Floor Statements

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for question? I don't want to interrupt his comments.

Mr. President, morning session is up at 3, and I am scheduled for 15 minutes. I might ask to extend the time. I don't know how much time the Senator is going to use, but I want to make certain I have the opportunity that was previously ordered, for 15 minutes on this side.

Mr. President, how much additional time does the Senator from Pennsylvania need?

Let me ask unanimous consent that we extend by 5 minutes the time for morning business so it terminates at 3:05.

I thank my colleague for his courtesy.

Mr. President, tonight we will hear from the President in his annual State of the Union Address. I know the President is expected to talk a great deal about the economy and the need for an economic stimulus package. I wanted to talk for a moment about this because I think it is important for us to understand what is happening to our economy.

I know there are some who think the field of economics is some field with precision and elegance and that we are dealing with the ship of state. If we can find our way to the engine room and find all the knobs and gauges and valves and levers and turn them the right way, such as providing an investment credit and bonus depreciation, that somehow we will get this ship of state moving again. Of course, that is not what is at stake at all. There isn't an engine room with knobs and valves and gauges. This is the field of economics, which I have said previously is a lot like psychology pumped up with helium.

So we talk a lot about knowing what is going on. The fact is we are going to now do a stimulus package because there is a notion that there is a problem with the economy. Well, there is more than a problem, there is a very serious problem with this economy. Take a look at the stock market, which is a barometer of confidence--up and down similar to a yo-yo--mostly down. The housing market has cratered, with construction of new homes and apartments in 2007 down 25 percent from the prior year. That is one of the giant job engines in our economy-- the housing market. The unemployment rate has jumped, with some 1.4 million workers without a job for 27 months or longer. The trade deficit recently hit a 14-month high. Oil prices are still way up. Retail sales are their worst in years. So we have a very serious problem.

Now, the Federal Reserve Board took bold action last week and that is unusual for the Federal Reserve Board. They all wear gray suits and wire-rimmed glasses and seldom do anything that is very bold, but last week they did. They cut interest rates by three-quarters of 1 percent. So the expectation is that because the Fed is taking that action and seems to be very concerned about the economy, that we should take a look at our fiscal policy, so there is talk about a stimulus.

Frankly, I think a stimulus package is fine. I don't think it does all that much. But the absence of doing something on the Senate side of Congress would send the wrong signal. Psychologically, it is important we work on a stimulus. We are talking about a stimulus that is probably 1 percent of our economy, so it is not exactly going to jump start the American economy. In addition, if all we do is a stimulus package and we continue to ignore the fundamentals, the things that are structurally wrong in this economy, the things that have not just caused the economy to be in some trouble but caused the American people and people all around the world to look at us and say: You know something, you are off track. You are not addressing the things that matter, and this is unsustainable. If we don't do something to address those things, we will not be addressing the basic problem of our economy.

So let me talk about that. No. 1, a fiscal policy. A reckless fiscal policy. I mean, in recent years, think of it. This administration inherited a large budget surplus. Then we got hit with a recession, a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq, a war on terrorism--and a whole series of events--including Hurricane Katrina. Many of us said to the President: Don't propose we spend surpluses that don't yet exist. Let us be conservative. He said: Katy bar the door, let us have big tax cuts and most of it for the wealthy, and he pushed it through Congress.

Now, I didn't push for it, he did, and we ran up a huge deficit because of all these unexpected circumstances we were confronted with. So now, in recent years, we have sent soldiers off to war, and the President says to Congress: We are sending soldiers to go fight, but we don't intend to pay for it. I want the Congress to provide emergency spending in order to pay for that, and we will add it to the debt. Last year, he asked Congress for $196 billion for the current fiscal year. That is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week, none of it paid for, and all of it added to the debt. As if to say to the soldiers: You go fight, and when you come home, we will have you and your kids pay the bills. That is a fiscal policy that is completely off balance.

We are going to borrow about $600 billion this year. That is how much will be added to the debt. I know that is not what they say the deficit is. They say the deficit is lower because, among other things, they are taking all the Social Security surplus from the trust funds and using it to show a lower deficit. We are going to borrow about $600 billion a year to sustain the budget policies of this administration. Add to that a $700 billion to $800 billion a year trade deficit, $2 billion a day every single day, and you are talking about a combined red ink in our budget and trade policies of some $1.3 trillion. That is almost 10 percent of the American economy. Think of that. That is unsustainable.

Now, add to a reckless fiscal policy and a trade policy in which we are hemorrhaging red ink and exporting American jobs, regulators who were asleep on the job--people who came to Government but didn't want to regulate--and the subprime loan scandal occurred right under their noses. We all heard the advertisements. When you turned on the television, you heard the ads. It couldn't have escaped the notice of the regulators, surely. The ads said: Have you been bankrupt? Do you have trouble getting credit? Have you been missing your house payments? Come to us. We have a loan for you. We will give you a new home mortgage. And so they did, with a teaser rate at 2 percent and unbelievable circumstances.

Everybody was making lots of money. The brokers were making millions, the mortgage banks were making a lot of money, and then they were packing these mortgage loans, the good ones, with the bad ones, just like they used to pack sausage with meat and

sawdust. They would use the sawdust as filler back in the old days.

Well, during unregulated times, just like packing sawdust into sausages, what these folks did is, they took good loans and bad loans, packaged them up. They sliced them up, then they securitized them, and sent them out, sold them, and everybody was happy and everybody was fat and everybody was making a lot of money, until it all came home to roost. A whole lot of folks could not make housing payments.

So what we found with the subprime loan scandal is 2.2 million families with subprime loans will lose their homes to foreclosure; 7.2 million with subprime mortgages have an outstanding mortgage value of $1.3 trillion. And when those interest rates reset, a whole lot of them will not be able to pay the bills to keep their homes.

All of this happened under the nose of regulators who came to Government not wanting to regulate. And it caused severe damage to our country. Now, add to that a reckless fiscal policy, a trade deficit in which we are hemorrhaging in red ink and shipping jobs overseas and a scandal in the home mortgage industry that caused enormous damage to our country, made a lot of folks rich in the short term, and victimized a lot of others. Add to that the unbelievable speculation that is going on in hedge funds, most all of it outside of the view of regulators.

Hedge funds are about $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in value; but that does not describe their importance to the economy. They are heavily leveraged. That $1.2 to $1.5 trillion of hedge funds is engaged in one- half of all of the trades every day on the New York Stock Exchange. They are engaged in, among other things, credit default swaps.

There is something called credit default swaps, derivatives, with notional values of $43 trillion. There is so much unbelievable speculation with dramatic amounts of leverage in hedge funds and derivatives that it is scary. Nobody knows what is going on because it is outside the view of regulators. That is the way they want to keep it.

We will talk about stimulus; we will talk about short-term measures. But if we do not deal with this issue of a fiscal policy that is way off track, a trade policy that is an abject failure, regulators who have no interest in regulating, scandals will develop and mature right under their noses, this country is not going to recover. Our economy is not going to thrive and grow. It is fine to do a stimulus package of 1 percent of GDP, I do not object to that. We will borrow the money from China, likely, to do it; perhaps put some money in the hands of people who will go to Wal-Mart and buy goods from China, for all I know.

But, psychologically, I think it is fine to create a fiscal policy initiative that compliments what they are doing at the Fed with monetary policy. But that will not solve the underlying problems in our economy. We have deep abiding problems in fiscal policy, trade policy, and regulatory failures.

This Congress and this President have a responsibility to address them. Talking about stimulus, and just talking about stimulus, means we have not addressed that which moves this ship of state forward in the future, creating expansion opportunities and jobs and economic health. The only way we do that is to stare truth in the eye and understand what is causing the problems in the country and how to fix it.

There is an old saying on Wall Street I was told by a friend: You cannot tell who is swimming naked until the tide goes out. Well, the tide has gone out, and now we are going to see some sights that are not very pretty. It has to do with speculation and a whole series of things that we have to correct. And my hope is, starting this evening at the State of the Union Address and following that, at last long last, we might see a President and a Congress work together to face the truth about fiscal policy, trade policy, and inept regulation that has put this country in significant difficulty and trouble.

We need not have a future that manifests that trouble forever. If we take bold action and courageous action to understand what is wrong and what the menu of items are that we need to go to fix it, I think we can have a much better and brighter economic future in this country. I want to be a part of that work, and I know many of my colleagues do as well. So let's hope the first step to do that begins this evening at the joint session of the Congress at the State of the Union Address.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session, that the Agriculture Committee be discharged of PN 1112, the nomination of Ed Schafer, to be Secretary of Agriculture; that the Senate proceed to the nomination, that the nomination be confirmed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table; that any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate return to legislative session.

My understanding is this was cleared on both sides. I am particularly proud to make this request. Former Governor Schafer is a distinguished former Governor from our State. It is a great honor for our State to have him nominated.

Mr. President, might I also say as we ask for the consent that my colleague, Senator Conrad, worked very hard to accomplish this in the Agriculture Committee. He joins me as well.

Madam President, we are talking about FISA we use a lot of acronyms in Washington, DC, unfortunately--the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It is a complicated subject, and one, if people have been watching the debate, that is also controversial. There is a lot of passion about this subject. We have people standing up and saying: None of this should be disclosed. We should not be talking about this. This is about the ability to protect our country against terrorists. Of course, we have to listen into communications and intercept communications. It is the only way to find out if there are terrorist acts being plotted by terrorist groups, and so on. There is that kind of thing.

There are concerns on the other side by people who say: Wait a second.

There is something called a Constitution in this country. There is a right to privacy, a right to expect that the Government will not be spying on American citizens without cause.

This is a very controversial and difficult subject. Frankly, nearly everyone, with the possible exception of the chairman and ranking member or maybe one or two others on the Intelligence Committee, knows very little about that which we are discussing.

Let me put up a photograph of a door. This is a door in San Francisco, CA, a rather unremarkable photograph of a door. This is a door that is in AT&T's central offices in San Francisco. A courageous employee of AT&T named Mark Klein, who had been with the company for 22 years, blew the whistle on what was happening behind this door. According to Mark Klein, the National Security Agency had connected fiber optic cables to AT&T's circuits through which the National Security Agency could essentially monitor all of the data crossing the Internet. Here is what Mr. Klein had to say went on behind this door:

It appears the [National Security Agency] is capable of

conducting what amounts to vacuum-cleaner surveillance of all

the data crossing the Internet--whether that be people's e-

mail, web surfing, or any other data.

The description of what was happening at this one telephone company in this one location in San Francisco was this: the intercepting of communications at the AT&T Folsom Street facility, millions, perhaps billions of communications from ordinary Americans coming into and through the facility, which would normally have been the case for a telephone company, and a splitter being used, according to the discussion by Mark Klein, splitting off all of this conversation into an NSA-controlled room, to be eventually evaluated with sophisticated programming, and then going back out in order to complete the communication. So you have effectively a copy of everything that is happening going through with a splitter to a secret room.

When this became public, when a whistleblower working for the company said, here is what is happening, there was an unbelievable outcry on both sides. Some people said: What on Earth is happening? We have secret rooms in which the National Security Agency is running all this data and all this information through and spying on American citizens? Others said: What is going on? Who on Earth would have decided they should disclose this publicly? They are going to alert the terrorists to what we are doing. We had both sides aghast that this was disclosed. It is important to say that, initially, almost no one in an official capacity was willing to admit to this. Finally, it was admitted, yes, there was a program. The President said: Yes, there is a program-- speaking, apparently, of just this program; we don't know of other programs that exist or may exist, but this program existed without our knowledge. The President indicated this program existed because we are going after the bad guys, and we have a right to do that. And we did this program because the process that had been set up because of abuses with respect to eavesdropping and spying on American citizens decades ago, that process was way too cumbersome, took far too much time, and we needed to streamline that. That is a paraphrase. But there was an admission that this program existed and no additional legal authority needed to empower the President to do it.

So that is where we are. Most of us don't know the full extent of this program at all. In fact, my understanding is that rooms like this exist in other parts of the country with other telephone companies where splitters are used to move data to separate rooms and data is evaluated.

This whole process comes from several decades ago when something called the FISA Court was set up, a court to evaluate the questions about when it is legal and appropriate and when the Government is able to intercept communications. The FISA Court was established for the very purpose of trying to make the judgment about when it is appropriate to go after the bad guys and how to protect our civil liberties at the same time.

The FISA Court was an outgrowth of concern by the Congress when we discovered that there was a time in this country when we had the National Security Agency running secret projects called Shamrock and Minaret to gather both international communications and also domestic communications. Project Shamrock actually started during the Second World War when major communications companies of the day gave the Federal Government access to all of their international traffic. One can imagine, in the fight against the Nazis and the Japanese Imperial Army, the desire for international communications to evaluate things that might threaten this country's security. But the Shamrock program then, as we know, changed over time.

At first the goal was to intercept international telegrams relating to foreign targets. Then, soon the Government began to intercept telegrams of U.S. citizens. By the time there were hearings held in the Congress, the National Security Agency was intercepting and analyzing about 150,000 messages per month.

Data from Project Shamrock was then used for another project code named Project Minaret, which we now know spied on perceived political opponents of the then-administration of Richard Nixon. Under this program the NSA added Vietnam war protesters to its watch list. After there was a march on the Pentagon, the Army requested that they add antiwar protesters. The list included people such as folk singer Joan Baez and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We just celebrated within the week the Federal holiday celebrating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Yet it was not too many decades ago that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was under surveillance by his own Government.

The Congress passed its findings, when it did investigative hearings, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created the FISA Court.

Here is the experience with the FISA Courts. Between 1975 and 2006, there were 2,990 warrants issued by the FISA Court. Only five were denied. What that suggests is that it is not too difficult to get approval by the FISA Court for surveillance. But the President and Mr. McConnell, the head of our intelligence agency, have indicated that there has been a problem.

For example, Mr. McConnell cited the capture of three American soldiers who were later killed in Iraq. Right after they were captured there was a period of time when it was critically important to be able to intercept communications in Iraq, and they were encumbered at a time when it was critical to find out who held these soldiers.

That is not accurate, and the head of intelligence would have known that. I don't know why he represented that. There is a period of time when in an emergency situation, you can begin surveillance without having to go to FISA. You have to go FISA after that period of time, but you are given an opportunity for emergency surveillance even before you get the approval or even before you go to the FISA Court.

What we have learned, however, through all of this process is from a December 2005 report in the newspapers. President Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without warrants inside the United States which bypassed the entire FISA Court system. It turns out that most of the large telephone companies in this country had gone along with the administration's request for that activity.

We are told that the administration, Attorney General Gonzales, and others furnished the telephone companies with some sort of letter, a certification of sorts. We don't know what that letter was, however, because the administration, citing the State Secrets Act, refuses to allow that to be disclosed.

I think if they provide certification to a telephone company--and the telephone company relies on that--by officers of the Federal Government, in good faith, let's have that disclosed. Why should we wonder about the actions of a telephone company? If, in fact, you have an Attorney General of the United States who is certifying, let's find out what this administration did. Let's find out how they did it. Let's not have them tell us you cannot even see what was provided to a telephone company in terms of certification. That, in my judgment, does not pass the red face test.

I hope very much we will begin to learn at some point what this administration has done, when they did it, and

what the consequences of it are. This issue of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has become a political football by this administration. The last time we debated this, some while ago, it was quite clear that the politics of it were viewed as wonderful politics by the other side and by the White House. But this ought not be about politics at all. This ought to be about two issues, both of which are critically important: One is protecting this country's interests, yes, giving us a chance to make sure we understand what the terrorists are doing, how to foil terrorist attempts to injure this country--it is about that; and that is very important--but it is also about civil liberties and protecting the rights of the American people at the same time.

We thought we had done that by putting together the FISA Court. We thought we had done that by establishing a procedure that needed to be followed. We now understand the President, with his lawyers, says those laws do not matter. There is in the Constitution, they say, something about the powers of the Commander in Chief, and he can do whatever he wants. That is a pretty dangerous interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

We debate this in so much ignorance because almost no one knows what this administration has done, and they are preventing us from knowing as much as we should know, in most cases, by claiming protection under the State Secrets Act, and not even allowing the release of the letter that was provided to the telephone companies that cooperated that describes to them the legal authority for doing so.

I think there is much to be learned here, much we need to know. I think it is very important, as we reach an agreement on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--and we should because it is an important circumstance by which we need, in certain cases, when we believe there is information being passed from terrorist to terrorist, and so on--if those communications are being run through this country, we need to be able to intercept and interpret what is happening--but it is critically important we not allow a kind of an approach to this where there is no oversight, there is no check.

We have a government of checks and balances. What the President and his people seem to be saying to us is: We are not interested in checks and balances. We have the authority in the Constitution, as we interpret it, and that means it exceeds every law you can pass. We are going to do what we want to do. And if you don't like it, tough luck. And if you don't like it, by the way, what we will say to the American people is you are not willing to stand up for the security of this country.

It is outrageous. It is dragging this issue smack-dab in the middle of their little political balloon. But this is a much more important process than that. We need to do this, and we need to get it right in order to protect America. We need to do this, and we need to get it right in order to protect the interests of the American people as well--and that interest of privacy and that interest of making sure that ``big brother government'' is not running all of your telephone calls and all of your e-mails and all of your information through its drift net to find out what you are saying and what you are doing and who you are talking to.

That is not what I understand to be the best interests of this country or the guarantees that exist in the Constitution for the American people. That is why this is worth an important controversy and an important fight. It is why it is for us to take enough time to get it right. This is a big issue. We do a lot of things on the floor of the Senate that are not so big--not big issues. They are smaller issues in consequence. This issue is about freedom and liberty and the guarantees given the American people in the Constitution. It is about whether there is a check on Presidential power that assumes they have the power that exceeds all other laws. If we do not have that kind of check and balance in this Government, then we have bigger problems than I thought.

So I only wanted to say, with respect to this issue, we do not know much about it. We know at this point that behind this door, as shown on this chart--behind this door--exists information split off what is called a splitter from the main line. Massive amounts of information come into it--in this case, it was AT&T; it could have been other telephone companies--it is split off, and then all of it is evaluated to find out: Is there something there that is suspicious? It is not the way America has ever worked, and not the way it should work.

So the more we know, I think the more we will be able to better understand how to do two things at once: protect our country against terrorists, and protect the civil liberties of the American people. Both are important. At least there is one group of people in this political system of ours that believes the first is far more important than the second. They are wrong. They are both important, and both worth standing up for.

Madam President, I want to talk for a few moments about the so-called stimulus package we are assembling to help our economy. What I want to say, first of all, is we have an economy that is a remarkable engine. This little spot on the planet--the United States of America--is quite an unbelievable economic engine. It has provided bounties and benefits to a group of people that exceed that provided to almost anybody else on this planet.

But we have run into some real problems. We now find ourselves in the year 2008 where we have a stock market that is wildly gyrating up and down. We see these dramatic swings in the stock market. That is a reflection of a substantial amount of concern and nervousness about what is happening in the economy and where we are heading.

In the last several decades we have morphed into a global economy. I have never questioned that. I have always questioned why the rules have not kept up. But the global economy is a different kind of economy for us. We are now told by those who wanted to create their own set of rules that the American people should compete with folks who work in Shenzhen, China, for 20 and 30 cents an hour making bicycles and little red wagons. There is downward pressure on income in this country. There is great concern by the American people about the loss of jobs and the loss of benefits. So there is a lot happening that is of great concern.

In addition to these dramatic yo-yo swings in the stock market that reflect widespread concern about the economy--we have at the same time some real fundamental structural problems in the economy. Because it appears the economy is now weak, we have more people unemployed. We have fewer housing starts. We have a whole range of issues that demonstrate a serious economic problem: a slowdown certainly, a recession very likely. Because of that, we are told there needs to be some short-term stimulus to provide a spark to help crank up this economy again.

Well, we always talk about that in an economic slowdown. We have put economic stabilizers in place over a long period of time--two to three to four decades--that have been very helpful in moderating the recessions we have had. Normally speaking, the recessions we have had have been shallower recessions because of economic stabilizers that have been put in place. But that does not mean you will not ever have recessions.

We might be in a recession now. So the Federal Reserve Board decided, earlier this week, cuts interest rates by 75 basis points. That was a big, bold, dramatic move by the Fed. These people wear gray suits and do not do anything very boldly, but this week they decided: Man, we are going to do something bold--so three-quarters of a percent interest rate cut.

It is expected, then, in monetary policy--having been moved by the Fed earlier this week--in fiscal policy our responsibility in Congress is to do something as well. So we in the Congress are putting together a fiscal policy approach. That approach is a stimulus package.

Well, the stimulus package would typically be some sort of tax rebate to people, perhaps some investment tax incentives to stimulate capital acquisition by businesses.

The House and the White House have moved now to agree on something that

is going to come to us from the House of Representatives. I think that is good news. It has been a long time since we have seen much cooperation from the White House. I think it is good news this week. The Fed moved. The White House is interested in an agreement. So we are going to have a stimulus package. I think the sooner the better. We need to tell the American people we are moving. I also want to say this about a stimulus package. I think there are two steps to it. One is shorter term--rebates for individuals, incentives for business investments, and so on--but, second, and I think very important, is to understand one of the quick ways to put people back to work and also to invest in America's future, to help build America, is in infrastructure: roads and bridges and dams and all the things that have been deteriorating.

We are so far behind in infrastructure. If we are going to be a world class economic power, we need to invest in infrastructure. We can do that and should do that as also part of a second step in a package to stimulate this economy.

Having said that, let me make a couple other points. If all we do is genuflect about a stimulus package, and then we step back and say, ``Well, we are out of breath now. We have done that''--if that is all we do, this country is in deep trouble.

Let me describe what I think the significant causes of our trouble are. No. 1, we have a President who says, through his Vice President: Deficits don't matter. Well, of course he is wrong.

Paul O'Neill, the first Secretary of the Treasury under the Bush administration, and one of the real straight shooters in this town-- he's a guy I liked; he said it the way he felt it and thought it, and you could believe him--Paul O'Neill, conservative Republican Secretary of the Treasury--well, he got fired. Do you know why he got fired? Because Dick Cheney came into his office and, according to the things I have read, said: Deficits don't matter. Don't you understand? Deficits don't matter.

Well, Paul O'Neill did not believe that for a minute. Because he did not believe that, he was not part of the team, and he got fired.

Deficits do matter. This administration inherited a budget surplus of well over $200 billion a year and has turned it around into a huge budget deficit. This administration has added over $3 trillion to the debt. It ran into a recession, a terrorist attack, a war in Afghanistan, a war in Iraq, and now a subprime loan scandal.

Some of us stood on the floor of the Senate and said: Mr. President, don't push this issue of giving huge tax cuts on expected surpluses that are going to occur but have not yet occurred. What if something happens? The President said: Not on your life. We are going forward with my plan.

He pushed it through this Congress. I did not support it. But the result was big budget surpluses were turned into record budget deficits, because now we had all these unexpected circumstances happen.

Well, the President said: We are going to fight a war, but we are going to send soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan and we are not going to pay for it. We are going to send soldiers abroad to fight, but we are not going to ask anybody to pay for it. We will add it to the debt. So a little over two-thirds of a trillion dollars has been added to the Federal debt.

Last year, the President sent us a request saying: I want $196 billion over and above that which I have asked for the Defense Department as an emergency. I want none of it paid for, and I want it now: $196 billion. That is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week, and I don't want to pay for any of it, he said.

This is a reckless fiscal policy that has been running this country into a ditch. Now you add to that fiscal policy from this administration--which is supposed to be a conservative administration-- you add to that the trade deficit. The trade deficit is $2 billion a day, every single day, 7 days a week. Every single day, we import $2 billion more than we export--over $700 billion a year in trade deficit.

We are not only shipping our money overseas, which then gives the Chinese and the Japanese the opportunity and responsibility to finance our debt, but they then begin to buy a fair amount of our country. We have just seen it in recent weeks. Citigroup went to Singapore for $12.5 billion. GE Plastics got $11.6 billion from the Saudis. Dow Chemical got $9.5 billion from Kuwait. Citigroup needed more money; they got $7.5 billion from United Arab Emirates. Where do you think they got this money? They got it from us, with these huge trade deficits. So we have a trade deficit that is well above $700 billion a year.

I know the administration says: Well, the budget deficit is $200 billion, $300 billion. That is not true at all. It is if you take away the Social Security surplus and misuse it, and continue with fiscal policies that are not paid for. We are going to add roughly $600 billion to the federal debt in this fiscal year. So $600 billion in budget deficit, $700 billion in trade deficit, and you are talking $1.3 trillion or roughly 10 percent of the economy this country will borrower in 1 year. That is unbelievable. There are people who are drunk who think they are invisible. Well, I am not suggesting we are drunk here in the Congress. However, I am saying that both the President and the Congress seem to think we are invisible in terms of our public policies. The rest of the world sees what is happening--that our trade deficit and budget policies are way out of control.

Now add to those two things one other element: the subprime housing loan scandal that comes because federal regulators were asleep and too cozy because they didn't want to regulate those they were supposed to regulate. So we had a bunch of high flyers and hot shots who took off-- many of them have now been fired but went out the door with $100 million or $200 million, and what they were doing was providing and selling, through high pressure sales techniques, mortgage loans to people who could never possibly repay them. The refrain--if you saw it on your television set or heard it on your car radio, as many people did--you wondered: How could this be? The refrain on the television advertising was hey, you know something? If you have bad credit, come to us. If you have filed bankruptcy, come to us. If you can't make your house payments, come to us. We have a loan for you. Do you want to cut your loan payment every month? Do you have bad credit? Come to us. We want to give you a loan. All over this country you heard that sort of refrain. Well, guess what: This was mortgage brokers. It was mortgage banks. It was a bunch of high-flying folks who not only were putting out bad mortgages, but then they were doing as they did in the old meat-packing plants when they put sawdust in sausage. You took bad mortgages and good ones, mixed them up, put them in a case and sliced them and securitized it all and put them all in hedge funds. Soon nobody knew what they had, but they were grinning from ear to ear because they had high returns, high yields, and high fees on the origination of these securities. It turns out a lot of them were bad securities and nobody even knows who has them. Nobody knows which ones are bad. But 3 years after the loan is put out and the interest rate is reset, we discover that loans were given to people who couldn't possibly pay them. Then we discover that those who purchased them and those who sold them can no longer claim they are good assets. They file for bankruptcy. So we have all of this going on.

Now, there is another thing that is happening at exactly the same time and is also causing great danger to our economy. Even as this subprime loan mortgage scandal is happening, we have the growth of hedge funds and derivatives, and they too are outside of the purview of regulators. With respect to the subprime mortgage loans, we had regulators who were asleep or dead from the neck up. They wanted to serve here, but didn't like Government, and didn't want to do anything. That is what happened there. On hedge funds, Senator Feinstein and I and others have been on the floor for years saying: We have to regulate hedge funds. We have to understand what is happening with derivatives.

Well, guess what. If you go into a casino in Las Vegas, you are going to lose what is in your back pocket in most cases. Well, sometimes you might be able to sign for a loan, but in most cases you only lose that which you have. Hedge funds are unregulated, No.

1, and, No. 2, have unbelievable amounts of leverage, unbelievable borrowing.

A reasonably new derivative called credit default swaps have a notional amount of $43 trillion. I said $26 trillion earlier this week. That was the end of 2006. In 2007, the notional amount of credit default swaps, which most people would believe to be a foreign language, was $43 trillion. It is not a foreign language at all. These are sophisticated financial instruments that represent an unbelievable amount of speculation that in my judgment put this country's economy at great risk.

So we have budget deficits that are way out of control, and a trade deficit that is an outrage. We also have regulators who have no interest in regulating, allowing the subprime mortgage loan scandal, and hedge funds that we have had an aggressive fight on the floor about. We have the administration and others who are not interested in having any regulation of hedge funds, are unconcerned about what kind of liability exists with derivatives, and ignore the problem of this unbelievable leverage. If we don't deal with those four areas, we can stimulate forever. We can come here in the morning and stimulate every day on the floor of the Senate, if you like. It is not going to solve what is wrong with this country. If you don't put the foundation in order, if you don't lay the bricks right in the foundation, there is no structure you can build above it that is going to withstand the kind of problems that exist internally in this economy.

This country is too good a country for us to decide not to care about fixing these problems. President Bush came to the Congress and said: I am a conservative. Well, there is nothing conservative about an administration that runs up this sort of red ink. We are drowning in red ink. There is nothing conservative about an administration that has regulators who have decided they don't have any interest in regulating. It doesn't matter what the subject is: unsafe toys from China, you name it. We have regulators who are apparently collecting a Government paycheck and don't have the foggiest interest in regulating. That is how the scandal of subprime mortgage loans has happened and that has caused great injury to our country. It is also what is happening as a result of those who are preventing us from knowing what is going on with hedge funds and derivatives, which can cause a much greater level of damage than even the subprime mortgage loan scandal.

As I said, most Americans wouldn't have heard or know very little about credit default swaps and would hardly know what it means. These numbers are in the trillions. Hedge funds are about $1.2 trillion of our economy. People say: Well, that is not so much. Gosh, there is $9 trillion in mutual funds, there is roughly $40 trillion of stocks and bonds out there. Mr. President, $1.2 trillion in hedge funds. Hedge funds conduct one-half of the daily trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Think of that. One-half of the trades by hedge funds. In addition to the $1.2 trillion, you have unbelievable amounts of leverage.

So I think we face a lot of big challenges. If I didn't have great hope for the future, I wouldn't want to get up and come to work in the morning. But I have a great reservoir of hope. I believe we can fix these things. But we need leadership from the White House. We need to work together here. We need to understand that it is not just about stimulating a short-term response; this is about fixing the foundation and setting things right. I think it was Thomas Wolf who talked about an indestructible belief, a quenchless hope, a boundless optimism. I have all of that. But we have to start now and understand what we need to do to put this country back on track toward a better and brighter future, one that grows and provides opportunities for all Americans.

Madam President, I yield the floor, and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

I will be glad to withhold the quorum call.

Mr. President, when I am completed talking about the economy, we will return to the Indian affairs business and debate the bill on the floor. If there are those who wish to offer amendments, I certainly hope we can bring them to the floor and debate them and vote on them.

As I mentioned, I would like to talk for a moment about the economy. There is the 24/7 news hour all across this country talking about what is happening: What on Earth is going on in this country's economy? What is happening in the stock market, which is moving up and down like a yo-yo--not so much up anymore but down substantially in recent weeks and months.

So what is happening? There are many pieces of evidence to suggest this economy is in very big trouble, including a substantial reduction in the stock market, an increase in unemployment, and a dramatic drop in housing starts. As a result of all of that,

there has been frenzied activity, both at the White House and in the Congress, to talk about something called a stimulus package. We need to do a fiscal stimulus package.

In fact, the President announced a stimulus package of $145 billion to $150 billion. That is a stimulus package of about 1 percent of our gross domestic product in this country.

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve Board took action in monetary policy to cut a key interest rate by 75 basis points. That was a significant and aggressive move by the Federal Reserve Board. This Congress and this President will want to make some aggressive moves with a stimulus package that are complementary to what has been done in monetary policy.

I make this point that is very important: If that is what we do, and all that we do, we fundamentally misunderstand what is wrong. I think most of the American people understand what is wrong. Certainly, most of the people around the world who look at this country understand we have gone off the track. If we don't fix our trade policy and fiscal policy, and if we don't fix things that need regulating that have largely been outside of the view of regulators, we are going to continue to be in very big trouble. Let me go through just a couple of these items.

We have the largest trade deficit in human history. Every single day, 7 days a week, we import $2 billion more than we export. That means every single day we add another $2 billion to the indebtedness of this country. That is over $700 billion a year. We are hemorrhaging in red ink. We have to fix it. Warren Buffett, a remarkably successful investor in this country, said it quite clearly: This is unsustainable, this cannot continue.

The fact is, the President and the Congress act as if nothing is wrong. We have the most unbelievably inept trade policy in the history of humankind--$2 billion a day we import more than we export. That means we are putting dollars that we pay for those goods in the hands of foreigners, and they are coming back to buy part of America. We are literally selling part of this country. But the fact is, you cannot hemorrhage in red ink like that for any great length of time without having significant consequences. It is what undermines your currency. It undermines confidence in your economy.

You add to that $700 billion-plus a year trade deficit a fiscal policy that is reckless and ill-considered. It is as if we think people cannot see. It is like a drunk who thinks they are invisible. The fact is, we have an unbelievable fiscal policy deficit. They say: Well, it is $200 billion, $300 billion. Nonsense. Take a look at what we have to borrow for fiscal policy every year. The reason they show the lower deficit is because they are misusing the Social Security revenues. Take a look at the real deficit. It is likely to be over half a trillion dollars this year. You add that to the trade deficit and then ask yourself, if you were looking from the outside into this country, do you think this is off track, the fundamentals are out of line? Do you think they have to be fixed? The answer is yes. We have very serious abiding problems. You add to that an unbelievably inept fiscal policy hemorrhaging in red ink and is way off track.

By the way, it is not just the normal budgetary Presidential requests and congressional actions on spending and taxing. The President, in the last year, sent to the Congress, in addition to outside-the-budget system, he said: I want you to appropriate money for me, $196 billion-- that, by the way, is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week--and I don't want any of it paid for; I want it added to the debt because I want it for Iraq, Afghanistan, and other activities with respect to the war. That takes us to over two-thirds of a trillion dollars this President has asked for, none of it paid for. We will send our soldiers to war, but we will not do anything that requires any effort on our part to begin to pay for it. We will send soldiers to war and say: Come back and you pay for it later.

In addition to a fiscal policy that just does not work, we are now engaged in a war in which we borrow the money. Even as we borrow the money for the war, we have a President who says: I want more permanent tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy. It is not a secret. Everyone sees what is going on--everyone, apparently, except those in the White House and those in the Congress.

We have to fix the fundamentals, and if we do not, there isn't any amount of fiscal policy stimulus or any amount of activity by the Federal Reserve Board that is going to set this straight. It just is not.

You add to that inept trade policy and the hemorrhaging of red ink on fiscal policy that is reckless and out of control these issues: regulators who really do not care. They come to the body of regulatory responsibility bragging that they don't like government. What happens? We have what is called a subprime lending crisis. What does that mean? What it means is no one was watching and no one cared very much, and what we had was an orgy of greed with respect to an industry that is essential to this country--that is, providing loans so people can buy homes.

We had a bunch of highfliers decide: What we really want to do is to sell you a loan, and we want to put you in a new home. To do that, we will give you rates that you will not even believe. We will give you a home loan at a 2-percent interest rate--2 percent. We will quote the payment. That looks good, a 2-percent interest rate. What they don't tell you is the interest rate is going to reset in 3 years, it is going to reset way up, and then you will not be able to make the payments, or they do not tell you there also is an escrow you have to pay every month on top of that.

Here is what was going on. This was an advertisement on television:

Do you have bad credit? Do you have trouble getting a loan?

You've been missing payments on your home loan? Filed for

bankruptcy? Doesn't matter. Come to us. We've got financing

available for you.

We have all heard these ads and probably scratched our heads and wondered: How on Earth can this happen? The fact is, it can.

I will give an example. The biggest mortgage lender is Countrywide, which now is being purchased by Bank of America, apparently. The CEO of Countrywide, Mr. Mozilo, made off now with hundreds of millions of dollars. They had brokers cold-calling people saying: We want to put you in a subprime loan. Then they sold these subprime loans. They packaged these subprime loans with other good loans. They were enticing people into these loans at teaser interest rates that were going to reset in ways people could not afford to pay. Then they decided, just as in the old days when the discussion was about meat-packing plants and they put sausage and sawdust together--when you make sausage, you need a filler. So they put sawdust in sausage. These companies that were hawking these loans decided to put good loans with bad loans, subprime with other loans, and then mix them all up like a big-old sausage, and they would slice them up, securitize them, and sell them.

Who wanted to buy them? The rating agencies were sitting there dead from the neck up: This looks OK. We don't understand it, but it looks good to us. Hedge funds were saying: I like these new pieces of financial sausage because they are sliced up in a way that has a big yield. Why a big yield? Because they had prepayment penalties for the loans, loans that would reset to much higher interest rates that people couldn't make. This new piece of financial sausage shows a very high yield. So the hedge funds, liking high yields and liking big money, are buying all these securitized loans, and then all of a sudden, it goes belly up. And we wonder why. It is because people were advertising on television: You have bad credit? Have you filed for bankruptcy? Come to us; we want to give you a loan. Then they package this up in an irresponsible way.

One might ask the question: How could that all have happened? Weren't there some regulators around? No, no. The regulators were first ignoring them and then actually giving them a boost. Alan Greenspan now stands around scratching his head thinking: What on Earth happened? It happened on your watch, my friend. The Federal Reserve Board did nothing. In fact, part of this housing bubble that occurred was part of the air that comes from these unbelievable subprime loans that boosted that bubble. Again, Warren Buffett said: Every bubble will burst. And this one did. It shouldn't

have surprised us. But regulators sat by and said: That doesn't matter.

Did anybody care about those brokers placing a $1 million jumbo subprime loan, making a $30,000 commission on that loan? Did anybody say: Wait a second, what you are doing is misleading the folks who are going to borrow the money; you can't do that. Did anybody say to the rating agencies: You can't be rating as top-grade securities this sausage with sawdust, these financial instruments that have stuck together bad loans with good loans; you can't do that. Did anybody say to the hedge funds: You are buying a pig in a poke here; you are buying something you think is high yield, but you know better than that. What happened was all of this went out over the transom, and nobody even knows where it is or how much it is. Now they can't untangle it to find out where all these subprime loans exist. Nobody knows.

The next time somebody talks about regulation, understand, sometimes regulation is very important. The danger to this economy, as a result of the subprime scandal, is very significant. It is having consequences all across this country. You add this subprime scandal and its consequences to a fiscal policy that is reckless, to a trade policy that is inept, and then add this final factor: We have a circumstance where a gambler goes into a casino in Las Vegas and, in most cases, the sum total of what they will lose is the money they have carried into the casino--that is the risk of loss.

Here is the other fact about what is happening in our economy that nobody wants to talk about. We have hedge funds--yes, they are called hedge funds, mostly unregulated--to the tune of about $1.2 trillion. Some would say that is not so much, $1.2 trillion. There is $9 trillion of mutual funds. There is something like $40 trillion of the total aggregate value of stocks and bonds. So $1.2 trillion in hedge funds, that is not so much, except one-half of all the trading on the New York Stock Exchange is done by those hedge funds. And those hedge funds have created, among other things, derivatives. There was something like a notional value of $26 trillion in credit default swaps at the end of 2006.

It sounds very much like a foreign language when I say it, but the product everyone is worried about at the moment is something called credit default swaps, trillions of dollars of credit default derivatives--fancy financial instruments, much fancier than sausage with sawdust but in many ways the same thing. The interesting thing about these hedge funds is the dramatic amounts of borrowing, so they are not going to lose just what they go into the casino with in their pocket money. They are so heavily leveraged and so deep in credit default swaps that this could have significant consequences for our economy.

I and others have spoken on this floor for several years about the need for regulation of hedge funds. I have spoken on this floor many times about the issue of derivatives and the total aggregate notional value of derivatives and its potential consequence to the economy in a downturn.

A friend told me there is a saying on Wall Street that you will never know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out, and then it might not be very attractive. When the tide goes out with respect to this economy's difficulties and we evaluate who in the hedge funds, in the investment banks, who in all of these enterprises is left who cannot pay the bills because they were so unbelievably leveraged in financial interests most Americans have never heard of, credit default swaps, what are the consequences to our country's economy?

If this does not sober up our Government on trade policy and fiscal policy and regulatory requirements with respect to hedge funds and derivatives, then nothing will. If this does not alert all of us that we are no longer operating behind a screen somehow--the world sees what is happening when there is a subprime loan scandal, the world understands it, and its consequences are felt all across this country and all across the globe.

I understand we are going to do something called a stimulus package. We have a roughly $13 trillion-plus economy. We are going to do a stimulus package probably of $140 billion, $150 billion--1 percent of our economy. I understand the Federal Reserve has taken substantial action, 75 basis points yesterday. That is a big deal for the Fed, and I understand why. It is to try to calm the nerves and say this country stands behind its economy, and we should. I believe in this country's economy. This engine of opportunity and engine of growth is unusual in the world. On this planet, we circle the Sun, and there are about 6.4 billion neighbors, half who live on less than $2 a day and half who have never made a telephone call, and we have the opportunity to live in this country. This is a wonderful place. We have built something unusual on this planet, but we have run into difficulty. No one seems to want to admit it, and we have to fix the fundamentals. Yes, we can do stimulative packages, but if we don't fix the fundamentals, we will not solve the problems for the future, we will not expand opportunity for the future.

There is so much to say and so much to be concerned about, but there is so much hope for the future if--if--we understand that a stimulus package is not our only responsibility. We have to fix trade and fiscal policy, and regulatory responsibility. We need to begin regulating hedge funds and be concerned about the notional value of derivatives. If we do not start doing that, we are not going to fix this issue, and we are not going to have a better future.

I feel very strongly, if we do what is right, that we can provide substantial opportunity for this country, but the right things will include much more than a stimulus package.

Mr. President, I would like, in concluding my portion of morning business, I would like to talk about the underlying bill on the floor of the Senate, that is the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

I spoke yesterday at some length, but I wish to again talk a little bit about why we are here and what all this means because I think it is so important. Some might say: Well, why is there an Indian Health Care Improvement Act? Why not a Norwegian or a Lutheran Health Care Improvement Act?

The Indian Health Care Improvement Act is designed that way, with that name, for a very specific reason. This country, for a long period of time, told American Indians: Look, we are going to take your land, we are going to force you to a reservation someplace, and we will write a treaty for you. Our treaty is going to tell you we are going to take care of your health care. We are going to meet our obligation. We have a trust responsibility for you.

So we will take your land, we will move you off to reservations, but, trust us, we are going to provide for your health care because that is our trust responsibility. Chief Joseph from the Nez Perce Tribe said:

Good words do not last unless they amount to something.

Words do not pay for dead people. Good words cannot give me

back my children. Good words will not give my people good

health and stop them from dying.

He was concerned long ago about the inability of this country to keep its word on these trust responsibilities. We are here today because, finally, back in the early 1970s, President Nixon, President Ford, and every President succeeding them understood we have a trust responsibility for Indian health care. That is a fact.

In 1970, President Nixon noted we had 30 licensed Native American physicians in all our country. Thirty. And we created back then a self- determination policy. In 1976, President Ford signed into law the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. That is what we discuss today on the floor of the Senate.

I spoke yesterday, and I wish to again briefly about the challenge. I have held a lot of listening sessions on Indian reservations, and, frankly, the challenges we face are daunting.

Indian reservations see unbelievable health challenges. On a good many reservations, you will find one-half of the adult population who are suffering from diabetes. On the northern Great Plains, the rate of death from suicide among teenagers on Indian reservations is not double or triple, not 5 times the national average, but 10 times the national average of teen suicide.

I have held hearings about that. I have sat down with Indian teenagers on an Indian reservation, no other adults present, to say: What is going on in

your lives? What is happening? What is causing those clusters of suicides? There are so many problems of diabetes and suicide and so many other issues on reservations, dealing with health care. Part of it is because this system is so dramatically underfunded.

I wish to mention Ardel Hale Baker. Ardel Hale Baker is a woman on an Indian reservation who allowed me to use her photograph. Ardel Hale Baker was having a heart attack, diagnosed as a heart attack at a clinic. She didn't want them to call an ambulance. The nearest hospital was an hour and a half, hour and three-quarters away. She was lucky she got to the clinic when it was opened because the clinic, I believe, is open from 9 o'clock until 5 o'clock or 4 o'clock, with an hour closed for lunch hour. It is not open on weekends, but that is the health care on that reservation.

But she went there when the clinic was open. She was diagnosed as having a heart attack. She did not want them to call an ambulance because she knew that if the ambulance was not paid for by the Indian Health Service, she did not have any money and it would ruin her credit, because they would come after her.

So they said: No matter what you want, you are getting an ambulance. They put her in an ambulance, drove her about an hour and three- quarters to the nearest hospital. As they unloaded this woman from the ambulance gurney to a hospital gurney to pull her into the emergency room, they discovered a piece of paper attached to her thigh with a piece of tape.

I want to show you the paper that was attached to the thigh of Ardel Hale Baker as she was being wheeled into a hospital with a diagnosis of a heart attack. This is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is a letter attached to this woman's leg with masking tape. It says on the letter that: You should understand that you have received outpatient medical services from your doctor at so and so. And this letter is to inform you that your priority one care cannot be paid for at this time, due to funding issues.

What they were saying is, as they wheeled this Indian woman into the emergency room, they were saying to the hospital: Understand this. That whatever care you give her is not going to be paid for, because we are out of contract health care funds.

On that reservation, everyone knows the refrain: Do not get sick after June because they are out of contract health care funds. What does this do? Well, if they treat this woman, then they have a bill that they go after this woman on. She does not have the ability to pay it. So it ruins her credit rating quickly, just like that. I cannot tell you the number of adults I have run into on these reservations who have had their credit ratings ruined because contract health care would not pay for health care.

They did not have the money. They were treated anyway, but then it ruined their credit rating. This is an example of what is happening over and over. It is happening today, on Wednesday.

Yesterday, I spoke about a beautiful young woman named Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. I was on the Crow Reservation in Montana. And Ta'shon Rain Littlelight's grandmother stood up at a meeting on health care. And this little 5-year-old girl, with the bright eyes and the beautiful traditional dress, loved to dance at age 5. And she apparently was a good dancer.

Ta'shon Rain Littlelight is dead. She lived the last 3 months of her life in unmedicated pain. This little girl was taken again and again and again and again to the Indian health clinic. And she was treated for depression. Depression.

At one of the visits, her grandparents said: Well, she has a bulbous condition on her toes and her fingers which suggests maybe she is not getting oxygen or something else is wrong, can you check? Treated her for depression.

One day she was airlifted to Billings, MT, to the hospital. In arriving at the hospital in Billings, MT, she was very quickly then airlifted to the Children's Hospital in Denver, CO, and diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Now Ta'shon Rain Littlelight was a 5-year-old child. She would not have known the challenges of this issue of Indian health care. When diagnosed with a terminal illness, she told her mother what she wanted to do was to go see Cinderella's castle. And the Make-A-Wish Foundation folks made that happen.

A few weeks later, she was in Orlando, FL. The night before she was to see Cinderella's castle, in the hotel room, in her mother's arms, she died.

And Ta'shon Rain Littlelight told her mother that night before she died: Mommy, I will try to get better. Mommy, I am sorry I am sick.

This little girl lived in unmedicated pain with an undiagnosed illness for many months. Would that have happened in our families? Would it?

A woman goes to a doctor on an Indian reservation, with so much pain in her leg because her knee is bone-on-bone, unbelievable pain. And she is told: Wrap it in cabbage leaves for 4 days and it will be fine.

The doctor who subsequently treated her off the reservation said it was unbelievable. This is the woman who had a knee condition with such unbelievable pain that any of us or our families would immediately have wanted to have a new knee, a replacement. But she was told to wrap it in cabbage leaves for 4 days and it will be okay.

Now, if I sound angry about what is going on, I am. Because this country has a responsibility to do better. We have a responsibility for health care for two special groups of people. One, Federal prisoners whom we send, incarcerated, to Federal prisons because they have committed crimes. When they are in a Federal prison, it is our responsibility for their health care, and we provide it.

We also have a responsibility because we promised and made a solemn trust oath to provide health care for American Indians. We even signed that into treaty after treaty. Now, all these years later, I find we are spending twice as much per person to provide health care for incarcerated Federal prisoners as we are to provide health care for American Indians.

That is why Ta'shon Rain Littlelight loses her life or at least does not have the kind of care and diagnosis we would expect for ourselves or our families or other Americans. That is why we have to fix it.

So having said all that I--I am sorry to go through it again--but I feel so strongly that this Congress has to take responsibility. Having said all that, there is much we can do. We have put together a piece of legislation that is 10 years too late. Ten years this Congress has delayed in reauthorizing this bill.

Finally, we are on the floor of the Senate to reauthorize this bill. This legislation is not perfect. It is a step forward, a step in the right direction. One of my colleagues will come and say: I demand reform. Well, he cannot demand it more than I demand it. But if you cannot get the first step done, how are you going to talk about reform 10 years after this should have been done?

I am looking for amendments that can be brought to the floor that can strengthen this. I am for those amendments. As soon as this passes, our committee is going to immediately begin a much broader reform of Indian health care.

But first and foremost, we have to move forward. We expand cancer diagnosis and treatments, we expand the opportunities for dialysis, we expand the opportunity for diabetes programs, we expand the opportunities to recruit doctors and nurses on Indian reservations. We do a lot of things in this bill that advance the interests of Indian health care.

It is not all I would like to do, but it is a significant step forward, that will improve the lives of people who today are not getting what was expected and what was promised by this country. This country has a responsibility to meet this, and I am determined, somehow, someway, we are going to meet it.

It appears, toward the end of this afternoon, the majority leader has indicated we have to go to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, because we have a February 1 deadline on that. We likely will not get this bill done by the end of this afternoon. We will then turn to FISA and work on FISA, I believe, perhaps today, tomorrow, perhaps Friday and Saturday, according to the majority leader.

But when the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is completed, the majority leader told our caucus a bit ago, then we will pull this back on the floor and finish this piece of legislation.

So I ask my colleagues to come to the floor with amendments. Let us debate amendments, talk through amendments, improve this bill, if we can. But most importantly, let us get to the end, get it passed and have a conference with the House and, finally, after 10 long years, send this to the President for signature.

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.

Mr. President, we are attempting, with the two cloakrooms, to notify offices of Senators that we would like very much to find a way to get a list of the amendments that are intended to be offered.

So if there are Senators who have amendments to this bill they intend to offer, we hope they would notify their cloakrooms so we can put a list together. We would like to make some progress. I do know the Republicans have an issues conference this afternoon, or perhaps all day. But I know they are now at an issues conference, I believe at a location on Capitol Hill. So I expect this bill will be carried over.

But if we can have some amendments offered this afternoon, still we can debate these amendments, I would like to ask Senate offices if they have amendments, notify the cloakrooms so we can put them on a list and have some notion of what we need to do in order to get this bill completed.

My understanding is the Senator from Vermont wishes to speak in morning business.

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

Madam President, this afternoon the Republicans have held an issues conference; in fact, I believe for most of the day. As a result, they have not been here today to engage in discussion on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. I just finished speaking with Senator Murkowski, vice chairman of the committee. We talked about the bill. She has played a significant role as vice chairman in bringing

this Indian health care improvement bill to the floor. We both would like those who have amendments to provide notice to us of their amendments.

Our cloakrooms have asked for a list of amendments so that we may process them. It appears, based on what the majority leader indicated, that we will at some point today, perhaps in the next hour or two, turn to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The reason for that is, there is a deadline of February 1 by which that Act has to be renewed. It expires and we have to take action to renew it. It will be controversial and cause quite a debate. So what the majority leader has indicated is that he will turn to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and we will be on that tonight, tomorrow, perhaps Friday and Saturday--who knows?--and that following completion of that, he will bring the Indian health care improvement bill back to the floor.

My appreciation to the majority leader, he is trying to balance some difficult things. He, for the first time in 10 years, decided we should do what we should have done in the last 10 years, and that is reauthorize Indian health care.

We have a scandal in Indian health care with full scale rationing. Only 40 percent of health care needs are being met. We have people dying today on reservations because health care that we take for granted for our families, many of us, is not being made available on Indian reservations. I thank Senator Reid for allowing us to come to the floor and putting this in the schedule. When it is pulled from the floor to go to FISA, it will be brought back next week or when FISA is completed. I appreciate that.

I notice my colleague from South Dakota, Mr. Johnson, is here. Senator Johnson and I share the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation that straddles our boundary of North and South Dakota. It is a large reservation. Both of us have been there many times. South Dakota has a number of other Indian reservations. Senator Johnson, as a member of the committee, has done superb work with us to put this legislation together. I appreciate his help and his attention to what is an urgent priority for American Indians, to get the health care this country long ago promised. We wrote it in treaties. We have a trust responsibility. That responsibility is affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. Yet we have had broken promises and broken treaties. At long last we must affirm our responsibility to say to Native Americans: It is our responsibility. We assumed that responsibility to provide decent and good health care, health care we can be proud of for Native Americans. That is what this discussion is about.

Because I have seen my colleague from South Dakota come into the Chamber, I did want to say a special thanks to him. I know my colleague, Senator Murkowski, and other Republicans and Democrats on the committee worked hard. We all worked together--it was bipartisan-- in getting this bill to the floor. Senator Johnson, over a long period of time, has worked to make this day happen. Let me thank him for his great work.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Colorado, who is a strong voice for fairness and justice and for health care on Indian reservations. I appreciate very much his work and his relentless determination to help us get this done. I know he comes from a State that has a good number of Indian tribes and that he has toured those areas and is very concerned about this issue.

Madam President, I want to, in just a couple minutes, show once again a photograph of a man I showed yesterday during this discussion. His name is Lyle Frechette. Lyle Frechette, shown in this photograph, was a member of the Menominee Tribe of Indians in Wisconsin. He came of age during a time when there was what was called the ``termination and relocation era of Indians.''

This picture of Lyle Frechette is a picture of a high school graduate who was newly entering the Marine Corps to proudly serve his country. I showed that photograph yesterday to describe

that there is no group of Americans that has served their country in the military in larger numbers per capita than Native Americans--than American Indians and Native Alaskans. There is just no group that has enlisted in higher numbers to support their country in our military. This is a photograph of one of them. His experience, following his service in the Marines, was the experience of so many Indians.

During the termination and relocation period, many of them were given one-way bus tickets and told: You need to mainstream; you need to go to a city someplace. They found they had limited opportunities in the cities. They lost their health care capability. It was a time that we are now not proud of in terms of public policy because it was the wrong thing to have done, particularly when we had promised a trust responsibility, providing health care for Native Americans.

Spending Practices At Veterans Charities

Madam President, I wanted to show that photograph again because I wanted to say something else that is not on the topic of this bill but something I read last Friday which has bothered me ever since I read it. It deals with those such as Lyle Frechette and others who joined the military and became soldiers for our country.

The Washington Post, last Friday, contained a story about a hearing that was held the day before in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was a hearing about spending practices at veterans charities.

There is an organization that has evaluated various charities that have been established to provide assistance for veterans. That organization, the American Institute of Philanthropy--which is the leading watchdog group--said there are about 19 military-oriented charities that manage their resources very poorly.

But let me describe what made my blood boil Friday morning when I read it. I was not aware of it. But Help Hospitalized Veterans--a tax- exempt organization--Help Hospitalized Veterans--an organization that is presumably going to collect funds from around the country to help hospitalized veterans-- it spent, according to the report, hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations that were to help wounded soldiers on personal expenses instead for those who were running the organization. Instead of helping wounded soldiers as the title says--Help Hospitalized Veterans--those who were running the charity were bathing themselves in cash: a $135,000 loan to the fellow who runs the organization for a divorce settlement with his former wife; a $17,000 country club membership; a $1 million loan to Mr. Viguerie, the direct mail guru, for a startup initiative at his firm.

The second charity, the Coalition to Support America's Heroes--also a charity designed presumably to help America's veterans--was fundraising, getting tax-exempt donations or tax-deductible donations, and they used a four-star general, retired Four-Star GEN Tommy Franks, to sign letters of solicitation asking for funds, and paid him $100,000 for that. Now, I think Tommy Franks ought to explain to the Congress and ought to explain to veterans why a retired four-star general is being paid $100,000 to sign letters to solicit money to help veterans. I think GEN Tommy Franks has a lot of questions to answer, including a number of questions dating back about 4 years, from me and others. But I was very surprised that a charity is paying $100,000 to a retired four-star general for allowing his name to be used to solicit funds from individuals across the country to help veterans.

The Help Hospitalized Veterans raised more than $168 million from 2004 to 2006. They raised $168 million from 2004 to 2006, and they spent one-quarter of it on veterans. Let me say that again. They raised $168 million of tax-deductible contributions to an organization called the Coalition--excuse me, this is Help Hospitalized Veterans--raised $168 million, and one-quarter of it went to help veterans; the rest went elsewhere. That is unbelievable, just unbelievable. In this Congress--I hope the committee in the House that held these hearings will continue, and I am now evaluating whether we can begin a series of similar hearings. I think that is equivalent to theft, and I hope very much that we will continue to apply heat to those who would use veterans' names in this manner. An organization that solicits $168 million and uses only one-fourth of it in support of veterans when their title is Coalition to Support America's Heroes--or I guess Help Hospitalized Veterans, one of the two--one-fourth of the money is used to go to veterans, the rest of it is going for country club memberships and loans for divorce settlements. That is unbelievable to me. I hope very much that both the House and the Senate will continue to aggressively investigate these organizations, and I hope perhaps if we have some hearings, we might ask retired GEN Tommy Franks to come and explain to us why it is appropriate for him to accept $100,000 that comes from tax-deductible donations in order to sign a letter soliciting money that is presumed to be in support of veterans when, in fact, three-quarters of the money went elsewhere.

My colleague from Alaska has come to the floor, and I want to again say it has been a pleasure to work with her. She is vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and has done a remarkable job. She, perhaps more than anyone in the 48 States and the mainland, has very unique issues in the State of Alaska, because the Native Alaskan villages are remote and the health care issues that relate to them are different, difficult, and unusual, and she has represented that situation aggressively and relentlessly as we have tried to put legislation together to address it. I thank her for the work she has done, and I look forward to working with her. We will not apparently finish this bill today, but we will get the bill back on the floor following the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and when we do-- the two of us have talked--we very much are intent on finishing this in 1 day and getting to conference, getting the bill to the President, and getting it signed.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the Justice for All Act: Has the Justice Department Effectively Administered the Bloodsworth and Coverdell DNA Grant Programs?'' on Wednesday, January 23, 2008, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list

Panel I: Honorable Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General, Department of Justice, Washington, DC and John Morgan, Deputy Director for Science and Technology, National Institute of Justice, Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

Panel II: Larry A. Hammond, Partner, Osborn Maledon, Phoenix, AZ; Peter M. Marone, Director, Virginia Department of Forensic Science, Richmond, VA; and Peter J. Neufeld, Co-Director, The Innocence Project, Cardozo School of Law, New York, NY.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Lindsey Miller and Katie Suchman of Senator Grassley's staff be granted the privileges of the floor for the duration of debate on Indian health care legislation.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, 10 a.m., in room 215 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in order to conduct a hearing entitled ``Strengthening America's Economy: Stimulus That Makes Sense.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, in order to conduct a hearing on Executive Nominations on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 2 p.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Witness list Kevin J. O'Connor, of Connecticut, to be Associate

Attorney General, Department of Justice and Gregory G. Katsas, of

Massachusetts, to be Assistant Attorney General, Civil Division,

Department of Justice.

Madam President, on behalf of Senator Inouye, I wish to request unanimous consent that Ms. Cheryl Peterson, a public health nurse fellow from the Indian Health Service, who is serving on his staff, be permitted floor privileges for the duration of S. 1200, the Indian health bill.

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

Madam President, what is the order of the Senate?

Madam President, this is a piece of legislation we have reported out of the Committee on Indian Affairs in the Senate. Senator Murkowski, the vice chair, and I have worked hard on these issues. We have also made some changes since reporting the bill out of the Committee on Indian Affairs and will offer a substitute that will be cosponsored by both of us. We are now clearing that substitute, and I will, at the appropriate time today, I hope, offer the substitute version.

Some might wonder why there is a separate Indian health care bill, and the answer is relatively simple: because this country has a trust responsibility--a trust responsibility that has grown over a long period of time and has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court, affirmed by treaties with various Indian tribes--a trust responsibility to provide health care for Native Americans.

The last comprehensive reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act was 15 years ago in 1992. The act itself has been expired for the last 7 years, and it is long past the time for this Congress to reauthorize this program. Even though the act has expired, the Indian Health Service continues to provide Indian health care, despite not having a current authorization. But with advances in medicine and in the delivery and in the administration of health care, we need to finally pass this reauthorization and give the Indian population of this country the advantage of the expansions we will do in this reauthorization bill.

This legislation reflects the voices and the visions of Indian Country. It also responds to a number of concerns that have been raised by others, including the administration. The enactment of this reauthorization has been the top priority of myself and the vice chair of the committee, Senator Murkowski. I also wish to say the former vice chair of the committee, the late Senator Craig Thomas from Wyoming, at the start of this Congress, worked very hard on this legislation and cared very deeply about it. We bring this to the floor, remembering the work of Senator Thomas and recognizing his important work.

I wish to describe the need for the legislation as I begin before I describe the legislation itself. I have in the past couple weeks done some listening tours on Indian reservations, particularly in North Dakota, and we heard and saw many examples of deplorable conditions in Indian health care. It is true there are some health care providers in the Indian Health Service that are making very strong efforts to do the best they can, but they are overburdened and understaffed, underfunded. I wish to give some examples of that.

I wish to show a picture--a photograph, rather--of someone I have shown to the Senate before. This is a woman on the reservation in North Dakota, the Three Affiliated Tribes near New Town, ND. Her name is Ardel Hale Baker. Ardel Hale Baker has given me consent to use her image. She had chest pains that wouldn't quit. Her blood pressure was very high. So they went to the Indian health clinic, and she was diagnosed as having a heart attack. The clinic staff determined she needed to be sent immediately to the nearest hospital 80 miles away. She told the staff she didn't want to go in an ambulance because she knew she would end up being billed for the trip, and she didn't have the money. So she

signed a waiver declining the ambulance service, but the Indian Health Service said you have to take it anyway. We have diagnosed a heart attack happening here. You have to take the ambulance.

She arrived at the hospital and Ardel Hale Baker at the hospital was being taken out of the ambulance and transferred to a hospital gurney. As this woman, having a heart attack, was transferred to the hospital gurney, a nurse saw a piece of paper taped to her thigh and the piece of paper taped to her thigh was a piece of paper that was notifying the health care provider there wasn't going to be any money for this patient. The nurse asked this woman who was then having a heart attack what the envelope was. She pulled the envelope that was taped to her leg off her leg and asked: ``Mrs. Baker, is this yours?'' When they looked at the paper, here was the document. The document was from the Department of Health and Human Services, attached by the folks on the Indian reservation, taped to her leg as she left to be put in the ambulance, and it says:

Understand that Priority 1 care cannot be paid for at this

time due to funding issues. A formal denial letter has been

issued. If and when funds become available, the health

service will do everything possible to pay for Priority 1

care.

What this means is this--contract health care, which cannot be delivered on the reservation. This reservation has a clinic. It is open from 9 until 4 every day, 5 days a week. It is not a hospital, it is a clinic. For health care that cannot be delivered at that clinic, you have to refer the patient somewhere else. But that has to be paid for with contract health care funds, and they run out very quickly.

We had one reservation tell us they were out of health care contract money in January, 4 months into the fiscal year. On this reservation, they say don't get sick after June because the contract health care money is gone. This poor woman was loaded onto a hospital gurney with a piece of paper taped to her leg, saying to the hospital that if you admit her, understand that the Indian Health Service will not pay. This woman must pay. Obviously, this woman had no money. It was a way to say to the hospital that if you admit this patient, you are on your own.

Well, I visited a Sioux reservation at Standing Rock, the McLaughlin Indian Health Center, a couple of weeks ago. The Standing Rock Reservation clinic sees 10 patients in the morning and 10 in the afternoon. I believe they only have a physician assistant there. The reason given in the memorandum about the 10 and 10 was the clinic had only one medical provider and patients signed up in the morning. Anybody arriving after the quotas were made were turned away.

Harriet Archambault received her last prescription for serious hypertension and stomach medication on October 25, 2007. As the medicine ran out, she attempted five times to sign up at the clinic, leaving home early in the morning, driving 18 miles to the clinic but arriving too late each time. Her name was not on the top 10. She couldn't wait at the clinic for a possible opening because she provided day care for three of her grandchildren. So her medication ran out.

In a conversation with her sister prior to her death, she said: What do I have to do, die first before I finally get my medication? She tried five times to drive the nearly 20 miles to the clinic, and five times failed and never got her medicine, and she died a month later, November 27, 2007. Her husband told that story because he wants us to understand that delivery of health care is about life and death.

I have shown a photograph to my colleagues. I wish to do so again. It is a photo of a precious young lady who died, Ta'shon Rain Littlelight. I was at the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana when I met the grandmother of Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight. This was a beautiful 5-year- old girl. She loved to dance. This was traditional dance regalia, and she loved to go to dance contests. Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight died. Here is how she died. Her grandmother and mother and aunt told me she died, with the last 3 months of her life in unmedicated, severe pain. She went back and back and back to the Crow Tribe's Indian Health Service clinic for health problems. They began treating her for depression. Depression. During one of the visits, one of the grandparents of Ta'Shon said: Well, she has a bulbous condition on her fingertips and toes. That suggests there may be a lack of oxygen to the body, or something is going on. Can't you check that? Ta'Shon was treated for depression.

Finally, one day, August 2006, she was rushed from the Crow clinic, where she had gone once again to the St. Vincent Hospital in Billings, MT. The next day she was airlifted to the Denver Children's Hospital and was diagnosed with untreatable, incurable cancer. She lived for 3 more months after the tumor was discovered in what her grandmother said was unmedicated pain. She died in September 2006. Her parents and grandparents asked the question: If Ta'Shon's cancer had been detected sooner, would this child perhaps have lived?

When diagnosed with terminal illness, the one thing Ta'shon Rain Littlelight wanted to do was see Cinderella's castle, so Make-a-Wish sent her to Orlando. But the night before she was to see the castle, in the hotel room in Orlando, she died in her mother's arms.

The question is, for a young girl such as Ta'shon Rain Littlelight, should she have had the same opportunity in health care others have? Is this what we are willing to accept? Not me. This problem has a human face. I could tell a dozen more stories similar to Ardel Hale Baker and Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight.

I sat on Indian reservations for a total of probably 6 hours listening to stories about Indian health care. Let me talk about the statistics, if I might.

For tuberculosis, the mortality rate for American Indians and Alaskan Natives is seven times higher than the American population as a whole.

For alcoholism, the mortality rate is six times higher.

For diabetes, it is not double but triple--three times higher.

Twenty percent of American Indians and Alaskan Natives over age 45 have diabetes. There are reservations in my State where they estimate over 50 percent of the adults have diabetes.

American Indians and Alaskan Natives have higher rates of sudden infant death syndrome than the rest of the Nation.

Injuries are the leading cause of death for Native Americans ages 1 to 44. Injuries include pedestrian accidents, vehicular accidents, and suicides.

The cervical cancer rate for Indians and Alaskan Natives is four times higher than the rest of the population.

The suicide rate for American Indians and Alaska Natives between ages 15 and 34 is triple the national average. For Indian teens in the northern Great Plains, it is 10 times the national average.

I have shown my colleagues a photograph of Avis Little Wind. Avis Little Wind is a young teen who died. Avis Little Wind's relatives gave me permission to use her photograph. This is a 14-year-old girl who lay in bed in a fetal position for 90 days and then killed herself. Her sister had taken her life 2 years previous. Her dad had taken his life. For 90 days, somehow, everybody missed little Avis. The school missed wondering what happened. She lay in bed for 90 days and then took her life because she felt there was no hope and no help.

On that reservation, I went and met with the tribal council, school administrators, and her classmates to try to find out how does a kid, age 14, fall out of everyone's memory and everyone's vision? What I have discovered is there are a lot of issues, but there was not any kind of health care treatment available for a young girl, age 14, who had these kinds of problems. Even had there been health care available, there would not have been a car to drive her there. There is a basic lack of transportation. Aside from the fact they don't have the capability to provide the necessary health care treatment that is necessary to intervene, we have to do better. We have a responsibility to do better.

I wish to address the question of why it is our responsibility. Why is the plight of Native Americans a responsibility to the Federal Government? The simple answer is we are bound to follow the law set forth in the Constitution, in treaties, and in the laws of our land.

We are bound to follow the trust responsibility that has been imposed on us by the Constitution, the rulings of the Supreme Court, and by treaties.

Now, our predecessors long ago negotiated treaties with Indian tribes in which we received, as a Nation, hundreds and hundreds of millions of acres of Indian homeland to help build this great Nation of ours. In return for the enormous cessions of land by the Indians, our country promised certain things. We promised to provide things such as health care, education, and the general welfare of Native Americans.

This chart I am going to show you shows a provision from one of those treaties, and there are a lot of them, most of them broken by our country. This is with the northern Cheyenne and Arapaho. It says:

The U.S. hereby agrees to furnish annually to the Indians

who settle upon the reservation a physician.

It says we have your land and we are going to give you a reservation, but we also understand our responsibility, and we will provide health care. We have failed miserably to hold up our end of the bargain.

This bill doesn't provide health care for Native Americans simply because it is the moral and right thing to do. It is, certainly. It is a bill that requires us to keep our word. It is an active step to fulfill our responsibility, our end of the bargain, struck by our predecessors a long time ago.

In addition to the treaty obligations, the U.S. obligations to Indian tribes are set forth in hundreds of U.S. Supreme Court cases and Federal statutes.

I wish to especially refer to the next chart. In 1831, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Marshall, recognized a general trust relationship between the United States and Indian tribes. He held that the United States assumed a trust responsibility toward the tribes and their members. He explained the United States not only has the authority to deal with Indian tribes and their members, but also the responsibility and obligation to look after their well- being.

In describing Indian tribes as ``domestic dependent nations,'' he also established the relationship in that ruling between the United States and tribes as similar to one between ``a ward to his guardian.''

Now, at the time, these Supreme Court decisions were used by the United States to justify our actions toward the Indians, such as forcing Indians from homelands and placing them on reservations. But we cannot now ignore these court decisions merely because we are doing a poor job of fulfilling our obligation.

At the time of the Supreme Court's decision I described, the United States, through the Department of War, was already providing health care services to Indians on reservations. That practice began in 1803 and the United States has been providing such health care for over 200 years.

One of the initial reasons for providing health care on reservations was because we were the ones who were transmitting diseases to Indian nations and forcing them into environments where diseases would prevail. That became evident in 1912 when then-President Taft sent a special message to Congress summarizing a report that documented the deplorable health care conditions on Indian reservations.

In 1913, the Public Health Service reached a similarly distressing conclusion about the health of Native Americans. The Snyder Act was passed in 1921--I am providing the history so people understand what is the context of health care for Indian nations--one of many laws passed by the Congress over the last 100 years to try to address the health disparities between American Indians and the rest of our society: The Snyder Act of 1921, Indian Health Facilities Act of 1957, Indian Self- Determination of 1975, and the Indian Health Care Improvement Act of 1976 as it was amended in 1992.

President Nixon, in 1970, said in a message to the Congress:

The special relationship between Indians and the Federal

Government is the result of solemn obligations which have

been entered into by the United States Government. Down

through the years through written treaties . . . our

Government has made specific commitments to the Indian

people. For their part, the Indians have often surrendered

claims to vast tracks of land. . . . In exchange, the

Government has agreed to provide community services such as

health, education and public safety, services which would

presumably allow Indian communities to enjoy a standard of

living comparable to that of other Americans. This goal, of

course, has never been achieved.

That is in 1970 from the President of the United States, describing our responsibility.

Let me talk just for a moment about the proposed legislation, having described the reason for us to bring a piece of legislation to the floor of the Senate.

We know--and it has been like pulling teeth to find this out--we know there is full-scale health care rationing on Indian reservations. It should be front-page headline news in all the biggest newspapers in the country, but it is not. If it was happening elsewhere, it would be front-page headlines, but it is not now.

Forty percent of health care needs of Native Americans are not being met. We meet 60 percent of the health care needs; 40 percent are unmet. So it is rationed, and that is why Ardel Hale Baker, having a heart attack, is wheeled in to a hospital with a piece of paper taped to her leg saying: ``This isn't going to be paid for.'' It is health care rationing, there is no other way to describe it, no soft way to put a shine on it. It is health care rationing. It shouldn't happen, and I think it is an outrage, because it is happening on Indian reservations. It is seldom covered by the 24/7 news hour, but it should be, because it is a scandal. I hope this is the first step to begin addressing it.

This legislation will be described by some who come to the floor of the Senate as not enough. I agree with that assessment. This is a first step, at last, at long last, that should have been done a decade ago. It is a first step in the right direction, but it is a first step as a precursor to real reform because we need reform.

This is a reauthorization 10 years after it should have been done. We are reauthorizing and expanding programs that I will describe, but we need to do much more. When we move this legislation through the Senate, through the House, and it is signed by the President, I intend, with the Indian Affairs Committee, to begin immediately with new and more aggressive reforms, and it is urgent we do so.

This bill expands the types of cancer screenings that are available to American Indians. It expands the types of communicable and infectious diseases that health programs can monitor and prevent beyond tuberculosis, which now is the emphasis, to include any disease. It expands the recruitment and scholarship programs and authorizes nurses currently serving in the Indian Health Service to spend time teaching students in nursing programs. These are critical programs, given that there is a 21-percent vacancy rate for physicians in the Indian Health Service, and the entire Nation faces a shortage of nurses.

There is a new program in this legislation dealing with teen suicide on Indian reservations. I held hearings on this subject. We have worked for legislation that will provide screenings and mental health treatment, and we begin to address those issues with this legislation.

Treatment for diabetes: We held a hearing to examine the threat of diabetes to the health of American Indians. It is an unbelievable threat. Diabetes emerges as the most serious and devastating health problems of our time, and nowhere in this country is it worse than on Indian reservations. It affects the Indian population in a dramatic way.

I ask any of my colleagues, if they wonder about that, go to a reservation and see if they have a dialysis unit, and watch the people in the dialysis unit getting dialysis, some having lost limbs, having one leg cut off, another leg cut off, still trying to stay alive. The ravages of diabetes is an unbelievable scourge in Indian country. It is a serious problem for our entire country, but nowhere is it worse than among American Indians. In some communities, the prevalence reaches 60 percent of adults. In the 14-year period from 1990 to 2004, the diabetes rate among Indian kids 15 to 19 years old increased 128 percent.

We expand and enhance the current diabetes screening program. We direct the Secretary to establish an approach to monitor the disease, provide continuing care among Native Americans,

and authorize the Secretary to establish a dialysis program to treat this threatening disease.

Health service to Native American veterans: It is well documented that there is no population in this country that has participated with greater distinction or in greater numbers per capita serving in this Nation's military than Native Americans--none. Many Indians served in World War I even before our Nation recognized Indians as citizens of our country. Think of that, we had American Indians sign up to fight for this country when they were not yet considered citizens of this country.

I was checking recently, and 1962 was the last time when a State finally passed legislation allowing Indians to vote in the State. Think of that, go back to 1961 and understand, there were places in this country where American Indians were not allowed to vote in State elections. And until the early part of the last century, they were not considered citizens. Yet they were signing up to go to war for this country, to fight for this country.

I attended a ceremony on the Spirit Lake Reservation a few months ago and passed out medals--Silver Stars, a lot of medals--to three soldiers who are now elderly men who served this country in the Second World War with unbelievable valor, had fought all around this world for this country and earned these medals--Silver Star, Purple Heart, and various others. They were enormously proud of their country.

Go to a reservation and find out what percent of the population of eligible adults sign up to serve in the military on an Indian reservation and you will be surprised. There is no group of Americans who signs up in bigger numbers to serve this country in the military.

Senator Murkowski and I have a provision in this bill that deals with health services to Native American veterans. More than 44,000 American Indians out of a total Native American population of less than 350,000 at that point served in World War II. Think of that. Out of a population of 350,000, 44,000 of them served in the Second World War.

We had a ceremony in this Capitol Building, honoring the Code Talkers who played a significant role in intercepting and deciphering the codes used by the Nazis. We gave the Congressional Gold Medal to those Native American Code Talkers.

We direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to provide for the expenses incurred by any eligible Native American veteran who receives any medical service that is authorized by the Department of Veterans Affairs and administered at an Indian Health Service or tribal facility. We want the Indian Health Service to be able to get the funding to provide that health care.

This bill also provides a provision dealing with domestic violence. My colleague, Senator Murkowski from Alaska, was particularly instrumental in this provision. We held a hearing to examine the causes of and solutions to stopping violence against Native American women.

We received testimony that more than one in three American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetime. That is pretty unbelievable. We received reports of rapes that were not investigated. We received reports of circumstances where there isn't even the basics, just a rape kit available to take evidence.

We have included in this legislation some approaches that I think will be very helpful: community education programs related to domestic violence and sexual abuse, victim support services and medical treatment, including examinations performed by sexual assault nurse examiners, and a requirement for rape kits. I think we have made significant progress. I thank Senator Murkowski for her special interest in that section of the bill as well.

Finally, we have a section of the bill that deals with convenient care service demonstration projects. The reason for that is I don't want to see the rest of the country move toward convenient care, walk- in clinics with long hours, 7 days a week, only to have Indian reservations be out there with these clinics that serve at times that are not very convenient.

I have a photograph of a clinic I visited last week on the New Town Reservation. They are open, I believe, from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., 5 days a week. Good for them. They take an hour off for the noon hour, by the way, and close it. I think it is 9 a.m., maybe 8. This is the Minne- Tohe Health Center, of the Three Affiliated Tribes. I visited there within the last week or so. They are open 6 or 8 hours a day, take an hour off for lunch and close it down. If at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, you are having a heart attack there, you are in trouble. If it is Saturday and you have a bone fracture, you are in trouble, because you are 80 miles from the hospital in Minot, ND.

My point is, why not develop a model care system of convenient care clinics open long hours, 7 days a week? Let's extend the opportunity for real health care on Indian reservations.

We have done a lot of other things in this legislation, including establishing the framework for the next approach on reforming this system completely, and that is the establishment of a bipartisan commission on Indian health care which will study the delivery of this system and recommend approaches that we will begin working on immediately in the Indian health care area in our committee.

I have described a number of items that are not positive, and I will later today describe some good news, because there are some positive things going on. One of the Indian reservations I visited in the last week has an Indian health care clinic that is dramatically underfunded. The tribal council voted to take $500,000 of the funds that belong to the tribal government and move it to try to support that clinic. That is good news. Good for them. That takes a lot of courage and commitment.

There are good things happening, and I am going to talk about that a little later today.

The fact is, we have a desperate situation with respect to health care in the Indian nation, and it cannot continue. We cannot allow it to continue. In the name of children who should not have died--Avis Little Wind or Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight or others--we cannot allow this to continue to happen. This country is better than that.

I close by quoting Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Tribe, located in what is now Idaho. Chief Joseph, one of the great Indian leaders, was pretty upset about a lot of things. Here is what he said about broken promises:

Good words do not last long unless they amount to

something. Words do not pay for my dead people.

Good words cannot give me back my children. Good words will

not give my people good health and stop them from dying.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart

sick when I remember all the good words and all the broken

promises.

This legislation on the floor of the Senate is not just some other bill. This is a step toward the completion of promises that have been made, not ``we hope to help you,'' but promises--promises that have been made in treaties, promises that have to be kept as a result of a trust responsibility that exists with American Indians.

To make the case finally, let me say this: There is a chart that shows how much we spend per person on health care, and that chart describes something I think all need to know about the commitment of Congresses and Presidents for a long period of time.

This chart shows we have a responsibility to provide health care for Federal prisoners. We incarcerate them because they committed a crime, and we stick them in prison. But in their prison cell, we have a responsibility for their health care. That is our job, and we meet that responsibility.

We also have a responsibility for health care for American Indians, because of a trust responsibility and because of treaties we signed after we expropriated massive amounts of their land. We don't meet that responsibility. In fact, this chart shows that we spend almost twice as much per person providing health care for incarcerated Federal prisoners as we do providing health care for American Indians. That is why little 5-year-old Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight dies, because she doesn't have the same access to health care that the rest of us do. It is why when a woman goes to the doctor, the doctor shows up at our committee and testifies, saying: You know, a woman came to me who had been to the Indian Health Service doctor. She had a knee

so bad--it was bone on bone--it was unbelievably painful. He said it was the kind of knee that, if it belonged to somebody in my family or yours, we would get knee replacement surgery. We would have to get knee replacement surgery because we wouldn't be able to live with it that way. You can't live with that kind of pain. But she told me she went to Indian Health Service, and they told her to wrap the knee in cabbage leaves for 4 days and it would be okay. Wrap the knee in cabbage leaves. This is a knee which we would get replaced, yet this Indian woman is told to wrap it in cabbage leaves.

Are we meeting our responsibility? People are dying. Forty percent of the health care need is unmet. I have described the conditions that exist in these health clinics and on reservations. The answer is, we are not meeting our responsibility, and at least from my standpoint, and I believe I speak for the vice chair, though she will speak for herself, it is past time, long past the time when this country should keep its promise.

Chief Joseph is long gone, but that doesn't mean we don't have a responsibility to keep our promise to the first Americans. They were here first. To this point, we have had all kinds of circumstances over many years of pushing them to reservations after we took their land, then pushing them off the reservation and saying they had to go to the city. So they got a one-way bus ticket and were told: By the way, we want you to mainstream, to get you off this reservation. So they got a ticket and were sent to the city, and then we decided that was wrong, and we brought them back.

What has been happening in this country in public policy dealing with American Indians is unbelievable, and it has to stop. Let us meet our responsibility, keep our promises, and provide decent health care to the people who were here first. That is what this bill does.

This bill is just a step in the right direction, and it will be followed by significant reform. When we do that, I will feel that, finally, at long last, this country has kept an important promise to those who were here first.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, is the request for a presentation on the bill without amendment?

Mr. President, I will agree to that request with the understanding it is on the bill without an amendment. I would also like to add to the request that Senator Bingaman be recognized to offer an amendment immediately following the presentation by Senator Stevens.

Mr. President, Senator Stevens is to be recognized following Senator Gregg and then Senator Bingaman, both of whom I believe are here. Certainly, if the Senator wishes I would not object, but both I think have been waiting for some period of time on the bill.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New Mexico for offering the amendment. I know he offers it on behalf of himself and Senator Thune from South Dakota. I fully support the amendment. This amendment will provide maximum opportunity to stretch the Indian health care dollars. The amendment is a thoughtful amendment that will, in my judgment, strengthen the underlying bill.

I am very interested in supporting it. We are working to see if we can get a vote on this amendment today. I believe the majority leader wishes to begin voting today, and I hope perhaps we can arrange consent to have a vote on this amendment later this afternoon.

I also thank the majority leader for bringing this bill to the floor of the Senate. When I was vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee and Senator John McCain was chairman, we worked on this bill. We tried very hard to get it to the floor, but we were not successful. This is the culmination of lot of work and important work, in my judgment, to get it to the floor. I appreciate the cooperation of the majority leader for giving us the opportunity to get it to the floor.

My hope is we will have the cooperation of other Members of the Senate. If there are amendments to be offered, we wish they would come and offer those amendments. We would like to get amendments and time agreements and try to find a way to complete this legislation.

I also failed to mention earlier that the Senate Finance Committee had a referral on this bill. They did some very important work. Senator Baucus, Senator Grassley, and other members of the Senate Finance Committee were very helpful, as has been Senator Kennedy and Senator Enzi on the HELP Committee, and Senator Kyl and others.

This bill is bipartisan. We are trying very hard to get this legislation completed. As I indicated earlier, this is long past the time when this should have been done. People are literally dying for lack of decent health care that most of us take for granted, most of us expect and receive. That is not the case with respect to Native Americans. We desperately need to change this situation.

My hope is, if there are those who are intending to offer amendments today, that they come to the floor and offer the amendments. We know of a number of amendments. I appreciate the cooperation of Senator Bingaman in offering his amendment now. If there are others, I hope we can proceed.

Mr. President, I wish to briefly speak about another issue we have been dealing with. My colleague from New Hampshire spoke briefly, and I think in the absence of others being in the Chamber, I wish to speak as in morning business for 5 minutes.

Mr. President, some of my colleagues have spoken today about the difficulty in the economy. I am concerned about it, as are virtually all Americans at this point. The stock market seems to be bouncing around like a yo-yo. The economy is slowing and consumer spending is down. Recently, there was a substantial increase in unemployment in a single month--and a whole series of items that suggest there are real economic problems.

My colleague from New Hampshire said: I am concerned about a stimulus package. So am I, but in my judgment, we need to err on the side of taking action rather than err on the side of doing nothing. The Federal Reserve Board this morning cut interest rates by 75 basis points. That is a blunt instrument of monetary policy to try to address what is seen as a serious weakness in this economy.

I want to say this: No matter what we do--and we almost certainly will produce some sort of stimulus package--I believe a stimulus package should provide some tax rebates to middle and lower income people. It also ought to provide an extension of unemployment benefits. We have done that during previous economic downturns. I think a stimulus package should provide investment tax credits for businesses with an end date and other temporary tax incentives to persuade businesses to make capital investments now when the economy would benefit most from it. So we should do two things: We should put money in the hands of consumers, middle to lower income consumers, and we also should stimulate businesses to make needed capital investments earlier rather than later in order to prime the pump with respect to the economy.

I also think it is important to consider, even as we talk about stimulus, making investments in this country's infrastructure. There is nothing that puts people back to work more quickly than money that goes to building roads and bridges and making other improvements in this country's infrastructure that are so desperately needed. Many of us are working on and talking about that issue. But that ought to be a part of a second phase of a stimulus package. To ignore that, in my judgment, is to ignore significant job-creating opportunities at a time when we desperately need those opportunities.

Having said all of that, I believe we need to act to provide confidence to the American people about the future--after all, that is what the business cycle is about. If people are confident about the future, they manifest that confidence. They take the trip they wanted to take. They buy the car they wanted to buy. They do the things that manifest confidence in the future. That represents expansion.

If they feel as if the future has some troublesome aspects, they say: I am going to defer taking the trip, I am going to defer buying that car or piece of equipment, I am going to defer purchasing that piece of furniture, and then the economy contracts.

There are some in Washington with an overinflated sense of self who think this is a ship of state with an engine room. And you get out of the engine room and you dial the knobs and the switches and the levers--M-1 B, taxes and all of these things--and somehow the ship of state just sails right on forward.

That is not the case at all. This ship of state moves or fails to move based on the people's expectation about the future. If they are optimistic, they do things that express that optimism, and the economy expands.

I wish to talk for a moment about some of the fundamentals. We can genuflect here and even do some dancing in the Senate Chamber about the issue of stimulus packages, but if we don't address the fundamentals, we are not going to get out of this problem.

Every single day, 7 days a week, all year long, we import $2 billion more in goods than we export. So we run up a

bill of $700 billion plus a year in trade deficits. Our trade situation is an abysmal failure. Do you think the rest of the country doesn't know that? Do you think that has no impact on the falling dollar? Of course it does. It is one of the reasons the dollar is falling.

In addition to that, we have a fiscal policy that has been reckless. Last year, we had a $196 billion request from the President in front of us, none of it paid for--add it to the debt, he says--for Iraq and Afghanistan and restoring military accounts. Well, that is $16 billion a month, $4 billion a week, and none of it paid for. That is on top of the yearly deficit, which is understated. It uses all the Social Security money as if it were other revenue in order to show a lower deficit.

The American people know better and so do the financial markets. They see the combination of a reckless fiscal policy and a trade policy that is deeply in debt. They see a country whose fundamentals are out of line. These electronic herds, called the currency buyers or currency traders, when they see these things and they run against the currency, a country is in trouble. We have to get our fundamentals in order. We need to fix our trade policy, stop these hemorrhaging deficits, and we need to fix our fiscal policy.

We can't say yes to a President who says let's fight a war and do tax cuts for wealthy Americans at the same time. Let's fight a war, spend a lot of money doing it--two-thirds of a trillion at this point but heading north--and none of it paid for; all of it borrowed. This from a conservative President. This Congress has to stop saying yes to that. This reckless fiscal policy has helped set the stage and table for part of what we have seen the last couple of weeks, the jitters and concerns about where this country is headed and the economic difficulty we are now in.

Let me talk about something my colleague from New Hampshire talked about, and that is the underlying issue of the so-called subprime loan scandal. That is a fascinating thing. Someday somebody will do a book about that and just about that issue. Here is what happened, and we know better. Everybody knows better.

You wake up in the morning and go to brush your teeth and perhaps you have a television set on. You are sort of getting ready for work and you see a television ad. We see them every morning, and the ads say: Do you have bad credit? Do you have trouble getting a loan? Have you been missing payments on your home loan? Have you filed for bankruptcy? It doesn't matter. Come to us; we will give you a loan.

We have all seen these ads, and you think to yourself: Well, how can they do that? How can they advertise that if you have bad credit you can borrow money from them? The fact is, you can't do that. But that is what we were doing all across this country. Here is what was happening. Mortgage brokers were making a fortune in big fees by selling subprime mortgages. The companies that were writing these mortgages, the largest of which was Countrywide Financial, were saying to people: You know what, take our low-interest mortgage, with a teaser rate at 2 percent. It won't reset for 3 years. By the way, if you have an existing home loan, so you can get rid of that and we will lend you money you can pay back at a 2-percent interest rate, and it will not reset for 3 years, during which time the market is going to go up and you can flip it and sell it. In any event, what we will do is decide that on your home loan you don't have to make any principal payments at this point, just interest. We will add the principal later on.

Or they will say, borrow this money from us, and we will make the first 12 months' payments. For the first year, you make no payments at all.

OK, that practice was totally, completely and thoroughly irresponsible by a bunch of greedy folks. They are talking to people, cold-calling them and saying, we would like to put you in a better mortgage but not telling them, of course, there is a prepayment penalty. They are telling you monthly mortgage payments that didn't include real estate taxes, insurance costs, and so forth. So they were quoting borrowers 2 percent teaser rates with prepayment penalties that didn't include the escrow. So they put these people in these loans.

Now, were the victims partly at fault? Sure. By victims, I am talking about those who took these loans out. But these were high-powered salespeople working for big companies that were putting bad products in the hands of a lot of unsuspecting people.

Then what do they do? They have these subprime loans packaged up with other loans. It is sort of like the old days when they used to put sawdust in sausage in the meat plants and mix it all up as filler. Then they would cut it up and you would never know where the filler was and where the sausage was. Well, similar to that, they would take the good loans and the subprime loans and they would mix them all together and put them in securities--securitize them. Then they would sell the securities to these hedge funds, among others. So hedge funds were buying securities. They didn't have the foggiest idea what they were buying because the rating agency said it looked okay. These agencies were dead from the neck up.

Everybody was greedy, and now the whole tent comes collapsing down. Now, you say, how could that be? Well, it was because people were loaning money to people who were never going to be able to repay it. The CEO of Countrywide, the largest company doing this, made hundreds of millions of dollars selling the stock back. It looks like Countrywide is going to go belly up, so Bank of America comes in and buys Countrywide. No idea why, but the big guys, they all waltz off smiling ear to ear, sparkling teeth and big smiles. Why? Because they made a lot of money--hundreds of millions of dollars. Meanwhile, all these folks can't repay their mortgages and are left to try to pick up the pieces and then we wonder what on Earth happened here.

In the midst of all this, this morning I was listening to a TV show with a man named Jim Cramer, who talks about stock prices. He has a TV show. Half the time he is yelling. I don't have the foggiest idea why he thinks that is the approach to use to thoughtfully talk about stock prices, but apparently it is successful. So he says this morning that one of the ways we should deal with the problem in the economy is to start trying to provide some recompense or some money to the insurers of bonds and other things that are going to get hit--derivatives, he said. And I thought, I understand that language. He is talking about credit default swaps.

That sounds like a flatout foreign language, but it can't be because I don't speak a foreign language. Credit default swaps. So what Jim Cramer was talking about on the television this morning is that in order to bail out this country, his approach is we ought to provide about 50 percent of taxpayer money to the losses for those who have credit default swaps. Let me talk a moment about what this means because, as I said, it sounds completely foreign.

Hedge funds in this country are largely unregulated. I, Senator Feinstein, and many others have tried for a long time to say that is dangerous for this country. Hedge funds are somewhere around $1 to $1.5 trillion. Now, that is not so much, considering mutual funds are about $9 trillion. The total of the stocks and bonds in the stock market and bond funds are about $40 billion. So hedge funds are about $1 to $1.5 trillion. But hedge funds represent one-half of all the trades on the stock market. Think of that--$1 trillion plus unregulated--and they comprise half the trades on the stock market.

Now, because of the very heavy use of the leverage, it is a fact that hedge funds can lose much more than they are worth. If somebody goes into a casino in Las Vegas with a pocketful of money and grinning, thinking they are going to win a lot of money but end up losing it all, in most cases the only thing they lose is the money they have. That is not the case with heavily leveraged hedge funds.

That is why the episode with Long-Term Capital Management, a hedge fund that had the smartest people working for them, was so important that over a decade ago the Federal Reserve Board had to try to save Long-Term Capital Management. That hedge fund was unbelievably leveraged, over $1 trillion. Its collapse would have affected the entire American economy.

So here is what we have. We have this language now called credit default

swaps. The credit default swap is a derivative, and it is an insurance policy on a bond or some other instrument. The person who sells the swap is actually writing a policy that collects a premium, and it says if nothing goes wrong with the underlying instrument, the person who sold the swap gets the premium and looks like a genius. If, however, the bond or the underlying instrument collapses, then the swap seller has to make good. The notional amount--understand this--the notional amount, the aggregate of bonds, loans, and other debt called by credit default swaps in the United States, is now $26 trillion.

I have spoken before on the floor of the Senate about creating a house of cards, every child has done it, and then pulled out a card on the bottom. Everyone understands what happens to the house of cards. We now have roughly $1-$1.5 trillion in hedge funds, as I understand it, doing one-half of the stock trades on the stock exchanges. In most cases, hedge funds have a notional value of $26 trillion in credit default swaps, and the question is: Where is all this exposure? How much exposure? We don't know. Most hedge funds are unregulated, and a whole lot of folks in this Chamber have wanted to keep it that way, despite the efforts of some of us who believe it is dangerous to our economy to pretend this kind of risk does not exist.

It is interesting to me that we are in this situation and troubling to me we are in a situation that all of us knew was going to be difficult. You can't run a $2-billion-a-day trade deficit without consequence. Warren Buffett always pointed out with the housing bubble that every bubble bursts. It is one of the immutable laws. The question isn't whether, it is when. He makes the same point about the trade deficit. The trade deficit is unsustainable. The question isn't whether we will see consequences, the question is when will those consequences exist.

The consequences are beginning to exist now, with the declining value of the dollar and the combination of all the other issues--the highest deficits in human history, the trade deficit, a fiscal policy that is completely and thoroughly reckless, combined with the scandal that exists with respect to subprime loans and the massive amount of unregulated hedge fund credit swap defaults. I mean it is staggering to see what we have done. Again, the credit default swap is a notional derivative whose value is dramatic and the consequences of which could be dramatic for the entire economy.

Most regulators were looking the other way and doing so deliberately. If ever one wonders whether thoughtful and effective regulation is necessary, look at all this. If anyone has ever wondered whether you can get by with a trade deficit of $2 billion a day, look at where we find ourselves now. If anyone ever wonders if you can spend money you don't have on things you don't need, look at this country's fiscal policy and its consequences for the country.

Having said that, all of us want the same thing for this country's future. We want a country that grows and provides economic opportunity. We want a country where the fundamentals are fair and put in order. That means a trade deficit that is eliminated, or at least close to eliminated, and a trade policy that works for this country's interest. It means a fiscal policy that pays our bills, and it means effective regulation in areas where you have substantial potential risk for the entire economy, and that means regulation of certain hedge funds' transactions and derivatives now well outside the view of public regulators.

So I think this is going to be a very difficult time for this country. It is one thing for us to take a shower in the morning, put on a suit and drive to work and talk about it, it is another thing for the people who go home tonight and say: Sweetheart, I have lost my job, not because I didn't do a good job, but they are laying people off where I work. That is a consequence for that family in which unemployment is 100 percent.

We face some pretty daunting challenges. My hope with this President and with Republicans and Democrats working together, as the Speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate said last week, with all of us working together, combined with the Federal Reserve's monetary policy, that we can develop some thoughtful approaches in fiscal policy that might lead us in a constructive direction to say to the American people we believe you can honestly look at the future and have a positive view. But they won't believe that if they feel we are not serious about the fundamentals. The American people aren't going to be fooled. If we don't fix our trade policies and get rid of these unbelievable deficits, if we don't put our fiscal house in order and stop doing what the administration suggests we do, we are in big trouble.

We had a Treasury Secretary named Paul O'Neill--the first Treasury Secretary under this President. If ever there was a straight shooter in Government, it was Paul O'Neill. He came here as an executive from an aluminum company. He was blunt-spoken, an interesting guy, and I happened to like him a lot. Paul O'Neill got fired. In fact, Dick Cheney is the one who fired him, at the request of the President. When fired, he was told that deficits don't matter. Deficits don't matter.

Well, we now understand they do matter and we have to do something about it. This fiscal policy is out of control. Our trade policy is broken and we have had regulators who looked the other way while we had grand theft in this area of the subprime scandal, and it is time we tell the American people we are serious about addressing these issues and we are going to do it now.

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

Mr. President, I have not had a chance to visit with the Senator from Louisiana. I object.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Madam President, I believe Senator Nelson of Florida is on his way. Before that, the legislation we brought to the floor from the Committee on Indian Affairs has been worked on for a long while. It is long past due to be considered by the Congress. It deals with the urgent need for Indian health care.

I want to especially say we worked with the National Indian Health Board on this legislation and Sally Smith, chair of the board; with the Tribal Leaders Steering Committee on Indian Health, Buford Rollin, cochair, and Rachel Joseph, cochair. We worked closely with the National Congress of American Indians, Joe Garcia, president, and Jackie Johnson, executive director. We held listening sessions at many Indian reservations to talk about the challenges and what we need to do to resolve these issues.

I wish to mention as well today we have from the White House a statement of administration policy in which the White House is talking about a potential veto of this legislation. That is not particularly unusual. The White House has been talking about vetoing almost anything and everything for the last several months. So I am not particularly surprised. My hope is we can work with the White House. This is a bipartisan piece of legislation. We expect to pass it through the Congress, and my hope is the President will sign it.

I wish to address one of the issues the White House is concerned about--the Indian urban health care program. The President has requested we not have any funding for it, that we discontinue the urban Indian health care program. My colleague, Senator Murkowski, and I and many others have disagreed with that. We believe there is a need for the urban Indian health care program.

I wish to describe that need by describing one person, a Native American, the late Lyle Frechette. This is a photograph taken after he finished high school. He was a member of the Menominee Tribe of Indians in Wisconsin. He was a proud veteran, who went into the Marine Corps right after high school, when this picture was taken. After serving his country as a U.S. marine, he came home to the Indian reservation to find life had significantly changed. That was at a time in this country when we were going through what is called ``termination and relocation.'' The policy in this country was to say to American Indians that we want to get you off the reservation and to a city someplace.

In fact, the official policy of the Federal Government was to terminate government-to-government relationships with 109 Indian tribes during that period, the early 1950s. It was suggested, well, let's terminate relationships with tribes and say to these Indians: Go to the city and leave your reservation. So many did, and Lyle Frechette did. The movement from a tribal reservation, where there was some Indian health care, although inadequate, to the major cities meant that Lyle Frechette was leaving an area that had vast forests and timber resources that represented financial stability for the Menominee Tribe. Yet the Federal Government thought this was a great candidate for termination. So they took steps to terminate the tribal status.

That termination had catastrophic effects on the lives of many of the tribal governments and the people who were members of the tribes. It required many of the young tribal members, such as Lyle Frechette, to either stay on the reservation and live in abject poverty, with no further health or any benefits that had long been promised to them, or participate in the Federal urban relocation program. Often, they were given a one-way bus ticket and told good luck; they ended up in cities with substantial limitations on what they could do.

Lyle Frechette had a young wife and a child and they relocated to Milwaukee, WI, 3\1/2\ hours from the reservation. He no longer had access to health care on the Indian reservation. There were very few urban clinics and the relocated Indians only qualified for private sector insurance for 6 months, and that was over. Health care is essential. Many of these folks, including this young man, left the reservation because of the termination and relocation program and discovered they were not able to access health care programs.

Then, over a period of years, urban health care programs were established to try to be helpful to those whom we had literally forced off the reservations. The fact is it has been a lifesaving experience for many urban Indians to be able to access that which was guaranteed them as part of the trust responsibility of the Federal Government to American Indians, even being

able to access that in some of our urban areas. The President has wanted to shut down that program. We have said we don't support that, on a bipartisan basis. Congress has said the urban health care programs for American Indians has worked very well.

I wished to describe that issue because the President indicated that is one of the issues in his letter and the statement of administrative policy today in which he suggests he may well veto this legislation. I hope he will not and that we will work on a bipartisan basis to convince the President doing this is the right thing to do.

I know my colleague from Florida is here ready to speak. At this point, I yield the floor, and my colleague wishes to be recognized.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Kansas. I am a cosponsor in support of the amendment he has offered.

If one studies the history in this country with respect to Indian tribes, it is a tragedy. It is very hard for someone to study it, understand it, and not wish our country to apologize for it. We entered into treaties with the tribes; agreements, signed treaties, with the tribes. We took tribal homelands and pushed them onto reservations and made agreements, including trust agreements, to provide for their health care and many other things.

Then we decided we wanted to push them off reservations and move them into urban areas. Then we decided we would discontinue a government-to- government relationship with 109 tribes. We terminated the tribal status of 109 tribes, and we told these folks to leave the reservations and here is a one-way ticket. We want you to go to the cities to be assimilated into the cities. So we sent them off to the cities, far away from families and health care facilities. Then we sent them off to boarding schools and terminated their governmental status. We took lands off protected trust status and then turned, once again, and began to revitalize tribal language and culture and governments.

When you understand what this country has done, in terms of abrogating agreements and treaties it has made, one can understand the words of Chief Joseph. Here is what Chief Joseph said:

Good words do not last long unless they amount to

something. Good words do not pay for my dead people. Good

words cannot give me back my children. Good words will not

give my people good health and stop them from dying. I am

tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick

when I remember all of the good words and then all of the

broken promises.

Chief Joseph was an honorable Indian leader. He negotiated face-to- face with the leaders of our country. And while he lived, he saw promise after promise after promise broken. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote:

Great nations, like great men, should keep their word.

That is all Chief Joseph and so many other Indian leaders asked, and it was never granted. We are trying now, in some small and some significant ways, to remedy and address these issues. The Indian Health Care Improvement Act is one step in the right direction to say this country will start to keep its promise, its promise, as a trust responsibility, to provide health care for American Indians.

I say to my colleague from Kansas, I used a chart earlier today to say the American people, the American Government, is responsible, because of treaty obligations and a trust obligation, a trust obligation we have for American Indians, to provide health care to two groups of people. One group is incarcerated Federal prisoners. That is our charge. We put them in prison for crimes, we are required to provide for their health care in Federal prisons. We also have a responsibility for health care for American Indians because of the trust responsibility and treaties by which we made that promise.

Compare the two. We spend twice as much money providing health care for incarcerated prisoners in Federal prisons as we do providing health care to American Indians. And that is why today it is likely somewhere on an Indian reservation someone is dying who shouldn't have to die. Some young child is suffering who shouldn't have to suffer because the health care we expect for our families is not available to them.

If I might, for another minute, say once again that I showed a picture this morning of a young girl named Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight. She died at the age of 5. Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight didn't get the health care most of us would expect for our children. She was a beautiful young child on the Crow reservation, and she spent the last 3 months of her life in unmedicated pain. Finally, she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. And when she was, and I talked about this earlier, she asked to go to see Cinderella's castle, and so the Make-A-Wish Foundation sent her and her mother to Orlando. In the hotel, on the night before she was to see Cinderella's castle, she died in her mother's arms. As she lay in her mother's arms, she said: Mommy, I will try not to be sick. Mommy, I will try to get better.

This young girl, time after time after time, had been taken to the clinic and was diagnosed and treated for depression at the age of 5 when, in fact, she had terminal cancer and she is now dead. A beautiful young girl--Ta'Shon Rain Littlelight. This is happening across our country, and we have to stop it. It is our responsibility to stop it.

My colleague from Kansas offers a resolution that talks about past abuses, and they are unbelievable. But some of them continue, and that is the purpose of this bill and the reason I appreciate his support for the underlying bill. But I did wish to say I am a cosponsor of the amendment offered by Senator Brownback. It is the right thing for our country to do. I am proud to cosponsor what he is suggesting to the Senate today. He is offering it now as an amendment. I have previously cosponsored it as a bill when he has introduced it in the Senate.

So my thanks to the Senator from Kansas. And after he speaks, Madam President, I know the Senator from Ohio wishes to be recognized. But I suspect the Senator from Kansas wishes to say a word, at which point I am happy the Senator from Ohio is here and wishes to speak on this bill.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside.

Mr. President, I have a substitute at the desk and ask for its consideration.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendments previously considered be conformed to the substitute I have just offered.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I withhold that suggestion.

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

Mr. President, we have had a lot of discussion and debate today about the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. We, on behalf of myself and Senator Murkowski, sent the substitute to the desk. The substitute is something we worked on that amends and changes somewhat what we had originally moved out of the committee. We have refined it, improved it, and changed it a bit. The substitute was agreed to by Senator Murkowski and myself and other Senators with whom we have worked. So we have made some progress by laying down the substitute which perfects this bill. We have a number of amendments pending.

What I would ask--and so would Senator Murkowski--is if there are others who have amendments to this bill, they come to the floor and offer them. We want to finish this piece of legislation. It is not as if we haven't had a lot of discussion and debate. We have pretty much filled the time today. But we do want additional amendments to be offered. What we would like to see is if those Senators who have amendments would contact us, we could schedule them and hopefully we can get some time agreements, so when we finish this evening and come back on this bill, we could get a list of amendments, work through those amendments and finish the bill and send it along to the House. Because there is an urgency here.

There are some things we do that are not particularly urgent. I understand that. If anyone thinks the issue of Indian health care is not urgent, I urge them to go to the nearest Indian reservation and have a visit about what is happening with respect to the Indian Health Service. I know there are a lot of good people working in the Indian Health Service, but I am telling you, go sit and listen for awhile, listen to a discussion about what happens when you ration health care, when health care is not a right and not only not a right but when health care is absolutely rationed. There are people dying. There are people living in pain. There are people who don't have access to any kind of health care facility. There are people who are having emergencies at 5 in the afternoon, when their local clinic closed their doors at 4, and they are 100 miles from the nearest hospital. That is what is happening on Indian reservations across this country.

We have a responsibility, a trust responsibility to provide for that health care. The Congress, this country has not owned up to that responsibility, and we must. That is why we have brought this bill to the floor of the

Senate, and I am hoping very much for the cooperation of my colleagues. Let's complete the amendments, raise them with us, let us work with you on getting them up and getting votes on them so we can at least indicate our support to do what we are required to do as American citizens: honor our treaties, meet our trust responsibilities, and keep the promises we have made to the first Americans.

Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.r. 4986

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at 5:30 p.m. today, the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4986, the Department of Defense authorization, with no amendments in order to the bill; that the bill be read a third time, and without further action, the Senate proceed to vote on passage; that upon passage, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and I make a point of order that a quorum is not present.

If I might address the majority leader for a moment, we have had a great deal of debate today on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, and I appreciate, as I said earlier, the willingness of the majority leader to bring this bill to the floor of the Senate. I know it deals with about 4 million Americans. But the fact is there are people dying, dying in this country, because of inadequate health care for a trust requirement, a responsibility our Government has for the health of the American Indians.

I know we will be considering that issue still tomorrow. I talked to Senator Coburn, who indicated he has some amendments and will be here tomorrow to be discussing the bill. My hope is we could get the Senators to come and offer amendments, that we can finish these amendments, and for the first time in 10 years get this bill passed. Senator McCain, when chairman of this committee; Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, when chairman; and now myself, along with Vice Chair Murkowski, have worked hard to get this done. We are so close, and I appreciate the cooperation of the majority leader.

I understand we will have to move to FISA at some point, but I know the majority leader wants to give us fair opportunity to consider these amendments and see if we can finish in a day or so, and I hope that can be the case.

Mr. President, I thank the majority leader. I understand we are going to need to move off and go to FISA at some point. We need some time, at least another day, to have some amendments, and then I think we can finish this bill.

Frankly, we have a trust responsibility. We have signed treaties, and this great country needs to keep its word. It has not kept its word on Indian health care. That is the reason we are on the floor of the Senate. So I wanted to make this point as we move to consider all these other priorities, that one of the significant priorities is to get the amendments on the floor, get them debated, have time agreements, and let us get this bill passed. It is 10 years late, but let us at least pay respect to our word, the commitments we have made, the treaties we have signed, and the trust responsibilities that are ours.

I heard someone say, people aren't dying over this. They are dying over this, I guarantee you. I will get you their names. There are people who deserve health care who aren't getting it, and the fact is people are dying today as a result of it. Ten years later we ought to pass this legislation. I have worked hard with Senator Murkowski, Senator McCain, and so many others to move this legislation. All we ask is fair opportunity to get the amendments to the floor and get them considered and voted on and let us do the right thing.

Tomorrow, I will be back. I do have great passion about this because I have seen people who are sick, I have seen people who are suffering and I have seen people and talked to people who had children die and spouses die because of inadequate health care, because of full-scale health care rationing in this country for American Indians. That is unacceptable, and it ought to be unacceptable to every single Member of this Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 279, received from the House.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, without any intervening action or debate.