PROTECT Act of 2014

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I want to talk today about a subject that has immense implications for America's future. In fact, I often talk about it as being perhaps the darkest cloud hanging over the future economic well-being of our country that no one ever talks about. It has been hugely ignored; that is, the issue of retirement income and what people are going to do when they retire in the future.

I have been focused on this for several years. My HELP Committee has, over the last 2 or 3 years, had 10 hearings on this issue. We have met with a

lot of the investment community and retirement benefits community to take a look at what is happening and to see whether we can have a better system for retirement than we have.

Right now young people who are working to pay off student loan debt, maybe buy a new home, put a little money away for their own kids' education later on or people who are close to retirement, a nurse who has been working all her life, someone maybe worked in a small business and they are 60 years old, are wondering what are they going to do when they retire. They are worried they will not have enough money to live on.

Quite frankly, they are very right to be worried. If you looked at the future work force of America today and you said: What is it this group of people will need to live on when they retire and what they have saved for retirement, there is a deficit. They do not have enough saved on which to retire.

How big is that deficit? Calculations in our hearings show it is about $6.6 trillion. That is a big chunk of change. That is a huge hole. So when you look at what is happening, half of Americans--half of Americans--have less than $10,000 in savings.

As I talk and as we look at this, we have to remember that retirement has always been thought of as a three-legged stool. One leg is a pension; one leg is savings; the other leg is Social Security. So what is happening now is that on the retirement pension system, the savings systems are falling down. Social Security is still strong. I will have more to say about that. But what we have to do is look at how much people have in savings. Half of all Americans who are working today have less than $10,000 in savings--less than $10,000 in savings.

When I came to the Congress in the 1970s, one out of every two workers had a pension. That means they had a pension that would pay them a monthly income until the day they died. And if they died, their spouse would get it. One out of every two. Today it is one in every five and it is getting worse. Only one in five.

By the way, this has fallen by 30 percent in just two decades. Again, 75 million people have no retirement plan at all. Seventy-five million people--that is about half of the workforce in America--have no workplace retirement plan at all--nothing, no 401(k), no IRAs, no defined benefit program. Nothing. Half, one out of every two, have nothing whatsoever.

Unfortunately, instead of trying to improve the pension system and lift up everyone, there are too many people out there trying to score political points by scapegoating public servants for State and local budget shortfalls. Pensions are not the cause of State fiscal problems, and retired public servants are not living high on the hog on the taxpayer's dime. These are simply malicious myths being spread by people who I think have two objectives: one, to discredit public sector unions; secondly, to dismantle the pension system.

Pensions are one of the best ways to ensure that middle-class people can have a secure retirement because they provide a guaranteed source of income that a person can count on for as long as he or she lives.

Can the current pension system be improved? I believe so. But there is no reason to abandon a system that has worked for millions of people.

The sad truth is that these days the vast majority of employees with any retirement plan at all have a 401(k). Again, I am not here to bad- mouth 401(k)s. They can be a very good way to help people put some money aside to supplement their pension. But 401(k)s were never intended to replace pensions. It was to be that other leg of the stool, the savings part.

Again, we know that savings rates are too low. As I said, most people have less than $10,000. There is no simple way for people to convert their savings into a stream of retirement income that they cannot outlive. The promise people made about 401(k)s was that more businesses would start them, more people would participate.

Well, I was here when 401(k)s started. It sounded like a good idea, an easy way for people to save. But decades after the start of 401(k)s, the number of workers participating in these plans has stayed flat. According to Monique Morrissey of the Economic Policy Institute, in 1989, participation in 401(k)s was at 46 percent of the workforce. In 2010, it was 45 percent. So it has stayed flat.

We have seen some modest increases in savings the last few years. That is what people told me at our hearings. We have seen some modest increases. I said: Really? Okay, let's take a look at that. This kind of surprised me, that we had an uptick in savings. But then we looked at the data. What does it show? It shows who is saving what. The top 10-percent income earners, the top 10 percent of income earners in America have 100 times more saved for retirement than the median household. So we charted it out. You see back here in 1989, well, they were not too far apart. Here is the top 10 percent. The top 10 percent now has nearly $239,000 set aside for retirement; the median household, $2,500. You say savings have gone up. Yes, look who has saved--the top 10 percent, those of us who work here. So $239,000 as opposed to $2,500 for the average family.

I might also add that buried in this, buried in this chart, is an unacceptable amount of racial and gender inequality in this system. The National Institute on Retirement Security recently found that Black, Asian, and Latino workers have significantly less access to retirement plans on the job than White Americans, especially in the private sector. As a result, the vast majority of working-age households headed by people of color have little or no retirement savings. For those with a retirement plan, the average account balances for Black and Latino households are less than one-fifth that of White households. So if I am not mistaken, one-fifth of $2,500 would be about 500 bucks. So buried in this--keep in mind--is unequal gender and racial inequality.

Addressing the issue of retirement security again would be particularly beneficial to women. We all know about the income gap between men and women. But what a lot of people do not realize is the gap worsens after retirement. When you think about it, you can understand that. In 2011, the median annual income of older women; that is, over retirement age--keep this in mind, the median annual income was $14,225. The median annual income of that same core of older men was $24,794.

Why is that? Think about it. Unequal pay during their working years. That means women have less opportunity to save. They may take some time off during their working years to start a family. They have less time to save. Additionally, women tend to be concentrated in jobs that do not traditionally offer retirement plans. It has been said many times that women save more money than men. Well, yes, they have higher rates, but they are starting from a very low point. So women still lag behind men when it comes to total retirement savings.

That sort of sets the stage for our committee and for me to introduce the USA Retirement Funds Act, S. 1979--if anybody wants to write down the number of the bill. It is a new retirement program, and I am going to explain, basically, how it operates.

The USA retirement means it is universal, it is secure, and it is adaptable. That is what the USA stands for. It would tackle the retirement crisis head-on by ensuring that the 75 million people-- remember my earlier chart--without a workplace retirement plan would have the opportunity to earn a safe and secure pension--universal, secure, and adaptable.

The concept is very simple. Employers who don't offer a pension or a well-designed 401(k) would automatically enroll their employees in this retirement fund. If an employee wanted to opt out, he or she could. No one would be forced to participate. But by making the system opt out instead of opt in, we get millions more people participating.

Employer and employee contributions would go into a fund that would be managed by a board of trustees. When a participant retires, the fund would provide the retiree with a monthly benefit as long as he or she lives, and if that person died it would go on to their spouse.

Over time, as people contribute, they would earn a real retirement benefit that will be a better bang for their buck than what they could have gotten on their own. That is because these funds would spread retirement risk over large groups of participants.

A recent report by David Madland at the Center for American Progress found that the USA Retirement Fund, with risk pooling and professional management, would make retirement much more affordable for working families. In fact, it would cut in half the amount people would need to save over the present system of defined contribution 401(k)s.

So it is basically universal access; everybody is in. You could work for an employer--with three employees, four employees, two employees-- or you could be self-employed and have universal access.

You would get monthly benefits for life. You wouldn't be borrowing against it. You wouldn't be taking out a lump sum. It would be there, and you would get a monthly benefit for life with a spousal survival.

``Professionally managed'' means that it would be managed by a board of trustees who would have a fiduciary responsibility to this pool to invest it wisely--fiduciary responsibility. That relieves the individual from trying to figure our out what is the best place to put my little, meager amount of savings.

You wouldn't have to consider whether or not you should follow Uncle Fred's advice about this stock that he has that is going to make you a lot of money in the future or Mr. Ponzi's--what was the Ponzi guy's name again--where all you had to do was give him a lot of money or maybe Bernie Madoff in later years. You wouldn't have to worry about that. This would be a professional board that would have a fiduciary responsibility. As I said, it would have lower costs--about 50 percent.

In other words, what this means is if you were 35 years old and working, and you figured under your 401(k) you would need $2 million by the time you retired in order to live out your life and have a decent retirement income, if you were involved in this program, you would only need $1 million because the costs would be that much less.

A big portion of that $2 million goes into fees during the life of that 401(k). So that is the big savings. USA retirement, that is for the personnel.

Let's take a look at what it means for the business, the business community itself. These are the benefits to the business. It is easy to offer. They don't have to set up a plan. For a small mom-and-pop business, if they are filling out FICA taxes anyway, they just have a separate line for this, send it off, and they haven't anything else to do. They don't have to manage it--no risks and no fiduciary responsibility as an employer, none whatsoever--and they get quality benefits.

This is what this means. A lot of employers want to make sure their employees have a good retirement benefit because as they get older they earn more. Let's face it, you would like to have people retire so you could bring younger people into the workforce.

If you have people now who can't retire because they don't have enough money, they stay working. If you have a good, quality benefit, when people get to the age of retirement, basically they can retire now; they have their retirement set up. It means for an employer, for a business, they get the kind of turnover they need to bring in new, younger workers.

As I said earlier, it is professionally run. The company has no fiduciary responsibility whatsoever such as they do under a defined benefit program. They don't have to manage it, don't have to do anything and, as I said, no risk to the business whatsoever.

I would add also that under the bill employers could voluntarily contribute to the program. They don't have to, but they could voluntarily contribute.

If you are signing up one of your workers at 6 percent, the employer could say: I want to have a good workforce; I want to hire really good people. I have good people, and I want to keep them, but I will tell you what, I will kick in 2 percent, 3 percent or 2.5 percent.

They can kick in whatever they want as a management tool, maybe even as a recruitment tool to recruit very good workers. Again, it is a good recruitment and management tool for businesses.

For the economy in general, this would be good. This is what a lot of people don't consider. By bringing more people into this retirement system, there are going to be more savings, and there are going to be savings that are long-term type savings.

It is what we call patient capital. In other words, with the capital that comes into these big retirement pools, they don't need to earn and think about the quarterly bottom line, but they do think about the long term.

Haven't we spent a lot of time in this body and around the country talking about the need for infrastructure, long-term projects for this country, energy systems, electrical systems, roads, bridges, sewers, all of these. Plus, we need long-term capital for the new entrepreneurs starting these new businesses that may take a long time for them to return some capital, but they need that access to that long-term patient capital that something like this could provide for them.

As I said, it creates a lot of jobs. Again, because of this ability to invest over the long term, they are going to be able to start creating more jobs in our country.

I want to emphasize two more key points before I yield the floor.

First, USA Retirement Funds would not replace pensions or 401(k)s. Employers could and should continue to offer these plans at the workplace. But what this would do is give people without access to a quality employer-provided plan the opportunity to earn a retirement benefit.

The second point I want to make is that USA Retirement Funds isn't a new government program. There have already been some stories written about this in the paper.

Someone said: Harkin has come up with a new government program.

No, I haven't. This is not a government program. This is a 21st century retirement plan run entirely by the private sector, just like pensions and 401(k)s.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't talk about that third leg of the stool, and that is Social Security. We have to improve the most efficient, most effective retirement program we have, and that is Social Security. Last year, I, along with others, introduced a bill, S. 567--a nice, easy number to remember--to expand the benefits by $65 a month. That means that if you are at the lower end of the income scale when you retire, your replacement rate will be a little bit better. You get $65 a month.

For some at the higher end, $65 a month is not that big of a deal, but it sure helps those at the bottom end. So it would increase that by $65, and it would index the living adjustment so you would have improved cost-of-living adjustment in the future because it would look at the CPI--the cost-of-living for elderly. I look at that and adjust it for that.

Secondly, it would strengthen the trust fund by lifting the cap on the payroll tax. If we do all of that, we strengthen Social Security, we actually increase the benefit a little bit, and it extends the life to 2050. So it makes Social Security stronger for future beneficiaries.

By improving the private retirement system, bolstering Social Security, we can do a lot to take away that dark cloud. We can tell people, assure people, that they will be able to save and have a retirement benefit, an annuity, every month, as long as they live.

Secondly, we make it easier for businesses to set it up. Third, it creates jobs in our economy by long-term types of investment. During this time of economic insecurity, it is more important than ever that working people have the opportunity to prepare for retirement.

I urge my colleagues to help rebuild the pension system in this country by supporting the USA Retirement Funds Act.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we find ourselves today considering legislation to fix a problem that Congress and the President created only 2 short months ago. We knew from the Ryan-Murray spending deal that it cut military pensions. Yet this Senate passed the bill anyway, over my objections and those of many of my Republican

colleagues. Congressional Democrats insisted on keeping the military pension cuts in the Ryan-Murray deal. They would not accept change. Almost every Democrat supported Majority Leader Reid and rejected amendments to stop the cuts and voted for the final passage. So they ignored the warnings I and others issued, and virtually every Senate Democrat voted to keep these cuts rather than close clear Federal tax loopholes that allow illegal aliens to gain money improperly.

So what happens? Constituents back home were outraged. Senate Democrats are trying to claim credit for fixing the very problem they created--which, in itself, is not bad, but unfortunately, instead of doing this in a good-faith way consistent with our spending priorities and limitations under the Murray-Ryan bill, the Pryor bill before us now authorizes more spending, unpaid for, in direct violation of the spending limits set out in the Ryan-Murray legislation passed just a few weeks ago.

So we passed legislation, we set limits on spending, and here we are blithely walking in again. I am at a loss to see why my colleagues continue to resist replacing these cuts--cuts to veterans who have earned it, who have been drawing these benefits, and not replacing them by closing the tax credit loophole for illegal immigrants.

Closing of this loophole was recommended by the inspector general of President Obama's own Treasury Department. So why are there those determined to protect billions of dollars in tax fraud and allow it to continue? Would it not be in our national interest to close this loophole, restore these pensions for our veterans, and maintain the savings we promised to the American people? Indeed, the savings would more than pay for the replacement of the veteran retirement provision, and it would help reduce our huge deficits.

Let's review how we got here.

In August of 2011, as we approached the statutory borrowing limit-- the debt ceiling--Congress passed a Budget Control Act, which Congress agreed to immediately increase the debt limit by $2.1 trillion, but Congress promised to reduce the projected growth of spending from $10 trillion over the next 10 years to $8 trillion over the next 10 years. This was said to be a spending cut but was really a reduction in the growth of spending.

So this 2011 legislation, passed into law and signed by the President, promised to reduce the growth of spending by $2.1 trillion. I did not support this act. I thought we could have done more, and hoped to do more. Of course, I recognized it applied to our military in a disproportionate way--although we hoped it would ultimately be avoided, but it was not.

Once this legislation was passed, I felt--and I think most of us in Congress believed--we should honor the agreement we made to the American people. But almost immediately, many of our colleagues began saying even those spending reductions were too much. At every turn, the Senate passed or attempted to pass legislation which broke the spending caps.

I raised a number of budget objections. I am the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, and when spending violates the spending limits we have, I have on a number of occasions raised objections, or budget points of order. It takes 60 votes to spend more than the budget allows us to spend, so it gives us a check on spending.

Many of my objections were sustained, almost entirely with Republican votes, but in plain fact our colleagues were unwilling to save the money they promised the American people. We agreed to save a certain amount of money--we promised to do so. But when things get tight and their political groups want more, we tend to spend more, make excuses, and violate the budget. That, of course, is why we are in this deep, adverse financial situation.

Chairman Murray and Chairman Ryan entered into a negotiation to ease the Budget Control Act spending cuts--the sequester. They unveiled a plan which increased spending above the BCA level in exchange for increased revenues and some spending cuts. They said the new increases in spending were paid for. The increases in spending happened in 2 years, promised cuts were over a long period of time in the future, but it did in fact balance as they described it at the time.

However, immediately my staff alerted me to a provision in the bill which proposed cutting military retirement benefits by $6 billion--not for future recipients but for current soldiers and retirees. Some servicemembers would see a lifetime reduction of $120,000 or more, some $72,000. This is a cost-of-living reduction of more than 60 percent for some people. I felt this was unacceptable. There are a lot of other things we ought to be cutting before we cut the promised earned retirement benefits to our veterans who serve 20 years. Only those who have a 20-year service record qualify for this. I thought this was unacceptable and pointed it out.

Of course, no one seems to know where this provision came from. The Department of Defense said they weren't consulted. This is not surprising, since the legislation was produced by a secret few behind closed doors--something I do not think is a good process. The traditional legislative conference committee process was abandoned.

The good news is it was caught before it came to the floor, and when the bill came up, some of us offered proposals to fix this problem while staying within the spending caps. So as to not cut veterans $6 billion we needed to find some other place to cut $6 billion. This would at least have kept the promises of the bill sponsors of Ryan- Murray.

Military retirement cuts were a significant part of pay for this new spending. In that spirit, I proposed what I thought was a reasonable alternative. For over 2 years now, I have been trying to close a massive tax loophole.

In July of 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department, part of President Obama's administration, reported that illegal aliens received more than $4 billion in free child tax credits in just 2010 alone. In some cases, households received tens of thousands of dollars year after year, in many cases claiming as dependents people who don't even live in the United States. A number of these filers had no tax liability--that is, they were paying no tax at all--but they were getting tax credit checks from the Federal Government. The inspector general of the Treasury Department asked Congress to act and close this clear abuse. And it is dramatic, really.

What we found, in 2005, is credits claimed under this provision amounted to $924 million. But the inspector general reported by 2010, it was $4.2 billion--it has gone up four times in 5 year or 6 years-- surging, as word got out that all you had to do was make these claims, nobody checks that the children were in the United States or if there were children at all. There is no way to check.

The inspector general of the Treasury Department has made at least three reports on this subject, and in its 2009 report pointed out the problems we face.

And it is not accurate to say that we somehow want to abuse children and deny them support. We are talking about plain fraud and abuse in this system.

This is what the inspector general said in March of 2009:

Legislation should be considered to require a Social

Security Number in order to be eligible for the Additional

Child Tax Credit--

That is basically the amendment I offered, and what the amendment Senator Ayotte is now offering and I cosponsored with her would do-- just require you to have a Social Security number before you claim a big check from the U.S. Treasury. This would be consistent with the requirements, the IG said, for the earned income tax credit. Americans who file an earned income tax credit have to have a Social Security number. This is for people who work and receive a low income.

The Inspector General goes on:

[A]s it now stands, the payment of Federal funds through

this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive

for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the U.S. without

authorization . . .

By the way, he said, this would appear to be an additional incentive for people to illegally enter the country, because you can come in unlawfully here and claim credit for children who may not even exist. And, if they do, they might be in a foreign country. It is now running at the rate of $4 billion-plus a year.

Remember, over 10 years the cost of the cuts to veterans is $6 billion. Closing this loophole would more than pay for this.

The inspector general goes on to say:

As far back as 2007, [IRS] employees responsible for

resolving errors on tax returns, including those filed by

individuals with an ITIN, raised concerns to IRS management

about its policies for handling errors in ITIN tax returns.

These employees stated that management did not take any

subsequent action to address their concerns. A formal

complaint was subsequently filed with the TIGTA.

In its 2009 report in December, some 6 or 9 months later, it goes on to say:

The volumes of ITINs is growing, increasing the risk that

fraudulent tax returns using ITINs could be submitted.

ITINs were issued without sufficient support documentation.

A statistical sample of 658 forms . . . selected from 1.5

million application[s] . . . submitted from January 1 through

November 1, 2008, showed that . . . 78 percent contained

errors.

The inspector general goes on to say:

There are . . . no controls to prevent an ITIN from being

used by more than one taxpayer on multiple tax returns.

Nobody is checking if the ITIN number is used again, so they just file multiple returns.

It goes on to say:

More than 60,000 ITINs were assigned and used on multiple

tax returns, processed in Calendar Year 2008.

So more than 60,000 of these numbers issued to individuals were used on more than one tax return. They shouldn't be using them but on one.

It goes on to say:

In addition, more than 55,000 ITINs were used multiple

times on approximately 102,000 tax returns with refunds

totaling more than $202 million. These are just the ones

which used the number on more than one return.

The report goes on:

97 percent [of] supporting identification documents . . .

were missing or illegible . . . 23 percent [of] signatures

were missing . . . [and] 5 percent [had incorrect] birth

dates.

And it goes on and on.

Something of interest is the news media has dug into this a bit. NBC's affiliate in Indianapolis in April of 2012 reported this:

An undocumented worker in southern Indiana told Channel 13-

Investigates just how easy it truly is.

He said four other illegal immigrants file tax returns

using his address, even though none of them actually lives

there. And he said this year, those four workers filed tax

returns claiming 20 children live inside his small trailer

home. As a result, the IRS sent the illegal immigrants tax

refunds totaling more than $29,000. But none of the 20 children listed as dependents on the tax returns lives in Indiana or even in the United States. ``No, they don't live here,'' admitted the undocumented worker. ``The other kids are in their country of origin, which is Mexico.''

On July 2012, they further reported about an IRS officer with a complaint in South Carolina. They reported that Howard, the IRS officer, received a stack of ITIN applications for dozens of children attending the same school in South Carolina. When he researched that school, he discovered it didn't even exist. When Howard reported the scam to his bosses, he claims his managers ordered him to approve the applications anyway. The inspector general also looked into that complaint.

This is not good. The taxpayers don't need to be subjected to this kind of fraud and abuse, and we absolutely should not cut veterans' earned retirement benefits while refusing to take action against such fraud and abuse as identified by our Treasury Department.

I offered the amendment to save the soldiers' pensions and pay for it by closing this tax loophole, but the majority leader--supported by his caucus, including the authors of this legislation--blocked the effort, not once but twice.

Let me make it clear that this bill before us--because our colleagues are refusing to utilize this possible fraud-closing mechanism to save enough money to more than pay for it--will be asking us to violate the fundamental principle of the Ryan-Murray Act. The Ryan-Murray Act promised we would spend more but that new spending would be paid for by taxes and spending cuts, and one of the spending cuts were the cuts to the veterans. If we take out the cuts to the veterans, where are we going to get the money to make sure the bill is paid for as promised? That is the question. We have offered a perfectly reasonable and essential loophole-closing mechanism to pay for that and pay even more than that. Let me make it clear: The bill before us is placing us in a position to choose from allowing an illegality to continue or cutting benefits earned by our veterans.

What we are seeing--in an astonishingly cynical move, if you think about it--is that we would restore the pensions to veterans without paying for it, without admitting that a mistake was made and not living up to the plain promises made in the Ryan-Murray bill, which reinforced and repassed spending limitations.

Congress passed spending caps in 2011. Ryan-Murray spent more but also established higher and clearer spending caps. It reestablished spending cuts. The Pryor legislation busts the in law Ryan-Murray caps. This is not acceptable. Are we blithely ignoring plain spending limits passed into law just a few weeks ago? Is there no shame, no embarrassment at such a dramatic breach of legal and budgetary spending limits?

Closing the ITIN tax credit loophole is a no-brainer. Let's stop this abuse and not cut current retirement of our veterans.

I hope we can move forward with the legislation today. I am uneasy and worried, but let's move forward. Let's bring the bill to the floor and maybe a compromise that is acceptable can be reached. I certainly believe that Senator Ayotte's proposal--the one I am supporting--is a perfectly reasonable compromise that ought to have overwhelming support in this body.

If such an amendment of this nature is not accepted to pay for this change, I think the legislation is not going to pass in its current form. It would be a plain violation of the promises we made to limit spending just a few weeks ago. It is the kind of erosion of integrity that will lead this country to financial disaster. We are running up too much debt.

The Congressional Budget Office Director will testify before the Budget Committee tomorrow, and I trust the Presiding Officer will be there. He is an excellent member of that committee.

The Congressional Budget Office Director is going to tell us that interest on the debt of the United States--which will increase every year for the next 10 years and begin to surge upward in the outer years--in the 10th year alone will be $890 billion. That is stunning. The Department of Defense is just at $500 billion.

Right now interest on the debt is $250 billion. It is going to $900 billion in 10 years. The first money this government will have to pay is the money we pay on our interest on the debt that we have run up-- $17 trillion. According to CBO, we are going to add another $7 trillion over the next 10 years. We will have to pay $24 trillion on interest.

He told us that if interest rates go up 1 percent, it will add $1.5 trillion to the amount of interest we would pay over the next 10 years. Most people tell us our interest rates are going up.

I guess what I am saying to my colleagues is that we know we face a financial challenge. We know we have to get spending under control. The Ryan-Murray bill was designed to ease this year's cuts in the Budget Control Act and sequester, and this was the tightest and toughest year of all. They eased that, and they said they paid for it with tax increases and spending reductions.

The bill before us would eliminate one of the pay-fors and substitute nothing else, which would mean we would add another $6 billion to the deficit. That is the path to fiscal irresponsibility and financial danger, and we need to get off of it.

I thank the Chair, yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I am one of the sponsors of the bill pending before the Senate at this moment. As we know, the bill is about as simple as we can get around this place: a one-sentence measure to restore the fairness to America's military retirees. The bill repeals the COLA cut Congress gave to working-age military retirees when we passed the budget just before Christmas.

The budget bill had a lot of good provisions and passed with large bipartisan support on both sides of the Capitol. It avoided another government shutdown. Alaska's delegation was unified in passing the budget bill. It prevented another round of major cuts to Defense Department and other agencies. It showed the American people that Republicans and Democrats can work together. But it wasn't much of a Christmas present for our veterans--the brave Americans who made a career out of serving their country and, in many cases, putting their lives on the line.

That budget deal says working-age military retirees will see their pension COLA adjustments reduced by 1 percent annually. For many this is a hit totaling tens of thousands of dollars over years. For some the total reduction over their lifetime is upwards of $80,000. It is completely unacceptable. This is why many of us only supported the budget deal because we had already committed to rolling back the COLA cut once the deal was completed.

The bill before us right now will take care of the problem once and for all. The chief sponsors are Senators Hagan, Pryor, Shaheen, and myself. Many others are coming onboard. In fact, I don't know a single Member of this Chamber who opposes making sure our military retirees continue to receive their full COLA. It is right to do. When these heroes signed on to serve and made their military service a career, it is what they were promised. They should expect no less now.

But I have been around the block a few times and I know what is coming. Many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to come to this floor and talk a good game. They are going to pledge their loyalty to the troops, they are going to wrap themselves in the flag, and then they are going to pivot. They are going to start qualifying things. They are going to say the sky is falling. And they are going to say we can only pass this bill if we pay for it. We have already been down that road. Many of us in this Chamber tried to fix the military COLA last month, but our efforts failed in a fight over what is known around here as a pay-for. Honestly, I am sick of it.

The bill before us right now--the bill I proudly sponsor--has no pay- for. Why is that, people ask. Because the men and women of our Armed Services have already paid--paid up on their end of the deal--and now it is time for us to pay our part.

Unfortunately, too many of them have paid the ultimate sacrifice, with their lives. All of them--even those who served, who survived, and were lucky enough to retire--had agreed to put their lives on the line. That is the deal when you sign up to serve this country.

So to my colleagues I say, don't come down to this floor and lecture me about paying for this bill, because it is a simple thing to do.

I have a list right here of Alaskan soldiers who died in battle during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the wars that weren't paid for. There are 22 names here. Alaska is a small-populated State, so every one of these losses hit us hard.

In all, nearly 6,800 American soldiers have died in these 2 wars. Half of these fallen soldiers were between the ages of 18 and 24 years old. With permission, I am going to read just a few of the names of our fallen Alaskans:

TSgt Leslie Williams, Air Force, age 36, Juneau; PFC Adare Cleveland, Army, age 19, Anchorage; SGT Kurtis Arcala, Army, age 22, Palmer; Michael Lasky, Marine Reserves, age 22, Sterling.

Twenty-two Alaskans have paid the price. Granted, we will never know if these brave soldiers would have chosen to make a full career out of the military. We will never know if they would have collected a pension from the country they served. But this much we do know: Every American troop who is serving right now, especially the career soldiers, signed on with a promise from the rest of us that in return for their sacrifice, their government would take care of them.

It is time for those of us in Congress to step up and do that--both sides of the aisle on both sides of the Capitol. It is time for us to pass this bill and to make good once again on our end of a deal.

Let me make one point. Our actions so far on this issue are not theatrical. This isn't about some ideological policy debate. By voting to reduce the COLA adjustment, we have already impacted real people and real families and created uncertainty in their future. Here are just two examples of Alaskan constituents.

A soldier from Anchorage wrote to me and said:

I myself am on active duty with just over 18 years of

service. Maybe I made a mistake by devoting my life from age

19 to now to the Air Force.

He said he has moved six times, has two failed marriages and two children, one of whom is disabled. He says we changed the rules of the game and now wonders what would have happened if he had chosen college instead of the military. The letter says:

I can't undo 18 years of service. I can't change my career

path. It seems very unfair to be changing our retirement like

this.

Another family from the North Pole up near Fairbanks wrote to me. The husband served 20 years in the Air Force, and their daughter is currently a major in the Air Force. They were promised benefits for life, such as good health care and retirement benefits with a COLA adjustment. The husband could have left sooner and started another career, but he chose to stay because of the benefits. Their message to me was very simple: The vote to reduce the COLA breaks faith with them, with those already retired, and with everyone who has chosen a military career.

And what about those bright young people who are deciding right now whether to sign up and perhaps make a career out of the military? What are they thinking about their Congress and their future?

We need to fix this, and fix it right now, starting with our vote this evening--not next month, not later

this spring, not next fall, but right now.

I know there is going to be a lot of debate. Hopefully tonight we will see the cloture vote and move to the debate. I know there will be a list of pay-fors. As I said earlier, the people whom this protects and ensures they have a COLA and retirement they can depend on are people who served this country and put their lives on the line. We have an obligation--an obligation today, tonight, and tomorrow--to finish this and put their COLA back in place.

I know we will hear arguments about the deficit and all these explanations. But I can't say enough about the payment that has already been made by our military, by the people who served not only on the frontlines but throughout this world, protecting our country. I hope we put aside our political debates and our politicking, and get on with doing what is right.

When we put this in perspective about the 6,800 who perished in the two unpaid-for wars--$2 trillion-plus unpaid for--this is a $6 billion issue over the next 10 years. It is a small amount to make sure we solve this problem for our retirees.

The military coalition--an incredible organization of many of our military organizations around the country--has sent a letter today supporting S. 1963, the bill we have up today. So I hope Members on both sides put aside this whole argument on the pay-for and let's get on with doing what is right with our retirees. They have paid the price, they have served our country, and it is time to pay the bill-- and that is voting for this piece of legislation tonight, voting to close it in cloture, and then moving on to final passage.

I look forward to the debate.

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

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

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

I try to come down to the floor every week or so to give voices to the victims of gun violence. All across this country, every day and every week, dozens, hundreds, thousands of Americans are gunned down on our streets and in our homes, in part because the Congress does absolutely nothing, has done absolutely nothing over the course of the past several years, over the course of the past decade, to try to curb this scourge of destruction that plagues virtually every corner of our society. Eighty-six people a day die at the hands of guns; 2,639, approximately, people every month. We lose 31,000 people every year. There is not another first-world country in the world that can come close to the level of gun violence we have here in the United States.

On top of these numbers are the horrific trendlines on mass shootings. Over the course of January, we saw a school shooting essentially every 2 days that school was in session. ``Luckily'' is not the word to ascribe to this sentence, but luckily, in each one of those instances, the damage was relatively minor to the potential damage that will unfortunately one day come when a shooter walks into one of these schools and is able to perpetrate the kind of violence that Adam Lanza did in Newtown, CT. We are sending a message of complicity when the Senate and the House of Representatives stand absolutely silent in the face of this violence.

I have come to the floor almost every week, and I hope that almost every time I arrive at the floor, I let my colleagues know that I don't expect that any law we pass is going to reduce 31,000 or 2,600 or 86 to zero. I understand that the reality is there is no law we can pass that will end all incidents of gun violence, that there is no panacea to this problem that Congress can offer, but we send a very clear message when we do nothing. When the Senate does not act, when the House does not act, we tell people in this country that we must be OK with the numbers that continue to accrue and move upward. I know that isn't the case. I know my Republican colleagues are just as sickened as I am at 86 people dying every day from guns. I know that supporters of the NRA, gun owners themselves, can't stand that this number is so high at 31,000 a year. But if the stats don't do it, then hopefully the voices of these victims will. So I offer four more recent victims, all from the streets of our cities in Connecticut.

Varnouard Hall was killed just a few days ago in New Haven, CT, January 31. He was shot and killed on the corner of East Pearl Street and Pierpont Street in New Haven. Emergency personnel were dispatched shortly before 10 p.m., and they found Hall lying on the ground, unresponsive, with a gunshot wound to his head. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Hall was the third homicide victim of the year, 31 days into January.

A couple of days later about 60 people gathered at the corner where Hall was shot. He had a lot of family, he had a lot of friends, and they mourned together. His family members and friends remember him as a very kind person. The family says: We don't want retaliation; we want justice.

Hall's sister Renee Evans said:

I need people to stop being afraid to say what they see. If

you see it, say it; you don't need to give your name. . . .

Anyone who knows something should call the police.

He was a well-liked person all across the neighborhood.

Varnouard Hall, shot dead, was 33 years old.

Durell Patrick Law was killed 10 days earlier in New Haven. He had just started attending church regularly, the Faith Revival Temple Church in West Haven. He had gone to one of his first services on January 19, and he didn't make it to the next service--not by choice but because he was shot dead on Eastern Street on January 20. This was the city's first homicide of 2014. Mourners packed that church, where he was a new parishioner, to mourn him. They said he was a good man who liked to goof around, especially with his many family members.

Durell leaves behind a 1-year-old son. He was very active in sports in high school, and he was only 20 years old. In high school he had participated in football and track.

Justin Mariano was 29 years old when just before the new year he was killed in Bridgeport, CT. He was shot on the evening of November 9. Police responded to Bridgeport Hospital, where Mariano later died from his injuries. He had just started working at a barbershop called Sharp Cutz, and he was remembered by the people who worked with him and the folks who trained him at a local cosmetology school as talented, bright, and energetic.

Jerome Copeland was 22 years old when he was killed on the streets of Hartford. He was the 16th homicide victim in Hartford when he was killed in the late summer of 2013. A woman who knew him said that ``he was a young father, struggling, trying to make ends meet.'' He leaves behind a son, a brother, two sisters, and a loving girlfriend who described him as ``an energetic man who loves music.''

When I was at Central High School in Bridgeport a few weeks ago, I was sitting with a group of kids who wanted to see what they could do to end the violence on the streets of their city, to feel a little safer when they walked to school in the morning. I asked them all: How many of you know someone--a close relative or friend--who has been killed by guns? They looked at me strangely; in part, because every single one of them raised their hands. At Central High School you just accept at some point before you reach the age of 18 you are going to know somebody--a close friend or relative--who has been killed by guns in that city.

At a similar meeting of high school students in Hartford, CT, one young girl said the signs of police sirens at night were her lullaby growing up. She just knew there was a pretty good chance on any night someone was going to be killed in her neighborhood and she had come to accept the signs of crisis response as just the pitter-pat of raindrops outside.

To these kids, they look at their lives, in which they fear for their safety when they walk to school, in which they accept the inevitable fact they will lose someone close to them over the course of their teenage years, and they do not understand the complacency of the Senate.

A recent study of Cook County hospitals in and around Chicago showed of all the people they treated for episodes of violence, nearly half of them displayed signs of PTSD. The fact is, in these neighborhoods, PTSD is a reality in the same way it is for our troops who serve us overseas because they witness horrific acts of violence in neighborhoods that are supposed to be safe for our kids. We shouldn't have to compare the levels of PTSD in the neighborhoods our kids transit in the same way we look at PTSD on the field of battle.

It is time we did something--whether it is an investment in new mental health resources or beefed-up background checks to make sure criminals aren't buying guns or a recognition there are some weapons that probably deserve to be in the hands of the military rather than in the hands of everyday citizens. It is time for us to have an answer. These numbers--31,000, 2,600, and 86--are too high. If the stats don't do it, then hopefully over time the voices of victims will.

Madam President, most of the country watched with a great deal of interest right before the new year, when we unfortunately had a train derailment in Casselton, ND. What was unique about this train derailment was that the train that derailed subsequently derailed another train which resulted in a fairly large explosion, which sent shock waves through the rest of the country as we started to address the issue of how do we maintain safety on the rails.

So we have been having a lot of discussions about what is the appropriate level of regulation. We have been having a lot of discussions about tank cars. The U.S. Department of Transportation has been meeting with the railroad industry as well as the oil and gas industry trying to assure whatever decisions are made, that they enhance safety. But I wish to talk about something that is not about government regulation and it is not about long-term strategies, except to point out the heroics and the importance of first responders.

I rise to honor the heroics of Geoff Andersen, an engineer in training for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, whose bravery following the recent train derailment near Casselton prevented the dangerous explosions from the crash from spreading even farther.

For many of us in the Senate, the Casselton derailment has trained our focus on our efforts to improve safety for the rail shipments of crude oil. From increased track inspections to updated tanker car standards, to the consideration of new routing options for crude shipments, all angles for improving the safety of crude rail shipments are being considered. What we should not overlook in our efforts, however, is the importance of skillful and well-trained railmen on the lines. Railmen such as Geoff Andersen are the backbone of that industry, and when one goes above and beyond the call of duty to prevent a disaster from spreading, they deserve to be recognized.

On December 30, a grain car carrying soybeans to the Pacific Northwest derailed near Casselton, ND. An axle broke on the car near the middle of the train, forcing the car off the rails and onto the tracks of the adjacent line carrying trains in the opposite direction. Conductor Bruce Anderson and Road Foreman of Engines Paul Douglas radioed the emergency to the oncoming train on the opposite track, but there was insufficient time to slow down that train headed their way. In the brief moments following the derailment, an eastbound train carrying crude oil collided with a soybean car lying over the tracks and the eastbound train exploded.

Following the crash, Geoff and the entire crew of the westbound grain train sprang into action. Immediately following the derailment, Conductor Bruce Anderson went back and pulled approximately 50 cars away from the fire. Recognizing the fire would soon spread to the remaining cars, Geoff worked with Assistant Fire Chief Adrian Kieffer to hatch a plan to couple back onto the remaining oil cars and unhook the tanker cars and pull them to safety.

Geoff, a former civilian firefighter for the Grand Forks Air Force Base, borrowed two radios and fire protection gear from the Casselton Fire Department. His engineer and trainer, Tom Cooks, jumped into the rear engine of the train to reverse the locomotive toward the fire and connected the train to the tanker cars in danger of exploding.

Geoff, armed in fire protection gear, walked toward the fire to connect the train to the cars. He then walked even closer to the fire to pull the pin on the closest tanker car within a safe distance, getting 25 more cars away from the fire.

Remember, these are cars filled with crude oil.

Once the pin was pulled, Geoff radioed to Tom to pull the cars away.

Because of Geoff's heroics, the danger from the derailment was minimized and the explosions were isolated to the tanker cars adjacent to the derailment. Had it not been for Geoff, this disaster would have been much worse.

I would like to take this time to thank not only Geoff Andersen but all those involved in the response, including Engineer Tom Cooks, Conductor Bruce Anderson, Road Foreman of Engines Paul Douglas, Casselton Fire Chief Tim McLean, and Casselton Assistant Fire Chief Adrian Kieffer, for their presence of mind and their decisive action following the crash to minimize the danger of this derailment.

I rise with some awareness of what firemen do. As attorney general for the

State of North Dakota, I had the pleasure of also being responsible for the fire marshal's office. As somebody in charge of the fire marshal's office, I spent a great deal of time traveling across North Dakota visiting not only with full-time firemen but the wonderful volunteer fire offices we have all across North Dakota.

I have a special spot in my heart for firemen. My dad was chief of the fire department in Mantador, ND, for years and years, and took that effort quite seriously, took the training quite seriously.

As we move forward in this discussion of guaranteeing the safety of crude moving on the rails, I ask this body to consider a third prong, beyond simply looking at routing decisions and prevention of derailment, and then in the unfortunate incidence, of containment of the consequences of derailment; that is, the importance of training, the importance of doing everything we can to provide the equipment and to provide the training and the resources to our first responders.

Anyone who doubts the commitment of those first responders to put their lives in harm's way need only look to the 9/11 responders and realize, if you have worked with firemen, they all knew when they walked into that building their chances of returning were virtually nonexistent. Yet they walked into that building in an effort that we can only shake our heads at--the heroics of that effort. Take a look at the heroics of Geoff Andersen and his colleagues in doing everything they could to promote public safety and to guarantee public safety. Let's respond with appropriate public policy and appropriate training and appropriate resources for our first responders.

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