellacking by the American people, who were very unhappy with us, the House I think appears to at least have gotten the message. They put forth an honest budget that changes the debt trajectory and they put it forth and explained it and defended it.

What do we have in the Senate? We have the majority leader saying it is foolish for us to produce a budget. We are not going to produce a budget. Did he mean it is foolish for America? No, he meant it is foolish for political reasons. He meant it was foolish for us as Democrats to step forward and lay out an honest plan because, wow, that plan may include tax increases. It might include spending reductions. It may not reduce the deficit very much, and we would have to defend that to the American people and we might not be able to defend it and people might be unhappy with us, as they were in the last election. So let's be clever, let's not produce a budget, let's let Mr. Ryan and the House lead with their chin, let them come out and make a plan and we will attack it. That is the Democratic leadership we have seen in this Senate.

It is not legitimate, it is not justified leadership. It is irresponsible and the President has not been engaged. He does not want to talk about it. He has not explained it in his State of the Union Address. He has not talked to the American people consistently about why his own debt commission chairman, Mr. Erskine Bowles, says we are facing the most predictable economic crisis in our history. No, he doesn't want to talk about that. Why? Because once you talk about it, it becomes obvious that spending needs to be cut and because it is obvious that you cannot fix your way out of this by raising taxes. If you are a tax and spender, you don't want to deal with that reality, in my view.

I am worried about it. I don't know where we are heading today. Senator Reid is a good man. Senator McConnell is a good leader on our side. I don't know what Speaker Boehner is going to do, what Vice President Biden will do. But the time, as old Snuffy Smith, the mountaineer, used to say, ``Time's a-wastin'.'' The deadline is coming closer and closer. We are going to have to figure out something to help secure the future of this country and I hope we can do it sooner rather than later.

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

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Paul, I call up amendments Nos. 502 and 503, and ask unanimous consent that they be reported by number.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 186 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings). During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days during which they may revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, this resolution provides for a structured rule for consideration of H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, sometimes called the SOAR Act, with 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Further, this proposed rule will make in order all of the amendments filed at the Rules Committee for H.R. 471. Admittedly, it was only one amendment, but it is made in order, and it is offered by the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton). This is an amendment that was presented in the committee and defeated on a 12-21 vote, but which will be reoffered here today as a substitute measure. In short, this rule is about as fair as they potentially get.

Madam Speaker, this is a very open, straightforward rule that we will be considering today, and I am pleased to stand before the House in support of this rule as well as the underlying legislation, H.R. 471. I commend the sponsor of this legislation, the distinguished Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), who has previously served as chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, and he understands education issues very, very well.

Madam Speaker, when the Cubs in the 1960s hired Leo Durocher to be their manager, he was hired 2 years after they finished the season 49 games out of first place. In his short period of time there, he would take them to the top, in which case, in 1969, a year that still hurts, the Cubs were atop the National League for 155 days. Unfortunately, 7 of those days they were not on top included the last day of the season.

But Durocher always said for his team that ``I make a great effort to argue for the issues, but there are two things that are working against me: the umpires and the rules.''

There will be a lot of people--some people--who will speak against this motion, perhaps even this rule, and there are two things against them: One is the unique constitutional relationship between Congress and the District of Columbia that is not there, vis-a-vis the States; and, number two, the underprivileged kids who benefit from this underlying bill.

If I were to predict a preview of what will be taking place in the debate, not only on the rule but also on the bill itself, I would predict four themes will be appearing time after time after time.

One will be the concept of the constitutional mandate that is here. When this Republic was established, the Constitution gave unique jurisdictional responsibility to Congress over the District of Columbia. That is not going to be a violation of their home rule concept, but it is a responsibility of Congress. And there is great precedent for this particular kind of provision.

In 1996, it is Congress that insisted upon a charter school program in the District of Columbia. You will hear from both sides of the aisle recognition of the great value that that program has, and justifiably so. There is a waiting list in the District of Columbia for those charter schools. This underlying bill increases the percentage of funding going to charter schools in the District.

In 2003, an Opportunity Scholarship was instituted, at the insistence of Congress. Again, there was a waiting list of people wanting the opportunity; disadvantaged kids who wanted the opportunity that this scholarship afforded them. In the appropriation bill for 2010, unfortunately, Congress intervened again in a negative way and cut out this Opportunity Scholarship program. There were a lot of upset students and parents who couldn't believe how special interest politics got in the way of their son's or daughter's dreams and was snatched from their very hands. Their opportunity to make what they believe were better educational choices was basically taken away from them.

H.R. 471 remedies this inequity. There were 216 kids at the time scheduled to enter the program who were not allowed because of the action of that particular appropriation bill. Those 216 kids, by this particular legislation, will be given priority in once again being able to apply for this Opportunity Scholarship.

A second discussion point that will be coming up repeatedly deals with the efficacy of these programs. There will be conflicting data that will be thrown from both sides as to the effectiveness. But I think the one piece of information that can be clearly stated is that 91 percent of the kids enrolled in this Opportunity Scholarship complete their coursework. That is 21 percent higher than a control group of kids who were interested but were not allowed the opportunity to complete this particular program. That completion rate is almost 32 percent higher than the regular completion rate of kids in the public education system in Washington, D.C.

To quote Dr. Patrick Wolf, who was the lead investigator of the evaluation mandated by Congress of this program, he concluded by stating: ``The research evidence and the testimonials of parents confirm that the District of Columbia is a better place because of the Opportunity Scholarship program.''

The third issue that you will be hearing deals with the support of this particular program. There will be dueling statistics that will be coming at you during the course of the debate. Those in favor of the bill will give lists of groups who are in favor of this particular program. Those against the bill will give lists of groups and unions who are opposed to it. Each side will give a list of political leaders both within Washington, D.C., and outside who are in favor; and those opposed will give lists of political leaders who do not support this program.

There will be poll results that will be given from both sides, the most recent of which will be given by advocates, a Lester & Associates poll, which simply says 74 percent of the D.C. residents polled supported this program and wanted it restored and made available to all D.C. students for all their abilities to participate. You will hear polling data to the contrary. You will hear anecdotal stories to the contrary.

Perhaps the most telling, though, issue of support deals with parents and the kids in Washington, D.C., who lined up for this program; who went on waiting lists for the opportunity to become involved in this program; who cried and pled with Congresses past when this program was eliminated. They clearly do not want this program to totally be destroyed because it takes away from them their chance, their option, their opportunity to individualize and upgrade their educational opportunities.

This program probably has a philosophical basis, a kinship, if you would, with the Pell Grant, the GI Bill of

Rights, in which, once again, government tried to empower with choices with few strings attached individual adult students or parents so they could choose their own personal education future. That's what this bill still tries to do.

The final concept that will probably be presented during debate on the rule as well as the bill deals with the concept of liberty. We have a Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The Revolutionary War was supposedly fought for the purpose of preserving personal liberty.

I have to admit, though, as I was teaching school that it was difficult for my kids there to really comprehend what liberty meant. It was an abstract noun, to say the least. The Founders clearly understood what that concept meant as they looked upon a government that was far, far away from them. And in the Declaration of Independence we're willing to write that the government far away has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eke out their stance. Indeed, they had waged war against them. Those of us who live in the West today have the Department of the Interior to remind us of those same circumstances.

But the kids, mainly in urban and rural settings and suburban settings, still have a problem understanding what it means really to have liberty until you try and talk about liberty in terms of choices. Options, opportunity, without the heavy hand of a government official defining what those options and opportunities may or may not be.

The entrepreneurial world gets it. They realize if they want a market share, they have to give people choices in their lives. So if I want a mobile phone, there are all sorts of plans from which I may choose. Even in the smallest corner market in Washington there are still a whole row of breakfast cereals from which I may choose. I may want Pringles potato chips, but they still give me 16 varieties. If indeed Omaha Steaks sends me an invitation every week to try and come up with one of their products, I will choose this week to order one that fits for me.

Only in Washington in this government do you still have people that truly believe in a one-size-fits-all approach and that mandates can actually be worked, that believe and go back to the concepts of Henry Ford when the automobile was so unique he could with a straight face look at a consumer and say, You can have a car in any color you want as long as it is black.

Unfortunately, many of the ideas and philosophies still in government today, indeed some of the programs still in government today, were born in that era in which the idea of an elite sitting in some darkened office would decide what I wanted and what was indeed best for me. That's liberty.

The icons who face us in this Chamber, all of them were related in some way of moving the concept of law forward, which led to the concept of liberty. This bill is based on that concept of choice, opportunity, and options for people. It deserves our support because it is an opportunity. Call it an education app for Americans living in the District of Columbia. The most needy and deserving can actually have their choice of how they want their education to take place and it is done under the sphere of responsibility given to Congress by the Constitution.

This bill is worthy of our heritage. It is a symbol of our legacy. One can only assume that the Founders, indeed the icons that are looking down from the perch above us, are smiling now, saying, Congress doesn't always do it correctly, but this time with this bill they got it right.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of being here, and I also appreciate being here with my good friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), who is one of the true delights with whom I have such an opportunity to work here in Washington.

I guess, if he is saying that we have the group du jour from whom we are presenting bills, today's group du jour would be those who are financially disadvantaged and still want a better opportunity for education.

As I said, there would be four issues that would be discussed. We can check off three of the four already. Only the concept of ``liberty'' has yet to be addressed here. Some of them may be non sequiturs, but they were still there nonetheless. I guess the last statistic that still can be put out there as to whether this program works or not deals with the parents who, when the free market of ideas was opened up to them, they chose this program. They wanted this program. They wanted to maintain this program, and they will flock back to it.

Since my good friend Mr. Hastings also used a baseball reference to tie me, I have to one-up him one more time. In the words of the great Satchel Paige, who was consulting a struggling pitcher who was failing to get it over on the corners, he just said, Throw the pitch. Just throw strikes. Home plate don't move.

This program is one of those strikes. All we need to do is throw it. Home plate don't move.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, Madam Speaker, I'm pleased to be here and also be joined my good friend from Colorado, whom I should probably publicly apologize to for saying disparaging things last night. I screwed up and I apologize for that.

However, he presents to us an unusual conundrum that is here on who gets to decide what will or will not be allowed. Whatever we do in this unique situation, the decision will be made. If we pass the underlying bill, we empower parents in Washington, D.C., to make a choice. If we don't pass the underlying bill, we prohibit parents in Washington, D.C., from making that kind of choice. Once again, when they were allowed to make that choice, they had a waiting list for those wishing to participate. It's a conundrum whatever we do, yes or no. It makes a decision on behalf of the people of Washington, D.C.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, again, I appreciate the opportunity of discussing this particular issue.

There is one effect where the Delegate from the District of Columbia does have something in common with the State of Utah. Over 70 percent of my land is owned by the Federal Government in Utah, and it is one of those factors that inhibits our ability to fund our education system in the State of Utah. The District of Columbia has that same initiative problem with so much of the land owned by the Federal Government.

The difference, though, is that this program is giving Federal money to the District of Columbia to fund not just the scholarship opportunity but also increased funds to fund their charter schools, as well as funds to fund the regular public education system. In that respect, I wish we were very similar to what's happening in the District of Columbia, but unfortunately we are not.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time so I can find another baseball metaphor.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am not objecting at all to the concepts and the comments about Chinese trade. I think that's a legitimate issue. It has its time and place, perhaps not necessarily on this particular bill. But as an approach that the opposition, the minority, wishes to take, I can understand that.

I do, though, have my baseball analogy still here, and I'm not going to count the DiMaggio joke because that was made up. That was not a true one. But it is true that Casey Stengel at one time, talking about I think one of the best second basemen ever, Bobby Richardson, said: I just can't understand it. He doesn't smoke, he doesn't drink, he doesn't stay out at night, and he still can't hit .250.

Now, even though a healthy lifestyle may extend a career, it still has no ability or connection to the ability of hitting a curve ball. But those kind of non sequiturs are part and parcel of the entire debate that we will be having not just on this rule but also extended on to the other debate as well.

I find it personally very difficult to understand why anyone would oppose this bill, which only expands choices for D.C.'s brightest and least financially blessed schoolkids and does not subtract from school funding for D.C. public schools. In fact, it increases funding while keeping within Federal budget disciplines. It increases the percentage of money going to the charter school program as well as to the public schools. This is a win-win-win situation because it sends money to three distinct efforts: the regular public school; the charter schools, which have a waiting list more than ever before; and also this Opportunity Scholarship Program, which had a waiting list and will again as well.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have left?

I will yield 10 minutes if the gentleman from California wants it. Otherwise, I will be happy to use what he does not use.

Madam Speaker, I will reserve the balance of my time, and I will tell the gentleman from Florida that I am prepared to close when he is.

Once again, I appreciate the discussion, I appreciate my good friend from Florida if for no other reason that all of a sudden people are now sending me baseball stories and analogies here. I have one from Casey Stengel which I will save for the next time we join together here on the floor.

Madam Speaker, it is fairly clear what we are dealing with in this particular bill. This is money that is within our Federal budgetary discipline. We are talking with this bill about money that would go to the traditional public education system in the District of Columbia, an equal amount of money that would go to the charter schools which does have a waiting list here in the District of Columbia, as well as money that would go to this new opportunity scholarship.

Once again, with our dueling statistics, whether one wants to say that it was successful or not, the bottom line is still there were parents who wanted that program, there were parents who complained when the program was taken away from them by Congress, and there are parents who still want this program reestablished. They want those options for their children.

We have a choice here. If we act favorably on this bill, we empower those parents. If we refuse to act favorably on this bill, then we limit those parents and the choices that they seem to want. That is one of those issues that is there.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I want to reiterate the fairness of this structured rule. I urge its adoption, along with the underlying legislation. I urge members to support this rule which will allow the House to consider good legislation that affords bright and competitive D.C. students with an enhanced opportunity to pursue a higher quality of education while not harming the underlying public education system in the District of Columbia.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 186 Offered by Mr. Hastings of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following new

sections:

Sec. 2. Immediately upon adoption of this resolution the

Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare

the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on

the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R.

639) to amend title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930 to clarify

that countervailing duties may be imposed to address

subsidies relating to a fundamentally undervalued currency of

any foreign country. The first reading of the bill shall be

dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of

the bill are waived. General debate shall be confined to the

bill and shall not exceed one hour equally divided and

controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the

Committee on Ways and Means. After general debate the bill

shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule.

All points of order against provisions in the bill are

waived. At the conclusion of consideration of the bill for

amendment the Committee shall rise and report the bill to the

House with such amendments as may have been adopted. The

previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill

and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening

motion except one motion to recommit with or without

instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises and reports

that it has come to no resolution on the bill, then on the

next legislative day the House shall, immediately after the

third daily order of business under clause 1 of rule XIV,

resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further

consideration of the bill.

Sec. 3. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of the bill specified in section 2 of this

resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

I thank the gentleman from Texas.

I would like to express my appreciation to the leadership of the House for expediting these two important bills and bringing them before the House of Representatives. I rise in support of the underlying bills, the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act and Access to Capital for Job Creators Act.

Now, while I support the two bills before us, I do wish the rule was an open one. I will be voting against the rule. An open rule would allow the House to work its will in a true democratic process, allowing Members to come down to the floor and freely debate these bills. Unfortunately, in the Rules Committee, we were offered only a structured rule.

Now, both of these bills accomplish something very important in terms of opening up capital markets and helping startups work. Let me discuss briefly how this whole accredited investor concept works.

To be an accredited investor, you simply need to be worth $1 million or have income of $200,000 a year. Now, that's a very rarified strata of the American people.

What does that mean when you're an accredited investor? It means that you can participate in a private equity offering that doesn't need to go through the full SEC process which is cumbersome and costs a lot of money. So, in effect, many venture capital opportunities, funding opportunities for startup companies, are reserved for those who are only worth above a million dollars. They say the easiest way to make a million dollars is to already be worth a million dollars. In fact, people worth more than a million dollars have heretofore had a monopoly on participating in these kinds of opportunities.

Now, what can an average American family, let's say with a net worth of $50,000 or $100,000 do? Well, they can go to Las Vegas and they can bet it all on number 9. They can buy gold, which is being pushed by all these profit organizations, and I think we need a congressional investigation into that. Many of these organizations selling gold sell it for above market value by preying on unsuspecting people who are not accredited investors. They might be worth $50,000 or $100,000.

What you find, by the way, is that this whole concept of tying an accredited investor to net worth has its flaws. Just because somebody has several million dollars doesn't mean they're a sophisticated investor. Meanwhile, there could be somebody who's worth $10,000 who is very sophisticated. It's unfortunate that we have the whole system tied to that.

But what we see before us today are two important chinks in this armor. One is consistent with the current concept of accredited investor but at least opens it up beyond their personal networks, and the other one allows small investors to participate in a more meaningful way.

First, the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act, crowdfunding. What this means is it provides a new way that companies, startup companies, can raise a limited amount of money, $1 million a year, or $2 million if they have audited financial statements. Now, that's a sizable amount for a company to get off the ground and get started. Many tech companies that you hear of today started with that much money or less. Historically, how did they raise that money? They would go to a venture capitalist. They would go to a wealthy individual. We call that person an angel investor. They'd get a check for $500,000. The investors had to be worth more than a million dollars. Your average American might be worth--might only have $5,000 to invest or $1,000 to invest, was unable to, under law, participate in that offering.

What this does is it opens up an avenue that allows the individual investor to invest up to $10,000 in a startup company. Now, that's a risky investment. They could lose that $5,000. They could lose that $2,000. But you know what? They could go to Las Vegas and they could lose it a lot quicker with a lot less upside.

So this gives every American the opportunity to invest in startup companies, if one of their friends is starting one, if there is some concept they are excited about, and reap the rewards as well. In addition to feeling part of something special, some of these investments, the vast minority, could return 50:1, 100:1 and could help those people acquire wealth, and that's very, very exciting.

The Access to Capital for Job Creators Act also deals with a flaw in how private equity is raised. Currently, you have to know the right people to get into a private equity deal. In fact, a company that's offering private equity is not even allowed to, under SEC regulation, post a prospectus and information on their Web site in an open environment. What this bill does is it creates a safe harbor that allows them not to advertise it in the sense of loudly promoting it and trying to sell shares, but in a sense of simply providing it in a nonpassword-protected way on their Web site to allow people who aren't part of their personal network of elite friends to participate in that private equity offering as well.

The average median household net worth in this country is about $100,000. And previously, all of these investment opportunities have been reserved for people worth over a million dollars. Now, if somebody's family, an American family watching this, or one of my constituents is worth $100,000 or $150,000 or $50,000, it may not make all the sense in the world to invest $5,000 or $10,000 in one startup, but a cap of $10,000 is a reasonable amount. It's their money and their right to do that if that's what they want to do. These bills are consistent with that. And, more importantly, they provide a new financing mechanism for startups in this country. That way, a startup that has broad appeal and a broad network can go to 1,000 people that have $1,000 each rather than one wealthy investor for $1 million. That was previously nearly impossible under current law.

Mr. Speaker, I have here a Statement of Administration Policy, and I'm proud to say that this bill, the Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act, has strong support from the administration: ``This bill will make it easier for entrepreneurs to raise capital and create jobs, and the administration looks forward to continuing to work with Congress to craft legislation that facilitates capital formation.''

I would like to applaud the leadership of the President of the United States in strongly supporting these endeavors. As a former small business owner, I know how important it is to invest in a company's future and how critical resources are for growth. The more avenues that we can provide for financing startup companies or allowing a mom-and- pop company to expand, the better it is for the growth of our economy.

More importantly, these two pieces of legislation before us demonstrate that Democrats and Republicans can work together. We can put aside our partisan differences, we can fast track a commonsense piece of legislation and work towards solutions to spur economic growth.

Now, to be clear, these two bills alone don't do enough to turn our economy around. These measures do little to address what the American people are asking us for, creating jobs in the short term and getting the economy moving. Will they have a positive impact in creating jobs and allowing for financing to flow to new startup operations? Yes, but they are not fundamentally game changers.

These bills will allow average Americans an opportunity to invest in early-stage companies. Now, many of these opportunities won't work out. American investors will lose their money. Other American investors will make money. But, again, it is a very American concept that it is your money to invest as you choose, and the best opportunities shouldn't be reserved for millionaires. We should make them widely available to all Americans.

Democrats on the Financial Services Committee have also been extremely

instrumental in improving these bills to protect business and investors. Democrats have added a critical provision requiring that issuers verify that an investor is actually eligible to purchase the offer in securities, and the change ensures there's a balance between the need to use restrictions on capital formation and protecting investors from fraud and making sure we don't get in the way of State regulation, as well.

There is a fine line; and there are, as I mentioned, some areas where sham investments are being aggressively promoted that are certainly contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

Likewise, there are real opportunities that until this bill becomes law those who are worth under $1 million are ineligible from participating in, and as a companion those who might be worth more than $1 million but don't know the right people are unable to participate in private equity offerings. This bill remedies both of those restrictions and will help unleash capital flows to startup corporations. I'm proud to support both bills.

Executive Office of the President, Office of Management

and Budget,

Washington, DC, November 2, 2011.

Statement of Administration Policy

H.R. 2930--Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act

(Rep. McHenry, R-North Carolina, and 5 cosponsors)

The Administration supports House passage of H.R. 2930. In

the President's September 8th Address to a Joint Session of

Congress on jobs and the economy, he called for cutting away

the red tape that prevents many rapidly growing startup

companies from raising needed capital, including through a

``crowdfunding'' exemption from the requirement to register

public securities offerings with the Securities and Exchange

Commission. This proposal, which would enable greater

flexibility in soliciting relatively small equity

investments, grew out of the President's Startup America

initiative and has been endorsed by the President's Council

on Jobs and Competitiveness. H.R. 2930 is broadly consistent

with the President's proposal. This bill will make it easier

for entrepreneurs to raise capital and create jobs. The

Administration looks forward to continuing to work with the

Congress to craft legislation that facilitates capital

formation and job growth and provides appropriate investor

protections.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague on the Rules Committee, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Very briefly, I yield myself 1 minute to respond before I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

To be clear, these bills have the potential to create jobs, but there will also be many investors that lose money as a result of these bills. Again, it's their money to lose. These bills are consistent with that. And obviously these bills, in addition to causing job growth in companies, will also cause misery to some people. But it is their money to lose, and it's probably better that they bet it on some startup than they invest it in gold or they take it to Vegas. So at least there's an opportunity to create jobs. Even if the company doesn't go anywhere, that's a job for a year. And it limits the loss to 10 percent of their income. So if somebody makes $80,000, they can only lose $8,000 a year under this. Hopefully that won't put them out of house and home. And it gives them the same opportunities to invest in startup companies that millionaires have had for years. It's a very egalitarian measure.

It is my honor to yield 3 minutes to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, my good friend, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin).

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, again I express appreciation to both majority and minority leaders for expedited action in trying to get to the President's desk these two important measures.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Critz).

Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan).

I thank the gentleman. I believe we are on our last speaker.

I would like to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Michaud).

I will inform the gentleman from Texas that one additional speaker has emerged.

I would be honored to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The bills before us do something for people of all economic classes in the country--they help working families and the poor; they're good for the middle class; and they're good for millionaires. Let me talk about each group and how it helps.

First, millionaires. It gives millionaires more ways to lose their money. Isn't that exciting?

Previously, again, you not only had to be a millionaire, but you had to be a millionaire with the right connections to be networked to a company that's doing a private equity offering. Otherwise, you weren't allowed to find out about it. This will put all millionaires on an equal footing and will give them the opportunity to examine prospectuses on company sites, have them presented to them under the Access to Capital for Job Creators Act, allow them to squander their money on startups, and to, of course, occasionally reap a reward as they hope to do.

Again, this money that's invested will then create jobs. It will help fund the companies and get them off the ground, giving millionaires many more ways to lose their money through investing in risky startup companies.

What does this do for the middle class? Again, it gives the middle class more ways to risk their money and lose their money as well.

Previously, with a middle class family, the average net worth in this country was about $100,000. They were unable to invest in a startup company. They were not accredited investors. They couldn't lose their money that way. They could go to Las Vegas. They could bet it all on number six. They could lose it all there. They could respond to a full- page ad in a paper and buy gold with all their money. That doesn't create any jobs. But no. They couldn't invest it in their neighbor's startup company. This bill remedies that.

It limits their losses, and allows them to invest 10 percent of their income. If they make $80,000 a year, they can invest $8,000 in a risky startup company. Again, nine out of 10 of these are going to go out of business--they'll lose their money--and maybe one out of 10 will make a lot of money; but this allows middle class families the same opportunities that millionaires have always had to lose their money.

What does it do for working families and the American poor? Access to capital.

What if you have an idea? What if you don't have any net worth, but you have a great idea? You need to raise $100,000, $300,000--the proverbial ``better mousetrap.'' Do you know what? You might not know any fancy venture capitalists, and you might not know a lot of people with money. But do you know what this bill allows you to do? It allows you to put that idea up on the Internet and raise money from small investors across the country--legally. There is no legal way to do that until this bill passes. There is no legal way for somebody without access to capital to raise capital in small tranches without incurring SEC oversight and having to hire lots of lawyers.

This effectively allows working American families to raise money for their ideas by crowdsourcing, or raising money over the Internet, from that newly enfranchised middle class that now has the ability to lose their money

in new ways and from the millionaires, who have always been able to lose their money but only if they knew the right people. So these bills allow new avenues for growth capital for startup companies.

Again, to be clear, most of these companies aren't going to work out. That's the nature of capitalism. Most of them are going to go out of business. They might employ three people for a year, and 2 years down the road, they'll be a footnote. But do you know what? Some of them are going to work out. We could see the next Google, the next Yahoo!, the next Microsoft. Many of these companies started as garage companies, funded by proverbial friends and family. The next great American success story can be funded by crowdsourcing. It can have thousands of investors from middle class families across the country, earning millions of dollars on their investments and limiting their losses to 10 percent of their incomes.

I am proud to support these two bills and am appreciative of the majority and minority staffs for expediting their passage and improving them in committee and through the amendment process. It's time we get back to work for the American people.

I again call on the Speaker and my Republican colleagues to put aside partisanship and give us more bills like these and more bills that can contribute to robust job growth and to do something for all American families regardless of their economic worth.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the previous question; and I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the aforementioned amendment to the rule in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Again, I would like to point out that I will be opposing the previous question on the underlying issue. I don't necessarily agree with what some of my colleagues have said with regard to China, and I voted consistently with that in the last Congress and have in this Congress; but I do believe that the House should be able to work its will on this important matter to the American people and with regard to international relations.

There are bigger fish to fry than giving millionaires more ways to lose their money, than giving middle class families more ways to lose money and giving working families access to more capital; but these are important steps forward for capitalism, for capital growth and capital formation, and to create the next generation of great American companies that will lift us from this recession and carry forward the torch of American progress across the world.

I am honored to support both underlying bills and hope that they move to immediate passage in the Senate as well.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for the purpose of speaking as in morning business.

Mr. President, I speak today on a day that appears to be positioned between two very consequential decisions.

Yesterday, the President announced his plan to draw down U.S. forces in Afghanistan, pledging to pull out 10,000 troops this year and the remaining 23,000 surge forces by September of 2012.

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives will likely vote on a measure to limit the use of U.S. funding for U.S. military operations in Libya to only ``nonkinetic activities''--in other words, noncombat activities--meaning no limited strike missions to suppress air defenses or predator strikes against Qadhafi forces, which we are doing very little of already. The only military actions for which the Commander in Chief could commit our Armed Forces would be supporting missions from search and rescue to aerial refueling to intelligence.

Those are the provisions in what is very likely to be voted on and passed by the House of Representatives tomorrow.

Some may not see a connection between these decisions, but the connection is profound. We are having a profound debate in this country right now that I suspect will continue for some time. Critical questions are being asked and discussed: How should we in the United States define our national interests? What is the proper role for America in the world? How do we balance our commitments abroad and the global demands for U.S. leadership with an American public that is justifiably war weary after a decade of conflict and that is rightly concerned with our unsustainable levels of government spending and national debt?

These are vital questions. They will determine the future of our Nation and, indeed, the future of the world. Reasonable Americans can disagree over what the right answers are. Although our disagreements may be heated and passionate, we should always remember that we are all Americans, that we are all patriotic, and that we all want to do what is best for the Nation we love.

The discussions we are now having over Libya and Afghanistan go right to the heart of this broader debate, and this is where we see the real practical impact of the decisions all of us in public life must make and be accountable for. We are all trying to define America's interests and role in the world, to separate that which we can and must do from that which is beyond our capacity and our benefit to try to accomplish. We are all striving for a balanced approach to America's interests abroad, and it is for that reason I am very concerned about both the President's decision on Afghanistan and the House's pending vote on Libya.

I agree with the President that, thanks especially to the sacrifice and courage of our fighting men and women, we are making amazing progress in Afghanistan. This progress is real and it is remarkable. But as our commanders on the ground all point out, it is also fragile and reversible. Our commanders also say what will be decisive is the fighting season next year--the warmer spring and summer months--when the insurgency historically picks up its operations after resting and regrouping a bit during the colder months. This will be our opportunity to consolidate our gains in southern Afghanistan and begin transitioning more and more of that fight to our Afghan friends, while increasing numbers of U.S. forces shift

their main effort to eastern Afghanistan where the Haqqani network, al- Qaida, and other regional militant groups are still present and operating actively.

The reason our commanders had to take this sequential approach is because they did not get all the forces they requested in 2009--40,000 troops as opposed to the 33,000 the President gave them. What this means in practice is that our commanders in Afghanistan still need next year's fighting season to deal the same crushing blow to al-Qaida and the Taliban in the east as our forces have dealt them in the south. However, under the President's plan, which calls for having all of our surge units out of Afghanistan by September, those troops will begin flowing out of Afghanistan right at the time the Taliban, al-Qaida, and their allies begin stepping up their operations, especially in eastern Afghanistan.

This is the irony of it all. The President's decision in December 2009 had the effect of making this war longer and costlier by forcing our commanders to tackle our enemies in southern and eastern Afghanistan sequentially over 2 years rather than simultaneously in one decisive action over 1 year. Now, just at the moment when our troops could finish our main objective and begin ending our combat operations in a responsible way, just when they are 1 year away from turning over a battered and broken enemy in both southern and eastern Afghanistan to our Afghan partners, the President has now decided to deny them the forces our commanders believe they need to accomplish their objective.

I hope I am wrong, I hope the President is right, that this decision will not endanger the hard-won gains our troops have made with the decisive progress they still need to make next year. I hope that proves correct. But I am very concerned the President's decision poses an unnecessary risk to the progress we have made thus far to our mission and to our men and women in uniform.

Our troops are not exhausted. They are excited that after 10 years we finally have a winning strategy that is turning this war around. Anyone who says that our troops are exhausted should go out and talk to them. They want to stay at this until the job is done. We have sacrificed too much. America has a vital national interest in succeeding in Afghanistan. After all that we have given to this mission, the money we have committed to it, the decade we have devoted to it, and the precious lives we have lost throughout it, why would we do anything now that puts our mission at greater risk of failure?

I would offer the same counsel to my Republican friends in the House with regard to our mission in Libya. I know my colleagues in Congress are angry with the administration and its Libya policy, and they have every right to be. From the disrespect and disregard the administration has shown Congress, to their bizarre assertion we are not really engaged in the hostilities in Libya, to the lack of resolve with which they have prosecuted this fight and made the public case for it, the administration has done an unfortunate amount to earn the ire of Congress. But we can't forget the main point: In the midst of the most ground-breaking geopolitical event in two decades, at least, as peaceful protests for democracy were sweeping the Middle East, with Qadhafi's forces to strike at the gates of Benghazi, and with Arabs and Muslims in Libya and across the region pleading for the U.S. military to stop the bloodshed, the United States and our allies took action and prevented the massacre that Qadhafi had promised to commit in a city of 700,000 people.

By doing so, they began creating conditions that are increasing the pressure on Qadhafi to give up power. Yes, the progress toward this goal has been slower than many had hoped, and the administration is doing less to achieve it than I and others would like. But here are the facts: We are succeeding in Libya. Qadhafi is going to fall. It is just a matter of time.

So I would ask my colleagues: Is this the time for Congress to turn against this policy? Is this the time to ride to the rescue of an anti- American tyrant, when the writing is on the wall that he is collapsing?

Is this the time for Congress to declare to the world and to Qadhafi and his inner circle, to Qadhafi's opponents who are fighting for their freedom, and to our NATO allies who are carrying a far heavier burden in this conflict than we are, is this the time for America to tell all of these people that our heart is not in this and that we won't see this mission through; that we will abandon our best friends and allies on a whim?

This all comes back to how we, as Americans, define our national interests and act on them. We can all agree that none of us are averse to doing what is necessary to defend America and our allies when we face a clear threat in the world.

In that way, we are like any other nation in history. But what sets us apart from those other nations, what makes us exceptional, what makes us the United States of America is that we define our interests more broadly than that. Our interests also encompass the fact that we are the leader of the free world; that the circle of nations that want us to play that role is growing, not diminishing; and that this position of leadership also confers responsibilities that are greater than our own immediate and material self-interests. It is the responsibility we have to the universal ideals of freedom and justice and human rights, of which our Nation is both the greatest embodiment and the greatest champion in human history.

That is not to say we can or should be involved everywhere. That is not to say we must act wherever and whenever our ideals are threatened. This is not to say military action is always the right answer, nor is this a recipe for endless conflict and commitment. America is powerful, but we are not omnipotent. We must make hard choices about where to spend our blood and treasure.

There will be more occasions than not when we will choose not to intervene, either because our interests do not warrant it or because we don't have the capacity to do so or because greater American involvement will not improve the situation. When we choose not to intervene forcefully in places where the cause of justice is calling out to us, be it Sudan or the Congo or Syria or countless other places where I and others have argued against intervention, we will be assailed as hypocritical and inconsistent. That is unfair, but it is nothing new for America.

What we can never forget is that our Nation's interests are forever colored by our values. America has always believed that the success of freedom and democracy in other lands does not just make our world more just; it makes it a safer, more secure, and better place for Americans and our children.

We can never afford to define our interests so narrowly that we would have sat back as an anti-American tyrant slaughtered his own people, thereby destroying one of the most historic attempts by millions of Arabs and Muslims to build better and more stable governments. That would have served neither our moral nor our strategic interests. Similarly, once we are engaged in a fight, as we are now in Libya and Afghanistan, and when we still have a clear path to succeed, as we do in both countries, it is in our moral and strategic interests to finish the job even if it is difficult and costly and unpopular. Failure is the only cost we truly cannot afford.

America cannot make the world perfect, but we can make it better, freer, more just, more prosperous. That is what has always made us an exceptional nation. That is what has always been the greatest source of our national security. That is what has always made us America. And that is how we must remain.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following articles be printed in the Record: the Wall Street Journal article from this morning entitled ``Libya and Republicans,'' the Washington Post editorial from this morning entitled ``End of a Surge,'' and the Wall Street Journal article entitled ``Unplugging the Afghan Surge.''

I note my friend from South Carolina here today. The Senator from South Carolina, as many of us know, is a reserve colonel-- a terrible mistake by the promotion boards--in the U.S. Air Force JAG Corps. He has spent more time in Afghanistan than any Member of Congress, including more than most Members of Congress combined. He has observed closely in Afghanistan the surge, its success, its impediments. I ask unanimous consent to engage in colloquy with the Senator from South Carolina.

I wonder if my friend saw General Keene, the architect of the surge in Iraq, on one of the networks this morning describing his views on the President's decision concerning drawing down our troops from Afghanistan.

According to the Washington Post this morning, the editorial ``End Of A Surge. The mismatch between President Obama's strategy and his troop withdrawal timetable'':

Mr. Obama's withdrawal decision, with no clear basis in

strategy, increases the risk of failure.

The only other issue--and I think the Senator from South Carolina is very well qualified to describe it--I hear over and over, especially from those who are opposed to our involvement in this conflict, the troops are exhausted, the troops are exhausted. Yet General Keene, this morning on one of the news channels, said: They are not exhausted. They are exhilarated because they are winning. They know they have sacrificed so many of their comrades, killed and wounded. They are not exhausted. But they certainly, certainly don't want to come home in defeat, something that I saw a long time ago.

Can I say in summary--and I thank the Senator from Connecticut for his forbearance--I agree with the Senator from South Carolina, obviously. I say to my friends on the other side of the Capitol, although it may fall on deaf ears at this moment, I hope they know that we understand their frustration about the President's failure to recognize the War Powers Act exists, and the failure of the administration to consult and brief Members of Congress on the situation in Libya, about many aspects of the way this conflict has been conducted where America is ``leading from behind.''

But I want to repeat what the Senator from South Carolina said: This could mean the end of NATO. If NATO cannot defeat a third-rate military power, then NATO is probably going to go out of business. If we do not succeed in Libya and oust Qadafi, as is the President's policy, you will see a center for terrorist activities, you will see a return of al-Qaida to Libya--certainly a dramatically increased influence. And, frankly, it will send a message to the world that even though we say about a dictator and a brutal killer and murderer such as Qadafi that it is our policy that he be removed from power, we are either unwilling or unable to do so.

I again caution my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I hope they would not do anything that would enhance the ability of this brutal dictator to remain in power and continue to perpetrate the murders and crimes for which he is so well known.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I would like to take a few minutes, if I could, just to speak on----

I would be happy to yield.

Mr. President, I would like to begin my remarks this afternoon by congratulating several of our colleagues who have worked long and hard on this legislation, and their staffs who have worked equally long and hard: Senator Schumer and Senator Alexander; I see Senator Collins is on the floor; Senator Lieberman; our leaders, Democrat and Republican leaders, Senator Reid and Senator McConnell.

Anyone watching this debate from across America on C-SPAN might be wondering why is this important? Why are they doing this? Why are we spending several days, literally, in session in the Senate to focus on a nominations bill? Why? For those folks who might be wondering why, let me just offer these thoughts.

This administration has been in office for roughly 2\1/2\ years now. If we look throughout the Federal Government, the executive branch of the government, most of the positions that require Presidential nominations and Senate confirmation have now been filled. But a number, including a number that are in highly important, highly critical positions, have not been. Until fairly recently this administration looked like what I describe as ``executive branch Swiss cheese.''

People sometimes wonder why the Federal Government in Washington does not work better and maybe why does it not work as well as our States. I want to take a moment, if I can, to compare the approach we used in Delaware. I know Senator Alexander is a former Governor. It is probably the approach they use in Tennessee, to fill key leadership positions in the executive branch of those State governments.

In my State, for example, the Governor nominates people to serve as cabinet secretaries in a dozen or so different departments. Those nominations have to be confirmed before the senate. They hold hearings and generally report those nominations favorably. In fact, in my 8 years as Governor, we never had the senate fail to report and to vote for one of our nominees for an executive branch department--for example, secretary of transportation, secretary of education, those kinds of appointments. Within those various departments of State government, the division directors are appointed by the Governor without confirmation by the senate. The rest of our line departments within State government in Delaware are not appointed by the Governor; they are literally chosen through the merit system and report up the chain of command through the director of the division to the secretary of the department. That is the way it works.

I remember when I was about to be sworn in as Governor. I met with the senate--it was a Democrat majority at the time--and they were interested in knowing who I was going to nominate to different positions. I explained who we had in mind. They said: We do not know some of those people. Some of them are from other States. We are not sure that we ought to be confirming them.

I asked them: Look, why don't we make a deal. Give me the team I feel that as Governor I am entitled to have, make sure they are honorable people, smart people, that sort of thing. But at the end of the day, let me have my team and go forward and try to govern in partnership with the legislative branch, and judge us in the end on how we perform.

To their credit, that is what the State senate decided to do. That is the way we operated for 8 years. They were 9 very good years. I was fortunate to be Governor at the same time that Bill Clinton was President, and we managed

to balance our budget for 8 years in a row. We actually cut taxes 7 years in a row. We got ourselves a AAA credit rating for the first time in State history and still have it. That is the way we operated.

It does not look that way or operate that way here, and there are a number of reasons this administration, the last administration, and I suspect the one before that, a year or 2 years even into those administrations, the executive branch--if we look through the senior ranks of the leadership of the various departments--looked too much like executive branch Swiss cheese.

Senator Alexander and Senator Schumer, to their credit, are trying to change that. I commend them for their efforts. I think it is enormously important.

If you are trying to be the President and lead this country, you need your team. It is important that they be capable people, honorable people. But at the end of the day, a President of either party needs a good team, a strong team, filled sooner rather than later.

There are a number of reasons it is so difficult to get many of these vacancies filled. One of them is a reluctance on the part of some people to go through the process, the confirmation process. It takes forever in some cases. These nominees are asked to bare, not their souls but largely bare their lives to go through a process where they can be maybe not crucified but certainly exposed to anything they have ever done wrong in their lives. None of us is perfect.

I think that in itself deters people from wanting to go through this process. I was once nominated when I was Governor to serve on the Amtrak board by President Clinton. I remember how long it took just to fill out the paperwork--one set of paperwork for the executive branch, a totally different set of paperwork for the legislative branch.

I remember saying to my wife, after spending a weekend just to fill out the paperwork: I am not sure it is really worth doing all of this. I am really not sure it is worth it. I am sure for other folks who go through this process they probably reach the same conclusion at least once during the time they go through the paperwork.

We need to have not separate questionnaires, we need to synchronize, homogenize at least the paperwork, and hopefully put it in an electronic form so we can do it electronically--those nominees can do it electronically one time and be done with it and send it off to the right folks to look at.

One of the reasons we go slowly is--I will share with you--I was riding in Afghanistan or Pakistan, one of those countries a couple of months ago, riding around with a codel on a bus going from place to place. One of the folks on the bus said they were looking for somebody to put a hold on a nomination in order to get some leverage on something that Senator was trying to get from the administration--that is with a Democratic President and a Republican Senator. But I want to tell you, that conversation could have happened 4 years ago with a Democratic Senator and a Republican President. A lot of folks have used for years the ability to put a hold, to stop a nomination from moving forward, in order to gain some kind of political advantage, which has nothing to do maybe with the nominee or the nominee's ability to serve.

The other point I want to make--I shared this with some of our colleagues in our caucus, the Senate Democratic caucus, the other day. I talked to my colleagues about the work of the Government Accountability Office, GAO. Every year they publish, as most of us know, something called a High Risk List. And a high risk is just a whole lot of initiatives or problems that exist throughout the Federal Government that either are costing us a lot of money or are going to cost us a lot of money unless we do something different.

One of the top items on the GAO's High Risk List for years now has been major weapons systems cost overruns. In 2000, GAO determined that major weapons systems cost overruns--Department of Defense--was $42 billion. That is a lot of money.

They update that list every year. They updated it for 2010 not long ago, and they concluded that major weapons systems cost overruns in 2010 had gone from $42 billion--10 years ago--to $402 billion in 2010.

I chair a subcommittee called Federal Financial Management, part of Homeland Security Government Affairs. We have held a number of hearings in recent years to try to figure out how we can get better results for less money--how we get better results for taxpayers for less money or better results for maybe not much more money.

As we drilled down on major weapons systems cost overruns, here is one of the things we found out. Through testimony offered by a fellow from--one of the top three people in acquisition in the Department of Defense, a fellow named Jim Finley, who reported to John Young, the top acquisition guy in the last administration, who reported to Bob Gates, the Secretary.

We brought in Jim Finley for testimony on major weapons systems cost overruns. Again, this is Secretary Gates, John Young, top acquisition guy at the Pentagon, and then Jim Finley. We asked Mr. Finley--I asked him a question: How long have you been in your job?

He told me how many months he had served in his job.

I asked him what kind of turnover he got from his predecessor.

He said: My predecessor left 18 months before I was confirmed for this position.

So I said: You mean, for like 18 months, there was no confirmed person in your position for acquisition to oversee the major weapons systems?

I said: How many direct reports did you have once you got into your job--how many folks were directly reporting to you?

He said: There are six direct reports to me in that job but only two of them were filled.

Just think about that. Here we are, the Department of Defense, hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons systems to oversee in acquisitions, and arguably the No. 2 person in acquisitions in the Department of Defense, that position was vacant for 18 months--18 months.

When he finally got confirmed, of the six direct reports, only two were filled. No wonder we have these huge weapons systems cost overruns--and it is not just an isolated incident. We brought in Jim Finley's counterpart today in this administration, a fellow named Frank Kendall. Good man. He testified earlier this year. Again, it is Bob Gates, the Secretary. Now it is Ashton Carter who is the top acquisition person in DOD. Then we have Frank Kendall.

I said to Mr. Kendall: How long have you been in the job?

He told me how many months.

I said: What kind of turnover did you get from your predecessor?

He said: My predecessor left 15 months before I got here.

My friends, I do not know how good we all are at connecting the dots, but when we have one of the top two people at the Department of Defense responsible for riding herd on the defense industry, all our contractors, and these contracts are for very expensive weapons systems--when we have a vacancy for 18 months in one administration, the next administration, pretty much like a vacancy for 15 months--that is no good. That is an invitation for disaster.

When we see the major weapons systems cost overruns go from $42 billion in 2000 to $400 billion 10 years later, I would suggest one of the reasons is because of this confirmation process, the vetting process. Really, the biggest problem of all is the administration. The administration takes forever to identify people to go in these positions, to vet these positions and actually give us a name.

There are no silver bullets in terms of solving this problem. We need a lot of silver BBs. One of the good things about the legislation before us is it provides a number of very helpful tools to expedite the consideration of nominees, to better ensure that the next administration, or even this administration a year or two from now if the President is reelected, that we do not end up with more and more executive branch Swiss cheese, which really translates to the taxpayers an enormous cost, costs we cannot afford with the budget deficit of over $1 trillion.

The last thing I want to say, if I may, I know people are offering amendments. I am going to call up an amendment to this bill in just a moment. It

is an amendment that involves again our friends at GAO, the Government Accountability Office. Our amendment is pretty straightforward. It would require GAO to investigate and conduct a survey on the number of Presidentially appointed positions that are not Senate confirmed in each agency, a category of jobs that also routinely go unfilled for extended periods of time.

The study would provide recommendations as to whether eliminating or converting certain appointees to career positions would be more efficient. In addition, the survey should evaluate whether it is beneficial to reduce and convert specialized categories of appointees, such as inspector generals, chief financial officers, or acquisition officers to career status, not as politically appointed.

The purpose of the amendment is that the proposal, we believe, would provide an analysis of what is an efficient amount of Presidentially appointed positions governmentwide. It also would provide recommendations on how to further reduce or convert these positions.

As far as I can tell, it is not a controversial proposal. GAO does a lot of good work for us to help figure out how to operate more efficiently, also to use some common sense. My hope is that my colleagues will see fit to support it.

That having been said, I ask unanimous consent to call up amendment No. 517, which I filed earlier today.

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

I yield the floor.