Department of Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Lease Authorization Act of 2013

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer my amendment on this bill, No. 2885.

Madam President, let me talk about why I think we should have this and other amendments on this bill.

My friend from Colorado just talked about an amendment that he said he supported last week. Of course, none of us got to support it on the Ukrainian bill because it wasn't allowed to come up, just like on this issue of talking about unemployment extension or the other things that our friends on the other side have announced in a pretty aggressive way that they intend to bring up because they just hope to have a political issue rather than a process that will actually work.

I believe we should have these energy amendments such as the one I am proposing on this bill because getting people back to work and being concerned about people's take-home pay, being concerned about what people get to keep of what they earn is an important part of this whole process.

So the amendment my friend objected to would be an amendment that would make it very difficult--it would establish another hurdle before anyone could have a carbon tax. This amendment is similar to the one I offered during the budget debate this year, and 53 of my colleagues supported it, so a majority of the Members of the Senate are for this but just not the majority it would take in the Senate to get it done.

A carbon tax would force families to pay more at the pump. What is a carbon tax? It is a tax on fuels that have some carbon component, and that means fuels such as gasoline, coal-based electricity, and other fossil fuels. For this component, you would have to pay more at the gas pump, you would have to pay more for your heating, more for your cooling, more for virtually every product we make in America.

The energy bill, the utility bill is a big component of what we make in the country today, and it could be one of our huge advantages in manufacturing and job creation, but we are headed in a direction with our view of energy that is not the most focused on more American energy and that doesn't take advantage of the moment we could be in.

Areas where I live in Missouri, people in the South and Midwest-- frankly, from about the middle of Pennsylvania to the western edge of Wyoming--are heavily dependent on coal for electricity. About 50 percent of all the electricity in that vast majority of the land mass of America is from coal. Eighty-two percent of the electricity produced in Missouri is from coal. There are at least five States that have a higher dependency on coal than we do. If we had a cap-and-trade bill, the estimates are that our bill would have gone up about 40 percent since 2013.

A carbon tax is disproportionately impactful on people who are struggling to get by. If you want to really do things that impact the vulnerable in our society, make the utility bill higher. If you want to really do things that impact the vulnerable in our society who are looking for work, make it harder to put those jobs in the United States of America.

About 40 million U.S. households that currently earn less than $30,000 per year spend almost 20 percent of their income already on energy. Why would we want that percentage to be higher. What you make is not nearly as important as what you are able to use to advance your family. If the utility bill is 30 percent of what you make or 40 percent of what you make instead of 20 percent, obviously the other things you would have done with that money could not have been, done.

These are the households that can least afford to have the new energy-efficient refrigerators. These are the last households to get the better windows, the last houses to get more insulation in the ceiling and the walls, the first houses where people have to think about, What room do we shut off this winter because we cannot use all the rooms in the house in the way we would like to? It would be nice to be able to fill up your tank rather than stand at the gas pump and wonder, Can I possibly afford to put more gas in than that pump has already shown on prices that are already too high.

There are lots of amendments on this bill about energy, none of which, I am told, will be allowed, and I think that is a tragedy.

A 2013 study by the National Association of Manufacturers found that the overall effect of a carbon tax on American jobs would be staggering, with a loss of worker income equivalent to about $13 million and 1.5 million jobs. Why would we want to take that out of our economy when we can not only keep it there, but by enhancing more American energy, we could expand it?

The utility bill is an increasingly important part of job creation. Energy-sensitive industries such as chemicals, auto manufacturing, iron and steel manufacturing, cement, mining, and refining sectors are the hardest hit by a carbon tax, and these sectors would see a big drop in their manufacturing output.

So if we had the kind of debate we ought to have, it would be a debate about how we get people back to work rather than how we continue to extend benefits in a policy that was never intended to have never- ending benefits. This system doesn't work. It doesn't work for people who pay into the system or draw out of the system if we abuse it.

I think we all know this is not the debate we should be having this week, and I would like to see us have a debate on how we could improve the economy while we deal with this so-called immediate need that we are talking about on the floor instead of the things we ought to be talking about.

I wish to talk for a few minutes about the announcements yesterday about how many people have signed up for the President's health care plan. As I said when the Web site wouldn't work, it is not about whether the Web site works. Frankly, it is not even about how many people sign up. This is about whether this is the right direction for us to go as a country. Is this health care more affordable, and will more people be insured, and will the people who are insured be insured with policies they can afford and coverage they want?

The President, of course, and everybody understands the Web site had its problems. I think we would be really remiss if we decided--if making the Web site work was the test of the program or, frankly, making people sign up was the test of the program.

This debate is not over. It shouldn't be over. We need to continue to look for ways to try to make this work better because I certainly continue to hear from Missourians who tell me that the course they are on is hurting their families, hurting their job opportunities.

The law of unintended consequences appears to be the law here that is most likely to be applied, the unintended consequences of people who are going to work part time, the unintended consequences of people who are looking at a job that used to be a full-time job but now the government said: You don't have to provide benefits unless somebody works 30 hours a week. I guess what the government really said was that you have to provide benefits when they do work 30 hours a week. But people immediately look at that and the society adjusts to that government determination. So suddenly people are working 28 and 29 and 20 hours without benefits where they might have been working those same hours before with some level of benefits or might have--more importantly for their families--been working full time before.

We are going to continue to talk about this law and how it serves people. Let me give a couple of quick examples as I conclude this morning.

I had a person in the office this morning who was here for another purpose. He is a radiologist from Cape Girardeau, MO, and he said he received notice that his insurance was going to go up $500 a month for the same coverage until the President made the decision to suspend the law, which is a totally different debate topic, whether the President can do that. But when the President suspended the application of this law, which everybody is supposed to be so excited about, they were able to keep the policy they had for another year, and it was $500 a month less--$6,000 a year less for that family.

Here is some information I got today from Sherry in Shelbyville, MO, who said that her 18-year-old son has had cerebral palsy his whole life. They had a medicine that works that allows him to deal with this. Last year a 3-month supply of this particular medicine went from $125 to $1,086--almost a $1,000 increase. But that may or may not be impacted by what is happening with overall health care policies. What was impacted this year was her family's deductible. Their deductible went from $500 to $5,000. They were paying $500 on a 3-month supply of medicine. A 1-year supply of that medicine cost a little over $4,000. They were paying $500 of that, and now they are paying all of that.

Her view--which would be the view of most working families--is: We had insurance we could afford, we had insurance that met our needs, and now we are paying $3,500 more than we were paying. For almost any family, $300 a month makes a big difference. It particularly makes a difference for families who are struggling and already dealing with a health problem.

Pete from Jackson, MO, receives health care benefits through his employer, but his wife and two children had health insurance through an independent carrier. His wife and children's plan will be dropped November 30 of this year. Their new plan will cost $1,200 per month instead of $530 for similar coverage they have right now.

By the way, these are just a few of the letters from the top of the list. If I had more time, I could certainly read more letters.

I have a letter from Greg who is from St. Joseph. His out-of-pocket expenses went from $2,500 per year to $10,000 per year. He is paying that by going into his 401(k) retirement plan. If anybody thinks Greg and his family are better off from this new change in the law by paying $10,000 out of pocket instead of the $2,500 out of pocket--and he is having to dip into his retirement plan to help pay for his health insurance--I would like to hear from them.

There are people who had insurance before this new law, and although they have insurance now through the exchange, they just happen to be paying in many cases a lot more and have a deductible that is a lot higher. I think that would be a great debate for us to have on the floor now that we know, as a country, what is at stake.

What do we do to be sure the best health care system in the world works better for everybody? How do we make changes so that those who are outside of the system have a better chance to be a part of that system rather than penalizing everybody who had insurance they thought was working for them?

I yield the floor to my friend from Rhode Island.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be here with my colleagues talking about ways we can get people back to work, regulations that don't make sense, and energy policies that clearly every economist we talk to understands are a key to the future.

I know the Republican leader has joined us on the floor, and I think I will ask him if he has some comments he would like to make, and then we can come back to me at the end of his comments.

Mr. President, Senator Thune, my friend from South Dakota, and I have worked for a long time on the kinds of economic and troublesome regulations he talked about earlier. Nobody appears to be answerable to the people--those who come forward with these regulations. I think he has an amendment on that, and I would afford him the chance to talk about that amendment.

Mr. President, let's talk about this topic a little longer--regulation. Again, in my view--and my friend from South Dakota and I have shared this view for a long time--when the Congress passes laws--and I think it is appropriate that we are not always in the best place to come up with the regulations that put those laws in place--I believe the country has clearly come to a place where nobody is then answerable for regulations that have a significant impact on our economy.

The Senator from Kentucky Mr. Paul and I have cosponsored the REINS Act, which addresses these laws that meet this kind of threshold, and it is a bill that was before the Congress, but we can't get that bill to the floor.

Senator Thune and I have worked for a long time on this kind of proposal that would simply create opportunity.

The emergency nature of the opportunity is really a 5-year emergency now where we have seen job opportunity after job opportunity go away. Part of that is surely because of what were the unintended but clear consequences of the Affordable Care Act, and part of it is rules and regulations that don't make sense to people who are about to take enough of a chance with their creation of opportunity for themselves and somebody else without having any idea that someone answerable to them is eventually going to have to answer for what the Federal Government does. And that is what bringing these regulations to the floor would do.

Nobody is saying Congress should be responsible for implementing every law and the goal of law, but we should be responsible for the impact of that law and should have the final say on rules and regulations that we have essentially started in motion. They should come back here.

If we don't do this on this bill today, we should do this. We should have done this years ago. Many of us in this body, in the Congress, have believed for a long time that this is one of the major impediments to job creation.

Another impediment is bad energy policy. That is why there are so many energy amendments. The amendment I offered where the Congress couldn't have a carbon tax unless it passed a threshold of 60 votes was offered in the budget debate last year, and 53 of my colleagues-- Democrats and Republicans here on the floor--agreed that, yes, we should have a special threshold.

When we talk about a tax that makes gas at the gasoline pump more expensive; that makes diesel fuel that delivers products more expensive; that raises the utility bill of everybody who has some element of fossil fuel in their utilities, and that is virtually everybody; that makes it less likely that people will create manufacturing jobs and those kinds of opportunities here, of course we ought to be talking about those kinds of policies, whether or not it is the carbon tax.

In Ohio, in Missouri, in Wyoming, in the vast middle of the country, our energy comes from fossil fuels. Those are the resources we have. Our focus should be on using those more effectively, not figuring out ways we shouldn't use them at all or figuring out ways to double the utility bill.

That is the EPA's own estimate of their own rule, that the utility bill, they say, will go up 80 percent if the rule is in place. I think that is probably a little optimistic on their part. Eighty percent is almost doubling your current utility bill. Think about where you work or your daughter-in-law works or your son-in-law works or somebody in your family works, doubling the utility bill there and wondering if there will still be a utility there or if that company will decide to go somewhere else. The incredibly capable and competitive American workforce is being held back by utility policies that stop people from making the investments they want to make.

The energy cost of manufacturing, according to the National Association of Manufacturers and others, is a key element now in that final decision to decide where you are going to build something, where you are going to make something, and, most importantly for families, where you are going to create a job that has the kind of take-home pay families need.

When we talk about the Keystone Pipeline, the ability to maximize our use of natural gas, of fracking for oil, we are talking about the great resources we have, and we should use those resources to our benefit. Every other country in the world, when they look at their tableaux of natural resources, the first two words that come to mind in every other country in the world are ``economic opportunity'' or ``economic advantage.'' What does this allow us to do that we couldn't do otherwise? What advantage does this give us over our competitors?

We shouldn't let the first two words that come to mind when we look at our

natural resources be ``environmental hazard.'' What is the worst thing that would happen and what would happen if that happened every day? No. 1, the worst thing to happen is something we should think about but not be overwhelmed by. We should see that that doesn't happen, and if it does happen, what are we immediately prepared to do about it so it does not become an ongoing problem? That is the whole formula it takes on the energy side, on the natural resources side to create opportunity.

The one thing government policies can do, although they can't create jobs, is they can create an environment where people want to create private sector jobs. That is and continues to be the No. 1 priority domestically this Congress should be focused on--what we do to create more private sector jobs. I think energy is a big part of that.

Certainly, my friend from Wyoming Senator Barrasso who has brought us together to talk about this, understands that so well. Energy and regulation policies that make sense are the kinds of policies that help us create the opportunities that hard-working families need and that families who would like to see somebody in their family have that job with great take-home pay are focused on.

I yield for my friend Senator Barrasso.

I thank my colleague from Delaware for his leadership on this issue. He has been indefatigable. He has been very strong on this issue. I think it is one of the most important issues that faces us.

I am not an economist; I am a country lawyer from Maine, but one of the things I know about any economy is you can't build an economy by taking in each other's laundry. Somebody somewhere has to make something, and that is the basis of wealth creation. Somehow in the 1980s, 1990s, and the early part of this century, we sort of lost sight of that and manufacturing took an enormous hit. We lost 32 percent of our manufacturing jobs in the decade from 2000 to 2010. We lost 42,000 factories--not people, 42,000 factories. Manufacturing was literally withering away in this country.

I think a lot of people sort of wrung their hands and said: Oh, well, I guess that is just the way of the world. It is all going to Asia, China, and Mexico. It is going to low-wage countries, and that is just the way it works.

The problem is, as my colleague from Delaware pointed out, Germany has gone in the opposite direction, and their country has the same standard of living, the same labor standards, the same employment cost levels, and yet 20 percent of their economy is based upon manufacturing; whereas, it is only 10 or 11 percent in this country. So that tells me it is not impossible. It tells me there is an opportunity here and that we can't just lay back and say: Well, I guess that is going to go away. Woe is us. That is never the way to seize the future.

Why do it? The Senator from Delaware said it: Better pay. In Maine, in looking at the data, employees in manufacturing on average make twice as much as employees in other areas--twice as much. There is a tremendous difference in pay, and of course a better difference in benefits. There is also a bigger multiplier for manufacturing. Manufacturing creates more jobs down the line and around a manufacturing facility. It is important for national security.

We are in danger of losing our industrial base, which is part of our national security infrastructure. If we can no longer make things-- whether it is destroyers at Bath Iron Works or jet airplanes or uniforms or boots or other things that are necessary to support our national security apparatus--we are in trouble, and that is a danger to our country. That is a national security danger because if we are dependent upon other countries that may or may not be our friends for essential components of our national security infrastructure, that is a very dangerous and risky place to be. That is not often talked about, but the maintenance of manufacturing jobs in the United States is a critical part of our industrial base and a part of our national security strategy.

Manufacturing allows for more exporting. It brings money into our country. Eighty-three percent of the exports from Maine come out of the manufacturing sector, and that is bringing money into our country rather than sending it out to other countries.

Also, I think it is very important to remember that this is a way of dealing with what I think is one of the most serious issues of our time, which is income inequality. It is the widening gap between those at the top and those at the bottom, and what is really a concern is the stagnation, and, in fact, the decline of the American middle class.

Manufacturing was the path into the middle class for our parents and grandparents. The manufacturing resurgence after World War II--by the way, part of that resurgence was based upon the GI bill, probably the greatest economic development program ever fostered by any government anywhere in the world--which helped to create the middle class is in danger. One of the ways to preserve and strengthen the middle class-- and to deal with this problem of income inequality--is more manufacturing and more of those good jobs.

This is the 100th anniversary of one of the most amazing and transformative actions in American corporate history. The year was 1914 when Henry Ford doubled the pay of all of his workers. Everybody was astonished. His competitors were aghast. The advocates of unbridled capitalism said: How can he do this? Henry Ford was a genius in many ways. But one of his insights was he wanted his workers to be able to buy his products, and one of the problems in our economy today is a lack of demand. The people of the middle class don't have enough income to buy the products and it becomes a downward spiral. It is a lack of demand that is truly at the heart of the weakness of the current economy, and it is because people don't have good enough jobs and they are not being paid enough.

Henry Ford realized if he paid his workers more--and, by the way, that munificent sum in 1914 was $5 a day, but it was a doubling of what the rate of pay was everywhere else in American society at that time. That was a huge breakthrough intellectually, economically, and socially for this country.

OK. We talked about the losses. There is some good news. In the last 2\1/2\ years we have gained 500,000 jobs. We lost 6 million in that decade, but now we have gained 500,000 back. So something is happening. A lot of different things are happening. The low price of natural gas I think is helping to rejuvenate manufacturing. I know it is in Maine. I think there is more innovation happening around the country. People are realizing--I have talked to manufacturers who have been offshore and have come back because they said the offshore factory was a little cheaper, the labor costs were less, but the hassle factor was higher, and what I have learned is I can control costs, I can control transportation, I can control time limits better if the manufacturing is in the United States.

So what do we do? What do we do if we want to increase manufacturing? We can't wave a wand here in Washington. We can't say, well, go out and create jobs. We have to create an atmosphere where we can create jobs.

When my little girl Molly, who is not so little anymore, was in the third grade, I used to teach her things with pneumonics. I would say the three Xs or the three Ys or whatever. In this case, if she were here and she were still in the third grade, I would say it is the four Ps, Molly. It is the four Ps that are going to make this happen. The first is a plan. Nothing happens without a strategy or a vision or a plan. This bill has a vision of how to link innovation and the American economy and manufacturing in such a way as to create and rejuvenate this sector. A plan--we have to start with a plan or a vision.

The second P is partnerships, and this bill is based on partnerships. Nothing good happens without partnerships. It is based upon linking the academic world with the manufacturing world with government; putting those partnerships together, mostly universities and manufacturing, to create innovation, to create new jobs, to create new ways of building wealth. We don't have to look much further than Silicon Valley in California. That is a perfect example of a natural born innovation hub built around several knowledge factories: Stanford University, University of California, University of San Francisco. Knowledge factories, together with manufacturers, created one of the greatest hotbeds--probably the greatest hotbed--of innovation, creativity, and new wealth creation in the history of this country and perhaps in the history of the world. We want to create these kinds of hubs all over the country, putting together the academic community and the business community to develop the capacity for innovation and creativity.

I should mention--it is not part of this bill, but the other thing I think we have to do a lot of thinking about is the skills gap. I got a call right after my election from a chamber of commerce director in southern Maine and

he said: Senator, we want you to come down and talk about jobs.

I said: Oh, OK. I will. And I was prepared to talk about how to create jobs and add jobs.

He said: No, no, it is not that. The problem is we have 500 jobs and we can't fill them. These are good-paying jobs in manufacturing, and we can't fill them because the people we need aren't available with the skills we need. There is a mismatch.

I believe one of the things we have to do around here is think hard about all the programs--I think there are something like 59 different Federal job training programs--how to integrate them, coordinate them, and focus them on business-ready jobs, not 10-years-ago jobs but the jobs of today. Therefore, I think the coordination and cooperation between business and the job training infrastructure has to be much closer than it is today.

That gets me to S. 1468. I think it is a wonderful idea. One of the best parts of it is that it is bipartisan. This is an idea that is supported--Sherrod Brown and Roy Blunt were the spearheads of it, and then we have people such as Roger Wicker, the Senator from Mississippi, and the Senator from Delaware; we have a good bipartisan group from around the country geographically and across party lines. This is what we have to do. Why is it so important? Because what drives new manufacturing jobs is innovation.

When I was Governor of Maine, somebody gave me a cap and on it it said ``innovate or die.'' Bill Gates once famously said: Every product we make today is going to be obsolete in 5 years. The only question is whether we make it obsolete or someone else does.

Innovation is the heart of this economy. That is why we have to put together the knowledge factories with the production factories--the knowledge factories, the universities, such as the University of Maine, that has the advanced composites lab that has created amazing new ways to deal with composites. One of their creations is the bridge and a backpack. The bridge and a backpack is a composite system which I have seen in action. They are long tubes made of fiberglass. You spread the tubes out, fill them with concrete, mold them into the shape you want, and in about 3 or 4 days you have a bridge, and you put the deck over it. It is a wonderful system. It came out of the University of Maine and now it is being used across the country.

The other piece I like about this is that it isn't a government program. Government is the catalyst, the convener, the pulling together of these hubs, and that is, I think, our function. We shouldn't be doing it. We shouldn't be steering it, but we should be launching it, and that is what this bill is all about. Does it solve all the problems of manufacturing? Of course not. There are dozens of things we have to do in order to support this industry, whether it is tax reform, job training or innovation hubs and more support for R&D. All of those we have to do, but I think this is one of the most important, and we don't have to guess about it. It works in Germany. They have twice the role for manufacturing in their economy as we do. It works. So let's see what we can do here with the same idea.

I compliment the Senator from Delaware and the others who have led this bill, and I am delighted to be able to tag along. I think this is a great idea. It truly can make a difference, and I think we will see that difference in the coming years.

I yield the floor.

I like the Senator's suggestion of a hub in Maine involving composites. Could we write that in the bill? I wouldn't object to that amendment.

I think this is such an important idea, and in my comments I outlined how we get here. We start with a vision or a plan which the bill entails, and we start with partnerships, which is truly the essence of the bill, but there are two more pieces. There are two more Ps. One is perseverance. Any Member of this body knows about perseverance. That is what this place is all about. We have to stick to it. We have to not take no for an answer. We have to listen to our colleagues to find out how they feel about the bill and try to form a consensus and then move this bill through.

Last Friday was the 100th birthday of Ed Muskie of Maine. Ed Muskie was the father of the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Talk about perseverance. He spent 2 years, hundreds of hearings, hundreds of hours of markup and ended up with that bill passing the Senate unanimously-- unanimously. That is a monument to perseverance.

Normally, I would say those are the three Ps: plan, partnership, and perseverance, but I think there is one more, and I am sure my colleague from Delaware agrees with me.

Nothing is going to happen without passion. We have to care about this. The people of America have to care about this. We have to say that this is something we are going to do. We are going to rebuild the manufacturing centers that made this country what it was--a sector that made this country what it was. We are going to have to do it with passion and commitment. I believe this bill is an opportunity to restart that process.

It will, and as I mentioned earlier, it can change us and provide benefits everywhere from higher wages to better national security to a stronger middle class. A plan, a partnership, perseverance, and passion--that is what changes the world.

Madam President, I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Virginia. I think they were timely and important. I wanted to add one note. The Senator and I were in a hearing yesterday in the Budget Committee with three eminent economists--one was a Noble Prize winner-- talking about income inequality and the status of our economy and where we are going.

But there was one aspect of the Affordable Care Act that came up in a discussion that really has gotten essentially no play whatsoever, no discussion in the press or in the media. I think in the long run it may turn out to be one of the most important aspects of the Affordable Care Act. It came home to me 2 weeks ago. Every Wednesday morning I have a coffee in my office here in the Senate office building for anybody from Maine that happens to be in town, whatever reason they are here, whether they are touring or have business in Washington. They can come in and have some blueberry muffins and some Maine coffee.

I met a couple there. The woman, in talking to us--she was down touring and everything. She said: By the way, thanks for supporting the Affordable Care Act.

I said: Oh, well, that is great. I appreciate that. Why do you say that?

She said: Because I have been in a job for a number of years that I do not like. But I could not leave it because it was how I got my health insurance. My husband does not have health insurance. So I had to stay in the job in order to keep the health insurance. She said: Now under the Affordable Care Act, I have an option to get health insurance at a reasonable price so I can leave this job and start my own business.

After I had this discussion, I did a little research. It turns out there is an economic term for this. It is called job lock. All over the country there are thousands, perhaps even millions, of people who are locked into a job where they are not feeling very appreciated, where they are not really enjoying it, where they are not expressing their productivity and their talents fully because they could not leave their insurance.

Now they can. There is a lot of talk around here about job creators. The job creators are the people that start businesses, the entrepreneurs. Those are the job creators. This is going to lead to an explosion of new businesses, of people who do not have to stay in the job that they are in simply because of their health insurance but have the option to go out and start a business of their own because they can get their health insurance at a reasonable price through the Affordable Care Act.

So there is a lot to discuss about the Affordable Care Act. But this is one of the aspects of it that has been underappreciated. As the years go on, we are going to see a decrease in people uninsured--which we are already starting to see--and we are going to see an increase in small businesses because people no longer have to stay in their jobs simply to maintain their insurance.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, what is the time situation?

Do I need to ask permission to speak on health care?

I would so ask.

Thank you so much, Mr. President.

I want to say a big thank you to Senator Murphy because he has been a great leader on this issue. He and I are coming from States where people are signing up and signing up and surpassing the goals. The stories are incredibly heartwarming and wonderful and are being told on the radio and being told on TV. The truth is coming out about the Affordable Care Act.

All of the scares aside, we see now it is working. Why is it working? Because there was a very simple premise when we passed this bill 4 years ago; and that was, people deserve a fair shot at affordable health care. That is all it was. They deserve a fair shot at getting affordable health care. They deserve affordable health care. They deserve to be free from discrimination by the insurance companies.

So I am so pleased Senator Murphy has taken it upon himself to organize a few of us so we do not allow misinformation and lies to be spread about the Affordable Care Act.

What I loved about President Obama's speech yesterday at the Rose Garden was that he is so open about it. He said: Yes, we had a flawed rollout. We lost time. That was bad. And, yes, no bill is perfect. I think it was our colleague Angus King who said it the best. He said: The most perfect document in the world is the Constitution, and it has been amended 27 times. So is any bill perfect? Is any document perfect? Of course not. But I am here to say, given the facts--not the made-up stuff--given the facts, I am so proud I was able to vote for the Affordable Care Act. I am so proud of that. And I am sad that not one Republican joined us in that vote--not one of them, not one of them.

When you go back to 4 years ago, we saw that millions of our citizens were uninsured because they could not afford insurance; or they were uninsured because their insurance company walked out on them when they were sick; or there were annual limits on their plans, and they simply went over that annual limit and they went broke and they could not afford insurance. Some had lifetime caps. And it sounded like a lot: Oh, you have a cap of a quarter of a million dollars. But then when you get cancer, that cap is reached a heck of a lot faster than you thought.

So we had kids kicked off their parents' health insurance at 18, 19 years old.

We had people with asthma, diabetes, cancer who could not get insurance until the Affordable Care Act passed. Being a woman was considered a preexisting condition. If you were a victim of domestic violence, forget it. The insurance company wanted no part of your risk. So Democrats took action--took action.

All the Republicans can do is come down here and say: Oh, here is one constituent's story. For every one constituent's story that they tell, No. 1, doublecheck the facts because sometimes we look at the facts and they are not exactly what they say. But I can give 100 stories to their 1 of people finally getting health care.

By the way, we can fix this law any day of the week with the help of the Republicans if they have an issue they think needs to be addressed. But their answer is: repeal, repeal, repeal. Why would they want to repeal a law that is helping, I will tell you, over 100 million Americans, not 7 million--7 million who are on the exchange--but I will show you more than 100 million of our people are getting preventive care, free cancer screenings, immunizations, contraception.

It has made a big difference in their lives. It is making a big difference that kids can stay on their parents' policies. Why do they want to repeal a law that does that, that gives us a patients' bill of rights, so insurance companies cannot look at you when you are sick, in your darkest moment and say: Senator or friend or Mr. Jones or Mrs. Smith, I am so sorry to tell you that you are not getting any more coverage because we just learned you had diabetes. You did not tell us. You did not mention it. You are out.

I do not know why Republicans want to take that away from people, but then again history is repeating itself. I tell my friends--I have so many friends on the other side of the aisle. We just see the world differently. When we go back to Medicare, you should see what the Republicans said in this Senate about Medicare: Socialism, let it wither on the vine.

Bob Dole was here. He was so proud he voted against it. He led the charge. ``It is terrible.'' Now you have tea party members come with signs to rallies that say, ``Don't touch my Medicare.'' They love their Medicare. They do not understand it is a government program, Medicare. The government is the insurer. Of course, Paul Ryan wants to end it in his budget. So I guess nothing changes; it all stays the same. They hated Medicare. They still hate it. They wanted it to wither on the vine. They totally destroy it in Ryan's budget.

Social Security. You should see what they said about Social Security. It was an abomination. That is what they said. So nothing changes. We have different people in different clothes. I look a little different than the Democrats in the old days. There were no women here for starters. My colleague is very handsome. He had some predecessors that looked good, but they all say the same thing: Government should not be involved in any of this. It will all be great. You know what. I

wish they were right. I wish they were right.

My husband developed a small business. He managed to pay health care for his people. He was proud to do it. But you know not every business is fair and just and right. So, yes, once in a while we have to say let's all work together to make sure people are covered. When I was a little kid, my mother used to tell me all the time: Without your health care, you have nothing. If you are sick, you got nothing.

I used to say: Oh, God, I am so tired of hearing that. I remember she used to say: You see that beautiful actress over there? She has everything, but she got sick so she has nothing. Your health is everything, she told me. You have to protect your health. She was right.

How do you protect your health and the health of your family? By getting preventive care so you can catch something early. If you do not have insurance, you do not get that preventive care. You are in trouble. If something happens and you are in an automobile accident and you thought you were an invincible young person and nothing would happen to you and suddenly you find yourself with broken bones and everything else, including a broken heart, and you have no health insurance, you can go bankrupt. People did, because it was so hard to get affordable insurance before the Affordable Care Act.

So what you are hearing and will continue to hear are scare tactics, stories. I am here to tell you--and I want to say it very clearly-- about the millions and millions of Americans who understand that the Affordable Care Act is working for them.

Yesterday was a historic day. They said: Never would you get 7 million people to sign up for private insurance on the exchanges-- never. It happened. Why? Because this is a product people need, health insurance that is affordable. But that number is the tip of the iceberg. I will prove it.

Medicaid; that is, insurance for the poorest working people. We expanded it. We let more people qualify: 4.5 million Americans previously uninsured now have coverage through Medicaid. So let's do the math. There are 7 million on the exchanges--7.1; 4.5 million on Medicaid who did not have it before; 3 million young adults are able to stay on their parents' plan who were not able to do that before. How about this? Eight million senior citizens who have saved billions of dollars because of the fix in the Affordable Care Act that says they get more help paying for their prescriptions.

That adds up to, drum roll, 22.6 million Americans with those very important benefits, but then here is the other thing. One hundred million Americans are now getting help with preventive services that they used to have to pay for: immunizations, mammograms, vaccines, annual exams, and other lifesaving preventive care.

We are talking about millions and millions. Even with private health care now, you can have no annual limit, no lifetime limit. They cannot be turned away for preexisting conditions. Your insurance company cannot break out on them just when they are needing them. So that is almost everyone in the country who is benefiting from the law.

Let me tell you about California. We are the biggest State in the Union, 38 million strong. Covered California is the way we set up our exchange. It is coveredCA.com. Peter Lee is the head of that. I wish to thank Peter Lee today--he does not know I am doing this--for his extraordinary leadership.

Here is what happened. We exceeded our State's goal for enrollment through Covered California by not 100,000 people, not 200,000 people, not 300,000 or 400,000, but by 500,000 people we exceeded our goal. That is bigger than some States. Can you believe it? Half a million people, more than we expected.

I am sure Senator Thune is shocked by this. This is a fact. We expected to have 700,000 sign up. Instead we had 1.2 million. That does not even include all of those who signed up on Monday or who were still in the process of completing enrollment.

We are going to hear a lot of stories about families who are paying what they think is too much--and I want to work with everybody to make this law better, believe me--but listen to a couple of my constituents. Julie Mims from Sacramento said:

We no longer have to worry about being ruined physically

and financially by a serious health issue. . . . We enrolled

in a Bronze 60 plan that will cost us $2 a month.

This is a working woman who is getting the help she needs to have a decent--decent--health care policy.

Then there is Rebecca Tasker. She runs a small construction business in San Diego with her husband. They are saving $1,000 a month. They are saving $12,000 a year that they can spend on their family. They can spend that in their community boosting this economy.

She said, ``These savings will help our company grow and might allow us to be able to hire our first employee this year.''

So here is a small businesswoman who had to spend so much on health care, and now because of the Affordable Care Act she is able to save $1,000 a month and possibly hire her first employee. Have you heard of something called job lock? Before the Affordable Care Act, people said: I do not want to leave my job because I have health care. I am scared to go out on my own. I would not be able to get it. I would not be able to afford it. That is why we set up the exchanges. It is freeing people to move out of a job that maybe they think is a dead-end and start their own business.

Here is a woman who is going to be able to hire her first employee with the money she is saving. There are hundreds more stories. I will be coming to talk about those in the coming days and weeks. Stunningly, House Republicans keep bragging about their never-ending efforts to take health care away from millions of Americans.

Do you know the House has voted not once, not twice but more than 50 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They are doing it again. If they had spent as much energy working with us to make the law better, which the President said he is open to, we are open to, just like we worked with them on Medicare Part D when they carried that. We worked with them to make it better.

Can you imagine, we would be standing here talking about even more millions of people. I have to say and this--I know it might be viewed as controversial, but because this law helps women so much with mammography, with vaccines, with birth control, with the end of discrimination based on gender, with an end of discrimination if you have been the victim of violence, with the end of discrimination because you could carry a child and have a pregnancy and want coverage, this Affordable Care Act helps women.

So I am going to say this: When you vote 50 times to repeal a law that benefits women, you are voting against women. So you can say all you want to become--and I know Speaker Boehner said: I want to become more sensitive to women. I have an idea: Stop trying to take away health care from women and their families and then you will see women feel much better about you.

Women are smart. They know who is on their side. They know who wants to give them a fair shot. But it is not people who want to take away their health care. That is what you say day in and day out. Remember, under the Affordable Care Act, many women were denied health insurance because of preexisting illnesses such as breast cancer, depression or, again, even being a victim of domestic violence. They were charged more than men. Let us be clear. Now we are guaranteed access to free preventive care and maternity care. Women are now paying zero dollars for a checkup--zero. This is it. Zero dollars to get a test to check for cervical cancer, zero dollars for a mammogram, zero dollars for FDA-approved contraception. Why do the Republicans want to repeal this law and take away mammograms, take away tests for cervical cancer, and take away checkups and FDA-approved contraception? Why?

At the same time, they say they do not understand why women do not gravitate to their party. I have to say, we should be celebrating this law--yes, fixing it where it needs to be fixed. But I think if Republicans would join with us and say let's work together to make this a better plan--if you have someone who cannot find their doctor in their plan, let's try to work together to fix it. If you have someone who you think deserves a subsidy, let's work together and try to fix it.

But let's remember, folks, I just pointed out the millions of people who are benefiting.

House Speaker Boehner called the Affordable Care Act a ``rolling calamity.'' House Majority Whip McCarthy said the enrollment numbers would be ``staggeringly low.'' Several GOP Members tweeted excitedly about how enrollments in their States wouldn't even fill a football stadium to capacity, and former Gov. Mike Huckabee said: ``You've got more people wanting to go moose hunting in New Hampshire than want Obamacare.''

Wrong. Really wrong--really, really wrong.

It is time for Republicans to look at the facts. It is time for the GOP to accept the reality that this law is helping millions of people: seniors, women, men, students, children--all Americans.

It is time to recognize that one of the biggest problems facing our country before the Affordable Care Act was a lack of affordable insurance and millions of people are gaining the benefits.

So we are not going to go back to the days when our people were denied health care, where an insurance company would walk out on you, where you brought in a child with asthma when they were wheezing and the insurance company said: Get out. We can't insure that child.

I have seen the tears before the ACA when people were forced into bankruptcy because they had no insurance, and I have seen the tears of joy since the ACA.

So we will listen to our colleagues tell their tale of horrors, and that is fine. They have every right. I respect them. But remember, as we hear these stories, go back and make sure that is exactly what you thought you heard and then ask them what is their plan. How do they want to help women and their families and their children?

So far, we haven't heard much. All we have heard about is repeal, repeal, repeal. That is not a policy. Repealing the Affordable Care Act will hurt Americans and not just a few but many millions.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask to speak in morning business for up to 20 minutes.

Madam President, this morning the Supreme Court announced its decision in the McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the latest in a series of rulings that have done away with any meaningful limits on money in politics. Since the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Citizens United in 2010, we have witnessed the systematic unraveling of our Nation's campaign finance laws.

I am sure this is a cause for celebration for some--the superwealthy and well-funded corporate interests--because, after all, these rulings give them more influence, more access, and more power, as if they need it. Then there is everybody else--the everyday folks in Minnesota and around the country who don't have the luxury of pouring millions of dollars into political campaigns.

There is the senior on a fixed income who gives $25 to a candidate she likes--maybe someone fighting to contain the cost of prescription drugs. That $25 donation is real money for that senior, but it is nothing compared to the $25 million the pharmaceutical industry can now spend to elect the other candidate.

There is the middle-class mom who has just enough money to buy her kids' school clothes, but surely doesn't have enough money left over to buy an election too.

There is the small business owner in the suburbs who is so concerned about making payroll that she cannot even begin to think about making a huge campaign contribution.

Our democracy can't function the way it is supposed to when these voices are drowned out by a flood of corporate money, so for those who believe the measure of democracy's strength is in votes cast, not dollars spent, well, for us there is nothing to celebrate today.

Citizens United was, in my view, one of the worst decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. By a 5-4 margin, the Court ruled that corporations have a constitutional right to spend as much money as they want to influence elections. If Big Oil wants to spend millions of dollars to attack the guy who is advocating for more renewable fuels, the Supreme Court says: Sure. Go ahead. If huge corporations want to run endless radio ads against a candidate who promises to raise the minimum wage, the Supreme Court says: Fine. Go ahead. If the Wall Street banks want to pour money into a campaign to undo consumer protection laws, the Supreme Court says that is their constitutional right so there is not much you can do about it. That is the way the Court sees it, but it is not the way I see it and it is not the way most Minnesotans see it either.

I think we should be able to say: Enough is enough. There is too much corporate money in politics and some reasonable limits on campaign spending are not just appropriate, they are necessary. Really, that is what Citizens United is all about--the case that got us into this mess. It sort of came down to the question: Can we, the people, place any real limit on the amount of money corporations can spend on elections? The answer should have been, yes, of course we can, but five Supreme Court Justices said: No, we can't. Their logic was literally unprecedented.

To reach the result it did, the Supreme Court had to overturn the case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The decision had been on the books for 20 years. Overturning Austin wasn't some minor technical change to the law; it was a radical shift, an exercise in pro-corporate judicial activism. Just compare what the Court said about campaign expenditures in Austin to what it said 20 years later in Citizens United. In Austin, the Court refused to strike down a Michigan law that limited corporate spending on elections. The Court explained that the lawsuit served a ``compelling interest''--namely, preventing corporations from gaining an unfair advantage in the political system. The Austin Court said that ``corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections.'' Those were the Supreme Court's words in 1990, that ``corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections.'' The Court explained that campaign finance laws prevent ``the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth that are accumulated with the help of the corporate form.'' In other words, there is good reason--no, a compelling reason--to be worried about unlimited corporate money in politics.

Had today's Supreme Court followed the precedent, Citizens United would have been an easy case. I mean, I would have written the opinion in a couple of minutes. It would have gone something like this: Laws limiting corporate campaign expenditures are constitutional. See Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. The end.

Of course, that is not the opinion the Court wrote in Citizens United. The Court's opinion was a lot longer and a lot worse.

Here is the one phrase that sums up the Citizens United decision: ``We now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.'' The majority of the Court told us that there is no reason at all to be worried about unlimited corporate money in politics anymore, that it does not give rise even to the appearance of corruption. And, the logic goes, since there is no reason to be concerned about it, there is no constitutional basis to regulate it. That is what the Court tells us, but we know better. The Court's analysis not only is disconnected from precedent, it is disconnected from reality.

The Minnesota League of Women Voters recently issued a report in which it concluded that ``the influence of money in politics represents a dangerous threat to the health of our democracy in Minnesota and nationally.'' That is the Minnesota League of Women Voters. That sounds right to me because here is the thing: In our democracy, everyone is supposed to have an equal say regardless of his or her wealth. The guy in the assembly line gets as many votes as the CEO--one. You don't get extra votes just because you have extra money or greater say because of greater wealth. It doesn't work that way--or shouldn't.

Citizens United turned the whole thing on its head and basically said that those among us with the most money get the most influence, and not only that, there is no limit to the amount of money the wealthy can spend or the amount of influence they can buy. I think that is inherently corrupting.

Unfortunately, Citizens United was just the beginning of the story, and in the years since we have seen courts across the country strike down campaign finance laws, ushering in what are known as super PACs-- wealthy groups that can raise and spend unlimited money to influence elections.

Today, in McCutcheon, the Court took Citizens United a step further, striking down a law that limited the amount of money people could give directly to candidates and political parties. In doing so, the Court overturned a key holding from Buckley v. Valeo, a case from 1976. Until today, the law said that direct contributions to candidates, parties, and certain PACs

could not exceed about $125,000 in the aggregate per election cycle. The law was intended to stem the tide of money in politics and maintain the integrity of our public institutions. But as of this morning, that law has been taken off the books at the Supreme Court's direction.

As Justice Breyer explained in his dissenting opinion in McCutcheon today, ``Taken together with Citizens United, today's decision eviscerates our Nation's campaign finance laws, leaving a remnant incapable of dealing with the grave problems of democratic legitimacy that those laws were intended to resolve.'' He is right.

Changing law has real consequences. What happens when we get rid of the speed limit? People with fast cars drive faster--as fast as they want to drive. What happens when we get rid of campaign finance limits? Well, special interests with a lot of money spend more of it on politics--as much as they want to spend. That is not a theory; it is empirical fact. According to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, spending by outside groups more than tripled from 2008 to 2012, with overall outside spending topping $1 billion--billion with a ``b''--for the first time in history. Where is the new money coming from? Well, in most cases we don't know. More on that a little later. What we do know is pretty much what one would expect. According to one study, 60 percent of super PACS' funding in the 2012 election cycle came from just 132 donors, each donating at least $1 million. So we have a relatively small group of superwealthy people accounting for most of the money.

Remember when the Citizens United court decision assured us that all of this new money in politics is OK, that we shouldn't be worried about it, that it ``will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy''? Wow, were they wrong. People are losing faith in our democracy, and can we blame them?

The system is broken, and we need to fix it. There are a number of good proposals out there, and I wish to use this opportunity to mention three of them: disclosure, public financing, and a constitutional amendment.

First, we need greater disclosure. The problem in the post-Citizens United world isn't just that there is now unlimited money in politics, it is also that we have no idea where that money is coming from. Billionaires and big corporations want to influence elections by giving unlimited money to super PACs, but they don't want anyone to know they are the ones pulling the strings, so they do something that looks a lot like money laundering--except that it is perfectly legal.

Let's say there are a bunch of corporations and billionaires out there who want to preserve indefensible tax loopholes that really only help their bottom lines. Their allies form a super PAC with a mission to do just that--preserve their big tax breaks. Now, a super PAC needs a name. ``Americans for Indefensible Tax Loopholes'' probably doesn't achieve their end, so the super PAC decides to go with something such as ``Americans for a Better Tax Code.'' After all, who could be against that? Remember, the corporations or the billionaires who are behind this whole thing don't want their fingerprints on this, so they pass their money through shell corporations before it ends up in the super PAC. That way the actual donors don't show up on the Federal disclosure forms. So now the TV is flooded with attack ads and something like ``paid for by Americans for a Better Tax Code,'' but nobody has any idea who is actually behind the advertisement and there is no good way to find out.

But hang on. It gets worse. In addition to all of the secret money being spent by these super PACs, there are a bunch of nonprofit organizations that are using a glitch in the Tax Code to keep all of their campaign activities secret. These groups, liberal or conservative, don't have to disclose a single penny. Combine them with the super PACs, and we have a lot of money and very little information. Voters aren't just being flooded, they are being blindfolded too.

We have a bill called the DISCLOSE Act that would go a long way toward fixing this problem. It would put in place a clear set of rules requiring disclosure whenever anyone spends more than $10,000 to influence an election, even when that money is being funneled through back channels. The idea is pretty simple: If someone is going to spend that kind of money to influence elections, people should know about it so they can make informed decisions and effectively evaluate what a candidate has to say. This is all about transparency and accountability.

All of us should be able to get behind that. Indeed, most of us already have. The last version of the DISCLOSE Act had support from a majority of Senators, and I am proud to have been one of the bill's cosponsors. Several of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have spoken enthusiastically about greater disclosure. They have said things such as ``sunshine is the greatest disinfectant.'' Even the Supreme Court has endorsed disclosure laws in both Citizens United and in today's decision. Poll after poll shows that the vast majority of Americans support greater transparency in campaign financing.

This is a basic step we should be able to take pretty easily--or one would think so. It turns out that one would be wrong. In July 2012 we brought the DISCLOSE Act to the Senate floor and Republicans blocked it. The bill died before it could get an up-or-down vote. But we are not going to give up on it. I will continue to work with my colleagues to make the campaign finance system more transparent.

Here is another thing we can do: Fundamentally change the way candidates finance their campaigns. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois recently reintroduced the Fair Elections Now Act, which basically says that candidates who refuse to accept contributions of more than $150 will be eligible for public financing of their campaigns. This would level the playing field. Instead of campaigns that are funded by a handful of wealthy donors, we will have citizen-funded grassroots campaigns where candidates focus their attention on people who donate $5, $10, $50, up to $150. We will restore power to that senior who makes the $25 donation.

I have cosponsored the Fair Elections Now Act in the past, and I am proud to cosponsor it again in this Congress. This isn't going to solve all of the problems created by Citizens United and McCutcheon, but it is a step in the right direction.

Finally, there is something else we can do, and honestly it is the one thing we most need to do if we are going to repair all the damage the Supreme Court has done; that is, amend the Constitution to reverse the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions.

Let me be clear. Amending the Constitution is not something I take lightly. I think it should be done only in extraordinary circumstances. But the Supreme Court's decisions present us with one of those situations because they erode the very foundation of our democracy.

I know what my colleagues are thinking: Constitutional amendments are really hard to come by. They require agreement by two-thirds of both Chambers of Congress, and they have to be ratified by at least three- quarters of the States.

It is no wonder that constitutional amendments have been so rare in our history.

Just because a constitutional amendment takes a long time to accomplish doesn't mean it is not worth trying. It took a long time-- much longer than it should have--to enshrine women's suffrage into the Constitution, but it got done because it would have been an affront to our democracy had it been otherwise.

These things take time and patience and persistence and perseverance, but they happen. In fact, there is already momentum building. I am proud to cosponsor a constitutional amendment that has been proposed here in the Senate that would restore legal authority to the people to regulate campaign finance. The States are moving in the right direction too. According to Public Citizen, 16 States have already called for a constitutional amendment. I believe it is time for us to answer the call.

Mr. President, thank you. I yield the floor for the Senator from Connecticut.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I rise to discuss and present amendment No. 2931 to the bill before us. This is a germane amendment. It is all about the substance of the bill before us and it is a fully bipartisan proposal, since all of the substance of this amendment was actually contained in the President's most recent budget submission.

The amendment idea is very simple: It would prohibit unemployment insurance and disability double-dipping. Those are two different things. One is about somebody who is temporarily unable to find work, still looking for work, clearly able to work. That is unemployment insurance. Disability is fundamentally different, somebody who is disabled and because of that disability cannot work on a long-term basis.

So, as President Obama has proposed, as many Republicans have proposed, this would simply prohibit an individual from receiving both of those benefits at the same time, and would save about $1 billion over 10 years. That is President Obama's own estimation.

To fully present and consider this, I would ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 2931.

Mr. President, I am going to repeat my request, because apparently the majority leader, based on his comments, didn't understand it.

I have an amendment that is about unemployment insurance. I have an amendment that is germane to the bill. It is not about ObamaCare, not about EPA, not about the Koch brothers. I have an amendment that is a proposal contained in President Obama's last two budgets. My amendment has nothing to do with any of the comments and objections he makes. For that reason I am trying to clarify that, and I would again ask unanimous consent that my germane amendment proposed by President Obama in his last two budgets be in order, and it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 2931.

Well, Mr. President, reclaiming the floor, I think it is very unfortunate. I don't know why it is diversionary to talk about the substance that is before us in this bill. That is not changing the subject, I would say through the Chair to the majority leader; that is talking about the subject. I don't know why it is delaying anything to consider an amendment during the time set aside for this bill. That is not delaying anything. That is doing the business of the Senate by bringing valid ideas to the floor and offering them as an amendment, and I don't know why it is Republican obstructionism to have an amendment that is a proposal contained in President Obama's last two budgets.

So again, I would make the point that everything the majority leader said in objecting to my being even able to present my amendment for a vote doesn't apply to my amendment. It is complete nonsense. It is just talking past the substance of this amendment which is about unemployment insurance reform and which is a bipartisan proposal and which is included in the President's last two budgets.

This is an important and commonsense reform. It is common sense because eligibility for the two programs we are talking about is mutually exclusive. It is apples and oranges. Disability is designed to assist folks who are physically or mentally unable to work for a significant period of time, sometimes permanently. Unemployment insurance, in contrast, is intended to replace some of the earnings for those individuals who become unemployed and are unable to find work temporarily.

It is an oversight, a technical imperfection in the law, the fact that some limited number of folks can double-dip and get both at the same time. This is widely recognized on a bipartisan basis.

On the Republican side, of course, I have this amendment. Senator Coburn, my colleague from Oklahoma, has had similar proposals. Senator Portman, my colleague from Ohio, has had similar proposals.

On the Democratic side, there is no higher ranking Democrat I can possibly cite than President Obama. The President has included this reform--exactly this reform--in his last two budget proposals. I have never heard any articulation from any Democrat or any Member of the Senate why this reform doesn't make sense.

The majority leader, while objecting to my even being able to present this amendment for a vote, offered no such rationale. He talked past it. He talked about the Koch brothers and he talked about EPA and he talked about ObamaCare, instead of talking about my germane, commonsense bipartisan reform amendment to this bill, which has been included--this proposal--in President Obama's last two budgets.

So I find this very unfortunate, but I am going to continue to fight for a vote on this amendment. It will improve the bill, whatever you think about the bill. This will improve it. This will save $1 billion over 10 years. This will clear up the double dipping which was never intended and contrary to the fundamental different purposes of the last of the two programs, and this will advance a proposal that has been included in President Obama's last two budgets.

With that, I will return to promote this amendment, but for now I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I rise to try to advance important legislation to fully authorize 27 Veterans Affairs clinics around the country in 18 different States, in communities that desperately need these facilities for our veterans, including two in Louisiana, Lafayette and Lake Charles.

These clinics have been on the books, planned for, approved for quite a while. Unfortunately, they ran into several bureaucratic glitches and hurdles. In the case of our two clinics in Louisiana, the first thing was a flatout mistake, a screwup at the VA, which they fully admit to. They made some errors in the contract letting process. Because of that, they had to stop that entire bidding process and back up and start all over.

That basically cost us 1 year in terms of those vital community-based clinics in Lafayette and Lake Charles. Then, as they were into that year of delay, out of the blue the Congressional Budget Office decided to score these sorts of clinics in a different way than they ever did before. That created a scoring issue with regard to all 27 of these clinics in 18 States.

On a bipartisan basis, a number of us went to work on that issue to clear that up. We have solved that issue, and the House has put a bill together with strong bipartisan support--virtually unanimous support-- and has passed the bill that resolved that issue.

It came to the Senate. I reached out to all of my colleagues. There were a few concerns, and I addressed those concerns proactively by finding savings in other parts of the budget to off-balance, counteract any possible costs of this bill, and so we added that amendment to that proposal. Through all of that hard work, we have addressed all of the substantive concerns with moving forward on these 27 clinics.

I have been trying to pass this bill with an amendment at the desk so that these 27 clinics can move forward as expeditiously as possible. As I said, every substantive concern about this bill, as it would be amended, has been met--everybody's concerns, conservatives, moderates, liberals.

The only objection to the bill now is from the distinguished Senator from Vermont, who, quite frankly, wants to hold it hostage, wants to object to it, simply to try to advance his much broader veterans bill which he brought to the floor and was unsuccessful in passing several weeks ago. While I appreciate the Senator's passion on this issue--I appreciate his legislation and his focus on it--the problem is that legislation does have many Senators with concerns about it, including me. Forty-three Senators, forty-three percent of the overall Senate, 43 out of 100, have serious, substantive concerns with that much broader bill.

In contrast to that, no one in the Senate has substantive concerns with my narrower bill with regard to 27 VA clinics around the country.

I simply suggest that we agree on important matters we can agree on; we use that to begin to build consensus to move forward constructively, do what we can agree on, and continue to work on that on which there is some disagreement.

In that spirit, I come to the floor again to ask unanimous consent that the Veterans' Affairs Committee be discharged from further consideration of the narrow veterans clinics bill I was referring to, H.R. 3521, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that my amendment, which is at the desk, which I also referred to, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Reclaiming the floor and reclaiming the time, I find this approach very unfortunate. To follow through on the scenario the Senator from Vermont himself laid out, yes, we can find agreement here on the floor,

but then, ``Katy, bar the door.'' That might lead to our finding agreement on other important matters that can help veterans, and we might be moving forward in this area and that area and the other one. God forbid that we make progress to help veterans and actually get something done versus having a hostage standoff. God forbid. I think the more productive way of working together is to agree on what we can agree on and keep talking about those areas where we have disagreement.

In fact, in the past Senator Sanders has endorsed that approach in the area of veterans affairs. He has said, in the past, working on another issue in November of 2013:

I'm happy to tell you that I think that was a concern of

his . . .

This was referring to another Senator. He continues:

. . . we got that UC'd last night. So we moved that pretty

quickly, and I want to try to do those things, where we have

agreement, let's move it.

He agreed on a small focus bill where we did have agreement. He said, let's do that by unanimous consent, let's agree where we can agree and be constructive and move on. He said, ``I want to try to do those things where we have agreement, let's move it.''

Well, I would say to Senator Sanders, through the Chair, we have agreement. This is an important matter. Twenty-seven clinics isn't the world, but it is an important matter that affects hundreds of thousands of veterans in 18 States, including in my Louisiana communities of Lafayette and Lake Charles. We have agreement, so let's move it. I agree with that approach. I think that is a constructive approach versus saying: I have majority support, but not the 60 required, so I am holding everything else veterans-related hostage, I am not agreeing to anything else.

I don't think that is a constructive approach. I don't think that reflects the spirit of the American people who want us to try to reach agreement where we can reach agreement. I don't think that is a constructive way to build goodwill and to build consensus.

I would urge my colleague, with all due respect, to reconsider. Let's agree where we can agree, where we have agreement. Let's move forward where we have agreement. Let's move it.

This isn't the world, but it is meaningful, it is significant, and it does not relieve any pressure in terms of the broader veterans discussion regarding the Sanders bill or the Burr alternative or anything else. Those bills are so much massively larger that these 27 clinics, being done separately, do not change the discussion or the dynamics of this in any way, shape, or form.

I would urge my colleague to reconsider. I would urge my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Landrieu, to urge Senator Sanders to reconsider, something she has not done to date. A lot of us are waiting for her support of these important community-based clinics in Lafayette and Lake Charles. She hasn't been on the floor. I urge her to join me on the floor to get this done.

Reserving the right to object, I would again point out that I am not only going to object to this, there are 43 Senators who have serious substantive concerns with this very broad and expansive bill, and those concerns and objections have been laid out. They have been laid out by my staff, in meetings with the staff of the Senator from Vermont, and they have been laid out by the Republican ranking member on the committee, Senator Burr. I share the general concerns of Senator Burr about the bill. So if the distinguished Senator from Vermont doesn't understand those concerns, quite frankly he hasn't been listening very hard. We have laid them out, and they are shared by 43 Senators, versus a bill, as amended at the desk, with no objections to its substance--none, 100 to 0. Big difference. Big difference.

So on behalf of the total of 43 Senators, I do object.

Madam President, retaining the floor, I would also ask the distinguished Senator from Vermont through the Chair--because he mentioned Senator Landrieu--has Senator Landrieu asked him to remove his objection to this bill so we can get a clinic in Lafayette and Lake Charles, No. 1; and No. 2, all those veterans groups he mentioned, do they oppose moving forward with this bill as it would be amended at the desk? Do they publicly oppose moving forward with those 27 veterans clinics?

I would ask those two very important, pertinent questions of the Senator from Vermont through the Chair.

Madam President, in that case, I ask unanimous consent to wrap up this discussion in about 45 seconds.

I thank my colleague.

Again, Madam President, I think this is very important. I agree with what Senator Sanders said last November--where we have agreement, let's move it. We have agreement about these 27 clinics, 18 States, including Lafayette and Lake Charles. Let's move it.

I didn't hear him say that any of those veterans organizations he continually cites oppose this because they do not. They take the commonsense approach the huge majority of Americans take: Where there is agreement and we can constructively move forward for veterans, let's do it and let's build on that.

Finally, if Senator Landrieu has forcefully asked the Senator to remove his objection to this, apparently she has not been very effective. I think that is very unfortunate because veterans in Louisiana are suffering today. They have been waiting for this. They have been waiting for years for this, and they still wait, even though there is no substantive disagreement with this bill.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have a germane amendment to this matter, which I have been trying to get recognized to present.

I call up my amendment No. 2931 to the Reid amendment No. 2874.

Mr. President, in light of the fact that our practice of regularly shutting out Senators from the ability to offer reasonable and germane amendments is inconsistent with all of the history and traditions of the Senate, I appeal the ruling of the Chair that the amendment is not in order and ask for the yeas and nays.

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

Madam President, I believe Senator McCain is on his way to the Chamber. We want to have a colloquy about Ukraine. I ask permission to do that when Senator McCain arrives.

Madam President, as Senator McCain makes his way to the floor, we are trying to figure out what to do as a nation--along with our allies in Europe and throughout the world--about Ukraine and really what to do with Putin.

In my view, this is a symptom of a greater problem. Crimea had been a part of Russia for a very long time, but in 1954, I believe it was, Crimea became part of a sovereign nation called the Ukraine through an agreement. In 1994 the Ukrainians--after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which was the third largest nuclear power in the world-- agreed to turn their nuclear weapons back over to the Russian Federation as part of the Budapest agreement. In return for receiving the weapons, the Russian Government promised to honor the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, and we were part of that deal.

I guess no one really fleshed out what honoring the territorial integrity of the Ukraine would mean, but clearly, in 1994 when the Ukrainian people gave up the nuclear weapons they possessed to the Russians--and we were part of the deal where we were going to guarantee their territorial integrity for the swap--no one envisioned that Russia would move into Crimea because they don't like the political dynamic in Kiev. If the people of the Ukraine want to move west, that is not a reason to basically abrogate the 1994 agreement.

What is going on around Russia is the following: As the former Soviet Union collapsed, people who had been in the sphere of influence of Russia--the former Soviet Union--have all embarked on a different path for the most part. There are a couple of people who align with Russia but not many.

My goal is quite simple: Allow the people of the Ukraine, Poland, and the former Soviet Union to make their decision about how they would construct their country apart from threats of force or intimidation by Russia.

It is no surprise to me that all those who could choose to move away from Russia because of the experience they had in the past have done so. Ukrainian people will always have a unique relationship with Russia, but they want to be Ukrainian.

There are a lot of ethnic Russians in Ukraine. We have everybody in America. America is an idea, not an ethnic group or a particular religion. Ukraine is multiethnic. They have ethnic Russians with a bunch of other folks--``Ukrainians,'' for lack of a better word.

The bottom line is that they have been debating among themselves about how to move forward and in what direction to move. Yanukovych won an election. He moved the Ukrainian people away from Europe and toward Russia. The President preceding him rode a revolution into power--the Orange Revolution, which some would argue did not produce the results the Ukrainian people were hoping for. It took us a long time as a nation--and we are still trying--to figure out who we are and where we are going. Democracies are messy.

The one thing we should all be doing is aligning ourselves around the concept that choosing one's destiny as an individual within the confines of the law and choosing one's destiny as a nation in international law should preclude having that choice taken away by your neighbor through military force and intimidation.

Entering into Crimea was a breach of international law. It was a breach of the 1994 agreement. Putin has proven to be an antidemocratic force in the world and in Russia.

When you are dealing with somebody, you need to look at their value system and their agenda and their interest. The value system of Mr. Putin is that of a KGB colonel. Most of his adult life he worked for the KGB, so his value system comes from that organization. It is about the ends, not the means. Democracy is about the process. I am not surprised that he snuffed out democracy--as any reasonable person would know it in Russia--and that he has made the Duma almost irrelevant, if not a joke. There is no independent judiciary; if you oppose Putin, you are liable to go to jail. I understand where he is coming from because of his value system; I just don't agree with it.

What we can't do is let him affect those who are living around him who want to go on a different path because the day you begin to do that, it never works out well. In World War II, every time somebody gave Hitler a little of this or a little of that, it never worked out well.

So what do we do? The European community, along with the United States, has a historic chance to reset what I think is a deterioration of world security and order. Having sanctions combined with aid, including sanctioning the Russians in a fashion they will feel, hitting their energy sectors, their oil and gas companies masquerading in this country, and increasing the capability of a gutted Ukrainian Army to defend themselves from further insurgents, would be a combination of hitting the Russians and helping the Ukrainians militarily and economically without any boots on the ground from the United States. I hope that is what the President will do. That is what we are trying to do here--to some extent, at least--on the sanctions side in the U.S. Senate.

I see Senator McCain has arrived. He has been the most consistent voice for the last decade about the role of America, our destiny as a country, with what we should align ourselves, understanding the Arab spring, and he has been a thorn in the side of Putin and Russia for quite awhile. So I wish to, if I could, ask a question of Senator McCain.

Given what we know about Putin's past and what he has done in Crimea, what does the Senator expect in the future and what can we reasonably do as a nation to change the outcome?

The Senator from Arizona is absolutely right.

Mr. President, if people are wondering why Senator McCain's name wasn't on that article--he is on everything else Joe and I did--it is because he was running for President and just got the nomination.

We were very much worried then, the three of us, that the Bush administration wasn't doing enough, and we needed to help the Georgian people as a signal not only to those in Georgia but other people in the neighborhood.

Let's talk about the Ukrainian military. It has been devastated, it has been gutted, because Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President, who won the election by less than 1 million votes--if you take Crimea out of Ukraine electorally, then no pro-Russian candidate inside Ukraine has much of a chance to win. So now they have destroyed the balance of power inside Ukraine politically. So as those left in Ukraine, the Ukrainian people move west, they are going to have the ability to align themselves with Europe. Putin is, in my view, very much likely to take some eastern cities that may ask for his help, because the referendum by the Ukraine to move west they opposed, but they can't stop because of the electoral change.

So watch out for a move by Ukraine to integrating the European Union in April or May when they have an election, and people in the east create a fake fight and Russia uses that as a reason to go further into the east.

But to Senator McCain's point: President Obama has conceded Crimea. There is just no other way we can say it. Our European allies and our President have basically said, If you do any more, we are going to get tougher with you. The Senator from Arizona nailed this. What does that say to Putin? I got Crimea. Seven people and I may be sanctioned, but I have been given Crimea by Europe and the United States.

The sanctions we are talking about get tougher only if he moves further into his sovereign neighbor.

Six thousand troops are combat-ready in Ukraine. Why? Because the pro-Russian President and their Defense Minister, who got fired yesterday, gutted the Ukrainian military, setting up a scenario such as this, making it impossible for the Ukrainians to effectively defend themselves.

Here is the question for us: Do we let the Russians get away with it? They have been planning this for a while. Clearly, the pro-Russian forces inside Ukraine took on the task of neutering the Ukrainian military and they have done a heck of a good job. Should the United States and our NATO partners, at the request of the Ukrainian people, supply them with defensive weapons to rebuild the military, gutted by pro-Russian elements? To me, the answer is yes. Because if we want to make Putin think twice about what he does next, he has to pay a price greater than he has for Crimea. If he gets away with this and he doesn't pay any price, he is going to be on steroids. But if he thinks about moving and he sees on the other side of Crimea a Ukrainian people willing to fight with some capacity, that will change the equation. Because it is one thing to cheer in Moscow for getting something for almost nothing in terms of effort. It will be another thing to talk about Russian soldiers getting killed to continue to be on the aggressive path.

So if the NATO alliance, along with the United States, doesn't help rebuild the Ukrainian military so they can defend themselves without our troops being involved, we have made a historic mistake, because everybody in the world is watching how this movie ends. The Iranians are watching, after Syria, now Russia. Does anybody in their right mind believe the Iranians take us seriously as a nation when it comes to stopping their nuclear program?

So I say to Senator McCain, you have been a voice for realism, understanding Putin for who he is. For years, you have been telling the Senate and the country and the world at large: Watch this guy. There have been a series of foreign policy failures that have added up to make it confident to Putin that he can move forward without consequences.

So I hope we can convince our colleagues in the Senate and the House to honor a reasonable request by the Ukrainian people to help them rebuild the military destroyed by pro-Russian forces.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

There is the Membership Action Plan, MAP--I think that is the acronym--where a country gets ready to enter into NATO. Georgia would like that. I think Ukraine now would like that. Here is the basic tension; don't you agree?

A plurality before Crimea was invaded wanted to move into the European Union and Ukraine. Now, I think clearly a majority, if you take the Crimea out, wants to associate with the European Union. Putin is saying hell no. So the Ukrainian people in the coming months are going to make a move toward the European Union and alliances with NATO, most likely, and the Russians are going to try to stop them.

I fear the way they will choose to stop them is not to try to influence the vote but to try to grab some eastern cities where you will have vocal minority Russian populations saying: Come here and help your fellow Russians. We are being absorbed by a bunch of thugs in Kiev. Senator McCain made a good point while we are talking. The theory of the case for Russia is: We have a legitimate right to go into this area to protect native Russians, ethnic Russians. That has no limit in that region.

If we adopt the theory of the case, ignore international law, let him break the 1994 agreement with no punishment for taking the Crimea, then I hope you understand what comes next. The theory of this case can apply to many countries in the region, not just Crimea and the Ukraine. So we need to reject this theory of the case.

We need to make him pay a price for what he has done, not what he might do. If he does not pay a price for what he has done, I can assure you what he will do. He will do more. The last thought is that Senator McCain and I and Senator Ayotte have been talking about the Al Qaeda buildup in Syria.

The Director of National Intelligence has testified before the country as a whole, before the Congress, that the Al Qaeda elements in Syria are representing a direct threat to our European allies and to our own homeland. There was a press report yesterday: What is your Congress and your Commander in Chief doing about it?

We have been told as Members of the Senate that the 26,000-plus Al Qaeda fighters, many of them European, some American, are amassing in Syria. Al Qaeda leaders from the tribal regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan are moving into Syria to organize this cabal. One of the goals that they would like to achieve is to take this force that is in the fight in Syria and disperse it back to Europe and the United States.

What are you doing about this threat, Mr. President? Members of the Senate, you have been told--11, 12 years after 9/11--that Al Qaeda is thinking about hitting us again. They exist in a certain part of the world. They are amassing capability. Their leaders are moving in to help organize this group. What is our response? What are we doing?

It is just not Ukraine. The whole world is melting down. I would end with this thought. Ronald Reagan had a great slogan. It was not a slogan. It was a world view: Peace through strength. Here is what I will say to the times in which we live, and I will talk about this more later. I want to come with my colleagues and talk about the Al Qaeda threat in Syria and elsewhere.

Peace is an illusion when it comes to radical Islam. It can never be achieved. But here is what can be achieved: security through strength. We need to have as a Nation security policies, national security policies that will deter aggression from nation-states and radical Islamic organizations who do not fear death. We have no such policy. We need to have security through strength. We are cutting our military. We are gutting our ability to defend ourselves through reducing intelligence capabilities at a time when the threats are on the rise.

This is the most dangerous time in American history--since the end of the Cold War, in many ways since the end of World War II--because the enemies of this Nation are getting stronger and we are getting weaker. Somebody needs to change that calculation before it is too late.

So to Senator McCain and Senator Ayotte, both of you have been to the Ukraine in the last couple of weeks. You have done the hard work of traveling away from your constituents and your families to find out first hand what is on the ground. I hope that people in the body will listen to their experiences. There are a lot of Democrats who seem to have the same experience.

Mr. President, I come to speak about the economy in terms of wages, but I do want to respond to the last discussion in terms of health care for a moment. Part of the fair shot is to make sure they have a fair shot that they need for their families, and thank goodness, under the Affordable Care Act, now folks are going to get what they are paying for. They cannot just get dropped if they get sick or if their child has juvenile diabetes or they have heart disease or some other condition. They are going to be able to know they can get insurance without preexisting conditions.

But it is also going to be incredibly important moving forward for women. As the author of the provision to improve maternity care, I do want to say to my friend who just spoke that prior to health reform, about 60 percent of the plans in the private market wouldn't provide maternity care for women, amazingly. Being a woman was viewed as a preexisting condition because you might be of childbearing age or maybe you are not.

I remember hearing from one young couple where the husband couldn't get insurance because his wife was of childbearing age. They couldn't get maternity care. This is not true anymore--not true anymore. Thank goodness for the comprehensive care that our friends on the other side call regulations on insurance companies--and actually that regulation is a requirement--so that women can get maternity care, and there is a requirement that we treat mental health and physical health the same in terms of insurance, which by the way affects 1 out of 4 people in our country. I think that it is a good thing.

We can always improve on it, and we will, to make it better, listen to the concerns and do what needs to be done to make it work better. But I think that families now have a fair shot to get health care coverage and not as parents go to bed at night worrying about whether their kids are going to get sick. It is a good thing, and we will move forward in a positive way.

Mr. President, let me tell you now about a business owner who said the minimum wage wasn't good enough--wasn't good enough--and his employees needed more. So he doubled everybody's wages. He doubled everybody's wages, and people thought he was crazy. He was shunned by the business community. People said he would go bankrupt. His name was Henry Ford--Henry Ford. Because of his decision to pay his workers $5 a day, which was unheard of 100 years ago, he became one of the richest men in America.

When he first announced a $5 workday, not everybody was happy. Economists had a fit. Ford's competitors were furious. The Wall Street elite were calling the $5 day ``an economic crime.'' They said Ford wouldn't be competitive in the economy anymore. They questioned his judgment and his business sense.

They were wrong. His decision to pay his workers $5 a day not only was a brilliant business decision, it created the middle class of this country. We are very proud in Michigan that it started with us.

A hundred years ago $5 a day was a lot of money. A loaf of bread cost 6 cents. A gallon of milk cost about 35 cents. At 3 a.m., the day after Henry Ford made his announcement, a bitterly cold day in Detroit, something started to happen on Woodward Avenue.

Picture it. In the middle of a cold night--and we have a lot of cold nights in Michigan--people all around Detroit

at 3 o'clock in the morning began walking through the snow-covered streets to Woodward and Manchester, the site of Ford's Highland Park plant. A line was forming, getting longer every minute. Tens and then hundreds and then thousands of people were getting in line. Traffic came to a standstill. There were too many people in the road for the cars to get by.

The hours passed. The lines got longer. By 10 a.m. there were 12,000 people standing in line waiting in the freezing cold for the chance to get one of those jobs--one of those $5-a-day jobs that Henry Ford was offering, to be able to work hard, get that job, and build a better life. They were just looking for a fair shot to get ahead, like the millions of workers today who work 40 hours a week, such as the single mom who scrubs floors and works 40 hours a week and is still living in poverty, and the millions of other Americans still looking for work. Like most Americans and like those Ford workers 100 years ago, they just want a shot to work hard and play by the rules and be able to get ahead with their family.

Henry Ford knew that when his workers had money in their pocket, when they had enough money to put food on the table, when they were caught up on their bills, it meant they could afford to buy one of those cars they were building at the plant.

In fact, that is what he said when folks called him crazy. He said, ``I want to make sure I got somebody who can afford to buy my car.''

For families in 1914, a job in the Ford factory was a ticket to the middle class, and that is still true today. Henry Ford knew that paying a higher wage would mean happier workers and lower turnover, instead of workers who were frustrated about not being able to make ends meet. Henry Ford had workers who were proud to work for him. This meant greater productivity and greater profits because if the workers could make more cars he could sell more cars. If they could sell more cars, they could make more cars, so this was a win-win situation.

Henry Ford made more money than he had ever dreamed of, and his workers made more money than they had ever dreamed of. The effect this new wage had on Ford's employees went deeper than their wallets. In the first 3 weeks after the raise began, more than 50 of his employees applied for marriage licenses because they said they could now afford to get married and start a family. A lot of folks talk about the importance of starting a family. Having money in your pocket to be able to get started in life is a pretty big deal.

When the workers made enough money to live on, they were able to spread the wealth. Their local grocery stores, restaurants, and hardware stores and others also benefited from the increase in wages, which was reflected all around the neighborhood and the plant in 1914. A sandwich cart operator near the plant was interviewed about the new wages by the Detroit News in February of 1914, and he said: ``I'm for this raise in wages. I sell nearly twice as much as I did a month ago.'' Those who sold food and goods, such as hats, scarves, and gloves near the plant said the same thing. One vendor said that if things kept going like this, he would have to hire a new employee to help out with the new business.

It is simple: When workers have more money in their pockets, they have more money to spend at businesses both large and small. When businesses have more customers, they can pay their workers better and hire more of them. When the workers have more money in their pocket, they can go out and buy more things, and that is called the demand part of the economy.

Our colleagues are always talking about the supply side. They like to say: Let's just give it to the top and it will trickle down. Most people in Michigan are still holding their breath waiting for it to trickle down. We know if you put it in the pocket of workers--people who are, frankly, fighting to hold on to stay in the middle class or working to get into the middle class--you create the demand side of the economy.

As Henry Ford found out, things started turning. This kind of virtuous cycle that Henry Ford helped create in Michigan and in America 100 years ago is what we need to do today to restore our economy. We can't do that with a minimum wage that has lost most of its value in the past few decades.

Those Ford workers worked hard, saved their money, bought homes, built communities, and gave their children opportunities, such as being able to go to college. In Michigan, you can buy a little cottage up north where you can have a boat, a snowmobile, or be able to go out hunting on the weekends and enjoy life--that is the middle class.

Because of what was done by doubling people's wages--when everyone said Henry Ford was crazy--created the middle class of this country. But today everything the middle class worked for--what they built with their bare hands, elbow grease, and blood, sweat, and tears--is at risk. The Federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 for nearly 5 years. That single mom with two kids working for minimum wage today earns about $15,000 a year, which is $4,000 below the poverty line. That is not right, if you work 40 hours a week and make less than the poverty level. That is not how we built the middle class 100 years ago, and it is certainly not how we are going to grow it today.

Too many Americans rightly feel they are trapped in a rigged game where heads, the wealthy win, and tails, the rest of us lose. What we need is an economy that gives everybody a fair shot. That is what we are fighting for, that is what we believe in, and that is what we are promoting in everything we are doing. We want a fair shot and a fair economy for everybody--not a free shot but a fair shot for everybody who works hard. Being rewarded for your hard work is what makes this country great. You can take a good idea, you can work hard, you can build a better life, and that is the American dream.

Today there is less opportunity for people who do that, unfortunately. People need to have a chance to build something--to build a career, a company, and a future--or we will fall behind the rest of the world. They need a fair shot. They deserve a fair shot. The middle class we built over the last 100 years could cease to exist if we don't act together and understand what drives the economy.

To turn things around, we need to make sure people can get jobs that pay a fair wage just as we had 100 years ago. Let's talk about what that means. We can start by raising the minimum wage. What is appalling to me today is that the $5 a day Henry Ford paid his workers for 8 hours of work is the equivalent of $14.67 an hour. If we did what Henry Ford did 100 years ago by paying $5 to his employees to help drive the economy and create the middle class, employees today would have to be paid about $14.67 an hour.

Think about that for a minute. The millions of Americans across this country who are working today for a minimum wage are only making the equivalent of half of what Henry Ford paid his workers 100 years ago. Meanwhile, the average CEO in this country today now makes as much as the wages of 933 minimum wage workers combined. I could not fit quite that many people in here, but imagine 933 people--all working 40 hours a week, making minimum wage, and maybe working 2 or 3 jobs--combined equals the average salary of a CEO.

We are going to move this country and working-class people forward again if we understand that people need a fair shot to get ahead and we do something about it. That is why we are going to vote soon on the Fair Minimum Wage Act which does just what it says. It makes sure all of our workers are getting paid a fair wage. An hourly wage of $10.10-- not even as much as I was talking about with Henry Ford--is the right number because it gets people out of poverty. That is the number that gets people out of poverty.

Some places across the country are seeking a minimum wage hike that is higher than that, while too many States are stuck at $7.25 an hour, which is the national average. The bill before us in the Senate strikes the right balance by raising the minimum wage to the point where people are above the poverty line and have a fair shot to get ahead. If it made sense for Henry Ford in 1914, it makes sense for us today in 2014. The American people know this, and that is why raising the minimum wage enjoys broad bipartisan public support. If the public were voting, this would be done.

Democrats, Republicans, and Independents understand that it makes

sense, just as Henry Ford realized it 100 years ago. If families are making more money, it is better for everybody in the economy, and it is better for taxpayers. All of us, as taxpayers, know that higher salaries mean we are not spending so much money on food assistance. If we can get $10.10 an hour, we are saving money on SNAP and people will not need or qualify for food assistance anymore. That is the way to cut the food assistance budget the right way. We need to give people access to work that pays above poverty line. Give people a handhold on the ladder to opportunity.

This is about the future of our country. If we want to continue to be a world leader, we have to make sure everybody has a fair shot at a good education, to get a good job, start a business, and make enough money. When they can do that, they will be able to support their family.

Nobody who works 40 hours week should live in poverty. Yet that is exactly what is happening today. We can change that. We can do what Henry Ford did. This man became one of the wealthiest men in the world by lifting people up and giving them a fair shot with a fair wage. I hope that in a few days we will do that. The American people get it, and I hope we will too.

I yield the floor.

I rise to talk about two very important issues for the country and for Louisiana. The first is fixing the national flood insurance system, getting it right. The good news is I think we are well on a path to doing that effectively. The second is veterans medical clinics, two of which are in Louisiana. They have been held up for completely bureaucratic reasons and aren't moving forward as they need to serve the veterans in Lafayette and Lake Charles, LA, and in about 25 other locations around the country.

First, flood insurance. Only a couple of days ago the House passed by a huge margin, over 300 votes, a strong bill to permanently fix the National Flood Insurance Program. Those aspects of the so-called Biggert-Waters act passed over 1 year ago but are unworkable, clearly creating problems on the ground.

This is great news, because unless we fix those very real problems, we would have major problems on our hands in the National Flood Insurance Program, not only in Louisiana, not only in Florida, and not only in the Superstorm Sandy area, but in every State in the country-- every State. It is not a question of if these issues are coming to your State, it is a question of when and exactly to what extent.

Over 1 year ago, we passed the Biggert-Waters act. That was an important reauthorization of the National Flood Insurance Program. It also included reforms, and many of those reforms needed to happen to stabilize the financing of the program.

What no one understood adequately then, however, is that those well- intended reforms, in practice, in implementation by FEMA, would lead to unsustainable, completely unaffordable rate increases in a significant number of cases.

That only began to be understood in the months after the bill was passed as FEMA started to implement it, as FEMA came to homeowners, came to State authorities, came to Members of Congress, and began to lay out some of the rates we would see in certain areas.

I am not talking about modest rate increases. We need modest rate increases to stabilize the financing of the program. I am talking about completely unaffordable rate increases in some cases--flood insurance rates going from $300 a year to $11,000 a year or $19,000 a year or $26,000 a year on a modest middle-class home and on a middle-class family that followed the rules every step of the way. We can't allow that to stand.

First, it is fundamentally unfair. As I said, these middle-class families followed the rules every step of the way. They built to the right elevation when they built their homes, never let their premiums lapse, and never let their insurance lapse.

In that context, for them to be hit with truly unaffordable rate increases--increases that could literally cause them to have to walk away from their home in some significant number of cases and not be able to afford to stay there--is just plain wrong.

Secondly, it is completely counterproductive, because one of the ways we have stabilized the National Flood Insurance Program fiscally is to grow the program, to have more folks paying premiums, and to have more folks covered, not fewer. This aspect of Biggert-Waters, which would lead to truly unaffordable rate increases in a significant number of cases, is unworkable from the very vantage point of the goal of Biggert-Waters to stabilize the system. So we can't let that stand for that reason either.

The good news is, because of those very real problems, both the Senate, and now the House, have come together in a major bipartisan way to fix the issue. The Senate acted about 1 month ago passing meaningful legislation. I was an original coauthor and a strong supporter. As I said a few minutes ago, the House acted two nights ago--Mardi Gras night in Louisiana terms--to take strong action to fix this program.

The House bill is stronger and more significant in several respects, mostly because the reforms in the House bill are permanent. It is not a timeout, as the Senate bill was. It is a permanent fix that creates a much higher degree of certainty and permanence immediately.

Also, the House bill is fully paid for with a modest premium increase on everybody's premiums--very modest, completely affordable--to make sure that all of these changes are paid for. Because of these aspects of the House bill, because of the permanent nature of the fix, the fact that we create certainty and predictability immediately moving forward for homeowners and real estate markets is actually the preferable approach.

I urge all of us in the Senate to take up that bill at the soonest possible moment. Specifically, I urge the distinguished majority leader to put it on the floor, to create time on the floor, so we can deal with the House bill absolutely as soon as possible.

I know there will be some attempt to obtain unanimous consent to pass the House bill immediately. Of course, I will consent; I am all for that. But, realistically, I don't think that is going to happen on the Senate floor. The Senate bill had some objectors, the Senate bill had some opponents, and so does the House bill.

Realistically, I urge the majority leader to create the time on the Senate floor to take this up and move through the process absolutely as quickly and as expeditiously as possible. That is the way it is actually going to work and that is the way it is actually going to happen.

I hope we can do that as early as next week. I strongly support our consideration of this bill on the Senate floor as early as next week.

The second national and Louisiana issue I want to discuss has to do with veterans and veterans' health care, which we have been talking about on the Senate floor for some time, specifically the need to move forward with 27 fully approved, fully authorized, VA community-based clinics that have been stalled because of bureaucratic problems. Again, these clinics are around the country: two in Louisiana, one in Lafayette, one in Lake Charles. These clinics have been approved by the VA and have been in their plan for some time. They are fully authorized. We thought they were fully paid for until, first, the VA made some bureaucratic mistakes to delay the Lake Charles and Lafayette clinics in particular; and then, out of the blue, the CBO changed the way they score all of these clinics, all of these issues, and created another bureaucratic hurdle.

Again, the good news is we came together in a bipartisan way and have a solution to those purely bureaucratic hurdles so that all of these clinics can move forward expeditiously. The House specifically passed a bill that would take care of these bureaucratic hurdles. They passed it on the consent calendar by a whopping bipartisan margin.

So I come to the floor urging all of us to do the same. Specifically, I have an amendment to the bill that also makes it even more fiscally sustainable by having a pay-for for any conceivable cost to this bill, and that is what my amendment would do.

This VA clinic legislation was in the Sanders veterans bill last week and it was in the Burr alternative. It was in both the Democratic and the Republican veterans packages. Neither of those packages passed. The Sanders bill was defeated on a budget point of order, which I supported because I don't think it is properly paid for and is sustainable both in terms of our budget and, even more important for veterans, how the veterans system works and handles its current patient load. The Burr bill never even got a vote.

We have disagreements about those larger packages. Those are real, substantial disagreements, but in the midst of that I would hope we can agree to what we can agree on, and these VA clinics certainly fall into that category. We have cleared all objections to this VA clinic piece specifically. We have addressed all issues having to do with these VA clinics, in part through my amendment at the desk. The only possible objection I know of is the fact that a larger package is not passing.

I understand there are big arguments about that larger package. Those are legitimate differences of opinion. I don't think that should stand in the way of our agreeing to what we can agree to and moving forward with an important piece of the puzzle for veterans health care--these 27 community-based clinics around the country.

In that spirit I will be asking for a unanimous consent agreement whereby we would take up the House-passed bill. Again, this House- passed bill was actually on the consent calendar, passed with a whopping bipartisan majority. We would adopt my amendment at the desk, which addresses some fiscal concerns with the bill, and we would then pass it through the process. This would be our coming together and agreeing to what we can agree on. That is what the American people want us to do as we work on all other aspects of health care and veterans' benefits covered by both the Burr and the Sanders bill debated last week.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 3521

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 3521, which was received from the House; that my amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, reclaiming the floor and my time.

I find that very regretful. Of course I will continue to work with the Senator from Vermont. Of course I will continue to work on that larger package, which I have been actively involved in for some time. I will continue that. But basically the Senator from Vermont is holding a very tiny piece of this hostage--a tiny piece that will have no impact whether it is in or out in terms of passage of that broader bill.

What is happening is we have a piece that on its substance, on the substance of the clinics themselves, no one objects to; a piece that passed the House by a huge overwhelmingly bipartisan majority. Yet it is not going to pass here today or perhaps anytime soon because it is held hostage over larger fights.

I will continue to work on that broader veterans piece. I support a broader veterans bill, if it is styled the right way and if it is fiscally responsible. I support the Burr alternative. I will continue to look for common ground between that Burr alternative and the Sanders bill. But whether this clinic piece is in or out of that discussion will have zero impact on passing that piece. I honestly think it will have zero impact.

I find it very unfortunate we can't get this done in the meantime; that what my colleague considers the perfect is now the enemy of the very good, and we can't serve veterans by coming together on what we do agree on and acting in the meantime.

With that, I urge my distinguished colleague from Vermont to reconsider over time, as we work on this larger veterans bill, because we could pass this today. The House would pass the slightly modified version immediately, and we would be moving on with 27 community-based clinics around the country which veterans in all of those communities desperately need.

Additionally, I wish to thank Senator Inhofe for his active cooperation in moving these clinics forward.

Mr. President, my good friend, the senior Senator from Oklahoma, is in support of vital legislation that recently passed the House of Representatives, H.R. 3521 the Department of Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Lease Authorization Act of 2013. The legislation authorizes 27 Department of Veterans Affairs clinics across this country including much needed clinics in Lafayette and Lake Charles,

Yes, it is absolutely critical for Louisiana veterans as well that both of the clinics in Lafayette and Lake Charles are authorized and finally built. To clarify, both of the Louisiana clinics are not new projects. They would actually be nearing completion, but because of bureaucratic mistakes committed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, they have faced significant delays. Two years ago, due to an unexpected change by the Congressional Budget Office--CBO--in how it estimates the cost of VA clinics, these two vital clinics were then stripped out of a VA authorization bill. Veterans in Louisiana have waited long enough. It is time for the United States Senate to act. This legislation makes it so veterans are not forced to drive a 100 miles to receive much needed services.

This legislation makes important reforms to the VA leasing process taking into account CBO concerns, and it has received vast bipartisan support in the House passing 346-1. I urge my colleagues to provide the same support for our veterans in the Senate and pass this legislation now by unanimous consent.

With that, I yield floor.