A bill to provide for debt limit extensions.

Madam President, what just transpired deserves a word. Senator McConnell came to the floor this morning and offered a change in law that would help us avoid the kind of obstruction and the kind of showdowns that we have had in the past over the debt ceiling. In fact, the idea was not new. It was his original idea that has been the law of the land and followed. He offered and challenged Senator Reid to bring this matter for consideration in the Senate.

Senator Reid just agreed to it. He said he would bring this to a vote in 20 minutes, and we would decide, up or down, whether the debt ceiling problem would be resolved once and for all under Senator McConnell's proposal. Then Senator McConnell objected--objected-- saying: No, no, we need 60 votes.

For those who do not follow the Senate, 60 votes is the equivalent of a filibuster vote--breaking a filibuster vote. So this may be a moment in Senate history when a Senator made a proposal and, when given an opportunity for a vote on that proposal, filibustered his own proposal. I think we have now reached a new spot in the history of the Senate we have never seen before.

I am going to ask the Parliamentarian to look into this. I do not think this has ever happened before. But it calls into question whether this was the kind of offer that one would consider to be good faith--if Senator Reid offered a vote on it, and Senator McConnell said, no, it has to be 60, it has to be a filibuster-proof vote.

Yes.

Madam President, I say in response to the Senator from Michigan, the Senate Republican leader, Senator McConnell, has such a strong appetite for the filibuster that we have seen 386 or 387 filibusters in the last 6 years, and now he has decided another good idea is to propose a bill and then filibuster your own bill. I do believe that is history in the making. But that is why this appetite for the filibuster in the Senate has to change.

What an abuse, that we cannot have a majority vote on something the Republicans proposed and the Democrats were prepared to vote for. This would have been a true bipartisan measure, good news--maybe leading the news--across America. It really is unfortunate.

Mr. President, we currently have over 400,000 children in our foster care system due to abuse or neglect by their biological families, with 104,000 eligible for adoption. Tragically every year nearly 28,000 of these children age out of our foster care system with no place to call home. On average, foster children spend over 3 years in the system and around 16 percent languish in the foster care system for over 5 years. Only around 3 percent start college and even fewer finish their degree. We must continue working to connect children in our foster system to a safe, loving, and permanent home while also doing more to address their educational outcomes.

I am greatly concerned that too many of our Nation's foster youth are unable to appropriately access critical Federal programs that provide assistance to help increase their educational opportunities. Higher education can hold the key to a future of stability and it is unacceptable that many foster youth who are eligible for higher education funds, such as Education and Training Vouchers, ETV, and support through the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Program, are never told about these programs.

This is why I have worked with my colleagues to introduce a bipartisan bill to direct the Department of Education to fully utilize the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, FAFSA, as a tool to notify foster youth of all Federal funds which may be available to support their pursuit of higher education, and include information specifically for foster youth on their agency website. The Foster Youth Higher Education Opportunities Act will automate the notification to foster youth of their potential eligibility for programs that serve as a lifeline to a better future.

I would like to recognize Senators Inhofe, Franken, Levin, Murray,

Cardin, Blumenthal, Begich, Rockefeller, and Landrieu as original cosponsors of this bill. I ask all of my colleagues to support this important legislation.

Madam President, I now ask unanimous consent that at 1:30 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. 3664, which is a bill regarding debt limit increases, the text of which is at the desk; that there be no amendments in order to the bill; that there be up to 10 minutes of debate equally divided between the two leaders or their designees; that upon the use or yielding back of time, the bill be read a third time and the Senate proceed to passage of S. 3664.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, what we have is a case of Republicans in the Senate once again not taking ``yes'' for an answer.

This morning, the Republican leader asked consent to have a vote on his proposal. Just now I told everyone we are willing to have that vote, an up-or-down vote. But now the Republican leader objects to his own idea. So I guess we have a filibuster of his own bill. So I object.

If my friend will yield, I have business here and then he will get the floor right back.

Will my colleague, the distinguished assistant majority leader, yield for a question?

Is it also correct, basically, if we had voted, we would have guaranteed we would not place the country again in a situation of defaulting on our bills; that we would send a message that we can work together--the fact that we were willing to accept the Republican leader's proposal and be willing to send a message that as a Senate we want to make sure we have fiscal stability, we are paying our bills, that this could be one step forward in making sure we can resolve the fiscal issues for the country? Isn't that the Senator's view of this as well; that, in fact, it would be an important message about stability?

I also have to say, I share the Senator's amazement that the leader would, in fact, object to his own proposal and now be filibustering his own proposal that we were willing to accept as a bipartisan, good-faith effort for the country. Didn't he just take us in a wrong direction?

Madam President, reserving the right to object, what we are talking about is a perpetual debt ceiling grant, in effect, to the President. Matters of this level of controversy always require 60 votes. So I would ask my friend, the majority leader, if he would modify his consent request to set the threshold for this vote at 60?

Yes. I object.