A bill to permanently extend the employer-provided child care credit under section 45F of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I am still trying to wrap my head around President Obama's recent remarks that small business job creators somehow owe their success to the Federal Government. His comment wasn't just wrong, it was actually kind of embarrassing. It showed that the President does not understand the enormous challenges and financial risks entrepreneurs and job creators deal with every day. It also affirmed that the President is going to continue pushing the same misguided big-government economic policies that have helped keep our unemployment rate well above 8 percent for some 41 consecutive months.

I wish to highlight a few of the success stories from my home State of Texas that epitomize what the American dream is all about and to reassure my listeners that the American dream is still alive and well and thriving in the great State of Texas. But first I would like to make a brief point about tax policy because as mundane and boring as tax policy may seem to a lot of people, it actually has a very real impact on the people I am talking about.

There is now an emerging bipartisan consensus that tax reform should involve lowering rates and broadening the base so that our tax system becomes simpler, fairer, and more conducive to strong economic growth. Don't just take my word for it. Look at the President's own bipartisan fiscal commission, the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which reached that same conclusion.

Unfortunately, the President's own fiscal commission's report is inconsistent with the President's current demand that we have to raise taxes. That would mean a large tax increase for many people who are the people we are depending upon to create those jobs. The reason is that many small businesses pay their business income on individual tax returns. They are not major Forbes 500, multinational corporations; they are the mom-and-pop operations that are sole proprietorships, they are partnerships, and they are even sometimes subchapter S corporations. That is just a reference to the Tax Code that means you don't pay corporate taxes, you pay flowthrough business income on your individual tax return. So many people who are small businesses who may reach that threshold of $250,000 or above are businesspeople paying on an individual tax return. If this is an effort to soak the rich, well, the middle class and small businesses are part of the collateral damage.

I would like to remind the President that Americans will spend about $350 billion this year alone just to comply with the Tax Code. That means hiring accountants and that means hiring lawyers just to try to figure out what they owe to the Federal Government. Small business owners face a particularly heavy burden because they can't afford the army of lawyers and accountants to help them figure out what their tax obligations are. Yet these are the folks we are depending upon to get America back to work and to get our economy growing again. But we effectively have a tax system that punishes them for their success. We can and we should do better.

When it comes to dealing with the IRS, small businesses don't enjoy the same resources that large multinational corporations do. According to the World Bank, it is now more difficult to pay business taxes in the United States than in many Western European countries. When heavily taxed, heavily bureaucratic countries such as France make it easier to comply with their tax code than America does, we know we have a problem.

If the President doesn't believe me, perhaps he should spend some time chatting with some of my constituents, people such as Steve Mayo, the owner of Mayo Furniture in Texarkana, TX. Steve's company is a family business that was established about a half century ago. It now employs 130 full-time workers and sells furniture in 25 different States. When I visited with Steve and his employees last year, they were worried about how in the world they were going to comply with the financial burdens of the new health care law, along with other taxes and regulations. They told me it would affect their business and their ability to create jobs and stay competitive. These are the same concerns I have heard about from countless constituents and small business owners all across my State.

We are one of the lucky States. About half the jobs in America have been created in my State in the last 5 years or so. We are fortunate because when it comes to small businesses we are depending upon to create jobs, we asked this very simple question: How can we make it easier for them to create jobs? How can we make it easier for them to start a business? Unfortunately, the message emanating from Washington seems to be--in so many words--how can we make it harder? How can we increase the unpredictability of their investment?

After talking to Steve Mayo, maybe President Obama would like to talk to Diane LaBleu. Diane is a breast cancer survivor in Austin, TX. Diane was creative enough to invent a clothing accessory to help women recovering from a mastectomy. The accessory is known as a Pink Pocket, and it is now being used by women around the world from Austin to Australia.

The story of Pink Pockets demonstrates the power of a great idea. Diane identified a problem facing breast cancer survivors. She came up with a brilliant solution, something nobody else had thought of before. The remarkable success of her invention is a testament to her creativity and her hard work.

The government was not responsible for the success of Pink Pockets or Mayo Furniture. Far from it. Many times all these small businesses want is for government to get out of their way, off their back, and out of their

pocket so they can do what they do best.

The government was also not responsible for the success of STS Coatings, a construction company based in the San Antonio area. The founder of STS Coatings, Cayce Kovacs, reports that she and her husband cashed in their savings to launch their business, which now has annual sales totaling more than $3 million. As Ms. Kovacs recently said:

We were the ones sweating bullets over processing orders

and paying our bills, making payroll--not the government. The

government did nothing to help my business.

You know who else can say that? Another extraordinary Texan named Frank Scantlin, who founded Sunbelt Machine Works in Stafford, TX, near Houston, some 34 years ago. Frank tells a story that as a child he was so poor he sometimes couldn't even afford to buy shoes, and he had to quit school in the ninth grade in order to support his family. This is a quintessential American success story. Frank persevered and went on to create a business that now has almost 60,000 square feet of workspace and employs 90 people.

All these stories epitomize the American dream that has enticed immigrants from around the world to take a risk, leave everything they had behind, and come and make America their home. We were the one place in the world where they knew if they were willing to work hard and save, that hard work could be rewarded by success.

In the meantime, those of us who depend on those small businesses to create those jobs and prosperity could benefit as well. The owners of Sunbelt, STS Coatings, Pink Pockets, and Mayo Furniture understand their success was not inevitable, and it sure was not guaranteed by the Federal Government. They had to take the hard risks, they had to work overtime, and they had to overcome challenges that many times the government put in their way. In the end, as in so many great American success stories, their hard work and ingenuity paid off. They can, not government, declare with confidence that ``I built this.''

My office has received more than 250 of these stories since President Obama gave his speech in Roanoke. They are the type of stories that have made our country the beacon of prosperity and entrepreneurial energy for so many years. As one Texas business owner put it: ``Rugged individualism is alive and well in the United States.'' I hope we remember that, and I hope the President of the United States remembers that as well.

I 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.

Mr. President, it is a terrible time in our country. The entire country is in mourning for the 12 innocent people who were gunned down in Aurora, CO, last week. Our thoughts and our prayers are with dozens more still recovering from their wounds. We are mourning with people we never knew, with unfamiliar names, but we have seen pictures of grief-stricken parents, friends, neighbors, and our hearts break with them. We wish we could reach across the country and offer them some comfort while we mourn.

We know our mourning alone will not be enough to prevent a future tragedy unless we do something. We in Congress have an obligation to turn grief into action, as we have often done when faced with tragedy. So I come to the floor today to ask a question: When will we wake up? How many of our sons and daughters have to die before we go to work? It is time to sound the alarm on gun violence in our country. It is time for us to gather to talk about commonsense solutions. And I am talking about all of us--all 100. It should not matter which side of the aisle we are on. All of us who serve here have someone we love, someone we know, someone with whom we are in contact, whether it is our child, our sister, our brother, our father, or our mother. The lives of our loved ones depend on us and we should not let them down.

Right now, our Nation's lax gun laws make it far too easy for murderers to commit incomprehensible acts of violence and terror. Very early last Friday morning, we witnessed a massacre, and it has become something we have seen far too often. A tragedy with even less deaths, with less wounded, with less hurt is a tragedy of enormous proportion when something like this happens in this great country of ours. There is so much to live for, so much to enjoy, but here innocent people died.

This guy arrived at a movie theater in Aurora, CO, and he had an assault rifle with a 100-round magazine, a shotgun, and two handguns. He unleashed a barrage of bullets murdering 12 innocent people and injuring 58 more in a matter of minutes. In the theater at the time there was a total population of 200 people, and 70 of them were wounded or killed in a matter of minutes. Even though the police responded rapidly--within 90 seconds--with his high-capacity magazine, the gunman had more than enough time to carry out his reign of terror.

Among those who lost their lives were parents, mothers, fathers, servicemen, a veteran, a recent high school graduate, a college student, and a 6-year-old-girl named Veronica Moser Sullivan. She was the youngest to be murdered in Colorado that night and someone whose tragic death reminds us all too well of the time 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green was murdered in Tucson last year because she wanted to know more about her government. She was part of a group who greeted Representative Giffords.

The victims of these horrible tragedies deserve more than words of solidarity and mourning. They deserve our attention, our action. What we do to prevent these tragedies in the future will be the real test of character of this body. The best way to prove we are concerned is to take the action necessary to protect young lives because on that score now we lose.

I have been in the Senate a long time, and I have seen too many Americans murdered by guns, too many lives cut short because of the easy availability of guns, and too many times Congress has sat back, cowered before the gun lobby and done nothing to prevent these tragedies from happening in the future. We can't wait any longer, Mr. President, without the public at large challenging our effectiveness, wanting to know what it is we are doing to protect the next group of children and parents and loved ones.

The murderers in Colorado and Arizona both had something that enabled them to bring about the mayhem they did. They had a mega-magazine capable of shooting dozens of rounds without having to reload. They bought them legally. Here we see a picture of what this man had--a semiautomatic rifle and a 100-round drum magazine.

These magazines were originally designed for law enforcement and military people. These magazines were banned from 1994 to 2004, a period of 10 years, but under pressure from the gun lobby, Congress let that ban expire in 2004. It wasn't an accident. It didn't happen without complicity.

Just think about it. The Colorado shooter carried a 100-round magazine, and if he hadn't had that magazine, maybe the shooting toll would have been substantially lower. Maybe more lives would have been saved. Maybe more loved ones--husbands, wives, and children--would be alive today. Maybe there would be fewer people suffering from bullet wounds.

In the Arizona shooting, the shooter was only subdued when he paused to change his 30-round magazine, and if he had to stop sooner, obviously precious lives could have been saved.

These magazines are the tools of mass murderers. No matter what the gun lobby would have you believe, nobody needs a mega-magazine to go duck hunting. These high-capacity magazines put all of our families in danger, and they endanger our law enforcement officers as well. We send them into the line of fire to defend us against mass murderers such as the Colorado shooter, who legally bought 6,000 bullets and a gun magazine that holds 100 bullets over the Internet. The safety of our families is too important to let this continue. There are too many bullets, too many deaths, and too many funerals. But not enough people are saying: Stop it. Do your job. Protect my family. Protect my kids. Protect my parents.

Here are the facts. Guns have murdered more Americans here at home in recent years than have died on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. More

have been murdered on the grounds of the United States than have died in far-off battlefields. It is shocking. More than 6,500 American soldiers have died in the service of our country in support of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the same period, guns here were used to murder about 100,000 people.

Americans deserve a Congress that makes the safety of our families a priority. That is why I urge my colleagues today to help our people. Bring back the ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines such as the one used in Colorado on Friday and the one used in Arizona last year. That was the law from 1994 to 2004. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Even former Vice President Dick Cheney has suggested that it may be appropriate to reinstate this ban. It is time to work together, all of us, to ban high-capacity magazines. Don't do it for me. Do it for your family. Do it for your constituents. Stand and say: I don't want your family hurt. I don't want your children to fall prey to a gunman.

It is time to begin a national conversation once more about taking commonsense measures to prevent gun violence in America. And to those who are fearful about the power of the NRA, understand that we bested them before and we will do it again. We beat them in 1996 when an effort that I began to ban the sale of guns to domestic abusers passed, we have stopped over 200,000 of those people from getting gun permits since that time, and a lot of lives could have been saved in there. We stood up to them again in 1999 when the Senate came together after Columbine and passed legislation to close the gun show loophole. Unfortunately, after passing in the Senate, the House refused to do anything about it. If we show resolve and if we stand with courage, I know we can do the right thing once more. There are no more excuses for inaction.

I say to my colleagues, look at your children. Look at the pictures that may be on your mantelpiece. Think about the happy days with your kids, think about the enjoyment you share together, and think about what we want to do to be able to continue those lives we enjoy so much. The stakes are just too high. We have to intervene while the memory, unfortunately, is still fresh.

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

Mr. President, today I am proud to introduce the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act. I am introducing this bill because I have grave concerns about the impacts the Federal mandate for corn ethanol production is having on the price of food in this country and the cost of domestic food production.

Corn is a staple of the modern American diet that has become a ubiquitous ingredient or additive in most of our food and it is fed as feed to nearly all livestock animals. The fact is, most meals Americans consume either has corn as an essential ingredient or consist of ingredients that required corn to produce. From milk, to eggs, to beef to poultry, to bread, to soft drink, and most prepared frozen meals corn--is essential to American food.

The first section of Michael Pollan's 2006 Best Seller The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals is titled ``Industrial Corn'' and it explains just how omnipresent corn, in some form or another, is in American diets. For better or for worse, the vast majority of the food found on American supermarket shelves is made from processed corn. When it comes to the animal proteins Americans consume most of these animals were raised on corn diets.

For decades, America's corn growers were out producing demand for corn and food producers, and consumers benefited from relatively low corn prices that ranged around $2 a bushel. While consumers may have benefitted from these prices, American corn and grain growers were hurting badly.

Since 2007, the tides have been turning significantly. National demand for corn is at an all-time high and corn futures project corn reaching $8 a bushel in the near future. A growing and hungry nation combined with new demands for corn that are the result of technological innovations have created new uses for corn in the form of ethanol as both a motor fuel additive and in plastics. These new uses, combined with expanded traditional uses have fueled the upward spike in corn prices.

Corn growers have benefitted tremendously from the increased demand and high corn prices. Ethanol producers have enjoyed a variety of government supports mandating levels of ethanol production which have helped them weather high corn prices paying a high price for corn feedstocks is relatively easy when you have enormous production tax credits and a federally mandated market for your product.

Food producers, including livestock and poultry producers, who use tremendous amounts of corn to raise their livestock and produce food, do not have the luxury of a mandated market for their products.

In Maryland, our number one agricultural product is poultry. Poultry production is far and away the top employer on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Maryland poultry is hurting and it is because they are competing with big oil, and other non-traditional users, for corn. Corn is vitally important to raising chickens. Unlike other livestock, like cattle or hogs which are ruminants that can eat a variety of different types of feed, chickens' diets are limited to corn. Feed makes up more than 73 percent of the cost of raising poultry and when corn reaches $6.50 or $7.00 or even $8.00 a bushel that cost goes even higher.

I understand the important role domestic ethanol production will play in helping our nation achieve greater energy security. However, the nurturing and growth of our domestic biofuels industry must not come at the expense of our domestic food supply. In other words, we cannot sacrifice U.S. food security for energy security. That is why I do not support the use of food based feedstocks like sugar and corn to be commercially produced into ethanol.

I also believe that as global demand for oil increases, driven by increased mobility and affluence spreads in the developing world, renewable biofuels will compete well with oil and that the government supports we have in place will not be necessary because pure market demand for less expensive and cleaner burning fuels like ethanol will drive growth in biofuel production, not government mandates.

Because domestic food production is reaching a state of crisis driven by the increasing cost of inputs, like corn, that the food producers have to unfairly compete with industries that are operating with under government production mandates I am introducing legislation today that offers a simple change to the Renewable Fuel Standard that will help provide our domestic food producers access to corn.

This legislation will link the amount of corn ethanol required for the RFS to the amount of U.S. corn supplies. This legislation sets up a process so that when the USDA reports on U.S. corn supplies towards the end of each year, based upon the ratio of corn stocks- to expected use, there could be a reduction made to the RFS mandate for corn ethanol. This is a common sense solution to make sure that we have enough corn supplies to meet all of our corn demands.

Once a year, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will review the current corn crop year's ratio of U.S. corn stocks-to- use ratio in making a determination of the RFS.

By the end of November the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency will make an official determination of the Renewable Fuels Standard, RFS, corn ethanol mandate for the following calendar year, based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's November World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate report to determine the U.S. corn stocks-to-use ratio. The administrator shall provide for a waiver for the RFS for the following calendar year according to the calculated stocks to use ratio as directed. Such a waiver, if required, shall be included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Federal Register notice regarding the RFS for the following calendar year. The required

waiver, if any, will take effect January 1 of the new calendar year.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiver to the Renewable

Stocks-to-Use Ratio Percent Fuels Standard for Corn

Ethanol ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Above 10.00............................... no adjustment 10.00 to 7.50............................. 10 percent reduction 7.49 to 6.00.............................. 15 percent reduction 5.99 to 5.00.............................. 25 percent reduction Below 5.00................................ 50 percent reduction ------------------------------------------------------------------------

I believe the future of biofuels must be in the development and production of cellulosic and advanced biofuels that are not derived from feedstocks that are part of essential food sources. As a supporter of bringing cellulosic and advanced biofuels to market, my legislation explicitly states that it ``shall not affect the volume of advanced biofuels required under'' the Renewable Fuel Standard. This will leave intact the advanced biofuels production mandate which I believe is critical to growing this still nascent and beneficial fuel product to commercial viability.

Because of corn's many uses it has become a commodity that is in high demand. Assuring our domestic food producers' access to this valuable and increasingly scarce crop is so important to controlling the cost of food in America and maintaining the economic viability of our U.S. food companies. I urge my colleagues to support U.S. food producers and families working to put food on the table by co-sponsoring the Renewable Fuel Standard Flexibility Act.

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

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

Mr. President, I wish to speak about the tax issues the Senate is facing this week. There is clearly a tremendous need for comprehensive tax reform. Americans worked from January 1 to April 17 this year, 107 days, to earn enough money to pay their share of Federal, State, and local taxes. Americans also spent nearly 8 billion hours preparing their tax returns this spring. This amounts to 1 million people working full time for an entire year. There is no reason that paying taxes should be so confusing and so complicated, so time- consuming.

The burden this process places on individuals and small businesses must be relieved. According to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, the average American taxpayer will spend more on taxes in 2012 then they spend on food, clothing, and housing combined.

It is time for tax freedom. We need to replace our deeply flawed tax system with a commonsense system that is simpler and more growth oriented. The Tax Code matters when it comes to growing the economy. It is for these reasons that I am a sponsor of S. 13 and a long time supporter of the Fair Tax, which I see as a step in the direction of liberty and prosperity. The Fair Tax eliminates payroll, estate, and many other taxes, to be replaced with a national sales tax levied on purchased goods, placing all Americans on equal footing. The Fair Tax allows our businesses to thrive while generating tax revenues to be similar to our current 3-million-word-long Tax Code.

The process of tax reform has major consequences for every citizen of our country. But it is a process that must be started because the consequences of inaction are too costly. The truth remains that Americans want and need some sort of tax-filing relief. The need for commonsense reform becomes more obvious each and every tax season.

Over the course of the last several years, American taxpayers have become much more attentive to what is and is not happening in the Nation's Capital, and they have made their choices clearly heard. They have a message Congress should be willing to listen to, and that message is: Simplify the Tax Code.

In doing so, we will create an opportunity for economic growth and new prosperity while increasing personal freedom and liberty. By reforming this broken process, the Tax Code we have today, Americans will once again be more in charge of their lives and their money.

This coming January, as we know, our Nation faces a fiscal cliff. On top of the tax increases included in President Obama's health care law, if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, a tax increase of $494 billion will strike the economy. For Kansans, that is an average tax increase of $3,000 per tax return, money they should be using to put food on their family's table, save for their children's education, and prepare for their own retirement. It is estimated that 70 percent of the looming tax increases will fall directly on low- and middle-income families.

This week, Congress will consider a tax proposal from the majority leader that increases taxes, unfortunately, the exact opposite of what our economy needs. S. 3412 that we are debating

this week raises the death tax on family farms, small businesses and ranches and estates to a level over a decade old, when they were brought down in a bipartisan basis.

This proposal would increase the death tax from its current rate of 35 percent to 55 percent. According to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the number of estates hit by this tax will rise from 3,600 to nearly 47,000.

Nothing hinders the transfer of a family farm to the next generation more than the estate tax. It is an unfair, unjust burden on our economy, and it punishes Kansans who want to continue their family business. I have long sought a permanent repeal of the estate tax and have pursued opportunities to increase the size of the estate tax exemption and lower the rates. Now we have a proposal to increase the burden of this tax. That will only create less certainty for farmers and small business owners as they plan for their future.

Under this massive tax increase, 20 times more family farming estates will be hit by the death tax and 9 times more small businesses. This tax increase comes on top of significant small business tax increases already in the legislation. According to Ernst & Young, these tax increases on the top two marginal rates would shrink the economy by 1.3 percent and reduce by over 700,000--reduce by over 700,000--jobs from the American workforce.

This tax increase legislation will only add more uncertainty to our Nation's convoluted, ever-changing tax system. Common sense tells us it does not have to be Republicans and Democrats, common sense tells us a simplified Tax Code will help boost the economy.

The revenues we need to balance our books are not increases in taxes; in fact, the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Revenues we need to balance our books will come from a strong and growing economy, where more Americans are working and therefore paying taxes.

Government must get out of the way and reduce the drag on the private sector so entrepreneurs and small business owners can put Americans back to work. Americans know that when our economy is strong, when our tax laws are fair, simple, and certain, they can provide for their families. We will have the opportunity to see once again our children and grandchildren pursuing the American dream.

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

Mr. President, we know taxes are scheduled to increase for all Americans next year, and we know an across-the-board tax increase on all Americans would be very bad for our economy. What we disagree on is which tax cuts should be continued.

Unfortunately, this has become a highly partisan debate. Someone watching this debate would assume we cannot agree on anything when it comes to taxes, but they would be wrong. We do agree on far more than we disagree. We agree that middle-class tax rates should not go up. We agree that the alternative minimum tax should not affect middle-class taxpayers. We agree on a variety of tax breaks that help families raise children and invest in their education. Our disagreements elsewhere should not stop

us from acting where we do agree. We should cut through the partisan gridlock and pass the policies we all support.

One policy we can all support is a tax credit for companies that provide childcare to their workforce. This is a powerful and proven incentive for business--especially small business--to arrange onsite childcare for their employees.

I originally introduced this tax credit after we passed welfare reform in 1996. The purpose of welfare reform was to move recipients off benefits and into jobs--a path of financial freedom that is too often blocked by the lack of quality and affordable childcare. After years of work, we finally passed the employer-provided childcare tax credit in 2001. Since then, it has offered businesses a tax credit for building and maintaining a childcare center. Businesses can also receive a smaller tax credit for helping their employees find childcare elsewhere in the community.

Childcare is a good investment for employee and employer alike. Businesses get employees who miss less work to deal with family issues and stay at their jobs longer. Parents know their children are safe, sound, and close by while their mom or dad is at work. They do not have to choose between putting food on the table and caring for their children.

Now is not the time to add another stress to overstressed working families struggling to survive in a down economy. That is why today I am introducing a bill to continue the tax credit for employer-provided childcare. We all agree the employer-provided childcare tax credit should not expire. It is included in both tax bills we are considering this week and we should extend it now.

But support for childcare isn't the only thing the Republican and Democratic tax bills agree on. In fact, these two bills offer the same exact tax cut extension for the first $250,000 earned by every American family. If a family makes $1 more than that, they still get the same tax cut extension on their first $250,000. Even millionaires get the same tax cut extension as everyone else. Everybody, including the wealthiest Americans, benefits from the tax cuts we all can and do support.

Bipartisan policies, such as a tax credit for employer-provided childcare or middle-class tax cuts, should not be held hostage because of a partisan debate about other tax cuts. When we all can agree on something, we should vote for it.