Know Before You Owe Private Student Loan Act of 2013

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce two pieces of legislation: the Know Before You Owe Act and the Fairness for Struggling Students Act. These bills will take critical steps toward addressing the student debt crisis facing America.

Every week my office is contacted by young people and their families who share with me their horror stories about student debt. Many of them are college students or graduates who are getting crushed by student loans the size of mortgages. All too often, these young people were lured into attending worthless, for-profit colleges that left them with worthless diplomas and mountains of debt. It is disgraceful. But it is not only young people facing this debt crisis, it is their parents, their siblings, even their grandparents who did them a favor by cosigning on these loans. They, too, are being held responsible when the loans go into default.

Many of these people contact my office because they don't know where to turn. Their debt loan leaves them feeling helpless. They are putting off major life decisions such as buying a home or even starting a family because of crushing student debt. We can't stand idly by any longer and ignore this reality. We have to step up and recognize that this student debt bomb is ticking away.

Student loan debt among college students surpassed $1 trillion last year. The New York Fed reports that balances of student loans have now exceeded the balances on automobile loans and credit card debt in America--student loans. That makes student loans the largest form of consumer debt outside of home mortgages.

Last year, 37 million borrowers held student loan debt. That is more than 10 percent of the population of this country. The average balance is $24,300. But, remember, that is an average. This is a massive amount of debt, and it is having a profound impact on the lives of students and their families across America.

The overall growth in student debt is troubling. The most pressing concern is what is known as private student loans. If a student goes to college, they could qualify for a government-guaranteed loan with dramatically lower interest rates with accommodations based on their employment and even some loan forgiveness. Not so when it comes to private student loans in most cases. Students who take out Federal loans receive affordable interest rates, a lot of protections and repayment options. Private student loans are totally different. Private student loans often have high variable interest rates, hefty origination fees, lack of repayment options, and, unfortunately, crushing penalties.

In 2012 the amount of outstanding private student loans exceeded $150 billion. Students are being steered into these private loans while they are still eligible for the better government loans. Why? Because somebody is making more money when they sign up for private student loans. As a result, many students are being saddled with debt they don't have to be saddled with and sometimes debt they can never repay.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year reported that at least 850,000 individual private student loans were in default amounting to more than $8 billion.

Let me tell my colleagues about one of those students. I have opened on my official Web site a place where those who have student loans and want to share their stories can come. Anna Wilcox, who is 31 years old, did. She attended the Brooks Institute of Photography, a for-profit college owned by the Career Education Corporation.

Anna Wilcox saw a TV ad one day about this so-called Brooks Institute of Photography and decided she would call and inquire. The school called her twice a day until she finally enrolled. The recruiter at the school--this Career Education Corporation School--told her that a Brooks degree would help her make $85,000 a year as a photographer. So Anna enrolled, and when she graduated in 2006, she had a debt of about $170,000, almost all of it in private student loans.

Anna was 24 years old with $170,000 in student debt from this for- profit school. With a variable interest rate that went as high as 18 percent, her balance just kept growing. Her monthly payments on her private student loan now exceed $1,000 a month. Her Federal loans she took out as well had low interest rates. She said those payments are reasonable, and she can handle them. Her parents decided to help her out and cosigned on the loans. Now her parents, in their sixties, are on the hook as well. They have to change their life plans because they wanted to help their daughter, and now they are stuck with a debt of $170,000 for a worthless diploma from a for-profit school.

Well, Anna did find a job, but the job doesn't pay anywhere near $85,000 a year. She just can't keep up with these staggering monthly loan payments. She said she would like to file for bankruptcy, clean the slate, and start over. She can't borrow money to go to a real school. She has wasted her borrowing power on these for-profit schools.

It doesn't do her any good to want to file for bankruptcy. Private student loans are not dischargeable for bankruptcy. If a person signs up as a college student for one of these student loans, it is debt that will follow that person for a lifetime. There is no way to escape it. It is something to think about long and hard when students make that decision.

Anna is very blunt and despondent. She said she made a big mistake going to the school. It was a waste. She thought she would get a better life by going to college. She didn't realize these for-profit schools by and large are a waste of money and cause debt that most students can never pay back. She has bad credit now and a mountain of debt to show for it.

So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to say: Well, Anna, you should have been a little bit smarter when you were 19 years old and sat across the desk from somebody who said: We want you as a college student. You made your mistake, girl. That is the way it works in America, and now you have to pay the price. Is that the answer? Is that the answer when these for-profit schools depend on the Federal Government and taxpayers for 85 to 95 percent of all of the revenue they take in?

These for-profit schools, if we took the Federal money we send their way--if these for-profit schools were a Federal agency, it would be the ninth largest Federal agency in America. That is how much money we are pouring into these for-profit schools.

Let me just put three numbers out for people to reflect on: 12 percent of the students out of high school go to for-profit schools. We know their names. They are students who gather in Washington and come to the galleries. They know what I am talking about. Go on the Internet and try to escape an ad for a for-profit school: University of Phoenix, DeVry, Kaplan. Ring a bell? Well, I can tell my colleagues these are the biggies, but there are hundreds of them. Twelve percent of the students after high school go to for-profit schools.

For-profit schools, though, account for 25 percent of all of the Federal aid to education. They just soak it up. Students borrow and turn it over to the for-profit schools. The student is stuck with the debt. The for-profit school may never graduate you, but they have their money.

There is a third number to remember. The first is 12, the second is 25. The third number is 47. Forty-seven percent of the student loan defaults in America are students from for-profit schools, students being dragged into these schools that charge way too much for tuition and then the student either can't finish the school or gets out of school and can't find a job and they are stuck.

I tell my students back home, if you are not sure, start at a community college. It is affordable. It has a wide array of courses to be offered to you. You will learn a lot about yourself, you will learn a lot about what you want to

do in school, and you will not end up sunk in debt like these for- profit schools want to do to you.

We have to do something about Anna Wilcox's plight and many others just like her.

I wish to commend especially one community college in my State, the Elgin Community College. I have been visiting that school regularly and always come home thinking: This college gets it. They have implemented a financial counseling program that goes above and beyond anything I would put into law. All of the students at Elgin Community College in Elgin, IL, must submit a monthly budget detailing all their costs when they are seeking financial aid. The student then has a mandatory, one- on-one meeting with a counselor to review the loan balance, the repayment options, and what happens if they default. This community college has implemented a workshop for students who will be graduating during the upcoming semester to discuss repayment options and give them a complete summary of every loan they have taken out.

These students are facing debt the likes of which they have never seen in their lives. They are motivated by all of the preaching they have heard from their parents, like me, saying: Go to school. Get a degree. They are ready to sign up because they want to do what they think is the right thing. They do not know that the for-profit school is worthless, they do not know that the thousands and thousands of dollars of debt will never be able to be repaid, and they do not know that debt will be with them for a lifetime. So here are some bills I am introducing to address it.

I believe students will benefit more if they have the kind of loan counseling we see at the Elgin Community College. I am joining Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the HELP Committee, in reintroducing the Know Before You Owe Private Student Loan Act of 2013.

The legislation requires colleges to confirm a student's enrollment status, cost of attendance, and estimated Federal financial aid assistance before any private student loan can be approved for that student. In other words, if you are eligible for the government loan, for goodness' sakes, take that first. The private student loan is much more expensive, and it is tougher to pay it back. So we want to make sure students who are eligible for government loans know that before they sign up for the private student loans. Often, students have not even applied for Federal aid before they are encouraged by some of these schools to apply for private student loans, or students have not exhausted their eligibility for Federal aid. Requiring school certification would give the school the opportunity to make students aware of Federal student aid options and the most affordable options.

The bill would also require schools to counsel the students about their loan options. Schools would be required to inform students about the differences between Federal student loans and private student loans, and they are stark and dramatic. For students who decide to take out private student loans, the bill would require lenders to provide them with quarterly up-to-date information about their balance and interest accrued. It is not one of these deals where you just keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, and finally when you are about to finish school--or years later--they give you the total, and you look at it and say: My goodness, I did not realize I had signed up for all of that debt.

This legislation is supported by a large coalition of educational, student, and consumer organizations and has been recommended by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The other bill I am reintroducing today is the Fairness for Struggling Students Act. This bill, cosponsored by Senators Whitehouse, Franken, Harkin, and Jack Reed, would restore the Bankruptcy Code's pre-2005 treatment of private student loans.

As I said earlier, since 2005 private student loans have enjoyed a privileged status under the Bankruptcy Code. They cannot be discharged in bankruptcy except under the most extreme circumstances. Only a few other types of debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy--criminal fines, child support, taxes, and alimony. In contrast, nearly all types of private, unsecured debt--credit card debt, doctor bills--are dischargeable in bankruptcy, but not student loans.

There was no good reason for Congress to give such preferred treatment to these financial institutions that are peddling these private student loans. It was a provision--a sweetheart provision-- tucked into a massive bankruptcy reform bill with very little debate and even less justification. There is no evidence that private student loan borrowers were abusing the bankruptcy system before this law was changed. In fact, the private student loan market has been growing-- even before this measure was enacted into law. But the private student loan industry got a sweetheart deal out of Congress, and now we are in a situation where many students have overwhelming private student loan debt, and they cannot repay, and they cannot escape. This is devastating for those students and a drag on our overall economy.

There was an article a few months ago in the New York Times, and it talked about a grandmother who was having her Social Security check garnished because she had signed on as a cosigner of her granddaughter's student loan. Her granddaughter dropped out of college and could not pay back the loan, and now we are going after grandma's Social Security check. That is how serious this can be.

A large coalition of student, educational, civil rights, and consumer organizations support this bill. I hope we can move forward with legislation this year. It is time to restore fairness to our Bankruptcy Code when it comes to student debt.

Let me be clear: When used appropriately, student loans are valuable and important. I would not be standing here today if I had not borrowed money from the Federal Government to go to college and law school. I never could have afforded it otherwise. It was called the National Defense Education Act. If I told you the numbers that I borrowed, you would realize how old I am. But at the time, it was scary to have that much debt coming fresh out of law school. I paid it back just like I was supposed to so the next generation could take over. But what I faced, the debt I incurred to go to school and law school, does not even come close to matching what many students have to borrow in the first semester, and that, unfortunately, leads to a debt that some will be crushed with for a lifetime. In many instances, student loans help Americans get a quality higher education and the job skills they need to repay their loans and have a rewarding life and career. But, unfortunately, there are far too many Americans who have been steered into high-cost private loans that will burden them for life and prevent them from fully contributing to our economy.

It is about time we woke up to the reality of what students--millions of students--across America are facing, and their families. We have a responsibility to them over and above the profits that are being earned by for-profit schools and the financial institutions peddling these private student loans with these outrageous interest rates and terms. It is time for this Congress to listen to working families and their kids all across America to restore transparency, fairness, and common sense to private student loans. I urge my colleagues to support these bills.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise today to reintroduce two pieces of legislation: the Know Before You Owe Act and the Fairness for Struggling Students Act. These bills will take critical steps toward addressing the student debt crisis facing America.

Every week my office is contacted by young people and their families who share with me their horror stories about student debt. Many of them are college students or graduates who are getting crushed by student loans the size of mortgages. All too often, these young people were lured into attending worthless, for-profit colleges that left them with worthless diplomas and mountains of debt. It is disgraceful. But it is not only young people facing this debt crisis, it is their parents, their siblings, even their grandparents who did them a favor by cosigning on these loans. They, too, are being held responsible when the loans go into default.

Many of these people contact my office because they don't know where to turn. Their debt loan leaves them feeling helpless. They are putting off major life decisions such as buying a home or even starting a family because of crushing student debt. We can't stand idly by any longer and ignore this reality. We have to step up and recognize that this student debt bomb is ticking away.

Student loan debt among college students surpassed $1 trillion last year. The New York Fed reports that balances of student loans have now exceeded the balances on automobile loans and credit card debt in America--student loans. That makes student loans the largest form of consumer debt outside of home mortgages.

Last year, 37 million borrowers held student loan debt. That is more than 10 percent of the population of this country. The average balance is $24,300. But, remember, that is an average. This is a massive amount of debt, and it is having a profound impact on the lives of students and their families across America.

The overall growth in student debt is troubling. The most pressing concern is what is known as private student loans. If a student goes to college, they could qualify for a government-guaranteed loan with dramatically lower interest rates with accommodations based on their employment and even some loan forgiveness. Not so when it comes to private student loans in most cases. Students who take out Federal loans receive affordable interest rates, a lot of protections and repayment options. Private student loans are totally different. Private student loans often have high variable interest rates, hefty origination fees, lack of repayment options, and, unfortunately, crushing penalties.

In 2012 the amount of outstanding private student loans exceeded $150 billion. Students are being steered into these private loans while they are still eligible for the better government loans. Why? Because somebody is making more money when they sign up for private student loans. As a result, many students are being saddled with debt they don't have to be saddled with and sometimes debt they can never repay.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year reported that at least 850,000 individual private student loans were in default amounting to more than $8 billion.

Let me tell my colleagues about one of those students. I have opened on my official Web site a place where those who have student loans and want to share their stories can come. Anna Wilcox, who is 31 years old, did. She attended the Brooks Institute of Photography, a for-profit college owned by the Career Education Corporation.

Anna Wilcox saw a TV ad one day about this so-called Brooks Institute of Photography and decided she would call and inquire. The school called her twice a day until she finally enrolled. The recruiter at the school--this Career Education Corporation School--told her that a Brooks degree would help her make $85,000 a year as a photographer. So Anna enrolled, and when she graduated in 2006, she had a debt of about $170,000, almost all of it in private student loans.

Anna was 24 years old with $170,000 in student debt from this for- profit school. With a variable interest rate that went as high as 18 percent, her balance just kept growing. Her monthly payments on her private student loan now exceed $1,000 a month. Her Federal loans she took out as well had low interest rates. She said those payments are reasonable, and she can handle them. Her parents decided to help her out and cosigned on the loans. Now her parents, in their sixties, are on the hook as well. They have to change their life plans because they wanted to help their daughter, and now they are stuck with a debt of $170,000 for a worthless diploma from a for-profit school.

Well, Anna did find a job, but the job doesn't pay anywhere near $85,000 a year. She just can't keep up with these staggering monthly loan payments. She said she would like to file for bankruptcy, clean the slate, and start over. She can't borrow money to go to a real school. She has wasted her borrowing power on these for-profit schools.

It doesn't do her any good to want to file for bankruptcy. Private student loans are not dischargeable for bankruptcy. If a person signs up as a college student for one of these student loans, it is debt that will follow that person for a lifetime. There is no way to escape it. It is something to think about long and hard when students make that decision.

Anna is very blunt and despondent. She said she made a big mistake going to the school. It was a waste. She thought she would get a better life by going to college. She didn't realize these for-profit schools by and large are a waste of money and cause debt that most students can never pay back. She has bad credit now and a mountain of debt to show for it.

So what are we going to do about it? Are we going to say: Well, Anna, you should have been a little bit smarter when you were 19 years old and sat across the desk from somebody who said: We want you as a college student. You made your mistake, girl. That is the way it works in America, and now you have to pay the price. Is that the answer? Is that the answer when these for-profit schools depend on the Federal Government and taxpayers for 85 to 95 percent of all of the revenue they take in?

These for-profit schools, if we took the Federal money we send their way--if these for-profit schools were a Federal agency, it would be the ninth largest Federal agency in America. That is how much money we are pouring into these for-profit schools.

Let me just put three numbers out for people to reflect on: 12 percent of the students out of high school go to for-profit schools. We know their names. They are students who gather in Washington and come to the galleries. They know what I am talking about. Go on the Internet and try to escape an ad for a for-profit school: University of Phoenix, DeVry, Kaplan. Ring a bell? Well, I can tell my colleagues these are the biggies, but there are hundreds of them. Twelve percent of the students after high school go to for-profit schools.

For-profit schools, though, account for 25 percent of all of the Federal aid to education. They just soak it up. Students borrow and turn it over to the for-profit schools. The student is stuck with the debt. The for-profit school may never graduate you, but they have their money.

There is a third number to remember. The first is 12, the second is 25. The third number is 47. Forty-seven percent of the student loan defaults in America are students from for-profit schools, students being dragged into these schools that charge way too much for tuition and then the student either can't finish the school or gets out of school and can't find a job and they are stuck.

I tell my students back home, if you are not sure, start at a community college. It is affordable. It has a wide array of courses to be offered to you. You will learn a lot about yourself, you will learn a lot about what you want to

do in school, and you will not end up sunk in debt like these for- profit schools want to do to you.

We have to do something about Anna Wilcox's plight and many others just like her.

I wish to commend especially one community college in my State, the Elgin Community College. I have been visiting that school regularly and always come home thinking: This college gets it. They have implemented a financial counseling program that goes above and beyond anything I would put into law. All of the students at Elgin Community College in Elgin, IL, must submit a monthly budget detailing all their costs when they are seeking financial aid. The student then has a mandatory, one- on-one meeting with a counselor to review the loan balance, the repayment options, and what happens if they default. This community college has implemented a workshop for students who will be graduating during the upcoming semester to discuss repayment options and give them a complete summary of every loan they have taken out.

These students are facing debt the likes of which they have never seen in their lives. They are motivated by all of the preaching they have heard from their parents, like me, saying: Go to school. Get a degree. They are ready to sign up because they want to do what they think is the right thing. They do not know that the for-profit school is worthless, they do not know that the thousands and thousands of dollars of debt will never be able to be repaid, and they do not know that debt will be with them for a lifetime. So here are some bills I am introducing to address it.

I believe students will benefit more if they have the kind of loan counseling we see at the Elgin Community College. I am joining Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the HELP Committee, in reintroducing the Know Before You Owe Private Student Loan Act of 2013.

The legislation requires colleges to confirm a student's enrollment status, cost of attendance, and estimated Federal financial aid assistance before any private student loan can be approved for that student. In other words, if you are eligible for the government loan, for goodness' sakes, take that first. The private student loan is much more expensive, and it is tougher to pay it back. So we want to make sure students who are eligible for government loans know that before they sign up for the private student loans. Often, students have not even applied for Federal aid before they are encouraged by some of these schools to apply for private student loans, or students have not exhausted their eligibility for Federal aid. Requiring school certification would give the school the opportunity to make students aware of Federal student aid options and the most affordable options.

The bill would also require schools to counsel the students about their loan options. Schools would be required to inform students about the differences between Federal student loans and private student loans, and they are stark and dramatic. For students who decide to take out private student loans, the bill would require lenders to provide them with quarterly up-to-date information about their balance and interest accrued. It is not one of these deals where you just keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing, and finally when you are about to finish school--or years later--they give you the total, and you look at it and say: My goodness, I did not realize I had signed up for all of that debt.

This legislation is supported by a large coalition of educational, student, and consumer organizations and has been recommended by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The other bill I am reintroducing today is the Fairness for Struggling Students Act. This bill, cosponsored by Senators Whitehouse, Franken, Harkin, and Jack Reed, would restore the Bankruptcy Code's pre-2005 treatment of private student loans.

As I said earlier, since 2005 private student loans have enjoyed a privileged status under the Bankruptcy Code. They cannot be discharged in bankruptcy except under the most extreme circumstances. Only a few other types of debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy--criminal fines, child support, taxes, and alimony. In contrast, nearly all types of private, unsecured debt--credit card debt, doctor bills--are dischargeable in bankruptcy, but not student loans.

There was no good reason for Congress to give such preferred treatment to these financial institutions that are peddling these private student loans. It was a provision--a sweetheart provision-- tucked into a massive bankruptcy reform bill with very little debate and even less justification. There is no evidence that private student loan borrowers were abusing the bankruptcy system before this law was changed. In fact, the private student loan market has been growing-- even before this measure was enacted into law. But the private student loan industry got a sweetheart deal out of Congress, and now we are in a situation where many students have overwhelming private student loan debt, and they cannot repay, and they cannot escape. This is devastating for those students and a drag on our overall economy.

There was an article a few months ago in the New York Times, and it talked about a grandmother who was having her Social Security check garnished because she had signed on as a cosigner of her granddaughter's student loan. Her granddaughter dropped out of college and could not pay back the loan, and now we are going after grandma's Social Security check. That is how serious this can be.

A large coalition of student, educational, civil rights, and consumer organizations support this bill. I hope we can move forward with legislation this year. It is time to restore fairness to our Bankruptcy Code when it comes to student debt.

Let me be clear: When used appropriately, student loans are valuable and important. I would not be standing here today if I had not borrowed money from the Federal Government to go to college and law school. I never could have afforded it otherwise. It was called the National Defense Education Act. If I told you the numbers that I borrowed, you would realize how old I am. But at the time, it was scary to have that much debt coming fresh out of law school. I paid it back just like I was supposed to so the next generation could take over. But what I faced, the debt I incurred to go to school and law school, does not even come close to matching what many students have to borrow in the first semester, and that, unfortunately, leads to a debt that some will be crushed with for a lifetime. In many instances, student loans help Americans get a quality higher education and the job skills they need to repay their loans and have a rewarding life and career. But, unfortunately, there are far too many Americans who have been steered into high-cost private loans that will burden them for life and prevent them from fully contributing to our economy.

It is about time we woke up to the reality of what students--millions of students--across America are facing, and their families. We have a responsibility to them over and above the profits that are being earned by for-profit schools and the financial institutions peddling these private student loans with these outrageous interest rates and terms. It is time for this Congress to listen to working families and their kids all across America to restore transparency, fairness, and common sense to private student loans. I urge my colleagues to support these bills.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bills be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it has been said in St. Louis, MO, baseball is not a sport, it is a religion. If that is

true, Stan Musial was a St. Louis civic patron saint.

Stan Musial was an icon in St. Louis. He was the best ballplayer to wear a Cardinal's uniform and one of the best to play the game of baseball.

Stan Musial was my childhood hero when I was a boy and he remains a hero in my life to this day. When a person reaches my age, and maybe my station in life, they are supposed to be beyond the stage of swooning adolescence. But when it comes to Stan Musial, I am a 10-year-old kid all over again in East St. Louis, IL, buying more bubble gum than I can possibly afford in the hope that I would open one of those packages and find, covered in pink powder, a card that had Stan Musial's picture. It was the treasure of my youth, and it still would be today if my mom had not thrown those cards away.

Stan Musial's death has hit the Cardinals Nation like a death in the family. One Cardinal fan spoke for many of us when she said losing Stan Musial ``is like losing a grandparent. It's hard not to tear up.''

I grew up in East St. Louis across the river, and my most prized possession when I was a kid was my very first Stan Musial Rawlings baseball glove. As a kid I rubbed that glove with something called Gloveoleum until I was the only one who could still see Stan Musial's name burned in the leather. One of the highlights in my life came 2 years ago when I got to meet Stan Musial in person for the very first time in my life. It was at the White House, February 11, 2011. Stan Musial was there to receive from President Obama the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He is one of only eight other baseball players in the history of America to receive that prestigious honor. Listen to the company he joined: Joe DiMaggio, Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, and the famous Buck O'Neill.

At the White House I stood patiently waiting for the moment to ask Stan Musial to sign that old baseball glove, which I still have and have had since I was a kid. He agreed to do so. What a thrill. I was 10 years old all over again.

Outside Busch Stadium in St. Louis is a statue of Stan ``The Man'' in his playing prime. He is coiled up in his batting style. Every coach said don't bat like Stan ``The Man,'' even though he has great numbers. If you do that, you will never hit the ball. We all tried; the coaches were right. Etched in the base of that statue are words that Major League Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick said when Stan retired in 1963: ``Here stands baseball's perfect warrior. Here stands baseball's perfect knight.''

On the field and off Stan Musial was always a gentleman, always a champion. He exemplified the values of sportsmanship, discipline, hard work, grace, consistency, and a love of family. Baseball broadcaster Vince Scully, a Hall of Famer himself, once said: ``How good was Stan Musial? He was good enough to take your breath away.''

Stan Musial played his entire 22-year career for the St. Louis Cardinals. He did take off one season in 1945 to serve our country in the U.S. Navy during World War II. His 3,026 games with the same club are second only to the 3,308 games over 23 years by Carl Yastrzemski.

When Stan Musial retired from baseball after the 1963 season, he held 29 National League records and 17 Major League records. Here are just some of his career numbers: a batting average of .331, an on-base percentage of .417, 3,630 hits, 725 doubles, 177 triples, 475 homers-- and the first homer I can ever remember seeing on television was the All-Star game in St. Louis, and darned if Stan Musial didn't get up in the 12th inning, parking a home run into the outfield stands, winning it for the National League. I couldn't have been more thrilled, my first exposure to baseball on television. He had 1,951 RBIs and 1,949 runs. He is the only baseball player to finish his career in the top 25 in all of these categories.

Where did he get that nickname? It was coined not by a Cardinals fan but by a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in May 1946, after Musial's four hits helped lead the Cardinals to a 13-to-4 drubbing of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Every time Stan Musial came to the plate, the fans in Ebbets Field said, ``Here comes the man.'' And the name stuck.

The legendary baseball writer Red Barber once described the 1947 season as ``the year all hell broke loose in baseball.'' It was the year Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball. Jackie Robinson would later recall when asked about his baseball career that it was Stan Musial and Hank Greenberg, two players who went out of their way to be friendly and encouraging in that historic and difficult year.

Maybe Stan Musial's greatest baseball day came on May 2, 1954. It was a double header in St. Louis against the New York Giants. He hit three homers in the first game and two in the second.

In 1957, Stan Musial became the first Major League Baseball player to earn the amazing salary of $100,000 a year. Two years later, when his batting average dipped to .255, it was Musial who went to the Cardinals' owners and asked them to cut his salary back to $80,000. He wasn't playing up to what he thought he had the potential to play up to.

Late in his final season, he stayed up all night waiting for the birth of his first grandchild, and the next day he became the first grandfather to ever homer in the Major Leagues. Umpires--and this says something about what a gentleman he always was--umpires never once ejected Stan Musial from a baseball game in more than 3,000 games.

On January 21, 1969, Stan Musial was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. He was named on 92 percent of the ballots-- something on which to reflect after what we just went through a few weeks ago when no one made the cut for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Stan Musial was the first player to receive 300 votes on a Hall of Fame ballot.

When he retired, the St. Louis Cardinals retired his number, No. 6. Cardinals manager Mike Matheny has said that when the entire Cardinals team takes the field this year, they will be wearing a No. 6 patch on their uniforms. But then he said:

It will be a call for us to do our very best to live up to

that high standard of excellence.

Then he added:

You don't come across names like warrior, prince and knight

by just having Hall of Fame statistics. It comes from making

an impact in people's lives. I was in that group. Mr. Musial,

I say thank you. He's a perfect example of what it means to

wear this jersey.

I want to give credit to my colleague, Senator Claire McCaskill. She worked with me--in fact, she led the way in terms of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with Senator Bond, for Stan Musial. And she came up with a great idea. I don't know if it is going to go anywhere, but I am going to try to help her make it a reality. She has suggested we can honor this American hero, this regional hero and the values he stood for by naming the new bridge being built across the Mississippi River at St. Louis in honor of Stan Musial. I grew up on the Illinois side, and we kind of looked over at Missouri a little differently than most, and they looked at us a little differently too. But if there was one thing that ever united us it was baseball loyalty and Stan Musial. It is a perfect name for a bridge that spans between Illinois and Missouri in that region of the country.

I am proud to join Senator Claire McCaskill, and we will be introducing a bill to name the bridge the Stan Musial Memorial Bridge. Other legislation is being considered in the Illinois and Missouri General Assemblies at this time. I wish them the best in honoring this great man. It was my great honor to join him on that historic date when he was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

(The remarks of Senator Durbin pertaining to the introduction of S. 113 and S. 114 are printed in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we are no longer in an election year, which makes this the perfect time for this Congress to take action on real and meaningful election reform. Regardless of which candidates we voted for last November, we can all agree that in the world's greatest democracy, in the year 2013 we should put in place systems which ensure every voter will be able to cast their ballot without unnecessary delays, redtape, or restriction in our next elections. That is why I am looking forward to working with my colleagues in the Senate, with leaders in State and local governments across the country, and with folks in the U.S. Department of Justice to discuss ways we can reform our election process to make voting more accessible for more Americans.

In his second inaugural address delivered just this Monday, President Obama made a point to tie voting rights to civil rights. President Obama spoke of the long American march toward justice. He said:

And the first steps of that march--of the journey toward a

better, fairer, more equal society, one where every American,

regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation or

economic status, has the same shot at success--has always

started at the ballot box.

President Obama mentioned Seneca Falls, a central moment in the movement for women's suffrage, and Selma, the emotional heart of the fight for equal access to voting rights for African Americans. He said:

Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to

wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.

He is right.

The 2012 elections were a wake-up call to those of us who treasure the right to vote. All over our country--in blue States and red States--Americans saw their fundamental right to vote eroded by exceptionally long lines, confusing rules, and widespread voting machine malfunctions. There were problems in more than a dozen States documented in the media.

There were voting machine irregularities in Pennsylvania and Colorado; error-ridden voter rolls in Ohio; delays counting ballots in Arizona; voters waiting in lines 5 hours long in Virginia and 8 hours long in Florida. We have to do better than this.

As Americans, the right to vote is in our DNA. So just days after these 2012 elections, which had such widespread problems, I introduced the FAST Voting Act, the Fair, Accurate, Secure, and Timely Voting Act, along with Senator Warner and colleagues in the House, Congressman Connolly and Congressman Langevin.

Our bill challenges States to implement commonsense changes well before the next election. It would provide incentives and competitive grants to those States that can turn around their poorest performing polling places, improve the administration of their elections, and make voting faster and more accessible to all voters.

As a former county executive myself, I know States and local governments are laboratories of democracy. When it comes to administering elections, many States and counties are getting it right. We can learn from them and replicate their successes elsewhere in the country to ensure these same problems do not plague the next national elections.

For example, Florida was one of many States with rampant election problems in 2012. There were long lines, limited early voting, and other issues that may have disenfranchised as many as 49,000 Floridians, according to a study by Professor Theodore Allen of Ohio State University.

Floridians such as Richard Jordan waited more than 3 hours in a line that just was not moving to try and cast his ballot on election day 2012. He had already worked a 10-hour shift that day. He was exhausted, his back hurt, he was hungry, and ultimately in anger decided he could not wait anymore. He simply gave up and walked away. He was denied the opportunity to cast his ballot by an unprepared, underresourced, or just incompetent election system.

On behalf of voters across the State such as Richard, earlier this month Florida's elections administrators presented Florida's Governor Rick Scott with a list of reforms they would like to see implemented to prevent these problems from happening again. Governor Scott admitted that his own State's election process was clearly in need of improvement. He said he agreed with some of the election supervisors' proposals. In my view, this is a very positive step forward, and one which should be undertaken in every State where there is documented need for stronger, fairer, faster, and freer elections.

In my view, the government can and should play a role in incentivizing that process to ensure that election improvements are made to last. It can help States move forward in using available technology, and it can ensure States do a better job of enforcing laws that are already on the books.

For example, the National Voter Registration Act, commonly known as the motor voter law, requires States to allow voters to register when they renew their driver's license at the DMV or at other governmental agencies. Yet there are substantial and credible allegations that some States all across this country--whether blue, red, or purple--are not fulfilling their obligations under this act.

In talking with elections administrators from around the country, it is clear to me that compliance with existing law is not complete. We have to do more to ensure voters are afforded the rights given to them under current law and that State agencies are doing what is required to simplify the registration process to maintain uniform and nondiscriminatory voter rolls and provide widespread registration opportunities. Enforcing existing law is just part of the solution to the voting problems we saw across our country in 2012.

We also have to look forward at ways to deliver the best and most efficient voting process to all Americans. There is still much more we can do to meet that goal, and I think part of the solution is the mechanism of the FAST Voting Act.

Our legislation focuses on cost-effective reforms, such as making it easier to register online and ensuring citizens who move to a new jurisdiction can easily transfer their voter registration. If we use modern technology that we already have at our disposal, we can make it easier for all eligible American citizens to cast their ballot and ensure every vote is counted.

President Obama was right to mention election reform alongside the most essential civil rights struggles in our country's history in his inaugural address on Monday. Making it harder for citizens to vote is a violation of their civil rights. Long lines are just another form of voter disenfranchisement. Running out of ballots can be just another form of voter suppression. The fact is access to vote is denied when registration is cumbersome or inaccessible and when early voter vote- by-mail options are just not available.

Let's do something now when we are no longer hamstrung by election year politics in the Senate so that changes that last and make a difference can be implemented well before the next election.

As someone who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and who often speaks with foreign heads of State, civil society leaders, and voting advocates from around the world, it is an embarrassment that in 2012 our Nation could not overcome the simple challenges to ensuring fair and accurate elections all across our country.

If we ignore these assaults on America's civil rights that we saw last November, we are certain to have to endure them the next time around. We cannot stand by and allow that to happen. Our democracy needs to be a model to the rest of the world for how to ensure that every citizen gets to exercise the right to vote.

Let's find a way to come together to put meaningful election reforms in place now before we deny one more American their fundamental right to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I rise to speak today about our Tax Code as well as our economic future. There is a problem with our Tax Code, one that hits home with nearly all Americans; that is, its complexity. In the past few years I have met with hundreds of constituents who are worried about this issue. Individuals, small businesses, farms, and large corporations alike struggle with meeting their obligations to the IRS because of the complexity of our current Tax Code.

Earlier this month the IRS Taxpayer Advocate revealed some startling figures in the Agency's annual report to Congress. It estimates that individuals and businesses spend 6.1 billion hours each year complying with the IRS tax filing requirements. The complexity of the Tax Code is so burdensome that 9 out of 10 taxpayers now pay a professional preparer or use often costly commercial software to assist in tax preparation.

Then there is the problem with our corporate taxes. The United States has the highest marginal effective tax rate among the largest developed nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to recent studies by the Cato Institute, that rate for U.S. corporations is almost 36 percent. In fact, only Argentina, Chad, and Uzbekistan have higher tax rates than does the United States. While the U.S. corporate rates have remained high, other countries are lowering their rates. Sweden, for example, has become the latest country to announce that it will lower corporate tax rates, in part to help attract more foreign investment. Our corporate tax rates continue to be higher than they should, and we lose our competitive advantage to other nations in part because of that high tax rate.

I want to talk about a way to fix both these problems. Since joining the Senate, I have introduced in each new Congress the Fair Tax Act. Today I am reintroducing this legislation because of my belief that the Fair Tax Act can fix the problems built into our current Tax Code. The fair tax will promote freedom and economic opportunity by eliminating our current archaic and inefficient Tax Code and replacing it with a simpler, fairer means of collecting tax revenue. It will repeal the individual income tax, the corporate income tax, capital gains taxes, all payroll taxes, self-employment taxes, and the estate and gift tax in lieu of a 23-percent tax on the final sale of goods and services. Elimination of these inefficient taxing mechanisms will not only bring about equality within our tax system, it will also bring about simplicity. It will provide tax relief for business-to-business transactions. These transactions, including those for used goods that have already been taxed, are not subject to the sales tax, so there would be no double taxation.

Some of my colleagues have asked how the fair tax would affect our revenue on our entitlement programs. Social Security and Medicare benefits would remain untouched under the Fair Tax Act. There would be no financial reductions to either of these vital programs. Instead, the source of the trust fund revenue for these two programs would be replaced simply by the sales tax revenue instead of by payroll tax revenue.

Another question I get is how the fair tax would affect impoverished Americans. Under the Fair Tax Act, every American would receive a monthly rebate check equal to the spending up to the Federal poverty level, according to Department of Health and Human Services guidelines. This rebate would ensure that no American pays taxes on the purchase of necessities.

We have made nearly 5,000 changes to the Tax Code since 2001--I have supported some of them, and I have not supported others--all in the name of improvement and economic benefit. I believe we can do better than simply lowering our taxes. I know we can make a bigger impact on our economic future by ridding ourselves of a tax structure that is holding us back.

Ronald Reagan once said:

I believe we really can, however, say that God did give

mankind virtually unlimited gifts to invent, produce and

create. And for that reason alone, it would be wrong for

governments to devise a tax structure or economic system that

suppresses and denies those gifts.

With that statement, I could not agree more.