Floor Statements

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise because we have a crisis on our hands with the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration. I know exactly why we have this crisis. It is another made-up crisis by the Republicans. This is a Republican shutdown.

We just got past the most, well, I feel made-up crisis we have ever seen. Eighty-nine times we have passed a debt limit extension, and it took us weeks and months of wrangling to get it done. We finally got it done. I am glad we got it done. Unnecessary, people in my State panicking that they wouldn't get a Social Security check, small businesses saying they couldn't get a decent loan--all that for nothing.

We can do our work. We can take the ideas of the Presiding Officer's Gang of 6, Senator Coburn's ideas. We have the ideas on the table. We can do this. We did it when Bill Clinton was President. We worked together, and we solved the problem. We had a deficit and debt. We balanced the budget and created surpluses. We don't have to have this taking government hostage.

So we just got done with holding the full faith and credit of the United States of America hostage, and now we are seeing an extension of the hostage-taking of the Federal Aviation Administration by the Republicans. We need to end it. How do we end it? We end it simply by saying we have our disagreements. On this bill, there are a couple of broad disagreements. They are important disagreements. I honor both sides of the argument. The Republicans want to overturn a ruling by the National Mediation Board. This is what they said. They said that rather than count votes by an employee who stays home on a union vote as a ``no'' vote, only the votes that are cast should be counted. Well, I ask rhetorically, doesn't that make sense? If you don't vote in an election, your vote shouldn't count. If the people didn't vote for me and they didn't vote for my opponent, how can anyone ascertain for whom they would have voted? Only the people who show up should be counted. That is what the mediation board did.

This affects the airlines and the rails. There is such a desire to stop that and overturn it by my Republican friends--and it is going on all over the country, this hostility to working men and women, and now it is coming here. It is like a contagion. We see what is happening in Wisconsin. There are recall elections and everything is in turmoil because they want to go after organized working people. It is sad.

But guess what. It is a legitimate issue for the conference committee to deal with. It is a legitimate issue for the Senate--by the way, the Senate already had a vote on it, and we said: No, we are not going to overturn the mediation board. The vote was well over--I think 56 votes said: No. Leave it alone. It is not our business. Let it go.

But, no, the House wants this. So when they sent over the original extension, it had that attached, this overturning of the mediation board, and we said: That is not right. We want a clean extension. So they sent it back to us, and they took up another controversial issue, which is to shut down essential air service in some of our rural communities in our country--shut down essential air service.

Now, I can tell my colleagues that I know for a fact there is room for negotiation in this area. We can work together and resolve it, but it doesn't belong in an extension of the FAA bill. This is too important. We have thousands of people who have been furloughed who are not getting work. I have a situation in my home county of Riverside where we have a new airport tower being put up, and unexpectedly there was a rainstorm the day before yesterday, and because nobody was working there, they couldn't do anything about it to protect the facility, and we have damage.

We are losing money because of this terrible shutdown. Four thousand FAA employees have been furloughed without their pay. Hundreds of them happen to live and work in my State. I wonder how these colleagues in the House who went home to take their break would feel if they stopped getting their pay. Many of the FAA's engineers, scientists, research analysts, computer specialists, program managers and analysts, environmental protection specialists, and community planners are furloughed because of this take-government-hostage approach by the Republican Party.

I have been here a while. I am a person with many opinions, and I have no problem battling out with my esteemed colleagues who is right, who is wrong, who is hurt, who is not hurt. But I know there is no question that people

are getting hurt and jobs are being lost.

Mr. President, $130 million in investments in California airport construction will be delayed. The Associated General Contractors of America is already hurting and businesses are hurting. There are 70,000 construction workers and workers in related fields who have already been affected by the shutdown. The FAA has issued stop-work orders at 241 airports across the country.

In Oakland, CA, I have 60 construction workers building an air traffic control tower. They were told to stay home. They won't get paid until an agreement is reached. Well, if we ask most Americans, they really do live pretty much paycheck to paycheck. They have some savings.

This is ridiculous. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the project contractor from Oakland, Devcon Construction, ``is eating $6,000 a day in operating costs'' and ``should the delay stretch much past the summer, [we are in trouble because] inclement weather would disrupt the installation.''

I am telling you, this is another manmade, Republican-made crisis. What are we trying to prove? That we are tough guys? Let's get a clean extension of the FAA. Let's take our battles into the conference committee.

I want to compliment Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. She is working, and she is on our side. She is a Republican Senator from Texas who is working with Senator Rockefeller, the chairman of our committee. We all know the House sent over not a clean extension but an extension that cuts this essential air service to some of our rural communities. This needs to be worked on, not agreed to in a ``gotcha'' kind of situation.

In Sacramento, maintenance at the air traffic control facility has come to a halt. Seismic modernizations at air traffic control towers in Livermore, Palo Alto, and Santa Maria have stopped. At LAX, the biggest airport in Los Angeles, and at Carlsbad, power and electrical upgrade projects have stalled.

What is going on? Can't we just get over these differences in the proper forum? It is wrong. I am not going to be personally hurt by this. The Senator from Oklahoma is not going to be personally hit by this. The Presiding Officer, the Senator from Virginia, is not personally hit by this. It is the people we represent or are supposed to represent. It is the American family. It is the construction workers. It is the construction businesses. It is safety. These are safety projects.

At the end of the day, are we saving money? We are losing money because we are not collecting the ticket tax that goes to this construction fund. And some of the airlines are pocketing it, and that is outrageous in and of itself in not reducing the fares.

I want to compliment a couple of the airlines that are, in fact, reducing the fares. Virgin America is one, and I will put in the Record the other one. Good for them. Good for you.

So what I am about to do is ask for a clean extension of the FAA authorization bill. My anticipation is the Senator from Oklahoma will object, and then he will offer his idea of an extension that does, in fact, make the cuts in the rural communities, and we are back to square one.

Why not just clear the decks, extend the FAA? We have never added anything to the extension in all the times we have done it unless there was unanimous consent agreement.

I will be happy to.

Well, I take that as a question, and I will just wrap up with my unanimous consent request because I agree with everything that was said.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 109, H.R. 2553, that a Rockefeller- Hutchison substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

I object.

Mr. President, so there we are. There was objection to a clean extension of the FAA, and as a result of Republican objection, people are hurting all over this country. Safety projects are being delayed. And this is

just part of what we have seen since the Republicans took over the House.

Now, my friend said that everything they have put in this has been voted on by the Senate. It is just not true. It is not true. Not everything in this extension was voted on by the Senate, so let's get our facts straight.

My friend also said that the House has gone; too bad; give it up. Not true. I served there for 10 years. If you can hotline it over there and get everyone to agree, they are going to be able to pass it over there. So do not give the American people misinformation on this. It can be done. It just takes a will to be done.

House Members have taken off, gone home. Whatever they are doing, God bless them. But I have to tell you, I hope when they go home they hear from the people who are hurting in their States because of this. I hope they hear from the workers. Construction workers are at the highest unemployment rate we have seen in generations--15 percent--and now this is going to make it worse. Construction businesses are crying for a highway bill, and I am working on that with Senator Inhofe in our committee. We are almost there.

But I want to put this obstructionism, I want to put this hostage- taking into plain view. You just saw everything come to a halt for at least 3, 4 weeks because the full faith and credit of America was taken hostage by the Republicans. And they said to the President--it has never happened before, OK, never. Mr. President, 89 times we have seen an increase in the debt limit. We have never ever seen this hostage- taking. They would not allow the President to raise the debt ceiling for things on which they voted to spend money.

When you raise the debt ceiling, you are paying your past bills. They voted for two wars on the credit card. They voted for tax breaks to the wealthiest among us, the billionaires and the millionaires. They voted for tax breaks for the biggest multinational corporations, including Big Oil. Oh, they were happy. They even voted for a prescription drug benefit without paying for it. Then the bill comes due, and they say to President Obama: Sorry, Mr. President, we are not going to cooperate with you. They walked out on him at least three times.

We finally got a deal because some of us--and I say Harry Reid, strong; Vice President Biden, strong; Mitch McConnell, strong; Nancy Pelosi, strong. The President made sure that at the end of the day we did not default. But what a spectacle in the world. The world cannot even believe this. And I know of the Presiding Officer's hard work to get what we called a big deal, a major deal, a $4 trillion deficit reduction that was fair, that asked the millionaires and the billionaires and the multinational corporations to do something. But, no, that was not to be. We wasted time--a lot of time. And what happened? We almost brought the country to its knees. Thank God it did not happen is all I can say. And I felt strongly, if we had not gotten an agreement, the President would have had to invoke the 14th amendment in order to save our country from this hostage-taking.

So that was a made-up crisis. It never happened before. Do you know that the most the debt ceiling was raised was under Ronald Reagan? Eighteen times. Under George Bush, 9 times. I never heard anything like this before, and I have been around here since the days of Ronald Reagan, dare I say. I was in the House for 10 years.

Ronald Reagan said very clearly--and I am paraphrasing--he was very strong--do not play games with the debt ceiling. It is dangerous. He said that even the thought of it is dangerous. So we just came out of that mess.

Now let's look at what else they have done since they took power--how many months ago? Five months? Is that all it has been? It feels like an eternity, OK, since they took over the House. They stopped the patent bill, which Senator Leahy says would result in hundreds of thousands of jobs--stopped it cold. Why? Because the Patent Office does not have any money to work on those brilliant ideas that are coming out of our people. They needed more funding. That bill took care of it. The House stopped it cold. Hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The Economic Development Administration--I know about that because I brought the bill here. It is a beautiful program. It has been in place for generations. It gives a little seed money in areas that have had high unemployment, and that seed money attracts private sector money, public sector money, nonprofit money, and jobs are created. They build office parks. We have great examples in California of shopping malls. I am sure my friend, the Presiding Officer, has many examples of the EDA at work. They stopped it. They filibustered it. It never got a vote. That is the small business innovation bill my friend Mary Landrieu brought to the floor. The last time we counted, those bills have created 19,000 new businesses. Shut that one down. Then the House passed a budget that cut into the highway fund. I want to give you specifically what that would mean. If we wind up cutting the transportation program at the level they cut it in the House--one- third--and that is exactly what Chairman Mica's bill does--we know, because CBO has told us, we lose 620,000 jobs, construction jobs.

Then they played with the FAA. They object to a clean reauthorization. Projects are shut down and workers are furloughed and small businesses do not know if they can hang on.

OK. I thought this election in 2010 was about jobs. I tell you, I was up in 2010. I know it was about jobs. I committed to the people I would go back here and fight for jobs, private sector jobs, public sector jobs. Jobs. Jobs. Everything the House has done since the Republicans took over is to stop our progress--screeching halt. You can hear the brakes go onto this economy. It is not just one thing now, it is five things I have told you. This is not rhetoric. They have stopped the FAA--partial shutdown; they stopped the EPA authorization; they stopped the patent bill; they stopped the small innovation bill; they have cut transportation in their budget by one-third. That is just the tip of the iceberg of what I am telling you.

I think it is very sad right now that we had a Republican objection to a bipartisan request to allow FAA to be reauthorized. It is very sad. I want to again thank Kay Bailey Hutchison, my friend from Texas, for saying that she stands with Chairman Rockefeller, and she believes we should do a clean reauthorization. With that, I think I have made my points. But I am going to make sure I continue to make them throughout this recess. I would suggest that Senators go home and look at the projects in their States that have been stopped due to this Republican hostage taking. They are against working men and women having decent rights. They are holding this bill hostage. That is what it is all about. It is a very sad day.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I would like to take a few moments to remember George Ramos, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with the Los Angeles Times who served his beloved hometown for decades and inspired countless others to follow in his extraordinary footsteps.

Born in 1947, George Ramos was a native of East Los Angeles. At a time when only a small number of Latino students enrolled in college, Ramos graduated in 1969 from California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo with a bachelor's degree in journalism.

Shortly after completing his studies, Ramos enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in West Germany and South Vietnam before returning to journalism. He worked for several newspapers before arriving at the Los Angeles Times, where he served for more than 25 years.

As an editor and reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Ramos joined with 17 Latino journalists to write the Pulitzer Prize winning ``Latino Project'' and also contributed to the Los Angeles Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and the 1994 Northridge earthquake. In addition to his award winning work in print media, Ramos also briefly co-hosted the Emmy Award-winning show ``Life & Times'' and served as a part-time faculty member at the University of Southern California. When he left the Los Angeles Times in 2003, he returned to California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo as a member of the journalism faculty.

Ramos lived in the Los Angeles area for most of his life and enjoyed the diversity of its vibrant neighborhoods. He maintained close ties to his childhood community of East Los Angeles and frequently visited local schools to speak about journalism and the importance of higher education. Ramos served as a mentor to many aspiring journalists and also as two-term president of California Chicano New Media Association--a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting diversity in the field of journalism.

I invite my colleagues to join me in recognizing and honoring the memory of George Ramos for his long and distinguished service to our country.

Will the Senator yield for a question?

I have a few questions because what my colleague is doing right now is stepping back and looking at the bigger economic view of where we are. Having come out of the 2010 election, where, frankly, the only issue I faced day after day was job creation, I think my friend is right to talk about that. But here we are in a crisis that is made up.

We have raised the debt ceiling 89 times, and I know my friend has looked at all of this. But isn't it true that never before have we been in a circumstance where one political party has held the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to some agenda they want to bring to the country? Is that my friend's understanding?

OK. So what we have now established is that at a time of economic uncertainty, what the Republicans have done, as a party, is hold this whole economy hostage. We have established that. It has never been done before. It is a made-up crisis. They know under Ronald Reagan the debt ceiling was raised 18 times, under George Bush it was 7, 8 or 9 times, and they never said a word. But now, in the midst of this economic crisis we have had going on, this recession, they add this horrific crisis which they have made up.

I have one more question I would like to ask my friend for his comment. I was thinking the other day how things are stalling--the economic growth and our recovery. I have looked back on this and have asked: Why has this happened.

One of the great reasons, I believe, as someone who did study economics a long time ago, is uncertainty and this whole nightmare we are going through, this unnecessary nightmare.

Here we are on a Sunday--we know talks are going on--but this is unnecessary that we are in this mess. The Republicans want us to be in this mess again in 3, 4, or 5 months. I hope we have finally gotten rid of that notion. We are not going to agree to a short-term extension. But here is what I see as the bigger picture.

As soon as the Republicans took over, they stopped working on this economy. Not only did they stop working on the FAA conference--the Federal Aviation Administration--but they now have shut down the FAA. They refuse to allow an extension, and there are job losses all over my State--I assume all over my colleague's State.

At this time they have stopped completely any work on patent reform, which Chairman Leahy says is hundreds of thousands of jobs. They have put forward a highway bill and a budget that cuts highways by one- third, which is 600,000 jobs that will be lost. They voted down, with a filibuster, Mary Landrieu's small business bill and my economic development bill--hundreds of thousands of jobs between those two. Now we have this made-up crisis. How long have they been in? Let's see: January, February, March, April, May, June, July--7 months, and we are in a mess.

So I say to my friend, as he puts forward this notion that we have to be concerned, it is not only that we have this made-up crisis, it is also that they have put the brakes on anything the Senate and the House can do to stimulate jobs. Does my friend agree that it is a very discouraging time?

Madam President, how much time do I have under the order?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consideration of S. Res. 246, which was submitted earlier today.

Madam President, I further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I want to say that I listened very carefully to the remarks of the senior Senator from Maryland about where we find ourselves. I want to associate myself with her remarks on what a dire situation we are in at this moment. We really stand tonight on the edge of an economic calamity. Why is that? America is at the brink of being unable to pay our bills, bills we already voted to pay way in the past. When you raise the debt ceiling, it is not about future spending, it is about meeting your obligations.

How did we get to this debt? How did we get to this debt? For many years, we ran deficits, and they added up.

But I remember that when Bill Clinton was President--Madam President, I know you remember this--we balanced the budget. We didn't have a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution; we balanced the budget by sitting down and figuring out what was wasteful spending, what were important investments. We had economic growth, 23 million new jobs, and all the revenues that came with them. We had surpluses.

When George W. Bush became President, he said about this surplus: I have to give this back to the people. And he gave it back to the millionaires and the billionaires. He put two wars on the credit card. Poof--there went the surplus. Then he had a prescription drug benefit, but he didn't pay for it, and there went the surplus. Two wars on the credit card, prescription drug benefit on the credit card, and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires on the credit card, and all of a sudden, we started to see the debt rise.

My Republican friends who have suddenly discovered this debt never said a word when George Bush was President and we raised the debt ceiling nine times. Did you see the Democrats out here on the floor threatening to hold up the whole country? Did you see the Democrats saying: We won't give George Bush an increase in the debt ceiling unless he does whatever we want. We didn't do that. We should not ever do that. That is what is going on here. Republicans, led by the far extreme of their party, are holding this country hostage, and they are saying that unless they get their way, they will not relent.

I pray and I hope--and I am talking to my Republican friends in these hours--we will be able to come to some agreement. But I will say this: We are now facing a filibuster by my Republican friends. They will not allow us to vote on the Reid amendment with just a majority vote. They are demanding a supermajority. What I find interesting is they did not demand a supermajority vote over in the House on the Boehner proposal. That was done by a simple majority. Now they say we need a supermajority to vote on the Reid proposal.

Harry Reid has his door wide open; you know that as well as I. He has invited Mitch McConnell--all the Republicans: Come on in. I am here. I am ready to negotiate. What is it that you need?

So far, we know there are conversations going on among Members. We do not see that leadership coming from Leader McConnell. I hope he is rethinking this because the whole world is watching. They see a filibuster tonight. They understand which side is trying to resolve it.

How did we really get here? I explained how we got to the debt. How did we get to this moment? The debt ceiling needed to be raised, and our Republican friends said to our President: We are not going to give you a clean debt ceiling increase. We want to sit down and work on some cuts to the budget.

Guess what. The President said: I don't know, but we will do it. Come on in, we will do it.

Then the President said: You know what. Let's get a really big deal. Let's get a $4 trillion deal. Let's get out of this budgetary crisis.

The President gave and gave, and what was the reward? First Eric Cantor stalked out of the talks. He stalked out. ``I don't want to be part of this.'' He took his little blanky and went home.

Then John Boehner--he is in the talks, and he walks out of the talks not once but twice. He said: Well, I am done with this. I am going to work with the people on Capitol Hill. I am going to go talk to the bipartisan leadership here.

We said: Fine. We will try to work with you.

But they want everything their way: My way or the highway. If you ever looked up what ``compromise'' means, it means everybody gives a little.

We didn't want to attach this to the debt ceiling increase, but we said: OK, we will do it. You feel strongly about it. We will do it.

They said: OK. We don't want any new revenues.

They don't want to touch millionaires and billionaires. God forbid they should pay $5 more a year to help us.

We said: You know what, we think it is wrong, but if that is what you are saying, we will just do cuts.

That was not happy. Harry Reid did more cuts than the Republicans-- twice as many. That still was not good enough for them. It is always more of what they want.

I raised a family, and I know sometimes it is tough. This is the American family. If you have an argument between two kids in your family--I had two children. Now I have four grandchildren. They argue, and you have to say: Let's listen to each other first. I will give up something, and you give up something. Let's meet in the middle.

Oh, no. Then you think: Wait a minute, why do they think they deserve every single thing they want?

What are they thinking? Do they run the Senate? No. The Democrats do.

Madam President, you and I just won reelection. You are the longest serving woman ever in this Senate. I am so proud to know you. You have had some hard races in your life. I had the toughest race in my life coming back here, but I came back here. Leader Reid came back here. Patty Murray came back here. Michael Bennet came back here. And we run the Senate. President Obama is the President. He happens to be a Democrat. And in the House, the Republicans won a huge victory--a huge victory. The Republicans run the House, the Democrats run the Senate, and the President is a Democrat. Let's see, that is three branches, two-thirds run by the Democrats. The Republicans want it all. If one of my kids did that, if they were arguing with the other one, I would say that is not right. I am not even asking for two-thirds. As Senator Mikulski said, we have come a long way from where we want to come. Where have they come? They have not come toward us. Now the plan the Republicans want is to revisit this debt crisis in 3 months, 4 months, 5 months from now. Imagine roiling the markets.

I used to be a stockbroker a very long time ago. In those years when the President got a cold, the market went down, everyone was worried. We never had a crisis like this. Do you know we have raised the debt limit 89 times in our history? No political party--no Republican Party, no Democratic Party--has ever held the debt ceiling increase hostage to their desires, hopes, and dreams.

What does the other side want? They will be honest--not all of them. They want cuts in Social Security, Medicare. They even had a proposal over in the House to end Medicare as we know it. We are not going there. We will not go there. We will not be revisiting this every 3 or 4 months. It is a recipe for a downgrade in our bonds. It is a recipe for turmoil in the marketplace. It is a recipe for higher mortgage rates. It is a recipe for more unemployment. It is a recipe for chaos.

I would be happy to.

Absolutely. We are the largest State in the Union with 38 million people. We have more people on Social Security and Medicare than any other State. They know what the stakes are. They are smart. If we look at the polls, 70 percent of the people say: Tax millionaires and billionaires; they should pay their fair share. Spare Social Security, Medicare, education and the things that we need.

We are here in a manmade crisis. This is unnecessary. This has never been done before, and I think the people have to understand that. Never ever has this been done before. We raised the debt ceiling 18 times when Ronald Reagan was President. I happened to be in the House of Representatives. Yes, a few people here and there voted no once in a while, but no one ever thought of bringing down that vote. We cannot have the greatest country in the world defaulting on our bonds. We cannot have us defaulting on our contracts.

Small businesses are calling me--I say to my friend from Ohio and my friend from Maryland and my friend from Alaska--and they are saying they cannot get credit now. The banks are fearful. They are only getting overnight credit. What are we doing in this manmade crisis? We have a long history of working together at times such as this.

Leader Reid's office is open. The door is open. This is the time to work together. We have until 1 in the morning when we hope we can get an up-or-down vote on Leader Reid's proposal. I know there are talks going on. I have been talking to my Republican friends. They want to find a way out of this. But you know what. We have to pledge allegiance to the flag, not to Grover Norquist. We have to do what is right for the country. I pray and I hope that we do.

I will say this: If we fail, I hope the President will invoke the 14th amendment. Everyone should read it. It says the debt of the United States shall not be questioned. If we cannot get together, the President will have to take responsibility. I hope we can and show the world that we can still work together.

I yield the floor.

Would the Senator yield for a question?

I want to make sure the people listening to the Senator-- because he is such an expert on what goes on around here--understand this and make sure I understand it too.

The Senator is saying that when 1 a.m. this morning comes, we will have

a vote to determine whether we can stop debating the Reid amendment and actually vote on it. But if we don't get the 60 votes to do that, what will have happened is they will have stalled us, but the Reid amendment is still pending. We can't get a vote on that if the Republicans filibuster it and keep talking and talking and don't let us get to a vote; is that correct?

I thank my colleague because I think it is important for the people to understand. I would hope Senator Reid will keep his amendment on the floor. It is the last vehicle standing to avert a default, and I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mr. President, my friend, Senator Sessions, has said Republicans are prepared to vote on the Reid proposal. Actually, they are not. They want to vote on whether to allow a vote on the Reid proposal. That is what a cloture vote is, and they don't want to vote on the Reid proposal.

We have offered that and said that a majority should rule. Just as the Boehner proposal passed in the House with a simple majority, we want a chance to pass the Reid proposal with a simple majority.

My friend says that is laughable. Why is it laughable? We went back and looked at the Record, and every vote we could find on increasing the debt was always done by a simple majority--always.

So if we want to follow tradition, cut out the filibuster. Let's vote, and we will pass the Reid proposal tonight and we can find a way to resolve these problems.

My colleague also said Democrats want to raise taxes. Let me just say something. Democrats want to reduce taxes on the middle class. But we do believe multinational corporations, people who earn over $1 billion a year and $1 million a year should pay their fair share. We do believe that.

Senator Sanders researched and found out that the richest 400 families

in America make more than one-half of America. Can you imagine? The richest 400 families make more than half of America. So those at the top are doing just fine.

So let's be clear. We want an up-or-down vote on the Reid amendment. We think it is fair. We think it is just. We march toward the Republicans. We didn't want to give up on revenues, but we did. We wanted a clean debt ceiling, not holding it hostage to any machinations. We gave that up. We are willing to talk. We are willing to work. Senator Reid's office--I was just in there. The door is wide open waiting for Republicans to come in and work with us.

So we hoped at this point we would have an agreement and we could climb down off this manmade crisis. There is no crisis. Eighty-nine times we have raised the debt; no crisis whatsoever. I think it is important that we recognize this is no crisis. We have a challenge to reduce deficits and debt. We did it with Bill Clinton, we balanced the budget, we created surpluses. We know how to do it. We will work with you and do it. But we don't need a manmade crisis to pull this entire economy down, to lower the full faith and credit of the United States.

Imagine holding the full faith and credit of the United States hostage until you get every single thing you want. That is not compromise. That is absolutely irresponsible.

Mr. President, I want to thank you for your leadership in pointing out what is happening on the Senate floor; that there is a filibuster to stop us from voting on the Reid amendment and that we are not going to give up. If, in fact, they decide they want to continue to debate the Reid amendment and they don't give us 60 votes to go to a vote on the Reid amendment, we are going to keep going because the Reid amendment is a fair amendment. It was pulled from both sides of the aisle. It will get us out of this mess that we are in and get us concentrating on the long-term challenges we face: job creation, deficits, and debt reduction.

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

Yes, we do.

Mr. President, today I wish to celebrate the 90th birthday of Hal David, a wonderful lyricist who has entertained the world with his delightful songs for more than half a century.

Born in Brooklyn, Hal David developed a talent for music at an early age while studying violin and playing in bands. His first hit record came in 1949 with ``The Four Winds and the Seven Seas'' by Vic Damone. During the 1950s, David began his legendary collaboration with composer Burt Bacharach, and the two created hit songs such as ``Walk on By,'' ``I'll Never Fall in Love Again,'' ``The Look of Love,'' and ``What the World Needs Now Is Love.'' Hal's talents earned him four Academy Award nominations, including an Oscar for ``Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head'' from the film ``Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid''; and an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Hal David has also fought to protect and promote other songwriters. As president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, ASCAP, he worked tirelessly to protect the intellectual property rights of musicians. As chairman & CEO of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, he helped create the Songwriters Hall of Fame Gallery at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.

Hal David's extraordinary songs will continue to touch the lives and hearts of future generations. I invite all of my colleagues to join me in honoring Hal David as he celebrates his 90th birthday.

Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the memory of Dr. Donald Linker of Marin County, who passed away on June 16, 2011. Dr. Linker dedicated his personal and professional life to helping others and was passionate about living his life to the fullest.

Donald Linker was born and raised in Louisville, KY. He graduated from the University of Michigan and received his doctor of medicine from the University of Kentucky, School of Medicine.

Don served honorably in the U.S. Navy as a doctor treating marines in Vietnam. After his service, he moved to San Francisco, married, and had three children. He opened his own medical practice and after many years of practicing medicine, returned to school and received his master's in public health from UC Berkeley.

Don Linker was an activist and philanthropist who was committed to bettering his community. He was a founding member of the Foundation for Reed Schools in Tiburon and also served a number of other organizations, including the Jewish Community Federation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Marin Community Federation, the Bernard Osher Foundation, and the Buck Center for Research and Aging.

Don was an adventurous man with a fiery demeanor and an infectious spirit who loved travel and extreme sports. One of his passions was pushing himself to the limit physically. He loved windsurfing, skiing, and mountain biking, and some of his greatest personal accomplishments involved those activities.

Don was a friend who will be greatly missed by all those whose lives he touched.

I send my heartfelt sympathies to his family, including his son Kevin Linker, daughters Jodi Linker and Dana Linker, son-in-law Richard Steele, brother Stephen Linker and his grandchildren Lauren and Sarah Steele.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Communities of Color Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act.

Teen pregnancy is closely linked to a number of issues that affect the welfare of children in our Nation, particularly child poverty. A child in the United States is nine times more likely to grow up in poverty if their mother gave birth when she was a teen, if the child's parents are unmarried when they are born, and if the mother did not graduate from high school.

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed nation. Each year close to 750,000 teens in the United States become pregnant. Despite some progress in reducing teen pregnancy overall, many minority communities continue to struggle with disproportionately high rates of teen pregnancy.

Over half of all Latina and African American girls will become pregnant at least once before they turn 20. In 2009 the teen birth rate for Latinas, African Americans and American Indians/Alaska Natives was more than double the teen birth rate of non-Hispanic Caucasians.

The Communities of Color Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act takes would address teen pregnancy in communities of color by supporting teenage pregnancy prevention programs that work with community-based organizations that are experienced in serving youth

in ethnic and racial groups with the highest teen pregnancy rates; using multimedia campaigns to provide public health education and increase awareness about teen pregnancy, and researching what factors contribute to disproportionately high rates of teenage and unintended pregnancy in communities of color.

I am proud that our country has made progress in reducing the rate of teen pregnancy by one third over the last decade, but our work is not done. We need to strengthen our efforts, especially among the youth in communities of color who are now so much more likely to face the unexpected and difficult challenges of parenting before they have finished growing up themselves.

I am pleased to be joined in this effort by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, who is sponsoring this legislation in the House, as well as Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the Futures Without Violence, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

I urge my colleagues to join us in taking the next step forward in preventing teenage pregnancy by supporting this important legislation.

Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Communities of Color Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act.

Teen pregnancy is closely linked to a number of issues that affect the welfare of children in our Nation, particularly child poverty. A child in the United States is nine times more likely to grow up in poverty if their mother gave birth when she was a teen, if the child's parents are unmarried when they are born, and if the mother did not graduate from high school.

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any developed nation. Each year close to 750,000 teens in the United States become pregnant. Despite some progress in reducing teen pregnancy overall, many minority communities continue to struggle with disproportionately high rates of teen pregnancy.

Over half of all Latina and African American girls will become pregnant at least once before they turn 20. In 2009 the teen birth rate for Latinas, African Americans and American Indians/Alaska Natives was more than double the teen birth rate of non-Hispanic Caucasians.

The Communities of Color Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Act takes would address teen pregnancy in communities of color by supporting teenage pregnancy prevention programs that work with community-based organizations that are experienced in serving youth

in ethnic and racial groups with the highest teen pregnancy rates; using multimedia campaigns to provide public health education and increase awareness about teen pregnancy, and researching what factors contribute to disproportionately high rates of teenage and unintended pregnancy in communities of color.

I am proud that our country has made progress in reducing the rate of teen pregnancy by one third over the last decade, but our work is not done. We need to strengthen our efforts, especially among the youth in communities of color who are now so much more likely to face the unexpected and difficult challenges of parenting before they have finished growing up themselves.

I am pleased to be joined in this effort by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard, who is sponsoring this legislation in the House, as well as Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, the Futures Without Violence, and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

I urge my colleagues to join us in taking the next step forward in preventing teenage pregnancy by supporting this important legislation.

Reserving the right to object, and I will not object, I would like to get 20 minutes to speak following Senator Coburn.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object--I shall not object--but I would like to add 3 minutes to my time as well.