Floor Statements

Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes off the resolution to my friend and colleague, Senator Mikulski, the chair of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. President, how many minutes are remaining on our side?

Thank you, Mr. President.

We have heard a great deal about balance in the debates on the Senate floor. As we move toward voting on a budget resolution, I just want to remind all of us in this Chamber today to keep in mind that a balanced path forward has broad support across all of America. Folks are looking for us to take a path toward steady and responsible deficit reduction, investing in growing our economy, investing in helping our private sector grow good jobs, while still honoring the pledges we have made to America's veterans, to our seniors, to those who rely on some of our most important and most treasured Federal programs--Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.

There is a sharp contrast--and that contrast will be clear and clearer as this day goes on--between the values embedded in the Ryan budget, passed by the House, and the budget led ably by Chairman Murray and the Senate Democrats in the Budget Committee that will be taken up later today. We will be considering dozens, perhaps hundreds, of amendments that will touch on a very wide range of issues--from paycheck fairness and gender equity, as referenced by Senator Mikulski just a few moments ago, to issues very widely ranging--ones that I have helped champion on the Budget Committee that would increase investment in manufacturing, making sure that our manufacturing sector is more competitive; ones that allow us to strengthen our R&D sector, strengthen our education sector; ones that ensure we preserve and protect these valued Medicare and Medicaid programs that I referenced.

More than anything, at the end of the day I think the challenge to all of us is to help the American people understand the fundamental difference in values reflected in these two different budgets.

I know I will be joined in just a few minutes by colleagues who are coming to speak to that point, to help lay out for the American people the fundamental difference between these two budgets. But if I might, sort of at the highest level for a moment, I want to remind folks who might be watching, folks in the Chamber, that a budget resolution is quite different from the budgets that, Mr. President, you might have been used to as a Governor, that others of us were used to from the private sector or from State or county or city governments.

A budget resolution does not have every single item to be spent by this government in great detail. As State budgets are submitted to general assemblies or legislatures, they typically have exactly how the State will spend its funds in the year ahead in enormous detail. This budget resolution sets a framework. It sets sort of top-level spending targets and then directs the committees of jurisdiction to achieve either changes to the Tax Code in the Finance Committee or changes to vital programs in other committees, whether Defense or HELP or others.

So when we talk often about the values embedded in a budget resolution, that is, in part, because a budget resolution is just the beginning of a regular order, healthy budget process. It then has to be complemented with authorization bills and with appropriations bills.

But if you compare the budget resolution that has already been adopted in the House, and that was rejected by a vote on the floor last night, with the budget resolution that has come out of the Senate Budget Committee, I think you see a few simple, stark differences. Both budget resolutions raise a significant amount of revenue through tax reform by closing so-called tax loopholes or cutting spending through the Tax Code. This is spending that is not reviewed every year. This is spending that often has been stuck into the Tax Code through the efforts of the wealthy and well-connected powerful interests in our country, that does not get reviewed every year. It is time for us to look seriously at our Tax Code to make it leaner, easier to understand, easier to enforce, more efficient, and to make our country more competitive.

But a core question we have to address is, To what end do we put the revenue raised through changes to our Tax Code? In the House budget resolution, they raise, if I remember, roughly $5.7 trillion over the 10-year budget period--all of which is dedicated to reducing the tax rates on the wealthiest Americans and on the most profitable corporations, reducing rates on corporations and individuals.

The much smaller amount raised in our budget plan--$975 billion over 10 years, through cutting spending through the Tax Code--is dedicated to deficit reduction.

The balanced path we have talked about--that balances reduction in the deficit through new revenue raised by reforms to the Tax Code with comparable spending reductions across all areas of our budget--is the sort of balanced plan that was on the ballot, that was a critical part of the 2012 election process, and that I frankly think the American people have broadly embraced.

We have put forward a budget that meets the values agenda that our Democratic Budget Committee stands behind: to invest in critical areas of our economy, whether infrastructure, education, or R&D; to help lift the private sector and help grow jobs again; to keep our most vital commitments to seniors and to veterans and to those most at risk in our society, while still making responsible, steady progress toward reducing our crippling deficit and debt. We get the deficit down to less than 3 percent of GDP. At the end of the 10-year period, we stabilize our publicly held debt at 70 percent of GDP. These are the targets broadly agreed on by every major bipartisan group that has looked at the challenges facing the United States, our economy, and our budget.

I will remind you that the Bowles-Simpson Commission--a bipartisan commission--came up with a rough target of $4 trillion in savings over a decade. This plan, this budget resolution, would achieve--in fact, would exceed--that target in a way that has balance and, I believe, is responsible.

I would be happy to talk further then, if I might, Mr. President, about some of the other issues contained both within our budget resolution and, in contrast, within the budget resolution coming over from the House.

As a number of my colleagues have spoken about movingly on the Senate floor in recent days, one of the most important differences is in the future of the fundamental entitlement programs that are a part of the progressive legacy of FDR and LBJ and that were put in place with both Republicans and Democrats over many years, strengthening and sustaining them. We see a fundamental difference in direction between what has happened in the House and what we have proposed in the Senate.

To put it simply, in the House they would change Medicare from a Federal guarantee, from a program that provides health care to millions of Americans, to a voucher program, one where what the Federal Government provides is not a guarantee but premium support, a voucher, something that would shift costs onto seniors, onto States, and onto communities. In Medicaid, in my view, even worse--because it supports the most vulnerable in our country--they would turn it into a block grant. This would shift more than $800 billion onto the balance sheets of States.

To talk further about these important differences and the values between the House and the Senate budgets, and to talk about its impact on the future of the United States, I yield 7 minutes to my colleague from the State of Rhode Island, Senator Whitehouse.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from Vermont.

If I might, I simply wanted to reassure those who might be watching in the Chamber the Democratic budget and resolution which is pending on the floor reflects some of our most fundamental values and makes responsible progress toward reducing our deficit. We have already done more than $2.4 trillion toward deficit reduction since the time the Bowles-Simpson Commission suggested an overall target in reduction of $4 trillion in Federal spending. With this additional $1.85 trillion, we will get to about $4.25 trillion. We are making responsible progress.

As my colleague from Vermont and many others have come to the floor and spoken about, we need to do this in a way which still keeps our commitments to America's seniors, America's veterans, and the most low- income and vulnerable in our communities. We need to do it in a way which both stabilizes our deficit and debt, makes critical investments in growing our economy, and preserves the core of the programs on which Americans rely.

This is not just about numbers, it is also about values. It is also about priorities.

If I might, before I yield to the full committee chair, I wish to say I am grateful to Chairman Murray for everything she has done to bring us to this point. In the 3 years in which I have served in the Senate as a member of the Budget Committee, we have not had a budget resolution on this floor.

The very difficult and very long process we are about to go through may be a reminder of how challenging legislative compromise can be. It is my hope we may engage in a thorough and vigorous debate and yet by the end of this legislative day we will have a budget out of the Senate.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a colloquy for up to 30 minutes with Senators from California, New York, Illinois, and Maryland.

Mr. President, at its heart a budget is a statement of values. Last week I joined with my colleagues on the Budget Committee to pass a budget resolution firmly rooted in our values.

With appreciation to the chairmanship of Chairman Patty Murray, the budget we passed reduces our deficit and stabilizes our debt in a balanced, responsible way, relying on an equal mix of spending cuts and cuts to spending through the Tax Code, which is a balance of cuts and increased revenue through tax reform.

This first chart briefly shows we have made significant progress toward the Simpson-Bowles goal of $4 trillion in reduced Federal spending over the next 10 years. Our budget relies on these two next pieces, reducing loopholes, tax expenditures, and spending cuts. This is the balance I believe the American people called for in the last election.

Our budget promotes economic growth and job creation in the short term, makes critical investments in our competitiveness for the long term. It does all of this while putting a circle of protection around the most vulnerable in our society: children, low-income seniors, and the disabled.

Unfortunately, in my view the budget resolution passed by the House Budget Committee, led by Chairman Ryan, does not reflect these same values or this same balance. It is wildly unbalanced, relying only on spending cuts in order to achieve claims of enormous savings.

Yet when you look closer--and we will turn to this in more detail later in this colloquy--the Ryan budget actually relies on a whole series of deceptive gimmicks, impossible arithmetic, and unrealistic assumptions. The only way to make the Ryan budget add up is to increase our deficit or to raise taxes on the middle class by as much as $3,000 a year.

In my view, the House Republican budget either fails the test of deficit reduction or fails the test of basic fairness. It also, I believe, fails the test of economic growth and would put us on a fast track to austerity.

Let me turn now, if I might, to my friend and colleague from the State of Maryland to ask for his further comments on the contrast between the budget we have adopted here in the Senate and the budget offered over in the House.

Senator Cardin.

I thank the Senator for his comments and for his leadership in the Budget Committee and his hard work in the Chamber over many years.

The budget we are bringing forward to this floor today is one that invests in growing the American economy; that gives us a real path forward toward out-educating, out-innovating, and out-building our competitors globally; and one that is focused on job creation but also on deficit reduction in a responsible and balanced way. In my view, the Ryan Republican budget, if adopted, would give us a cure worse than the disease.

To talk about the budget's impact on America's treasured entitlement programs and the promises we have made to our veterans and our seniors, I am grateful to turn to my friend and colleague, Senator Boxer of California, who has joined us.

I thank my good friend from California and the other members of the Budget Committee who have worked so hard to pull together this proposal, this package, this budget resolution that comes to the Senate floor today.

I think this is a great week for the Congress. We are at last, in stark contrast, presenting to the people of the United States a budget path forward adopted by the Republican-led House and a budget path forward adopted by the Democrat-led Budget Committee. Hopefully, this will not just be debated but adopted in this Chamber this week.

Let me briefly summarize the main points made by my colleagues. First, as the Senator from California emphasized, one of the core elements of the Ryan budget plan that gives us real pause and concern is that it doesn't keep our promises to our seniors, to our veterans, and to our most vulnerable populations.

It block grants Medicaid, it repeals the health care law's expansion of Medicaid, it repeals the health care's law exchange subsidies, and, more important than anything else, it turns Medicare into a voucher program. These are fundamental changes.

When Chairman Murray began our deliberations as a budget committee, she laid out three core values she wanted us to keep in mind; that our budget resolution should, first, help grow the economy and help the private sector create jobs, and I believe it does that by prioritizing critical investments in infrastructure, in education, and in R&D; second, to keep our promises to our seniors, to our veterans, to those in our country to whom we have made commitments over decades--something I would add, that we also continue to respect and embrace a circle of protection for the most vulnerable in our society; and last, that we make credible progress toward reducing our deficit and debt but in a sustainable way that allows us to continue to grow our economy from the middle out.

Let me turn for a few minutes to some criticisms or challenges that

many of us on the Democratic side of the Senate have of the Ryan Republican budget. Briefly, it relies on outlandishly rosy assumptions about revenue and spending levels. It counts $716 billion in Medicare savings from the very health care reform law it says is repealed, and that tension within the Ryan budget is irresolvable.

Third, $810 billion in Medicaid savings are just cost-shifted onto the State governments. As we know, States all across this country are struggling to balance their budgets today. These costs are not trimmed. They are simply shifted from the Federal Government onto the States.

Fourth, Ryan relies on $800 billion in undefined savings in mandatory programs, significant cuts that would have dramatic and negative impacts on our country and on our economy. There is $800 billion in cuts that he doesn't specify out of his total $962 billion in overall savings to so-called other mandatory spending.

Last, Ryan claims his tax cuts for the wealthy--which cost more than $4.5 trillion--wouldn't add to the deficit. To give some visual sense of the likely impact, it is anything but balanced. While Ryan claims his budget plan would balance the budget--and I challenge that assumption, given all these different mathematical and programmatic challenges--it is also doing it in a way that is fundamentally unbalanced and that doesn't respect our core values. To double down on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, to give an additional tax break of more than one-quarter million dollars a year to the very wealthiest Americans while shifting that tax burden onto the middle class doesn't make sense. It doesn't meet the test of fairness and it doesn't meet the test of sustaining economic growth in a balanced way.

Last year, the independent Tax Policy Center analyzed the Ryan rate reduction, the proposal to reduce rates on the wealthiest Americans to 25 percent, and estimated that unless those costs were offset with corresponding tax hikes, it would add $4.5 trillion to our deficit.

So which one is it? Does the plan shift tax burden to middle-class Americans as was described in some detail by my colleagues or does it actually add to the deficit and fail the test of balance?

Let me move then to the question of revenue and how our budget package achieves some contribution to balance going forward. One of the things that I think is important for folks watching the difference between these two plans to grasp is that both plans make significant changes to what my colleague from Maryland talked about as spending through the Tax Code.

We spend almost as much as we receive in revenue through a Tax Code that, in the many years since 1986, has become riddled with loopholes, exemptions, and special treatments, particularly for the wealthiest and best connected. Both plans--the Ryan plan in the House and the Democratic plan in the Senate--both close tax loopholes. Out of an estimated $14 trillion in these tax expenditures over the next decade, the Ryan plan actually cuts $5.7 trillion. The Democratic plan that we are moving forward today only cuts 7 percent of these tax expenditures. That is how I think we can credibly say it would not cut into those tax expenditures relied on by the middle class--things such as the home mortgage deduction, the deduction for employer-provided health care, the deduction for charitable contributions. This 7-percent reduction in tax expenditures is much more modest than the significant amount of revenue raised in the Republican plan.

The more important contrast, though, is to what end. What do we do with these two significant differences in revenue raised through closing tax loopholes? As I said a few minutes ago, the Ryan plan would dedicate it almost exclusively to reducing tax rates for corporations and the wealthiest Americans while, in our balanced plan, this is half of the total contributions we make toward deficit reduction.

Let me move toward a close with a few conclusory comments. There are reasons to say the House Republican plan makes cuts that will grind our economy to a halt, makes cuts that are unduly focused on just those areas that we think deserve investment: research and development, infrastructure, education, public health. In my view, it wipes out the chance for us to continue to expand high-tech manufacturing to ensure that we have a more competitive economy, to cure life-threatening diseases, and to bring America's economy fully back to health. It relies on budget gimmicks and on faulty assumptions. In my view, the plan we move forward today is a more balanced and responsible path forward to keeping our promises to seniors and veterans, to protecting the most vulnerable in our society, to dealing with our deficit and debt, and to moving this country forward.

The future that our budget plan would move us toward is the kind I envision for my kids, for my State, and for our country--one where we can grow our economy but continue to respect our most basic values.

Even though the Ryan plan, in my view, fails a basic test of values, it also fails a basic test of balance. We have a budget that this body will take up and consider today and I hope we will pass. As it passed out of committee with the strong leadership of Chairman Murray, I am confident it will pass out of this Chamber today. From that passage, it is my hope that people of the United States can see us begin to work together on a balanced bipartisan plan that will responsibly deal with our deficit and debt, grow our economy but continue to respect our most fundamental values.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted to endorse a bill I introduced that would add approximately 9 miles of White Clay Creek and its tributaries to the existing Wild and Scenic Rivers designation for the waterway. The White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River Expansion Act of 2013 (S.393) now awaits consideration by the full Senate, which passed this legislation with bipartisan support during the 112th Congress.

Growing up, I spent considerable time in the White Clay Creek watershed and know that it is an important resource for Delaware and the region. Years ago, my grandmother donated some of her land along the banks of White Clay Creek to help protect it. It is up to all of us to fight to protect our natural resources. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues to get this legislation passed by the full Senate.

The legislation, which comes at no cost to taxpayers, would expand the original Wild and Scenic Rivers designation to include two small stream sections that were omitted from the original designation, including a 1.6-mile stretch of Lamborn Run in Delaware that was originally omitted due to its consideration as an option for a dam to supply drinking water for northern Delaware. It has since been removed from consideration and New Castle County is supportive of the designation.

The bill also includes a 7.4-mile stretch of stream in Pennsylvania's New Garden Township that was originally omitted due to its consideration for a dam. That consideration has since been withdrawn and the township is now supportive of the designation.

In February, Representative Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.) and I reintroduced the White Clay Creek Wild and Scenic River Expansion Act in our respective chambers. Senator Tom Carper, as well as Rep. John Carney are cosponsors.

In 2000, Congress designated a large majority of White Clay Creek and its tributaries as part of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Then-Senator Joe Biden was the lead sponsor for the Senate bill and Representative Mike Castle was the lead sponsor for the House version. This marked the first time a whole watershed, rather than individual river segments, had been designated into the system. The proposal to expand the designation was led by former Senator Ted Kaufman in the Senate and Representative Pitts in the House.

The 69,000-acre White Clay Creek watershed is home to 33 species of mammals, 21 species of fish, 27 species of reptiles and amphibians, and over 90 species of birds. White Clay Creek is also stocked with brown and rainbow trout, and is an important resource for fishermen. Protected land in the watershed also provides recreational opportunities for hikers, bikers, birders, hunters, and others. White Clay Creek and the Cockeysville aquifer that lies beneath portions of the watershed are important sources of drinking water for over 128,000 citizens in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The bill is supported by the White Clay Creek Watershed Management Committee, which is comprised of 40 local, State, and Federal agency representatives, as well as organizations and businesses. Among its members are the National Park Service, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, New Castle County Department of Land Use, London Britain Township, United Water Delaware, White Clay Outfitters, the Brandywine Conservancy, the Delaware Ornithological Society, Stroud Water Research Center, Chester County Planning Division, and SE Regional Office Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources.

The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources also voted to pass the First State National Historical Park Act (S. 347), a bill authored by Senator Carper, of which I am an original cosponsor. I was proud to lead my colleagues on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in voting to bring Delaware one step closer to its first national park. For more than a decade, Senator Carper has worked tirelessly to bring a national park to our State. A national park will preserve and celebrate our State's vibrant history while boosting Delaware's economy and creating jobs. Senator Carper and I will continue to work together toward passage in the full Senate.

Madam President, seeing the press of business here, I will be brief. I wanted to take the opportunity to rise and simply speak to the importance of the poultry industry, something that spreads across the Delmarva Peninsula and is central to the State of Maryland, State of Delaware, and many other States in our country.

With the sequester having kicked in, many of us who are from States that have livestock or poultry processing are aware of the impending and significant negative impact on our home States and our economies, on people's employment, and on their opportunity to continue to support their families. So I wanted to briefly speak in support of what I know are Senator Mikulski's tireless efforts to ensure that the 6,200 meat and poultry processing plants in this country do not get needlessly shut down.

In the last quarter of the last calendar year alone, 2.2 billion chickens and turkeys were inspected by the meat inspectors of the Food Safety and Inspection Service. This poultry industry, which is nationwide, provides vital employment to the people of Delaware, Maryland, and many other States.

Secretary Vilsack of the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that furloughs, if implemented, of these safety inspectors could cost $10 billion a year in losses and $400 million a year in lost wages just for those directly employed.

The private sector grows and the private sector has opportunity when Federal inspectors are a part of the total ecosystem of poultry in this country. We raise great turkeys, we raise great chickens in this country. We have the world's leading poultry industry, but the Food Safety and Inspection Service is a vital part of it.

I commend Senator Mikulski for her tireless effort to make sure we find some responsible way through the sequester to ensure it does not needlessly harm and put out of work the tens of thousands of Delawareans and Marylanders who rely on this vital industry for their opportunities going forward.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to reflect on how we can do what we so often say we want to do here in the Senate, and that is to help grow our American economy, to help create jobs for people from our home States and from all across our country.

Yesterday, in my State of Delaware, I cohosted with my congressional colleagues a job fair--a job fair where 1,300 people showed up. They showed up early, stayed late, and interviewed for jobs with dozens of employers. It was a personal reminder of how many people in my home State and across this great country of ours continue to look for work in this recovery that is still too slow. It is a reminder that one of our core challenges in the government is to do what we can to create an environment of opportunity and an environment of economic growth where the people we work for have a shot at a better job.

One of the things I think we can do is to seize opportunities in the global markets, because 95 percent of consumers worldwide actually live beyond our borders. As the chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I wanted to take some time today to draw the attention of those in this Chamber and those who watch us around the country to the enormous opportunity presented by the continent of Africa.

Too often the impression of Africa in the American media and in the popular imagination is one that focuses on crises--on very real humanitarian or security crises--in a few countries such as Somalia or Mali or Congo. The average American, the average Member of this Chamber, often overlooks a changed reality in the last decade--a decade in which 6 of the 10 fastest growing economies on Earth were in sub- Saharan Africa. In fact, studies show in the decades to come that number will simply increase to seven.

So what are we to make of all this opportunity in Africa? There are some Fortune 500 companies--well-known household names such as Coca- Cola, Caterpillar, DuPont-Pioneer--that have seen this opportunity and are taking advantage of it. They have recognized a vast and rapidly growing middle class in countries such as Nigeria, Chad, Ethiopia, and Rwanda--not exactly household name countries and not exactly countries the average American thinks of as having great world markets. But these companies have penetrated these markets and have recognized the opportunity that lies within.

It is important they have done that in no small part with help from the U.S. Government. But as I held two hearings last year on this subcommittee, and we met--the folks who work with me and myself--with folks from think tanks and from companies and embassies, we realized we could do this better; we could be more streamlined, more targeted, and more focused in the work we are doing to take advantage of this remarkable opportunity.

It is also, frankly, in our strategic national interest for us to do a better job of promoting U.S.-Africa trade, because as African economies grow, it promotes free markets, democratic values, good governance, and stability in African countries. And by ensuring these countries and the regions are stable and economically vibrant, we reduce the number of times we are drawn into humanitarian crises or security crises and we improve the lot of hundreds of millions of Africans who then go on in a virtuous cycle of building their trade relationships with us.

As I have heard time after time, it takes firsthand personal engagement, it takes trade missions, it takes being there in person to grasp the scope of the opportunities and to respond to them responsibly. To do that well, it takes American diplomats and American representatives there on the ground.

I won't soon forget meeting with a head of state in West Africa on a trip with another Senator last year, and he asked us why America isn't more present; why we don't send more trade delegations. He said, the Brazilians were here last week, the Indians are coming next week, and the Chinese practically live here. As I have learned in the past year, we are not doing enough as a country, as a government, as a Congress to promote investments and to see this opportunity for what it is.

Well, others have seen the opportunity and have seized it. Just to pick one, China has actually exceeded the United States in terms of its total amount of exports to Africa of just a few short years ago. It has rocketed past us. The amount of foreign direct investment, the amount of export and import sales between China and Africa has grown dramatically. In fact, it has grown far more rapidly than the United States. Even though we have longstanding and positive relationships, I fear we will wake up and discover that China has secured long-term contracts that lock in their interests for decades and lock out American companies, American employers, and American interests.

The World Bank recently predicted Africa is on the verge of a takeoff, much as we saw happen in the Pacific Rim or in India or in Central America over the last 20 years. In my view, we have to engage now. When we grow our exports to parts of the world such as Africa, it grows American jobs and high-quality jobs. Every billion dollars in exports we send overseas supports another 5,000 U.S. jobs. Last year, U.S. exports overseas supported more than 7 million jobs.

I salute the initiative of the President and the Department of Commerce which are focused on trying to do more business with Africa, and to do it more wisely. But, frankly, we need to do more. So as chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa of the Foreign Relations Committee, along with my friend and partner in the last Congress, Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, I convened a series of hearings to focus on U.S. economic statecraft in Africa, to gather data, to have conversations, and to learn the facts about what we need to do to be more competitive.

I have released a report today called ``Embracing Africa's Economic Potential,'' which offers concrete recommendations to the U.S. Government--actions we can take right now, often in partnership with our private sector and with African governments, to strengthen our trade relationship between the United States and the countries of sub- Saharan Africa. Anyone interested can download a copy at coons.senate.gov/africa. Our report makes six recommendations, none of which involves spending a single dime of additional taxpayer money. In fact, it recommends ways to use what money we already spend on exploring and expanding into the market of Africa more efficiently and more effectively. So let's look at the recommendations in the report.

First, it suggests we work with our African partners to remove barriers to trade. Trade is impeded in Africa by everything from poor governance, unreliable infrastructure, complex tariffs, to corruption. There are solutions the United States has already offered and there are efforts already underway by American businesses in partnership with our African partners. In particular, USAID has set up regional trade hubs that have done great work in breaking through barriers to growing regional trade. But we can and should do more.

Second, reauthorize and strengthen the African Growth and Opportunity Act, better known as AGOA, in advance of its expiration in 2015. This legislation has been hugely successful in promoting African exports into the American market and in building mutually reinforcing relationships between the United States and the continent. I think we can do even more to create jobs both in the United States and Africa by diversifying products covered by AGOA, by improving its utilization by African countries, by ensuring its benefits are mutually beneficial between our country and Africa, and by not waiting until the 11th hour to act on reauthorization.

Senator Isakson, and many in this Chamber, worked very hard to secure reauthorization of the third country fabric provision of AGOA last year, but it took longer than it should have and it was more difficult than it needed to be. It is my hope, working together with colleagues here and in the House, we can get a jump on this in advance of 2015.

The third recommendation is to improve coordination between the many U.S. Government agencies working on trade policy to develop a comprehensive strategy for investment in sub-Saharan Africa. As many as 10 different Federal agencies are responsible for parts of trade policy and international development. So making sure they are working together efficiently is a good way for us to ensure success.

Fourth, we need to increase the presence of the U.S. Foreign Commercial Service in critical areas in the region. This chart shows those countries that have the fastest growing economies, and these are the few places where we have representatives from USAID or from the Department of Commerce.

In short, my point is there are many countries that have strongly growing economies where we have no representation. We have, in fact, zero U.S. Foreign Commercial Service officers in five of the six countries listed here as having the fastest growing economies. In fact, we only have six officers in all of sub-Saharan Africa, compared with significantly higher numbers in Asia and elsewhere.

I am concerned the reason for this is that Commerce isn't forward looking in its resource allocation and doesn't see the scale of the opportunities in Africa. Although I was grateful that Acting Secretary Blank made a trade mission trip to Africa late last year, that was the first time in a decade a U.S. Secretary of Commerce had made a visit to the continent, and there is much more we need to do.

Our fifth recommendation is to bolster support for the agencies that finance and support U.S. commercial engagement overseas, particularly in Africa. These agencies, the Export-Import Bank--known as Ex-Im--and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, known as OPIC--issue political risk insurance and help with financing, particularly financing to markets where they don't yet have a robust banking sector and where the rule of law is less certain. These agencies are smart investments that actually generate real returns for American taxpayers and contribute to the bottom line for the American Federal Government.

Our sixth and last recommendation is to engage the community of African-born individuals who now live in the United States--the so- called diaspora communities--to strengthen economic ties. Who better to serve as an American representative of the system, and who better to take on the spirit of entrepreneurship and penetrate African markets than those born, raised, or connected to African countries and who have been educated in the United States and have been successful here and now have the resources and opportunity to reconnect with their countries of origin or the countries of their families. We can and must do more to strengthen these resources, and I was pleased to get a chance to speak at the second annual diaspora conference hosted by the Department of State last year. It is my hope we will invest further in this untapped resource--something that distinguishes the United States from our competitors in other parts of the world who do not have the blessing of a strong diaspora community as we do.

So in short, each of these six recommendations will get us closer to our goal of a more vibrant, a faster growing and more sustainable U.S.- Africa trade relationship. But the key to implementing these recommendations in an integrated way is to listen to each other, to embrace them, and move forward across the several committees of jurisdiction, across the 10 different Federal agencies and entities, and to develop a coordinated plan for taking advantage of this remarkable part of the world that can also grow American jobs.

We have an opportunity to seize this moment and to promote economic engagement, to strengthen the American economy and to advance the values of freedom and democracy around the world. Make no mistake, though, today we are falling short. We are failing to grasp this opportunity as strongly and clearly as our competitors are. We can act on a number of smart legislative proposals, including the Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act, which I cosponsored in the last Congress along with Senators Durbin and Bozeman, and which I hope we will reintroduce shortly to establish a comprehensive U.S. strategy for public-private investment, trade, and development in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the administration can, and I hope will, do more to coordinate strategy and use our resources effectively.

The report we have issued today I hope will be seen as a wake-up call. If we fail, we will wake up 10 years from now and we will see jobs and opportunities we might have grasped taken by our competitors. It is my hope we will not watch these opportunities pass us by but will, instead, take advantage of this remarkable moment and this great opportunity.

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

Mr. President, today I wish to pay tribute Judge Leonard L. Williams, a great Delawarean who passed away this past weekend at the age of 78. Judge Williams was a respected attorney and judge in Wilmington, as well as a pioneer for civil rights and racial equality in our State. It is a fitting tribute the flags in Wilmington were lowered to half-staff in his honor.

Judge Williams was a towering figure in Delaware history, but to my wife, Annie, and me, he was first and foremost a beloved neighbor. Judge Williams lived down the street from us on Woodlawn Avenue and was always quick with a honk and a wave when he drove by in his truck. We will miss his fellowship and his kindness.

When he passed away this weekend, I was in Alabama attending the Faith and Politics Institute's Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage led by Representative John Lewis. There is poetry in the timing, as Judge Williams' lifetime commitment to the civil rights movement continually reminded me that our country's great promise cannot be truly realized until full equality is achieved.

In his youth, Judge Williams worked as a clerk at a store on Market Street in Wilmington. One day he witnessed a robbery and needed to appear in municipal court to give his testimony. When he entered, he was told ``Coloreds'' could not sit on the left side of the room, that area was reserved for whites. Years later, Leonard Williams would become a judge, presiding over that very courtroom.

Judge Williams not only lived through the civil rights movement, he helped shape it.

He grew up in a large family in Wilmington and attended primary and secondary school before Brown v. Board of Education and the desegregation of the Wilmington public school system. Before 1950, black students could not attend the University of Delaware. A landmark civil rights lawsuit changed that and enabled Judge Williams to attend UD on a football scholarship. He became one of the first black students to graduate from the University of Delaware and entered law school at Georgetown University. When he was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1959, he was only the fifth African American attorney in Delaware's history.

As a young lawyer, Judge Williams partnered with Louis Redding, Delaware's first black attorney and the very lawyer who argued Parker v. University of Delaware, the case which opened UD to black students. At the time, African Americans were denied access to restaurants, theaters, and other places of public accommodation in Delaware and around the country. One day in 1958, William Burton, a member of the Wilmington City Council, entered the Eagle Coffee Shoppe but was refused service. The restaurant, like many in Wilmington at the time, would not serve African-Americans. Because the restaurant leased space from the Wilmington Parking Authority, Burton filed suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery against the restaurant and the parking authority. Judge Williams and Louis Redding took the case, ultimately winning a judgment in the Supreme Court that private discrimination on State owned property violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Williams' involvement in that case changed the course of Delaware history. Yet he never saw himself as a hero, just as somebody trying to serve his community. All of us will miss him deeply. We will keep Judge Williams' wife, Andrea, and his three children, Leonard Jr., Dena, and Garrett, in our prayers as we grieve.

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

Mr. President, the Founders of our country, committed to justice and fairness for all its citizens and in establishing a structure that would make this country uniquely strong as a democracy, gave us three coequal branches of our government. Two of those branches have dominated the national news recently as we lurch from crisis to crisis, from fiscal cliff to sequester. The back-and-forth between the President and Congress, between the executive and the legislative branches, has been the headline day after day.

Meanwhile, the third coequal branch, the judicial branch of our Federal Government, has quietly gone about its business, doing its job for the American people, providing fair hearings, equal justice under the law, the basic right to a speedy resolution to any dispute--or has it?

All around this country members of the judicial branch are getting their jobs done but with fewer and fewer resources and support, fewer colleagues on the bench than ever before. Nearly 10 percent of all Federal judgeships--positions for Federal judges that should be filled--are vacant, empty, leaving those judges who are on the bench overwhelmed with steadily increasing caseloads and unable to provide the level of service, certainty, and swift resolution that the American people deserve and upon which our government was predicated.

Particularly when you are the one going into court seeking redress or when you are the one facing legal action, justice delayed is justice denied. As a member of the Delaware bar and a former Federal court clerk myself, as well as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have seen firsthand the consequences of this ongoing, slow-rolling crisis in our Federal courts.

Right now we have more than double the judicial vacancies we had at the same point in the last administration. The Senate has confirmed 30 fewer of President Obama's nominees than it had of President Bush's at this same time.

One of the most underresourced circuits is right here under our nose in Washington, DC. The DC Circuit is often called the second most important court in the land. Although it may not make the headlines, it may not be as visible to the American people as this ongoing fight between the Congress and the President, the DC Circuit decides issues of national importance, from terrorism and detention to the scope of agency power. It has importance to every American, not just the ones who happen to live in the District of Columbia, and yet its bench is almost half empty.

Congress has set the number of judgeships needed by the DC Circuit Court at 11, and right now they have just 7. President Bush had the opportunity to appoint four judges to the DC Circuit, including the 10th judicial position twice and the 11th judicial position once. Yet President Obama has been denied the opportunity to make even a single appointment to the DC

Circuit Court despite four vacancies. As a result, the per-judge caseload is today 50 percent higher than it was after President Bush had the opportunity to fill that last, the 11th seat. And in terms of our obligation to this coequal branch, our obligation to the citizens of the United States, and our obligation to provide an opportunity for justice, that is an outrage.

Today the Senate has the opportunity to take up and consider a highly qualified nominee to fill one of these vacancies, to start to do our job and bring this vital circuit court closer to full capacity. We can do that by confirming the nomination of a brilliant lawyer and a dedicated public servant named Caitlin Halligan.

Ms. Halligan, with whom I have met, has been nominated to the DC Circuit Court and renominated to the DC Circuit Court and renominated to the DC Circuit Court across three sessions of Congress--the 111th, 112th, and 113th. She has been nominated because of her superb qualifications and her impressive personal background.

She worked in private practice at a respected New York law firm. She served in public service as solicitor general for the State of New York. She is currently the general counsel of the New York County District Attorney's Office--an office that investigates and prosecutes 100,000 criminal cases every year.

Ms. Halligan has earned the support of her colleagues in law enforcement and across the spectrum. Everyone, from New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly to preeminent conservative lawyer Miguel Estrada, has supported her nomination. The American Bar Association's standing committee unanimously gave her its ranking of highest qualification to serve: ``highly qualified.'' Yet Ms. Halligan has had to face, in my view, outrageous distortions of her record that cause one to wonder if any nominee to this circuit would be acceptable on their merits.

Ms. Halligan has withstood steady and withering political attacks on positions she advocated while solicitor general for the State of New York, positions she argued on behalf of her client--New York State and its attorney general--not positions that represented her own personal views. If you reflect on this, it is, as all practicing attorneys know, inappropriate to disqualify a judicial candidate because she advocated a position for a client with which a certain Senator might disagree or which has been rejected by a court. This fundamental principle that you do not associate an attorney with a position advocated in court has been widely shared, widely supported, and, in fact, Chief Justice Roberts himself said:

It's a tradition of the American Bar that goes back before

the founding of the country that lawyers are not identified

with the positions of their clients.

Even so, Ms. Halligan's positions on issues such as, for example, marriage and States rights have hardly been radical. When asked to analyze New York's marriage law, she concluded that the State statute did not provide same-sex couples with the right to marry. When presented with the question of whether a ban on same-sex marriage was legal under the New York Constitution, she merely said that there were arguments for and against and that it should be left to the courts to decide. What could be more modest than deciding that a constitutional question should be decided by the courts and not the executive branch? Yet I have heard on this floor and elsewhere her positions on this and other issues mischaracterized as extreme, as out of the mainstream. In my view, this position demonstrates her great respect for our judicial process and proves that if this body confirms her to the bench, she would fairly and faithfully apply precedent in making important decisions on the DC Circuit.

She told us directly on the Judiciary Committee that she would respect and apply precedent in other important cases--cases that touch on the second amendment, such as the District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago, cases that held that the second amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. I am confident, despite what we have heard spun in the press about Ms. Halligan's position, that she would faithfully respect precedent in these cases.

So in these two areas, I think we can see that Caitlin Halligan is not a radical or an ideologue. She is an attorney, she is a lawyer--and a good one. In my view, having reviewed her qualifications, having sat through meetings, and having looked at her record, she has earned her nomination to the DC Circuit Court. She deserves this Senate to get out of the way and to stop this endless delay of consideration of qualified candidates for the bench and let her get to work.

Today the Senate has an opportunity, a chance to do the right thing, to stop endless partisan political games, to break through our gridlock and get something done in the interest of the American people and especially those who seek swift and sure justice.

Every individual and business in this country has the fundamental right to a fair and fast trial, to access to the judicial system, and to the hearing of their appeals in an appropriate and timely manner. And judicial vacancies and understaffed courts at the district and the circuit level are denying them that right. This Senate and its dysfunction are denying them that right. So today I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do our job, to confirm Caitlin Halligan and recommit ourselves to moving forward in a productive and bipartisan way.

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

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

Mr. President, what has become painfully clear to me this week is that folks in the Congress, folks in the Senate aren't listening to each other anymore. As we lurch toward our latest fiscal crisis--the looming sequester that takes effect tomorrow--I rise to speak directly to the folks I work for--my constituents, my fellow Delawareans.

I wish to continue a conversation I have been having with my neighbors at the train station, in the Acme, outside church, on the sidelines of my kids' sporting events, consistently since coming here to serve you as Delaware's junior Senator.

I am focused a bit by a Facebook message I got from Sandi, a neighbor, this morning. It is fairly poignant. She writes: In 2011, when we spoke, you assured me the sequester was so Draconian it would never happen. I feel betrayed by Congress, the Senate, and all of Washington.

She writes further: I trusted you to hold up our end of this deal and now we are going to sequestration. Disappointed is an understatement for how I feel. Why can't you get anything done down there?

To Sandi, to the nonprofits in Delaware whose funding is about to get cut, to the civilian workers at Dover Air Force Base who are facing furlough, to the educators throughout the State who may be laid off and the students who may well be crammed into more crowded classrooms, to the parents whose children will not receive the vaccines they need, and to all my neighbors who will be abruptly impacted by what Washington has failed to do this week to deal with the sequester, on behalf of the Senate, I am frustrated. I am at my wit's end. I am embarrassed by our dysfunction. I am sorry. This is simply not how your government is supposed to work.

Our country, as we all know, has a real long-term problem--a national debt now approaching $17 trillion, annual deficits for years of $1 trillion, literally adding to the problem each day we don't act together. While the solution to this problem is not easy, it is relatively obvious.

I wish to say this at the outset: Including interest savings, we have already saved a little less than $2.5 trillion since 2010. But it is easy to miss since we have done it piecemeal, through reductions in continuing resolutions, through the Budget Control Act, through the recent fiscal cliff deal. I know the general impression all of us get at home is we lurch from crisis to crisis and it is unclear that we have made any progress at all. But we have already locked in nearly $2.5 trillion in savings.

As a member of the Budget Committee, we got to hear from the Bowles- Simpson Commission, the Domenici-Rivlin Commission, a whole series of prominent economists who broadly agreed we needed $4 trillion in savings to get our deficits under control and to stabilize our debt as a percentage of our economy.

We have made about $2.5 trillion in progress and that leaves us about $1.5 trillion, maybe even $2 trillion left to go to achieve that target, depending on how we count. More than 70 percent of the savings we have already enacted have come from cuts, overwhelmingly cuts to domestic spending that are critical to the future of our economy. I think it is important as we go forward that we achieve some balance in the remaining component.

This Chamber will have to pass a budget resolution this year. That is what we are already working toward in the Budget Committee, a meeting from which I just came. We must cut spending, we must, in my view, raise revenue, and we must reform our entitlement programs. All of these have some role to play in dealing with these long-term issues. None of them though can solve the problem on their own, and this has been clear for the 3 years I have been serving here.

Our problem has been that we have a vocal part of one party who largely would not entertain raising any revenue and a vocal part of another party who largely would not consider reforming our entitlement programs, so we have lurched from crisis to crises. We

try to force each other to do it on the backs of one piece of our large Federal budget.

So to my conservative neighbors or those in the other party, I am sorry, we just cannot do this through cuts to discretionary, nondefense programs alone or through entitlement reforms alone. We cannot responsibly deal with this deficit and debt just within those two areas.

In the last 2 years we already made more than $1.5 trillion in discretionary spending cuts. On the trajectory we are on now, in the next decade the percentage these programs make of our total Federal Government will drop to levels not seen since Dwight Eisenhower was President, even as our revenues today are at their lowest as a percentage of our economy in 50 years.

Federal spending, done right, in the right sectors, fuels our long- term competitiveness. I am talking about investments in education, in infrastructure, in R&D, and basic science and curing diseases, and in speeding commerce. They are key to our future.

One of our core areas of focus here ought to be on how do we create jobs in a progrowth agenda for our country? By simply focusing on hacking off the domestic, discretionary piece of our Federal budget, it is like an airplane that is trying to get lift but one of its engines is being cut off. We need to sustain investment in some of these critical areas of the Federal budget. But equally, I will say to my liberal neighbors, to folks in my party, we cannot solve this budget problem just by raising taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. The math just does not work. There is not enough we can raise there to deal with the whole challenge.

Remember, the fiscal cliff deal we just passed in the last few weeks will bring in another $600 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. So we are making progress.

We also cannot do it if we simply ignore the poor fiscal health of our long-term entitlement programs either. Last year Medicare and Medicaid Programs--plus interest on the debt--made up almost 30 cents of every $1 the Federal Government spent. In two decades, on our current trajectory, it may be 50 cents of every $1.

Demographics, steadily rising costs of health care will keep driving this, and we must deal with it. Unless we change course, putting all these things together, productive expenditures that grow our economy-- medical research, R&D--will be crowded out. Progressive priorities such as Head Start, low-income housing assistance, breast and cervical cancer screenings--the things that help care for the least among us or that help make us healthier will be gone.

So in my view, why not take this moment when we still have a Democrat in the White House and Democrats in control of this Chamber to make tough choices while we have historically low interest rates and fight to preserve the legacy of the earned benefits--Medicare, Medicaid, and the vital entitlement programs we treasure. In my view, we cannot simply hope that the cost of our entitlement programs comes down and we cannot simply tax our way to economic health. Anyone who tells you that either of these is enough is wrong. Spending has to be cut. Entitlements have to be reformed. Revenue needs to be raised. They are all part of the problem, and they should all be part of the solution.

Somehow, though, when we actually do manage briefly to have a substantive debate on these questions, we tend to spend all of our time focusing on the smallest facet of the Federal budget--discretionary spending--but almost no time discussing these others, the rest of the equation, the big drivers.

This place has become somewhat of an alternative reality where, if we dig in real hard and people get really scared and we use fancy words such as ``sequester'' or ``fiscal cliff,'' we can ignore the facts. There is no question that we do have to reduce spending, but the sequester is the worst way to do it. When conceived, the sequester was such a bad idea that both sides were supposed to be motivated to move Heaven and Earth to prevent it from taking effect. That is how terrible it is as policy. Yet here we are.

I am dumbfounded. It is not as though we have not had plenty of time to make this better--18 months, by my count. Why are people talking now in the press here on Capitol Hill about whether Boehner will lose his speakership or whether the first person to suggest the sequester worked in the White House or in the Capitol, whether Republicans have more to gain by the sequester kicking in or Democrats? How much time have we been spending trying to fix blame rather than fix the problem? Who owns the sequester seems to be the fight of the day here. Who cares is my question. There are no winners in this fight.

I think the question of how we reduce our deficits, stabilize our economy, prioritize spending that will grow jobs--this debate can either dominate the next 10 years, as we lurch every 3 months from crisis to crisis, or we can address the broader, bigger question and fix it and lay a groundwork for health, for growth, for recovery. Again, the math is not that hard; the politics are.

We here in Congress, with the executive branch, have largely created this problem, and now we need to solve it. Tomorrow, leaders from this Chamber and the House will go to the White House to meet with President Obama about how to address the sequester on the very day it takes effect. On behalf of my constituents, on behalf of the teachers, the police officers, the nonprofits, the personnel at Dover Air Force Base, the kids, their parents, my neighbors, on behalf of my State, I urge our leaders to embrace this moment and to work not only to avert this short-term sequester--not just this $85 billion in cuts--but to resume their work on the grand bargain. We need a big deal. We need it to be balanced. We need it to be fair. Spending, entitlements, revenue--they all need to be on the table, and they all have to be part of the equation.

My question for everyone in that meeting tomorrow----

I ask unanimous consent for 30 seconds to conclude my remarks.

My question for everyone--everyone--in both parties, both Chambers who goes to this important meeting at the White House tomorrow is, How much more time do we have to fight and not to act, to attack and not compromise, to spin rather than solve? Based on the e-mails, the calls, the contacts I have gotten from my constituents, from my neighbors, the time to step up and address this larger problem is now. The sequester, while savage, is not the underlying problem. It is our unwillingness to come together across parties and Chambers to deal with the underlying challenges of our budget. It is my hope, my prayer, that we will take this moment and act.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, each and every day the folks I represent in Delaware ask me why doesn't the Senate, why doesn't the Congress focus on jobs and focus on getting our economy moving again instead of what seem to be endless partisan struggles over secondary issues.

What I wanted to speak to was a bipartisan bill, which I am introducing, which focuses on how to help create innovation-focused jobs again in the United States.

As you know all too well, our economic recovery has been slower than we had hoped. Although it has been steady, there are still far too many Americans out of work in my home State of Delaware, more than 30,000, but we are building our way back.

The task before us is to think not just about an immediate economic crisis but to take a breath and, instead, focus strategically on the long-term future, to take account of what kind of an economy we want to build for our children and our grandchildren for the America of today and tomorrow.

The engine of our Nation's greatest economic successes has always been innovation. From the light bulb to the search engine, American inventors and innovators, those who have taken risks and started companies, have created jobs by the thousands and changed lives by the millions. Before new ideas scaled to market and reach out to change the world, they first have to start in a lab or garage.

I know from my own 8 years in the private sector, my work for a materials-based science company in Delaware, the products we take for granted that are today household items in the world marketplace, often started as just the sliver of an idea, an idea that

needed refining through determined investment in research and development.

If we want to fuel the next generation of innovation, if we want to lay a strong foundation for job creation through invention, I think we have to start by supporting research and development. Research and development is the lifeblood of great American companies and is what will allow us to make things in this country and to be a leading manufacturer in the world and deserves focused investment.

If we look at it, nearly 70 percent of America's private sector R&D and about 90 percent our patents are actually in manufacturing, a sector that deserves particular attention. Revitalizing American manufacturing will create high-quality, middle-class jobs for the long run, but doing so depends on our ability to take great ideas and turn them into marketable products or improvements in manufacturing processes that can and will result in things being made right here in America. Startups and small businesses all across this country are already taking chances to do just that, and I think it is time for all of us in Congress to take a chance on them.

Last year, I worked in a bipartisan way with Senator Enzi, Senator Rubio, Senator Schumer, and others to introduce a bill that would make startup companies eligible for the existing research and development or R&D tax credit. I am proud to reintroduce that legislation as the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2013 with our original cosponsors, as well as Senator Blunt, Senator Stabenow, and Senator Moran.

This broad bipartisan support suggests a bill whose time has come. Although we represent, among the cosponsors, very different parts of our country, very different backgrounds, all of us know that to strengthen our economy we have to support innovation and entrepreneurship. Each of us is committed to fostering the kind of environment which supports the private sector and which turns ideas into innovations, innovations into products, and products into companies that help create good jobs.

Under current policy, one way we do that federally is by supporting research and development through the existing R&D tax credit. Companies that invest in R&D generate new products, which sparks new industries with spillover benefits for all kinds of sectors. That is why there has long been strong bipartisan support for the existing R&D tax credit. By all accounts it is working. The R&D has helped tens of thousands of American companies succeed and create jobs.

But there is a critical gap in the existing R&D credit. It isn't available to startups because they are not yet profitable, and thus they don't have an income tax liability against which to take a credit. In fact, more than half the R&D credit last year was taken by companies with revenue over $1 billion, well-established, profitable companies. There is nothing wrong with that; it is just not targeting these tax expenditures toward the sector of our economy that is taking the greatest risk and in some ways has the greatest potential.

This gaping hole in our policy around R&D can be fixed with a relatively simple tweak. I have been working on finding this solution since I first came here. In fact, the very first bill I introduced included an expanded version of the R&D credit.

Today, we take another step toward seeing this solution implemented with the reintroduction of this bipartisan Startup Innovation Credit Act. It says in order to spur research and development, we should allow companies to claim the R&D tax credit against their employment taxes, against their W-2 instead of their income tax liability. That opens this credit to new companies that don't yet have an income tax liability.

There lots of companies we could choose. Let me pick one example, DeNovix, a small company based in my home State of Delaware that is developing instrumentation for bioresearch with a team that includes molecular biologists and engineering professionals.

The managing director of DeNovix, Fred Kielhorn, said the legislation we are introducing would help that company to offset some of the costs of bringing new, innovative, technology-based products to market and for that this bill earned his strong support.

He is just one of many. There is a remarkable list of outside groups, companies, and organizations that have supported it. I will mention a few: Silicon Valley Leadership Group; Revolution, led by Steve Case of AOL; Delaware Chamber of Commerce; the Association for Manufacturing Technology Policy; American Small Manufacturers Coalition; and BIO, a national organization that supports companies doing research and development in the biotechnology space.

Supporting small innovative companies in critical early stages of research and development, in my view could unleash untold innovations for growth and create new jobs for America. At its heart, today's legislation is a jobs bill.

Between 1980 and 2005, all net new jobs created in the United States were created by firms 5 years old or less, all of them, about 40 million jobs over those 25 years. This credit is specifically designed toward those new, young, risk-taking firms. It does not pick winners and losers, it doesn't focus on a specific area of the economy or technology, but instead supports all private sector investments, judgments, and decisions that prioritize investment in research and development. Cash in the pocket of small startup companies, such as this tax credit, can make a real difference, especially with financing and credit so hard to come by.

It was once said the States are the laboratory of democracy. In fact, that is where this idea has come from. Credits just like this have been done before in Iowa, Arizona, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and they have been game changers, helping companies get off the ground and keep their doors open during those demanding first years where they invest and spend so much on hiring and growth.

We know this can work. We also know more than half our current Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or a bear market. The next great American company that may redefine whole categories that may be known worldwide for its products, its services, may be starting right now in a garage or lab somewhere in this great country. It is an exciting prospect.

In fact, we are depending on our inventors, our innovators, and our small business owners to help innovate our way to a stronger economy and fuel a new generation of job creation. Let's give them the support they need and they deserve at a time when they need it the most.

I am grateful for all the cosponsors of this bipartisan legislation in this Chamber and as well to Congressman Gerlach of Pennsylvania and Congressman Kind of Wisconsin, who will introduce the House version of this legislation next week.

Rather than shutting our startups out of the R&D tax credit, let's open the doors to these innovators and see what they can do. I am confident they will surprise us yet again with how high they can reach and how far they can go. I think this is a wise investment in opening the doors of innovation, invention, and job creation for our future.

Mr. President, each and every day the folks I represent in Delaware ask me why doesn't the Senate, why doesn't the Congress focus on jobs and focus on getting our economy moving again instead of what seem to be endless partisan struggles over secondary issues.

What I wanted to speak to was a bipartisan bill, which I am introducing, which focuses on how to help create innovation-focused jobs again in the United States.

As you know all too well, our economic recovery has been slower than we had hoped. Although it has been steady, there are still far too many Americans out of work in my home State of Delaware, more than 30,000, but we are building our way back.

The task before us is to think not just about an immediate economic crisis but to take a breath and, instead, focus strategically on the long-term future, to take account of what kind of an economy we want to build for our children and our grandchildren for the America of today and tomorrow.

The engine of our Nation's greatest economic successes has always been innovation. From the light bulb to the search engine, American inventors and innovators, those who have taken risks and started companies, have created jobs by the thousands and changed lives by the millions. Before new ideas scaled to market and reach out to change the world, they first have to start in a lab or garage.

I know from my own 8 years in the private sector, my work for a materials-based science company in Delaware, the products we take for granted that are today household items in the world marketplace, often started as just the sliver of an idea, an idea that

needed refining through determined investment in research and development.

If we want to fuel the next generation of innovation, if we want to lay a strong foundation for job creation through invention, I think we have to start by supporting research and development. Research and development is the lifeblood of great American companies and is what will allow us to make things in this country and to be a leading manufacturer in the world and deserves focused investment.

If we look at it, nearly 70 percent of America's private sector R&D and about 90 percent our patents are actually in manufacturing, a sector that deserves particular attention. Revitalizing American manufacturing will create high-quality, middle-class jobs for the long run, but doing so depends on our ability to take great ideas and turn them into marketable products or improvements in manufacturing processes that can and will result in things being made right here in America. Startups and small businesses all across this country are already taking chances to do just that, and I think it is time for all of us in Congress to take a chance on them.

Last year, I worked in a bipartisan way with Senator Enzi, Senator Rubio, Senator Schumer, and others to introduce a bill that would make startup companies eligible for the existing research and development or R&D tax credit. I am proud to reintroduce that legislation as the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2013 with our original cosponsors, as well as Senator Blunt, Senator Stabenow, and Senator Moran.

This broad bipartisan support suggests a bill whose time has come. Although we represent, among the cosponsors, very different parts of our country, very different backgrounds, all of us know that to strengthen our economy we have to support innovation and entrepreneurship. Each of us is committed to fostering the kind of environment which supports the private sector and which turns ideas into innovations, innovations into products, and products into companies that help create good jobs.

Under current policy, one way we do that federally is by supporting research and development through the existing R&D tax credit. Companies that invest in R&D generate new products, which sparks new industries with spillover benefits for all kinds of sectors. That is why there has long been strong bipartisan support for the existing R&D tax credit. By all accounts it is working. The R&D has helped tens of thousands of American companies succeed and create jobs.

But there is a critical gap in the existing R&D credit. It isn't available to startups because they are not yet profitable, and thus they don't have an income tax liability against which to take a credit. In fact, more than half the R&D credit last year was taken by companies with revenue over $1 billion, well-established, profitable companies. There is nothing wrong with that; it is just not targeting these tax expenditures toward the sector of our economy that is taking the greatest risk and in some ways has the greatest potential.

This gaping hole in our policy around R&D can be fixed with a relatively simple tweak. I have been working on finding this solution since I first came here. In fact, the very first bill I introduced included an expanded version of the R&D credit.

Today, we take another step toward seeing this solution implemented with the reintroduction of this bipartisan Startup Innovation Credit Act. It says in order to spur research and development, we should allow companies to claim the R&D tax credit against their employment taxes, against their W-2 instead of their income tax liability. That opens this credit to new companies that don't yet have an income tax liability.

There lots of companies we could choose. Let me pick one example, DeNovix, a small company based in my home State of Delaware that is developing instrumentation for bioresearch with a team that includes molecular biologists and engineering professionals.

The managing director of DeNovix, Fred Kielhorn, said the legislation we are introducing would help that company to offset some of the costs of bringing new, innovative, technology-based products to market and for that this bill earned his strong support.

He is just one of many. There is a remarkable list of outside groups, companies, and organizations that have supported it. I will mention a few: Silicon Valley Leadership Group; Revolution, led by Steve Case of AOL; Delaware Chamber of Commerce; the Association for Manufacturing Technology Policy; American Small Manufacturers Coalition; and BIO, a national organization that supports companies doing research and development in the biotechnology space.

Supporting small innovative companies in critical early stages of research and development, in my view could unleash untold innovations for growth and create new jobs for America. At its heart, today's legislation is a jobs bill.

Between 1980 and 2005, all net new jobs created in the United States were created by firms 5 years old or less, all of them, about 40 million jobs over those 25 years. This credit is specifically designed toward those new, young, risk-taking firms. It does not pick winners and losers, it doesn't focus on a specific area of the economy or technology, but instead supports all private sector investments, judgments, and decisions that prioritize investment in research and development. Cash in the pocket of small startup companies, such as this tax credit, can make a real difference, especially with financing and credit so hard to come by.

It was once said the States are the laboratory of democracy. In fact, that is where this idea has come from. Credits just like this have been done before in Iowa, Arizona, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and they have been game changers, helping companies get off the ground and keep their doors open during those demanding first years where they invest and spend so much on hiring and growth.

We know this can work. We also know more than half our current Fortune 500 companies were launched during a recession or a bear market. The next great American company that may redefine whole categories that may be known worldwide for its products, its services, may be starting right now in a garage or lab somewhere in this great country. It is an exciting prospect.

In fact, we are depending on our inventors, our innovators, and our small business owners to help innovate our way to a stronger economy and fuel a new generation of job creation. Let's give them the support they need and they deserve at a time when they need it the most.

I am grateful for all the cosponsors of this bipartisan legislation in this Chamber and as well to Congressman Gerlach of Pennsylvania and Congressman Kind of Wisconsin, who will introduce the House version of this legislation next week.

Rather than shutting our startups out of the R&D tax credit, let's open the doors to these innovators and see what they can do. I am confident they will surprise us yet again with how high they can reach and how far they can go. I think this is a wise investment in opening the doors of innovation, invention, and job creation for our future.

Mr. President, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with the Senator from Florida on this legislation and other legislation we are focused on about how to create jobs and how to drive our economy forward. I am grateful for the leadership of Senator Hatch and Senator Klobuchar as well as for their companionship as we serve together on the Judiciary Committee and as the four of us this day introduce this bill of which we are so proud, the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013.

For decades, the United States enjoyed the commanding advantage of being home to all the world's top universities, particularly in science and technology, engineering and math, and the so-called STEM fields; and we were the best place for the graduates of those universities and their advanced science programs to stay and launch a new business.

But today that field has changed. Our competitors are vying to provide more supportive environments for innovators, inventions, and startup companies. There has been a sea change in the field of opportunity back home for those foreign nationals who, in increasing numbers, are educated in the United States and whom we then force to return to their nation of origin.

Even though many of the most talented young people from around the globe still pour into the United States to obtain their master's or doctoral degrees in STEM, now more than ever they are not just tempted to take their education home with them and start businesses elsewhere, but they are attracted by their home countries and forced by our outdated immigration system. What an unwise way to compete in the global economy. Our outdated immigration system hasn't adapted to the modern world.

Half of all master's and doctoral degrees in STEM fields at American universities are today earned by foreign-born students who then face an uncertain, expensive, and unwieldy path to pursuing their dreams in the United States. Our country is hemorrhaging innovations and the inventors who make them and the jobs that come with them because America's immigration laws have failed to keep up with the demands of the modern age. We cannot afford to keep educating the world's brightest students at our leading universities which, I will remind my colleagues, are subsidized by U.S. tax dollars and American charitable giving, and then tell them they cannot repay those investments by contributing to the U.S. workforce. It is both bad policy and bad business.

That is why I have been working on this issue since I arrived in the Senate, introducing three bills and calling for the creation of a new class of green card for immigrants who have earned an advanced STEM degree from American universities.

I was especially glad to see the bipartisan framework released yesterday by Senators McCain, Schumer, Rubio, and others, which moves us toward comprehensive immigration reform and embraces this vital core premise. I also welcome President Obama's contributions to this discussion and look forward to hearing what he has to say today in Las Vegas.

There is, indeed, broad bipartisan agreement that it is long past time to reform our immigration system to make room for foreign-born, American-educated experts who want to apply their skills, start businesses, and raise their families here. At the same time, we have to dramatically improve STEM education available to American citizens to fill this dramatic gap in these fields. As Senator Hatch said just a few minutes ago, if we take the example of computer science, by 2020, the U.S. economy will need 120,000 men and women to fill these jobs. Yet just 40,000 graduates with degrees in computer science will be Americans. How to fill that gap?

The bipartisan legislation we introduce today tackles both sides of this problem, by reforming our outdated immigration system to allow highly skilled engineers and researchers to stay, rather than leaving and taking their jobs and future opportunities with them and by funneling the hundreds of millions of dollars in fees these experts pay for their green cards back into improving U.S.-based STEM education. It is a win-win.

The Immigration Innovation Act of 2013 will open the door, will recapture unused green cards, and will move away from the outdated model of country caps and overall caps to better compete with countries such as our neighbors to the north in Canada where these caps don't exist, and where Microsoft is eager to open a new massive development facility at our expense and loss.

One of the most important parts of this legislation, as I mentioned, is that we are using fees from these newly expanded H-1B visas and green cards to fund State initiatives on STEM. This will keep America at the cutting edge of science and technology and fuel economic growth for this country and generations to come.

While each of the coauthors of this legislation have made substantial contributions, I am especially grateful to Senator Hatch of Utah for his leadership.

I yield to the Senator from Utah to tell us a little bit more about this legislation.

Certainly. I yield to the Senator from Florida.

I thank Senator Nelson.

Mr. President, I join the Senator from Florida in thanking and recognizing the junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio, for his great work on the issues of job creation and innovation through Startup 2.0 and other bills we have worked on together but also through the comprehensive framework that was released yesterday. The framework released by Senators Schumer, McCain, Rubio, and others takes the right approach to ensuring that the United States has a modern, efficient, effective, and compassionate immigration system.

I was glad to see it addressed family-based immigration challenges, including creating an expedited path to citizenship for young people brought here as children through no fault of their own--people we rightly call DREAMers.

While the Immigration Innovation Act we are introducing today recognizes the vital, the critical contributions immigrants have made and will continue to make in highly technical fields, we also must recognize the essential contributions immigrants make along the entire labor spectrum, across the whole breadth of this country--to building up this country in the past and to giving it a brighter future.

As you heard from Senator Klobuchar before, if Team USA is to play competitively globally, we need the best and the brightest contributors to our future. Why would we educate the best inventors and innovators in the world and send many of them back to compete against us from other countries rather than embracing them and allowing them to invent, to invest, and create companies and jobs in the United States?

While I am eager to move ahead on family-focused reform, I am equally eager to have us move ahead with reform for STEM degree holders. Comprehensive immigration reform is a necessity for the hard-working people of Delaware and around the country, for those who want nothing more than to play by the rules, build a better life for their children, and contribute to the American dream.

That is what any of us would want, the chance to work hard, to see our children grow up happy and healthy, with the education and opportunities that make their dreams come true, and to contribute to a stronger America.

That is why I am committed to a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration system, one that supports children and families, as well as our economy and our vital technology sector, and that welcomes immigrants into the rich fabric of this country, as the United States has done since our founding.

As someone who trained in chemistry, as someone who worked for a high-technology, materials-based science company, as someone who met just yesterday with a Delaware company complaining of the challenges that visa caps and limits place on their ability to do research and development and to compete in the global economy, I am grateful for the leadership Senator Hatch and Senator Klobuchar and Senator Rubio have shown in crafting this piece--this vital piece--of the total picture of comprehensive immigration reform.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I say to Senator Hatch, does the Senator have some closing comments as we conclude this colloquy?

Mr. President, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to work with the Senator from Florida on this legislation and other legislation we are focused on about how to create jobs and how to drive our economy forward. I am grateful for the leadership of Senator Hatch and Senator Klobuchar as well as for their companionship as we serve together on the Judiciary Committee and as the four of us this day introduce this bill of which we are so proud, the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013.

For decades, the United States enjoyed the commanding advantage of being home to all the world's top universities, particularly in science and technology, engineering and math, and the so-called STEM fields; and we were the best place for the graduates of those universities and their advanced science programs to stay and launch a new business.

But today that field has changed. Our competitors are vying to provide more supportive environments for innovators, inventions, and startup companies. There has been a sea change in the field of opportunity back home for those foreign nationals who, in increasing numbers, are educated in the United States and whom we then force to return to their nation of origin.

Even though many of the most talented young people from around the globe still pour into the United States to obtain their master's or doctoral degrees in STEM, now more than ever they are not just tempted to take their education home with them and start businesses elsewhere, but they are attracted by their home countries and forced by our outdated immigration system. What an unwise way to compete in the global economy. Our outdated immigration system hasn't adapted to the modern world.

Half of all master's and doctoral degrees in STEM fields at American universities are today earned by foreign-born students who then face an uncertain, expensive, and unwieldy path to pursuing their dreams in the United States. Our country is hemorrhaging innovations and the inventors who make them and the jobs that come with them because America's immigration laws have failed to keep up with the demands of the modern age. We cannot afford to keep educating the world's brightest students at our leading universities which, I will remind my colleagues, are subsidized by U.S. tax dollars and American charitable giving, and then tell them they cannot repay those investments by contributing to the U.S. workforce. It is both bad policy and bad business.

That is why I have been working on this issue since I arrived in the Senate, introducing three bills and calling for the creation of a new class of green card for immigrants who have earned an advanced STEM degree from American universities.

I was especially glad to see the bipartisan framework released yesterday by Senators McCain, Schumer, Rubio, and others, which moves us toward comprehensive immigration reform and embraces this vital core premise. I also welcome President Obama's contributions to this discussion and look forward to hearing what he has to say today in Las Vegas.

There is, indeed, broad bipartisan agreement that it is long past time to reform our immigration system to make room for foreign-born, American-educated experts who want to apply their skills, start businesses, and raise their families here. At the same time, we have to dramatically improve STEM education available to American citizens to fill this dramatic gap in these fields. As Senator Hatch said just a few minutes ago, if we take the example of computer science, by 2020, the U.S. economy will need 120,000 men and women to fill these jobs. Yet just 40,000 graduates with degrees in computer science will be Americans. How to fill that gap?

The bipartisan legislation we introduce today tackles both sides of this problem, by reforming our outdated immigration system to allow highly skilled engineers and researchers to stay, rather than leaving and taking their jobs and future opportunities with them and by funneling the hundreds of millions of dollars in fees these experts pay for their green cards back into improving U.S.-based STEM education. It is a win-win.

The Immigration Innovation Act of 2013 will open the door, will recapture unused green cards, and will move away from the outdated model of country caps and overall caps to better compete with countries such as our neighbors to the north in Canada where these caps don't exist, and where Microsoft is eager to open a new massive development facility at our expense and loss.

One of the most important parts of this legislation, as I mentioned, is that we are using fees from these newly expanded H-1B visas and green cards to fund State initiatives on STEM. This will keep America at the cutting edge of science and technology and fuel economic growth for this country and generations to come.

While each of the coauthors of this legislation have made substantial contributions, I am especially grateful to Senator Hatch of Utah for his leadership.

I yield to the Senator from Utah to tell us a little bit more about this legislation.

Certainly. I yield to the Senator from Florida.

I thank Senator Nelson.

Mr. President, I join the Senator from Florida in thanking and recognizing the junior Senator from Florida, Mr. Rubio, for his great work on the issues of job creation and innovation through Startup 2.0 and other bills we have worked on together but also through the comprehensive framework that was released yesterday. The framework released by Senators Schumer, McCain, Rubio, and others takes the right approach to ensuring that the United States has a modern, efficient, effective, and compassionate immigration system.

I was glad to see it addressed family-based immigration challenges, including creating an expedited path to citizenship for young people brought here as children through no fault of their own--people we rightly call DREAMers.

While the Immigration Innovation Act we are introducing today recognizes the vital, the critical contributions immigrants have made and will continue to make in highly technical fields, we also must recognize the essential contributions immigrants make along the entire labor spectrum, across the whole breadth of this country--to building up this country in the past and to giving it a brighter future.

As you heard from Senator Klobuchar before, if Team USA is to play competitively globally, we need the best and the brightest contributors to our future. Why would we educate the best inventors and innovators in the world and send many of them back to compete against us from other countries rather than embracing them and allowing them to invent, to invest, and create companies and jobs in the United States?

While I am eager to move ahead on family-focused reform, I am equally eager to have us move ahead with reform for STEM degree holders. Comprehensive immigration reform is a necessity for the hard-working people of Delaware and around the country, for those who want nothing more than to play by the rules, build a better life for their children, and contribute to the American dream.

That is what any of us would want, the chance to work hard, to see our children grow up happy and healthy, with the education and opportunities that make their dreams come true, and to contribute to a stronger America.

That is why I am committed to a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration system, one that supports children and families, as well as our economy and our vital technology sector, and that welcomes immigrants into the rich fabric of this country, as the United States has done since our founding.

As someone who trained in chemistry, as someone who worked for a high-technology, materials-based science company, as someone who met just yesterday with a Delaware company complaining of the challenges that visa caps and limits place on their ability to do research and development and to compete in the global economy, I am grateful for the leadership Senator Hatch and Senator Klobuchar and Senator Rubio have shown in crafting this piece--this vital piece--of the total picture of comprehensive immigration reform.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I say to Senator Hatch, does the Senator have some closing comments as we conclude this colloquy?

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