Floor Statements

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Wednesday, May 4, 2011, at 10:30 a.m., to conduct an executive business meeting to consider the nomination of William J. Boarman, of Maryland, to be the public printer, followed by a legislative business meeting to consider S. Res. 116, to provide for expedited Senate consideration of certain nominations subject to advice and consent.

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Lynden Armstrong at the Rules and Administration Committee.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, the last 2 weeks have been very good weeks for this country and this Congress. We are passing a continuing resolution and funding the Government and not letting the government close makes a great deal of sense. I think that was very much to the better. Even more important, we now will have a significant debate, over the next few months, about what this country should be like over the next several decades. That is very important for our country. It is what we should be doing. I salute Congressman Ryan for laying out on the table a vision and Speaker Boehner for supporting it.

I disagree with that vision, but they did have the forthrightness and the directness to put their views on the floor. It is a different vision than what America is today.

I also salute President Obama. He joined the issue yesterday, clearly, without obfuscation, directly, and showed the many places where he differed with Congressman Ryan. He laid out a different vision as to where America should go. In a minute, I will discuss my views of those visions, but I wish to say this at the outset: It is very good to have this debate. I hope this will be a month or two in which there will be invective and there will be clashes, but I hope, at the end of the day, the debate between the Republican vision of where America should go and the Democratic vision--between Congressman Ryan and President Obama--will be one of those times when historians will look back and say this is a place where America, through its Congress and its President, chose a direction. That is, after all, why we are here.

We have many different issues to consider, but the role of government, what it should do and what it should not, is probably the most important for the next several decades. The fact that the issue has been joined by Congressman Ryan on the one hand and President Obama on the other can only be good for America. What we will do is come to a conclusion, hopefully, in the next month or two. Let me give my views of those two visions.

Yesterday, President Obama delivered a thoughtful, inspired speech about the need to rein in our out-of-control deficit. He called for a comprehensive approach, including cuts to defense and mandatory spending, and he rightfully put revenue on the table. His is a serious plan, one that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 12 years. As only a President can do, he powerfully framed the debate that will likely continue to rage, certainly for the next several months and probably over the next year and a half--long after we resolve the debt ceiling. This is a debate the American people want to have. It is a debate Democrats are ready and eager to engage in. It is a debate we believe we will win. We have the high ground.

The House Republican plan puts the middle class last instead of first. It will never ever pass the Senate, and we know the American people will reject it as well. The debate we just concluded, the debate about the CR, was about spending levels. The debate ahead of us is about more than spending levels, it is about the role of government itself.

House Republicans are not trying to balance the budget--no. They are trying to fundamentally alter Americans' relationship with their government. They believe the message of the last election was that Americans wanted a dramatic change, a great limitation in how much the Government should do. It is our view, as Democrats, that the American people gave us two messages. First, deal with the deficit. There is too much spending. I say, as a party, we ignore that message at our peril, but we have not ignored that message, neither in the CR nor in the President's proposals.

The American people sent a second message as loudly and as strongly as the first; that is, grow the economy, help the middle class continue to have better lives, as they have over the last five decades, make sure there are meaningful jobs in America. I believe a budget that reflects the American people's view has to do both these things: reduce the deficit but keep that American dream brightly burning, the American dream that the American middle class holds, which says the odds are quite good that we will be doing better 10 years from today than we are doing now and the odds are better still that our children will do better than we. That is what we believe American people told us to do.

We believe the budget revealed by Congressman Ryan and supported by Republicans is not what the American people want. It is a negative, pessimistic message. It is a message that says the great days of America are over and we do not believe it is what the people want. As we go through this debate, we shall see how that comes out. I believe we will prevail.

The Republican budget unveiled last week by Chairman Ryan is, on closer inspection, not a serious document. The pundits and political handicappers may have hailed it as a bold, daring approach to the fiscal challenges facing our country, but a closer examination reveals that Ryan's budget hews exactly to his parties' orthodoxy. It does not gore a single Republican ox. The House Republican budget puts the entire burden of reducing the deficit on seniors, students, and middle- class families. At the same time, it protects corporate welfare for oil companies, gives giant new tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, and leaves Pentagon spending almost completely untouched.

Consider what Paul Ryan wants to do to Medicare. His plan ends Medicare as we know it and replaces it with a private voucher system that will cut benefits. Seniors would be left to fend for themselves with no guarantee of affordable coverage. They would have to pay thousands of dollars more out of their pockets.

As this chart shows, under the current Medicare system, the average senior on Medicare in 2022 will contribute about 25 percent of the cost of their health care. But under the Ryan plan, seniors would have to pay 68 percent of the cost of coverage themselves according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

That is an outrageous burden. Simply put, it would drive many seniors into poverty. This generation of seniors, the first generation who was able to say they could retire and not go to bed every night sweating about how they were going to pay for health care if they or their spouse got an illness, would be the last generation to do so under Paul Ryan's vision.

In America, we have said we have bounty. And some of that bounty should go to those in their golden years, to those who worked hard and who built the country and who raised the families and fought the wars. They should not have to worry that they could not afford health care if, God forbid, a serious illness afflicted them. The Ryan budget turns its back on that vision.

Republicans have been patting themselves on the back recently for tackling entitlement reform, but their approach is nothing more than a rigid, ideological quest to unravel the social safety net.

Medicare certainly has cost issues, but a better way to protect and preserve Medicare for future generations is to cut out the waste and inefficiency that everyone knows exists, not to privatize the program. Our plan is simple when it comes to Medicare: Mend it, do not end it. In the health care reform law, we made a good downpayment on this effort. We began to shift Medicare in the larger health care system from an expensive, fee-for-service model toward a system that pays providers for episodes of care. The truth is, when it comes to reining in the cost of Medicare, the President did it first, and he did it better. We Democrats are willing to build off that law. We can make further reforms to the delivery system. It needs further reforms. And we will further drive down the costs. The Ryan budget reverses progress we have already made and in doing so reopens the doughnut hole, further burdening seniors' budgets.

It is bad enough that the Ryan budget ends Medicare as we know it and increases costs for seniors, but just as egregious is what Ryan proposes to do with all the money he takes from seniors on Medicare. As this second chart shows and as the President said yesterday, House Republicans want to give millionaires a new tax cut of $200,000. To pay for it, it would make 33 seniors each pay $6,000 more for health care. What kind of vision is that? The Ryan budget uses Medicare cuts to reduce the tax rate on millionaires and billionaires to 25 percent from 35 percent. That is the lowest level since 1931 when Herbert Hoover was President. The Ryan budget reduces taxes on the rich to the lowest level since 1931, the Hoover era, the era of the Great Depression.

I have nothing against the rich. God bless them. Many of them are living the American dream. They are what many of us aspire to be. But in order to keep that dream alive and get our country on firmer fiscal footing, we need a little shared sacrifice. Democrats want to work with Republicans to get our fiscal house in order, but we believe the best way to do it is to end the

millionaires' tax break, not cut Medicare benefits.

Let me be clear. A grand bargain on long-term deficit reduction is next to impossible unless we look at raising revenue. Unfortunately, Republican leaders are already trying to rule out revenue. If the other side refuses to even consider savings in the Tax Code, they will lose credibility with the American people. We simply cannot balance the budget by focusing solely on domestic discretionary spending, a narrow 12 percent slice of the budget. Cancer research and Head Start did not create our current deficit problem, and we will not fix it by going after cancer research and Head Start.

Thankfully, many rank-and-file Republicans seem to agree with the need to put revenue on the table. The Senator from Oklahoma, a true fiscal conservative, said a blanket defense of all tax cuts is profoundly misguided. My Republican friend from Nebraska said Republicans need to keep an open mind and keep everything on the table, including revenue. My Republican friend from Georgia had said that revenue, along with entitlement cuts, should be part of the budget compromise. My friend from Tennessee, with whom I work closely on the Rules Committee, said that tax subsidies for big oil ``may be too expensive.'' As you can see, many of my colleagues are prepared to tackle this challenge with, to use the phrase of the Republican Senator from Nebraska, ``an open mind.''

The bottom line is that any budget that leaves defense and revenue off the table is ultimately untenable. Indeed, a dollar cut from defense spending reduces the deficit just as much as a dollar cut from domestic discretionary spending. While there is certainly waste on the domestic discretionary side of the budget, there is also certainly waste on the defense side.

While we are certainly open to compromise, Democrats will not tolerate the House Republican budget assault on Medicare. It is not fair, it is not right, and it will never, never pass the Senate.

I am hopeful that both parties in both Chambers of Congress will come together to reach a reasonable, responsible deficit deal, but in order to do that, Republican leaders need to take off their ideological straitjackets. They can start by going to the drafting room and coming up with a fairer, more broad-based proposal than the Ryan budget.

In conclusion, Speaker Boehner needed Democrats to pass this year's budget, and he will need Democrats to pass a long-term deficit reduction plan as well. The sooner he abandons the tea party, the sooner we can have a compromise.

We hope the coming debate will yield a sound, serious deal. That is our hope. That is our wish. That is what the next few months are about. If it doesn't, we Democrats will have to take this contrast of priorities into 2012. We know that in that battle, too, we will have the high ground.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, for the past 8 years, Citizenship Now!, a project of the City University of New York and the New York Daily News, has conducted a citizenship and immigration call-in, which I have visited every time it has been held at the News headquarters in Manhattan, NY. On Monday, April 25, the ninth call-in begins, and it is anticipated that the volunteers who answer the telephone will handle the 100,000th call by Friday April 29. That means 100,000 families received information to help them get on the path to U.S. citizenship. Among the sponsors have been the NYS Bureau of Refugee and Immigrant Assistance, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, CUNY Law School, Univision, and Radio WADO, with support from Verizon and Gristedes.

At the weeklong call-in, community paralegals, CUNY counselors, students, and other volunteers, supervised by experienced citizenship and immigration attorneys and Board of Immigration Appeals-accredited individuals, answer callers' questions. CUNY trains the volunteers at an all-day training conference that precedes the call-in, and all volunteers receive a comprehensive training manual. Whenever I visit the volunteers, I bring with me an expert staff person from my office who handles constituent inquiries from immigrants and their families. We fully appreciate the special and unique outreach effort this free public service provides.

The call-in provides an important safeguard weapon against scammers engaging in the unlawful practice of law. Callers who qualify for naturalization or another immigration benefit are referred to reputable non-for-profits. Many are referred to one of CUNY Citizenship Now!'s nine citizenship and immigration law service centers where they can get free application assistance and advice. The News features the photographs and biographies of the volunteers in print and on its Web site and runs stories about the people who are being served. When a caller wishes to contact a private attorney, she or he is referred to the New York City Bar Association referral panel and the American Immigration Lawyers Association referral service.

The CUNY/Daily News Citizenship Now! Project is by far the largest university-based immigration service program in the country assisting many thousands of individuals with citizenship and immigration law services each year, all at no cost to the applicants. This public service partnership deserves our recognition and appreciation for the superb efforts underway to help people in need. Thank you, CUNY, and thank you, New York Daily News.

Mr. President, I am proud to support Vincent L. Briccetti, a superb lawyer who will be a brilliant and experienced addition to the bench of the Southern District of New York.

Vince has reached the apex of his profession through sheer hard work and raw intelligence. The son and grandson of Italian butchers, Vince was born in Mt. Kisco, NY, and grew up working in the butcher shop while he went to school, eventually graduating from Columbia University and Fordham University School of Law. He spent many of his summers working as a waiter.

After graduating from law school, he earned a prestigious clerkship with Judge John M. Cannella in the Southern District of New York, and then entered private practice for 2 years. Vince's dedication to the rule of law had already begun, but his public service commenced when he entered the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York in 1985. For 4 years, he tried an impressive array of cases, including a sweeping tax fraud case that earned him too many awards to list here today. He then became the deputy chief of the Appellate Division of the U.S. Attorneys' Office and defended the office's convictions and practices on appeal.

Following a distinguished career at the prestigious law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, he steered his practice back to White Plains and established his own law firm there. For the last 17 years, he has practiced as a criminal defense lawyer in State and Federal court. He has tried approximately 50 cases to verdict or judgment. I have heard from judges and practitioners alike that Vince is a lawyer whose involvement invariably improves the outcome of any specific case with which he is involved and who has in general been one of the Bar's great assets. He has treated his duty as a lawyer to dedicate time to pro bono work--through serving on the local Criminal Justice Act panel--not as an obligation, but as a calling. To quote former Federal district court Judge Stephen C. Robinson's letter to this committee:

On at least three separate occasions, when I had some doubt

as to whether a party before me was receiving adequate and

appropriate counsel, I asked Vince to take up the

representation. Vince always stood ready to respond to my

requests for assistance in the name of justice. I can tell

you that all of the judges in our courthouse held Vince in

the highest regard.

While he ran his own firm and represented clients, Vince also continued to assist the government by serving as a special prosecutor at the behest of the Westchester County District Attorney when he or she was conflicted out of a prosecution. The current district attorney in Westchester County has commended him as ``possessed of the highest moral character and integrity.''

Everywhere you go in and around New York, you hear superlatives about Vince Briccetti: That he is the very model of an ethical, fair, dedicated lawyer; that while he is a terrific advocate, there is no one you would rather see on the opposite side of a case to ensure a full and fair hearing of the issues at stake; and that he is a dedicated member of the New York community. It will be a tribute not just to Vince but to the bench when we add ``thoughtful and brilliant federal judge'' to the encomia. The time has come to confirm Vince for this judiciary emergency vacancy that has been open for more than 18 months.

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

Mr. President, I rise to discuss the issue of our budget. Later this week, the House will vote on its fiscal year 2012 budget resolution. Congressman Paul Ryan, the author of that blueprint, calls it a path to prosperity.

I will be glad to yield to the Senator.

Mr. President, I move that immediately after I finish speaking, the Senator--well, we had a Member who was going to go speak after you did. Could the Senator limit his speech to 15 minutes or----

OK. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately after I finish, Senator Inhofe be recognized for up to 30 minutes, and then Senator Franken be recognized immediately after Senator Inhofe.

So Mr. President, resuming my remarks, Paul Ryan, the author of that blueprint, called it the path to prosperity. It may be a path to austerity, but it is hardly a path to prosperity.

Nonetheless, with the negotiations finished just days ago on last year's budget, Congressman Ryan has succeeded in jump-starting the debate about next year's. The President himself will join this conversation about how to do long-term deficit reduction in a major address tomorrow at GWU--George Washington University. This is a debate we must have, and the President's entrance into it comes not a moment too soon. It will make for a powerful contrast with the Republicans' plan.

The contrast we will hear from our President tomorrow will likely not be in the commitment to deficit reduction. Paul Ryan's goal in his budget is to trim the deficit by $1.6 trillion over the next 10 years. He does not succeed in meeting this target, according to CBO. In fact, budget experts say his proposal only achieves $155 billion in net deficit reduction. But the number itself is not the issue. Without a doubt, we must be ambitious in setting a target for deficit reduction. We cannot be gun-shy about achieving fiscal discipline. So, no, the contrast will not be in how much we seek to reduce the deficit, it will be in how we go about doing so.

The Republicans would like the looming debate to be one about numbers, but, instead, it will be about priorities. The Ryan budget has all the wrong priorities.

The House Republican budget puts the entire burden of reducing the deficit on senior citizens, students, and middle-class families. At the same time, it protects corporate subsidies for oil companies, let's waste at the Pentagon go untouched, and would give even more tax breaks to the millionaires amongst us. In short, the Ryan budget puts the middle class last instead of first. As a result, it will never pass the Senate.

In the days since he first rolled out his budget proposal, Congressman Ryan has been hailed for taking on the tough challenges, and we certainly salute him for putting out a plan. But a closer look at his proposal shows that

it is not bold at all. In leaving Pentagon spending and revenues completely untouched, Ryan's budget hews exactly to his party's orthodoxy.

Some of the columns I read say it takes courage. Well, maybe it takes courage for someone who has a different political philosophy to say what he said but not for a conservative Republican to say what he said. It does not gore a single Republican ox. It is a rigid ideological document.

Consider what Congressman Ryan wants to do on Medicare. In the name of ideology, Paul Ryan's budget proposes getting rid of Medicare as it exists today and replacing it with a private system that would cut benefits. We have seen this movie before. Five years ago, President Bush tried to sell the country on a plan to privatize Social Security. The public rejected it. If they didn't like what President Bush tried to do to Social Security, just wait until they see what Paul Ryan and the House Republicans want to do to Medicare. Their budget plan proposes putting the Medicare system into the hands of private insurance companies. That is a recipe for disaster. It would mean an end to Medicare as we know it.

Beginning in 2022, Americans turning 65 would no longer be enrolled in Medicare but, instead, would receive a voucher to go shopping for their own health insurance on the open market. Insurance companies, however, would not be required to honor that voucher, which would average about $8,000. Many private insurance plans for seniors far exceed that price already today. Under the Ryan plan, seniors who cannot find an affordable plan at the value of their voucher will simply have to make up the difference themselves out of their own pockets.

This problem would only worsen over time as health care costs rise. Ryan caps Medicare spending at the level of inflation, even though health care costs rise higher than that historically. As Ryan's voucher covers a smaller and smaller fraction of actual health care costs, seniors would have to cover the gap out of pocket.

That is why Alice Rivlin, a Democrat and President Clinton's former OMB Director who worked with Congressman Ryan on his approach for a time, has distanced herself from this final product. She told the Washington Post she opposes the Ryan plan:

In the Ryan version he has lowered the rate of growth and I

don't think that's defensible. It pushed too much of the

costs onto the beneficiaries.

Let me repeat that last part of the statement of Alice Rivlin, Congressman Ryan's partner for a time in this proposal. She writes:

It pushed too much of the cost onto the beneficiaries.

Other Medicare experts agree with Rivlin. Stephen Zuckerman, a health care economist at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, said:

The most serious flaw is that the focus of that approach is

on limiting Federal spending on Medicare without concern

about the potential of this change to shift costs to Medicare

beneficiaries.

A better way to rein in Medicare spending would be to trim the waste and inefficiency out of the delivery system. Anyone who has gone through the health care system knows all the waste and inefficiencies-- the legendary stories of a doctor waving as you go into the emergency room and you never see him again, and then there is a $4,000 charge, these kinds of things. But it turns out that Ryan's plan does nothing to reduce overall health care costs. It increases them. We have to preserve the benefits to people but make the cost of delivering them less expensive. That is what every other country in the world does. That is what we have to do.

The Ryan plan does not do that. The Ryan plan not only does not try to eliminate the waste and inefficiency out of the delivery system, it does nothing to reduce overall health care costs. It actually increases them.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in 2030 traditional Medicare insurance would cost just 60 percent of a private policy purchased with Ryan's voucher. In other words, the Ryan health care plan would cost two-thirds more than traditional Medicare. Not only would the Ryan plan increase insurance costs, it would force seniors to shoulder a higher share of these costs.

CBO said--this is CBO not Chuck Schumer, the nonpartisan CBO:

Under the proposal, most elderly people who would be

entitled to premium support payments would pay more for their

health care than they would pay under the current Medicare

system.

How much more? It is staggering when you look at the numbers. Here they are, the seniors' share of health care costs. We know even with Medicare seniors have to pay some of it themselves, but now they pay 25 percent; under the Ryan budget, 68 percent. So there is this voucher, and it goes to the insurance companies, health care costs more, and seniors pay more. Why the heck would we do that?

This is a crippling burden that would drive the average Medicare recipient into poverty. It is not only too much to ask for our seniors, it destroys the foundation of our health care system.

Madam President, just to check on the time, I believe I said after I finished I asked unanimous consent that Senator Inhofe would follow me.

I did, and that was the intention of my unanimous consent request.

The bottom line is the House Republican budget would cause the cost of health insurance to rise and then would make seniors pay a greater share of that higher cost. It is a cut in benefits plans, plain and simple. If we are serious about reining in Medicare spending, there is a far better starting place than the Ryan budget. It is the health care law passed by Congress last year. Republicans are patting themselves on the back lately for leading on entitlement reform. When it comes to reining in the runaway costs of Medicare, the truth is the President did it first, and he did it better.

In the health care law, we certainly did not complete the job, but we made a good start on reducing waste and inefficiency and duplication in the system. We started down the path of making delivery system reforms. We set up a system for studying the effectiveness of different methods and treatments so that care could be delivered more efficiently. We made a downpayment on shifting the larger health care system away from a fee-for-service model toward a system that pays providers for episodes of care.

The Ryan proposal adopts none of these cost-saving approaches. In fact, his budget calls for the repeal of the health care law altogether. Left unsaid is that this would have the side effect of reopening the doughnut hole, another hit to Medicare beneficiaries.

If the Ryan budget's only goal was to end Medicare, that would be ample cause to work tooth and nail to defeat it, but the Ryan budget doesn't even put most of its savings from ending Medicare toward deficit reduction. Amazingly, it cuts Medicare, ends Medicare as we know it, and takes whatever savings it produces and gives more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. That is right. Ryan's budget not only seeks to permanently extend President Bush's tax cuts for millionaires, he wants to cut their taxes even lower than the Bush levels.

In fact, under the Ryan proposal millionaires would pay a rate so low that it was last seen in the days of Herbert Hoover. What about shared sacrifice? As unbelievable as it sounds, Congressman Ryan wants to give millionaires and billionaires an extra tax break. Ryan's budget proposal would bring down the top rate from 35 percent to 25 percent for those who are very wealthy. This would make for the lowest level of taxing the wealthiest among us since 1931 when the Great Depression was raging and Herbert Hoover was President. This is the trade Congressman Ryan proposes we make: Cut Medicare benefits for seniors so we can afford to give millionaires an extra tax break.

This is exactly the opposite of what the public wants. They don't think the millionaires and billionaires should even be getting George Bush's tax cut, let alone an extra one on top of that. I have nothing against millionaires and billionaires, God bless them. Many of them made their money the good old-fashioned way, but they don't need a tax break when we are cutting health

care and everything else. Most Americans agree with me.

In last month's NBC Wall Street Journal poll that asked Americans what proposals they most support to reduce the deficit, 81 percent of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, as I recall, said they would support a tax on millionaires, the highest polling answer. One of the lowest polling answers was--you guessed it--cutting Medicare benefits. So the Ryan budget has its priorities completely upside-down.

You may ask, if Congressman Ryan puts all his savings from Medicare into millionaire tax breaks, how does he propose to achieve any deficit reduction? The answer is, by targeting the programs most important to the middle class.

It turns out that the Republican plan to end Medicare is also a plan to end other important programs. For example, the Republican plan to end Medicare is, additionally, also a plan to cut tens of thousands of teachers. The Republican plan to end Medicare is, additionally, also a plan to cut Head Start for kids. The Republican plan to end Medicare is, additionally, also a plan to cut medical research on diseases such as cancer. The Republican plan to end Medicare is, additionally, also a plan to cut clean energy projects that create jobs and help us become energy independent.

In all, the Ryan plan assumes a steady squeezing of government until, by 2050, the total cost of everything, save for Social Security and health care, is shrunk from 12 percent of the GDP to just 3 percent. But he doesn't spell out a single detail of how to achieve those cuts. He has a number but no specifics. That is the definition of a meat ax approach as opposed to an approach that uses a smart, sharp scalpel.

Even though the Ryan plan doesn't spell out where the cuts would come from to meet his goal, it isn't a total mystery. We can fill in the blanks. The just completed debate on the 2011 fiscal budget offers plenty of hints on the Republican approach to cutting spending. In the debate we just had, Republicans wanted to cut the very programs that create good-paying jobs and help the middle class. They targeted everything from cancer research to financial aid to college. We fended off many of their worst cuts by successfully pushing Republicans to include $17 billion in cuts from the mandatory side. We also got them to agree to reduce Pentagon spending by nearly $3 billion compared to their original budget. This was not the Republican's preferred way to reduce the deficit. Because of ideology, they disproportionately targeted the domestic discretionary part of the budget for cutting.

But our deficit problems weren't caused by Head Start and cancer research, and we won't fix them by going after Head Start and cancer research. In the budget debates to come, we need to broaden the playing field beyond domestic discretionary spending. We should include, for instance, waste in the Defense Department. The Pentagon makes up half of the discretionary side of the budget, but Republicans continue to treat it as off limits. Ryan himself leaves it virtually untouched save for a symbolic trim. To say there isn't waste at the Pentagon like there is waste everywhere else in the budget is absurd.

The bottom line is, any budget that leaves defense and revenues off the table is ultimately not serious. We need an all-of-the-above approach that puts all parts of the budget on the table. A dollar cut from mandatory spending or the Pentagon is just as good as a dollar cut from nondefense discretionary spending.

Deficit reduction is an important goal, but the sacrifice must be shared. The Ryan budget fails that test. The Democratic Senate will not stand for any proposals that seek to balance the budget on the backs of the middle class and seniors. I look forward to hearing the President's remarks tomorrow. As for Congressman Ryan, I encourage him to go back to the drawing board and come up with a fairer, more balanced plan.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to announce that the Committee on Rules and Administration will meet on Wednesday, April 13, 2011, at 10 a.m., to conduct an executive business meeting to consider the nomination of William J. Boarman, of Maryland, to be the public printer.

For further information regarding this hearing, please contact Lynden Armstrong at the Rules and Administration Committee, (202) 224-6352.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the crisis we have. I guess I ask my Republican colleagues: Please, don't shut down our government. A shutdown will hurt all Americans--our businesses, our middle-class families, our servicemembers who could see their paychecks delayed. It will hurt this economy. Eight percent of mortgages are FHA guaranteed. None can be issued that are FHA guaranteed starting tomorrow. Housing is one of our largest industries, and it has been on its knees. This will put it on its back. IRS checks that are mailed, where the refund is mailed back, will stop. That is billions of dollars that would be circulating in the economy that will not happen.

We Democrats have been listening to the people. We want to avoid a shutdown and have met all of the Republican demands on the spending side.

Last night at the White House Speaker Boehner said to the President: If you go with me, it is $78 billion in cuts. That will satisfy me.

The President said: We will get to that number.

We have moved in every direction Speaker Boehner has asked. We believe there should be cuts. There is tremendous waste in government. I think any Democrat who ignores the lesson of those who voted, the lesson of the last election, makes a mistake. The people did want government to cut out the waste and to shrink, but they didn't say cut everything. They didn't say use a meat ax. I didn't have a single person tell me--and I met a whole lot of tea party people--to cut cancer research, cut loans to students who are going to college because the American people have wisdom. Cut the things that are wasteful and hurt the middle class but grow the things that help the middle class achieve a better life. That is what the President has tried to do when he said: We are going to out-educate, out-build, out-innovate. That is what we are trying to do.

There are a lot of tough cuts in our proposal, some that I don't like. Every Member on this side will be able to find things they seriously don't like, but at the same time we have gone to a level, about as high as we can go, that doesn't cut our seed corn, our future, a growing economy for our people and their children.

On cuts, we are in a good place. So why didn't we come to an agreement? Why, after Speaker Boehner offered a number and the President accepted, why are we still here today worried about a shutdown that will hurt so many? The answer is simple: the so-called extraneous riders. These add-ons, which have nothing to do with deficit reduction, are standing in the way. Why are they standing in the way? Because a minority of the House--perhaps even a minority although a large number of Republicans--insists that they be there. They are the hard right of the Republican Party. They are the same people who have said: We cannot give an inch on their H.R. 1 bill, which did cut our seed corn, did cut loans to colleges and cancer research. Now they say they have to insert these extraneous riders dealing not with abortion-- the Federal Government can't fund abortion because of the Hyde amendment--but rather about women's health, about who, not how much, should get the payments to do chest screenings and blood tests and cancer tests for women. That battle has been raging for a long time, decades. It has nothing to do with reducing the deficit.

So why is it there? Let me show why on this little chart, this little pictorial representation. Speaker Boehner has said: ``No daylight between Tea Party and me.''

Let me repeat that because these are his words: ``No daylight between Tea Party and me.''

Does he have the exact same views as the tea party? Obviously not, but he is pulled by them. He has a choice. He can listen to the tea party and shut down the government, or he can take the very difficult-- and I admit it is difficult; I believe Speaker Boehner is a good man; I like him; I think he is a decent, honorable man who is caught between a rock and a hard place--alternative which is to take the mantle of leadership and tell those on the hard right they cannot run the government completely.

They will have influence--they already have--but they cannot run the government completely. They certainly can't impose their social ideological agenda on a budget process, frail enough as it is. These riders are the straw that breaks the camel's back and causes the shutdown.

Speaker Boehner is trying to say today it is not the riders, it is the budget numbers; but that is belied by two facts: No. 1, he offered a number to the President last night and the President accepted, $78 billion in cuts. No. 2, if it isn't the riders, as my colleague from Washington State said, take them off the table. Tell the tea party and others that this is not the time or place. There will be a debate on this issue. We can guarantee that. Even if we didn't want it to happen, it would. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle would make sure. But not here and not now; not when continuing the government with all the ramifications is at stake.

What we have is a flea wagging a tail wagging a dog. The flea is the minority of House Republicans who are hard right. The tail is the House Republican caucus. The dog is the government. That flea is influencing what the dog does. More than influencing, right now it is determining. It is sad.

Leadership is tough. Frankly, when either party goes to the extremes, they don't do the right thing. When Republicans go to the hard right, when Democrats go to the hard left, my experience is they lose politically. Much more importantly, they do what is wrong for the country substantively. We are a country that governs from the middle. We are a country that believes in compromise. We are a country of what the Founding Fathers profoundly weaved through the Constitution: checks and balances.

It says two things: When the people want change, a new group will come in, and they will certainly have an effect. Our government, our structure of government the Founding Fathers created, is not ossified. They also said they won't control everything. That is the beauty of our government.

We in the Senate are the cooling saucer. That is what we are doing here. We are performing our function. It is a function that the Founding Fathers wished us to perform, some of whom, I might note, come from the State of Virginia. In any case, we have a serious issue ahead of us.

I say to Speaker Boehner: Please, tell the tea party folks they are going

to get some of their way but not all their way. They will not get their way on these extraneous riders related to women's health. The battle for whether the government shuts down goes on inside Speaker Boehner's head.

When people ask me: Are we going to shut down?

I say: Look inside Speaker Boehner's brain and see what is going on there. I am sure there is a lot of torment and tumult. I sympathize with the situation.

This is a time for leadership, and if leadership emerges, this government, on which so many people depend, will not shut down.

I yield the floor.

Will my colleague yield for a question?

First, I thank him for his outstanding remarks. My question is this: Isn't it true we have had many, many Republicans in the House, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, some Presidential candidates, erstwhile potential Presidential candidates, as well as even some of our colleagues here, Republicans, saying they want to shut down the government?

My question to the Senator is, I cannot recall a single Democratic elected official saying they want to shut the government down. My second question is, Doesn't that show something about who is itching for a shutdown or at least thinks they can use the shutdown to accomplish an agenda?

I thank my colleague.

Mr. President, I rise first to salute my colleague from Oregon for his eloquent words and his passion. I know he has dedicated his life to making the lives of people better. That is why he feels strongly about how badly a government shutdown would affect average folks.

I agree with him. Simply put, there is no reason for a government shutdown--absolutely no reason at all. A genuine bipartisan compromise with significant and responsible cuts in government spending is in hand, but it is being vetoed by an extreme minority of the Republican Party. The tail is wagging the dog. The most extreme, the people least likely to compromise, the people, in general, with less experience in government and at least from their statements little respect for views not their own are dominating the House of Representatives.

Speaker Boehner is somebody for whom we all have a great deal of affection and sympathy. But the hour is nigh and leadership is called for. To allow this small group--relatively small group when we look at the expanse of our government--to dominate everything that is happening and hurt millions of innocent people is not leadership.

When the Speaker says there is no agreement on the numbers or the cuts, he means he is not ready to say so publicly. It is true I have not been inside the negotiating room, but I have heard all the details from my friend and colleague Harry Reid. I have heard the details from those who have been negotiating.

The bottom line is, the number and what composes that number of cuts is virtually agreed to. The only reason there is not a handshake is Speaker Boehner and his representatives do not want it to appear the numbers are signed off on, for two reasons, in my opinion. One, they are afraid what these hard-right colleagues would say, and two, then it would focus everything on their true casus belli, which is the riders.

This is no longer about spending. The hard right in the House of Representatives wants to make this about ideology, injecting last minute ideological add-ons, such as limiting preventive health for women. We have a fiscal crisis in this country, not a social crisis.

Let's not gloss over what is going on. Republicans do not care about reducing the deficit; otherwise, they would not have paraded out a budget this week that ends Medicare for our seniors but protects trillions in tax breaks for corporations and millionaires. Care about deficit reduction, yes, you would want to cut Medicare, but you would also want to make millionaires pay their fair share of taxes because every dollar from the millionaire goes just as much to reducing the deficit as a dollar from Medicare cuts. When you do one and not the other, you do not care about deficit reduction. You may care about shrinking the government. You may wish there is no government at all. That is a perspective of some. But you do not care about deficit reduction.

One of the things that has not been made apparent is cutting government programs to many on the other side of the aisle is not in sync with reducing the deficit, and those two are too often confused.

Why are we here? Why are we on the eve of a shutdown of government which will hurt millions? It is because this hard right in the House of Representatives--some of them members of the tea party, others allies of the tea party--want to satisfy the agenda of the extreme rightwing. And if they do not get everything they want, they have made their desire clear. We do not have to make this up.

Here is Mike Pence, one of the leading Republicans in the House of Representatives, one of the leaders of the tea party caucus. What does he say? ``Shut it down.'' That is what he wants. Either he thinks he is going to get his way by shutting it down--I grew up on the streets in Brooklyn and there were people who thought that just by bullying they could get their way. Shut it down if you do not do it all my way. Bullying does not work, and we will not be bullied. We will not hurt millions of people. We will not abandon our principles because the other side believes we will do whatever they want--falsely believes we will do whatever they want--because otherwise they will shut the government down.

We do not want to shut the government down. I have not heard a single Democrat say what Mike Pence has said. But I have heard lots of Republicans--I heard Sarah Palin talk about the shutdown being a good thing. I heard Newt Gingrich talk about a shutdown being a good thing. I heard some of Mr. Pence's colleagues, probably a dozen or so in the House of Representatives, saying ``shut it down'' is a good thing.

Have you heard a single Democratic elected official say it? No. That alone should tell you who wants to shut the government down or who is willing to shut the government down and who is fighting strongly against it.

They want to shut the government down if they do not get their way. As I said, I have seen people do things like that growing up on the streets of Brooklyn. You know what you learn? If you keep giving in and giving in, they ask for more and more. The way to deal with someone who is attempting to bully you is to stand up to them. We have gone so far in their direction. President Obama said to Speaker Boehner, it is reported: You have gotten three-quarters of what you want. Why don't you declare victory and go home?

We know why Speaker Boehner cannot do that. It is very simple. Because then there would be a rebellion among a key part of his constituency--the hard right, many of them, but not all of them freshmen in the House of Representatives. Most of them have very little experience in government. I daresay most of them do not know the consequences of a government shutdown or the kinds of cuts they are suggesting. But they come in with an ideological narrowness.

When either party lets the extremes dominate, they lose. When Republicans let the hard right dominate, they lose. Frankly, we learned our lesson as Democrats. When we let the hard left dominate, we will lose too because most Americans are somewhere in the middle.

This idea of shutting the government down or of applauding, a standing ovation when the Speaker informs them to begin preparing to shut the government down, I guarantee you it will backfire on the perpetrators, just as it did on Newt Gingrich in 1995. But that is political consolation, small consolation for the damage that will be done to individual people who will lose jobs, to the economy. Just one fact: FHA will not be able to issue any guarantees on new mortgages. FHA issues 80 percent--guarantees 80 percent--of our mortgages, including mortgages for the middle class, the bulk of mortgages. Middle-class people will not be able to take out mortgages. What does that do to our economy and the housing sector?

The Internal Revenue Service will not be able to mail out a good percentage of refunds. What does that do to the economy, when the money is stuck in Washington instead of going back to people who rightfully own it and who

will spend it in the stores and shops and on vacation?

There are other irresponsibilities. We have American troops fighting abroad. We want to make sure they are fully funded. A government shutdown will not do that. Colleagues on the other side are coming up with an unbalanced, short-term extension that funds the troops. Well, I say to my colleagues, if you want to fund the troops--not for 1 week-- don't shut the government down. That is the best way to support our troops.

It is time for Republicans to be responsible. It is time for the majority of Republicans--whom I don't agree with on so many issues, but whom I know are mainstream and don't like this government shutdown--to stand up to those on the hard right, to accept the compromise we are so close to working out and drop the ideological riders so we can move forward.

We are at a crucial time in this country. We have had a rough few years. We are beginning slowly to climb our way out of it. This is risky. A government shutdown is risky. The shame of it all is that it is so easily avoided. All we need, again, is a little bit of strength and courage from the Speaker to tell the hard right in his party, yes, he will try to accommodate some of their needs, but he will not shut the government down; tell them, yes, we do have to cut government spending. And we Democrats--the vast majority of us--agree with that. We don't believe in cutting things such as cancer research or loans that go to students who are going to college, but there is a lot of waste in the government, there is a lot of excess, and we can wring that out without hurting people and reduce our deficit. We agree.

The proposals we have made, including $73 billion below the President's proposal for this year, show we have put our money where our mouth is. But every time we come close to an agreement, Speaker Boehner--not on his own, in my judgment, but pulled by the tea party-- pulls the goalposts back. He pulls them back on the numbers. Although we have gone so far, it is hard for him to do that any longer. But he also does it with these ideological riders.

We are at a sad moment. We are at a time when the continuation of this government--with the hard-working people who compose it--is right on the edge of closing, with untold damage to innocent people. I would ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and in the other body--I would plead with them--let's stop the political games, let's stop the ideological posturing, let's stop thinking it has to be only my way and no one else's. Let's come meet in the middle with a reasonable agreement, keep the government going and move forward to do the things the American people have asked us to do.

I yield the floor, and 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 rise to speak about the current status of the ongoing bipartisan budget talks. We are in a much better place than we were 2 weeks ago. The two sides are much closer than we might be able to tell from the public statements. After 3 months of back and forth, two short-term continuing resolutions containing cuts, and one near collapse of the talks last week, we are finally headed for the homestretch.

Last night, we had a very good meeting with the Vice President. Afterwards, he confirmed that the House Republicans and we in the Senate are, for the first time in these negotiations, working off the same number. As the Vice President said last night, there has been agreement to meet in the middle, around $33 billion in cuts. The Appropriations Committees on both sides are now rolling up their sleeves and getting to work to figure out how to best arrive at that number.

Today, Speaker Boehner said: Nothing is agreed to until everything is agreed to. That is a fair and reasonable position to take. He need not publicly confirm the $33 billion number. But as long as both sides keep their heads down and keep working, a deal is in sight. We are right on the doorstep.

But there are outside forces that do not like this turn of events. Outside the Capitol today, there was a tea party rally staged to pressure Republican leaders not to budge off H.R. 1. They want Speaker Boehner to abandon these talks and hold firm, even if that means a government shut down on April 8. This is a reckless, and, yes, extreme position to take.

Earlier today, the Republican leader came to the floor to defend the tea partiers rallying outside this building. Let me say this. I agree with some of his points. For instance, I agree that the fact that the tea party is so actively participating in our democracy is a good thing. They have strongly held views and they joined the debate. This is as American as it gets.

But the tea party's priorities for our government are wrong. Their priorities are extreme because they are out of step with what most Americans want. Every poll shows Americans want to cut spending but with a smart, sharp scalpel, not a meat ax. They want to eliminate the fat but not cut down into the bone. They want to focus on waste and abuse. They want to cut oil and gas subsidies. They want to end tax breaks for millionaires.

They do not want to cut border security or port security funding that keeps us safe. They do not want to take a meat ax and cut vital education programs. They do not want to end cancer research that could produce research that saves many lives. Most of all, unlike the tea party, most Americans do not want the government to shut down. They want both sides to compromise.

A deal is at hand if Republicans in Congress will tune out the tea party voices that are shouting down any compromise. These tea party voices will only grow louder as we get closer to a deal, and our resolve must remain strong. If the Speaker will reject their calls for a shutdown, we can pass a bipartisan agreement. Many conservatives whom I would otherwise disagree with, agree with me on at least this point.

It was very interesting to see on FOX News yesterday three commentators all on the same show, plainly agreeing it is time to accept a compromise with Democrats to avert a shutdown. Charles Krauthammer was adamant that a shutdown would be avoided and that if the government did shut down, the Republicans would be blamed.

Kirsten Powers, a conservative columnist, said: ``What really should happen is if Boehner could strike a deal with the Blue Dogs and the moderate Dems and just go with the 30 billion with the Senate and just move on.''

Bill Kristol agreed that while Republicans may like to pass a budget solely on their terms with only Republican votes, the reality is, the Speaker would need Democrats to get a deal done.

The tea party may have helped the Republicans win the last election, but they are not helping the Republicans govern. The tea party is a negative force in these talks. But we are close to overcoming this force and cutting a deal.

As the negotiations enter the homestretch, here is how we should define success: First and foremost, a government shutdown should be avoided. We should all agree on that. It bothers me when I hear some on the other side of the aisle or in the tea party say: We should shut down the government to get what we want.

Second, the top-line target for cuts should stay around the level described by the Vice President and that both parties are working off of. This makes complete sense, since $33 billion is the midpoint between the two sides, and it is what Republicans originally wanted in February before the tea party forced them to go higher.

Third, the makeup of the cuts, as I suggested a few weeks ago, should not come only from domestic discretionary spending. We cannot solve our deficit problem by going after only 12 percent of the budget. Mandatory spending cuts must be part of the package, and the higher the package goes, the more the proportion should be tilted in favor of mandatory rather than discretionary spending.

Fourth, the most extreme of the riders cannot be included. There are some riders we can probably agree on. But the EPA measure is not one of them, neither is Planned Parenthood or the other extreme riders that have been so controversial.

I believe we can settle on a few measures that both sides think are OK. But the most extreme ones do not belong in this budget bill. Those are issues that should probably be debated but not as part of a budget and not holding the budget hostage to them. If we can adhere to these tenets, we can have a deal both sides can live with. Time is short, and we need to begin moving on to the pressing matter of the 2012 budget.

Speaking of the 2012 budget, let me say a quick word about that. I saw today that House Republicans planned to unveil their blueprint next week. Interestingly, the report said Republicans no longer plan to cut Social Security benefits as part of that blueprint. They are admitting it is not a major driver of our current deficits. That is true, and this is a positive development.

It comes after many of us on the Democratic side, including Leader Reid and myself, have insisted that Social Security benefits not be cut as part of any deficit-reduction plan. It is good to see that Republicans, including the House Budget chairman, according to the reports in the paper, now agree with us. His original plan called for privatizing the program. I hope we are not going to bring up that again because it will not pass.

But if the House Republicans instead simply insist on balancing the budget on the backs of Medicare recipients instead of Social Security recipients, we will fight them tooth and nail over that too. There has to be give on all sides--shared sacrifice, not just in any one little area.

A lot is at stake in the current year's budgets. But in another sense, it is simply a prelude to the larger discussions ahead. We urge the Speaker to resist the tea party rallies of today and the ones that are to come, to accept the offer on the table on this year's budget, and let us tackle the larger topics that still await us.

I would be happy to yield to my friend from Florida.

My friend makes a good point. In fact, by law, the Social Security system and its pluses and minuses and the Federal Government's budget and its pluses and minuses must be separate. So by definition, by law, the two are separate. Social Security has its liabilities and assets, a big pile of assets over here, and the Federal Government has its liabilities and assets. The twain don't meet. One would think, particularly those who are saying privatize, that their opposition or desire to include Social Security in large-scale budget deficit talks, which we need and which are good--and I commend the group of six for moving forward in this direction--one would think that is an ideological agenda because they simply don't like Social Security and want to change it, privatize it, whatever, rather than any motivation about the deficit.

Then when we see that some of them may want to extend tax breaks for millionaires permanently, which would increase the deficit by a huge amount, and yet at the same time they say: Let's deal with Social Security, let's privatize it, which doesn't have anything to do with the deficit, one scratches one's head and says: I don't think deficit reduction is what is going on here.

I thank my colleague for his erudite question.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from Tennessee. He has been a great partner in this effort. In fact, I would say it was his impetus that brought us here. He had thought about this long and hard and worked on it previously. As usual, it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Alexander on the Rules Committee or anywhere else, and I thank him for spearheading this effort.

I also want to thank the two leaders, Senator Reid, of course, my friend--and I am so proud to work under his leadership--and Senator McConnell. I have to say this: Senator McConnell and I have our differences, but on all of these issues of moving the Senate forward he has been operating in good faith, and his support of this legislation has allowed us to get here.

Also, the committee chair, Senator Lieberman, as well as Ranking Member

Collins, have been equal partners in this legislation, and it will go through their committee.

Finally, I thank all the committee chairs. They have been very understanding of the need to do this. Obviously, committee chairs might say: I want to have before my committee every single person, but ultimately they have realized it slows down the Senate.

While we are introducing the legislation today, a number of committee chairs on our side--probably with the consent of their ranking members--have come to me and said there might be other positions they want to add to the list. That would be a good idea. We have tried to be careful. We do not want to step on any toes or prerogatives. In the past, when this legislation was attempted, people said: Well, just, I don't want this one; I don't want that one. So we were fairly minimal. It will have a real effect on the Senate. It is close to one-third of the appointments. But there may be different committees that say: I don't need to approve this. In my committee, the committee on which I am the chair, the committee on which I am the ranking member, we do not need to approve these five or six more. Add them to your list.

We would hope our committee chairs would do that before the bill is considered because it will be considered by Senator Lieberman's committee, and there they could make such additions.

So let me say this about the process: One of the most important duties of the Senate is the constitutional advice-and-consent power. We were careful to balance this interest with the importance of making the confirmation process more efficient--not only for the benefit of the Senate but as well for the benefit of the administration, its agencies, and, as Senator Alexander so aptly pointed out, for those individuals who are nominated as well.

The Senate was designed to be a thoughtful and deliberative body, but the confirmation process has often become dangerously close to being gridlocked. The American public is harmed when we are not able to get qualified people confirmed to positions in a timely manner. All of the positions covered in this proposal tend to be noncontroversial and more closely resemble appointments that are currently made without Senate approval.

This legislation consists of a stand-alone bill, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act, and a resolution. Senator Alexander touched on the stand-alone bill, which will eliminate from Senate confirmation over 200 executive nomination positions and nearly 3,000 additional officer corps positions. The resolution will create a standing order that will streamline approval of almost 250 part-time board members.

We intend to move both of these pieces together in an effort to reform this process. Together, these two pieces will remove or streamline, as I mentioned, nearly one-third of currently confirmable Senate appointments.

The act will remove the need for confirmation for several categories of positions, including legislative and public affairs positions, chief financial officers, information technology administrators, internal management and administrative positions, and deputies or non-policy- related assistant secretaries who report to individuals who are Senate- confirmed. Removing these positions from Senate confirmation will allow a new administration to be set up with more efficiency and speed, thus making government work better for the people.

In addition, we have removed thousands of positions from the Public Health Service officers corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officer corps in the process. They are noncontroversial, and their removal will help prevent the possibility of further gridlock.

This act will also create a working group--because this is a work in progress, and Senator Alexander has been working on it longer than I have or most of us in this body--that will provide recommendations on the process to further streamline the appointment and confirmation process. The group will make recommendations to the President and the Senate about streamlining the paperwork process for nominees by creating a single, searchable, electronic ``smart form'' and will also conduct a review of the current background investigation requirements.

Senators Lieberman and Collins held a hearing on the confirmations process last month in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will have jurisdiction over this piece of the package. The hearing was extremely helpful to our working group efforts and further highlighted the fact that our system of dealing with executive nominations needs reform.

The resolution piece of the package will create a streamlined process for part-time positions on boards or commissions. A majority of these boards require political balance--a certain number of Democrats and a certain number of Republicans. We are doing this rather than eliminating Senate consideration in its entirety in order to ensure that these politically balanced boards remain bipartisan. This was actually a recommendation, I believe, by Senator McConnell, and I think it is an apt one.

The resolution creates a standing order that will provide for an expedited process for this class of ``privileged nominations'' by creating new pages on the Executive Calendar. When the Senate receives a nomination from the President, it will be placed on a new section on the Executive Calendar called ``Privileged Nomination--Information Requested'' while the nominee submits paperwork to the committee of jurisdiction. When the chair of that committee certifies that all committee questionnaires have been received from the nominee, the nomination will be placed on the ``Privileged Nomination--Information Received'' section of the Executive Calendar.

As Senator Alexander mentioned, after 10 session days, the nomination is placed on the full Executive Calendar and will await action by the full Senate, with the presumption that these positions will be passed by unanimous consent. So any single Senator can object, although we doubt in almost every case that any will.

From the beginning of the process until the expiration of 10 session days, any Member can request on his or her own behalf or on behalf of any identified Member that the nomination be referred to committee. We think that incorporating this safeguard is in line with our elimination of secret holds earlier this year.

The presumption for these part-time positions is, as I said, that they will be approved by unanimous consent and not be held up as part of other battles or leverage or whatever else.

This resolution would come before the Rules Committee, which Senator Alexander and I lead, and we hope to take action on it very soon. We are confident this package will eliminate many of the delays in the current confirmation process. These delays are very detrimental to the efficient operation of government and to the efforts to recruit the most qualified people to these Federal jobs.

The package we propose today is the first step in protecting the American people's interests in having a newly elected President move quickly and efficiently to set up a government.

Before I yield the floor, I note that the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Udall, in his impetus to reform the Senate, can claim some credit for this move as well.

We are introducing this bipartisan legislation--Senator Alexander and myself, along with Senators Reid, McConnell, Collins, Lieberman, and I think about eight or nine other cosponsors as well--this afternoon.

Mr. President, first, I thank my colleague from Tennessee. He has been a great partner in this effort. In fact, I would say it was his impetus that brought us here. He had thought about this long and hard and worked on it previously. As usual, it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Alexander on the Rules Committee or anywhere else, and I thank him for spearheading this effort.

I also want to thank the two leaders, Senator Reid, of course, my friend--and I am so proud to work under his leadership--and Senator McConnell. I have to say this: Senator McConnell and I have our differences, but on all of these issues of moving the Senate forward he has been operating in good faith, and his support of this legislation has allowed us to get here.

Also, the committee chair, Senator Lieberman, as well as Ranking Member

Collins, have been equal partners in this legislation, and it will go through their committee.

Finally, I thank all the committee chairs. They have been very understanding of the need to do this. Obviously, committee chairs might say: I want to have before my committee every single person, but ultimately they have realized it slows down the Senate.

While we are introducing the legislation today, a number of committee chairs on our side--probably with the consent of their ranking members--have come to me and said there might be other positions they want to add to the list. That would be a good idea. We have tried to be careful. We do not want to step on any toes or prerogatives. In the past, when this legislation was attempted, people said: Well, just, I don't want this one; I don't want that one. So we were fairly minimal. It will have a real effect on the Senate. It is close to one-third of the appointments. But there may be different committees that say: I don't need to approve this. In my committee, the committee on which I am the chair, the committee on which I am the ranking member, we do not need to approve these five or six more. Add them to your list.

We would hope our committee chairs would do that before the bill is considered because it will be considered by Senator Lieberman's committee, and there they could make such additions.

So let me say this about the process: One of the most important duties of the Senate is the constitutional advice-and-consent power. We were careful to balance this interest with the importance of making the confirmation process more efficient--not only for the benefit of the Senate but as well for the benefit of the administration, its agencies, and, as Senator Alexander so aptly pointed out, for those individuals who are nominated as well.

The Senate was designed to be a thoughtful and deliberative body, but the confirmation process has often become dangerously close to being gridlocked. The American public is harmed when we are not able to get qualified people confirmed to positions in a timely manner. All of the positions covered in this proposal tend to be noncontroversial and more closely resemble appointments that are currently made without Senate approval.

This legislation consists of a stand-alone bill, the Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act, and a resolution. Senator Alexander touched on the stand-alone bill, which will eliminate from Senate confirmation over 200 executive nomination positions and nearly 3,000 additional officer corps positions. The resolution will create a standing order that will streamline approval of almost 250 part-time board members.

We intend to move both of these pieces together in an effort to reform this process. Together, these two pieces will remove or streamline, as I mentioned, nearly one-third of currently confirmable Senate appointments.

The act will remove the need for confirmation for several categories of positions, including legislative and public affairs positions, chief financial officers, information technology administrators, internal management and administrative positions, and deputies or non-policy- related assistant secretaries who report to individuals who are Senate- confirmed. Removing these positions from Senate confirmation will allow a new administration to be set up with more efficiency and speed, thus making government work better for the people.

In addition, we have removed thousands of positions from the Public Health Service officers corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officer corps in the process. They are noncontroversial, and their removal will help prevent the possibility of further gridlock.

This act will also create a working group--because this is a work in progress, and Senator Alexander has been working on it longer than I have or most of us in this body--that will provide recommendations on the process to further streamline the appointment and confirmation process. The group will make recommendations to the President and the Senate about streamlining the paperwork process for nominees by creating a single, searchable, electronic ``smart form'' and will also conduct a review of the current background investigation requirements.

Senators Lieberman and Collins held a hearing on the confirmations process last month in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will have jurisdiction over this piece of the package. The hearing was extremely helpful to our working group efforts and further highlighted the fact that our system of dealing with executive nominations needs reform.

The resolution piece of the package will create a streamlined process for part-time positions on boards or commissions. A majority of these boards require political balance--a certain number of Democrats and a certain number of Republicans. We are doing this rather than eliminating Senate consideration in its entirety in order to ensure that these politically balanced boards remain bipartisan. This was actually a recommendation, I believe, by Senator McConnell, and I think it is an apt one.

The resolution creates a standing order that will provide for an expedited process for this class of ``privileged nominations'' by creating new pages on the Executive Calendar. When the Senate receives a nomination from the President, it will be placed on a new section on the Executive Calendar called ``Privileged Nomination--Information Requested'' while the nominee submits paperwork to the committee of jurisdiction. When the chair of that committee certifies that all committee questionnaires have been received from the nominee, the nomination will be placed on the ``Privileged Nomination--Information Received'' section of the Executive Calendar.

As Senator Alexander mentioned, after 10 session days, the nomination is placed on the full Executive Calendar and will await action by the full Senate, with the presumption that these positions will be passed by unanimous consent. So any single Senator can object, although we doubt in almost every case that any will.

From the beginning of the process until the expiration of 10 session days, any Member can request on his or her own behalf or on behalf of any identified Member that the nomination be referred to committee. We think that incorporating this safeguard is in line with our elimination of secret holds earlier this year.

The presumption for these part-time positions is, as I said, that they will be approved by unanimous consent and not be held up as part of other battles or leverage or whatever else.

This resolution would come before the Rules Committee, which Senator Alexander and I lead, and we hope to take action on it very soon. We are confident this package will eliminate many of the delays in the current confirmation process. These delays are very detrimental to the efficient operation of government and to the efforts to recruit the most qualified people to these Federal jobs.

The package we propose today is the first step in protecting the American people's interests in having a newly elected President move quickly and efficiently to set up a government.

Before I yield the floor, I note that the Senator from New Mexico, Mr. Udall, in his impetus to reform the Senate, can claim some credit for this move as well.

We are introducing this bipartisan legislation--Senator Alexander and myself, along with Senators Reid, McConnell, Collins, Lieberman, and I think about eight or nine other cosponsors as well--this afternoon.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 10:30 p.m. in SR 328A.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 10 a.m. in Dirksen 406.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 10 a.m. in 215 Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``How Do Complexity, Uncertainty and Other Factors Impact Responses to Tax Incentives?''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Ten Years After 9/11: A Report From the 9/11 Commission Chairmen.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Securing the Border: Building on the Progress Made.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 30, 2011, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on March 30, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Nominations.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011. The Committee will meet in room SD-106 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building beginning at 10:30 a.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on National Parks be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 2:30 p.m., in room 366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces of the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on March 30, 2011, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

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