A joint resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Internal Revenue Service relating to the health insurance premium tax credit.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we will soon be voting on a continuing resolution to continue funding the U.S. Government for 3 weeks. I believe that will reduce spending over that 3-week period by $2 billion a week, which is far less than the debt we are incurring in each of those weeks, but it is significant progress. Add it to the $4 billion we did in the previous 2-week CR.

I will support this continuing resolution. It keeps us on track to achieve a $61-billion reduction in Federal spending this fiscal year, which ends September 30. It is important we take action. It is a matter that is important financially to American business interests and foreign business interests that may be thinking of investing in the United States and people who might buy our huge number of Treasury bills that we sell each week and are purchased by people all over the world. They want to know if we have our house in order, if this is a safe place to invest their money.

We need to do something now. When our majority leader, Senator Reid, proposed not $61 billion but that we reduce spending only $4 billion throughout the rest of this fiscal year, I said then and believe now that is only a product of being in the Washington bubble. We are in denial of the reality of the crisis we face. I do not want to talk down the American economy. I believe the American worker is willing to work, is competitive, but we cannot burden that worker with excessive debt.

How does that happen? I am ranking Republican on the Budget Committee. We have heard testimony from Drs. Rogoff and Reinhart, who have written a book called ``This Time is Different.'' Their study of nations that have gotten into trouble financially and have had debt crises over the last 20 years shows a consistent pattern of problems.

One of the things they concluded is that when a nation's debt reaches 90 percent GDP, the economic growth in that country slows down. The median was 1 percent, but the average was more than 1 percent. Some countries had more than a 1-percent drop in growth. Japan has a higher debt than we do, I think the highest in the world. They have an interesting way they have been able to finance it, but they have had no growth for quite a long time. It is consistent with the Rogoff-Reinhart study.

Does that apply to us? We are about 95 percent now. Our debt is surging. By the end of this fiscal year, the numbers are that our debt will be 100 percent of GDP, well above the figure. One might

ask: What does 1 percent growth mean? If we are looking for growth of 2 or 3 percent, 1 percent is half our growth.

What does it mean in other terms? Experts have said that a 1-percent reduction in growth amounts to 1 million jobs lost.

I believe we are beginning to feel a negative pull on our bounce back from this recession as a result of growing debt right now, not years down the road as some people have been saying and predicting; that we are going to have a debt crisis down the road. I hate to say it.

Erskine Bowles, President Clinton's Chief of Staff, was appointed by the President to cochair the debt commission with Senator Alan Simpson. They testified before our committee last week, and this is what they said about the nature of the crisis we face. They spent weeks studying the numbers, hearing from experts all over the world, about our debt situation. They reported that we have to take action now.

In a joint statement they presented to the committee, they said this is the most predictable financial crisis this Nation has ever faced. In other words, they said if we do not change course, it will be the most predictable crisis we have faced.

Senator Conrad, our Democratic chairman, who is very concerned about these issues, asked them when. Mr. Bowles, who himself is a successful financial businessman and financier, said about 2 years. Senator Simpson contributed to the discussion and said: I think a year.

I hope we do not have some sort of debt crisis in a year. The fact that has even been discussed should be a cause for alarm. Let me say, in January, Alan Greenspan said we could have a debt crisis in 2 to 3 years. Moody's has discussed downgrading our debt. They have warned they might downgrade our debt in less than 2 years. We need to take action now. That is the deal. That is the matter.

We had some fine new Members elected to the House and the Senate last Fall. The American people believed those they elected would come to Washington and help us get off this course of wild spending. I believe the American people get it. They are not in a bubble. They know we cannot continue this way. They are prepared to take some action, and we need to do it. If we fail to take action that is noticeable and significant, it would send the wrong message around the world. They would say: Even with this election change that occurred in Washington, you are still not changing your course.

I urged the President before the State of the Union Adderss to talk straight to the American people about the threat we face, and he did not do so. The first 37 minutes of his speech was about new investments he called on us to make. Investments, of course, is new spending. He never once took a few moments to explain to us the kinds of things Mr. Erskine Bowles said or Mr. Alan Greenspan said about how we are on an unsustainable course. He never even acknowledged we are on an unsustainable course. He never warned us that we are going to have to tighten our belts, just as Governors are doing, as mayors are doing all over America. When we do not have money, we do not have money. If we do not have money, we have to change course.

I was disappointed, as were some of our Democratic colleagues, that we have not had the kind of national dialog and ask the American people to receive somewhat less from the Federal Government than they have been.

Why do we have to do it? Because we are facing a crisis in good leadership, which means the leader has to tell the people what the threat is, what the danger is, and how we are going to get out of it.

I truly believe one of the highest duties of any Member of Congress or any leader in America is to protect the American people from foreseeable dangers. As Erskine Bowles said, this is the most predictable crisis we have ever faced. It is heading to a bad end-- hopefully, not as soon as they warned us it could happen so we will have time to get off this course. That is important.

The President said in his State of the Union Address that we will be living within our means. He did a radio address after he submitted his budget, and he said: We are going to be living within our means. My budget puts us on a track to prosperity. We are going to continue to invest, and we will be living within our means and paying down the debt.

Mr. Jack Lew, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, says we are going to be living within our means and paying down our debt. Basically, they are saying: Don't worry. You guys are getting all hyped up. We can still invest. We can still spend. Don't worry about it.

What do the facts say? We do not need political talk; we need a fact- based budget. We need fact-based discussions. The facts are we are not going to be paying down our debt in 10 years under the President's budget. We are not going to be living within our means.

What is the situation? His own budget is four volumes. In that plan it calls for spending levels that increase the total gross debt of the United States from $13 trillion to $26 trillion. Under that plan, the lowest single annual deficit that occurs is over $600 billion. The highest deficit President Bush ever had was 450. That was too high. The lowest he is projecting in his own numbers is 600.

Even more troubling, in years 7, 8, 9 and 10 of his budget the deficits are going up. It is almost $900 billion in the 10th year. How could they say that? How could the President look the American people in the eye and say my budget is going to cause us to live within our means? How could Mr. Lew say that?

I examined Mr. Lew in the Budget Committee. I asked Mr. Lew, the lowest deficit you are going to have is $600 billion. How is that living within our means? He said: Well, there is something called a primary deficit. I said: What? He said: The primary deficit. I asked: Well, what is that? He said: Well, you don't count interest.

You don't count interest. When a family living in tight times today is trying to squeeze their budget, do they not count their interest on their credit card or their mortgage payment? How can they say they are balancing the budget, living within our means and not count interest that we pay on the debt? All of the money we borrow we have to pay interest on. We pay interest on $14 trillion. If it doubles to 26, we will pay interest on that. Last year, our interest payment for the United States of America was about $208 billion in interest payments alone.

Under the President's budget, the interest payment in the 10th year is $844 billion, according to his numbers. This is the fastest growing item in the entire budget. They assume an interest rate at 3.5 percent. I don't think and most experts do not believe that is going to remain so low. This is historically very low. Historically, we average about 6 percent on our debt. So if it went from 3 percent to 6 or 7 percent, instead of $840 billion I guess it would be $1.9 trillion in interest payments. And that could happen if we don't get off this unsustainable path we are on.

I am frustrated about this. People say: Well, this CR business is only discretionary spending. It is only a small part of the overall budget. You shouldn't even attempt to fool with it. You are wasting your time. No, no, no. We are going to have to take every part of the budget and see what we can do to contain the growth in spending, or even reduce spending, to eliminate some spending that is totally worthless because we get no real benefit from it. We need to make our government more productive, lean, and efficient. We can do that.

We cannot continue on this course. The House of Representatives has passed a proposal, a continuing resolution, that would reduce spending through the rest of the fiscal year a total of $61 billion. We should accept that. That is not too much. It is probably not enough, but it is enough to count.

For example, it is a $61 billion reduction in baseline U.S. spending. If you reduce the baseline, even if next year you start going up 1 percent, that 1 percent will be on a baseline that is $61 billion lower. We have calculated the numbers, and over 10 years, that $61 billion, plus the interest you don't have to pay, will save the United States Treasury $860 billion. That is a good step. That does make a difference. People who deny it makes a difference are wrong. It is not going to savage

anybody, unless some of these programs aren't working, and then they ought to be zeroed out. So I want to make that point clear.

How much is the discretionary spending--the money we spend here on education, on highways, on things of that nature--defense? Discretionary nondefense is about 12 percent of the budget; 60 percent or so is in Social Security and Medicare, and they are growing at an unsustainable rate. We need to take steps now to save Social Security, to put Social Security on a path so our seniors can rely on it and our young people can have confidence that when they become senior citizens, they can rely on it also. It is not that difficult to do.

This has been talked about by editorial boards around the country, by experts and economists and professors and Congressmen and Senators for years. But the crisis is getting more real and acute now. Yet what did the President do? He said not one word about that in his State of the Union or his budget. His budget doesn't do anything about any of the entitlements. You can't cut discretionary spending and you can't cut entitlement spending. In effect, they are saying nothing is to be challenged. I know that is not a rational approach to the crisis we are in today.

We have to work together. We have Senators together right now-- Democratic and Republican--who are trying to figure out a way to make some alterations in the trajectory of our debt in America and to put us on a sound path. Democrats and Republicans are meeting--Senator Warner, Senator Chambliss, I think Senator Manchin and others are talking. They want to see us do something historic. I think we need to. But on the Budget Committee, Budget Director Lew said the President wasn't for any change. He took the view that Social Security doesn't have a problem; nothing is going to happen until 2037. Well, what happens then? It falls off a cliff, and that is assuming you count this paper that is supposed to be backing it up. But the money has been spent. We need to get Social Security on a sound course, and we can do it.

We have to work on Medicare, which is even more problematic and more dangerous. We need to get it on a sound course. We need to get our heads together on discretionary spending and contain our growth in discretionary spending, all of which is possible to do. All of that is possible to do. We have the opportunity to put our country on a road to prosperity and growth. We will need to do some things such as reforming our tax laws to more fairly raise revenue in a way that allows more growth to occur, because we need to have growth. We have to create jobs. We need to redo our energy policy and produce more American energy and hold the cost of energy down, not drive up the cost of gasoline and electricity on the American people.

Momentum, I think, is on the side of this. When Majority Leader Reid offered his pittance of a reduction--a $4 billion reduction--10 Democratic Senators defected. They didn't vote for it because they didn't think it reduced spending enough. We had three Republicans who didn't support the $61 billion. They thought it ought to go lower than that. So the momentum out there is to go further than we are going.

The American people get it. Our expert testimony from witnesses tells us that. We have seen Bill Gross, of the PIMCO Bond Fund, the largest fund in the world, say they are not buying any more U.S. Treasuries, basically calling on the United States to reduce our debt. He didn't have confidence in it. We need to get busy and do some things. It is going to have to be done in a bipartisan way, there is no doubt about it.

There are two choices, I believe, truly. One is a tougher road, but it is the road to prosperity. It can return us to the kind of leadership role in the world we need to be in. The other road is the road to decline. Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could, Julie Andrews sang. There is no free lunch. Debts have to be paid. Interest has to be paid on debts. This is reality. We don't live in a fantasy world. The time to stand and be counted is now.

This $61 billion reduction in spending through the last 6\1/2\ or so months of this fiscal year is a statement. It is actual, it is real, it will reduce the total indebtedness of the United States by $860 billion over 10 years. We could do more, but Congress being what it is, slowly coming around to the challenge, we are not ready probably to do more. But we need to do $61 billion. We do not need a compromise halfway, some $30 billion reduction in spending. I do believe that would show weakness on our part--a lack of resolve--which would not be a good signal for our fragile economy today.

We need to meet the test, to face the defining challenge of our time, and that is spending. It is the dominant issue facing America today, no doubt about it. It dwarfs every other issue. I wish it weren't so. When I came, in 1997, I guess we were still fighting over spending then, trying to contain spending, but by 1998 and 1999 we were in surplus. We balanced the budget. They started in 1994 and made some tough decisions. It is going to be harder this time. The hole is deeper, the demographics and the systemic threats to our financial order are greater than it was, there is no doubt about it. But we can do it.

I think it is our time to fulfill our duty--our duty to our Nation and to the American people to preserve America's heritage. We are standing at a time in this country where we have to make a choice. Let's make this choice. Let's do this 3-week extension, take it down $6 billion more over that 3 weeks, and then let's come back and do $61 billion and celebrate the first real step in decades to contain growth and spending. Let's promise this is the beginning. Let's promise that we are going to review all our spending, and we are going to do it in an honest, aboveboard way, fact based, not politics, not smoke and mirrors, or fantasy budgets, but real numbers facing real threats.

If we do that, I think the American people will be supportive. They were supportive in the last election. I believe they will be supportive again.

I thank the Chair for his leadership on these issues in the Senate. I think there is growing consensus here that progress must be made.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I rise to discuss H.J. Res. 48, a short term continuing resolution designed to keep the Government open through April 8th. If the Senate passes this resolution it will be the sixth short term continuing resolution this year. With its passage we will be more than half way through the fiscal year and still operating without a budget.

H.J. Res. 48 would fund the Government for an additional 3 weeks and would reduce the rate of operations for the Federal Government by an additional $6 billion. If adopted, we would be operating the government at a rate that is $51 billion below the amount requested by the administration for fiscal year 2011.

At this level, our spending on security programs will be $30 billion below the president's request and $21 billion lower on domestic spending. I would also point out to my colleagues that this is $31 billion below the so-called Sessions-McCaskill level which every member of the Republican caucus voted for last year.

The aggregate amount in this short term CR is the level proposed by the President as a compromise with the House Republicans and it is the same amount that was included in the amendment which I offered as an alternative to the House continuing resolution last week.

By agreeing to this level, the Senate will be $6 billion lower than current spending levels, but no lower than the President has recommended.

While several of my colleagues have complained that we simply have not cut enough Government spending, most of our subcommittee chairmen, and many Members of the Democratic caucus are beginning to think that we have already cut too much.

I believe the disparity in views can be partially explained by the information described below.

Recently the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report which notes that in comparing appropriations funding levels, the appropriate measurement should be expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars, normally referred to as real growth.

The Center's point is that the cost of Government operations increases each year by inflation. One cannot ignore the fact that if the price of goods and services rise by 1, 2 or 10 percent, the Federal Government's cost in providing those goods and services also increases by this rate.

When we fail to consider the effect of inflation on Federal discretionary programs in viewing spending rates, we are not accurately reflecting what it costs to run the Government. If utility prices are increasing by 5 percent, and if we don't budget the extra amount, we are forced to cut other programs to pay for the fact of life increase in our utility bills.

Longevity increases paid to civil servants and military pay raises are also fact of life increases that we cannot ignore. These bills have to be paid even if we aren't budgeting for their increased cost.

And. if we aren't basing our funding decisions on real costs, adjusted by inflation, we are in fact forcing Government to cut the services it provides even when it receives the same funding level as in the previous year. This isn't a political talking point; it is a mathematical fact.

The report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities measures the impact of inflation on the cost of Government. By its calculation using the CBO baseline, real spending approved for fiscal year 2011 to date is $34 billion lower than what was provided in fiscal year 2010, a cut of $18 billion in real security spending and $16 billion in domestic spending.

With this amendment we will be cutting domestic spending by another $6 billion in nominal terms, but more than that in inflation adjusted dollars.

Democrats have been chastised for only cutting $10 billion from fiscal year 2010 levels.

I would note that even in that comparison, which fails to take into account many fact of life increases, we should all understand that domestic spending is being cut by more than $14 billion, while security spending is slated to increase.

Furthermore we are now halfway through the fiscal year. Agencies have spent on average 50 percent of their funds. Each dollar we reduce at this time has the effect of doubling the cut made in programs for the rest of the year.

Our subcommittee chairmen recognize the difficulties that this level of spending will create for the programs they oversee. Accordingly, many of my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee are saying enough is enough, while those who are not as familiar with the details of budgeting complain that we should be able to cut spending more.

I ask the Senate to consider one more measurement. For domestic discretionary spending the total available for the whole year after the passage of this bill will be $400 billion. In FY 2010 we had $413.6 billion for these purposes. For nearly the entire first half of this year we were spending funds at a rate of nearly $410 billion.

Since the year is halfway over, approximately half of the $140 billion--or $205 billion--has already been allocated. In general, that means we will only have approximately $195 billion to cover the cost of operations for all of our domestic agencies for the rest of the year.

This rate of spending for the rest of this fiscal year is $23.6 billion below the rate we spent last year. And when we compound this, recognizing that inflation has increased the cost of operations for domestic programs by $16 billion a year according to the center on budget and policy priorities, we see that effectively for the remainder of the year we will be asking our agencies to operate at a rate which is $39.6 billion below what we gave them for the same level of goods and services that we supported last year. In real terms even under this short term CR, we will be requiring our agencies to absorb more than a 9 percent reduction in spending compared to a year ago.

Agreeing to a cut of this size this late in the fiscal year will be challenging for our agencies to manage. I believe our subcommittee Chairmen recognize this reality and it is why most of them are concerned that the level of cut that we are agreeing to is already deeper than is prudent.

Finally, I want to point out to everyone who is listening exactly where we are, and what we are really talking about in trying to conclude our negotiations on spending for this fiscal year. Those who talk about $3.7 trillion in spending and billions in unneeded funds are not dealing with the reality of this continuing resolution.

What the decision comes down to is this. After this resolution passes, our domestic agencies will have approximately $195 billion to meet all their needs through the end of the year.

This covers the salaries of people who monitor our food supplies, of our air traffic controllers who keep U.S. airspace safe, of our customs officials and U.S. Marshalls who monitor our borders. It includes the cost of all of our programs to support education from kindergarten through college, of those who ensure that our social security benefits are paid, and of thousands of other activities.

We have reduced their funding effectively by 10 percent.

How much more of this $195 billion which accounts for only about 5 percent of the $3.7 trillion budget; how much more of this spending can we really afford to cut before we are required to lay off food inspectors and shut down meat plants?

How much more can we cut before we have no funds to pay employees to monitor our borders and ports? How much more before we have to cancel the construction of dams, bridges, highways, levees, sewers, and transit projects and throw thousands of private sector workers onto the street?

It should not be forgotten that when we force either civil servants or private sector workers out of their jobs, they both add to the unemployment rolls. They will not be paying taxes any longer, but they will tax already stretched social services. Surely we can agree cutting jobs, whether public or private, is not the right approach to assist our slowly rebounding economy.

This is not a question of how much we can or should save from a $3.7 trillion budget, but a question of how much more our colleagues think we should cut from the $195 billion we have left to pay for our domestic agencies when we will be effectively asking the agencies to cut another 10 percent in spending over the next 6 months.

In the coming days as we try to resolve our differences on domestic spending for the rest of this fiscal year I hope my colleagues will keep these points in mind.

Having said that, I intend to support this CR because it will provide the funding level that the White House has endorsed, and because if it fails we would likely have to shut down the Government. That would be unacceptable.

I encourage all my colleagues, those who think we have cut too much and those who do not, to support this 3 week extension to allow our colleagues additional time to try and reach an overall compromise on discretionary spending for the rest of the fiscal year.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time in quorum calls be allocated on both sides.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, at my request, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has provided information on the potential impact of a fiscal year 2011 continuing resolution on the agency's long-term ability to effectively carry out its mission. In particular, they highlight potential impacts to their ability to provide accurate and timely weather and hazard forecasts and what the economic impacts may be on a State-by-State basis. I ask unanimous consent that their response be printed in the Record so that we may have a more informed debate.

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

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

Mr. President, you remember a year ago, before we passed the health care bill, everybody testified that Medicare was set to go into bankruptcy in 7 years? Do you remember back then, just a year ago, Medicare paid doctors when seniors got sick, and Medicare was focused on the quantity of care instead of the quality of care? Back then Medicare paid hospitals more if a patient got an infection that could have been avoided in the hospital, and they paid hospitals less if they avoided that infection in the first place because Medicare, whatever the cost was, paid it. And do you

remember back then that doctors would perform the same test over and over for the same patient because they had not been encouraged in a law to work together and to share results? That is why a year ago we passed the Health Care Reform Act. Now that act extends the life of Medicare by 12 more years until at least the year 2029.

Now, because of a change in that law, Medicare does not just care for people when they get sick, it is a more comprehensive health care system. Now the senior citizens receive an annual wellness visit. As part of the new Medicare law they can receive screenings and tips on how to manage or prevent conditions such as if they have diabetes or high blood pressure, and they do not have to wait until they get sick. In my State of Florida that is a lot of senior citizens. That is 3.2 million senior citizens.

Another thing this health reform law does is increase payments to hospitals for providing higher quality care. It gives hospitals the incentives to prevent avoidable illnesses, and the law improves the quality by increasing the number of primary care physicians.

In my opening statement I said hospitals were paid more if people got an infection in the hospital. We are now going to pay the hospital less. We are going to give the hospital an incentive not to have that kind of hospital that increases infections while the patient is there. Now doctors, under the new law, can track the patient care. They can make sure patients are seeing the right specialists, and they can help specialists avoid repeating the tests and the procedures.

There is a part that is just being implemented now in the health care bill called the accountable care organization. Combined with that will be electronic records. So, instead, the Medicare beneficiary, the senior citizen going to this specialist, this specialist, this specialist, and this specialist, and all of them getting Medicare fee for service, now they are going to be under the umbrella of an accountable care organization that may be in the private sector. It may be part of Medicare Advantage, in an insurance company that is managing the care for the Medicare recipient.

Whatever it is, it is going to integrate with electronic records, with the enhancement of primary care physicians, so that all of that duplication is not done and so that everybody is talking to everybody through the electronic records. So these doctors now are going to be able to keep track of patient care, to see the right specialists, and to help the specialists avoid repeating the tests.

Now, you remember a year ago when senior citizens had to pay a lot for their senior citizen prescriptions under Medicare? That meant that sometimes our seniors did not get the treatment they wanted because they could not afford it. Remember back then that Medicare covered the first $2,800 worth of prescription drugs, but then they did not get any Medicare coverage for drugs until they had exceeded $6,300.

If they did not have the money and were a senior citizen, I will tell you what was happening in that $3,000-to-$4,000 gap. The senior citizens, as some of the senior citizens in my State and in your State, Madam President, were doing without, or they were cutting their prescription drugs in half, or they were, unfortunately, making the choice between food or their medicine, something that in America, in the 21st century, you cannot believe is going on. But, in fact, it was and, unfortunately, it still is.

It is about to go out because we are now covering that gap that is known as the doughnut hole in the new health care reform bill. So this bill that was passed a year ago is closing the gap in that coverage, and in my State alone, that means that 235,000 Florida seniors received a check this year of $250 that helped cover the cost of those prescriptions in that last year of 2010. This year, in 2011, under the new law, the seniors who hit that gap called the doughnut hole are going to receive a discount of 50 percent off the cost of their prescriptions.

The gap under this new law is going to be entirely eliminated by the year 2020. It is going to be gradually phased in.

One year ago, a lot of folks talked about the effect of health reform on Medicare Advantage. Remember that? Remember all that criticism about how Medicare Advantage was going to go down and how it was going to get cut? When we started proposing some real improvements to Medicare Advantage, a lot of the opponents were saying it was going to kill the program. They said it was going to cut those benefits, and it scared a lot of our senior citizens.

The truth was, the insurance companies that provided Medicare called Medicare Advantage had a cushy extra 14 percent over Medicare prescription direct benefits. Medicare fee for service plus 14 percent is what the insurance companies were getting. Those insurance companies pocketed much of that government extra spending, and we were not, under the old law, holding those insurance companies accountable for enough on quality.

As a result of that health care reform bill, today that program is stronger than ever. Remember how they said it was going to get whacked and it was going to cause the seniors to go way down?

I can tell you, in my State, enrollment is up 6 percent in Medicare Advantage, and the premiums are down in Florida by 9.6 percent on Medicare Advantage. The new health care reform bill allows us to push back against the insurance companies that wanted to charge too much for Medicare Advantage. Just in my State, we were able to save Florida seniors $4 million in the form of extra health benefits or reduced out- of-pocket costs for their Medicare coverage.

Under the new law, we are going to be able to reward Medicare Advantage plans: Medicare insurance companies--we are going to be able to reward those that provide the quality plans, the high-quality care.

Remember back 1 year ago what was happening on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare? The standards to prevent that waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare were certainly not tough enough. How many times did we pick up the newspaper and we read about this guy had fleeced Medicare by opening a storefront that was a fake storefront and they started billing Medicare right and left and Medicare was paying it. As a result, the criminals were able to rip off Federal health care programs. A lot of that was because there was not an adequate enough review.

This new law has enforcement officials with new tools to prevent fraud before it occurs. This Senator had a part, a little bitty part, in that. The law gives States money to conduct background checks on long-term care providers and to educate seniors on fraud prevention, to educate them about those people who prey on our senior citizens and take advantage of them. My State has received in excess of $3 million thus far in order to provide that education on fraud prevention.

Because of the changes in this health care reform bill, Medicare is now stronger than ever. As it is being implemented over the course of the next several years, it did not take effect all at once. There is a lot of implementation in each year over about the next 4 years. As it does, Medicare is going to be stronger than ever. We certainly need to continue to protect and strengthen Medicare for all of our seniors.

On the occasion of 1 year ago, when this new law on health care reform became law--it is so complicated and there are mistakes in it and we will correct those mistakes over time. That is the good part about this being implemented over the next several years; that where there is a mistake, it can be corrected. If this goes all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, which I expect it will, and if the Court declares a part of it as unconstitutional, that does not mean the Court is going to strike down the whole law. But there are plenty of opportunities, where there need to be corrections as it is being implemented, that we can do that.

But I wished to come to the floor and point out some of these reforms that have already strengthened the Medicare Program, as well as providing a more favorable environment in which to receive health care coverage, particularly for America's senior citizens.

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

Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to discuss a pressing matter.

In a few hours, the Senate will take up another short-term continuing resolution to fund the government for fiscal year 2011. Earlier this month, I voted no on another short-term CR. From my perspective, the spending reductions provided in that bill were a start, but they sent a bad sign.

Washington needs to make clear, to citizens and to the markets, that it is serious about restoring the fiscal integrity of the United States. Don't get me wrong, any spending reductions are good spending reductions. But by getting into the habit of passing continuing resolutions rather than long-term funding bills with significant reductions in government spending, Congress and the White House send the signal that real spending restraint is impossible. The spending reductions in the last CR were a start, but they simply did not go far enough to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington. Unfortunately, in this opening volley in the debate over spending--to borrow from the former coach of the Arizona Cardinals, Denny Green--Democrats have shown that they are what we thought they were.

The rest of the world heard voters loud and clear last fall. Voters want spending restraint from Washington. Republicans told voters that Democrats could not be trusted on spending. And Democrats are still making our case.

One of my Democratic colleagues in the Senate has said that with respect to fiscal year 2011 spending reductions, I think we have pushed this to the limit. Last week, Democrats drew their line in the sand, and according to the Congressional Budget Office, they refused to reduce spending by any more than $4.7 billion. So in an appropriations bill that would spend over $1 trillion, Democrats could not find any more than $4.7 billion in reductions. The most they could come up with is a spending reduction of one-half of one percent? If Democrats consider these pathetic spending reductions pushing it to the limit, I would hate to see them really slacking off. In the Democrats' world, you are only truly stingy if you fail to increase spending. But failing to increase spending is not reducing spending, and we need to be reducing spending. American families are doing it at home, and we need to be doing it here. Pushed it to the limit? Give me a break.

There is no better time than right now to get serious about reducing spending. First, with each short-term CR that passes, it becomes less likely that we will get the full $61 billion in spending reductions that Americans want to see Congress adopt. Second, I am not going to sign onto the Democrats' strategy of short-term CRs that will jeopardize our national defense. We cannot be funding national defense in little 2- and 3-week blips. And third, we need to make it clear that discretionary spending matters. Democrats are fond of saying that the problem with our budget deficits is not discretionary spending. Well, it might not be the entire problem but it is a big part of the problem.

Democrats suggest that discretionary spending is a sideshow. The real money is in entitlements. Let me make one point here. Democrats today say they want to focus on entitlements, but you can bet the farm that today's budget-minded Democrats will start bludgeoning Republicans for any effort, no matter how modest, to get entitlement spending under control. The writer Andrew Ferguson got it right when he called these Democrats tough-choosers. They always talk about making the tough choices to get our spending under control, but the minute Republicans attempt to address deficits and debt, these same Democrats hammer Republicans for the coldheartedness.

Getting at entitlement spending requires bipartisan leadership and Presidential leadership. Yet the President, who has enough time to go on national television and fill out his NCAA bracket, is only committed to a serious conversation about entitlements. We need more than a conversation; we need leadership. But leadership on spending is wanting among Washington Democrats.

In the end, these Democratic tough-choosers won't stand strong on discretionary spending or entitlement spending. So let's focus on discretionary spending. It is a problem, and it is what the American people sent us here to address. Nondefense discretionary spending has grown by 24 percent over

the last couple of years. This needs to be rolled back significantly. People in Utah understand that returning us to 2008 spending levels is the responsible thing to do.

When Democrats tell you that discretionary spending does not matter, think of a person who needs to go on a diet. The person weighs 300 pounds and needs to radically change his lifestyle in order to get in shape. When a Democrat says that we don't need to worry about discretionary spending, it is like an overweight person saying there is no need to worry about the half-pint of cookie dough ice cream he eats every day because he has cut out his daily large pizza. If you want to lose weight, you can't have either. And if you want to reduce spending, you need to address all of it.

The fact is, we are up to our eyeballs in deficits and debt. For the third consecutive year, we will have a deficit of over $1 trillion. We blew $1 trillion on the stimulus and followed that up with a $2.6 trillion health care bill that we could not afford.

I appreciate the efforts of my Republican colleagues, both in the House and the Senate, as they try to reach an agreement on a spending bill that should have become law last year. But Democrats, who controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress, shirked their responsibilities. And now they are digging in, trying their best to thwart the will of the American people and hold the line on the spending that Democratic special interests demand.

Here is a basic question that should inform this debate. What do you do when you are spending more money than you make? Even a second grade student could tell you that you stop spending money. Democrats' subservience to the spending status quo would not pass a second grade math class. But do they really mean to say that they can't find anything to cut? For some, every new crisis--real or imagined--seems to demand a solution that only government can provide. But how often do we really look back with a critical eye and evaluate the effectiveness of all of these new government programs? I am afraid not nearly enough.

Thanks to the work of my colleague from Oklahoma, Dr. Coburn, the GAO recently identified possibly hundreds of billions of wasteful and redundant government spending. Government is littered with programs that can be reduced or eliminated. To that end, along with my colleague from Colorado, Senator Udall, I have introduced legislation that would create an anti-appropriations committee specifically designed to ferret out and cut government waste. And, of course, the ultimate fix for all of this spending is the balanced budget amendment, which I have introduced with my colleague Senator Cornyn, and is cosponsored by 31 of our colleagues. With a balanced budget amendment and with serious efforts by Congress, we can reduce spending in Washington, and we can restore constitutional limits on the size and reach of the Federal Government. This is no longer an ideological issue. Democrats might not know that yet. But spending is now an issue that transcends partisan allegiances.

Washington's reckless spending has now become a serious enough issue that financial markets are paying attention. Just last week, the world's largest bond investor divested all of its holdings in U.S. Treasuries. This is hardly a vote of confidence in the integrity of our Nation's finances. Yet what is the Democrats' solution? Let's reduce spending by $4.5 billion. To borrow from my friend and colleague from Iowa, Senator Grassley, this is a spit in the ocean.

Congress needs to send a signal to the world that it is serious about taking on government spending. Unfortunately, Democrats remain intent on being unserious. I will not play these games with our Nation's fiscal integrity. I look forward to a meaningful debate over a long- term fiscal year 2011 spending bill. In the meantime, I will not be supporting the CR when it comes up later today.

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.

Mr. President, I wanted to say a few words in support of the continuing resolution that the House of Representatives passed that we are going to be voting on here in another hour or so. It is H.J. Res. 48.

This is the second short-term funding extension to prevent a government shutdown while our congressional leaders are negotiating to try to reach an agreement on a long-term plan to keep our government working through the end of this fiscal year ending in September. The short- and long-term continuing resolutions under discussion are leftover work from 2010 to finish the job of funding the government, as I said, through the end of this fiscal year.

Notably, the spending cuts that have been achieved so far are really the first meaningful spending cuts the Congress has passed since the Deficit Reduction Act which was enacted in February 2006.

The House-passed 3-week CR or continuing resolution, which runs until April 8, includes $6 billion in spending cuts, which will keep the Congress on track to implement the overall $61 billion in spending reductions which are included in the long-term CR. Enactment of this short-term measure would mean that in just 5 weeks we will have cut $10 billion from this year's spending, and because of the adjustment in the baseline, that means that over a 10-year period of time, we will have saved the taxpayers $140 billion. Even in Washington, DC, that is real money.

The cuts in H.J. Res. 48 include funding rescissions, reductions, and program terminations. It also eliminates earmarked accounts within the Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, Financial Services, General Government, and Interior Subcommittee jurisdictions. It reduces or terminates 25 programs, for a savings of $3.5 billion, and

eliminates $2.6 billion in earmarked account funding--all in all, a pretty good day's work. While we could argue the spending cuts are not large relative to the overall budget, as I said before, they will amount to $140 billion in savings over 10 years.

I urge my colleagues to support this ability to cut funding-- something we do not often have the opportunity to do. Why do we need to do this? Well, we all know that, first of all, we have a gross Federal debt exceeding $14 trillion. In fact, we are piling up debt at such a fast rate, that soon, the administration says--and the administration has--the President has asked us to increase the debt ceiling of the United States because of the amount of debt we keep adding to that that exists.

Obviously, we are living beyond our means. We have to borrow $4 billion a day. Another way to look as it is that for every dollar we spend here, we have to borrow 42 cents of that from somebody else. About half of that borrowing occurs from foreign nations. If you want to look at how the debt relates to the American citizens, it is equal to $45,500 per American or, if you want to relate it just to those who pay taxes, it is $127,000 for every taxpayer in the United States. That is how big our debt is.

That money has to be paid back. This is not something that just is out there in the ether somewhere; our creditors will want to be paid back when the bonds we have issued become due. It is either going to be us here in Congress and the President deciding how to reorder our priorities so we get our fiscal house in order or eventually the bondholders are going to do it for us by demanding far higher interest rates in order to buy our debt.

It is not just a fiscal problem, it is a national security problem. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, has made the point: ``I believe that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security.''

Now, why does he say that? Well, there are two basic reasons why. If we do not have the economic capability of funding all of the national security requirements we have, we no longer are the world's leading power, able to project our authority throughout the world, our ability to help others as well as defend ourselves.

Second, when we get into hock with other countries, become their debtors, our ability to influence their decisions in the world is diminished. It is very hard for us to go to the Chinese, who hold a couple trillion dollars of our debt--I think it is a figure roughly in that neighborhood--and say: We demand that you support us in the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. It is pretty easy for them to say: Oh, really? How about that debt you owe us? How about if you pay a little higher interest rate on that money?

Well, of course, paying a higher interest rate would devastate both our Federal budget and our economy. So it impacts our ability to influence others around the world, thereby also influencing our national security.

Finally, there is the impact of the cuts we are making today, when we pass this legislation, on job creation in our country. There is a direct relationship between government spending on the one hand--going into debt--and job creation on the other. It is one of the reasons we have the high unemployment we have today. In fact, if you look at a chart, there is an absolute direct correlation between the unemployment in our country and the deficit spending and debt in our country. That is why we have to get that lower. When we reduce the amount of debt and we spend less, which is what this legislation will do, we can leave the money in the private sector, enabling private businesses to invest that money, including in jobs, thereby not only hiring more people but helping our economy to grow.

In his work, Stanford economist John Taylor has shown this direct correlation between these spending cuts and increased employment. He recently released an analysis, and it is titled ``Why a Credible Budget Strategy Will Reduce Unemployment and Increase Economic Growth.'' That is the title. It concluded that the spending cuts in H.R. 1, which is the underlying continuing resolution in the House, ``will increase economic growth and employment as the federal government begins to put its fiscal house in order and encourage job-producing private sector investment.'' He is, by the way, among 150 top economists in the United States who signed a statement arguing for a change in direction and immediate action ``to begin to slow government spending, reduce uncertainty, and support the creation of new private sector jobs.''

We can begin that process by adopting the legislation that is before us here in another hour or so. It will, as I said, cut an additional $6 billion, so that the total in this last month and 1 week will be $10 billion in spending cuts that will, over a 10-year period of time, save the taxpayers $140 billion--all in all, a good day's work.

I urge my colleagues to support the legislation.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.