Job Creation Tax Credit Act of 2011

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.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

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.

Mr President, I rise to introduce the High School Data Transparency Act in celebration of the 39th Anniversary of Title IX. I am pleased to be joined again this year by my colleague from Washington, Senator Murray. Since the 108th Congress, we have introduced this bill to require that high schools, like their collegiate counterparts, disclose data on equity in sports, making it possible for student athletes and their parents to ensure fairness in their school's athletic programs.

Since my first day in Washington in 1979, I have been a stalwart supporter of Title IX. And there should be no mistake what this 39 year-old landmark civil rights law is all about, equal opportunity for both girls and boys to excel in athletics. Obviously, athletic participation supports physical health, but sports also impart benefits beyond the field of play.

For girls who compete in sports, 50 percent are less likely to suffer depression and breast cancer . . . 80 percent are less likely to have a drug problem . . . and 92 percent are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy. Athletic participation helps cultivate the kind of positive, competitive spirit that develops dedication, self-confidence, a sense of team spirit, and ultimate success later in life. So it is not surprising that, according to several studies, more than eight out of ten successful businesswomen played organized sports while growing up.

To cite one example, Irene Rosenfeld, Chairman and CEO, Kraft Foods was quoted as saying, ``growing up, I was extremely athletic, and very competitive. I played four varsity sports in high school and went to Cornell because they had a fabulous women's athletic program, and the academics weren't bad either.''

Without question, Title IX has been the driving factor in allowing thousands of women and girls the opportunity to benefit from intercollegiate and high school sports. Indeed, prior to Title IX, only 1 in 27 high school girls, fewer than 300,000, played sports. Today, the number is more than 2.9 million . . . that is an increase of over 900 percent. Moreover, our country is celebrating the achievements and being inspired by our female athletes now more than ever.

Last fall, the University of California, Berkley celebrated the life of the late Jill Costello who served as an inspiration not only to her fellow teammates but to the thousands of girls who defy the odds every day. Jill participated on Cal's Women's Crew Team as their varsity coxswain despite being diagnosed with stage IV cancer with only nine months to live. Throughout her treatment she not only supported her friends, family and teammates but was supported by them. Despite battling for her life Jill led Cal to achieve second place at the NCAA national crew championship. Jill's story proves that the incredible mystical nature of team and friendship does exist.

Earlier this year, the University of Connecticut's Women's Basketball Team furthered displayed women's progress in athletics. These women surpassed the University of California at Los Angeles men's basketball record of 88 consecutive wins achieving the longest winning streak of 90 games. The impact of this accomplishment has yet to be fully realized but has surely raised the profile of not only women's basketball but also woman's athletics.

Indeed, in my state of Maine, Bowdoin's women's varsity field hockey team has remarkably won Division III national championships in 3 of the last 4 years, putting Bowdoin and Maine on the women's field hockey map.

So while we celebrate this remarkable progress, we cannot allow rest on our laurels. That is why I am so pleased to join with Senator Patty Murray, who has been a tireless advocate for women's sports, to reintroduce the High School Sports Data Collection Act of 2011.

Our bill directs the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics to collect information regarding participation in athletics broken down by gender; teams; race and ethnicity; and overall expenditures, including items like travel expenses, equipment and uniforms.

These data are already reported, in most cases, to the state Departments of Education and should not pose any additional burden on the high schools. Further, to ensure public access to this vital information, our legislation would require high schools to post the data on the Department of Education's Web site and make this information available to students and the public upon request.

For nearly 40 years, Title IX has opened doors by giving women and girls an equal opportunity to participate in student athletic programs. This bill will continue that tradition by allowing us to assess current opportunities for sports participation for young women, and correct any deficiencies.

With this new information, we can ensure that young women all over the country have the chance not only to improve their athletic ability, but also to develop the qualities of teamwork, discipline, and self- confidence that lead to success off the playing field. Soccer star, Mia Hamm, characterized it best when ``somewhere behind the athlete you've become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back . . . play for her,'' and I am introducing this bill today for her as well.

Mr. President, as former Chair and now Ranking Member of the Senate Small Business Committee, it is my privilege and my responsibility today to stand up for small businesses across America that are being unfairly hurt by a punitive and unnecessary tax. The so- called ``tanning tax'' was included at the eleventh hour as part of last year's health care legislative maneuvering, and I am pleased to offer this legislation to repeal the tanning tax.

The tanning tax was added to the health care bill without any analysis of how it would affect this industry comprised primarily of small businesses, 75 percent of whose employees and customers are women. I cannot reiterate enough that small businesses are the primary job creators in this country, responsible for more than two-thirds of all new jobs created. At a time when a staggering and seemingly intractable unemployment rate of over 9 percent has become the norm, when some 22 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, when we are experiencing the longest period of long-term unemployment in American history since data collection started in 1948, surpassing even the 1982 double-dip recession for the length of unemployment, when the percentage of population that is employed has declined to 58.4 percent, the lowest level in nearly 30 years, how could anyone think that shuttering or slowing the growth of small businesses is a good idea?

Reports show that small businesses lost an estimated $2 trillion in profits and asset valuation since the recession started in December 2007, while larger companies have been less affected and are recovering more quickly. Combined with the current, on-going economic malaise, the tanning tax is certain to accelerate job losses in this industry beyond the 20,000 jobs already lost nationwide. These small businesses need our help, not a further hindrance such as this tax.

I have heard first-hand of just what a job-killing, growth-preventing measure this tax is. Sun Tan City, a chain of small business tanning salons based in Augusta, ME, with 125 employees in Maine and another 50 in New Hampshire have slowed dramatically the expansion of their business. They opened 7 new salons in 2009 but only 4 in 2010 and another 2 in 2011. Sun Tan City remitted $85,000 to the IRS just this past quarter, money that would have gone to grow jobs and their business.

The tanning tax is not just about the money, it is also about the burden of compliance. Each store must collect and remit its tanning tax liability individually, increasing the paperwork and compliance burden. At an estimated cost of $74 per hour spent complying with paperwork burdens, merely remitting the tax imposes yet another enormous burden on small businesses.

Moreover, the tanning tax is imposed in addition to any state tax levies. For instance, New Jersey imposes a 7 percent tax on tanning services, meaning tanning salons in New Jersey are now responsible for 17 percent in taxes just for this service. We are already hearing that those seeking tanning services are going to other States when possible in order to avoid the higher New Jersey and Federal combined taxes. I guess that is one way to improve interstate commerce.

The worst part of the provision, though, may be the way the IRS has interpreted its implementation, in a way that favors larger businesses over smaller ones. The IRS released its tanning tax-implementing guidance on June 15, 2010, just two weeks before the tax became effective. This guidance contained a gross inequity that will subject some businesses to the tanning tax while exempting others. The guidance exempts ``qualified physical fitness facilities,'' which include gyms. That is, a person could pay for a membership at such a facility and be able to use that facility's tanning beds without having to pay the tax. Thus, the tax is having a disproportionate effect on small businesses while allowing larger, syndicated gyms and similar facilities to go untaxed.

There are legitimate concerns about the health of those who engage in tanning, whether using natural sunlight or tanning beds. I do not come before you today to argue the science. But the Food and Drug Administration has been under pressure for years to ban outright the use of tanning beds and repeatedly has declined to do so. The 10 percent tanning tax was never designed as a deterrent; it was designed solely to replace the 5 percent tax on Botox injections and elective cosmetic surgery as a revenue raiser to pay for the health care bill. No other factor was discussed, nor were there ever hearings on the merits. I am as concerned as any Senator or citizen about the health of our fellow Americans, but a dead-of-night job-killing tax increase on small businesses is not the way to address any health concerns!

There are other ways, such as an education campaign, that would be far

more effective and less cumbersome than this 10 percent tax to inform people about any tanning risks, especially when the IRS has carved out big businesses from being affected by the tax. Why is it safe to tan in gyms but not in salons? That is not a question the IRS should be answering. If the health issue is important enough to merit scrutiny of the industry, then let us have that debate, but the fact that there was no debate before this onerous tax was imposed makes it doubly outrageous.

This bill is supported by the National Federation of Independent Businesses and by the Indoor Tanning Association, which is comprised of business owners and operators, as well as manufacturers and distributors of tanning equipment. The tanning tax was a painful hit to this sector of our economy and this bill will seek in some way to rectify what was done to them by eliminating the onerous tax going forward.

Finally, I want to thank Glen and Dennis Guerrette, whose father, Will, served in the Maine state legislature, and Lewis Henry, all from Maine, for bringing this issue and their stories to my attention. I would also like to thank Congressmen Michael Grimm and Pat Tiberi and many others for their leadership in the House on this crucial issue.

In conclusion, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support our bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, most Americans have a credit score. We don't know much about it until we start to borrow money. Then you find out what your score is, and that will determine whether you are going to get a loan and, if you get one, how much interest you will pay for it.

Several years ago, I got a phone call from a bill collection agency to my home in Springfield, saying: Durbin, we finally caught up with you; I don't know how you thought you could get away from us, but the charges that you have run up here at Home Depot in Denver, CO, haven't been paid for months. I said I had never been to the Home Depot in Denver, CO.

Well, I was a victim of identity theft. Somebody got enough information about me to apply for an account there and run up some charges. They said: Prove it. So I sent them some information and they came back and said: We are satisfied you weren't the person who ran up the charges, and you better check with your credit agencies to see what your credit score is now because everybody has been reporting this default on payment on the Home Depot in Denver, CO. I checked and, sure enough, my credit scores, which I never pay any attention to because I don't borrow a lot of money, were terrible. I went through about 3 months of reconstructing what happened and clearing my record, and at the end they said everything is fine. It can be done.

Why do I bring up this example? The credit score of the United States is now in question. On August 2, the Secretary of the Treasury tells us that if we don't extend the debt ceiling of the United States, we are going to be in a terrible financial situation.

What is the debt ceiling? The debt ceiling is America's mortgage--the amount of money we borrow as a government, as a nation, to sustain ourselves. We borrow a lot of money--40 cents for every $1 we spend, whether it is on a missile or a food stamp. The creditors--our creditors around the world--of course, get paid interest for loaning us money to cover our debt. The level of interest they are paid reflects their confidence that we will ultimately make payments and be good for the debt.

Right now, you can pick up the newspaper and read what is going on in Greece. The Popoulias government barely survived this week because they have had to initiate austerity measures, cutbacks in spending that aren't politically popular. If they didn't, they were going to watch the Greek credit rating fall further and the cost of borrowing money go up even higher.

So when the time comes on August 2, our deadline on our basic debt ceiling, our creditors around the world will look and see what happens. What happens, without fail, in the history of the United States, is we do the right thing and extend the debt ceiling. They say: Fine, so the full faith and credit of the United States can be relied on confidently. They can say they made another payment as they said they would, and we can go forward with our business.

Now there is a hue and cry, primarily from the other party, that we should not pay any attention to this debt ceiling. We should ignore it. Many of them have made arguments which, frankly, are stunning.

Just to give you a couple of examples, a colleague from the State of Pennsylvania, Senator Pat Toomey, said today that ``failure to raise the debt limit upon the deadline submitted by the Treasury Secretary does not equate to a default on our debt at all.''

I will remind him what Ronald Reagan said:

The full consequences of a default--or even the serious

prospect of default--by the United States are impossible to

predict and awesome to contemplate. . . . The Nation can ill

afford to allow such a result.

Senator DeMint of South Carolina, a Republican, said:

Republicans must do everything they can to block an

increase in the debt limit.

Here is what the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, said:

Failing to raise the debt ceiling in a timely way will be

self-defeating if the objective is to chart a course for the

better fiscal situation for our Nation.

Congressman Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Republican Budget Committee, said that holders of U.S. Government debt would be willing to miss payments ``for a day or two or three or four.''

Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, said this:

Even a very short-term or limited default would have

catastrophic economic consequences that would last for

decades.

Mr. President, I am not sure you follow the stock market, but if you did, today you know it is off. It is off because news about employment is not encouraging. Too many Americans are out of work. So there is a question mark about this economy and where it is headed. We are doing our best to turn it around, and I think we have done some good, but we need to do more. We can talk more about that.

If we, for some reason, do not extend the debt limit of the United States, the credit rating of the United States

would go down in the eyes of people who loan us money. What would happen next? As predictable as I stand here, interest rates would go up. People loaning money to the United States would say: If they are not going to extend the debt ceiling when they are supposed to, then we want to cover our bets and have a higher interest rate. What happens when the interest rate paid by the United States of America on its debt goes up? All interest rates go up. Interest rates would go up on people buying homes and cars and on businesses that want to expand or buy more inventory.

Can you think of a worse thing at this moment in our economic history? Where the Federal Reserve has announced this week that they are going to try to keep interest rates down so we can get out of this recession, Congress, if it fails to meet its responsibility on the debt ceiling, would end up raising interest rates--exactly the opposite of what the Federal Reserve says we need to get the economy back on its feet and get America back to work.

This is the introduction to a point I wish to make that has a lot to do with a speech made on the floor today. Senator McConnell, the Republican leader, came to the floor this morning to explain he has decided the Republicans will walk away from the budget negotiations with Vice President Biden. Congressman Cantor, a leader in the House of Representatives, and today Senator Kyl, one of our leaders in the Senate, have said that after weeks of sitting in the room with the Vice President trying to work out some kind of agreement on the budget deficit, they were walking out, and they did. The two Republican leaders in the room walked away from it.

Senator McConnell said this this morning in explaining it:

We're not in the majority. We can't sign anything into law.

That's the President's job. That's his job. He has acted as

if it is not his problem. This is his problem to solve.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the House majority leader announced soon after that he will no longer participate in the bipartisan negotiations.

Congressman Cantor said:

It is up to the President to come in and talk to the

Speaker. We've reached the end of this phase.

How does this break down? How does the Republican walkout on budget negotiations and the extension of the debt ceiling come together? We can't extend the debt ceiling without the support of the House Republican majority and without the support of Republicans in the Senate. They have said they will not vote for it unless we have an agreement on the budget.

Well, the clock is ticking. At this point, we know August 2 is looming, and we know if we fail to extend the debt ceiling, it will be the worst thing we can do for the American economy at this moment in time. If there were ever a time when both political parties ought to stop making some of these speeches and come together and work it out, this is it. What it means is that both sides--our side, the Democrats, and their side, the Republicans--have to come together and put everything on the table. It means that some of the things we hold dearest, such as Medicare and Social Security and entitlement programs, we need to talk about their future in honest terms. It means that the Republican side has to come forward and accept the reality that we will need some new revenue to deal with our budget deficit situation. That is the reality.

I only know this a little better than some because I spent the last year and a half working on it--on the President's deficit commission and with a group of four or five other Senators from both parties trying to come up with some kind of agreement. That is where we are today.

This breakdown of the discussions on the Biden budget negotiations, because of the walkout of Congressman Cantor and Senator Kyl, is not promising. Next week, the Senate will be back in session, the House will not. It is one of their recess weeks. The following week, after the Fourth of July, we are out of session, and the House is back in. So for 2 weeks now, we are not going to have both Houses in Washington. That will make it more difficult to reach an agreement, but we have to do it.

As bad as things are with this economy, if we send a signal that we are unable to responsibly lead on a bipartisan basis, I am afraid we are going to have very negative consequences. I implore the Republican leaders to reconsider their position. Walking away from their congressional responsibility to negotiate for a good budget agreement and to extend the debt ceiling is the height of economic irresponsibility. It would create a disaster that would touch innocent people across the United States and around the world. What we need to do--and it is so hard in this town--is to try to put this partisanship aside. At one point early in the session, the Republican leader said the most important thing we can achieve during the course of this session--I will quote him:

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for

President Obama to be a one-term President.

That was a quote Senator McConnell made several months ago. We are all partisan to some extent, but that isn't the most important thing Senator McConnell or Senator Durbin can achieve. The most important thing to do is to deal with our debt responsibly and get the economy moving forward in a bipartisan way. Running up filibusters on bill after bill on the floor of the Senate may give somebody a quick temporary victory, but it doesn't solve the problems we face. We need to work together to create jobs and pass legislation, get a budget agreement together, and extend the debt ceiling.

I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to reconsider this walkout from the budget negotiation. We need to work in good faith to solve the problems of this country. After all, that is why we were elected.

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