S.Res. 185

Mr. President, I have been listening very carefully to the remarks of my friend about what we have to do, what is in front of us. Of course, he is speaking for the Republican Party for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

Let me say this: I want a balanced budget. That is what I want. I don't need an amendment to the Constitution to get me to vote for a balanced budget. What I want is for all sides to come together--that is what I want--and write a balanced budget. I want us to do it in a way that is responsible and do it in a way that is fair and do it in a way that protects our middle class, protects our kids, and stimulates economic growth by making smart investments and cutting out spending in areas we don't need it.

So all this yak about a balanced budget amendment--and I call it that, and I apologize if it sounds as though it is a derogatory term-- it is just so much talk. Let's get to it.

I think we ought to go back to the people and the party that was the only party and the only people to balance the budget in 40 years. I hate to break it to my Republican friends, but that is the Democratic Party. We are the ones who did it. We did it when Bill Clinton came into office. We did it after hard work. We did it after painful cuts. We did it with smart investments. We did it with everybody paying their fair share, and we didn't need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution to do it. It is a gimmick. We need a balanced budget, not a balanced budget amendment.

Let's look at what we did the last time this country ever had a balanced budget. Lucky for us, it wasn't that long ago. Lucky for us, a lot of us are still here who made that fateful vote. We didn't have one Republican voting for that budget, and when they came to the floor--I have all the quotes, chapter and verse--they said: This is horrible. It will never balance the budget. This is going to lead to a depression. This is the worst thing. But we know what happened. We not only balanced the budget, but we had a surplus. We not only had a surplus, but the debt

was going down so fast we thought we would never have to have Treasury bonds again. On top of that, we created 23 million jobs.

So I hope the public understands, when they hear Republican colleague after Republican colleague come to the floor saying we need to stay in all through July--fine with me. I will stay here through August. I will spend the night in the cloakroom, I don't care. Let's not talk about a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Let's talk about doing the hard work of balancing the budget. The way we do it, again, is to follow the lead of the plan that was laid out by President Clinton and which worked in the most amazing way beyond our greatest expectations.

What did we do? We looked at this deficit and we said: This is unacceptable. We went after programs that made no sense and we cut them. We either eliminated them or we cut them back. Then we asked: What are some investments we could make that would actually stimulate the growth of the private sector? I thought my friend, Senator Blunt, was right. That is what we need to do. We need to stimulate growth in the private sector. At that time, the investments were on the high-tech side--high tech, biotech. Today, clearly, it is clean energy. That is what the whole world wants. That is where we ought to be leading. That is what our President knows. So we cut out programs that don't make sense. We invest where it makes sense to create jobs and then guess what we do. We make sure we have enough revenues coming in to pay for the priorities.

I have news for my Republican friends. It is not that hard. Go after the billionaires. They can't get themselves to do it, can they? Go after the billionaires and the millionaires, the people who aren't paying what they should be paying. But when the House had its chance, what did it do? It allowed the biggest tax breaks ever to continue for the billionaires and the millionaires and they killed Medicare. Medicare is gone. It is becoming some kind of a voucher program, where we can imagine some 90-year-old woman who is suffering from disease has to now go out and try to find out where she can buy an insurance plan. Tell me who is going to cover her, A; and, B, tell me if she has the strength to do that; and, C, her Medicare benefit no longer goes to her. Who does it go to? It goes to the insurance company. That is the plan the Republicans passed in the House, and they cut everything that is near and dear to the hearts of the American people. In addition to Medicare, they cut education. They cut funding for clean air, clean water. Highways they cut by a third, and here they talk about jobs on the other side, private sector jobs. The highway bill creates thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs in the private sector. They cut that bill by 36 percent.

So when I hear my Republican friends talk about the importance of balancing the budget and they are talking about a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution--why don't they show us their balanced budget? Because the one they showed us from the House was such a disaster that they lost a congressional seat they held for eternity. It is easy to talk about a balanced budget amendment. It is harder to balance the budget the fair way, and that is what we have to do.

My friend, Senator Blunt, also talked about the importance of jobs. He is so right. I just ran for reelection. Jobs, jobs, jobs, the top three issues. Guess what. My Republican friends have filibustered every single jobs bill we brought to the floor. The last jobs bill is one I am very familiar with because it is a bill that came out of my committee. The whole committee voted, with one dissenting vote, for the Economic Development Administration to give seed money to areas in the country that need job creation and attract $7 of funds for every $1 of Federal money. It would have created 1 million jobs over 5 years. They filibustered it. They added amendments about the prairie chicken. They added amendments about things that had nothing to do with it, just to bring it down. They didn't even have--what is the word I am looking for? They didn't even speak against it when they voted against it at the end of the day. They didn't even come to the floor because they had nothing to say because it is a jobs bill, because it has passed every Congress since the 1960s. The last time it passed, it passed without a dissenting vote in the Senate in 2004 because the last President who signed it was George W. Bush. It is a jobs bill. They said no. Why? I go back to what their leader said. His top priority? Beating President Barack Obama. So we have to figure they are bringing every jobs bill down so this economy gets worse.

Let me tell my colleagues, it is not going to go down easy at home. It is not going to go down easy at home.

They killed a bill that Mary Landrieu brought out of her committee unanimously, a small business bill. It would have created thousands of small businesses. They voted it down. That bill was written by Warren Rudman, a Republican Senator. They voted it down. They filibustered it and voted it down. Why? They say jobs are their top priority. Why would they vote down a bill that was written by a Republican, that is passed without objection year after year after year? Why would they vote down another bill that was last signed by George W. Bush without a dissenting vote in the Senate? Why? Two jobs bills. Why? We have to ask ourselves why. Maybe they are willing to sacrifice jobs for political reasons. That is all I can come up with. I put that together with what Mitch McConnell said.

Now their big push is a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution--a lot of talk. Balance the budget, folks. We know how to do it. End the wars. That is $1 trillion over 10 years. Go after the millionaires and the billionaires who don't pay their fair share. That is another $1 trillion over 10 years. That is $2 trillion, right there. Go after the people who never pay their taxes. Go after the oil companies that are ripping us off at the pump and taking the highest profits ever. It is not hard to do. Yes, we are willing to cut some things that don't make sense. We could have a $4 trillion package pretty easily if we are willing to look at it in a fair way.

I heard our President today speaking to the Nation through a press conference, and he was very sweet about this issue. I was saying to Senator Durbin, as I watched him, he is explaining it to the people. Everybody has to give up something. If we want bipartisanship, that doesn't mean we all get what we want and somebody gets nothing. It means I give up some of the things I want and they give up some of the things they want. But we have declarations by the Republicans: We will never ever agree to any new revenues. Why? They just voted to eliminate the ethanol subsidy. That brings revenues. So why would they not take that to the table? How can they believe it is fair that billionaires sometimes pay less in terms of the effective tax rate than a secretary or a teacher or a nurse?

Come on. Come to the table. Don't come to the table with a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. That doesn't do anything to balance the budget. It is a lot of talk. Balance the budget. Put a little faith in the people who know how to do it who did it before.

I was proud to vote to balance the budget. I was proud to vote for a fair budget. I was proud to be here when we saw 23 million jobs come. That didn't happen because we just said: Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. End Medicare as we know it. It came because we were willing to look at what was working, what wasn't working, where to make the investments, where to make the cuts. We have to come to the table with everything on it. We have to say we are willing to listen to the other side. We need a fair plan. We have that as Democrats. We are not going to end Medicare. We are not going to hurt working people. We are going to do this in a fair way.

I hope the American people will put this together and connect all the dots. We have a Republican leader who has said on more than one occasion the most important thing is to defeat Barack Obama. We have a Republican Party that says it is for jobs and filibusters every single jobs bill that in the past they have broadly supported. We have Republicans walking out on the Vice President, taking their little teddy bear and their blankies and walking out of the negotiations because they didn't like the way the discussions were going. They walked out. Then, my friends on the other side--

and I thought Senator Blunt was very eloquent on the point. He said we need two things. We need to work on job creation in the private sector--and I just showed that despite the language, they voted everything down--and then we have to take uncertainty out of the equation. That was his big point. He is so right. How do we take uncertainty out of the equation? Do not play politics with the debt ceiling. Do not play politics with it. Because I have read what economists say, that if we do not do this right, and we do not agree, and the debt ceiling becomes a victim of this partisanship, Treasury bonds of the United States of America will be junk bonds--will be junk bonds.

So you want to play games? Go home, go on the corner, and I will play you a game. But do not bring it in here. It is too serious. This is the greatest country there ever was.

My parents, one of whom was born outside of this country, told me that I should kiss the ground of America. And how proud I am that I am here. But I will tell you, if I see people who are willing to turn U.S. Treasury bonds into junk bonds, I am going to do everything I can in my life to make sure those who have done this will not be nameless or faceless. It is too important.

The fact that we are even playing these games is ridiculous. The fact that we cannot come together and shake hands and say this budget deficit is terrible, we are going to deal with it, we are going to deal with the debt, we are going to do what we did under Bill Clinton, we are going to balance the budget, we are going to create a surplus--we can do this. You shake hands on it. You have the parameters of the deal. You pass a debt ceiling that is clean. You send a message to the market.

I used to be a stockbroker. When the President would sneeze, the market would go down 200 points. That is how the market responds to these things. We do not have to be playing with the stock market, with the full faith and credit of the United States of America.

It is pretty simple if everything is on the table. If all you want to do is destroy Social Security and Medicare, it is not simple. But if you are willing to talk to us, to have a fair taxation system, where the Warren Buffetts of the world are at least paying as much in an effective tax rate as a nurse, there is something to talk about here. But do not go walking out of discussions and going home because you did not get 100 percent of what you want. Life does not work that way.

I speak as a mother, a grandmother, a Senator from the largest State in the Union when I say this: You do not get everything you want in a negotiation. The Republicans control the House. The Democrats control the Senate. The Democrats control the White House. Correct me if I am wrong: two-thirds Democratic. In a fair world, we would get two-thirds of what we want. But we are going to give up more. It ought to be a 50- 50 deal. That is how you negotiate.

This is a tough time. If the other side thinks a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution balances the budget, it does not. You have to do the hard work of balancing the budget. You have to sit down in this tough time, in a tough, fragile economic recovery.

Remember when President Obama took over, we were bleeding 800,000 jobs a month. He had to handle two wars, unpaid for by George W. and his friends; a tax cut, unpaid for, to the richest people in America. He had to deal with a banking system that was frozen solid. He had to deal with an automobile industry that was going out of business. We had to work, and a few brave souls from the other side of the aisle worked with us, thank God, or who knows where we would be today.

And now, when we are finally moving out of this nightmarish economy-- not quickly enough--we have Republicans filibustering jobs bill, then coming down here and saying how important jobs are, and saying how important it is there is certainty, when they are playing games with the debt ceiling.

I am an optimist. That is why I stay in this world I am in, and I thank the people of California for giving me the chance so many times. But there is a saying back home: Are you on the level? Are you on the level when you are in negotiations? Do you want to have a deal? Do you want to fix it? Do you want to work with us? I do not know when I see them filibustering jobs bills, when I see them walking out on the Vice President, when I see them saying: Oh, that is off the table, and this is off the table, and that is off the table, when they do not run this country. They run the House. I wonder: Where are we going?

When I hear people saying: What is the big deal if we do not pay our bills, if we do not lift the debt ceiling and we cannot pay our bills, what people have to understand is, lifting up the debt ceiling is not about the future payments, it is about payments due.

I said we had a balanced budget under Bill Clinton--and a surplus. We went into deficit mode when George Bush took over and did the tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, and did not pay for it, and did a prescription drug benefit and never paid for it, did two wars and never paid for them, and we got into big trouble.

What is the solution of my friends on the other side? We are walking out of the negotiations because we cannot talk about taxing billionaires or taking away corporate welfare from oil companies. God forbid. It makes me wonder, really, who is on the level.

We can do this. We did it before. It is not that hard. We just need people of good will. I will say to my friends on the other side: Forget the reelection of Barack Obama. Forget the next Presidential race. You will have your candidate and we will have ours, and that is for another day. Right now we are in this Chamber. We are talking about how to have a credible plan to get this deficit down, to get this debt down, to strengthen our economy, to strengthen job creation, to keep the middle class vibrant.

I hear some Republicans now on the Presidential trail talking about doing away with the minimum wage. Can you imagine going back to the days when the minimum wage was $4 an hour? I remember when it was 50 cents an hour. It dates me a bit. That is what we hear from the other side. Their vision is not a good vision for the young people of this country who are looking forward to a life at least as good as that of their parents.

In conclusion, this is not a time to play games or reach for a political advantage. This is not a time to hold the future of this country hostage to some ideological agenda or some pledge that somebody signed to some political person outside of this Chamber. Pledges signed--it is not about that. It is about putting America first. It is about putting our families first. It is not about amending the Constitution with a balanced budget amendment. It is about balancing the budget in a fair way.

The Republican plan that passed the House that started with Paul Ryan did not balance the budget for 40 years. That is not a plan. We have to do better. But when you are willing, as they are, to say to millionaires and billionaires and trillionaires: You do not have pay your fair share, the revenues do not come in. What happens as a result, they have to kill Medicare--which they did in the House budget--they have to hurt education, make the Environmental Protection Agency a shadow of its former self.

I go out and look at polls. Eighty percent of the people want the EPA to stay out there and clean up the air and make sure we have safe drinking water. They want food inspections. They want air traffic controllers on the job. They want a next-generation air system.

This is the greatest country in the world. We do not have to walk away from our dreams. We just have to have everybody paying their fair share. If that happens, we can do this. And we need to end those wars that are so costly in so many ways. If we do those two things, we are on our way to a balanced budget. We are on our way to surpluses.

We can do this. The only thing standing in our way is politics. That is what it seems to me. If people think that more important than fixing this budget crisis is bringing down a President politically, we have a problem.

We take the oath of office, and we raise our right hand, we put our hand on the Bible, to be loyal to this country, to do right by this country. That is what we should be doing now.

If people want to stay in July, August, September, October, through Christmas, that is fine with me. But we have to have a plan that is fair. If we have a plan that is fair, we balance the

budget. We do it over time. We do it wisely. We create jobs. Interest rates remain low. We can do it because we did it before. The only people who have ever balanced the budget in the last 40 years have been the Democrats. That is a fact in evidence.

We have the path lights showing the way. It is fairness on spending; cut the things that do not work; fairness on taxation; make sure billionaires pay their fair share. We follow that path. We bring home our troops. We are golden. I think that is a pathway I would like to support.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I congratulate the Senator from Oklahoma on his remarks and participation in this debate.

Before long, we should have--whenever the majority leader decides--a vote on the Coburn amendment. We are in a position on this resolution that relevant amendments are in order. At the moment, we don't have any others. If we don't have others, then we will proceed to the final bill later this afternoon when the majority leader decides we should do that. We passed the bill this morning with 79 votes. I will have more to say about this resolution in a moment.

I wish to say something that is directly relevant to what the Senator from Oklahoma talked about. We keep

talking about duplication, which is an important part of our oversight responsibilities. Sometimes that leads to the elimination of government bureaucracies, which is a rare event.

Ronald Reagan once said a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life that we will ever see on this Earth. I had an example of that this morning, I say to the Senator from Oklahoma, in a Rules Committee hearing. The purpose of the hearing was to review the qualifications of three excellent men and women who were nominated by the President to serve on the Election Assistance Commission. But what I said at the hearing and what I would like to say on the floor--with all due respect to those excellent nominees--instead of considering the nominees, we should be abolishing the Commission because it doesn't have anything to do. It has finished its work and it ought to be abolished.

The Election Assistance Commission was commissioned in 2003. Since then, the Rules Committee didn't have one single oversight hearing on the Commission. My predecessor asked for an oversight hearing, but we didn't have one. I asked for one earlier this spring, and we didn't have one. At a time when we are borrowing 40 cents out of every $1 that Washington spends, we should not have been there this morning considering new appointments to a commission that is out of work. We should have been there considering recommending to this body that the Commission cease to exist.

This is why. It was created by the Help America Vote Act in 2002. It was authorized for 3 years and given certain tasks. The primary task was to distribute Federal payments to the States to help them upgrade their voting systems. We appropriated $3.2 billion for these payments. That has been distributed. Given our current financial situation, it is very unlikely that any more Federal payments will be forthcoming. We don't have any more money for that purpose. President Obama seems to agree with this, since in his last two budgets he has requested no funds for this purpose.

The Commission was also directed to develop voluntary voting system guidelines and a testing and certification program for voting machines. The actual work involved in this process is performed by another agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which develops the guidelines, and the independent laboratories that conduct that testing. So in the spirit of Senator Coburn's comments, we don't need two agencies assigned the same responsibility.

Finally, the Commission was to act as a clearinghouse to collect and distribute information on best practices in election administration. Yet the intended beneficiaries of this service don't seem to have much use for it. The National Association of Secretaries of State--every State has one--a bipartisan organization made up of our country's chief State elections officials, has twice voted in favor of a resolution calling for abolition of this agency, the Election Assistance Commission.

So here we have a classic example of: I am the government. I am here to give you help you don't want. As a former State official myself--I was Governor of Tennessee--I have a little bit of a bias. I don't see the need for a Federal clearinghouse of best practices for secretaries of state. I don't know why the secretaries of state themselves can't do that. When I was a Governor, I didn't need a Federal agency telling me the best practices of the Governor of Oklahoma so I could use them in Tennessee. We had regular Governors' conferences, and we got to know each other pretty well. If Governor Graham of Florida had a good idea about education, I borrowed that. If I had a good idea on education, Governor Clinton borrowed that, and it worked pretty well. We didn't have to fly to Washington to have a clearinghouse.

So the tasks of this Commission have either been completed or can be performed by more appropriate entities. This is in the spirit of Senator Coburn's amendment. The Commission did its job. We should thank the Commission and their staff for their service.

But if the completion of their appointed task isn't enough of a reason to close it down, the Commission also appears to have a serious management problem or two. Though its mission has dwindled, its staff has grown. It has less to do but has more people doing it. The Commission had a staff of 20 in 2004. Last year, it had three times that many. It had 64 people--more staff needed for less work.

I am sure there are some very good people there. There must be, because the average salary--according to Congressman Gregg Harper of the House of Representatives--for all the members of the Election Assistance Commission is over $100,000 a year. This year's budget submission from the Commission proposes spending $5.4 million to manage $3.4 million worth of programs. Does that make any sense, when the cost of overhead and staff salaries exceeds the programs they have to administer? Clearly, something is wrong.

That is precisely the kind of small thing in the big picture we are dealing with that adds up and up and up and creates an environment in which we seem to be content in spending more and more and borrowing 40 cents of every $1 we spend.

Finally, the Commission has an unfortunate history of hiring discrimination. The Office of Special Counsel found they engaged in illegal discrimination when, during the search for a general counsel, an employment offer was made and then withdrawn when the Democratic Commissioners discovered the applicant was a Republican. This resulted in a substantial financial settlement being awarded to the applicant; thereby forcing taxpayers to bear the cost of the illegal acts of Commissioners. Amazingly, it has been reported that in a subsequent interview with another applicant for the same position, one of these Commissioners again tainted the hiring process by asking the applicant what the Department of Labor has termed ``inappropriate questions about his military service.''

Apparently, the Commissioner didn't want Republicans or members of the military working at the Commission. The Department of Labor has reportedly found the applicant's claim of discrimination to be meritorious and, if not resolved, this case may be referred to the Office of Special Counsel.

I said this morning that the three men and women whom President Obama nominated seem to have exceptional backgrounds, and they are not to blame for any of these incidents. But what I also said was, since they seem to be exceptionally good nominees, maybe we should find a commission where there is something for them to do, instead of a commission that has finished its job and where we are just perpetuating it with employees who, on average, make $100,000 a year in salary, according to Congressman Harper.

Even if we were to assume these nominees before us could right the ship and correct the problems, the question remains: Where would the ship sail, and why would they make the trip? Do we need the Commission, with its main job completed? Couldn't any remaining duties be better performed somewhere else? Can a government program ever be terminated?

As I said at the beginning of these remarks, Ronald Reagan once said: A government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life that we will ever see. Shouldn't we try to use this opportunity to prove that Ronald Reagan was, in that case, wrong?

I congratulate the Senator from Oklahoma for his work on duplication. This isn't the first time. This is one of the many times he has spoken and acted on the subject. I offer this example of the Election Assistance Commission as one small step we could take in the right direction by, in the appropriate way, canceling the Commission instead of confirming three new nominees to it.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I believe Senator Harkin is coming in the next few minutes. In the meantime, I thought I would comment on the legislation that has been before the body since late last week--to reduce the number of Senate confirmations of Presidential nominations, so the Senate can exercise its constitutional duty of advice and consent more effectively.

This all goes back to our U.S. Constitution, article II, section 2, which says that one of the most important duties of the Senate is ``its advice and consent responsibility.'' That is one of the well-known functions of the Senate. Many have written about advice and consent.

The Constitution says the President shall nominate, with the advice and consent of the Senate, ambassadors, ministers, judges, and other officers of the United States. Today, there are about 1,400 of those officers. When President Kennedy was President, there were about 286, more or less. Under President Clinton, there were about 914, more or less. It continually goes up. This includes a large number of part-time advisory positions, such as the Library Advisory Board and a variety of other boards. That is why the Founders put into the Constitution another provision, which says Congress may, by law, vest the appointment of such inferior officers as they think proper in the President alone, in the courts of law, and heads of departments.

It is up to us to make sure we don't trivialize the constitutional responsibility we have, so we define the number of men and women whom the President nominates, who require advice and consent, and we define the ones who don't. We have not done a good job deciding which ones did not. Over the last few days, the Senate has decided to remove 169 of the 1,400 nominations from the advise and consent requirement. It is debating, right now, removing another 272 full-time or part-time positions and putting them in an expedited process, so we will have affected 450 or so of the 1,400 nominations, either by removing them from advice and consent or speeding up the process. This will permit us to focus more attention on the job we are sent to do, which is to do a good job of evaluating the most important offices.

Just one indication of how we have been trivializing the responsibility to decide who does deserve advice and consent and who doesn't is that only about 3 percent of all the Presidential nominations in the last Congress actually were deemed important enough to have a rollcall vote on the floor of the Senate. Ninety-seven percent were deemed not important enough. Of course, they were not. They were valuable people, but they were part-time advisory board members who were part of a board where an executive director, for example, already reported to someone who was confirmed by the President.

We had examples of positions being confirmed by the Senate who reported to someone, who reported to someone, who reported to someone, who reported to someone else--all of them confirmed by advice and consent. So we made a modest step in the direction of helping us execute and exercise our Constitutional duty under article II, section 2, in a more effective way.

This resolution we are debating, unlike the bill this morning, does not remove one single person from the right of advice and consent. It expedites it in the following way: The President's nomination would come to the desk here--and this is after the President has done all his vetting--and then the relevant committee, say, the Finance Committee or the Judiciary Committee, would go through its usual exercise of asking the nominee to answer questions and provide all that information. When that nomination first comes here, that information is listed on the Senate Executive Calendar that we Senators and staffers read. Then, when the information is all gathered by the relevant committee, that is indicated. Then there is a full 10 days for all of us to look at that. If a single Senator says he or she would like for this nominee to go on to the committee for a hearing and then for the traditional markup, that happens. But if all 100 Senators say they looked at the information and it is not necessary to go to that extra time, expense, and delay, then it moves to the Executive Calendar, and the majority leader can bring it up whenever he or she wishes.

What we have done is, in approximately 450 cases, we have affected the 1,400 nominations that are subject to advice and consent. We have either eliminated the requirement or we have expedited the process and made it possible for us to focus more attention on those deserving the most important attention.

One other aspect--and I see the Senator from Oregon here and perhaps he wishes to speak, so I will conclude my remarks with this. There is one other important aspect that we deal with here. It may be the most important thing we can do. The first one I discussed was slowing down the trivialization of the Senate's advice and consent constitutional duty. That is what the first part of what we are doing does. The bill did that, which we have already passed. The resolution does that, which we are now debating.

The second aspect that was dealt with in the bill this morning is dealing with the phenomenon of what I call innocent until nominated. We have developed a practice in this town of making or having the President select an otherwise unsuspecting distinguished citizen from Sioux City or Nashville or Bangor or Sacramento and after going through an FBI check and other things, nominated that person for some position deserving of advice and consent. By the time that person makes his or her way through all the executive vetting process, by the time people pore over the tax returns and answer multiple questions--often the same question asked in different ways--they have likely got an inaccuracy in there somewhere. Then their name is sent up here and the committee investigates them and asks them many of the same questions and they might have an inconsistency. Then they show up for a publicized hearing with their family and, all of a sudden, they are made out to be a common criminal because they made a mistake trying to decipher these forms.

A former majority leader of the Senate, Howard Baker, and his wife,

former Senator Nancy Kassebaum, went to Japan a few years ago as President George H.W. Bush's nominee as Ambassador to Japan--Senator Baker was. All of us knew Senator Baker. He was voted by the Senate the most admired Senator by the Democrats as well as the Republicans when he was here. All the Senators who were here at the time knew Senator Kassebaum, his wife. Yet Senator Baker told me he had to spend $250,000 in legal and accounting fees just to make his way carefully through the nomination process, with all the executive vetting and all the vetting the committees did, just so he would not make a mistake and just so he would not be subject to this ``innocent until nominated'' syndrome.

The bill we passed this morning simply establishes a process. If the bill should pass the House and be signed by the President, then we would have a working group of people appointed by the Senate--people appointed by the executive branch--and we would work together to try to simplify the executive forms and the congressional forms that we use to see if we can have a smart form, a simple form that perhaps we could all use; and then at least, for the most part, a nominee, when nominated by the President, could fill out a single form, which could then be used by all of us who need to know basic information, such as what was their income last year. We can ask the question: Do we need to know every single residence address they ever had in their life if they are going to be on an advisory board, for example, for the United States?

That practice will have to be done with respect to the constitutional separation of powers. The executive branch will have to create its own documents. The Senate will have to create its own. If we work together and create a smart form--and Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman have made important contributions to the process of how candidates are vetted, and the forms--we will not only have slowed down the trivialization of the Senate's duty of advice and consent by doing a better job deciding who not to confirm, we will also have reduced the phenomenon of innocent until nominated, which has not only made it difficult for Presidents to staff the government, delayed their ability to form a government, but unnecessarily harassed otherwise honorable men and women who are asked to serve their government.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, millions of Americans are hurt economically. Yet so much of the debate on the Senate floor seems to be Democrats and Republicans fighting with each other or rehashing old arguments. It seems almost as if there is a default strategy: either pound on the other party or recycle some of the stale positions that have been repeated again and again.

Senator Coats and I believe that none of this really does anything to help the millions of Americans who are out of work or get the economy moving again. The two of us have been coming to the floor of the Senate, and will continue to do so in the days ahead, to talk about what really works, what really works to get the American economy moving again.

An example would be tax reform, tax reform like the sort of tax reform that was passed when Democrats and Ronald Reagan teamed up. That tax reform effort helped to create 6.3 million new jobs in the 2 years after it was enacted. No one can say there is any one factor that alone creates millions of new jobs, but it certainly didn't hurt. Certainly, it helped to set the economic climate, Democrats and Republicans coming together. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the 2 years after that kind of bipartisan effort, the country created 6.3 million new jobs.

It is not going to be possible, of course, to pass comprehensive tax reform between now and August 2. But Senator Coats and I have said that as part of these budget negotiations, as part of the effort to deal with the budget in a comprehensive way and to deal with the debt ceiling issue, it ought to be possible to lock in for consideration in the fall and in the remainder of this Congress the kind of bipartisan effort that we saw a quarter of a century ago that represents an idea that really works; an idea with a proven track record of working to boost the economy that has been bipartisan, where Democrats and Republicans, instead of spending their time pounding on each other, say: Let's come together and eliminate some of these ridiculous special interest tax breaks which are limiting our ability to grow and create family-wage jobs.

Senator Coats and I are going to spend a few minutes this afternoon talking about the impact of real tax reform on jobs and economic growth. I would just like to start by thanking my friend from Indiana. He has been a pleasure to work with. But his reaction to that kind of approach, where we focus on really what works, especially between now and August 2 in these budget negotiations, Democrats and Republicans having an opportunity to look at spending and look at growth to make sure that out of those negotiations by August 2 there is a way to lock in for the fall and the remainder of the Congress the effort to promote bipartisan tax reform and get our economy growing again--I would be interested in hearing my colleague's reaction to that.

Mr. President, I thank my friend. We are going to talk through some of the specifics of why this is important as a way to boost the economy. In the beginning, what I would like to just lay out is that as we have seen these discussions go forward over the last couple of months about boosting the economy, invariably the fight comes down to the question of whether we ought to spend more in order, particularly in a consumer-driven economy, to create jobs and put our folks back to work.

What Senator Coats and I have described is an opportunity and a way that is deficit neutral. As my friend from Indiana knows, this has been demonstrated by our analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation. This is a deficit-neutral strategy for putting our people back to work because by eliminating some of these special interest tax breaks--and thousands and thousands of them have gotten into the Tax Code over the last quarter century--we can take those foolish tax breaks off the revenue roles and use those very same dollars to create what we call red, white, and blue jobs to put people back to work in the manufacturing sector in Indiana. Of course, the President and I know how deep the hurt is in our home State.

I wanted to begin this by way of making sure that folks saw last month's job report as a wake-up call that would indicate that current economic policies are not creating the jobs our citizens and our economy need and would specifically be willing to look at new approaches, new approaches in the sense that they be genuinely bipartisan but proven in the sense that they have a track record.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the national unemployment rate at 9.1 percent in May. As the distinguished Presiding Officer knows, we have parts of rural Oregon with unemployment that probably, if you were to calculate the real rate of unemployment, is over 20 percent. So the economic hurt is enormous. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that of almost 14 million Americans who want to work but cannot find jobs, almost half of them have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. Of the employed, 8.5 million have to settle for part-time jobs. Among the hardest hit are young people, the people who are trying to get in the workforce, are anxious to show that they have good work habits and discipline but cannot find work.

We lost 8.5 million jobs between the worst of the fiscal crisis and the end of 2010, and only a small portion of those jobs has been created. Moreover, many of the new jobs that have been created do not pay as much as the jobs that were lost, in particular, the loss of manufacturing jobs. So many of our citizens, when they can get alternative employment, end up with wages far less than what they made in manufacturing. In addition, income inequality is growing because high school graduates have a jobless rate twice that of college graduates.

With millions of Americans struggling to find jobs, Senator Coats and I wish to spend a few minutes to talk about how we can come together, and talk about ways to grow the economy. I have mentioned there is a proven track record in terms of tax reform helping. Because of the historic tax reform in 1986 between populist Democrats such as former Congressman Dick Gephardt and the late President Reagan, we had 6.3 million new nonfarm jobs created in the 2 years after that law was passed. I believe it can happen again.

The Manufacturers Alliance forecasts that Senator Coats and I, with our legislation, might have the opportunity to create nearly 2 million new jobs. The Heritage Foundation came in with the same sort of analysis.

We can never lose sight of the need to create jobs in an economy such as this. I wish to bring my colleague into the discussion at this point because he has done so much work, not just in Indiana--where they have, to their credit, focused on a manufacturing strategy for our country-- but as part of this bipartisan effort, and get his sense of why the approach we are advocating today could be an economic boost for our country.

Mr. President, I am glad Senator Coats made that last point, especially because it is getting hardly any discussion here in the Senate, and that is with respect to the weak consumption we are seeing in our country, particularly middle-class folks who have the sense that there is not going to be economic security right now. They do not have as much money in their pockets as they would like. They have suffered huge shocks that have caused them to pull back from some of the purchases they would otherwise make.

The Presiding Officer of the Senate has done outstanding work with respect to trying to protect middle-class people who lost all this equity in their homes. That usually serves as some kind of collateral for folks with a need to get a loan. That has not been there. We have had folks underemployed in much of the workforce.

What we see is that in our economy, which has always been consumer driven, as Senator Coats has pointed out, we are not seeing the kind of demand from middle-class folks for goods and services. They are not going out and buying the refrigerator they might wish to have for their family. They cannot get a computer for their child. They are not able to make the purchases that are so important in a consumer-driven economy.

What Senator Coats and I are saying is that as Democrats such as Dick Gephardt and former President Ronald Reagan said a quarter century ago, they want to come together and put money into people's pockets. They want to make sure the middle-class folks--who are just getting clobbered, as we have seen for months now--would be in a position to get back into the economy and start demanding some of those goods and services that are so important for long-term economic well-being.

Senator Coats and I have sought to put more money into people's pockets by repealing the alternative minimum tax. We had an excellent hearing in Chairman Baucus's committee yesterday on simplification.

Get this. The middle-class person is now essentially going through bureaucratic water torture on this alternative minimum tax. They have to fill out their taxes twice on two separate systems. What Senator Coats and I have said is let's repeal it. That will put some money back into the pockets of middle-class folks. As Senator Coats has pointed out, middle-class folks won't have to spend all that money paying out for accountants and all kinds of other people, trying to fill out all those alternative minimum tax forms. We will put some money into the pockets of the middle class that way.

Senator Coats and I also advocate nearly tripling the standard deduction for all our taxpayers, which again can be a real boon for the middle-class consumer, which can help us spur consumer demand and, with that, job creation.

I am very glad Senator Coats has zeroed in on the question of the consequences of underconsumption by consumers.

I think I would next probably like to have my friend go through some of the benefits we wish to provide to small business. We all know that small business is the job creator, the job engine of our economy.

If Senator Coats would outline some of the benefits that on a bipartisan basis we ought to be zeroing in on with respect to small businesses, I think that would be very helpful.

Mr. President, I thank my friend from Indiana. He makes a number of important points we want to make sure are considered as the discussion about taxes goes forward. For example, Senator Coats pointed out on this question of changing just the corporate tax alone--what are essentially C corporations--the reality is the vast majority of businesses in this country are not C corporations; they are partnerships, limited liability corporations, sole proprietorships. They are about 80 percent of the businesses in this country. So Senator Coats has made the important point that to bring about tax reform, we can't just go with corporate taxation. We have to get at the needs of millions and millions of these small businesses.

Chairman Bernanke was asked about this in the Budget Committee, and he said specifically that it was important to do comprehensive reform in order to generate the best opportunity for economic growth and job creation rather than corporate reform alone. Senator Coats also makes an important point, as we wrap up, about the temporary nature of our Tax Code and how frustrating that is to American businesses that need to have some capacity to predict what is ahead to generate jobs.

The Wall Street Journal reported the other day that the only thing permanent about the American Tax Code is that it is temporary, and we have more than quadrupled the number of temporary provisions in the Tax Code in just the last few years. That uncertainty discourages businesses from investing in growth and hiring, as Senator Coats has noted, and that is why it is going to be important to look at the Tax Code in a comprehensive way, both for individuals and corporations, so that going forward, all our taxpayers have some sense of predictability and certainty about what their tax treatment will entail.

My last point is, I recently had a chance to talk to one of the veterans of the 1986 tax reform debate, and we visited about some of the circumstances involved in that historic reform and some of the challenges ahead. When he was done, he said: What in the world is holding people up from getting going on this? What is really holding everybody up? We know what we need to do. There have been commissions, a whole host of them. President Obama had an excellent one that agreed with much of what we have talked about this afternoon. President George W. Bush had a commission that was chaired by several of our former colleagues. I thought much of their proposal was on point. That is why what one of the veterans of that 1986 reform legislation had to say to me about ``what is holding people up'' is so important.

As Senator Coats noted, we are not going to do comprehensive tax reform between now and August 2. Everybody understands that. But there is absolutely no reason--in order to come together in the Senate with an approach that doesn't add to the Federal deficit, with the proven track record of helping to advance economic security--that between now and August 2, as part of these budget negotiations, there is no reason in that agreement we shouldn't lock in a strategy for getting on to tax reform in the fall and in the remainder of this Congress.

So I thank Senator Coats. He mentioned Senator Gregg. I feel so fortunate to have had two colleagues--and we were in the House together--having an opportunity, Senator Coats and I, to work together on this in the Senate. I think we have always believed that we ought to focus on what works rather than the default strategy of rehashing old arguments and just having these partisan fights. So I thank Senator Coats. We will have our eye on the effort between now and August 2 to make sure tax reform gets the place it deserves for the fall and the remainder of the Congress.

I thank my friend from Indiana.

Mr. President, with that I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak in favor of the balanced budget amendment.

Let me offer a thought or two as I get started today.

I had the privilege at one point in my political life to serve as the Governor of a great State, the State of Nebraska. I served in that capacity for 6 years. In that capacity, as in virtually every other State, we had a provision in our constitution, and it was not a gimmick at all. It was a very serious statement. It said, in a very straightforward way: Thou shalt have a balanced budget. It was as simple and as straightforward as that.

The other interesting thing about my State of Nebraska is that in addition to having that constitutional provision--and keep in mind, part of my oath of office, as Governor, was to uphold that constitution--but part of that was a requirement, a mandate, that we could not borrow money. In fact, I think the limitation, if I am not mistaken, was $50,000 or $100,000.

I would say to people back home, when I was Governor, that probably was a pretty handsome sum of money more than a century ago when that constitution was passed, but, in effect, today what that meant was that when we got down to the business of balancing our budget, as required by the constitution, I did not have the ability as Governor to issue bonded indebtedness to go out and borrow against the full faith and credit of my State to balance that budget.

In fact, I will tell you today, I am not even certain the State of Nebraska has a bond rating because it is unnecessary. Very simply, we followed a philosophy that we would not spend money we did not have. So we did not issue bonds to build highways. If we did not have the money in the bank and planned for where the money would come from in the years ahead--if it was a multiyear project--we did not do it. We did not build them.

Many who may be listening to this will say: Well, my goodness, how would that work? Here in this country we have $14 trillion worth of debt. Where would we be without all of that borrowing? In this last economic recession, the unemployment rate of Nebraska never rose over 5 percent. Today the unemployment rate in our State is 4.1 percent.

It never occurred to me that I should ever argue to the people of that great State that if they were successful, they should be punished for that success. Very much the opposite. I said: I want you to come to Nebraska, I want you to create your jobs here, and we are going to do everything we can to be your partner in that effort.

The current Governor has followed that same philosophy, and we often hear about those Governors who are doing a great job. I know of one; his name is Dave Heineman. He is the Governor of the State of Nebraska. He has balanced his budget, he has not borrowed money, and he has, during one of the toughest economic times since the Depression, under 5 percent. It is 4.1 percent today. He was my Lieutenant Governor.

At the national level, we did not follow that philosophy. I believe we are now at a crossroads because for decade after decade Washington has promised too much. It has said over and over again we can be all things to all people. But the real truth of it is, it never said how it planned to pay for it. The result is, we face a financial crisis unlike any financial crisis that maybe our Nation has ever seen. Do not believe my words. This is being studied by the hour, by the minute, by the second.

A recent Congressional Budget Office report confirms the assertion. Last week the CBO released its latest economic forecast. It is kind of a report of where we are headed as a nation, and it is grim by even the most liberal economic point of view.

The Congressional Budget Office now predicts that debt held by the public will exceed 100 percent of our gross domestic product by 2021, if we continue the current policies. Twelve months ago, when they released the report, it was equally as grim--well, I should not say equal because the number I have just cited got worse by 10 percent in just 12 months. Our debt is rising exponentially, exceeding 200 percent by 2037, and at that point we might as well just stop making the projection. Just think about this: Our great Nation in 25 years will have so much debt that the Congressional Budget Office cannot compute it.

Erskine Bowles has said many times before that this is a crisis that is predictable. He was one of the Chairs of the President's own deficit commission. CBO went on to say that ``growing debt also would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis during which investors would lose confidence in the government's ability to manage its budget and the government would thereby lose its ability to borrow at affordable rates.''

It is Erskine Bowles who has said this crisis is so predictable. CBO also found that in the next 25 years, Federal health spending will increase by 50 percent as a share of GDP while Social Security spending will increase by 20 percent. What is happening is predictable.

My generation--I am right in the middle of the baby boomers--is starting to access all of the promises that have been made. It is no longer an option for us to just simply say: A little nip and a little tuck here, and we all give a little, and it all works out. There is a mountain of debt clearly ahead of us, and we can either do course corrections or, believe me, we will perish.

I have no qualms about saying that both parties made mistakes over the years. This is a bipartisan problem. But for some to advocate even more stimulus spending--which we heard in the last couple of weeks, repeating the misguided policies of the last 2 years, adding more debt on more debt on more debt--defies logic and common sense.

If stimulus spending were the answer, our economy would be firing on all cylinders today. But, unfortunately, even with that massive spending plan, that stimulus plan of $1 trillion when we add the interest, it has not yielded the results.

Remember the President's promise: We will keep unemployment under 8 percent. We just have to bite the bullet and spend all of this money. And here we are today with unemployment almost locked down at 9.1 percent. Just look at where our country was 2 years ago.

In January 2009, the debt was $10.6 trillion. I would argue that was far too much 2 years ago. Today, it is over $14.3 trillion and growing exponentially. We are talking about a 35-percent increase in our Nation's debt in 2 short years.

To put these numbers into perspective, today each U.S. citizen would have to pay $46,000 to pay off our national debt. That is $11,000 more than 2 years ago. Each American family--and I hope you are sitting down when you are listening to this--each American family would need to write a check for $127,000 just to square up the books, just to get the debt paid off. That is not even addressing the spending that is out of control today.

Looking at unemployment, in January 2009 the unemployment rate was absolutely unacceptable at 7.8 percent. Today, after almost $1 trillion of stimulus spending, unemployment has grown 17 percent, with almost 2 million more Americans who cannot find work notwithstanding their best efforts.

Maybe somebody is going to come down here and say: But there is other news you should be looking at. Well, I looked at some other news regarding health care costs. Contrary to the proponents of the health care overhaul, health insurance premiums for the average family have gone up 19 percent since 2009.

Put simply, doubling down on deficit spending has failed our economy. It has failed our American people. In fact, the President's plans have made it worse. So why would we want to repeat the same mistake? I thought raising the

$14 trillion debt limit was actually about reducing spending. Why would we arrange for a stimulus plan in order to raise the limit? Why would we be arguing for larding it up with more stimulus spending? When will we learn this hole we have dug for this great country requires us to quit digging?

There is no doubt that our debt problem is the defining issue of our time. I see two paths. We can continue to run up trillion-dollar deficits, operate the government with no budget--which has been standard fare for the last 790 days--double down on failed policy objectives that did not make any sense 2 years ago and have not improved with time, or we can be frank and candid and honest that we have promised more than our economy can afford to generate.

I have heard the arguments: Just tax those rich people some more. In fact, I spoke about that soon after I came to the Senate. There was this idea that if a person made over $250,000 a year, then they should be taxed more.

So I said: OK, if that is going to be the new mantra around here, just to balance the budget for a year, what would the effective tax rate have to be for everybody making over $250,000 just to balance the budget? I am not talking about paying off the deficit, just to do what Nebraska has done for years and years, balance the budget without borrowing money.

I spoke about this on the Senate floor. The rate would have to be 90 percent. That was 2 years ago. It is probably worse now. If does not make any sense. Is that the kind of encouragement upon which our Nation was founded? That is not a pathway to solvency; that is a pathway to destroying a great nation. Only one path will provide future generations what I grew up with, which was a land of opportunity, an America that my parents believed if you just worked hard and stayed out of trouble you could do just about anything, two dairy farmers who caused their kids to believe that they could experience greatness in this great country.

Well, let's be up front and honest about the road that we need to travel as a nation. We can get there. Our Nation has such a proud history. It has faced so many challenges. It has looked adversity in the face, and it has forced it down. Each and every time our great Nation has risen to the challenge.

So as we reflect and pay homage to the history of this great country in the days ahead, let's use this as an opportunity to work toward a solution to this challenge of our time, our debt crisis.

As the CBO report indicated:

Waiting to address the long-term budgetary imbalance and

allowing debt to mount in the meantime would make future

generations worse off--

That is your children and your grandchildren--

although some current generations could receive a benefit

from that delay.

So am I to tell my children and grandchildren, so that I can benefit from just pushing this down the road, kicking this can down the road, that my kids and grandkids will pay the price for this? They will have their own wars to fight. I wish they were not going to, but they will. They will have their own new pandemics to deal with, and on and on.

But, you see, I started my adult life with our Nation owing $380 billion. In 5 years our Nation will owe $20 trillion. It will not be canceled at my death. It will be owed by those next generations.

My hope is that we can come down here, that we can be honest about the overpromises that have occurred, that we can speak candidly about the need to put in place forever a requirement that says to every Senator who follows me that, as hard as it is, we must balance the budget. The only way we can do that is by doing what our States have historically done--including my great State--and that is what it says in the Constitution.

It is not accidental that this proposal gets so much support in our country because, to the average family, it is what they do every day. We in Washington must come to grips with this and do the same.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business.

Mr. President, I come here today to compliment the minority leader, Senator McConnell, for his resolution in our effort to put a balanced budget amendment onto the Constitution of the United States.

I come here today to tell you a little story about a friend of mine from Douglas, WY. I was in Douglas on Memorial Day. Every year on Memorial Day in Douglas, they have sunrise ceremony services in the cemetery where they raise the flag, go through the names of all the veterans from Converse County who have passed in the last year, put the flag back at halfstaff, 21-gun salute, and a time for people to come together and think about this great Nation and honor those who have given their lives.

After the ceremony this year, people were leaving the ceremony. My friend Bernie Seebaum stopped me and said: You know, Senator--we have known each other a long time. He is on Medicare now, Social Security, has lived a long life, contributed to the community. He said: I don't care if you do a number of things--if you raise taxes, cut Medicare, take away Social Security--as long as you use it to pay off this debt, this $14 trillion debt.

I said: Bernie, the problem is, if Congress ever does something like that, they are going to get the money and they are just going to spend it.

The first thing we need to do is amend the Constitution so that we actually balance the budget. Then you can start talking about ways to pay off this incredible debt we have.

Here in Wyoming, we live within our means, balance the budget every year. It has paid huge dividends for our State.

You know, you think about the Constitution, and our Founding Fathers produced the greatest governing document, in my opinion, ever conceived. It was written at a time when our country's future was in serious doubt, when our country faced countless threats from abroad, threats that were becoming increasingly difficult to confront, and when the Federal Government lacked both the structure and the foundation to do anything about it. But there we had the Constitution, written in part as a response to those challenges of the day, and it has endured till this day. So amending the Constitution is not something to be undertaken lightly. The Constitution is the highest law of this great land. It has been amended, but infrequently and almost always at a time of crisis. Now, I support a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution because now is just such a time.

When the Constitution was written, they had to decide what the future would bear, so when it was written, as that time came, we now have to decide what sort of future we want for our country. Do we want a future where our children and grandchildren are overburdened by debt, where the U.S. dollar is backed by nothing more than worthless promises, or do we want a future where the only thing we can afford to spend money on--what we are facing right now--is entitlements and interest on our debt. Do we want a future where our country goes broke and a future where Washington lacks the political will to do anything about it or do we want a future with less spending, lower taxes, and more accountability?

Facts are stubborn, and the numbers do not lie. This month, the Congressional Budget Office released a report saying that the outlook of America's debt is growing grimmer. The Hill newspaper put it best when it said that the new CBO report numbers are ``much worse than last year's outlook.'' To anyone who does the math, this is not a surprise. Every day, Washington borrows $4.1 billion more--borrowed over $4 billion yesterday, $4 billion today, and we will do it again tomorrow. That is over $2 million a minute, every minute. Washington did that yesterday, it is doing it today, and it will do it tomorrow. Of every dollar Washington spends, 41 cents of it is borrowed. Much of it is borrowed from China. Every American child born today and tomorrow and the next day is born with an incredible debt of over $45,000. Next year, of every dollar Washington spends, 68 cents will go for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the debt.

If we as a nation continue down this path, Washington will spend all of what it takes in on these items alone. Everything else, from defense to education, will be paid for on a budget of borrowed money. So you may ask, where is the money going to come from, and how will we ever pay it back? Well, a lot of it is going to come from other countries, countries that do not always have our interests, America's best interests, at heart.

John Kennedy stood outside this building in 1961, 50 years ago. He said:

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can

do for your country.

Well, a few years from now, that may change. It may change to: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what your country must do for China.

So consider this. When John Kennedy was President, America's total debt was just over $300 billion, and we only owed 4 percent of our debt to foreign countries. Today, our total debt is over $14 trillion. And debt isn't just a disaster for the distant future; our current debt is irresponsible and it is unsustainable. Even our military leaders have condemned it. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ADM Mike Mullen, has said, ``The biggest threat to our national security is our debt.'' The debt is the threat. We do not and we should not take the biggest threat to our national security lightly.

The amount of debt we owe right now, today, is so high that it is hurting our employment at home. Experts tell us that our current debt is costing us 1 million jobs in America. Spending like this makes it harder for the private sector to create new jobs. Because of this, it is harder for American families to buy gas, to buy groceries, to buy cars, homes, to pay tuition for the kids to go to college. And it is harder to create jobs for those kids who will be graduating this year and next year and every year until we get the spending under control. Everyone in this body claims to understand that the situation is irresponsible and is unsustainable.

Back in February 2009, the President called experts to the White House for what he called a fiscal responsibility summit. In his opening remarks, this is what the President had to say:

Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past

few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the

consequences to the next budget, the next administration, or

the next generation.

Well, I agreed with the President. He was right. So my question to the President is, What have you done about it? Well, one thing he has done is he has called together a debt commission. Late last year, the debt commission released their report on America's fiscal situation, and the findings were sobering. According to the report, they said: The problem is real. The solution will be painful. There is no easy way out. Everything must be on the table. Do you know what else they said? They also said: Washington must lead.

Washington has not led. Instead, this administration has offered nothing but empty promises. As the White House makes promise after promise and speech after speech with no action--no action to back it up--it is clearer than ever that spoken promises have become broken promises.

This persistent push to put our fiscal crisis off until tomorrow is unacceptable and must end now. The first step toward doing that should be to pass an amendment to our Constitution requiring Washington to balance its budget. A balanced budget amendment would require Washington to spend no more money than it takes in each and every year. Such an amendment would force Washington to live within its means. We cannot afford to continue to mortgage our children's future to pay for Washington's fiscal failures. Such an amendment would transform the kind of irresponsible spending that goes on today in this very body into an impeachable violation of every legislator's constitutional oath of office.

The American people have overwhelmingly spoken on the wisdom of this approach. A recent poll conducted by Sachs/Mason Dixon showed that 65 percent of Americans support a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution, and 45 percent said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who did so. Of those, 68 percent of them were Independents, but there is support for this among Republicans, among Independents, and among Democrats. When the American people call for Washington to lead in numbers this big, it is time for Washington to listen. Every single member of my party on this side of the aisle agrees. That is why all 47 Republican Members of this body have cosponsored the balanced budget amendment. The American people are behind us, and they want us to act.

Meanwhile, the administration and its allies on the other side of the aisle have offered nothing but more empty rhetoric, more of the same tax-and-spend policies that made this economic situation worse. You take a look at where we are and where we have been, they have made it worse.

I am reminded of a quote from Ronald Reagan. He said:

If the big spenders get their way, they'll charge

everything to your taxpayers' express card and believe me,

they will never leave home without it.

The big spenders can get away with charging everything to the American people's taxpayer express card because no one--no one is forcing them to look at the bills. Now those bills are coming due, and this administration and its liberal allies want a new taxpayer express card and a blank check. They want a blank check to spend as they desire, and they are not going to get it from me, not without specific reforms that will introduce accountability into this broken Washington process.

A balanced budget amendment will not solve every problem, but it is a critical step in the right direction. It would ensure that Washington is constitutionally obligated to avoid the reckless overspending of the past.

Our debt crisis did not surface overnight. It certainly will not be solved without a great deal of additional work.

Before any of that work can be done, Washington has to learn to live within its means the way families all across this great country do. It is time we show the American people they can trust their government with their money again. It is time we lead today instead of deferring leadership until tomorrow. It is time we show the same courage our Founding Fathers did when this country was on the verge of financial collapse. It is time for a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Then I can go back to my friend Bernie and his wife Sally, in Douglas, WY, and say: Bernie, finally, in Washington, they got it right. They realize, as we do in Wyoming, we have to live within our means. We have to balance our budget every year and then start working on paying off this incredible debt.

I yield the floor.