FAST Voting Act of 2012

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cardin.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Fiscal Cliff

Mr. President, the American people have spoken, and once again they have given us divided government. In that sense, we can say this was a status quo election. Before the election, just a week or so ago, we had President Obama in the White House, Democrats controlling the Senate, and Republicans controlling the House of Representatives.

After the election, we have President Obama in the White House for another 4 years, Democrats controlling the Senate, and Republicans with the majority in the House. What that tells me is the American people do not completely trust either political party to come up with all the answers. They want those kinds of checks and balances that divided government brings; that is, conducive of consultation, deliberation, negotiation, and compromise, not the kind of compromise that violates one's most fundamental principles.

That would be wrong. But as one of my colleagues had told me who actually--Senator Enzi, I will use his name, from Wyoming, one of the most conservative Members of the Senate on our side from Wyoming, he worked famously with that--I say this with all due respect--liberal lion of the Senate, Teddy Kennedy, worked very productively to produce a lot of legislation out of the HELP Committee.

One time I asked Senator Enzi how was it that he and Teddy Kennedy-- in other words, one of the most conservative Republicans and one of the most liberal Democrats--how did they work together so productively to come together to pass legislation. He said it is easy. It is easy. He said it is the 80-20 rule. I know it sounds simplistic, but there is a lot of wisdom there. If two people are trying to work together in a bipartisan way to try to advance solutions to our Nation's problems, neither side is going to get all they want. The only way perhaps to come up with moving the ball down the road or advancing solutions is to say: You know what. Do not let the perfect become the enemy of the good, and let's take the 80 percent we can agree upon and leave the 20 percent we cannot agree upon for another day and another battle.

A lot of wisdom in that it strikes me. The fact is that divided government means that neither Democrats nor Republicans are going to get everything they want. No legislation can pass. It cannot pass, no legislation can, strictly along partisan lines. It means bipartisan compromise is the only avenue to avoid further gridlock.

This Congress has kicked a lot of cans down the road. We have punted over into the lameduck session issues that we should have dealt with months ago in the regular order of things without the imminent pressure of the fiscal cliff or other things that threaten to put our country into a recession.

But the fact is, divided government has yielded some very positive developments for the American people in the past. In 1986, it produced landmark tax reform when Democrats and Republicans--Ronald Reagan as President, worked together to make our Tax Code more logical, more equitable, and more efficient. Ten years later, divided government produced a sweeping overhaul of our welfare system under then-President Bill Clinton. Conservative Republicans joined with a Democratic President to help millions of lower income people break free of the cycle of dependency and despair.

Of course, we know we have divided government. As I said earlier, we had a status quo election in that sense. We have had divided government since January 2011 when Republicans regained the majority in the House of Representatives. The result over the last 2 years sadly is it has produced legislative stalemates and bitter recriminations. Why should anybody think things will be different going forward?

I think what is different now from then is that Republicans and Democrats alike recognize we are at a crossroads, that our current fiscal path is unsustainable, and that we are either going to send the economy back into a recession unless we deal with the fiscal cliff and the sequestration or the alternative is--and being an optimist by nature I think we have an opportunity to address some of our Nation's most challenging fiscal issues.

But the fact is this. I would love to have someone tell me I am wrong. I would love to understand any reason they would disagree with this. But I would say it should be stipulated by Republicans and Democrats alike that we cannot continue to run trillion-dollar annual deficits. We cannot continue to run the Federal Government borrowing 42 cents out of every $1 the Federal Government spends. We cannot do it.

The only reason we can do it now is because interest rates are at historic lows. Because of what is happening in Europe, the American dollar is probably the only safe currency, safe harbor in the world now for people worried about protecting their savings. But we cannot continue along this path. If, for example, interest rates go up, the amount of money we must pay to our creditors such as China simply to keep buying our debt--if it were to go up to historic norms, our national debt would spiral out of control.

Right now we see this on our savings, on money market accounts or savings accounts. If we want to save some money, about the best interest rate we can get is less than 1 percent return on our savings because the Federal Reserve has worked to keep interest rates

very low in order to help juice the economy and, hopefully, keep us from going into recession again. But we cannot continue down this path. If interest rates were to return to their historic norms, we would spiral out of control and into a recession or worse.

Secondly, we cannot continue to put off structural changes in Social Security and Medicare. I would think Republicans and Democrats alike would agree that we want to save and preserve Social Security and Medicare for our seniors. We may have different ideas about how to do that, but I would think we could agree on the goal. So far we have heard nothing from the President to deal with our broken programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Unless we are happy with the Tax Code that wastes economic resources, that stifles job creation, and promotes crony capitalism, we cannot delay genuine tax reform. So we have an opportunity. We do not have to speculate on what bipartisan tax reform looks like. We do not have to speculate. We do not have to start from scratch. That is because in 2010 two separate bipartisan commissions recommended lowering the rates and broadening the base and eliminating a lot of tax expenditure deductions and credits which, in order to get the revenue the Federal Government needs to operate every time we grant a new tax expenditure, deduction or credit, what it means is we need to raise marginal tax rates, the percentage of tax people need to pay out of their net worth. Why is that important?

Because the higher we raise marginal tax rates, it operates as a disincentive on small businesses and individuals whom we are depending upon to grow jobs. Many small businesses do not operate as a corporation, a big C corporation, they operate as a subchapter S corporation. They operate as a sole proprietorship or a partnership. The point is they pay business incomes, the people who run those small businesses, they pay flowthrough income on a personal tax return not on a corporate tax return.

So higher marginal rates disincentivize these smaller businesses from spending money to hire new staff or to start or expand their existing business. That is why keeping marginal rates down low for as long as we can for everybody is so important. Yet before we get to this important point of dealing with our broken Tax Code, before we can implement this, support this sort of comprehensive tax reform that they did in 1986 with President Reagan and Democrats in Congress, we need to stop America from driving off the fiscal cliff.

If we do not act between now and the end of the year, Republicans and Democrats alike, we will see the single largest tax increase in American history. How is that possible? As you know, the so-called Bush tax provisions that were passed are getting ready to expire. Those only lasted for 10 years.

In 2010, President Obama agreed with Republicans and our Democratic friends agreed with us. As a matter of fact, the extension of the so- called Bush tax rates was passed with 81 votes in the Senate in 2010. At the time, President Obama made what I thought was a perfectly sensible observation. He said, in 2010, with the economy growing so slowly, with economic growth down around 3 percent, which was producing high unemployment because the economy was not growing fast enough, he said: It make no sense to raise taxes during that kind of fragile economic recovery. That makes me wonder what has changed between now and 2010, except for the fact that economic growth is even slower. The economy is even worse today than it was in 2010.

President Obama has said--contrast what he said in 2010. He said: Raising taxes will help solve our long-term debt problems. He says: Raising taxes will help us solve our long-term debt problems. But it is hard to take that argument seriously if we look at it closely.

First, according to the President's own Treasury Department, the tax increases he is advocating would generate about $85 billion a year in new net revenue. These tax increases would generate about $85 billion in new net revenue. By comparison, the monthly budget deficit in October was $120 billion. The President says raised taxes would generate $85 billion; Treasury is saying $85 billion doesn't close the gap to $120 billion, which is the current level of monthly deficits.

As we know, the Federal Government has run annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion for at least each of the last 4 years, leading to a $16 trillion national debt, roughly the size of our entire economy. These are dangerous waters we are navigating. The President has argued that we need to raise taxes, but he has not provided a prescription for closing the gap between what the Federal Government spends and what we take in, even with these tax increases. He has proposed nothing, absolutely nothing to deal with our unsustainable entitlement programs so we can keep the promise we have made to our seniors that when they qualify for Medicare and Social Security, those programs will be there for them.

I don't believe we can tax our way back to budget surpluses and economic prosperity. I am not a Ph.D. in economics, but I do think it is a matter of common sense to say that we cannot tax our way back into prosperity without a major reining in of Federal spending and entitlement reforms, which will continue to run up huge deficits, which cumulatively will add to that $16 trillion of debt. That will happen regardless what we do on the revenue side, which is the only part of that equation the President has addressed so far.

That brings me to my second point. Nearly 4 years after President Obama was sworn in--4 years after he was first sworn in--he has not yet given us a realistic plan for dealing with the deficit and debt reduction. You might say: Well, he was unwilling to stick his toe into those difficult waters knowing he was going to have to run for election again because all of this is controversial, no question about it, on both sides of the aisle.

I would think now that the President has been reelected for another 4 years and he doesn't have to stand before the voters again, he would feel flexibility, he would feel as though he has the political freedom to try to address this problem in a bipartisan way.

Last February Secretary Geithner told the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, ``We're not coming before you to say we have a definitive solution to our long-term problem. What we do know is we don't like yours.'' That strikes me as a strange response given the responsibility we all have to protect the interests of our country and the American people when it comes to keeping us on a sound economic path and hopefully putting America back to work.

It is easy in a campaign season for the President to talk about the need for a ``balanced approach'' when it comes to the budget. Of course, we all have our own ideas about how that balance should be struck, but a truly balanced approach would include reining in Federal spending and preserving and protecting Social Security and Medicare. As a matter of political reality, it should include revenue, and our side of the aisle has identified ways that additional revenue might be put on the table, but that is simply not enough by itself to address the whole problem and is not a serious proposal in terms of solving the complex economic situation in which we find ourselves.

There is nothing balanced, though, about continuing to spend money we don't have and piling up trillions of dollars in new debt. It is irresponsible for our generation to impose on the generation of these young people sitting in front of me the debt they are going to have to pay. We are kidding ourselves if we think there is not a price to be paid for spending money we don't have. We ought to be big enough, we ought to be responsible enough to these young people, to our constituents, and to the American people to deal with this in a responsible way. That doesn't mean threatening America with a recession and almost 1 million people being put out of work if we drive off the fiscal cliff. It strikes me as the height of irresponsibility for the President or anyone else to say: If I don't get what I want, we are going to put America into a recession.

Can you believe that? It is completely irresponsible.

If the President is going to claim a mandate for governing, then he has a responsibility to offer a genuine solution to America's fiscal challenges. I am not saying he is going to offer a

plan that this side of the aisle is going to embrace, but what it does is it begins the negotiations we know we have to engage in between the different sides of the argument to try to come up with that 80/20 proposition, that we can actually address these problems and leave some of our other fights and differences for a future day.

Unless the President offers a plan, his posturing over the national debt cannot be taken seriously. And if he threatens that ``if I don't get what I want, we are going to go off the cliff and put America in recession and Americans out of work,'' that is irresponsible and I submit it would be a violation of the oath of office.

A few final thoughts.

None of us came to Washington to try to play small ball. We came here to try to do important work. I accept the fact that 100 Senators from every part of the country, from all political philosophies came here because they wanted to do the right thing for their constituents and the American people. I would stipulate to that. Granted, we all have different philosophies of government and the role of government that might lead us in different directions. That is what our debate is all about. It is irresponsible for anyone to suggest that we should not tackle these problems in an open, transparent, and responsible sort of way.

Why would we want to play small ball? Why would we want to refuse to tackle the Nation's most serious fiscal problems? Why would we want to continue to see 23 million Americans either out of work or underemployed, with people taking part-time jobs because they can't find full-time employment? Of course, more Americans back to work means more people who actually pay taxes, which is part of the solution to closing that gap between what we spend and what we bring in.

I realize and I don't want to minimize the importance of the daunting challenges we face. We were sent here to face them, not go hide under our desk, not say: Well, I don't want to do that; I don't want to vote on that issue because I might get an opponent in the next election. I believe these enormous challenges are enormous opportunities in disguise. I admit I come from Texas and we are optimists by nature. We believe that for every challenge, every complication, every problem, somewhere in there is an opportunity for us to deal responsibly and in an accountable sort of way to our constituents to pass the long-overdue reforms that would balance our budget, revitalize our economy, restore American competitiveness, and put Americans back to work.

None of us came here to play small ball. We now have a momentous opportunity to maybe swallow a little bit of our pride, to show a little humility, maybe. Something you don't think of when you think about politicians is humility. But I think we all have to realize the hand we have been dealt, not look back and keep pointing the finger of blame. We need to say that this is the hand we have been dealt, this is the job we have volunteered for and gotten a vote of confidence in the election that our constituents have enough confidence in us that we will act responsibly and not kick the can down the road and make the price for our inaction and irresponsibility paid for by the American people or these young people who sit here before me. I hope we seize that opportunity. I want to be part of the solution. I am willing to cast tough votes, and I am willing to stand before my constituents and say: You know what, we had to solve this problem. As long as people are still engaged in campaigning rather than governing, as long as we are playing to the television audiences and the peanut gallery rather than trying to solve these problems, we won't do it. But I hope we will seize it. I am optimistic we will.

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

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

Mr. President, the Reid substitute, S. 3525, the Sportsmen's Act of 2012, is legislation that has a lot of very good things in it. Senator Reid attempted--although outside the normal committee process--to put together a package of bills that could do some good things. I generally am supportive of the package. I think it has some very good qualities to it, and I very much want to support it. But there is a problem with it. It is a small but important problem, and it needs to be fixed.

That is that, once again, after the Budget Control Act agreement reached in August, 15 months ago, the majority has brought forth a bill that violates the Budget Control Act, in which we agreed to a deemed budget as part of that process, and we are now spending more than we agreed to spend.

Fifteen months ago, we agreed to limit spending each year for the next 10 years and to stay within a limited amount of spending. Because we are borrowing virtually 40 percent of every dollar we spend, this country has a debt crisis staring us in the eye. Without any doubt, the most obvious threat to America's future is the surging debt: $4 trillion-plus increased debt in just 4 years, and the end is not in sight.

So we agreed, as part of raising the debt ceiling, to limit spending. This bill violates that agreement, and we need not do that. This is not the first one; it is the fourth one. That irresponsibility is one of the things that has placed us into this fix.

We looked the American people in the eye 15 months ago and said, Okay, we will raise the debt ceiling $2.1 trillion--because the administration had reached the limit of borrowing that the United States can incur--but we will reduce our projected spending increases over 10 years by $2.1 trillion. Part of the agreement in the Budget Control Act limited spending in various accounts, and this violates it.

You might say, Jeff, that is your opinion. No, it is not my opinion. I raised this with Chairman Conrad of the Budget Committee, of which I am ranking member. He and his staff have looked at it, and they certify that this budget violation actually occurs; therefore, the legislation is subject to a budget point of order. It cannot go forward because it violates the deemed budget that we agreed to.

If the budget point of order is raised, which will happen, then my colleagues will have a choice: They can either place the bill on a sound financial path that does not violate the Budget Control Act; or, they can say, Well, we won't pay any attention to that objection. We will waive the budget and just spend more than the budget allowed, because this is really important. It is really important that we raise revenue and spend more on the duck program.

I have been supportive, and the duck stamp is important. But this is not the right way to do this. If you are going to spend more money, you need to reduce spending somewhere else.

Also, I would point out the legislation was changed from the time it came out of committee. Part of the legislation at least when it was proposed in the Committee on Environment and Public Works of which I am a member, we observed that the proposal was to give bureaucrats-- government officials, unelected--the power to meet with special interests, or whoever they chose to meet with or not meet with, and set the amount of fees--taxes, you might call it--that would be required of Americans before they could hunt ducks. That has never been so. Previously, the Congress set how much you could charge for a duck stamp.

So this was raised in committee, and our able chairwoman Senator Barbara Boxer agreed and by a voice vote it was accepted that Congress would set the limit on how much you could raise for duck stamps and burden duck hunters with. That is an important principle, in my opinion. That is violated by the bill that was brought up--not the one that passed committee, but the one brought up by the leader.

I grew up in the country. When I go back home, I love to be in the woods. I don't hunt anymore, but I have been a big supporter. Many of my friends are hunters and fishermen and conservationists. So it is sad that we are having a dispute over this legislation, because we are so close to being able to work out the problems. My request to Senator Reid and to our colleagues would be: Let's fix this. Now it looks as though the bill will not be brought up until Monday when we come back, and I hope there will be ample opportunity for us to fix this problem so we are not passing a bill that violates the budget.

Under the bill, it would authorize $142 million in new direct spending over the next 10 years. Some may say that is not a lot, but if that is so, they have been in Washington too long. Mr. President, $142 million is a lot of money, and it is a very important principle because this is not the first time we violated the Budget Control Act.

If we stay with our agreement that we made with each other, that we made with the American people 15 months ago when the Budget Control Act was agreed to, we will at least save $2.1 trillion over 10 years. But if we keep nibbling away at it and eroding what we agreed to, we not only undermine our own credibility, but we weaken our ability to balance the budget. And if we reach a new agreement--which we need to do as we deal with the fiscal cliff then don't the American people need to know we will stand by the agreement we make? Don't they need to know an agreement is something more than a momentary event to get past a crisis and then the next year we can just ignore it? There is too much of this attitude in this Congress. That is one reason this country is in such a dire financial condition. The Reid amendment would violate the committee spending allocations in the deemed budget and would do it not only next year but every year over the next 10 years. This violation does not need to happen.

You say: This is technical. It is technical because it is paid for. We raise the revenue and we spend the revenue, but new spending is paid for by revenue--the tax increase on duck hunting--and therefore what are you worried about, Sessions?

What are we worried about? The agreement was that this whole area of spending would be capped at a certain level. The way to do this is, if you are going to spend more on the duck program, then reductions ought to be made somewhere else in this vast spending program or else you tax and spend. That is what we are doing. It is just tax-and-spend.

They say: We cannot cut anything else in the budget in dealing with interior, environment, and those issues. There is no way we can save another dime. We can't save $14 million a year over ten years anywhere.

Of course we can. There are plenty of places to save it there and in any of the other items of this government that waste money. What are they really saying? What they are saying is that of all the money we are currently spending, all of that is more important than finding $14 million to spend on more duck preservation programs. I am not sure that is correct. I am a believer in the duck stamp program, and I would like to see if we can figure out a way to do more to make sure we preserve those migratory bird habitats and the duck population in America, and I am prepared to be pretty aggressive as a Member of the Senate in developing

policies to do that. But you do not have to tax and spend more. That is the point.

If you look at it and say that we cannot cut any other spending in the entire Federal Government to find $142 million for the duck program, I will just say to my colleagues, that is what we are paid to do. We are paid to make those tough choices. I don't like them sometimes, but it should not be hard in this instance to find this kind of payment. The idea that we can just up a fee and spend more money and violate the budget and nothing is going to happen and we are going to just go along and do that without objection, that time is over because we are in a debt crisis.

We have run up trillion-plus deficits for the last 4 years. President Bush's last deficit was huge. It was one of the largest we had in-- maybe ever, $470 billion. We have averaged about $1,300 billion the last 4 years. The year before he left office, there was a $160 billion deficit. So we have $160 billion, $470 billion, a trillion-plus, 4 consecutive years. We are on the road in just a few years to double the debt of the United States again. This cannot be sustained. That is all I am saying. We have had similar budget problems on the postal reform bill, the highway bill, and the veterans jobs corp bill. We have had problems with spending violations on those bills too.

I really hope we will use this period of time to work out some language that fixes this problem. My budget staff can provide a long list of things that would save us this much money and have no real impact on the productivity of our government.

The Migratory Bird Habitat Investment and Enhancement Act--that is a good name, sounds like something we should be for--would actually give the Interior Department a blank check to increase the price of the duck stamp. It gives the Interior Department--unelected bureaucrats--the power to set how much we pay. Currently, it is $15. They could make it whatever figure the Secretary decides it should be, without any limit whatsoever. We discussed this in committee. The committee said: No, this is not the way we want to go. We have not done this before. Congress has stepped up to the plate and been responsible and decided how much we are going to extract from the American people before we allow them to go duck hunting. Granting that power to the Secretary is a significant change from what the committee voted on.

The duck stamp is purchased by all duck hunters in the United States. It was established in 1934. Since its beginning, it has always been set by Congress, not somebody in the bureaucracy. This is an unchecked power. I think it is a delegation of power to a person not accountable to the people, and it might violate the Constitution because only Congress can appropriate money and raise taxes. If it doesn't violate the Constitution explicitly, it violates the spirit of the Constitution. Moreover, by increasing the price of the duck stamp, if you think about it, in this amendment--it is an amendment, a revenue- raising amendment to an S. numbered bill. Senator Reid, therefore, by doing that, has put up a revenue enhancement bill originating in the Senate. The Constitution says revenue bills have to originate in the House. That places the bill in jeopardy. The House is very jealous-- rightly so--of their constitutional prerogative of commencing all tax revenue bills in the House. The Congressional Budget Office, our objective analysis team, scores the duck stamp provision as an increase in revenue. If the House exerted its privilege under the Constitution, this bill would be subject to a blue slip, a rejection based on the revenue clause.

Also, amazingly, we have no amendments. There is no process to even bring up amendments to vote. So we are stuck with the position of either supporting the bill as is in all its complexity or not. If we fixed this matter, I would be supportive of the bill. We tried to study it. I think it is OK and pretty good, actually. It is a positive step in the right direction if we simply fix this. So the proper remedy for this situation is to allow amendments or send the bill back to committee and figure out how to pass legislation that is within the budget limit.

I will not mention all the good things about this bill. There are a lot of them: the National Fish and Wildlife Act; the North American Wetlands Conservation Act has some good provisions in it. A number of the other pieces of legislation are excellent. I do not think that is in dispute. It is supported by a lot of great wildlife organizations. I support that.

On September 22 the Senate voted 84 to 7 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, with the full expectation that when the Senate returned this month, an opportunity would be provided to address the budget concerns and to improve the bill. But now we see that my friend the majority leader has decided to move forward without confronting these issues.

I hope we can figure out a way to avoid this situation. Maybe people did not think about it clearly. Maybe they just thought it is paid for, therefore it cannot be a problem with the budget. But even though it is paid for, it really is a problem with the budget, and we do not need to delegate to some unelected official, even if it is constitutional-- about which I have doubts--the ability without limit to raise fees for a normal historic right of Americans to go hunting ducks. I believe that has to be fixed, too, and we should do that.

Finally, I understand the intent is to recess for the rest of the day and all next week. However, in the Armed Services Committee yesterday, we were told we can get the armed services authorization, the Defense authorization bill up for a vote. We can actually bring it up and we can have a vote, and this is great news, and we have to do it in 3 days and very limited amendments, but if you Republicans will agree with that, we can get the bill up.

This is the first time in 50 years we have not passed a Defense bill prior to the September 30 fiscal year end. We are already into the new fiscal year. It should have been passed long ago. More than that, we could have spent 3 weeks on the Defense bill. We did nothing in September. We are doing nothing next week.

What is this about? It is about the management of the Senate defeating the historic ability of Members of the Senate to actually participate in the great issues of our time. One of them is the Defense Department budget and policy. The Defense authorization bill came out of the Armed Services Committee unanimously, but several of us in committee said that we have amendments we want to bring up on the floor. Other Members not on the Armed Services Committee have a right to talk about this $540-some-odd billion expenditure, the largest single expenditure outside of Social Security and Medicare in the entire budget. We are supposed to be thankful we did nothing in September, we are going to do nothing next week, but you now only have 3 days and just a very few amendments, and Senator Reid will pick and choose which ones you Republicans get to offer. That is why we are having problems.

Senator Reid continues to assert that Republicans are filibustering. What Republicans are saying is we are prepared to move to these bills, but we would like the leader to tell us how many amendments we can get. He has figured out a way to fill the tree--what we call the amendment tree--to a degree that has never been done before, and that allows him to pass legislation without any amendment.

So we say we would like to have amendments, Mr. Leader. This is the Senate.

OK. Submit a list of them to me. You can have two, and it can't be this amendment, it can't be this amendment, and it can't be this amendment. It can only be these kinds of amendments. We will be nice to you. Well, maybe three. Ok, you get three--on a $540 billion defense bill that sets the policy for our military, that decides what weapons systems we are going to invest in with billions of dollars?

Some people in this Senate have opinions about it and they want to come to the floor. Maybe when they were campaigning they said: I am against such and such in the Defense bill, and they want to come here-- and it is in the bill and they are against it and they want to offer an amendment and explain why it shouldn't be in the bill. They want to offer an amendment to take it out.

Sorry. We don't have time.

I think this is a dangerous trend. I believe we shouldn't be recessing

today. I believe we should be working. We have the fiscal cliff. We have the defense sequester. We have monumental tax increases about to occur. We have the death tax going to 55 percent of virtually anything somebody has. All these things are going to happen if we don't take some action. We have all these people talking, secretly planning and talking and working, and so about Christmas Eve I suspect they will walk in here with a plan we will be told we have to support or else we will work through Christmas or on January 1 we will be here, and we will have a catastrophe if all these bad things happen.

The President will not even say what he is for. He will not even lay out a plan. Congressman Ryan laid out a plan. He has defended it all over the country and is prepared to discuss it and explain it. What is the President's plan? What is Senator Reid's plan? Does the majority leader have any plan to confront our pension programs for Social Security and Medicare that are going broke? Does he have any plan to fix them? What is it? Isn't this important? Does he have any plan to get us off this trillion-dollar debt course? What are we going to do?

Growth is going down. We were at 2.4 percent in 2010; we had that much GDP growth. We have had a very slow recovery from the 2007-2008 recession. But then did it go up in 2011? No; it dropped to 1.8. What about the first three quarters of this year? It was 1.77. The growth is not occurring. We are borrowing and spending, but we are not creating growth. I think we need to deal with this crisis we face and the uncertainty of policies is hurting America's economy also.

I am disappointed we are not dealing with these important issues. I am disappointed we are recessing, and we need to do better.

I announce that the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller) are necessarily absent.

Today the Senate voted to end debate on S. 3525, the Sportsmen's Act of 2012. Along with 84 of my colleagues, I voted to support cloture in an effort to move this bill forward. It is a compilation of almost 20 different pieces of bipartisan legislation that are important to the sportsmen's community. The Sportsmen's Act will increase habitat conservation while improving access to recreational fishing and hunting lands. These are laudable goals that are worth supporting. However, the bill also contains troubling provisions allowing the importation of polar bear trophies and lead ammunition that I hope will be changed before final passage of the bill.

In its current form, the bill would allow several hunters who killed polar bears in Canada before a ban was put in place to bring those bear hides back to the United States. This provision would reward hunters who unethically killed polar bears despite multiple warnings of an imminent ban on imports and the imminent listing of polar bears as an endangered species. If enacted, this provision could easily lead to outcomes that no one wants--it could increase demand for polar bear trophies and lead to more poaching or illegal trade of polar bear parts. It could also stimulate demand for other exotic and endangered animal parts from around the globe. That is why I am a cosponsor of Senator Kerry's amendment to remove this provision from the bill.

I also oppose the current bill's exemption of ammunition and fishing tackle from regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Many people are concerned that wildlife in heavy-hunting regions is being poisoned as they consume prey that contains lead ammunition fragments. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service banned the use of lead shot for hunting waterfowl nationwide in 1991 because of concerns that lead shots were causing sickness and death in migratory birds that end up ingesting the shots. And several states have banned the use of lead ammunition in areas where protected bird species live. Exempting ammunition and tackle from EPA regulation doesn't make sense when we know these products are harmful to game and birdlife. I hope the Senate will adopt Senator Lautenberg's amendment, which I cosponsor, to remove this provision from the bill.

Ensuring adequate funding for conservation programs and access for sportsmen to recreational lands is important. There is no doubt about that. I support that. But these goals should not be achieved at the expense of animal welfare or public health and safety.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, over the past few years we have seen a dramatic increase in the sale of energy drinks in America. Energy drinks are now common fixtures in grocery stores, vending machines, gas stations, convenience stores, and everywhere we turn. They target young people with flashy ads and names such as Monster and Rock Star and with claims to increase attention stamina and even to help with weight loss. According to one study, 30 to 50 percent of adolescents, teenagers, consume energy drinks.

Sadly, as the sale of energy drinks has grown, so has the alarming evidence that these energy drinks pose a potential threat to our Nation's health. Yesterday, the New York Times featured an article that found that the Food and Drug Administration has received 13 adverse event reports for people who died--who died--after consuming 5-hour ENERGY drinks. Just

last month, news reports found that five people died--five--after consuming Monster Energy drinks.

This last May, I met the mother and family of 14-year-old Anais Fournier from Maryland. This lovely young teenager lost her life last December when she went into cardiac arrest--caused by caffeine toxicity--after she drank two--two--24-ounce Monster Energy drinks in less than 24 hours. Anais was an honor student. She was a good student and a great writer, and she used to watch movies with her mom.

An American Academy of Pediatrics study recommends adolescents consume no more than 100 milligrams of caffeine each day. Remember the number--100 milligrams a day. According to Consumer Reports, a 24-ounce can of Monster Energy drink contains 276 milligrams of caffeine, almost three times the amount this academy recommends as the limit an adolescent would consume in a day--276 milligrams in less than 24 hours. Anais Fournier consumed 552 milligrams of caffeine by drinking two Monster Energy drinks within 24 hours. That is the equivalent of drinking 16 12-ounce Coca-Cola sodas.

Mounting evidence shows that tragic stories such as the one involving Anais Fournier are becoming more common. A recent report by SAMHSA shows that energy drinks pose potentially serious health risks. Emergency room visits due to energy drinks have increased tenfold between 2005 and 2009--1,128 ER visits in 2005 to 13,114 emergency room visits in 2009 linked to energy drinks in America.

There are serious health concerns about ingesting high levels of caffeine in energy drinks and, I might also add, many added ingredients that are also stimulants and contain even additional caffeine that is added to the drinks. The Food and Drug Administration currently limits the level of caffeine in soda--the kind you would buy over the counter--to no more than 71 milligrams in a 12-ounce can. Remember the number for the 24-ounce can of Monster--276? That is almost four times the limit of what can be sold legally as a beverage regulated by the FDA in America.

Let me show this 5-hour ENERGY picture. I really don't have to show it. Everyone is pretty familiar with it because they are everywhere-- literally everywhere. I watched on television last week when they were advertising promotions of 5-hour ENERGY drinks saying, in the commercials, that some of the sales would go to promote research for breast cancer. There is almost the suggestion there is something healthy about this product.

Well, let's talk about that for a moment. Compare that limit of 71 milligrams of caffeine in a 12-ounce can of soda or pop to the 215 to 242 milligrams of caffeine in the small 2-ounce bottle of 5-hour ENERGY or the 135 milligrams in a 12-ounce can of Monster Energy. Some energy drinks contain 300 milligrams of caffeine in a 12-ounce serving. As we all know, most energy drinks are not sold in 12-ounce cans. They are sold in 16-, 24-, and 32-ounce cans. Two 24-ounce Monster Energy drinks took the life of Anais Fournier.

These drinks, of course, contain more than caffeine. We don't know all the products included, but they include many other stimulants, such as guarana and ginseng. The FDA has the authority to regulate caffeine levels in beverages and to require beverage manufacturers, such as soda pop, to prove additives are safe. But most energy drinks, such as 5- hour ENERGY, avoid the FDA's regulation and oversight by marketing their products not as beverages but as dietary supplements.

We will not see it on the front of this little container. We have to flip it around and look down at the bottom, and in the tiniest lettering we see dietary supplement. Why? Because as a dietary supplement they are not regulated. They can sell what they like. And, unfortunately, they sell products that contain so much caffeine they are dangerous.

Now, my colleague, Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut, who is on the Senate floor tonight, and I have sent the Food and Drug Administration letters three times calling on this agency to take action to ensure caffeine levels and ingredients in energy drinks are safe, particularly for kids. We have urged the agency to issue final guidance distinguishing beverages and liquid dietary substances to close the loopholes that allow some energy drinks to avoid FDA oversight. We have called on that agency to regulate energy drinks that have caffeine levels well above the 71 milligrams per 12-ounce threshold in soft drinks.

Today, Senator Blumenthal and I asked FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to personally meet with us after Thanksgiving to discuss the steps the FDA is taking to ensure the safety of energy drinks. Every other week we are seeing mounting evidence that energy drinks pose safety risks. We learn about young people hospitalized or seriously hurt after consuming what they are marketing as innocent little energy pick-me-ups.

We look forward to working with Commissioner Hamburg to discuss the Food and Drug Administration's strategy to protect our children and to protect everyone in America from these dietary supplements, whether it is 5-Hour Energy or the Monster Energy drink that led to the death of this 14-year-old girl in Maryland.

It has been many years since I came to this floor and argued about dietary supplements. We all know what is involved. I always preface my remarks by saying: When I got up this morning, I took my vitamin pill, and I took my fish oil pill. I believe I should have the right to do that. I don't know if it helps, but I think it does, and I shouldn't have to have a prescription to have a vitamin pill. Enough said. But when it comes to dietary supplements that go beyond that type of supplement, things that include dramatic increases in caffeine, we have to take the next step.

I managed a few years ago to pass a law--over some objection--that requires the makers of dietary supplements to report adverse events. In other words, if people call from getting sick--or worse--from your product, you have to tell the FDA so we can gather this together and pick up any trends that are alarming or worrisome. Well, they have been doing it but not as vigilantly as they should, and the companies have not been reporting them as often as they should. But now we know, as I said at the outset of my remarks, that young people and others are dying from these energy drinks, 5-Hour Energy drinks and Monster Energy drinks. They died after they ingested these, and it has raised serious questions as to whether there was causation between them.

To find there were 13 adverse-event reports for people who died after consuming 5-Hour Energy drinks and 5 people who died after consuming these Monster Energy drinks--for goodness' sakes, these are for sale to kids across America. We wouldn't sell these kids alcohol over the counter without asking how old they were, whether they reached an age where they are eligible to buy alcohol products, but we are selling products that could be more lethal than alcohol to these young kids without the necessary oversight and supervision.

I thank the Senator from Connecticut for joining me in this effort. We have to continue it. The New York Times yesterday made a report that I think puts us on notice. There is a lot more to be done.

Mr. President, I wish to say a word about the tragedy that occurred in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 where we lost a dedicated ambassador and three other American lives. It was awful. It has been nearly a decade since we lost an ambassador in service to our country, and it is something we are looking at with a great deal of sadness and sorrow that these individuals who dedicated their lives to America were killed in the course of duty. But this has gone from a tragedy in Benghazi to a major political debate in America.

Part of it was explainable because it was in the closing days and weeks of a Presidential campaign when many times issues that don't reach national prominence become prominent because of the attention being paid to the candidates. And a lot has been said back and forth, and I have tried, as have other Members of Congress, to understand exactly what happened on September 11 in Benghazi. It is difficult because there wasn't a gathering of evidence immediately. Investigations were undertaken. It was chaotic at the scene that evening, and, sadly, many of the witnesses who could help us understand have disappeared into the night. But the effort has been undertaken to find out what occurred, to find out whether there was adequate protection for the Ambassador and his staff and, if not, what we should have done. I understand these tragedies require careful examination.

I was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives when 235 U.S. marines died in a Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. You bet we asked questions of the Reagan administration, as we should when we lose innocent American lives overseas as we did in Lebanon and as we did in Libya. What troubles me is the level the debate has reached. It has now reached a level of vilification and accusation which is unwarranted by the evidence.

This week we met in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a closed, classified setting and went through meticulously the timeline that led up to the death of the Ambassador and staff as well as what followed. It is being reported as it is being gathered, and there are additional reports that will be forthcoming.

Early next month we are expecting the Accountability Review Board of the Department of State to issue its report. We know, following that, other committees of jurisdiction--the Intelligence Committee, Foreign Relations Committee, and others--will certainly call in witnesses and ask questions, as they should, as they must.

What troubles me is that on the floor of the Senate during the course of this week, there have been accusations made of individuals that have gone far beyond anything the evidence could suggest.

We owe it to the cause of justice and to the lives that were lost to do this professionally and honestly, without political rancor. The President was right yesterday when he said of our U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, she ``has

done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism, with toughness and grace.'' And ``to go after the U.N. ambassador,'' he said, ``who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.''

I agree with him. We owe it to her and to everyone involved in every Federal agency to get the facts before us before we point a finger of blame. If there is blame, let us make certain it is apportioned to those who deserve it rather than to make wild charges against many others.

My good friend Senator John McCain--and he really is my friend; he and I debated on the floor many times--but he said something I want to quote from 2005, when there were criticisms of Condoleezza Rice who was being considered for the office of Secretary of State. He said, ``So I wonder why we are starting this new Congress with a protracted debate about a foregone conclusion. . . . I can only conclude we are doing this for no other reason than lingering bitterness at the outcome of the elections. . . . We all have varying policy views, but the President, in my view, has a clear right to put in place the team he believed would serve him best.''

I agree with Senator McCain's statement. Let's get the facts together. Let us find out what truly occurred. Before we point the finger of blame on any person in our government, let's make certain we do so with the knowledge of the facts and the evidence that we can gather. We owe it to the Ambassador, his family, and all the others who were either injured or lost their lives in this occurrence.

I urge my colleagues to focus on the report due in December from the Accountability Review Board and to attend the hearings that will undoubtedly follow on this issue. We need a constructive discussion on how we can ensure that our brave diplomats can work effectively in some of the most dangerous parts of the world.

Susan Rice is a dedicated public servant who has tirelessly pursued the interests of the United States at the United Nations, ranging from sanctions on Iran to advancing the actual effort in the Security Council to oust former Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi. She deserves fair treatment, as everyone does in our government.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I rise to celebrate the people of New Jersey, many of whom lost everything in Superstorm Sandy but who came through one of the most devastating storms in our State's history battered but not broken.

The storm struck New Jersey with extraordinary force. It was the entry point of Superstorm Sandy, and the surge came quickly, destroying whole

communities, taking homes from their foundations, changing the topography of the coastline, devastating some of the most densely populated communities in the country, taking lives and taking property, leaving New Jerseyans without power but not powerless, without the personal possessions accumulated over a lifetime but with their families and their memories intact. Their memories are the foundation upon which New Jerseyans are recovering and rebuilding their lives and their communities. They are rebuilding with the help of FEMA and other Federal agencies, including the American Red Cross and countless volunteers from around the country, State and local officials,working overtime to help. New Jersey will come back stronger and better, and we are more determined than ever to rebuild and restore our communities to where they were.

The people of New Jersey withstood the unbridled power of nature--the power of nature strengthened by manmade climate change--to create an unprecedented storm and unprecedented damage. I wish to share with my colleagues some of the photos showing the devastation and why New Jersey needs a strong Federal partner if we hope to rebuild.

As my colleagues can see, Sandy mixed all forms of transportation with a force we haven't seen in many years. This is a shipping container and a large pleasure boat tossed onto the Morgan rail bridge on the North Jersey coastline along with tons of debris. The photo shows the container from the shipping lines and the boat on a bridge that obviously was a rail bridge.

You can see, we have a lot of work to do with scenes like this up and down the coast.

In this photograph, you can see the kind of damage that our rail lines have suffered--heaved from the railroad beds and buckled. This again is along the north Jersey coastline, which had miles of track damaged just like this, as shown in this photograph, and in need of millions of dollars in repairs.

In fact, 40 percent of the Nation's transit riders from Washington to Boston had their service interrupted. Dozens and dozens of New Jersey Transit's locomotives and rail cars were damaged by flooding. So today I am proud to announce that we expedited $25 million in transportation funding to help ease that situation.

But some commuters into New York, for example, from my home State of New Jersey are still suffering 4-hour commutes, with rail service only about half of what it normally is, largely because there still is not enough power for all the trains.

In the meantime, New Jersey has added subsidized ferry service to make up the difference, with the Federal Department of Transportation providing over 300 buses to help serve those new ferry lines, including one out of Liberty State Park.

Here is another photograph of the extraordinary power of Sandy's surge that lifted boats on to a rail bridge along the north Jersey coastline. Amazingly, through the hard work of New Jersey Transit workers, this devastated rail line might be able to resume limited service by the end of this week.

But this line, like many other commuter lines in New Jersey, will need much more extensive work to get service levels back to normal and to make more permanent repairs to ensure long-term reliability.

But beyond the transportation damage, it is important to remember that some lost everything in the storm and some lost their lives. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all the families who lost loved ones to Super Sandy.

I toured some of the worst hit areas with President Obama and Governor Christie and spoke to New Jerseyans who suffered extraordinary loss and were hit the hardest.

Some of these photos I am about to show now I took myself. They may not be the best photographs and I may not be the best photographer, but they show a small part of the overall destruction my State has suffered.

You can see in this photograph from the Coast Guard plane I was aboard some of the destruction at Sandy Hook, NJ. These homes are deeply under water, many of them rendered impossible to return to for a significant period of time. There are other homes I will show you where people cannot return to what was their home.

This is a photograph of the flooding in the Mantoloking area north of Seaside Heights that submerged cars and caused millions of dollars of damage and thousands to be displaced from their homes. This bridge actually collapsed at the end there, leaving this whole section in difficulty in terms of exit off the barrier islands.

I took the next two photographs while touring northern New Jersey. I have shown most of the pictures from the shore area, which took the hardest hit, because that was the entry point largely for Superstorm Sandy, but it was not just along the shore. Here is an example of the type of flooding that took place in Hoboken, NJ. On the night of the storm, this flooding was just beginning, and it only got worse, so much so that it took the National Guard to rescue residents from their homes, days--days--after the storm. It filled the streets with overflow from sewage plants. Gasoline was reeking in the air--a danger to the health and well-being of residents. And it made the damage even worse than anyone had imagined possible.

The next photograph I took is of Observer Highway. This is a major thoroughfare between two significant parts of the metropolitan area, between the city of Hoboken and the city of Jersey City, the second largest city in our State. I cannot remember ever seeing the area so expansively under water, and I hope to never see it again.

All of these cars were floating, some of them crashing into each other, rendered largely useless, and, of course, stopping a major thoroughfare for days in terms of anybody being able to get through.

And if the images do not give you a sense of the destruction and the loss families have suffered, then this next photograph encapsulates the power of the storm to take away all that people had worked for all of their lives. It is in the faces of the people I met.

Here in Pleasantville, NJ, which is right outside Atlantic City along a section there, the mayor of Pleasantville took me to meet a series of residents whose homes had been ripped apart.

In this picture, I am standing outside of the person's home, almost as if it were a dollhouse, looking in. I would love to have said that it was only this poor gentleman, but it was an entire community where homes had been ripped apart and you could see into their homes. It shows the nature of, the breadth and scope of, the devastation.

It is not that this gentleman lost a shingle, it is that he lost the whole side of his home, now exposed to the elements and, of course, everything ripped apart.

The other aspect about this picture, in addition to the incredible destruction, is the resiliency. When I went to share my sentiments and my concern with this gentleman, he asked me: How are you doing, Senator? I said: Well, sir, what is more important is, how are you doing? He said: I'm doing fine. I'm here, I'm alive, and I still have part of my home.

So sometimes when we think about how difficult our lives might be at any given moment, I think about this gentleman and the extraordinary resiliency he has had in the midst of probably one of the most difficult times in his life. And there are so many other New Jerseyans whom I met like that.

I met a young woman in Hoboken whose entire basement apartment was flooded--totally gone. She lost everything she had worked for in her young professional life. In the midst of that tragedy for her, she was at a shelter, running the shelter, helping everybody else who had been displaced--some not as badly as her, not thinking about her tomorrow, but thinking about her fellow citizens in Hoboken, NJ.

I met some poor families who were not badly affected by the storm who opened their homes and their kitchen tables to individuals who were their neighbors who were hurt very badly. And even though they did not have a lot to put around the kitchen table, they were sharing what they had.

I saw citizens risk their own lives to save their neighbors' lives in the rushing water and heard their accounts. So I saw the better angels of people in the midst of a storm.

The fact is, despite the damage and displacement, the human suffering and loss of property, possessions, personal photographs and family memories, the people of New Jersey held together.

Neighbors came together to help one another. As much as they were shaken and mourned their own loss, they worked together to help each other, to save each other, to begin the recovery, to get New Jersey back on its feet, and Federal, State, and local governments were there to help.

The Federal response was quick, and it was effective, but there is still so much more that we need to do, and still more that we can do to help those families who are still without shelter, still without a place to return to, to call home, and without a clear picture of what the future holds.

The storm was unprecedented in the breadth of its devastation. While our shoreline was hard hit, that does not begin to describe the full impact. Some of our Nation's most densely populated communities were also hit very hard, requiring one of the biggest rescue and recovery efforts we have seen. A response that size, obviously, takes time, but we acted quickly and will continue to do what needs to be done.

After surveying Sandy's damage with President Obama and Governor Christie on October 31, Senator Lautenberg and I called for increased support from the Federal Government to deal with the cost of response efforts.

In a letter to the President, we asked that the Federal share for disaster response be increased from the standard 75 percent to a much higher possibly 100 percent because of the devastating impact of what meteorologists have called a perfect storm.

The President initially issued a disaster declaration for eight New Jersey counties and, along with Senator Lautenberg, we requested additional counties be included, and they were.

Before walking with the President and the Governor through Brigantine, NJ, I had an opportunity to tour the destruction in Pleasantville, Hoboken, Jersey City, and communities in Bergen County. What I saw was unlike anything I had ever seen in my lifetime in those communities.

I am very grateful that the President came to New Jersey with the full force of the Federal Government to see and to respond firsthand to the devastation the hurricane left in its wake.

I have proudly lived in New Jersey all of my life, and seeing the Garden State in ruin is heartbreaking. The shore of my youth is gone. Much of it lies in the ocean for the ages. But it made me realize that, in times of tragedy, in times of storms like Sandy, we need government at all levels to come together, all of us rolling up our sleeves to help our neighbors recover and rebuild and reclaim their lives. We need to make certain that we secure all of the resources necessary to help New Jersey, and every community affected by this horrible storm, to rebuild and emerge stronger than before.

Since the storm, I have requested emergency funding for New Jersey's transportation network--highways, rail lines, ports, and airports--that was devastated by the storm.

I asked the President and Secretary LaHood for emergency funds to repair highways and bridges and to expedite assistance to all impacted modes of transportation.

I called on the President to dispatch emergency fuel and power supplies to New Jersey to ease the fuel shortage and to keep emergency vehicles running in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

To ensure critical infrastructure--water treatment and sanitation facilities--we received the help of the Army Corps of Engineers to have these facilities remain operable.

The Federal Government also responded with $10 million in emergency funding, with some of those critical transportation needs, freed up 2 million gallons of fuel from the Northeast Oil Reserve, and the EPA took action that rerouted this fuel to New Jersey when it needed it the most.

The Federal response also included a grant for New Jersey to hire 1,000 workers to help communities clean up from the storm.

But, despite all of that, many families in my State are still suffering. They have lost much, and many are displaced, some permanently, from their homes. That is why I have called for the immediate suspension of foreclosures and evictions for all New Jersey homeowners who faced financial difficulties before the storm and now are suffering additional difficulties in the wake of it; and for swift action to expand emergency mortgage payment relief to all New Jersey homeowners who have lost income as a result of Hurricane Sandy.

That is why we must work to give them certainty of what the Federal Government will do to help them rebuild their lives so they can make critical decisions as to their futures.

What I take away from this experience is the fact that we are all in this together, one community, each of us dependent on the other--each of us working to rebuild and recover for the benefit of all of us in New Jersey, but I believe all of us in the country.

That is what community is all about. It is the heart of our motto: E Pluribus Unum; From Many, One. We have just gone through an election at the heart of which we debated the role of government in our lives. I would submit we need to focus on what government does to rebuild the spirit of community that we have seen in action in the aftermath of this devastating storm.

Americans across the country were riveted by the stories of the immediate aftermath of the storm--the pictures of communities under water, homes moved blocks down the road, homes and trains blocking Federal highways, hospitals closed, gas lines miles long, people waiting hours for fuel to run generators and keep their homes heated, weeks of fuel rationing, and no transit or Amtrak service for the entire region for people to get to work or visit their families.

Without a doubt, those have been trying times for New Jersey. But now, just because those scenes may no longer be showing in living rooms across the country does not mean that the recovery is over.

Thousands of families are still displaced from their homes and will be for months to come.

Transit lines are still out. Community infrastructure still has to be rebuilt. Now is not the time for the Federal Government to walk away. It is more crucial now than ever for the Federal Government to help devastated communities rebuild, help families get the assistance they need to repair their homes, and put their lives back together.

I for one will not rest until the rebuilding is done. This is one country, the United States of America. That is why, when there was destruction in New Orleans with Katrina, in Florida, in Joplin, or crop destruction in the Midwest, I came along with other colleagues to support those communities. I viewed it as my time to stand with my fellow Americans in distress.

Now it is time for my fellow Americans to stand with New Jersey. New Jersey has been battered, but we are not broken. We are stronger and more united in our efforts to work together to recover, rebuild, and recommit ourselves to uniting around our common concerns and shared values rather than divided by our differences. That is the lesson we learned. And together we will rebuild and the Garden State will bloom once again.

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

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

Madam President, in less then 2 months, American taxpayers are set to experience one of the largest tax increases in American history. With the elections behind us, it is time for us to work together to reach an agreement that can pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by the President.

Reaching an agreement won't be easy, but it must be done to avoid going head first off the fiscal cliff. By this time we are all aware of the Congressional Budget Office warning that failing to come together threatens to send us into another recession.

An agreement is certainly doable, but all we hear about is what revenues Republicans are willing to put on the table.

We need to hear what the President and my colleagues on the other side are prepared to tackle in regard to reforming entitlements that are the long-term drivers of our fiscal problems.

That being said, we will not be able to reach an agreement if the other side continues to insist on punishing entrepreneurs and small businesses in the name of raising taxes on the ``wealthy.''

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem to believe that tax increases, particularly on high-income individuals, do not matter. They argue that raising taxes on the so-called wealthy will return us to the economic growth experienced at the height of the 1990s.

This defies common sense. If you ask a business owner if raising his taxes will hinder his ability to grow his business, he assuredly will tell you they will. He understands that the more the government takes from him, the less he has to put back into his business.

This is in line with the general understanding around here that taxes can be used as both a carrot and a stick to affect behavior. If you want to discourage behavior you impose a tax. If you want to encourage behavior you provide a tax incentive.

For example, the excise tax on cigarettes has been increased to reduce the number of people smoking. A tax has been imposed on individuals for not purchasing insurance, so more will. Our tax code is littered with tax incentives to get people to do more of the things we like and less of the things we don't like. Individuals and businesses have and do respond to these incentives.

Yet, if we are to believe the other side, when it comes to marginal income tax rates the influence of taxes ceases to exist. According to them, we can raise income taxes on the wealthy as high as we want with no ill effects for jobs and the economy.

Well I have news for my colleagues; high marginal tax rates influence many factors that contribute to economic growth. Capital accumulation and the availability of a well trained labor force are two important factors influenced by taxes. Just as an increase in the excise tax on cigarettes leads to fewer packs of cigarettes being purchased, increasing taxes on capital reduces capital accumulation. Likewise, the more you tax labor the fewer hours worked you will get. In other words, taxes matter.

Some of my colleagues on the other side have pointed to a Congressional Research Service report they claim proves raising the top marginal tax rate does not impact economic growth. There has been ample criticism of this one analysis that I will not go into here.

But, even if one gives any credence to this one analysis, it must be viewed in light of a larger body of economic research that indicates higher taxes do hinder economic growth.

This research confirms that high marginal rates reduce the hours worked and are a disincentive to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Among this research is a 2007 study by Christina Romer that found that a tax increase of 1 percent of GDP reduces economic growth by as much as 3 percent. According to this study, tax increases have such a substantial effect on economic growth because of the ``powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment.''

The last thing we need to do now is discourage business investment. Business investment has been stagnate. This has directly contributed to slower economic growth than in past economic recoveries. It has also contributed to weak job creation and wage growth.

Raising marginal tax rates on entrepreneurs and business owners, thereby reducing their after-tax rate of return is not the answer.

We need to give entrepreneurs and business owners the certainty they need to start investing again.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has issued several reports analyzing how different forms of taxation impact economic growth. This OECD research found that income taxes significantly impact economic growth.

According to this research, the most damaging tax was the corporate income tax followed by the individual income tax. The study further noted that highly progressive individual income tax rates are negatively associated with economic growth.

The United States of course relies extensively on both corporate and individual income taxes. Our corporate rate of 35 percent is the highest in OECD countries, which is bad in its own right. But a large number of American businesses are taxed at the individual rate, not the corporate rate. We also already have a highly progressive tax system. In fact, according to a 2008 OECD study we have ``the most progressive tax system and collect the largest share of taxes from the richest 10 percent of the population.''

Currently, the top individual rate of 35 percent is the same as the top corporate rate. Starting in 2013, if the President has his way, the top rate goes up to 39.6 percent with the second highest rate scheduled to go up to 36 percent from 33 percent. When you consider the effects of the personal exemption phase-out and limitation on itemized deductions, the marginal effective tax rate jumps to over 41 percent.

These tax increases will hinder the growth of small businesses, and of course, slower business growth means slow job growth.

Evidence of this is documented by a 2001 study available from the National Bureau of Economic Research. This study looked at how the marginal rate cuts in the 1986 tax reform affected the growth of small firms.

The study showed that businesses that experienced the largest marginal rate cuts saw their businesses grow the fastest. Conversely, the study concluded that when marginal tax rates go up, the growth of small businesses goes down.

Similarly, a 2005 study conducted by the Small Business Administration found that ``lower marginal rates on entrepreneurial income encourage more entrepreneurial entry and lower rates of exit, and lengthen the duration of spells of activity.'' This means that if my colleagues are successful in raising the top two marginal rates there will be less entrepreneurial activity. Fewer people will seek to start their own business and more current business owners will be looking to close up shop.

Further research confirms that high marginal tax rates leads to fewer hours worked. A 2008 study that appeared in the Journal of Monetary Economics and a 2004 study conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis examined how taxes impact the labor supply across time and across countries.

Both of these studies found that countries with higher marginal tax rates generally worked fewer hours. Conversely, those with low marginal rates worked more hours. In fact, these studies, controlling for other variables, found that the marginal tax rate accounted for the ``vast majority'' or ``preponderance'' of the difference in hours worked.

Research by economist Michael Keane has highlighted that high marginal rates have the biggest impact on labor over the long-run. This is because of the effect of marginal rates on lifetime decisions.

While a sudden increase in taxes may not lead to an immediate shift in current hours worked, it will impact future decisions.

For instance, higher marginal rates will discourage the accumulation of human capital through work experience and training. His review of research in this area further concluded that the effect of high marginal tax rates is especially pronounced when it comes to women's participation in the workforce.

There are many more examples of economic research that point to high tax rates hindering economic growth. For the sake of time, I am not going to go through all of them. Instead, I will ask unanimous consent to place a list of more than 20 studies in the Record. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I believe these provide a good starting point for my colleagues who are interested in learning the truth about taxes.

In sum, this research suggests that soaking the rich through an ever more progressive tax code will only reduce incentives for work and entrepreneurship thereby reducing economic growth. It means that for a couple deciding whether or not a spouse who left the workforce should go back to work, taxes matter;

for an Individual who is considering investing in their own human capital through education or training to increase their earning potential, taxes matter;

for a small business owner considering hiring employees, purchasing equipment, or expanding their business, taxes matter;

for an entrepreneur deciding whether or not a business venture is worth pursuing, taxes matter.

Let me turn to another argument used by my colleagues on the other side to support increasing taxes. This argument is that tax increases on the ``wealthy'' are necessary to reduce the deficit and balance the budget.

The truth is there are not enough so-called rich people to make this happen. Based on 2009 tax returns, if you raised the top tax rate on income over $200,000 to 100 percent, you would still come short of covering the the $1.1 trillion budget deficit for fiscal year 2012.

This back of the envelope calculation assumes that people will not work less or engage in tax planning or fraud to avoid such a confiscatory tax. I imagine my colleagues on the other side would even concede this would be the case with such a high rate.

For people out there who think they don't have to worry about the President's proposals because you are not wealthy, my message to you is this: You should be worried, because in order to tackle the deficit and pay for all his proposed new spending; the President will have to increase taxes on individuals well under $200,000.

The President of course claims that he wants a balanced approach to deficit reduction. He says we should do a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. So far he has been rather specific about his tax increases. However, he has not said much about entitlements that are going to be the main drivers of our national debt over the coming years and decades.

The President needs to lead in this area to get a serious discussion rolling. He needs to begin offering serious solutions, not just attacking those that have been offered up by Congressman Ryan in his budget proposal.

Given my tenure in Congress, I have learned to be skeptical when people around here start saying we will reduce the deficit by raising taxes now and cutting spending later. Especially when no specifics are articulated regarding what programs can be cut or what reforms they will accept for addressing entitlements. It's been my experience in these situations, the taxes always go up, but the spending cuts never happen.

Professor Vedder of Ohio University, who has studied tax increases and spending for more than two decades, confirms this in recent research. Professor Vedder looked at tax increases and spending spanning from the end of WW II through 2009 and discovered that ``each dollar of new tax revenue has been associated with $1.17 in new spending''.

If we are ever going to get a handle on the deficit, we are going to need to learn to live within our means. Spending as a percent of GDP has averaged about 20.5 percent since 1970. From 1998-2001, when we did balance the budget, spending as a percent of GDP averaged 18.5 percent. In fact we have never balanced the budget with spending as percent of GDP exceeding 20 percent. Spending under President Obama has averaged 24.5 percent of GDP. We must curtail our spending if we ever hope to balance the budget in the future.

Some around here insist that cutting spending will be as damaging, if not more so, than increasing taxes. They use the rationale of spending multipliers pushed by some economists that

suggest for every dollar of spending by the government we will get more than a dollar in economic activity.

This theory is deeply flawed. Even if we assume the government spends money wisely with no fraud, waste or abuse--and that is a big if--it means one less dollar to be spent by the private sector.

If this was solid economic theory our economy should be booming given all the money we have been spending around here. The truth is spending is not the solution to our problems, it is our problem. It is what got us into this mess in the first place.

For my colleagues who are still wedded to the idea that tax increases are preferable to spending cuts, I recommend reading a recent study by Harvard Economist Alberto Alesina. Given the fiscal shape of many countries, Professor Alesina studied the impact of spending and tax policies put in place to address fiscal imbalances.

His research concluded that ``fiscal adjustments based upon spending cuts are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax based ones. In particular, spending-based adjustments have been associated with mild and short-lived recessions, in many cases with no recession at all. Instead, tax-based adjustments have been followed by prolonged and deep recessions.''

This research paper comes on the heels of a paper he released in 2009. This paper similarly found that policies favoring spending cuts over tax increases are more likely to reduce the deficit.

In the words of Professor Alesina, fiscal adjustments ``based upon spending cuts and no tax increases are more likely to reduce deficits and debt over Gross Domestic Product ratios than those based upon tax increases.''

These studies confirm what through shear common sense Winston Churchill knew more than a half century ago, ``for a nation to try and tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.''

In the coming weeks, I hope to work with my colleagues and the President to reach a bipartisan agreement to help put our country back on sound fiscal footing. However, as I said in the beginning, it can't be just one side of the aisle that is expected to come to the table. My colleagues on the other side must be willing to put real reforms to address entitlements and our out of control spending on the table.

I ask unanimous consent the list to which I referred be printed in the Record.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.