SERVe Act

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I do this to have a colloquy with my friend from Arkansas. I want him to understand that I have stayed off the floor of this body for well over 1 day for the sole purpose of trying to see if we can bring both sides together on this issue. I think that is important, and I have already acknowledged I am willing to look at how we could bring both sides together, recognizing the Quill decision.

As I have already said, I have looked at compacts between States and things of this nature, and I have made repeated offers to the advocates of this bill, offering specifics on paper, and essentially nothing is offered in return other than: We have the votes and we are going to coerce you, as Oregonians, to go along with this.

What I wish to do just for a moment is explain why I have to object. I think the Senator knows I authored the Internet tax freedom bill in the Senate back in 1998, and I did it because I thought it was important to have the defense shield against potentially thousands of taxing jurisdictions singling out the Internet for these kinds of taxes. Regrettably, the underlying bill is going to be a targeted strike on the Internet. It is not going to be a defense shield. It would, as it stands today, serve as an amendment that would undercut what we sought to do back in 1998.

As the original author here, I am looking forward to working with the Senator under any circumstance to reauthorize a law that I think has worked. All the law says is you have to do offline what you do online. If we boil it down, it is a nondiscrimination law. This comes up the next year, and the Commerce and Finance Committees both have interests in this. We have always worked cooperatively in these areas. I remember our experience together on nanotechnology.

So I just have to say I am going to have to object at this time, but I am very interested in working with my colleague, with Senator Durbin, and Senator Blunt, who was just here, to come up with an arrangement that goes to the heart of this question; that is, should States such as Oregon be coerced, required to collect these online taxes for States that are thousands of miles away. The refrain throughout this whole discussion has been this is a States rights bill.

I respect that, but what it translates into is folks say they are for States rights if they think the State is right and the State is willing to go along with this particular approach that has come out of Washington, DC, which is they would be coerced into collecting these sales taxes for jurisdictions from thousands of miles away. In some cases--New Hampshire and other places have been making this point as well--it would be discriminatory because the online sector would be subjected to requirements that were not required of brick-and-mortar retailers. Again, this undermines our vision for the tech sector, which has been about bricks and clicks. We want both the brick-and-mortar retailers and the online people to do well. I know the Senator from Arkansas agrees with that as well.

So I haven't said anything on the floor of this body on a matter my constituents feel very strongly about for going on 2 days, until just now, solely for purposes of working with my friend from Arkansas and the distinguished leader from Illinois, Senator Durbin, and I will continue to do that. But at the end of the day, States rights, to some extent, has to have an element of voluntariness. If States rights has no element of voluntary judgments by States, it is pretty hard to say a State has any rights. The State truly is going to be coerced when we have reached the point, as I would characterize it, where we are going to say in Washington, DC, we believe in States rights if we think the State is right and they are going to go along with the approach we have dictated.

In my part of the world, to show the irony of this situation, Washington State has a sales tax. Oregon does not have a sales tax. There are differential tax considerations in both jurisdictions, and we often make agreements in terms of how we do business. So we have shown it is possible to deal with this issue, and I want my colleague from Arkansas and my friend from Illinois to know I am willing to set aside absolutely everything and work around the clock to see if we can find some common ground, with my theory being it is hard to say it is a States rights approach if a State is unable to have any element in the process with respect to its own judgment, its voluntary judgment, about what it wants to do.

So I object at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to pose a question to my colleague from Oklahoma.

Mr. President, if I would be able to engage the Senator from Oklahoma, with his leave, I could take about 5 minutes or so--no more--to respond to the points Senator Durbin has made. That would be the end of my time, and I believe the Senator from Oklahoma would be next.

Mr. President, very briefly to respond to comments made by my friend from Illinois, this legislation has nothing to do with Nike. Nike of course is a very large company and has stores and trucks and a physical presence all over the United States. They pay taxes because of that physical presence under the Quill decision. So the comments by my colleague from Illinois are very unfortunate, because they misstate what this debate is all about.

This debate is about the little guy.

Later on this afternoon, Senator Merkley and I are going to come to the floor of the Senate and actually read accounts from small businesses here in our State. They are people who don't have a physical presence all over the country, and they are scratching their heads this afternoon and they are saying to themselves, How in the world are we possibly going to be able to comply with this, because in a difficult economy, we are barely able to make ends meet. We are going to have to go out and spend time and money and staff figuring out how to do this.

That is what this is about. Are we going to take something like our current policy--which is the defensive shield against discriminatory treatment from these tech-based online businesses--and turn it into a targeted strike on them, which this legislation does, or are we going to work together, which is what I have tried to do pretty much nonstop since Monday, to see if we can find some kind of common ground? Part of the challenge is we have to get some equity even in terms of the amendments, because it looks as though one side is getting to offer theirs and another side may be foreclosed.

I am going to continue to try to reach out to colleagues on both sides of this debate. But I appreciate very much the courtesy of my friend from Oklahoma, because I had to clarify that this amendment is about the small, innovation-oriented businesses that we think are the future and the center of this debate since it got going. I thank my colleague from Oklahoma for his courtesy.

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

Mr. President, I think for the next half hour Senator Merkley and I are going to have the opportunity to outline specifically how this affects small businesses in the real world. That has always been our concern. One of the proponents of the bill earlier today talked about big businesses and big businesses getting a free ride. That is not what this debate is all about if you are from Oregon or Montana or New Hampshire. What you are concerned about are your small businesses.

These are innovators. They are people without lobbies and political action committees. They are small businesses. Someday they would like to be big, but they are trying to compete in a nationwide marketplace and they are overwhelmingly in opposition to this bill and for understandable reasons.

They hear this is all about States rights and then they actually look at what this bill does and this bill coerces them to collect taxes for, in effect, thousands of jurisdictions around the country.

It has been my interest, and I want to repeat it, to work out a compromise on this issue. Our side has put down on paper a number of proposals that we think ought to be the basis for trying to work out a position that would allow, from our standpoint, at least some semblance of a right for a State to make its own judgments and not be coerced into just going along with a piece of legislation that forces our small businesses to collect these taxes for everybody else. The way I have compared it, whenever the proponents of the bill say they are for States rights, what I have said is they are for States rights if they think the State is right.

I am going to now read some examples because my colleagues have said they want to hear specific instances. Here is what we heard from the Oregon Nurserymen. These are not big businesses. These are not businesses with 500 people. These are businesses with five, seven or eight employees. Senator Merkley and I are very proud of our Oregon nurseries. They produce an extraordinarily high-quality product, ranked one, two or three in every category of nursery products.

The reality is those are products that are being sought out by Americans in every nook and cranny of the Nation. That is how free markets are supposed to work. The seller of high-quality goods wins sales over those supplying lower quality goods.

What this bill is going to do, as outlined by the small businesses Senator Merkley and I represent, the Oregon Association of Nurserymen, this bill is going to add substantial costs to Oregon retailers and make it more difficult for them to compete with lower quality sellers in other parts of the country.

Here is a letter, and I will quote from it, from the Oregon Nurserymen. They are the growers and sellers of plants and trees. They are the prototypical small business and the backbone of our economy. This is a quote:

It is my view that this legislation would force small

businesses to spend precious time generating endless sales

reports for government instead of tending to customers,

selling plants and trees, and creating traded sector jobs.

Oregon growers are far away from their markets and we need to

look to knock down barriers to sales of our green goods.

There are fewer than five people at these firms. Here is another quote from a small business:

Let's call the bill what it is--a transaction tax. As the

legislation stands now, the bill will impact the

marketplace--to the detriment of the small business and their

ability to conduct commerce. Congress taxes things it wants

to go away.

That is what these nurserymen, whom Senator Merkley and I represent, are saying about this bill. They are saying the way they read this-- where they would have to collect taxes for people in thousands of jurisdictions across the country--is that it is the motivation of Congress trying to make these businesses go away.

Let me just say categorically, I have known Senator Durbin and Senator Enzi for a long time. They are not interested in an Oregon business going away or anybody else's business going away. That is not their intent. Regrettably, that is the effect. I just outlined how a small businessperson describes the nature of free markets.

We are very proud of what we do in the nursery industry in Oregon. We like the fact that we are selling high-quality goods, and we are winning those sales over those supplying lower quality goods. However, I know this is going to add substantial costs to Oregon retailers, and in their own words they have said this would put them at a disadvantage in tough global competition.

I also want to say this--particularly since the Senator from Illinois is here--because I hope it indicates my desire to try to work something out for purposes of passing this bill. I made an enormous concession for purposes of an agreement. This bill clearly gives a foreign retailer a leg up over an Oregon retailer or Montana retailer or anybody else because it doesn't apply to those foreign retailers.

One of my and Senator Merkley's constituents, Fire Mountain Gems-- located in Grants Pass, OR--is competing in a tough global market. And what is going to happen is this bill--because it will not affect their foreign competition--is going to cause them to spend time and money that their foreign competitors would not have to do. They sell all over the country in scores of jurisdictions. This bill gives a big advantage to foreign retailers because it does nothing to, in effect, level the playing field between the small merchants and the businesses that Senator Merkley and I represent and their foreign competitors.

For the purpose of a good-faith effort, we have made a concession to try to work this out. At this time I am not pressing to have that flaw, which is an enormous flaw. It gives a significant advantage to foreign retailers over American business.

I see the distinguished President of the Senate here, and he has been so eloquent in standing up for the rights of American businesses. We have a feature in this bill that actually gives a huge windfall to the foreign retailers at the expense of American business.

I am not asking for that to be corrected in this legislation, even though I think it is enormous discrimination against American business. The Senator from Wyoming and I both serve on the Finance Committee. I chair the Finance Subcommittee on Global Competitiveness. It is awfully hard to be globally competitive if we give an advantage to foreign retailers. But in the

interest of trying to work this out, I said we will not insist on that being addressed in this bill. We will have to come back to the Finance Committee and look at that.

So what our side has said is--Senator Merkley, the Senators from New Hampshire, the Senators from Montana--just give us the opportunity to be able to tell our constituents: You are not going to have this pushed down your throat. You are not going to be coerced into collecting these sales taxes from thousands of jurisdictions around the country.

I don't see how we can have States rights if a State loses its ability to make any judgments at all about areas where it wants to make its own priorities. Its priorities are being determined right here in Washington, DC, with this legislation with respect to the collection of sales taxes. Those priorities are being made here.

When Oregon small businesses are being coerced by State governments located thousands of miles from Oregon's borders, I think that is too much. I think adding a layer of bureaucracy to the large and growing national marketplace fostered by the Net in the way this does attacks our most competitive small businesses.

I also want to highlight--because the only amendment I have objected to so far today has been the one with respect to the Internet Tax Freedom Act that I authored back in 1998 in the Senate--the reason I had to object is the text of this legislation directly undercuts the Internet Tax Freedom act, and I will be specific.

The law we wrote prohibits discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce. It is section 1101 of the Internet tax bill. It prohibits discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce. Under the text of the bill, in effect they could require an Internet company in one of these States, such as New Hampshire, to collect sales taxes for the Massachusetts government. However, if somebody drives from Massachusetts to another one of these States, such as New Hampshire, the brick-and-mortar store doesn't have to pump the perspective customer for all kinds of information about where they are from or where they are going and the like.

So the reason--with great reluctance--I had to object to adding this legislation to this bill that I am the original author of in the Senate is because this bill in its current form directly undercuts the essence of the Internet Tax Freedom legislation.

At this time I will yield to my colleague, Senator Merkley. I just want to make a special note that Senator Merkley has made a whole host of important contributions in the Senate, and I have been especially pleased he has been a persistent advocate for small business. I know the Senator from Illinois brought up big businesses in Oregon. The grief we have here is what this is going to mean to those small businesses, those nurserymen--the Oregon Association of Nurserymen-- with 5, 8, or 10 people. Those are the people for whom Senator Merkley and I are advocating.

I am happy to yield the rest of my time to Senator Merkley.

I really don't. I know the sponsors of the legislation keep talking about how this is not going to be a burden, for example, to the businesses my colleague advocates for, and that there is going to be software, computers, and technology. I think my colleague's question is pivotal.

There is a little bit of interesting history I think my friend from Wyoming knows more about than anyone else. For years there has been an effort at the State level to try to remove some of the hassles and the costs that my colleague has talked about. I think the official name-- and my colleague probably knows this--is the State streamlined sales tax project or something along those lines.

If it were so simple, and if this was something that didn't have the kind of costs for small businesses that my colleague is so concerned about, I think we would have already seen it put into effect by the proponents of the bill.

The reason we are on the Senate floor talking about it--and talking about Oregon businesses being forced to do this against their will--is that it is not without costs, it is not without hassle, and the technology and all of the marvels of software and computers that we have heard about for the proponents is not there. They have not been able to do it through that kind of approach--which is essentially voluntary--so now they are on the Senate floor to force States such as Oregon to do it.

The Senator is right that certainly those jurisdictions could challenge Oregon. It goes to the question, again, of how the systems are not in place, so let's just force Oregon to do it even though the systems have not been available. There are actually more than 9,000 separate taxing jurisdictions.

What we have been told by the proponents of the bill is that they are going to get this down to a smaller number of systems than 9,000. Again, that is why it ought to be possible--if the Senator from Illinois and the Senator from Wyoming will negotiate with us--to work something out.

We have given them on paper several proposals to try to find some common ground where our constituents--folks in Oregon especially, but they are in New Hampshire and Montana and other States that have made their own judgments--would have the ability to shape some of our own decisions. As my colleague knows, Washington State has a sales tax. We don't have a sales tax. So our region alone shows that if we could allow States to come together and make their own voluntary judgments, it is pretty clear that folks in Washington believe they made some of the right decisions for their economy and individuals and we have made our own. The fact that a State with a sales tax and a State without a sales tax coexist--and quite peaceably--right next to

each other is a pretty good argument why Senator Durbin and Senator Enzi should work with us to have some kind of a voluntary situation.

Again, it sure looks as though those are going to be the kinds of burdens our States--the ones without a sales tax--are going to be subjected to.

The proponents say: That is not going to happen. There is going to magically be all of this software and all of this technology, so if anybody wants to come back and look later, this is not going to be hard to respond to.

I just know, looking at all of the businesses that have been in touch with us--including A to Z Wineworks, for example. We have clothing stores, such as Queen Bee, a quintessential small business that is employing eight skilled staff members who all help to bring the designs to life at the Hive on North Williams Street in Portland. The Senator and I know them. Their goods are locally crafted in Portland. Rebecca Pearcy there said she--I will quote her:

Building, running, and maintaining a Web site is expensive

and complicated enough. I can't imagine having to include the

additional infrastructure of charging and paying sales taxes

to States outside of Oregon.

These are real businesses with six, eight people who, when they hear that they are going to have to pay, that they are going to run the risk of having these kinds of audits and the like, and that maybe there is going to be software and computers for them to take care of it, they say: You have to be kidding. We can't put our business at risk on the promise of that kind of hope and a Washington promise.

Mr. President, I couldn't say it any better than Senator Merkley. I think he has characterized what this legislation is all about better than anybody I have heard on the floor of the Senate.

I have been in this debate for quite a while here. It is about coercion. It is about putting those small businesses Senator Merkley is talking about through sort of the equivalent of bureaucratic water torture. I have explained how the text of it in its present form directly violates the prohibition in the Internet Tax Freedom Act of discriminatory taxes.

Again, to the sponsors of the legislation, I wish to repeat that I and Senator Merkley and Senator Shaheen, Senator Ayotte, the two Montana Senators--we have put down on paper--on paper, I say to my colleagues--specific offers to try to work this out. Senator Merkley and I understand the votes that have been cast. We can count. That is part of how one gets to be a Senator. But the Senator from Illinois has not responded in writing to any of the offers we made.

We would like to walk through this process and find a way to have some opportunity to tell our constituents--particularly the ones Senator Merkley correctly identified as being small and going through all of these bureaucratic water torture drills--that they are going to be able to shape their own future.

Washington has a sales tax. Oregon doesn't. The Senator from Illinois keeps talking about how Oregon is going to be some huge haven if we get an opportunity to initiate a voluntary compact. That hasn't happened today. When we have one State and another that are borders--as my colleagues know, we are very close. We have kept the peace. We can work out these approaches.

To have Senator Merkley and I concede on the major point, which is the provision that gives a foreign retailer a leg up in this bill-- which I think is a very serious defect, and I think a lot of Senators who vote for this bill, when they see that it is going to be a huge advantage for foreign retailers, they are going to have some real misgivings about that--we gave that up for purposes of this. We have made concessions. We can't even get an offer in writing about something to negotiate that would incorporate a way to protect our States from the kinds of features Senator Merkley has correctly described.

I especially appreciate him going through the specifics, as he always does. Senator Merkley cited the fact that this legislation has a provision to basically compensate people for errors, which suggests to me that they think there are going to be a bunch of errors and the reason they think so is because they are right, as my friend from Wyoming knows, because they sought in the effort to try to sort this out during the streamlined sales tax discussions that have gone on for so many years.

I wish to yield to Senator Merkley for the last word. It is a pleasure to partner with Senator Merkley on so many issues, and he has described it today as well as anyone has in this discussion. I thank Senator Merkley for all of his leadership, and I yield to him for closing it up, as our small businesses in Oregon, such as the Oregon Association of Nurserymen, have been talking to us about.

Madam President, let me congratulate my colleague from my neighboring State of Indiana, Senator Donnelly, on his first speech on the floor of the Senate. I can tell you, as a downstater in Illinois, I can identify with so many things he said about his State and his pride in his State and his feelings about his responsibility as the new Senator from the Hoosier State.

I thank him so much for that comment and look forward to working with him for many years to come as we represent adjoining States.

Amendment No. 745 to Amendment No. 741

Madam President, I have an amendment at the desk and ask that it be called up.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Madam President, I would like to explain where we stand on the pending legislation. This is a bill which has been introduced by Senators Enzi, Alexander, Heitkamp, and myself. It is S. 743. Pending now on this bill is the managers' amendment, which we have crafted, and a second-degree amendment, which is a slight technical change.

The reason we are at this stage is because we are looking for colleagues to come forward if they have amendments to this bill. We would like to entertain those amendments. We hope they are germane and relevant amendments and not far afield from the important subject matter before us. But I made this announcement yesterday, again this morning, and I make it now: Any Member of the Senate who is interested in amending the bill, please come to the floor with your amendment. Senator Enzi and I will be happy to work with you if we can accept it. If we cannot, we will at least give an opportunity for debate and a vote.

We want to finish this bill this week. We are going to stay until we finish it, so the sooner Members get serious about their amendments the more likely it is we will be able to leave this week.

So that is the state of play on S. 743.

I have spoken to the substance of this bill several times, but I see some Members on the floor seeking recognition. At this point I yield.

Madam President, before I yield the floor to the Senator from Arkansas, I would like to again make the point I made earlier.

Pending before the Senate is S. 743. This is the Marketplace Fairness Act cosponsored by myself, Senator Enzi, Senator Heitkamp, Senator Alexander, and others. This matter is now pending before the Senate, and we are asking all Members with amendments to please bring them to the floor. I know the Senator from Arkansas has heard that call, and that is why he is here. We want to move this forward and have an active debate on this issue. We are asking our colleagues not to put it off. If we want to wrap this up in a timely fashion, we need their cooperation. So I urge all offices, if you have an amendment, please come to the floor and discuss it with Senator Enzi and me.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I wish to ask the Senator from Arkansas if he would yield for a question through the Chair.

Madam President, pending before us is S. 743, the Marketplace Fairness Act, and this legislation would require Internet retailers selling into States with sales taxes to collect the sales tax. The Senator from Arkansas and the Senator from Missouri have offered a different piece of legislation relating to the Internet. I would like to ask the Senator from Arkansas if he would please clarify a few things.

First, is there any tax imposed by this Marketplace Fairness Act on the use of the Internet?

I am asking before your amendment is adopted. The underlying bill has no tax on access to the Internet.

So the Senator is suggesting the extension of protecting America's right to access the Internet from being taxed; is that correct?

So for those who would come to the floor and argue somehow this bill is going to inhibit or restrain Americans in the use of the Internet, it does not, and the Pryor-Blunt amendment, which is being offered, extends for 10 years this prohibition against taxing access to the Internet.

I ask the Senator from Arkansas: The last time this was considered, does the Senator know when and what the disposition of that matter was?

My impression--and I could be mistaken--is it was adopted by voice vote. The amendment the Senator is offering giving a 7-year protection against taxes for using the Internet was adopted by voice vote. It was clearly unanimous--at least there were no objections--on a bipartisan basis.

So what is being offered by the Senators from Arkansas and Missouri, on behalf of Internet users all over the United States to protect them from being taxed on this measure, is over and above anything in this bill but is consistent with policy we have lived with for 15 years, if I am not mistaken. I think the Senator from Missouri mentioned it was 15 years. From my point of view, this is a friendly amendment, it is an amendment which is good for America, it protects our access to the Internet, and it does not jeopardize--does not jeopardize--the underlying legislation.

In fact, if I am not mistaken, the two sponsors are cosponsors or at least have supported the underlying Marketplace Fairness Act.

I thank the Senator from Arkansas for yielding for those questions.

Mr. President, I am disappointed. I am disappointed because I know this was a good-faith effort on behalf of the Senators from Arkansas and Missouri to make certain Americans across the board wouldn't have to pay a tax to use the Internet. That has been policy for 15 years. We just had an opportunity to extend it for 10 more years and there was an objection by the Senator from Oregon.

I know in his heart of hearts he didn't want to object because I know his commitment to the Internet and what a difference it has made in this country. Here is the problem he faces and the reason he objected, if I can try to interpret what he just said. There are five States in America with no sales tax--five States. No State sales tax in Alaska, Oregon--the home State of the Senator--Montana, New Hampshire, and Delaware. No sales tax. That means, because that State has decided there will be no sales tax, the people living in that State who make a purchase at a store pay no sales tax--visitors as well, no sales tax. Those who buy things over the Internet in that State don't pay a sales tax either. That is the State's decision. We don't change that a bit. If this underlying bill passes, that will continue.

There is no coercion--which the Senator from Oregon uses as his term--on the State of Oregon to impose any sales tax on their citizens, on the people buying in their State. It is their State right to decide. What this bill does impact is the Internet retailer in Oregon selling products in the State of Illinois. When Nike or Columbia sell products in the State of Illinois, the Supreme Court told us Congress has to decide, if they sell a product in the State of Illinois to an Illinois consumer, do they have to collect the Illinois sales tax. That is what the bill says. That is all it says.

So at the end of the day, here is the question: If you are Nike and you are located in Oregon and you decide to do Internet sales--which I believe they do--but you also decide to have Nike shops available--and we have seen them in malls--what is the law going to be? You know what the law is going to be if you are Nike and you want to come and open a shop in a mall near Chicago--you play by the rules of Chicago and Illinois.

If we require certain filings with our government, if we require you pay certain property taxes, if we require you collect certain sales taxes--rules of the road: If you want to do business in Illinois, you play by Illinois rules. The same thing holds true if I want to open a business in Oregon; I play by Oregon rules.

Now the question: If you don't physically locate in Illinois but sell into Illinois, do you still have to play by Illinois rules? That is what this bill says. That is not coercion.

Nike can decide they don't want to sell in Illinois because they don't want to collect the sales tax in Illinois. That is their business decision. Let it be. But if they want to come and use the customers of Illinois to make a profit, all we are saying to them is: Collect the sales tax. Why? Because their competitors in Illinois--the families who have opened the shops and the stores--are collecting sales tax every day from their customers. They are finding people who are showrooming, walking into the running shoe store, trying on all the shoes, and saying, Just great, let me write something down here, see you later, and then going to the Internet and buying those shoes over the Internet without paying the sales tax. What happens to the store they used to try on the shoes? Eventually, they lose business and sometimes they go out of business.

We are trying to level the playing field. No coercion. Oregon, make up your own laws for your own citizens and people who do business there. We don't change a word of it. But if you want to do business in another State, we are asking that you collect the sales tax of that State. In fact, we provide the software free for you to do it.

I am sorry the Senator from Oregon objected to the Internet freedom bill offered by the Senators from Arkansas and Missouri. It is a good one. It is one we would have liked to have seen part of this discussion. I hope before this conversation and debate end that we get a chance to reconsider.

Reserving the right to object.

Mr. President, I listened to the Senator from Pennsylvania. I have heard his arguments. I know he is convinced of his arguments.

There are several things he did not mention. The sequestration we are currently going through was a bipartisan decision. Both parties agreed to do it. In fact, the leadership on the Republican side and the leadership on our side voted for it. It was to be the outcome if we did not reach an agreement on the budget, and we did not. So now we are in sequestration.

When he suggests it is only 1 percent of government spending, I would add a couple of facts. We have exempted a long category of Federal spending so it will not be subject to these cuts. For example, we have said we will not cut the pay for our military 1 penny, so we exempted that part. When we take all the exemptions out, it is not 1 percent of our budget. For the agencies affected, it is closer to 5 percent on an annual basis. Since there are only 6 months left in the year, it turns out to be closer to 10 percent that they have to cut to make the cuts for the remainder of the year, so 1 percent does not quite tell the whole story.

Also, in terms of the number of people working for the Federal Government, the largest increase in Federal employment in the last 10 years has been in the Department of Defense. Why would that be? Two wars, that is why. When they talk about the increased number of people working for the Federal Government, don't overlook the fact of the Department of Defense effort and our effort to make sure the men and women in uniform were safe and came home safe. So when they talk about that increase, that is part of it.

Here is what we have suggested. Instead of just shifting the furniture around in the room, let us avoid what we are facing. We are facing the reality of 6,800 flights a day in America being delayed because air traffic controllers are being furloughed 1 out of every 10 days. We should avoid that--if not just for convenience, certainly for safety. I agree.

When it comes to cutting 70,000 children, little kids, out of the Head Start

Program, let's agree we should not be doing that. We get one chance at those kids to have a good education and a good life. Don't blow it because of a sequestration problem.

Shall we cut $1.8 billion out of the National Institutes of Health medical research money? $1.8 billion? No. This Senator believes that is stupid--shortsighted and stupid. If we don't put money into medical research, we are not thinking. America leads the world in medical research. The sequestration should not put us further behind.

What I am going to make a unanimous consent request to do is use the overseas operations contingency account, an account set aside for future war which we will not need because this President is bringing our troops home from Afghanistan as he did in Iraq.

I will object to the consent request of the Senator from Pennsylvania and I will make my own after that. I object.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to consideration of Calendar No. 64, S. 788, a bill to suspend the fiscal year 2013 sequestration and offset with funds from overseas contingency operations; that the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, I just want to make one postscript. When Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for Vice President and the chairman of the House Republican Budget Committee, wrote his 2011 budget, he included the very fund which the Senator from Pennsylvania refers to as the Canadian invasion fund. So it was a good idea when Paul Ryan had to write a budget. It is a bad idea when we are trying to avoid the pain of sequestration.

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

Mr. President, let me salute my colleague from Maine for an extraordinary maiden speech on the floor of the Senate. It was a great lesson in history, and those of us who continue to study history realize he has an insight into this Nation which we all should hear and share. I thank him for being here and for sharing his thoughts with us, and particularly for being part of the solution to America's challenge.

As I said to him when I went up to him, you will never get in trouble with me if you quote somebody from Illinois; he quoted Abraham Lincoln, and did it in an extraordinary way.

So I thank him and commend him for his fine statement.

Pending on the floor is the Marketplace Fairness Act. It is a bill which has been before this body now for almost a week. It is 11 pages long. It is not a new concept. Members have had ample time to review it. We have had three successive votes on the issue--on the budget resolution, on cloture on the motion to proceed, and on the motion to proceed--and the outcome of those votes were 75, 74, and 75. That is an extraordinary majority in this Chamber and indicates a willingness to tackle this problem and pass this bill.

I have invited my colleagues, as has Senator Enzi, to come to the floor. If you have something you wish to offer to this bill, bring the amendment to us. It is not that we are going to accept every amendment, but that is not what the process is about. Some of these amendments will be offered for a vote, as they should be, and debated.

So far, there has only been one amendment that has actually been offered on the floor, and it was objected to by the Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden. The amendment Senator Wyden objected to was called the Internet Freedom Act, and it basically said we would renew our 15- year commitment that we will not tax Americans for access to the Internet. I think that is good policy, the Internet Freedom Act. So I invited Senator Pryor to offer that on the underlying bill, and it was objected to by the Senator from Oregon. Make no mistake, the Marketplace Fairness Act that Senator Enzi and I and Senator Alexander and Senator Heitkamp bring to the floor is not at war with the Internet at all. We value it. It is an important part of our economy, an important part of our lives. We support the notion of Internet freedom from taxes.

What we are trying to achieve, though, is the appropriate role for the Internet when it comes to retail sales. The Marketplace Fairness Act levels the playing field between businesses on Main Street or in shopping malls and businesses on the Internet. It says, if the business in Chicago, IL, on Michigan Avenue has to collect sales tax on sales over the counter, then Internet retail sales into the State of Illinois face the same sales tax. That is it. It is not that complicated. No Federal tax, no new tax; only the collection of existing State sales taxes. That is all we are asking for.

Our opposition comes from several quarters, but primarily from no- sales-tax States such as Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire. Those Senators from those States where they pay no sales tax whatsoever would not even require their Internet sellers to collect sales tax on sales made in other States.

At the end of the day, if Marketplace Fairness passes, the citizens of Oregon will not pay 1 penny in sales tax more they pay now, nor will the citizens in Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, or Alaska. The State law prevails. We do not change it at all. But to suggest you could sit in Oregon as an Internet retailer and sell into our States at a disadvantage to the local businesses and not collect sales taxes is unfair.

What we are trying to achieve here is fairness and balance. We have obviously the major retailers across America supporting this, but more. We have units of government that are now not receiving the sales tax receipts from Internet sales they could. Of course, we have others interested--developers, Realtors, labor unions, business groups. It is the most amazing coalition backing the Marketplace Fairness bill.

Senator Enzi and I urge every Senator with an amendment to this bill, come to the floor now. Do not wait until tomorrow, and certainly do not wait until Friday. We want to bring up those amendments. I hope those opposing this bill will not continue to object to them, as the Senator from Oregon did earlier. But if you have an amendment, please bring it to the floor. Members get squirmy on Thursday night and Friday morning. They want to get back home. I understand that. But if you want to reach that deadline and do it in the appropriate, timely way, please bring all amendments to the floor now. We urge our colleagues to do that.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I would like to engage the Senator in a dialog, if I can, through the Chair.

The Senator from Wyoming and the Senator from Tennessee and I, along with the Senator from North Dakota, have brought this measure to the floor and invited our colleagues to file amendments. We are starting to get a response. I can give this general report, kind of general observation, because we have to decide how to move forward.

So far there are about 13 amendments that have been suggested to us. I would say, off the top of my head, six or seven of those I would move to table if they are brought to the floor because they all amend the Internal Revenue Code. They change Federal taxation. Our bill does not change Federal taxation, and we run into a procedural problem, known as a blue-slip problem, if we amend the Internal Revenue Code in the Senate and send that measure over to the House.

So I urge, and I hope my colleagues will join me, colleagues who want to change the estate tax, gift tax, whatever it may be, please save that for another day. If they bring it to the floor, if we end up voting before cloture, I will suggest we table those so we do not go to the merits of any of those suggestions but simply say that is not part of this bill.

There are two or three amendments, one is a managers' amendment, one is a technical amendment on our side. As you can see, we are starting to get past the halfway point of the amendments currently filed. Then there are a handful, five or six amendments from Senators from no sales tax States, and some of them are fairly predictable as to what they want. One is a carve-out amendment which says don't let the law apply to our States. I think we are going to have to face that question at some point and so be it. Let's have a vote on this and move forward.

But I am still going to join my colleagues urging everyone with an amendment, please bring them forward. Let's get an understanding of what we are going to do next. Those who have already delivered the amendments, thank you. I am sorry the Internet freedom amendment offered by the Senators from Arkansas and Missouri was objected to by the Senator from Oregon because I think it would have been a good addition to this bill.

But I yield to my colleagues and ask for their thoughts, where we stand at this moment.

Mr. President, I understand the passion of my colleagues from Oregon. Oregon is one of five States with no sales tax. I know they have voted down a sales tax by statewide referendum repeatedly, by margins of 2 to 1, I am told. So it is clear they have a passionate feeling about no sales tax in Oregon.

Here is the good news. The bill Senator Enzi and I have introduced and want to pass in the Senate will not impose one penny of sales tax obligation on anyone living in Oregon. Whether they are purchasing over the counter or they are purchasing over the Internet--not one penny of sales tax liability. Their States rights are protected. Their passion against sales tax is honored. And the same is true in Alaska, Montana, New Hampshire, and Delaware--all the other no-sales-tax States.

But this is what it really gets down to. This is not about the people in Oregon paying a sales tax. It is about the businesses--the Internet businesses in Oregon that want to sell into other States and not collect the sales tax owed to that State. That is it. We are not forcing them to sell in Illinois or Wyoming. That is a business decision they are making. We are just saying: If you sell, collect the sales tax required by Illinois law, Wyoming law, Connecticut law. That is what it comes down to.

Why is it important? It is important because businesses in our State--small businesses--are competing with Internet retailers that get an automatic discount when they do not collect the sales tax.

I listened to the explanation given by one of my friends from Oregon here, and he said that I am defying the natural forces of the free market system, where good-quality goods are chosen over lower quality goods. Well, I cannot argue about the pine trees that are grown in Oregon because I do not know if they are better than the pine trees grown in Washington or some other place. But we are dealing in many instances here with identical goods--the Nike running shoes that you can buy at Chris Koos' sporting goods store in Normal, IL, or buy over the Internet with no sales tax. It is not a question of good quality versus bad quality; it is a question of sales tax or no sales tax.

So what the Oregonians have suggested to us is what they consider to be a perfect solution: Remove any requirement for their Internet retailers to collect sales tax from anybody. Therefore, there would be no Federal mandate.

Well, let me remind them, there is no Federal tax in this bill. There is no new tax in this bill--State, local, or Federal. All we are asking for is the basics. If Oregonians want to sell in an adjoining State such as California, they will collect the sales tax owed to California and pay it back.

Then I listened to them describe how onerous this would be. Right now, eBay, which is no friend of this bill, offers a service available to businesses that they can buy that will tell them the exact sales tax to be collected based on your ZIP Code and address, and that service costs--listen to this onerous cost--$15 a month. It is $15 a month. If you want to go to the highest Cadillac version, it is $140 a month-- less than $2,000 a year.

Incidentally, in our bill we require the States that are asking for the collection of sales tax to provide, free of charge, software to every Internet retailer so they can collect this without any expense to their business.

This is not onerous. It is not unfair. It is just basic leveling of the playing field.

I want to yield the floor to my friend from Wyoming, my cosponsor of this measure.

Mr. President, I want to congratulate the Senator from Maine on his speech. It was a tremendous history lesson. I have enjoyed getting to know him a little bit since he got here. I had quite an interesting surprise yesterday. He came to my office and he brought an American flag, all framed. The way he got it, there was a desk his great-aunt had. The desk was probably made in the 1860s. But behind one of the drawers they found this flag. It was a flag with 44 stars. Wyoming was the 44th State. So he presented this framed flag to me. Incidentally, that was only the flag of the United States for a 6-year period. Then some other States came in and we added them. It has an interesting arrangement of stars on it too, because the 44 stars do not fit in a nice even pattern unless you did four rows with 11 in a row. That changes the dimensions of the flag considerably.

I appreciate his consideration on that. I appreciate the consideration he has given to pieces of legislation that I have seen him work on. We do not agree on all of those pieces of legislation, but it is nice to have the concern and the thought and the process for getting things done that he brings to the Senate. That is very nice.

I too want to encourage my colleagues if they have amendments to bring them down. That is what we say this process is about. This is an amendment process on the floor, which everybody has asked for. We are doing it. So we need the amendments. A number of people have talked to me about different parts they had a potential concern about. I hope we solved their concern by actually looking at the wording in the bill. This is not a very difficult bill to read. Sometimes we do ones that are a couple of thousand pages. This one is 11 pages. I do not think there is anybody who will not be capable of reading the bill. Unlike most of the bills, this is in pretty normal language, rather than some of the conforming language that sometimes results around here.

I think most of the problems retailers should have with this have been taken care of. One that the nonsales-tax States talk about, and the Senator from Illinois, Mr. Durbin, also mentioned, the people in those States still will not pay a sales tax. But if you happen to be one of the people selling into other States, and you sell a tremendous volume into other States, then under this bill you will be expected to collect and remit the sales tax, as any retailer in the States that have sales tax.

There is an exemption. The Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden, asked us to have a compromise. That is why we have the exemption in there. It is a compromise. We started with it in the Senate as being a $500,000 exemption. The House folks convinced us--as I mentioned, this is a bipartisan, Republican and Democrat, bicameral, House and Senate effort. The House convinced us that $1 million was a more reasonable figure, and they gave some good reasons for it. Now $1 million would give any small businessman quite a few years, perhaps--I hope it is a short period of time, but it should give them quite an amount of time before they had to adjust to this, because they have to sell $1 million on line in a year before they have to start collecting the tax the next year.

In a State where there is a sales tax and the people are selling in the brick-and-mortar store which we are trying to help out with this bill, they collect from every person from the first dime of sales. So we have given a little bit of a break to particularly the nontax States, and to those working on line that are small businesses to continue this effort to grow the Internet.

Of course, we are hoping a lot of our businesses in our States will get to that million-dollar mark. But here is the status on the million- dollar mark. We are told that if we reduced that to $150,000 it would only affect less than one-quarter of 1 percent of the businesses in the United States--not very many. They are starting to be a relatively big business when they are doing $1 million on line. This does not count their in-store sales. This is just their on-line sales. So I hope the other States that have had some difficulty with that will realize that is a pretty liberal mark we have gone to.

Of course, I know a lot of people are getting a lot of correspondence from eBay. eBay, in the 12 years I have been working on this bill, has consistently opposed it, even though they appeared almost up to the time we were ready to do the bill to be in agreement with some of the things that were in the bill.

Incidentally, that is when we had a considerably bigger bill. It was about 80 pages long. This one we changed. The main difference is now there are States rights, which there should have always been. That is the way it is in the Constitution. This is a States rights bill. That reduces the length of it considerably.

The million-dollar proposal is to give people time to adjust and collect. Incidentally, there is kind of a phase-in in this. Some people say, why don't we have kind of a phase-in? Well, we have 90 days. We agreed to do 6 months so people could gear up for it.

Besides that 6 months, the States are going to have to provide free software to be able to do the tax, so that when they put in a ZIP Code for where they are sending the product, they will automatically know the tax. They talk about 9,600 tax jurisdictions. Well, in this there are only 46 different tax jurisdictions. Nevertheless, they put in that ZIP Code and they will know what the tax is and have no liability whatsoever because that falls on the people who provided them with this free software. This makes a huge difference to States, counties, and municipalities.

I used to be a mayor. I was a mayor of a town that tripled in size during the 8 years I was mayor. Had it not been for sales tax, we would have been broke. I checked around to see how much towns and municipalities rely on the sales tax for their source of revenue. I was shocked. About the minimum that I run into is 30 percent. There are quite a few more than I ever thought that rely on sales tax for 70 percent of what they do.

So what does a municipality do with its money? Well, let's see, a lot of them have schools they have to take care of,

they have law enforcement they have to take care of, they have firefighters they have to take care of, some of them have ambulances. So it is all of the first responders essentially they have to take care of.

If you are in the northern States, as I was, you have to do it for snow removal. People are really particular about snow removal. Incidentally, Wyoming is still having a little bit of winter. Let's see, today is Wednesday, so that is typically our spring. We have a lot of snow, even in April. That is when most of our moisture comes. We get snow in January too, but that is a real dry snow. In fact, we are such a dry climate that I often tell people that even our rain is only 80 percent moisture. Of course, a lot of it gets sucked up by the air as it falls. A long rainstorm in Wyoming might be 5 minutes. We get a total of 13 inches a year. So we rely on that snow. But if you are a mayor and it snows, you have a major problem, because people expect to be able to get around. I found out that if you plow it to the center, then they cannot make left-hand turns. If it is left on the ground very long and that freezes, then you really have a problem getting it up. If you plow it to the sides, you block in people's driveways and people's cars. That usually upsets them too.

I remember when I was mayor, every once in a while I would get a call from a disgruntled citizen who would complain that I just plowed their driveway back in after they had gotten it open. They wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I would tell them to give me a few minutes. I would get in my car, which always had a snow shovel in the trunk. I would go to their house and start digging it out. Usually when they noticed me, they came running out and said: Oh, no, we did not intend for you to do that. I said: Well, everybody else is doing snow removal. I never got two calls on that. But that is another use for sales tax money. There are many more.

All of the charities in a town usually go to the city council. They say, we have this valuable project. We need some money. Anybody who says they cannot fight city hall probably never tried. A lot of those requests are granted.

But if the sales tax continues to shrink--that is what is happening with it now, State sales tax, county sales tax, local sales tax is all shrinking. If that continues to shrink, they are going to have to start cutting back on things they do. Of course, probably some of the charity things will be some of the first ones to go. It is always hard to tell what the net effect will be. But if they do not have any ability to increase the revenues they have--and most of the towns in Wyoming do not have a chance to increase the taxes they receive. Property taxes are limited by very specific sorts of things, such as how much you can levy for the cemetery, and how much you can levy for a library, and how much you can levy for fire. Those things do not begin to cover the cost of the service that is rendered.

So to the people who are protecting the Internet, I would say it is pretty hard to flush your toilet on the Internet. Sometimes those utilities come into play with these things too. Those taxes are very important to almost all of the communities across the United States, in 46 States. The other four do not have a sales tax.

One of the things people have said is, if they get this extra sales tax, why don't they bring down some of the taxes they currently have? Some of the States and some of the municipalities and counties will do that. I have had several of them tell me that if we could get a little bit more in sales tax, we would do that.

But let me tell you a little problem we have in the Federal Government. We are out of money, so we are cutting back. And one of the ways we cut back was through the sequester.

The way some of that is worded, some of these things are considered tax expenditures. For instance, the Federal Government promised to pay a property tax in lieu of real taxes. In other words, the municipality does not tax them, the county does not tax them. But the Federal Government says: Yes, we own property. If you can sell that property at a private sale, the private entity would have to pay property tax on that. So it is only fair that the Federal Government pays taxes in lieu of taxes. They have been doing that for a number of years.

The value of the properties, of course, has gone up considerably, particularly in cities where there are Federal buildings, but also in the forests. I have people who know the value went up because they are able to lease some cabin land in national forests. Their payments have more than doubled in the last 3 years. That is a 100-percent increase. I guess this year it is even a more dramatic increase. But the Federal Government, while it is charging more for the property, is not paying more in property taxes, which would be the normal thing. This year, they are taking 5.3 percent out of every bit of that tax. Of course, I say to people: Wouldn't it be nice if when you file your Federal income taxes you could have taken 5.3 percent out of there? It is sort of the same thing. It is what the government said they would pay in taxes.

There are a number of reasons these sales taxes are extremely important and getting more important. If you had Federal mineral royalties, you lost 5.3 percent of that too. That is because the States collect--half the money from the minerals in the State are supposed to be for the State and half are supposed to be for the Federal Government. The half the Federal Government received they considered to be revenue. The half that is supposed to stay with the States or go back to the States is considered a tax expenditure. Again, it was hit by 5.3 percent.

One of the reasons this is 5.3 percent this year in the sequester instead of 2.3 percent--which is what it was across the board for the .3 percent--is we don't have any months left to revise those expenditures, but these are one-time payments. The time for condensing them has not expired, so at the most it should have been 2.3 percent. That is a different problem that I will handle in a different bill. I am hoping people will not try to gum this up with a whole bunch of nongermane or irrelevant motions. If we stick to relevant ones where we are really trying to improve this bill, I am in favor of it. If we are trying to do some other peripheral ones, in light of the tremendous support this bill has, I am hoping people will stick to the bill and try to perfect it. We can have votes on that.

I see my friend from Tennessee is here.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of my time.

I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his comments. He is very involved in the Banking Committee. He understands the transaction taxes that they are talking about, and I appreciate his learned opinion on that.

Mine comes from section 3, called ``Limitations,'' and in general it says: Nothing in this act should be construed as subjecting a seller or any other person to franchise, income, occupation, or any other types of taxes other than sales and use taxes.

I hope we stick to that and make sure it just says ``sales and use taxes.'' I have worked on this for 12 years, so it is tough enough to extend it beyond that. I know there are lots of things people would like and to open this up.

I appreciate the one amendment that was presented but was objected to, which was an amendment which would have continued to ensure--we already have a provision that says you cannot tax the Internet. You cannot tax the Internet. They wanted to extend that another 10 years, and it doesn't expire for another couple of years.

I thank the Senator for all of the effort he has gone to on this bill and all the ways he has helped us. I appreciate his plea for people to come forward with their amendments.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Texas for his comments.

There is definitely a problem. We had people miss votes on Monday night because the supposed furlough that the air traffic controllers had to have in effect delayed some planes for more than 1\1/2\ hours. I looked at some of the numbers, and I don't think that had to happen. Even within areas, there is enough flexibility to do better things.

I noticed some of the sequester things in Wyoming that came out and made calls about them, and found out that people actually could change within their own budgets some things they were concerned with and make sure it didn't affect the customer.

That is just good management.

One of the things was closing down some of the visitors centers in Yellowstone and Grand Teton. They are not open yet because at this time we are just getting the snow cleared out. I called and asked about keeping them open and they said we don't have enough personnel.

You have a gift shop there. That is a profit center. You are supposed to be making money on that.

They said the money goes to the general fund.

I said: Where do you think your money comes from?

The gift shop should operate, and if they have a problem with personnel, all they have to do is the person who runs the gift shop opens the door, does their day's sales, and in the evening as they are ready to leave, I hope they would look up and down the street and see if another customer was coming, but if they were not, go ahead and lock the door and leave. That is just good business. That is the way they could operate. It is my understanding those gift shops and visitors centers will now be opened.

There are ways that could be handled. To go back to the bill----

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I appreciate that question. One of the reasons there is difficulty, there is the blue-slip problem with the House, but also we have the section on limitations in this bill that appears on page 7. There are only 11 pages in this bill so it ought to be fairly easy for people to look through it and see what is included and what is not included. We have pretty much limited this--not pretty much, we definitely limit this to sales and use taxes. When they put other peripheral things in there, then they are opening the bill to go into a lot of different things. So I hope that would not happen.

Of course, there was some question earlier in one of the speeches by the Senator from Montana about the real difficulties of being able to administer this. Again, there are only 11 pages in the bill. Page 4 covers software, free of charge for remote sellers, that calculates the sales and use tax on that transaction due at the time it is completed. It also has to provide a way to file the sales and use tax returns, and it has to be updated for any rate changes that there happen to be.

The responsibility is all on the State to provide the software. I think the provisions that are in there pretty well specify how carefully that has to be done. If it is not, there is no liability on the remote seller. So I think we have covered that.

Yes, it will be difficult to do that software, but that is part of the provision in here. It can be done. This is a day, as the Senator from Tennessee points out, that we can put in a ZIP Code and find out what our sales tax is going to be. That is what this program is calling for. I think I have that right. I rely on the Senator from Tennessee to answer that question more specifically.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence a quorum.

Mr. President, Senator Brown was here earlier, and I had wanted to be able to speak briefly. So if, when I finish my remarks, he is here, I ask unanimous consent that he be recognized to speak.

I want to talk about what we have just heard here and an implication that we are not champions of small business.

I was in small business. I had shoestores, retail shoestores, so that is why I know some of these problems. I know about the people coming in, trying on the shoes, getting exactly what fits, having all of the service of looking through all of the styles and that sort of thing, and then leaving and making a purchase on the Internet.

Talking to other retailers now, that is not the biggest irritation. They buy it on the Internet, the product has a problem--and every product has the potential of having some problem--and they bring it back to the store where they got the free service, where they did not buy the shoe, and they ask for it to be replaced. I hope people can see the inequity in that.

But we are not talking about the small business like the shoestore I had. We are talking about small businesses that are selling online and are doing over $1 million a year in sales. I do not think people would consider that to be a really small business--$1 million in sales. If they are doing $1 million in sales, you can pretty much guarantee that they are automated. They are automated in their manufacturing, they are automated in their sales. That means they have a computer. Not many businesses today function without a computer. If they have a computer, you would be amazed at some of the things those computers will do.

I go back to Wyoming almost every weekend, and I visit businesses. I visit businesses so they can tell me what kinds of problems the Federal Government is causing for them. I am amazed at the automation they have. I am amazed at what they are able to do. And most of it is because of computers. Now we are saying--and I think computers kind of started out on that coast--that computers just do not have the capability to do these kinds of things. To be able to figure a sales tax? All you have to have is a ZIP Code, and it eliminates the 9,600 jurisdictions we are talking about here. That computer can figure that sales tax, and at the end of the month, that same computer will have kept track of all of this stuff, and it will do the reports that are necessary electronically. It can probably do that with about five or six key taps, maybe less than that. I am sure they could actually be set to send the report on the last day of the month at a specific hour. That is how computers work.

So an argument that this cannot be done--I do not think anybody will buy that. And the States would not be willing to provide those programs free of charge and then put in the protections from liabilities and errors if they were not sure they could do it. The reason they put in those protections for the retailer is because they are sure it can be done.

I was fascinated by the audits. If they are using that computer program, how could they vary from what they actually take in to actually sell? The program takes it in, the program holds it, and the program sends it out with the report. There is not a lot of room for error.

Then they say they are going to be running around auditing those firms. They are going to audit the firm that looks as if it is shipping everything everywhere and not reporting at all. That is what accountants do. They figure out the high risk. They are not going to go in and look for pennies here and there. They go in and look for enough to at least cover the cost of the audit. If you are not doing probably 10 or 20 times the value of the audit, you are not going to be hired to do many of them.

So those that are complying, using the program, they are not going to have any problem.

But this exempts all the businesses that are doing less than $1 million online in a given year. Until you do $1 million online in a given year, you are exempt from it.

I would imagine that a lot of those nurseries do not hit the million- dollar mark. They would like to hit the million-dollar mark, and I would like them to hit the million-dollar mark, and if they got to that million-dollar mark, I think they would be so overjoyed, they would say: I am automating on the computer. I will be happy to do it because maybe I can sell $2 million worth of sales if that is the case.

Now, comments on the streamlined sales tax. My State was one of the first ones to get into it. So was South Dakota, so were Nebraska and another 20, 21 States besides those. The comment was that you cannot streamline this. What kind of incentive has there been for them to streamline it more? The purpose of the compact is to streamline it more, but at the moment they are having to protect their sales within their State to make sure they are not losing the revenues they were already counting on.

They knew there was this little Supreme Court case that is now 20 years old that challenged us to fix it. That is what we are trying to do here--fix it. If that fix goes in, I am betting that a lot more States will join the streamlined sales tax and it will streamline more than what we envisioned. But even if they do not, there are requirements in here that keep it uniform enough. And with the computers, we can show examples of how people already do this sort of thing on the computer. That should take care of a lot of their problems.

I yield the floor under the previous order for Senator Brown.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I rise today with some humility because I rise in the footsteps of one of Maine's greatest Senators, Olympia Snowe. I am fortunate enough to succeed her in this seat. In the midst of the campaign a year or so ago, I also realized I was not only succeeding Olympia Snowe but George Mitchell and Ed Muskie, who are two of the greatest legislators of the 20th century. So it is with some trepidation to be standing on the shoulders of those great Members of this body.

Most speeches we hear in this Chamber are on a topic of the day-- taxation, gun control, fairness of the marketplace--but I think in order to understand the issues we are debating, the issues coming before us on a continuous basis, we have to have some context. We have to look back to the history of this body and the history of the country.

My favorite quote from Mark Twain--and there are lots of them, but my favorite is: History doesn't always repeat itself, but it usually rhymes. And in this case I believe that is true.

Let's start with a very basic question: Why do we have government at all? Why are we here? Why do we have this grand edifice? Why do we have the rules and laws and this panoply of the Constitution?

Well, it is all about human nature. Unfortunately, part of human nature is conflict. Often it is conflict that is resolved by violence. Hobbes, the British philosopher, said: ``Life is nasty, brutish, and short.''

A few years ago, Bill Moyers, whom I believe is one of the wisest living Americans, spoke at the graduation of one of my sons. I was at the graduation because I wanted to see what $100,000 looked like all in one place at one time. Now it would be $200,000. But Moyers had a very profound observation, and he talked about the propensity of people to be mean to each other, to resolve disputes by violence. He used a phrase that has stayed with me, and I think it is very profound: ``Civilization,'' Moyers said, ``is an unnatural act.'' Civilization is an unnatural act. It takes work to maintain civilization from one generation to the next. The world around us today gives us evidence of this. All one has to do is open the paper: North Korea, the Middle East, and, Lord help us, the Boston Marathon or two little boys in a sandbox with one truck. Conflict is part of our human nature.

So the basic function, the basic necessity that brings forth any government throughout history is to provide security to our citizens, internal and external, and, of course, the Constitution says this in the Preamble: to ``ensure domestic tranquility''--that is Al Capone-- and ``provide for the common defense''--that is Hitler or al-Qaida. But, then, the paradox is once we create a government, we are handing over power to other people, and there is always the danger the government itself will become abusive, and that has been true throughout human history.

The ancient Latin quote is, ``Who will guard the guardians?'' Governments are about power--power we give up in order for governments to serve us. But, again, human nature raises its head. Lord Acton, the 19th century British philosopher, again had a very profound observation: ``Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.'' That is true of all people in all times and in all places. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

So these two questions--why have a government and how do we control the government once we create it--encompasses all one needs to know about political science. Our Constitution is the best answer ever provided to these two questions. It is the best answer, and the Framers knew exactly what they were doing.

Madison, in the 51st Federalist--and I have to apologize to my female Senator friends because Madison only talked in terms of men, but when we hear ``men,'' we think ``men and women.'' He meant that, he just didn't say it. But in the 51st Federalist, here is what he said: ``If men were angels, no government would be necessary.'' We wouldn't need it. Then he said:

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal

controls on the government would be necessary, either. In

framing a government which is to be administered by men over

men, however, the great difficulty lies in this: You must

first enable the government to control the governed; and in

the next place, oblige it to control itself.

That is the whole deal. That is what the Constitution is all about. How did it do it? I think the best analogy for the U.S. Constitution is the homely Vegematic. Remember Billy Mays: It slices, it dices, it purees. The Constitution is the Vegematic of power. It slices and dices. It lays it out. It divides it between the people and the government, between the Federal Government and the States and the localities, and within the branches of the Federal Government. Power is separated, and that was the theory of the Framers; that this division of power--ambition combating ambition--was the structural solution to the danger of the government abusing its own people.

Then, finally, they weren't satisfied, and in the ratification of the Constitution was adopted the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is nothing more than a sphere of protection around each of us as individuals that says even if the government follows all these arcane rules and all these Rube Goldberg procedures and a law comes out at the other end, if it violates free speech, it is no good. If it violates the right to bear arms, it isn't valid. If it violates people's right to be secure in their persons and possessions, it is off limits. So the Bill of Rights is the last sword, shield, and buckler that protects us from an abusive government.

The tension between effective government and controlling government has never been resolved in this society. Many of the arguments we are having now about gun control, the Federal budget, financial regulation, health care, climate change, and environmental policy are all manifestations of this age-old debate we keep having.

What I think is amazing is that the arguments and even the rhetoric-- the words themselves--always seem to be about the same. On the Federalist side, we always hear about the necessity of national solutions to national problems, universal principles, appeals to fairness. On the other side, we hear allegations of tyranny, nullification, references to Jefferson's famous quote, that ``occasionally the tree of Liberty

must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants.'' The 10th amendment, States rights, and hints of secession, the rhetoric is the same. In fact, the current divisions in this Congress between traditional Democrats and a Republican Party largely driven by the anti-Federalist sentiments of the tea party is at least the 10th time this same issue has arisen in American history.

The American Revolution itself, No. 1, was a populist revolt against concentrated power far away. Second, the drafting of the Constitution arose out of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Many of us--all of us--sort of feel this government has been what it is forever. For 7 or 8 years, between the end of the Revolution and the drafting of the Constitution, we were governed by something called the Articles of Confederation, which was too weak. It didn't concentrate power enough, and that gave rise to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Then, the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights was itself a manifestation of this argument--the argument that the wonderful terms ``Federalist'' and ``anti-Federalist'' describe the division in the country which we are fighting over to this day. I think of Harry Reid and Dick Durbin as Hamilton and Adams and McConnell and Cornyn are the pre-1803 Jefferson and Madison. I say pre-1803 because Jefferson was the apostle of States rights, but he became President and somehow found in the Constitution the heretofore unknown right to buy Louisiana. We are glad he did.

The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1800, which were the PATRIOT Act of the day, passed by President John Adams to get at what they thought were seditious activities in the country. Jefferson, when he was Vice President, secretly wrote a resolution for the Kentucky legislature saying that the Alien and Sedition Acts were null and void in Kentucky and were a violation of the constitutional principles.

The tariff of 1828, known as the Tariff of Abominations, was a tariff that protected northern manufacturers, but it prejudiced the South and, lo and behold, South Carolina wanted to nullify it and, in fact, in 1832 voted to do so. The nullification crisis of 1832 was only averted by the election of Andrew Jackson and a compromise tariff that was passed in 1834.

That is five times already.

This is an interesting one. The fugitive slave laws in 1850 were passed by the Federal Government and it says if a slave escaped into your State, even if it was a free State, your legal enforcement community had to cooperate and return the slave to its master. The Supreme Court of the State of Wisconsin in 1854 declared that law unconstitutional, void, and of null effect in the State of Wisconsin. Again, it was the tension between the power of the Federal Government to remedy national problems and the rights of the States and the people to make their own decisions.

Of course, tragically, the most dramatic manifestation of this was the Civil War, but the Civil War itself was about this very question. Wrapped up in States rights and slavery, it was a question of what are the powers of the Federal Government and what are the powers reserved to the States and to the people. We all know the tragedy of that event and what happened.

I think one of the most interesting results of the Civil War is a change in English usage of the term ``United States.'' Prior to the Civil War, people in the United States referred to the United States as a plural noun: the United States are; they are. The United States, they are doing this or that. In other words, they referred to themselves as a collective, as a group of States. After the Civil War, the usage which we have until today is that the United States is a singular noun, one country: It is. That is an amazing development. There was no law passed, but that showed how the people's view of what their country was all about changed.

In the early part of the last century, the New Deal and the two crises of depression and war--particularly the Great Depression--the issue then was fought out in the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court at first said the New Deal laws were unconstitutional. They went too far. The commerce clause wouldn't stretch that far. Then, of course, there was a lot of politics and discussion. The case went back--I believe it was the ``sick chicken'' case--and the Supreme Court said: Well, maybe the commerce clause does stretch that far. Historians refer to that as ``the switch in time that saved nine.''

The civil rights movement was happening as I was growing up, and States rights was the rhetoric again. What are the powers that we have in this city versus the communities and the States.

Here we are, No. 10: The tea party and the urge to shrink government. The resistance to the Affordable Care Act. I was always surprised that summer when people were getting red in the face about a health care bill. It wasn't the health care bill; it was the perception that Washington was somehow taking over something that should have been left to them.

Gun control is a classic example which we were debating last week, and the irony and the difficulty of gun control is the problem is largely local and particularly in urban areas, but the solution is national because the guns being misused in urban areas come from all over the country. That is why, in my opinion, we need national legislation; at a minimum background checks and trafficking regulation. Regulation itself is an expression of governmental power, and it is resisted in many parts of the country.

Budgets--finally, budgets. I shouldn't say finally. My wife says I say ``finally'' too much and it gets people's hopes up. Budgets. A budget fundamentally reflects policy. It fundamentally reflects what we believe about ourselves and about the government. The budget passed by the House--the so-called Ryan budget--is a classic political document. I don't mean that in a negative sense. It espouses a philosophy of what this government should be. It is one more step in this discussion.

I do not believe the Ryan budget is about debt and deficits. It is about shrinking government. That is what the policy is: to reduce the size of the government to a place where it is much smaller.

Federal spending is not out of control. Nondefense discretionary spending today is the lowest it has been in 50 years. Defense is about the same. What is out of control is all of our spending on health care. That is what is driving the Federal deficit. It is not about debt and deficits, it is about shrinking government.

So where does this leave us? An interesting history lesson.

I hope something more.

First, I think it provides us with a way of understanding what separates us. If we understand what is going on here in this Chamber, I think it helps us.

Second, I think it is important, for me anyway, to believe there is no right answer to this question. There is no right answer. It cannot be all one or the other. Neither side has exactly the right response. We should not be an uncontrolled, central government, and we should not be a government that is so dispersed that we cannot do anything. The tension is hard-wired into our system, but I think it helps us find balanced policy.

We need a national government--we need a strong national government-- for the same reasons as in 1789: to solve national problems, problems that cannot be solved at the local level either because of the scope of the problem itself--global terrorism: I am sorry, the Brunswick Police Department cannot deal with all the terrorism--or because piecemeal solutions will not work. Environmental protection has to be done locally, but it also has to be done nationally. Air moves. Polluted water moves.

Or immigration. It has to be a national solution.

I am sorry, but strangling government in the bathtub is even less feasible today than it was in 1789.

Gridlock, which is, if you think about it, gridlock is total victory for the anti-Federalists. Gridlock is not the answer. The Framers knew the government had to work. It may be slow and cumbersome, but, ultimately, it had to be functional. Madison recognized this, and so did the preamble: ``to form a more perfect Union''--``a more perfect Union''--than that which had been formed by the Articles of Confederation.

On the other hand, on the other side of this argument, though, Federal solutions all the time are not the answer either.

There is a grave danger that we all face because our job here is making laws; and the problem is, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. If the only tool we have is laws, then we are inclined to try to solve every problem. I believe States rights are important. I think States have an important role to play in our system, and I think they are the best places to solve a lot of the issues that are facing our country.

One of them is education. I remember sitting at home and watching the debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000, and they were arguing what size the classroom should be and how big the school should be, and I turned to my wife Mary and said: These guys think they are running for superintendent of schools.

This is not a Federal issue. The Federal Government has a responsibility in education: to fund, to do research, and to help, but not to guide.

Overreaching regulation, in my view, is a problem. I believe in structural solutions. I was not a Member of this body, but had I been, I suspect I would have opposed Dodd-Frank and supported the restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act. I think that is a structural solution because regulatory solutions always end up being burdensome.

A friend of mine in Maine sent me a picture of him sitting next to a stack this high of regulations at a community bank as a result of Dodd- Frank that they are going to have to abide by. This is a community bank. Bangor Savings Bank did not cause the financial crisis of 2008, yet they are having to bear the burden of these regulations, which are expensive, which are drying up credit for their customers, and which I do not believe are going to contribute to a solution.

Another point on this, on the anti-Federalist side, is that deficits do matter. Deficits do matter. We cannot continue to burden our children with the costs of government.

In a hypercompetitive world, it seems to me that every tax dollar counts and every regulation must be smart and minimally intrusive. This is a new world we are in. We are competing not just with companies around this country but with companies all over the world, and they want our jobs.

Understanding these differences and this age-old argument, we have to understand that we cannot be enthralled to this debate. We cannot be locked into it. But we do have national challenges. They have to be met with national solutions. Challenges such as cyber threats, research, infrastructure, gun crime, terrorism--and, Boston, by the way, is an example of coordination between levels of government that I think worked very effectively.

Our failure to act is a disservice to those who built what we have inherited. Calls to cut government spending are fine, but they must be matched with specifics. You cannot just talk about government spending and not talk about FAA towers or our intelligence community or our defense capability.

We have to understand that each generation must meet its own challenges and redefine this question with its eyes open to practical effects, without blinders on of absolutism or ideology.

As I look back on history, the great accomplishments of the body, the great accomplishments of this government, have rarely if ever been victories for one side or the other. Instead, they have been based upon hard-fought battles and grudging compromise, recognition of national needs along with local interests, and a willingness to honor our most basic charge: to form a more perfect union.

I hope in a small way to contribute to this, to contribute to the search for solutions that are practical and effective. I am caucusing with the Democrats, but I agree with Enzi and Alexander on the Marketplace Fairness Act. I agree with Enzi and Alexander on the Marketplace Fairness Act, but with Blumenthal and Kaine on guns. I agree with Blumenthal and Kaine on guns, but I agree with Coburn on duplication and regulation. And I agree with Coburn on duplication and regulation, but I agree with Murray on the budget.

We face serious challenges--defense, budget, and constantly changing circumstances. We live in a time of accelerated change.

Almost exactly 150 years ago, our greatest President sent a message to Congress in the midst of the greatest crisis this country has ever faced. His message was about change and about how to deal with change and was to try to shake Congress out of the lethargy of politics as usual because we were in the midst of the Civil War.

I cannot argue that the crises we face today collectively or individually equal the Civil War, but they are pretty serious. I have been in hearings in the last 2 weeks in the Intelligence Committee and the Armed Services Committee, and every single one of the top professionals in both defense and intelligence have said this is the most dangerous and complicated period they have experienced in their 35, 40, or 50 years in this business. So we are facing some serious challenges.

I want to share with you what I believe is the most profound observation about how we deal with change that I have ever encountered. December 2, 1862, President Lincoln sent the message, and here is how it ended. Here is what Abraham Lincoln said:

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy

present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we

must rise--with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must

think anew, and act anew.

And here is the key line:

We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our

country.

We must disenthrall ourselves, think in new and different ways, and then we shall save our country.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I don't think it will take this long, but I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor again to address climate change, particularly today the change that carbon pollution is wreaking in our oceans.

Water temperatures are increasing, sea level is rising, ocean water is growing more acidic, and powerful storms are becoming more frequent and more intense. It is time to wake up to the threat to our oceans and coasts posed by carbon pollution.

The rate at which carbon is now being dumped into the atmosphere and absorbed by our oceans is unprecedented. NOAA estimates almost 1 million tons of the carbon dioxide we dump into the atmosphere is absorbed into the oceans every hour--1 million tons every hour. We know with scientific certainty that carbon pollution causes the ocean to become more acidic. Indeed, we measure that carbon pollution has caused the global pH of the upper ocean to increase nearly 30 percent--by some measures nearly 40 percent--since preindustrial times.

In Rhode Island, the Ocean State, coastal activities define our heritage, our culture, and also our economy. Our coastal waters are spawning grounds, nurseries and shelters for fish and shellfish, which we enjoy and from which we profit. Our shores and coastal ponds are barriers that protect our coastal communities from ocean storms and that naturally improve water quality. Our oceans and coasts make coastal States such as ours who we are.

We will continue to take advantage of the ocean's bounty, as we should. We will trade, we will fish, and we will sail. We will dispose of waste, we will extract fuel and harness the wind. We will work our oceans. Navies and cruise ships, sailboats and supertankers will plow their surface. We cannot undo this part of our relationship with the sea. What we can change is what we do in return. If we use our best science and judgment to plan for the uses of our oceans, we will continue to reap the value they provide.

Carbon-driven changes to our planet will continue and will accelerate. The faster you are driving, the better your headlights need to be. Our headlights in this area are scientific research and planning. As we move ever faster into this uncharted territory, our headlights had better be working to preserve the valuable ecosystems upon which our communities and economies rely.

The National Ocean Policy, signed by President Obama in 2010, provides a commonsense framework for sensible research and planning and public-private cooperation, as we face the significant challenges bearing down on our oceans and coasts--on both our ecosystems and our industries.

Last week, the White House released the National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan, a blueprint for effective management of our oceans and the Great Lakes. It is not easy to balance the competing needs of commerce, conservation, culture, and recreation. More than 20 Federal agencies oversee our marine industries, governing everything from fisheries to oil and gas leasing. The implementation plan takes this on and moves us toward better and more collaborative management of ocean resources.

The implementation plan gathered the thoughts of a wide range of key stakeholders: maritime and energy industries, conservation and recreation interests, academic experts, and Federal, State, local, and tribal governments. The plan supports economic growth by streamlining permitting and approval processes, by improving mapping and ocean observing, and by providing greater access to data and information. The plan lays out specific actions and timelines to protect and restore coastal wetlands and reefs and to prevent economic losses and job losses due to degraded shores and degraded waters.

Our coasts need immediate attention, so the plan could not come too soon. It states:

Our nation lost nearly 60,000 acres of coastal wetlands

each year between 1998 and 2004. . . . Habitats are being

altered by invasive species that threaten native aquatic life

and cost billions of dollars per year in natural and

infrastructure damage.

The implementation process the administration is pursuing is all about local needs and concerns. So the National Ocean Policy establishes voluntary regional planning bodies. Local people can get together, layer together the relevant data, and promote greater and more responsible use of their region's ocean resources.

In New England, we have seen the value of this cooperative ocean planning. Rhode Island's Ocean Special Area Management Plan--a special area management plan is called a SAMP in the trade--has made ecosystem restoration and industry interests advance simultaneously. I recently spent time at the Northeast Regional Planning Body meeting in Rhode Island and I know our region is excited to move forward with a regional process.

So let's look at some of the practical results when you get the information and the affected people in the room together. In Rhode Island, the wind energy industry, with its vast potential for manufacturing and maintenance jobs, is rapidly developing wind farms off of our coasts. Thanks to the groundwork that was laid by the Rhode Island SAMP, wind developers moved fairly smoothly through the regulatory thicket and they have avoided interference with marine highways, critical fisheries, habitats, and naval training ranges.

There is actually quite a good report I commend to all my colleagues on the ocean SAMP published by the Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan. It is a practitioner's guide, and it is a very effective document that shows how well this worked.

In this process, local people were listened to and they were heard. When the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced this wind energy area here off of the Rhode Island coast, there was an area named Coxes Ledge, and the fishermen were concerned. The floor of the ocean at Coxes Ledge made it particularly rich fishing grounds and they didn't want it interfered with by having that area put up for wind farm development. Sure enough, when the map came out, the curve of Coxes Ledge is going right through the middle of the wind farm area, protected for the fishermen. They were listened to and they were heard.

So much of this is simple common sense. In Massachusetts, the endangered North Atlantic right whale, a population of about 450 of them, feeds in the waters just off of Boston. The whale strikes between shipping and the

right whales were becoming a problem. And because the right whale is endangered, it was becoming a real risk for shipping going in and out of Boston Harbor. So they found data that showed where the whale strikes were likely to be and they mapped that data. When they mapped the data, they saw if they moved the shipping channel out of Boston Harbor up a little bit they could come through an area that was largely safe from whale strikes. The cost to the industry was somewhere between 9 and 22 minutes of extra transit time--virtually nothing--while the number of whale strikes has dropped significantly.

Here is another example from outside of Delaware. The green sort of neon-colored dots here track the signals coming off cargo ships going in and out of Delaware Bay. As you can see, there is a pretty solid track coming out of Delaware Bay right through here. When Delaware first proposed its wind energy areas, they proposed these light green blocks as wind energy areas. This one, as we can see here, was planned right on top of the main shipping channel heading southeast out of Delaware Bay.

Critics say these kinds of efforts to get the data and the people in the room together ``zone'' the ocean. That is just plain factually wrong. The policy brings together people who use our ocean. In this case, the case of Delaware Bay, simply putting everybody in the room allowed the wind energy areas to be modified to avoid the conflict. So the southeastern area comes out and the turbine areas are beside it and the problem has been solved. That is not zoning, that is what military officers would call situational awareness; what the military would call deconfliction. What it really is is common sense.

As Nancy Sutley, the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said:

With increasing demands on our ocean, we must improve how

we work together, share information, and plan smartly to grow

our economy, keep our ocean healthy and enjoy the highest

benefits from our ocean resources, now and in the future.

Our ocean and coastal economy is important. Shoreline counties in this country generate 41 percent of our gross domestic product. In 2010, 2.8 million jobs were supported by maritime economic activities; commercial ports supported 13 million jobs; energy and minerals production supported almost three-fourths of a million jobs. But all of this activity creates opportunities for conflict.

The National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan is a blueprint to resolve those wasteful conflicts, to ``deconflict'' intelligently, and to streamline efforts across the Federal Government to keep our oceans and our ocean economy thriving. And it lets each region go forward at its own pace.

Michael Keyworth, recent head of our Rhode Island Marine Trades Association, helped develop the Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan, SAMP, said this:

The National Ocean Policy Implementation Plan will enable

regions like New England to move ahead with this smart ocean

planning by engaging people like me, who live and work on the

water every day, while not forcing planning on other regions

that do not currently want to engage in the process.

Climate change is upon us, and its effects will only accelerate as we continue to spew megatons of carbon into our atmosphere. Changes are occurring fast in the oceans. That fact makes it all the more important that Congress remain vigilant and that we put our full support behind the commonsense framework of the national ocean policy.

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

Mr. President, last month, the Senate approved a budget that included a blueprint for balanced and responsible deficit reduction. That budget was skillfully managed by our Budget Committee chairman, Senator Murray. It would complete the deficit reduction needed to stabilize our Nation's finances with a mix of smart spending cuts and revenue from closing wasteful tax loopholes. Top economists agree we need about $4 trillion of deficit reduction to make our finances sustainable, and our budget gets us there. Together with the deficit reduction enacted last Congress, the Senate budget would reduce the deficit by $4.3 trillion through a nearly 2-to-1 mix of spending cuts and revenue.

House Republicans took a very different approach with their budget, making only cuts--drastic cuts--to education, law enforcement, medical research, and even ending Medicare as we know it for future retirees. The House budget derives its deficit reduction from cuts that primarily hurt low-income and middle-class Americans, while refusing to touch a single tax giveaway to wealthy and well-connected special interests. Senate Democrats took a middle course; House Republicans produced an extremist tea party wish list.

In his own budget plan, President Obama included some smart provisions such as investments in infrastructure and the Buffett rule for tax fairness. I respect the President's outreach to a compromise with Republicans, but I cannot support the cuts to Social Security benefits in his plan. It is simply wrong to place the burden of deficit reduction on seniors and the disabled. Social Security--one of the fundamental pillars of the American middle class--has not contributed and will not contribute to our deficits. Social Security is fully funded by its participants through payroll taxes and cannot by law add to the deficit.

Under current payroll tax levels, Social Security will have the funds to pay 100 percent of benefits until 2033. It is true we do need to make some adjustments to ensure that full benefits can be paid beyond that date, but that task has nothing to do with deficit reduction. Even if Congress did nothing before 2033, the projected shortfall would force automatic benefit cuts, not deficit spending.

I do look forward to working with Senators of both parties to ensure that Social Security remains fully solvent for generations to come, but that discussion does not belong in the unrelated debate on our Nation's budget deficits.

The Social Security cuts the President has proposed are not just in the wrong discussion, they are wrong themselves. To reflect inflation, Social Security recipients each year get cost-of-living adjustments, what we call COLAs. The President's proposal changes the formula used to make that determination, shifting to something called the chained Consumer Price Index or chained CPI. It sounds innocuous, but make no mistake, it is a benefit cut cloaked in technical jargon.

The argument for a chained CPI is that it is a more accurate measure of inflation--that it takes into account real-world decisions consumers make to modify their buying habits as prices fluctuate. As the price of apples goes up, we buy more bananas, so the overall effect on our budget is moderated. The result is lower annual cost-of-living adjustments--about 0.3 percent each year. But let's take a look at how seniors fare under the existing COLA structure.

In 2010 and 2011, seniors received no cost-of-living adjustment whatsoever--0.0 percent in 2010, 0.0 percent in 2011. But according to the existing consumer price formula used by government accountants, prices didn't rise enough to justify COLAs. That is what the COLA formula says. But in real life, what did it look like?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seniors saw food prices rise 1.5 percent in 2010, medical costs increase 3.3 percent, and they saw their gas and home heating oil go up by more than 13 percent each, and the COLA covered zero percent.

The next year, 2011, these costs increased again. Food prices jumped 4.5 percent, medical care jumped 3.5 percent, gasoline jumped 9.9 percent, and fuel oil jumped 14.3 percent, and again the COLA for seniors was zero.

So 2010 and 2011 add together; they are not included in one another. So food and beverage is a total of 6 percent, plus, allowing for compounding, 6.8 percent for medical care, 23.7 percent for gasoline, and 27.8 percent for

fuel oil--all with a COLA of zero percent.

The numbers show what Rhode Island seniors know: The problem with the Social Security COLA is that it is too low, that it doesn't meet the real costs seniors experience in real life.

Why does this happen? The existing cost-of-living formula considers prices across the whole economy, including products seniors are not so likely to buy, such as flat-screen TVs and smart phones and sporting equipment. Their prices may have fallen, but seniors don't benefit much from those lower prices.

The problem is that the current system fails to account for seniors' true costs in these areas. So my position is that we should move on to a more accurate formula for seniors, one that focuses on food, medicine and heating oil and gas and the other things seniors actually buy. I have been proud to support legislation to change the Social Security COLA formula to one that is geared more toward seniors, and I will continue to fight for the adoption of that new formula.

Chained CPI takes us in the opposite direction. It assumes consumers will alter the types of goods they buy as prices rise. But seniors on fixed incomes have little ability to shift their buying habits away from these basic expenses, things such as food, medical care, gasoline, and fuel oil. It is hard to shift away from those. The lower COLAs that chained CPI would produce will only cut into seniors' already tight budgets, and force seniors to bear the burden of reducing deficits that Social Security had no part in creating. A 0.3-percent reduction each year might sound small, but over time the power of compound interest makes those benefit cuts significant.

For people currently nearing retirement, these cuts would amount to annual benefit reductions of $658 by the time they reach age 75, $1,147 by the time they reach age 85, and $1,622 by the time they reach age 95. That same power of compounding makes these cuts even larger for future generations of seniors. Perhaps $658 or $1,1622 doesn't sound like much money to some folks around here, but to a senior in Rhode Island living on Social Security, that is real money.

After getting no COLA for 2 years in a row, Bethany, a senior from Smithfield, RI, wrote to me:

My health is not the best and it's not easy trying to

survive on my Social Security and the increasing prices of

gas, food, etc. and co-pays for medical. . . . The COLA

calculation for Social Security doesn't work. We need an

increase yearly to stay even with rising premiums and

everyday expenses. Please continue to fight for Social

Security and Medicare.

Deanne from Coventry, RI, wrote to me in February:

I am 68 years old and retired. I cannot work even part time

because of severe Arthritis. My son lives with me who is

permanently disabled due to an accident when he was 9 years

old. He is now 44 years old. We just make ends meet with

Social Security as we have no other income. We wear sweat

shirts and pants to bed and coats in the house during the

winter because we can't pay the high prices of oil. If Social

Security gets cut, I don't know how we will make it. I have

worked all my adult life until the last two years. I NEED my

Social Security. . . . In the face of ever-increasing prices

for health care, home heating, prescription drugs and grocery

bills, asking seniors to give up more and more of their

Social Security benefit as they age when every dollar counts

is just plain wrong.

These are real-life experiences of people who are the kind of folks chained CPI would affect. Yes, we need to make additional sacrifices to complete the job of deficit reduction; no, those burdens should not fall on our elderly and disabled constituents. Our deficits come from unnecessary Bush-era tax cuts that virtually exclusively benefited the wealthy, they come from a decade of wars we didn't pay for, and they come from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. They have nothing to do with Social Security, so don't take it out on the seniors.

As the Senate budget shows, we can complete the task of stabilizing our Nation's finances in smart ways, in fair ways, in balanced ways, in ways that don't put the burden on those who can least afford it.

When I ran for this office, I pledged to the people of Rhode Island that I would oppose cuts to Social Security, and I will keep that promise.

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

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