Temporary Tax Holiday and Government Reduction Act

I say to my good friend from California, you are a patriot. You are here for all of the right reasons. We just have a strong disagreement about where we stand as a nation.

Nobody interrupted the Christmas Day Bomber plot. The people on the plane attacked the guy before he could blow it up. There was no FBI agent there. There was no CIA agent there. We are lucky, thank God, the passengers did it. So there is nothing to suggest that our intelligence community does not need as many tools as possible because the guy got through the system. We are lucky as hell the bomb did not go off.

The Times Square Bomber, nobody interrupted that plot. The guy did not know how to set the bomb off. We are lucky as hell the bomb did not go off. So do not stand here and tell me that we have got it right, because we have not. And here is the point: We never will always get it right. I am not saying that as criticism. Because we are going to get hit again. We cannot be right and lucky all of the time.

To those who are trying to defend us, the one thing I do not want to do is micromanage the war. Here is the political dynamic. You have got people on the left who hate the idea of saying ``the war on terror.'' If you left it up to them, they would never, ever use the military, they would always insist that the law enforcement model be used because they do not buy into the idea of we are at war. So you have got one part of the country, a minority, that wants to criminalize the war. If we ever go down that road, woe be unto us.

You have got people on my side--the Senator is right about this. They have gone the other way. If you left it up to people on my side, there would be a law passed tomorrow that you could never, ever read a Miranda right to a terrorist caught anywhere in the United States.

I do not agree with that way of thinking. To my fellow members of the U.S. military, you have not failed at Guantanamo Bay. You have not failed. Because you sentenced someone to 9 months to me validated the fact that those who are taking an oath to defend us, when they are put in a position of passing judgment on people accused of trying to kill us all, will be fair.

So when you say a military commission tribunal at Guantanamo Bay gave a 9-month sentence and that is a failure, I say, as a proud member of the military, I am proud of the fact that you can judge a case based on the facts and the law and not emotion. So I am very proud of the fact that military commissions can do their job as well as the civilian courts.

I say to our Federal prosecutors and our Federal juries and our Federal judges, I am proud of you too. We should be using an ``all of the above'' approach. There are times that Federal courts are better than military commissions. There are times that military commissions are better than Federal courts.

The 1032 language has nothing to do about what venue you choose. This provision is simple in its concept. It is a compromise between those on the left who say you must criminalize this war; we are not at war; you are going to have to use the law enforcement model; you can neither gather military intelligence, who do not believe that the military has a role on the homeland to gather intelligence, which is an absurd concept, never acknowledged before in any other war.

When American citizens helped the Nazis, collaborated with Nazis to engage in sabotage, not only were they held as enemy combatants during World War II, they were tried by military commissions. We no longer allow American citizens to be tried by military commissions. I think that is a reasoned decision. But what we do not want to do is prevent our intelligence community from holding an al-Qaida affiliated member and gathering intelligence.

If an American citizen went to Pakistan and got radicalized in a madrasah and came back to the United States and landed at Dulles Airport and got a rifle and started shooting everyone on the Mall, I believe it is in our national security interests to give our intelligence community the ability to hold that person and gather intelligence about: Is another guy coming? What did you do? What future threats do we face? And not automatically Mirandize him. But if they choose to Mirandize him, they can. In this legislation, we presume military custody, but it can be waived.

That is the point I am trying to make. Senators Levin and McCain have struck a balance between one group that thinks the military can only be used and nobody else and another group that says we can never use the military. We have that balance. If we upset this balance, we are going to make us not only less safe, the Congress is going to do things on our watch that we have never done in any other war.

A word of warning to my colleagues: If we had a bill on the floor of the Senate saying we are not going to read Miranda rights to terrorists who are trying to kill us all, 70 percent of the American people would say: Heck yes.

I don't want this bill to come up. I believe the people who are best able to judge what to do is not any politician, they are the experts in the field fighting this war. We are saying we can waive the presumption of military custody, we can write the rules to waive it, but we believe we should start with that construct.

Let me read to you what the general counsel for the Department of Defense said today:

Top national security lawyers in the Obama administration

say U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they

take up arms with al-Qaida. The government lawyers, CIA

counsel Stephen Preston, and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson,

did not address the Awlaki case. But they said U.S. citizens

don't have immunity when they are at war with the United

States.

The President of the United States was right to target this citizen when he went to Yemen to help al-Qaida. I am glad we took him out. So would it not be absurd that we can kill him, but we cannot detain him? If he came here, we cannot question him for military intelligence gathering. So this is a compromise between two forces that are well intended but will take us into a bad policy position: the hard left who wants to say the military has no role in protecting us on the homeland and some people on my side who say the law enforcement community cannot be involved at all.

So Senator Levin and Senator McCain have constructed a concept that provides maximum flexibility, gives guidance to the law enforcement community, starts with a presumption that I like and can be waived and will not impede an ongoing investigation. That is the part of the bill that was changed.

To my good friend from California, we have the balance we have been seeking for 5 years. To me, this is what we should be doing as a nation--creating legislation that allows those who are fighting the war the tools they need. In this case, we start with the presumption of military custody because that allows us to gather intelligence. Under the domestic criminal law, we cannot hold someone and ask them about future attacks, because we are investigating a crime. Under military law, when somebody joins the enemy and engages in an act of war against the Nation, our military intelligence community can hold that person for as long as it takes to find out what they know about future attacks. If the guy gets off of plane and starts killing people at the mall, when we grab him and he says I want my lawyer, we can say: You are not entitled to a lawyer. We are trying to gather intelligence.

At the end of the day, use military commission trials, use Federal courts, and read Miranda rights when we think it makes sense; but we don't have to because the law allows us to hold people, under military custody, who represent a military threat. The law allows us to kill American citizens who have joined al-Qaida abroad. That has been the law for decades. I hope this compromise that Carl Levin and John McCain have crafted--and I say to Carl Levin, I have been in his shoes. When John and I were on the floor saying don't waterboard people--gather intelligence but don't become like the enemy--a lot of Americans believed we should waterboard these people, do whatever we need to do because they are so vicious and hateful. But John McCain knows better than anybody in this body what it is like to be tortured.

I wish to protect America without changing who we are. It has always been the law that when an American citizen takes up arms and joins the enemy, that is not a criminal act; that is an act of war. They can be held and interrogated about what they did and what they know because that keeps us safe. If we take that off the table, with homegrown terrorism becoming the greatest threat we face, we will have done something no other Congress has done in any other war.

Madam President, I thank Senators Levin and McCain for drafting a compromise that I think speaks to the best of this country. To my colleagues, please don't upset this delicate balance. If you do, you will open a Pandora's box.

Yes. It is not only a presumption that can be waived, based on what the experts in the field think is necessary; the waiver provision is incredibly flexible. You do not have to stop an interrogation to get the waiver. The executive branch can write the procedures. Not only is it a presumption that can be waived, it is also limited to a very narrow class of people. It has nothing to do with somebody buying gold. I don't know about Senator Levin, but people call me, who are on the right, saying: Don't let Obama put me in jail because I think he is a socialist or are you going to be able to grab me because of my political views? I tell my staff to be respectful and read them the language. The only people who need to worry about this provision are a very narrow group of people who are affiliated with al- Qaida, engaged in hostile acts.

Not only would I agree that 1032 and 1031--the compromise language about statement of authority to detain and military detaining as a presumption--has nothing to do with the choice of venue, there are people on my side who are champing at the bit to prohibit civilian courts from being used in al-Qaida-driven cases; is the Senator familiar with that?

I am of the view that we are overly criminalizing the war. I don't want to adopt that policy. There is nothing in this language that has anything at all to do with how you try somebody and what venue you pick. I am in the camp--and I think Senator Levin is too--of an all-of-the-above approach. I am proud of our civilian courts and our military courts. The Senator and I are probably not in the best position to determine that. Let's let the experts do it.

Is this a fair statement: If it was your goal to prevent military commissions from ever being used, you didn't get your way in this legislation. If it was your goal to mandate that military commissions are the only venue to be used, you didn't get your way in this legislation because this legislation doesn't speak to that issue at all.

If I may just add--not only is that the effect, that would be a change in law because the Senator agrees with me that in other conflicts, prior to the one we are in today, American citizens, unfortunately, have been involved in aiding the enemy; is that correct?

Does the Senator agree with me that in prior wars American citizens have been involved in aiding the enemy of their time?

Yes. And the In re Quirin case, which Hamdi cited and affirmed, was a fact pattern that went as follows: We had German saboteurs, some living in America before they went back to Germany--I think one or two may have been an American citizen--who landed on our shores with a plot to blow up different parts of America. During the course of their efforts, American citizens aided the Nazis. The Supreme Court said when an American citizen chose to help the Nazis at home, on our homeland, they were considered to be an enemy belligerent regardless of their citizenship, and we could detain one of our own when they sided with the enemy.

Let's talk about the world in which we live today.

Military detention and tried by a military commission.

And executed. The Senator from Michigan and I have said, along with our colleagues, that military commissions cannot be used to try American citizens.

Our military has said they do not want that authority. They want to deal with enemy combatants when it comes to military commission trials. But our military CI and FBI have all understood their power to detain for intelligence-gathering purposes is an important power. It is not an exclusive power.

So let's talk about today's threat. The likelihood of homegrown terrorism is growing. Does the Senator agree that the homegrown terrorist is becoming a bigger problem?

So in a situation where an American citizen goes to Pakistan and gets radicalized in a madrasah, gets on a plane and flies back to Dulles Airport, gets off the plane and takes up arms against his fellow citizens, then goes to the mall

and starts randomly shooting people, the law we are trying to preserve is current law, which would say if the experts decide it is in the Nation's best interests, they can hold that American citizen as they were able to hold the American citizen helping the Nazis and gather intelligence.

That is a right already given. Senator Feinstein's amendment, even though I don't think it is well written, could possibly take that away. That is 1031. But what we are saying is, we want to preserve the ability of the intelligence community to hold that person under the law of war and find out: Is anybody else coming? Are you the only one coming? What do you know? What madrasah did you go to? How did you get over? How did you get back?

We want to preserve their ability to hold that person under the law of war for interrogation. But we also concede, if they think it is better to give them their Miranda rights, they can. That is what the legislation we create will do. Does the Senator agree with that?

Wouldn't it be kind of hard to explain to our constituents that our top lawyers in the Pentagon and CIA said today that once an American citizen decides to help al-Qaida they can be killed in a drone attack, but the Congress somehow says, OK, but they can't be detained?

Does the Senator believe America is part of the battlefield in our global war on terror?

Well, my belief is that most Americans would want our military being able to combat al-Qaida at home as much as they would abroad. I think most Americans would be very upset to hear that the military has no real role in combatting al-Qaida on our own shore, but we can do anything we want to them overseas.

Frankly, there are very good people on our side who want to mandate that the military has custody, and no one else, so we never have to read Miranda rights. Quite frankly, there are people on the left, libertarians, well-meaning people, who want to prevent the idea of a person being held under military custody in the homeland because they do not think we are at war and this is really not the battlefield.

What the Senator and I have done is to start with the presumption that focuses on intelligence gathering because the Senator and I are more worried about what they know about future attacks than how we are going to prosecute them.

Under domestic criminal law, we can't hold someone indefinitely. The public safety law I will talk about in a bit, but I say to my good friend from California, the public safety exception was a very temporary ability to secure a crime scene. It was not written regarding terrorism. So our law enforcement officials cannot use the public safety exception to hold an al-Qaida operative for days and question them. The only way to do that legally is under the law of war. In every other war we have had that right, and we are about to change that.

Right. Well, let's keep talking about it because the more we talk about it the more interesting the whole concept becomes.

The last time I looked, there were no civilian jails overseas. So when we capture a terrorist overseas, the only place we can detain them is in military custody. If they make it at home to say the military can't hold a person and interrogate them under the law of war, the only way we can hold an al-Qaida operative who made it to America is under the law enforcement model. This is not ``Dragnet.'' We are trying to make sure both systems are preserved, starting with the presumption of intelligence gathering.

Here is the key distinction. To my colleagues who worry about how we prosecute someone, that is really the least of my concerns. I am worried about intelligence gathering. I have confidence in our civilian system and confidence in our military system. But shouldn't we be concerned, most of all, Senator Levin, that when we capture one of these operatives on our shores or abroad that we hold them in a humane fashion but a fashion to gather intelligence?

Imagine if we got one of the 9/11 hijackers. Wouldn't it have been nice to have been able to find out if there was another plane coming and hold them as long as necessary to get that information humanely? To say we can't do that makes us a lot less safe.

That is the only group subject to this provision; is that correct?

But this provision we wrote only deals with that.

No one is going to be put in jail because they disagree with Lindsey Graham or Barack Obama. We are trying to fight a war.

I would say something even more basic. It is in my political interest, quite frankly, being from South Carolina--a very conservative State, great people--to be able to go home and say I supported legislation to make sure these terrorists trying to come here and kill us never hear the words ``you have the right to remain silent.'' Most people would cheer.

It would have been in my interest years ago, quite frankly, to have gone back and said: You know what. I wish the worst thing that could happen to our guys caught by these thugs and barbarians is that they would get waterboarded. They get their heads cut off. Yet we have all these people worried about how we treat them in trying to find out a way to protect the country. That would be in my political interest, and I am sure it would probably be in your political interest to say: Wait a minute, we don't want to militarize this conflict.

At the end of the day, what I wanted to say about the Senator and Senator

McCain is that one of you is a warrior who has experienced worse than waterboarding and doesn't want that to be part of his country's way of doing business. The other is someone who has been a very progressive, solid, left-of-center Senator for years. I am a military lawyer who comes from a very conservative State, but I want to fight this war--I don't believe we are fighting a crime--but I want to fight it in a way that doesn't come back to haunt us. I don't want to create a system on our watch that could come back and haunt our own people. I don't want to say that every enemy prisoner in this war has to go to trial because what if one of our guys is captured in a future war? Do we want them to be considered a war criminal just because they were fighting for the United States?

So what we are trying to do is to create policy that is as flexible as possible but understands the difference between fighting a war and fighting a crime.

Does the Senator know why that law was created?

One of the things you learn in military law school is the Posse Comitatus Act, because if a military member or a unit is asked to assist in a law enforcement function, that is prohibited in this country. Why is that? We don't want to become a military state. We have civilian law enforcement that is answerable to an independent judiciary.

The Posse Comitatus Act came about after Reconstruction, because during the Reconstruction era the Union Army occupied the South. They were the judge, jury, and law enforcement. They did it all because there was no civilian law enforcement. After the South was reconstructed, a lot of people felt that was not a good model to use in the future; that we don't want to give the military law enforcement power; they are here to protect us against threats, foreign and domestic; law enforcement activities are completely different.

Now we have National Guard members on the border. That is not a law enforcement function. That is the national security function. But I have been receiving calls that say our legislation overturns the Posse Comitatus Act. Here is why that is completely wrong.

Surveilling an al-Qaida member, capturing and interrogating an al- Qaida member is not a law enforcement function; it is a military function. For the Posse Comitatus Act to apply, you would have to assume that a member of al-Qaida is a common criminal and our military has no legal authority here at home to engage the enemy if they get here.

You talk about perverse. You would be saying, as a Congress, that an al-Qaida member who made it to America could not be engaged by our military. What a perverse reading of the Posse Comitatus Act.

The reason al-Qaida is a military threat and not a common criminal threat is because the Congress in 2001 so designated. I think most Americans feel comfortable with the idea that the American military should be involved in fighting al-Qaida at home, and that is not a law enforcement function.

May I add something. I want to respond to one of my good friends, Senator Paul, who said, Well, that is all good, but sometimes in democracies you let in very bad people and I don't want to give broad power to the executive branch that could result in political persecution.

I would tell you--Senator Levin may find this hard to believe--there are people on my side who don't trust President Obama and his administration. Some of them don't think he is an American. Some of them believe that if we pass this law, you are going to give the Obama administration the power to come on and pick them up because they go to a rally somewhere.

All I can say to Senator Paul and others: I share the concern about unlimited executive power. I support the Posse Comitatus Act. I don't support the idea that the military can't fight al-Qaida when they come here. We are not talking about law enforcement functions.

But here is what happens: If someone is picked up as a suspected enemy combatant under this narrow window, not only does the executive branch get to determine how best to do that--do you agree with me that, in this war, that every person picked up as an enemy combatant--citizen or not--here in the United States goes before a Federal judge, and our government has to prove to an independent judiciary outside the executive branch by a preponderance of the evidence that you are who we say you are and that you have fit in this narrow window? That if you are worried about some abuse of this, we have got a check and balance where the judiciary, under the law that we have created, has an independent review obligation to determine whether the executive branch has abused their power, and that decision can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court?

Much to my detriment.

In this case where somebody is worried about being picked up by a rogue executive branch because they went to the wrong political rally, they don't have to worry

very long, because our Federal courts have the right and the obligation to make sure the government proves their case that you are a member of al-Qaida and didn't go to a political rally. That has never happened in any other war. That is a check and balance here in this war. And let me tell you why it is necessary.

This is a war without end. There will never be a surrender ceremony signing on the USS Missouri. So what we have done, knowing that an enemy combatant determination could be a de facto life sentence, is we are requiring the courts to look over the military's shoulder to create checks and balances. Quite frankly, I think that is a good accommodation.

I would say why I wanted to do that. I want to be able to say--and not to my political advantage. But I want to be able to tell people post-Abu Ghraib, post-early Guantanamo Bay, we have cleaned up our act. We are trying to get the balance we didn't have originally. I want to be able to tell people we no longer torture in America. That is why you and I wrote the Detainee Treatment Act, with Senator McCain, the War Powers Act that clearly bans waterboarding.

I want to be able to tell anybody who is interested that no person in an American prison--civilian or military--held as a suspected member of al-Qaida will be held without independent judicial review. We are not allowing the executive branch to make that decision unchecked. For the first time in the history of American warfare, every American combatant held by the executive branch will have their day in Federal court, and the government has to prove by a preponderance of the evidence you are in fact part of the enemy force. And we did not stop there. Because this could be a war without end, we require an annual review process where each year the individual's case is evaluated as to whether they still maintain a threat or they have intelligence that could be gathered by longer confinement.

What I would say to our colleagues is that we have tried to strike that balance. There are a lot of people who don't like the idea that you give these terrorists Federal hearings and lawyers and all that other stuff. There are a lot of people who don't like the fact that we do have now humane interrogation techniques. But I like that, because I want to win this war on our terms, not theirs. So I couldn't be more proud of this bill.

To my colleagues on the right who want to mandate military custody all the time and you never can read them their Miranda rights, I am sorry, I can't go there. To our friends on the left who want to say the military has no role in this war at home, I am sorry, I can't go there. Military commissions make sense sometimes, sometimes Federal courts make sense.

I will end on this note. This compromise that we have come up with I think will stand the test of time. Unfortunately, most likely radical Islam as we know it today is not going to be defeated in our lifetime, and I hope to have created on my watch as a Senator a legal system that has robust due process, that adheres to our values, but also recognizes we are at threat like any other time in recent memory and allows us to protect ourselves within the values of being an American. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate working with the Senator and Senator McCain, and I think we have accomplished that after 10 years of trying.

Reserving the right to object, I just want to know if the Senator from California understands that

the vote on the second Feinstein amendment would be at 4:00 and that the debate would begin at 3:00, with that hour equally divided.

So is a 4 o'clock vote after an hour of debate acceptable?

So it is agreeable, then, that there will be an hour of debate on the second amendment starting at 3 o'clock with a vote at 4 o'clock?

I also ask unanimous consent that there be no second- degree amendments to the Feinstein amendment.

Before the Senator yields time to the Senator----

Will the Senator refrain for 1 minute? While Senator Feinstein is here, I understand it is now preferable from our leader that the vote be at 2 o'clock, not immediately following this half-hour debate.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote, which was previously scheduled to occur at the end of the half hour of debate on this amendment, now be rescheduled for 2 o'clock.

Madam President, relative to the time between that half hour and 2 o'clock, that time, hopefully, would be used. It will be by me for my remarks on this amendment, by the way, because after the 30 minutes, if it is used totally, I would want an opportunity to speak during that time, if necessary in morning business. But there are other amendments we believe can be voice voted during that period of time, I believe my friend from Arizona would agree. So that time will be fruitfully used. But the time now is 2 o'clock for the vote on that first Feinstein amendment.

I thank my friend.

It will continue to be our intent. It was objected to before. But we hope that objection will be removed. If it is not removed, we will have to have all these votes at the end of the day instead of during the day.

No. I agree with what the Senator said and what the intent is here; that, hopefully, we could have an hour debate starting at 3 o'clock. We will try to lock that in at a later time, after giving folks notice. But if there is objection to votes before the time runs out, the 30-hour clock runs out, then we will have to have all those votes after the 30-hour clock runs out, and it does not make any sense to do that. But if there is going to be an objection, then that is the way it will have to be.

What Senator McCain is saying--and I totally agree with him--is, even if we are put in that position, which I hope we are not, that at least we could use the time between now and then for debate on those amendments which we would have to vote on at a later time. I totally agree with my friend from Arizona.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

On my time. Quick question. After the 30 minutes expires, because we are not going to have a vote now, there would be additional time should the Senator need it after that 30 minutes.

Madam President, I have no objection.

While Senator Graham is on the floor, I ask unanimous consent to have a colloquy with him about this section 1032, the section at issue.

I very much appreciate Senator Graham's remarks. He said the provision provides for military custody as a beginning or starting point. I wonder whether he would agree that not only is it a beginning point, but it is only for a narrow group of people who are determined to be al-Qaida or their supporters.

Would the Senator also agree with me that under the provision in the bill, on page 360--we were told that civilian trials are preferable to military trials, preferable to the detention of an unlawful combatant. Does the Senator agree that every one of those options is open to the executive branch and that there is no preference stated, one way or the other, for which approach is taken to people who are detained?

Yes.

That is exactly the point. This language, when it is described as language that says somehow or other it works against using civilian courts, is from folks who haven't read our language. The language is explicit. On page 360, lines 3 through 14 in the bill, it says the disposition of a person under the law of war may include the following--and then they talk about detention under the law of war, trial under title X, which is the military trial, transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction; that is, article III courts, and transfer or return of custody to the country of origin. There are no others. There is no preference stated for which of those venues would be selected by the executive branch.

That is absolutely true. Senator Graham brought to the floor something that was stated this morning by the top lawyer for the Obama administration. I think everybody ought to listen to this. There has been so much confusion about what is in the bill and what isn't. Right now, there is authority to detain U.S. citizens as enemy combatants. That authority exists right now. That is not me saying it, that is the Supreme Court that has said it as recently as Hamdi, when they said there is no bar to this Nation holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant. That is current law. That is the Supreme Court saying that. Then, the Supreme Court also said in Hamdi that they see no reason for drawing a line because a citizen, no less than an alien, can be part of supporting forces hostile to the United States or coalition partners and engaged in armed conflict against the United States.

Top lawyers for the President, this morning, acknowledged this. I wish every one of our colleagues could hear what Senator Graham brought to the floor. Top national security lawyers in the administration say U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida.

Are we then going to adopt an amendment that says to al-Qaida that if you attack us overseas, you are subject to military detention; but if you come here and attack us, you are not subject to military detention? That is what the first Feinstein amendment says.

I am sorry, I was distracted.

They have, and they have been held accountable.

There was a naturalized citizen involved in Quirin, who was arrested, as I understand it, on Long Island, and who was charged with crimes involving aiding and supporting the enemy.

And military detention.

Exactly. By the way, I think executed.

That is correct.

It is an issue, absolutely.

I do. And the top lawyers of the administration acknowledged as much this morning when they said U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida.

The provisions we are talking about in section 1032, which Senator Feinstein would modify so that it is only al-Qaida abroad who would be subject to this presumption of a military detention, but al-Qaida who come here--and, by the way, American citizens are not even covered under 1032. But the foreign al-Qaida fighters who come here to attack us are not going to be subject to that presumption of military detention which, again, can be waived. It has nothing to do with in what venue they are tried. The administration, the Executive, has total choice on that. It is just whether we are going to start with an assumption if they are determined to be al-Qaida, if they are a foreign al-Qaida person, they sure as heck ought to be subject to that same assumption whether they attack us here or whether they attack us overseas.

I wouldn't want to try to hold that position.

It has been made part of the battlefield without any doubt. On September 11, the war was brought here by al-Qaida. How do we suggest that a foreign al-Qaida member should not be subject to an assumption to begin with, if they are determined to be al-Qaida, that they are going to be detained--that we should not start with that assumption--subject to procedures which the administration adopts. It is totally in their hands. It cannot interfere with a civilian interrogation. It cannot interfere with civilian intelligence. We are very specific about it. The procedures are written by the executive branch. They can try them anywhere they want.

But if they bring a war here--they bring a war here--we are going to create an assumption that they can be subject, and are going to be subject, to military detention.

If I can interrupt, we have that right abroad against members of al-Qaida. But under this approach we would not be able to assume that military detention at home, again, subject to waiver and subject to all the other protections we have.

We could do that if we captured them in Afghanistan, but here we are going to be treating them differently. It ought to probably be worse. In other words, people who bring the war here, it seems to me, at a minimum ought to be subject to the same rules of interrogation as they would be if they were captured and part of al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

I don't understand the theory behind this. As a matter of fact, when we adopted the authorization for use of military force, it would seem to me the first people we would want to apply the authority of that authorization to would be al-Qaida members who attack this country.

The only group that is protected.

Mr. President, I understand there are other Senators who may be coming over to speak, and I will be happy to yield the floor whenever that happens because this is the time which is not structured before the scheduled vote at 2 p.m. But if I can continue, then, until another Senator comes to the floor, I want to just expand on this one point which has been made which has to do with whether there is something in this section of ours that would allow our military to patrol our streets. We have heard that.

Well, we have a posse comitatus law in this country. That law embodies a very fundamental principle that our military does not patrol our streets. There is nothing in section 1032 or anywhere else in this bill that would permit our military to patrol our streets.

I think Senator Graham is probably more familiar with what I am going to say than perhaps any of our colleagues. We have a posse comitatus statute in this country. It makes it a crime for the military to execute law enforcement functions inside the United States.

That is unchanged. That law is unchanged by anything in this bill.

I think we had a fear a couple hundred years ago that that might happen.

That is why we have very carefully pointed this provision 1032 to a very narrow group of people--people who are determined to be members of or associated with al-Qaida.

Then the question becomes, Well, how is that determination made? What are the procedures for that? The answer is it is left up to the executive branch to determine those procedures. Can there be any interference with the civilian law enforcement folks who are interrogating people that they arrest? If someone tries to blow up Times Square and they are being interrogated by the FBI, is there any interference with that interrogation? None. We explicitly say that there is no such interference.

What about people who are seeking to observe illegal conduct? Is there any interference with that? There is none. We specifically say those procedures shall not interfere with that kind of observation, seeking intelligence. We are not interfering with the civilian prosecution, with the civilian law enforcement at all.

The rules to determine whether someone is a member of al-Qaida are rules which the executive branch is going to write. They can't say, Well, this thing authorizes the interference with civilian interrogation when, as a matter of fact, it specifically says it won't, and the procedures to determine whether somebody is governed by this assumption are going to be written by the FBI and the Justice Department and the executive branch. And, on top of that, there is a waiver.

That guarantee is called habeas corpus. It has been in our law. It is untouched by anything in this bill. Quite the opposite; we actually enhance the procedures here. The Senator from South Carolina has been very much a part of the effort here.

With all the risks that are entailed of being misunderstood and all the rest. That is something the Senator from South Carolina has engaged in, to try to see if we can put down what the detention rules are--by the way, ``are''--because as the administration itself said in its statement of administration policy, the authorities codified in this section--authorities codified in section 1031 they are referring to--those authorities already exist.

Not only is what the Senator said accurate, but we have done something else in this bill. There is an Executive order that was issued some years ago that said there should be a periodic review process for folks who are being detained under the law of war. Because it is so unclear as to when this war ends, there is real concern about that. What do we do about that? So in this bill what we require the executive branch to do--and I am now quoting from section 1035--is to adopt procedures for implementing a periodic review process. Those procedures don't exist now. They are not formalized. So we want to formalize them for the very reason that the Senator from South Carolina addressed: because we want to make sure that since we don't know when this particular war is going to end, it is kind of hard to define it and everyone is concerned about that, you have got to have review procedures. The greatest review procedure of all is habeas corpus. But there are also requirements in the Executive order for a periodic review process of whether somebody is still a threat or not a threat, for instance. The war may still be going on, but the person may no longer be a threat.

Should there be an opportunity for the person to say that? Well, there should be. There surely should be a regular review process. The Senator from South Carolina has been very much involved in this kind of due process. But what we put into our bill--which would have been eliminated, by the way, if the Udall amendment had been adopted yesterday--is a requirement that the Executive order's procedures be adopted, because so far we haven't seen that.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I call for the regular order with respect to the Merkley amendment No. 1174.

The Senator from California, my great friend, Mrs. Boxer, is correct. We are willing to accept the Boxer-Grassley amendment by voice vote.

In response to Senator Grassley's question, I am very much aware of what he referred to.

You do, indeed.

I thank the Senator from California and the Senator from Iowa for their efforts in this area.

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

Madam President, in a few moments, Senator McCain and I will be seeking unanimous consent that the following pending and germane amendments be considered en bloc, that the amendments be modified with the changes that are at the desk where applicable: Begich 1114, as modified; McCain 1220; Reed of Rhode Island 1146, as modified; Levin 1293, as modified; Boxer 1206; Chambliss 1304, as modified; Pryor 1151; Nelson of Florida 1236; Blunt 1133; Murkowski 1287.

Further, that the amendments be agreed to en bloc--we are not making that request now. We will be making that request in a few minutes. This is not the so-called managers' package, by the way. These are the pending germane amendments which have been before us for some time but which we believe have now been cleared, and there is no opposition; however, if there is, there is an opportunity for people to come down.

I would yield now to my friend from Arizona.

That was not on my sheet, but that is fine, and that would be added.

I doublechecked on this. The answer is no, and that is about as directly as I can say it. I checked with staff and the staff says they have been modified--in many cases as I indicated--but none in order to make them germane.

Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent that the following pending germane amendments be considered en bloc; that the amendments be modified with the changes that are at the desk, where applicable: Begich No. 1114, as modified; McCain No. 1220; Reed of Rhode Island No. 1146, as modified; Levin No. 1293, as modified; Boxer No. 1206; Chambliss No. 1304, as modified; Pryor No. 1151; Nelson of Florida No. 1236; Blunt No. 1133, as modified; Murkowski No. 1287, as modified; and Brown of Massachusetts No. 1090, as modified; further, that the amendments be agreed to en bloc.

I ask unanimous consent now that the following two amendments be withdrawn: Collins No. 1105 and Collins No. 1158.

I note the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I wish to address amendment 1274, which would clarify what I believe is existing law that the President has authority to continue to detain an enemy combatant under the law of war, following a trial before a military commission or an article III court, and regardless of the outcome of that trial. Let me explain what I mean.

As I said yesterday, even under the law of war the President has the authority to detain an enemy combatant, a prisoner of war, a captured enemy soldier, a belligerent. The President can detain him through the duration of the hostilities. The President is not required--the Commander in Chief is not required to release an individual whose sworn duty it is to return to his military outfit and commence hostilities again against the United States. That individual could be killed on the battlefield, but if captured, you are not required, under all laws of war that I am aware of and certainly the Geneva Conventions--you can maintain that individual in custody to prevent him from attacking you. But you can also try an individual who has been captured if that individual violated the rules of war.

For example, a decent soldier from Germany--many of them were held in my State of Alabama. They behaved well. They made paintings of American citizens, they did a lot of things, and did not cause a lot of trouble. They were in uniform and they complied with the rules of war and they were not tried as illegal enemy combatants.

But many of the terrorists today do not wear uniforms, deliberately target innocent men, women, and children, and deliberately violate multiple rules of war. Those individuals are subject, in addition to being held as a combatant, as an unlawful combatant. They can be prosecuted and they should be prosecuted. In World War II a group of Nazi saboteurs in the Ex parte Quirin case were let out of a submarine off, I think, of Long Island. They came into the country with plans to sabotage the United States. They were captured and tried by military commissions. Several were American citizens. A number of them--most of them, frankly--after being tried and convicted, were executed. The Supreme Court of the United States approved that procedure.

But recent cases demonstrate the potential problem we have today. One Guantanamo Bay detainee has already raised the question I have discussed before the military commission where he is being tried. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, was arraigned before a military commission on November 9. He was held not only as an al-Qaida, or a belligerent against the United States, but he was charged with a violation of the rules of war.

This was a group that sneaked into the harbor pretending to be innocent people and ran their boat against the Cole, killing a number of U.S. sailors.

I remember being at a christening of one of the Navy ships at Norfolk not long after this. I walked out of that area and I heard one of the sailors cry out: Remember the Cole. The hair still stands up on my neck when I hear it.

We have an obligation to defend our men and women in uniform. When they are out on the high sea or they are in a neutral port, they expect to be treated according to the laws of war and then they are murdered by an individual such as this.

This individual's lawyers filed a motion asking the military judge to clarify the effect of an acquittal, should the commission acquit him. He argued that the members of the committee had a right to know what would happen if he were acquitted because they might object to taking part in what he called a show trial if it turned out that he would continue to be detained at Guantanamo Bay.

There is another case in which the administration was almost confronted with the problem a year ago, in the case of a former Guantanamo detainee, an al-Qaida member named Ahmed Ghailani, who was responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Most of us remember those early al-Qaida bombings against our embassies in Africa.

After the Justice Department chose to prosecute Ghailani in an article III civilian court and directed the United States Attorney not to seek the death penalty--I am not sure why that ever happened; we don't know--but the jury acquitted him on 284 out of 285 counts. Luckily, he received a life sentence on the single count of conspiracy, for which he was convicted.

But what if he had not been convicted? What if there was insufficient evidence to prove he committed a crime, but not insufficient evidence to prove he was a combatant against the United States? Al-Qaida has declared war against the United States, officially and openly. The U.S. Congress has authorized the use of military force against al-Qaida, which is the equivalent of a declaration of war.

What if he had received a modest sentence after being convicted and had credit for time served? What if he had been acquitted on all 285 counts? Would the President have been required to release him into the United States, if the government could not get some country to take him? That would be wrong. He was at war against the United States. He was a combatant against the United States. Like any other captured combatant, he can be held as long as the hostilities continue.

By the way, let me note, military commissions are open. If they decide to try one of these individuals--not just hold him as a prisoner of war but hold him and try him for violation of the laws of war--they get lawyers, they get procedural rights. The Supreme Court has established what those rights are. Congress has passed laws effectuating what the Supreme Court said these trials should consist of, and a mechanism has been set up to fairly try them.

But enemy combatants are not common criminals. If a bank robber is denied bail, he remains in jail awaiting a trial, a speedy public trial, with government-paid lawyers. Enemy combatants are not sitting in Guantanamo Bay awaiting trial by a military commission, or by an article III court. They are held in military custody precisely because they are enemies, combatants against the United States. They should continue to be held there as long as the war continues and as long as they do not remain a threat to return to the battlefield against the United States.

This is an important point, considering that 27 percent of the former Guantanamo detainees who have been released--161 out of 600--have returned to the battlefield, attacked Americans. This Nation has no obligation to release captured enemy prisoners of war when we know for an absolute fact that 27 percent of them have returned to war against the United States. How many others have but we do not have proof of it? That is what the whole history of warfare is.

Lincoln ceased exchanging prisoners with the South after he realized they had more soldiers in the South. It was not to his advantage to release captured southern soldiers who would return to the fighting, so he held them until the war was over. Under the laws of war, the President has the authority to prevent an enemy combatant from returning to the battlefield. That is consistent with all history.

This amendment--please, Senators, I hope you would note--would make it clear that the President simply has authority to continue to detain enemy combatants held pursuant to the rules of war, even though they may have been tried, regardless of where that trial would be held and what the outcome was, as long as, of course, they could prove they were an enemy combatant and violating the rules of war.

I would note one thing.

I see my friend, the Senator from California, is here and probably is ready to speak.

On the question of citizenship, can a citizen be held in this fashion? The Supreme Court has clearly held they may. But the Senator is offering legislation that might change that. My amendment does not answer that question. It simply says a combatant should be able to be held under the standard of a prisoner of war, a combatant, even if they had been prosecuted for violation of the laws of war and acquitted.

It is common sense. I believe the courts will hold that, but it is an issue that is out there. I think Congress would do well to settle it today.

I urge my colleagues to do so.

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

Madam President, I join with Senator McCain in support of Senator Cornyn's amendment. Taiwan has been a strong ally of the United States. Senator McCain said we would provide them military aircraft, but, in truth, they would buy it. They are our allies. They are friends. They are prepared to purchase from an American company legitimate military equipment that they could use to help maintain the freedom they have cherished on the island, and it is hard for me to understand how that would be objected to.

I just wish to say, as someone who has looked at these issues for some time as a member of the Armed Services Committee, I do believe Senator Cornyn--also a member of that committee--is correct, and I strongly support the amendment and urge my colleagues to vote for it, if and when we can get a vote.

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

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

I ask that I be allowed to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. President, our country is facing a very serious financial crisis.

We have seen what happened in Europe. We had some numbers on the stock market for a while. But if I understand what happened, there was a very real crisis facing the Europeans, and at the very last moment they took some action that was received positively.

But they are not out of the woods yet and neither are we. Our debt is surging. We have gone from 5 years ago a $161 billion deficit to a $450 billion deficit in President Bush's last year to $1.2 trillion in President Obama's first year, $1.3 trillion in President Obama's second year, $1.2 trillion this year, and over $1 trillion predicted in deficits next year.

We are going to have a proposal that comes before us to provide a payroll holiday, and it is sold as avoiding a tax increase. That is what the President says it is; we are avoiding a tax increase. So we ought to ask ourselves exactly how that is so and if it is so. Let me just say, I don't think that is accurate.

Two years ago, there was an employer payroll tax holiday that went only to the employer. It cost the Treasury $7.6 billion. Last year, as part of the final compromise, a bipartisan compromise, it was agreed that there would be a 2-percent tax holiday for working persons. So instead of paying 6-plus percent on your withholding tax, you would pay 4. That cost $111 billion for that year.

So the President said: If we don't extend that, we are going to have a tax increase. But is he accurate? No, not really. This year's proposal would be to reduce not the 4 percent but the 3.1 percent, cutting the 6.2 withholding to 3.1 for the employer and for the employee, and it would cost in 1 year $265 billion--$265 billion that would not be going into the Social Security trust fund so that those who retire would have the retirement funds they have been promised. It would not go there. It weakens Social Security, the integrity of the system, in my opinion.

But we are told not to worry, the U.S. Treasury will replace this $265 billion with Treasury money. But the problem is, the Treasury doesn't have any money. The Treasury is already in debt. The Treasury is going to add another $1 trillion to the deficit this year. So now it is going to be added to--$265 billion more in one fell swoop, in one bill, right here at the end of the session. If you don't vote for it, the President says, you are raising taxes on the American people. That is not an accurate statement.

In an economic sense, in my opinion, the real essence of this is the U.S. Treasury will borrow $265 billion. Then, it will direct the Social Security Administration to send that money out in the form of a reduced withholding amount to be paid by workers. It is a direct borrow and it is a direct delivery of money and it uses Social Security trust fund moneys as a vehicle to transfer the money. In an economic sense, it borrows $265 billion to spend.

How much is $265 billion? The supercommittee, the committee of 12, was trying to find $1,200 billion in savings over 10 years--not 1 year, 10 years. This one bill, this one proposal of $265 billion would be spent this 1 year.

To achieve the committee of 12's goal, they would simply have needed to have cut $120 billion a year for 10 years out of the entire Federal Government. They failed. Immediately now, the President and our majority leader are demanding this Congress pass an expenditure-- unexpected, not before

done; nothing like such a large expenditure ever has come out of Social Security--to spend another $265 billion. How will we ever get our house in order? I wish I could figure out a way to be supportive. I don't see how I can be.

I am pleased the Republicans are trying to work up a bill that would not cost as much as $265 billion and some way to pay for it. But, in truth, if we are going to be able to cut spending to pay for any kind of new expenditure, wouldn't we be better to do what the committee of 12 tried to do: cut spending to reduce the debt? Shouldn't we be seeking ways, if we are going to raise taxes, to use those taxes to pay down the debt, instead of taking 10 years under the President's plan in a new tax that takes 10 years of that tax to pay for this 1 year's expenditure? That is what the proposal is.

I would say to my colleagues, this goes beyond partisan politics. This gets to the point: Are we in control of the Treasury and the spending of the United States of America? Can we defend what we are doing?

Don't think that is the only thing that is going to come up. I am the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. We look at these numbers. This also will be taken care of in December, count on it: We are going to deal with the alternative minimum tax. That is going to cost $50 billion. We are going to deal with unemployment insurance, an additional $70 billion to extend those payments beyond 90-some-odd weeks. We are going to fix the doctors payment, because we have to. We can't cut the doctors that much, $21 billion. We are going to extend most, if not all, of the tax extenders we call them, $90 billion. The total is $500 billion.

Some of this we have been expecting to take care of. But we weren't expecting or planning in any way to have a continuation of the payroll holiday that is going to cost $265 billion. I just would say to my colleagues, when are we going to think more rationally about it?

I just heard: How are we going to pay for the AMT, unemployment insurance, doctors payments, and the tax extenders? Somebody said: We are going to count the savings from the war. The Congressional Budget Office will show a decline in expenses for the Iraq and Afghanistan war will be a savings. We can spend that. That is fraudulent, that is a gimmick, and it should not be acceptable.

Everybody knows the war costs are going to be coming down and we have been planning for that. We can't assume that money is available to spend willy-nilly. We were bringing the war costs down to bring the debt down, not to fund new spending. We need to bring the war costs down to try to reduce our debt and our deficit, not to fund new spending. But that is how they are going to do this, I have been told. I am not surprised because there is no other way they are going to do it.

I just would share that. We will be voting in a little bit on this issue. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know how to fix our problems, but I know one thing. We remain in denial. Our country is in greater debt crisis than we realize. Mr. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson of President Obama's debt commission say we are facing the most predictable financial crisis in our Nation's history as a result of our debt, and we need to get serious about how to fix it.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business.

Mr. President, I want to speak on these very strange days in Washington, in this Congress.

This esteemed body's approval rating is at 9 percent, and I am having a hard time finding the 9 percent. It seems to me that the only thing we are working hard on is whether we can get the approval rating to zero, and I think we seem to be going in that direction.

We fight over political solutions that can't pass and, more importantly, won't solve this Nation's great problems. We fight for political points and mistakenly believe that the American people care who is up or down. But they don't.

I didn't come to Washington for the purpose of playing games, taking names, or keeping score. That is not what I was sent here to do. That is not what the people of West Virginia want me to do. I came here to fix things and to be a part of the solution. I have not come here to worry about my next election or whether Republicans or Democrats are up or down. I came here to do what I could to improve life for the next generation. I, for one, am willing to sacrifice my next election so the next generation can win. And if that means losing, so be it.

I rise today to speak about the next chapter of this sad state of affairs which the American people are forced to witness: whether we should extend and expand the payroll tax cut that will cost more than $240 billion in 1 year.

Many accusations are being thrown back and forth in the debate over the so-called tax cuts or tax increases, depending on which side of the fence you are on. There is one very basic fact that is missing from all of this very important conversation: Americans pay for one thing with our payroll tax--One. Social Security.

Social Security isn't just another government program. It was established in 1935 to provide economic security for our Nation's seniors who worked hard and earned their retirement benefits. They worked their whole life to provide our generation and those that will follow with a better and greater America.

Yet at the time when our Nation faces a death spiral of debt, when we should be talking about how we can come together to fix a fiscal nightmare that will threaten the very programs we care about such as Social Security, instead we are talking about undermining the very foundation of our longest standing retirement program. Right now, Social Security is on a collision course. By 2037, according to the trustees, if we do not do anything, benefits for everyone will have to be cut by 22 percent. Yet we are digging a deeper hole by destabilizing its funding with this recommendation. All in return for what? A temporary measure that has already cost nearly $120 billion and has at best created few if any jobs.

In the real world, when policy doesn't work, we stop and try something else. Apparently, in Washington we double down. Why would we do this? Why would we double down on a policy that did not work? The answer is simple. For the sake of a short-term political gain, leaders of both parties and the President are willing to fight over how we should pay for a failed program that jeopardizes the fundamental way that

we pay for our retirement security in this country. That does not make any sense to me, and it does not make any sense to the good people in West Virginia.

I know in the coming days we are going to hear a lot of political talk about extending the payroll tax. What they are saying sure sounds good: More money in our pockets. In fact, politicians will offer assurances that Social Security will not be hurt at all. My good friend, who will be speaking also on this, Senator Kirk from Illinois, is going to show a graph that basically shows that to be different.

What you will not hear them say, though, is that reducing payroll taxes even temporarily would take more than $240 billion out of Social Security's funding stream, if we approve the President's proposal. We certainly will not hear them say the way they would repay those hundreds of billions of dollars is through our general revenue fund. If we extend the cuts this year, what about the next year and the year after? When does it stop? When do we have the political will to finally say we better start paying again for Social Security.

Our approval rating is at 9 percent, and we are rapidly losing the support of our family members. Just how many Americans really believe that Congress will make sure our general fund is solid enough to live up to the responsibility of funding Social Security? If the payroll tax cut is extended as it stands this year, the average family in West Virginia will pay $14 less per week. For a lot of people that is a lot of money. But the few West Virginians who even realize they are getting help say they would gladly give that up in return for a reliable Social Security safety net or for a real tax reform that cuts rates across the board and that ensures that every American, especially the wealthy, will start paying their fair share. They would gladly do that.

Let me be clear. As a country, we cannot expect that Social Security will remain secure if we keep telling Americans we do not have to pay for it, and that is exactly the conclusion people will reach if we keep reducing their contributions. Social Security is one of our highest priorities as a country, and we should not let the Federal Government undermine Social Security by convincing Americans they do not really have to pay for it.

Then, again, there are some in Washington who want us to believe the very act of reducing our contributions to Social Security will spur job creation. Unfortunately, the reality is very different.

We tried the payroll tax cut last year, and I supported it. But I will not double down on the failed policy, especially one that jeopardizes the future of Social Security. Truth be told, over the last year I traveled more than 18,000 miles in my State, and I have yet to find very many West Virginians who even know they are getting a discount, let alone business owners who say they will hire anybody if we give them a discount for 1 year.

What business owners do tell me is that what they want more than anything is some certainty and some confidence in this economy; that we will do the right thing and stabilize this economy. Instead, the President and leadership in both parties are trying to give them more of the same failed policies--taking steps that will further undermine our finances, worsen our debt crisis, and jeopardize hundreds of billions from Social Security's regular funding stream, all without the reality that it will create any jobs.

With this great Nation now more than $15 trillion in debt--it will be $17 trillion next year and going to $21 trillion by 2021--the enormity of this problem is that just servicing the debt by 2021 will be greater than what we spend on our Department of Defense to secure this great Nation. We cannot afford to continue to double down on failed policies.

As for taxes, don't get me wrong. I don't want to see Americans paying higher taxes. No way. I simply want a commonsense tax system that ensures everyone pays their fair share, especially the wealthy, who have benefitted the most from this failed tax system we have right now--real tax reform that will lower tax rates for everyone as we close the loopholes, credits, and offsets that allow some corporations and some Americans to avoid paying their fair share. It is time to stop all of that.

Some will say that it is impossible; it cannot be done. I think they are wrong. It requires leadership from the White House to every corner of Congress, and it requires each and every one of us to be willing to sacrifice our political futures for the Nation's future. I, for one, am willing to do just that.

This is our moment. At this critical moment in our history we must get our financial house in order and letting Americans believe we do not have to pay for Social Security is wrong. It is dead wrong. It is the wrong policy. It is wrong for our seniors, it is wrong for our future, and I will not vote for it, period, under any condition. For the sake of the next generation we must get our fiscal house in order, and we can do that if we are willing to make difficult decisions.

I will not vote for either of these two proposals to extend the payroll tax cuts. Looking forward for the sake of our Nation, I hope we will begin to work on a proposal that makes the hard decisions while also protecting the programs and commitments we value as a nation. For myself, and I believe many of my colleagues, there is a bipartisan path forward that can help save this Nation, and I have my good colleague, the Republican from Illinois, who is going to speak to it also.

I believe the best path forward is based on the framework and recommendations outlined in the Bowles-Simpson proposal. When those recommendations were laid out a year ago today--this is the anniversary today--I had been a Senator for less than a month--brandnew, less than 1 month. What I saw in that report gave me great hope. It gave me hope that we could identify our problems, which we did--the fiscal responsibility that we had--and willingly tackle them together. So I was on a high for that one short period.

As a brandnew Member, I was so encouraged that such a responsible, bipartisan group of people, put together by the President, offered a no-holds-barred report on our fiscal situation and some pathways to fix it. Then the proverbial air came out. Not only did the President and his administration walk away from these bipartisan proposals, but leadership in both Chambers of Congress failed to pick up this report and run with it.

Here we are a year later. If anything, our problems are worse. We are going to be forced to make deeper cuts than we wanted to, all because our leadership would not confront the enormous problems we face with a comprehensive long-term solution. But the Bowles-Simpson plan is still the only proposal that enjoys strong bipartisan support. It started as a bipartisan commission. It grew in numbers and it is still growing. It has a responsible manner to balance this problem we have.

It is not perfect; no plan is. I do not agree with everything it proposes. But no plan can be everything to everyone. With today being the 1-year anniversary of the unveiling of that proposal, I am urging, and will continue to urge, our President and the leadership of both Chambers to support any and all efforts--not only to pick up this report, but also to put the resources behind drafting and passing this legislation into law. I ask we all remember the great opportunity we have before us to do what is right.

I do not want to be part of the first generation--and I know the Presiding Officer doesn't want to be part, and I know my good friend from Illinois doesn't want to be part of the first generation that leaves this Nation in worse shape for the next generation. I don't believe this President or any Member of Congress wants to fail the next generation either.

With that, I want to turn over my time to my colleague from Illinois.

I say to my friend from Illinois, what he says is absolutely correct. We have so many people, especially in West Virginia and Illinois, who depend on Social Security. In fact, in West Virginia, for 62 percent of the people who receive Social Security it is their major funding mechanism. It is how they live day to day. They have told me: Do not touch our Social Security Program, our core values of Social Security, what it does for us. If we pass this, not only do we touch it, we jeopardize its solvency in the long term.

If you believe we are going to be responsible enough to pay for this in the 10 years outgoing, then we have some beach-front property in West Virginia we would love to interest you in.

I think we are very strong in support of the Bowles- Simpson, basically, the template that it laid out. It is the only one that is bipartisan. As you can see, it stayed bipartisan with the Senator and I, and it will remain bipartisan. It has a tax reform, but everyone pays a fair share. The very wealthy who have escaped paying because of the flawed tax policies would now start paying if we had real tax reform--not increased rates but just their fair share. That is what we ask.

I thank the Bowles-Simpson committee, Mr. Bowles and Mr. Simpson, for what they have done a year ago, bringing it to our attention, bringing a pathway to fixing the financial problems we are dealing with. We are concerned about the next generation more so than our next election. That is what we were sent here to do.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, there currently is no cap at all on the amount taxpayers will reimburse contractor employees for compensation except for just a handful of executives, and that limit is already too high at $693,951. That is far above what the chief executive of the U.S. Government gets paid at $400,000 a year.

So that is why we would cap it at no more than what the President can get. I presume the Senator from Michigan is aware of that and willing to help us on that process by adopting this amendment.

I thank the Senator.

I say thank you to the managers of the bill for helping us with this very important amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

For anybody interested in how long I might be, I would say roughly 10 minutes.

Mr. President, for nearly a year, I have been investigating the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives' operation known as Operation Fast and Furious. I have followed up on questions from that investigation as the Senate Judiciary Committee held oversight hearings over the past few weeks with both Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder. Each of them testified about the aftermath of the shooting of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. I have sought to clarify with facts some of the half-truths that were said during these meetings.

Each claimed they were ignorant of the connection between Agent Terry's death and Operation Fast and Furious until my letters with whistleblower allegations brought the connection to light. However, documents that have come to light in my investigation draw those claims into question. I would like to address a couple of those discrepancies.

Secretary Napolitano went to Arizona a few days after Agent Terry's death. She said she met at that time with the FBI agents and the assistant U.S. attorneys looking for the shooters. She also said at that point in time that nobody knew about Fast and Furious. Yet documents show that many people knew about Fast and Furious on December 15, the day Agent Terry died.

Secretary Napolitano referenced the FBI agents looking for the shooters. The head of the FBI field division was present at the December 15 press conference about Agent Terry's murder. At that very press conference the FBI head told a chief assistant U.S. attorney about the connection to an ongoing ATF investigation. That same night, U.S. attorney Dennis Burke confirmed that the guns tied back to Operation Fast and Furious. These connections were made days before Secretary Napolitano's visit at that time. The very purpose of her visit was to find out more about the investigation.

So a very important question comes up: The Department of Homeland Security oversees the Border Patrol. Why wouldn't the Phoenix FBI head have told Secretary Napolitano that the only guns found at the scene of Agent Terry's murder were tied to an ongoing ATF investigation?

Let's not forget the U.S. Attorney's Office. Secretary Napolitano said she met with the assistant U.S. attorneys looking for the shooters. The chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Tucson office, which coordinated the Terry investigation, found out about the ATF connection directly from our Federal Bureau of Investigation.

So a very important question comes up that needs to be answered: Why would they conceal the Fast and Furious connection from Secretary Napolitano days later?

The Tucson office is overseen by the U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, Dennis Burke, who confirmed to Tucson that guns came from Operation Fast and Furious. When Ms. Napolitano served as Governor of Arizona,

Mr. Burke served as her chief of staff for 5 years. Secretary Napolitano acknowledges that she had conversations with him about the murder of Agent Terry.

So a very important question comes up: Why would Mr. Burke conceal the Fast and Furious connection from Secretary Napolitano?

Even before Secretary Napolitano came to Arizona, e-mails indicate Mr. Burke spoke on December 15 with Attorney General Holder's deputy chief of Staff, Monte Wilkinson.

So a very important question is unanswered: Before finding out about Agent Terry, Mr. Burke e-mailed Mr. Wilkinson that he wanted to ``explain in detail'' about Fast and Furious when they talked. In that phone call--and this is a very important question--did U.S. attorney Burke tell Mr. Wilkinson about the case's connection to a Border Patrol agent's death that very day?

The next day, the Deputy Director of the ATF made sure briefing papers were prepared about the Operation Fast and Furious connection to Agent Terry's death. He sent them to individuals in Washington, DC, in the Deputy Attorney General's Office at the Justice Department. Within 24 hours, they were forwarded to the Deputy Attorney General. They were accompanied by personal e-mails from one of the Deputy Attorney General assistants explaining the situation.

Two weeks later, that Deputy Attorney General, Gary Grindler, was named Attorney General Holder's chief of staff. Yet a month and a half after Agent Terry's death, Attorney General Holder was allegedly ignorant of the Operation Fast and Furious connection to the murder of Agent Terry.

So a very important question is unanswered: Why wouldn't Mr. Grindler bring up these serious problems with Attorney General Holder, either as his Deputy Attorney General or as his chief of staff?

It is clear that multiple highly placed officials in multiple agencies knew almost immediately of the connection between Operation Fast and Furious and Agent Terry's death.

The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have failed to adequately explain why Attorney General Holder and Secretary Napolitano allegedly remained ignorant of that connection. Whether it is the Attorney General or the Secretary or members of their staff, somebody wasn't doing their job. Somebody wasn't serving their higher-ups as they should have been, as proper staff people.

In the case of Secretary Napolitano, either she was not entirely candid with me and others or this was a gross breach on the part of those who kept her in the dark. The Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security lost a man--Agent Terry being murdered. It was their right to know the full circumstances surrounding that from people who served under them.

No one likes the unpleasant business of having to fess up, but the FBI, ATF, and U.S. Attorney's Office owed it to Agent Brian Terry and his family to fully inform the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security. This was the death of a Federal agent involving weapons allowed to walk free by another agency in his own government.

Let me explain ``walking guns.'' The Federal Government operates under the rule of law, just like all of us have to live under that rule of law. There are licensed Federal gun dealers, and Federal gun dealers were encouraged to sell guns illegally to straw buyers and, supposedly, follow those guns across the border to somehow arrest people who were involved with drug trafficking and other illegal things. Two of these guns showed up at the murder scene of Agent Terry. So it is a very serious situation that we need to get to the bottom of.

If what I have just described, with all these unanswered questions, is not enough to brief up to the top of the Department, then I don't know what is. In other words, staff people ought to be doing their job or, if staff people were doing their job, then the Congress, in our constitutional job of oversight, is being misled.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, at a time when the national security budget is under immense pressure, it is vitally important that we spend our defense dollars more wisely.

The Boxer-Grassley amendment will contain runaway spending in contractor salary reimbursements. Notice that I said ``salary reimbursements,'' not salaries.

Someone not familiar with government contracting might ask why it's any of our business what government contractors get paid, and I would agree if we're talking about what their company pays them out of its own pocket.

When most people hire a contractor to renovate their bathroom or re- shingle their roof, they find the one that does the best work for the least cost.

Having done that, you are not likely to ask or care what their cut is or what they pay their crew.

To the extent that government contracts work the same way, the same principle applies. Unfortunately, not all government contracts do work that way.

A large proportion of government contracts actually reimburse the contractor directly for the costs they incur, including for the salaries of their employees. These types of contracts are risky because contractors lose the incentive to control costs. They are only supposed to be used when a fixed price contract is not possible for instance, if the scope or duration of the work is not possible to determine at the outset.

Nevertheless, cost-reimbursement type contracts are used extensively by Federal departments and agencies.

The Defense Department alone accounted for over $100 billion in cost reimbursement type contracts in fiscal year 2010.

President Obama has criticized the widespread use of these types of contracts and has set a goal of slowing the growth and ultimately reducing their use.

He has made a little progress. However, we are talking about a small dent in a large bucket.

It's clear that cost type contracts are going to account for a major proportion of the dollars spent on federal contracting for the foreseeable future. As a result, we must take steps to limit unreasonable expenditures under these types of contracts.

Senator Boxer and I worked together to try to head off this problem back in 1997.

At that time, we proposed capping salary reimbursements at the salary level of the President of the United States.

However, a compromise was ultimately enacted that capped how much the top 5 highest earning contractor executives could charge the federal government for their salaries.

The cap was set at the median salary of the top five executives at companies with annual sales over $50 million, which must be recalculated annually.

Since that time, the cap has more than doubled from $340,650 to $693,951. That's 53 percent faster than the rate of inflation.

The House-passed version of the National Defense Authorization bill expands the current cap to all contractor employees, not merely the top five executives, closing a loophole that was being exploited.

The version of the DoD Bill before the Senate extends the cap only to the top 10 to 15 executives.

However, Senator Boxer and I think it's time to reconsider a fixed cap at the level of the President's salary, which I should add was doubled by Congress to $400,000 since our previous proposal.

That is more than generous.

Surely the taxpayers should not be asked to pay the salary of a contractor more than the President makes, which is twice what any cabinet secretary makes.

Keep in mind that this cap just limits how much Uncle Sam can be billed for, which is on top of whatever the company chooses to pay its employees out of its own pocket.

Not only would our straightforward cap save man-hours in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, which has to gather the data every year to determine the current convoluted cap, but it would save millions of dollars that need not be spent.

Again, we cannot afford to go on wasting our increasingly limited defense dollars.

We have to be more aggressive in weeding out waste in defense spending and this is one unnecessary expenditure that we can easily eliminate in favor of higher priorities.

I urge my colleagues to join us in this commonsense cost cutting measure.

I yield the floor.