Floor Statements

I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I believe there is a UC that the assistant majority leader wishes to make.

Madam President, I thank the Chair and all of my friends for giving me this opportunity to speak.

For Americans, the world changed on September 11, 2001. We learned-- at the cost of thousands of innocent lives--that treating terrorism as a law enforcement matter won't keep Americans safe.

My real concern is that this administration doesn't understand that every day now is like September 12. We cannot afford to revert back to a 9/11 mentality. Instead, we need to treat the terrorists as what they are--not common criminals but enemy combatants in a war.

I rise today to speak about my concerns with current terror-fighting policies of this administration and the vital importance of congressional oversight. Protecting this Nation from terrorist attack is our highest duty in government. In our great democracy, congressional oversight plays a critical role in ensuring that our government protects our citizens from terror attacks. Unfortunately, some in the White House don't agree.

Just this morning, a White House spokesperson on MSNBC charged that ``politicians in Congress'' should keep their opinions to themselves when it comes to one of our most vital national security interests-- counterterrorism. I note in the previous administration, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were quite free to speak about their views on the policies. Mr. Brennan, the Homeland Security adviser, wrote an editorial in USA TODAY critical of congressional criticism of the administration's counterterrorism policies and called them fear- mongering that serve the goals of al-Qaida.

I welcome comments of substance from the administration and from the other side on the criticism and the points I make, but you are not going to be able to silence the legislative branch. To do so is unworthy of the democracy we defend. One might believe that some were trying to shift attention away from the decisions that were made in recent years.

The bottom line is that my real beef is not with the White House spokespeople--although it is disappointing when the National Security Adviser claims that I have not told the truth about what he said--but with the dangerous policies of the administration. Clearly, my complaints are not directed at the men and women of the intelligence community--which was an insinuation by the White House spokesperson-- because I believe the men and women of the intelligence community are doing their very best job under at best difficult circumstances. What I am concerned about is major broader policies over which they have no control have been changed in a way to make their job more difficult, and we should not be making their job more difficult.

One of the dangerous cases of ``ready, fire, aim'' and national security policies was the President's pledge to close the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay without any backup plans for the deadly terrorists housed there or how to handle them or how to treat them. There has been a temporary suspension of transfers of Gitmo detainees to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, but we understand the larger effort to transfer and release other dangerous Gitmo detainees continues.

Let me be clear. The previous administration released terrorists and sent them back to their homeland, some for rehabilitation, and 20 percent of them--1 out of 5--have returned to the battlefield and a couple of them apparently were coaching and training the ``Underpants Bomber.'' That was a big mistake. Stop making the mistakes. We can learn from the mistakes we have made in the past. If we send more back, they will be attempting to kill more Americans. We shouldn't compromise our security here at home and the lives of our soldiers overseas to carry out a campaign promise. If a campaign promise doesn't square with national security, I humbly suggest that national security should prevail.

There is another case, the administration's decision to end or to bypass military commissions for detainees who are ready to plead guilty, as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was, to move him to New York City for the show trial. I will address that later. But the administration continues to prepare to try senior al-Qaida detainees in U.S. article III criminal courts rather than the military commissions that Congress designed for these difficult and complicated cases, to be used in a courtroom that we constructed at Gitmo.

History has shown that civil criminal trials of terrorists unnecessarily hemorrhage sensitive classified information. The East Africa Embassy bombing trials made Osama bin Laden aware of cell phone intercepts, and surprisingly al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden started using different methods of communications. The trial of the first World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef tipped off terrorists to another communications link that provided enormously valuable information. Well, their use of that link that we were able to compromise was shut down because they learned about it. Similarly, the trial of the ``Blind Sheik'' Omar Abdel Rahman provided intelligence to Osama bin Laden. The trial of Zacarias Moussaoui resulted in the inadvertent disclosure of sensitive material. That is why former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who tried some of these cases, said you cannot prevent a defense attorney from getting classified, highly confidential information in the course of an article III criminal trial. We know for a fact these civilian trials have aided the terrorists by giving them information on our Intelligence Committee.

The military commission system--and we passed a measure to regulate

the sign-in law in 2009--was designed to protect our sensitive intelligence sources and methods and to comply with the laws of war. Why abandon them? It will come as no surprise to my colleagues that I also disagree with the administration's ``ready, fire, aim'' strategy of handling the Christmas Day bomber.

On December 25, when Abdulmutallab landed on our shores, rather than incorporate intelligence into his interrogation, he was, after 50 minutes of brief questioning, Mirandized and offered a lawyer. Not surprisingly, he clammed up for 5 weeks. Intelligence is perishable and that 5 weeks was time that our intelligence system should have been operating on the questions he was only 5 weeks later answering. I don't know what purpose there was in Mirandizing him. That is an exclusionary rule. The only reason to offer Miranda rights is so you can use the words of the suspect against him. There is plenty of evidence of this guy who had strapped chemical explosives to his legs, set them off, and burned himself in front of 200 witnesses. It doesn't matter what he says, you can convict him. Why weren't our intelligence agencies consulted on the important decision of whether to Mirandize him? At least the FBI agents questioning him should have had the benefit of the intelligence that other agencies knew. Who is running the war on terrorism? I am afraid it is the Justice Department or the White House. Why did the White House announce what the few of us who were notified of his cooperation warned not to disclose? Not only did they disclose that information the day after we were advised, they disclosed the fact that Abdulmutallab's family came here to pressure him. Why on Earth would you do that? What message does that send? Unfortunately, to the family, they now have targets on their backs, because the terrorists know that they have convinced a member of their family to talk. What does it say to future sources? We are going to be concerned if they provide information that our intelligence agencies asked for that they will be identified by the White House and put at great risk.

The handling of the Christmas Day bomber also showed something else. When the President took away the powers of the CIA to question terror suspects, he said: We will handle it in the White House. We found out on December 25, 11 months after he announced it, that there was no high value detainee interrogation operation set up. They had no plans on how to do it. These people are supposed to be interrogating high value detainees and for a year they didn't set it up until after the attack.

Our intelligence chiefs testified early this month in an open hearing that there will be attempts by terrorists to attack again. Yet the administration waited until after the attack to begin the process of setting it up. These are all important policy questions to raise. If the White House had its way, I wouldn't be asking them, but I am asking them because I am very fearful that our security has been lessened, and that this is a subject this body must address.

Article I of the Constitution created a legislative branch to help ensure that nobody in government is above oversight and being held accountable. I as a Senator have a right and responsibility as a Member of this body and as a representative of the people of my State to shine a light on policies that I think need to be changed, and I will continue to do so regardless of what is said about me. I am concerned that these policies of the administration have moved us back to a pre- 9/11 mentality. That failed in the past and it will again.

In terms of the debate, my colleagues from California and Vermont have raised questions in a letter. They said we ought to try these terrorists in an article III court because the rule of law must prevail. Well, I agree, but we have a law. It is called the military commissions law that was passed and signed into law last year by the President that carries out the laws of war. Those are places which are much safer in terms of handling the terrorists, in terms of handling classified information.

Finally, they say that we should not--they strongly believe we ought to bring all of these people to article III courts and the prosecutors and everybody can handle those. It is not the prosecutors or the intelligence community we are worried about, No. 1. It is the cost, because the terrorist trial is going to bring undesirables here, and the city of New York figures it is going to have to spend over $2 million a year. They do not want it. Nobody else wants it.

I tell you, even more important, when Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was apprehended, he said: My lawyer and I will see you in New York. He wants to come to New York or Washington or someplace where he can get a lot of media attention--and believe me, were he to be tried here, he would get a lot of media attention--because he wants to be able to spread his message to others who might be vulnerable that they need to join him in the jihad.

I also pointed out that disclosure of sensitive information has and will be released if you try him in an article III court because any defense attorney bound to provide the best defense for their clients will have to get into what the intelligence community knew, how they knew it about him, and that is a disaster. That is why I welcome the discussion and I urge a change in policy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to shed some light on the situation going on at the General Services Administration, the GSA, a tangled mess of bureaucracy I have been fighting for the last 5 years. In the past, I worked very cooperatively with GSA, but for some reason, somehow, they have gotten themselves and us into a situation that is untenable.

Yesterday, the President accused me of holding hostage the nominee to be Administrator, Martha Johnson. I feel no joy in holding up this nominee, but the hostage I am concerned about is not the one looking for this distinguished position in Washington. Instead, the hostages I am worried about are the 1,000 people working in a Federal office building dump in Kansas City at the mercy of an agency that refuses to act to remedy a problem they acknowledge exists. Again, the hostage, with due respect, is not Martha Johnson; the hostages are the 1,000 Kansas City workers at the Bannister Federal Complex.

As Senators, we have a few tools at our disposal to carry out our responsibilities. One of these important responsibilities is oversight of the Federal Government. One of those tools is to force the Senate to debate and actually vote on an issue rather than be just a rubberstamp to the administration.

While he has criticized me for using this oversight tool, the President wielded it himself when he was a Senator in this very Chamber.

Senator Reid, our distinguished leader, shares some responsibility in delaying Martha Johnson's confirmation. You see, the Johnson nomination actually passed out of committee in May. Was she ever called up for a vote? No, because until July--when I formally placed a hold on the nominee--the Senator from Nevada, according to Congress Daily, delayed her confirmation to ensure that taxpayer dollars were still being used to send Federal employees to Las Vegas.

Senator Reid has his priorities regarding the delay on this nomination, and I have mine. He wants more Federal employees able to come to Las Vegas, and I certainly understand his reason; it is very important for his State. I want Federal employees in Kansas City to work in a building with a roof that doesn't leak and doesn't have other risks of contamination.

Some are complaining about the delay of this nominee. The truth is, the majority leader could have confirmed Martha Johnson in May, June or July. In addition, he waited until Thursday to file cloture, and he could have picked any date in the last 7 months to do so, but he waited until last Thursday. We had thought we made progress, and every time we thought we made progress, somebody in the administration pulled back that small step of progress.

There are many reasons why a Senator might wish to place a hold on a nominee that are related to our oversight responsibilities. I think it is important to have debates such as this not only when the qualifications of the nominee are at stake but when a Federal bureaucracy stops being responsive and serving of the people in the communities in which they work. That is the real issue.

Martha Johnson's qualifications are not in doubt. But as you will hear, the GSA is not being responsible to the people of Kansas City and, most specifically, to the Federal workers there.

The history goes back about 5 years. It is part of a larger plan to move all tenants out of the dilapidated Bannister Federal Complex. GSA initiated a plan to construct a new building in downtown Kansas City in order to move the jobs out of the complex. That was a long time ago, and at the time they were looking for a lease-to-own process.

The community of Kansas City--the leadership, elected officials, the employees, and Kansas City's financial community--had worked with the GSA to get a building--a new building to replace the Bannister Federal Complex.

The existing building, by any stretch of the imagination, is extremely expensive to operate, will be sparsely occupied, is not conducive as a good workplace, and must be replaced.

After 3 years, the plan brought together, with GSA's participation, the leadership of the Kansas City community at all levels, from the mayor to the council, to the business community, the Finance Committee that was going to put up the money. They came together, and they got a commitment that financing would be available to construct on a lease- construction basis.

What happened? With no warning, GSA called up the Environment and Public Works Committee the week of the markup, when it was supposed to be approved, and effectively put their own hold on the project they developed and approved, citing GSA's shift away from proceeding on a lease-construction basis.

For anyone following the project, this latest move by GSA was very difficult to understand. After all, 3 months earlier, in June of 2008, GSA was holding roundtables with real estate developers on the value of lease-construction plans and telling them how they could seek and pursue such projects.

In scrapping their own plan, GSA ensured that after all other tenants vacated the inefficient, 5.2-million-square-foot complex, more than 1,000 Federal employees would be stuck working there.

That is about 5,000 square feet per employee. This nonsensical plan would cost taxpayers $13 million to $15 million annually just to mothball unused space and operate shared heating and cooling equipment. That is $13,000 to $15,000 a year per employee for the unused space.

GSA was so convinced this was the best path forward that for 9 months, they even went so far as to conduct an analysis to justify the continued use of the Bannister Complex. But then, in a 60-day analysis, ``GSA concludes that the Bannister Complex should be a mid-term hold (approximately 15 years).'' This translates into nearly 10 years of continuing to run a complex at 20-percent capacity. Does that make sense? I cannot figure any building manager, any responsible party in the private sector or in government who thinks that works out. It does not take a mathematician to figure out the numbers. They are not good for the taxpayers. Put pencil to paper on that. Pencil it out. Anybody can do that. However, yet again, GSA decided to change its mind in September of 2009. This time, GSA agreed to their original position that a new building in Kansas City was GSA's ``preferred option.''

Bear with me. I know this is getting confusing because we have been confused.

Imagine how the Kansas City community feels after being jerked around for 5 years, where we sat down and worked with the staff, and a very helpful staff decided--laid out the path forward. That sounds like a good idea. Everybody at home was on board. The Kansas City community was on board, the officials, and we said, fine. Then somebody in the administration, whether GSA or above, put a halt to every one of those steps forward--every single one of them. Every time they laid out something, nothing happened. We are beginning, quite honestly, to feel like Charlie Brown. Every time we get ready to kick the football, somebody in the administration moves it.

Where are we now, now that the GSA went back to their original objective that they earlier rejected? Unfortunately, we are not one step closer to a new building for these workers. GSA has still taken no action, still has put nothing on paper, has made no commitments.

Is there a way forward? What is their way forward? Let the people of Kansas City know what you are going to do, how you are going to do it, and when you are going to do it. We cannot even find that out from them. There is no official plan out of GSA. GSA clearly agrees that the new Federal building is needed, so it should not be asking too much for somebody who represents them and the community to be told their plan. Yet they have stubbornly refused to produce one.

I met with Ms. Martha Johnson. I have worked with the PBS Commissioner. They are fine people, wonderful people. I think they are very qualified. But I have asked repeatedly that GSA come up with an official plan to move Kansas City forward. They refused. Bureaucracy has broken its word once again, and I want a chance to tell my colleagues what they have done.

My bottom line, the reason I am on the floor today opposing this nomination is quite simple: As Missouri's senior Senator, my job is to fight on behalf of the people who sent me here. My job is to make sure bureaucrats in Washington do their job and serve the people across the Nation and in Kansas City.

GSA continues to ignore the Kansas City community. My efforts have always been about keeping 1,000 jobs in Kansas City, not blocking one position in Washington.

But my colleagues should be aware that there is more bad news at this very same Bannister Federal Complex. At the same time GSA has been unwilling to move forward on a new building, they have also apparently been unresponsive to the ongoing health concerns of their employees and tenants at the Bannister Federal Complex. In the next day or so, tests will come back on the levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a dangerous carcinogen, at the Bannister Complex. These tests were called for after a local TV station reported unexplained illnesses afflicting Bannister workers and a possible link to toxins, such as TCE and beryllium, at the complex. While the pending results of these tests are of great concern--they are of great concern to the employees and their families, but most of all, we are hearing from parents whose children were in a daycare center at the complex. They want to know to what their children might have been exposed.

These scares and reports are coming more and more frequently to us from the Bannister Complex. It is alarming that I learned about this information not from GSA but from the media. Based on media reports, the implications for the health of these workers could be very serious, so I have called for an investigation. I even asked the inspector general of GSA to get to the bottom of these alarming health allegations.

I will work with the proper authorities on all levels of government-- the Environmental Protection Agency, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the Missouri Department of Health, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry--to uncover any additional information. It goes without saying that I will demand more transparent and comprehensive testing throughout the Bannister Complex. For the safety of the workers, we need to know what is going on, what is happening at Bannister, what has gone on in the past, who knew about it, why they did nothing about it, and how to move immediately to protect those potentially at risk.

The bottom line is that these workers deserve answers. The situation at GSA tells the American people that all they can expect out of Washington right now is business as usual, keep going forward, don't listen to the people we are supposed to serve, a government that is out of touch with their concerns and slow to act. I do not support business as usual. For these reasons, I will vote against the nomination and ask my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

My colleague and chair, Senator Murray, is correct. The names were added as a result of a clerical error, and Senators Wyden and Merkley should not be listed as sponsors.

In addition to this project, there are additional projects for which Senate names were inadvertently left off of the attribution table. I have confirmed with my staff that the Senators listed below did request the following projects, which have been properly disclosed and for which they have certified that they have no pecuniary interest. Specifically, the projects, the account in which they are funded, and the additional sponsors are as follows:

I-49 North, LA, interstate maintenance, Senator Vitter;

Interstate 69, LA, interstate maintenance, Senator Vitter;

I-12 Interchange at LA-16, LA, interstate maintenance,

Senator Vitter;

I-20 Lincoln Parish, LA, Delta Regional Transportation

Development Program, Senator Vitter;

Clearview at Earhart drainage, LA, Delta Regional

Transportation Development Program, Senator Vitter;

Rail spur extension--Greater Ouachita Parish, LA, rail line

relocation and improvement, Senator Vitter;

Greater Ouachita Port Surface Development Project, LA,

Economic Development Initiative, Senator Vitter;

Earthworks Engineering Research Center--EERC, Iowa State

University, IA, transportation planning, research, and

development, Senator Grassley;

Jet engine technology inspection to support continued

airworthiness--JET, Iowa State University, IA, transportation

planning, research, and development, Senator Grassley;

Interstate 74 corridor construction, IA, interstate

maintenance, Senator Grassley;

Alice's road extension/Ashworth Road to University Avenue,

IA, surface transportation priorities, Senator Grassley;

Construct four lane highway 20 West of U.S. 71, IA, surface

transportation priorities, Senator Grassley;

Iowa Highway 92 reconstruction, surface transportation

priorities, Senator Grassley;

Roger Snedden Dr. extension/grade separation--phase 1, IA,

surface transportation priorities, Senator Grassley;

University Boulevard widening, Clive, IA, surface

transportation priorities, Senator Grassley;

Iowa Highway 100 extension and improvements, Cedar Rapids,

IA, surface transportation priorities, Senator Grassley;

I-480/Tiedeman Road interchange modification, OH,

interstate maintenance, Senator Voinovich;

I-76 Access/Martha Avenue connection, Akron, OH, surface

transportation priorities, Senator Voinovich; and

Warrensville/Van Aken Transit Oriented, OH, surface

transportation priorities, Senator Voinovich.

I thank the chair for her assistance in this matter.

Mr. President, I ask to be advised when I have used 8 of my 10 minutes.

Mr. President, small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They make up 99.7 percent of all employer firms. They employ just over half of all private sector employees. They pay 44 percent of the total U.S. private payroll. They have generated 64 percent--a majority--of the net new jobs over the past 15 years. They create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product, and they hire 40 percent of all high-tech workers.

Small businesses drive this economy. They are also the sector most in need of real health reform that will reduce cost and make it easier to buy insurance. It is estimated that 26 million of the uninsured are small business owners, employees, and their dependents. That is a majority of the uninsured. They continue to struggle to be able to afford health care.

Here are two examples: Jim Henderson, president of Dynamic Sales in St. Louis, has made every adjustment in the book to continue to provide health insurance to his employees. He covered both employees and their families back in the 1980s, but he is now at a point where he can only afford to provide for his employees. He pays 70 percent, his employees 30 percent. Jim is one of the very few small businesses that right now have weathered the storm despite the economy. He wants reform that lowers cost and helps individuals better spend their health care dollars.

Unfortunately, the Democratic health care bills we have seen so far-- and I guess we haven't seen all of them--won't help Jim to continue to provide his employees health care.

Kathie and Tom Veasey own True Value Hardware in Wilmington, DE, the hometown of Vice President Biden. They employ 28 people, most of whom they consider family. They cover 100 percent of the cost for their employees and half for their families. But they have seen huge increases in premiums over the years, with a 36-percent increase just this year after an employee got sick. Each year, they are forced to shop for health insurance, but they continue to have limited choices due to an uncompetitive market.

Unfortunately, the Democratic bills won't fix the problem or help Kathie and Tom continue to provide their employees health care.

If we really want to get out of this recession, if we really want to address the problem of affordable and accessible health insurance, then the majority party needs to take a hard look at health care reform.

First of all, we need to allow small businesses to go together and purchase health care across State lines so they have true competition and so they can lower costs. We need medical malpractice reform, which would cut $120 billion to $200 billion out of the cost of health care.

However, when we look closely, the bills we see before us do not address the real health care needs, and, in fact, by imposing more taxes--and taxes which the CBO said will be passed from health care companies down to those who are paying the private bills--not only will it make health care less affordable for these small businesses, it will force many of them to drop whatever coverage they have now.

Tax equity is extremely important. An employee of a large corporation or a union member who gets health care premiums paid for by their employer or by their union doesn't have to record them as income. Small businesses, their employees, farmers, and individual purchasers need the same benefit that the employees of large corporations and union members get.

Now, instead of proposing commonsense health care solutions for small businesses, the bills we have seen coming out of the smoke-filled rooms run by the majority leader continue to heap costly new burdens on small businesses that are trying to keep their doors open. More and more it seems small businesses are under attack, and that is what they are telling us. One of the universities that visited me this past week is trying to do something to help small businesses, and I said: What is the attitude? They say: The attitude of small business is that they are under attack by what is being done in Congress and what is being proposed by the administration.

The 2010 budget calls for tax increases on those earning $250,000 or more. For small businesses that are taxed at their personal rate-- proprietorships, partnerships, and sub S corporations--these tax increases hit the returns of those small businesses, and they are taxed at the punitive rate. Higher energy taxes on businesses in the cap-and- trade plan will put many small businesses in my part of the country out of work. New taxes and new mandates in the health care bill will be passed on.

Randy Angst of Lebanon, MO, says the following about the Senate bill:

The new taxes would eliminate roughly half of my profits.

It would force me to let employees go, refrain from hiring

new employees and prevent me from reinvesting in my business.

The mandates would be very harmful and make it much more

costly for me to operate my business.

This bill--the last bill we have seen--requires a costly $28 billion new mandate on businesses that do not offer health care. Who pays that mandate? Anybody looking for a job. If you tell businesses they have to spend big money on a mandate, they cannot spend it on hiring new workers. The mandates do nothing to reduce insurance costs, and because they are focused on full-time workers, the mandate gives companies an incentive to classify more of their workers as part time.

Gene Schwartz, with K&S Wire Products in Neosho, MO, says:

We are in a recession and I am in manufacturing. The

legislation would be nothing but detrimental to us. Our

workforce is already down 25 percent from last year, and if

this bill goes through in its current form, the new taxes and

mandates will force me to make further cuts. Also, this bill

will increase my costs by further raising my already sky-high

insurance premiums.

This bill also includes more paperwork which is costly for a small business. Section 9006 requires that every time a business vendor sells a service or property exceeding $600 to another business, the receiving business must report the transaction to the IRS. That is an enormous new costly paperwork burden that will hit almost every business regardless of how small.

These mandates and regulations disproportionately affect small businesses and come at a high cost. According to the SBA's own Web site, very small firms with fewer than 20 employees annually spend 45 percent more per employee than larger firms to comply with Federal regulations. These very small firms spend 4\1/2\ times as much per employee to comply with environmental regulations and 67 percent more per employee on tax compliance than their larger counterparts.

The bill clearly fails to bring down the cost of health care for small businesses. It fails to bring down the cost of health care at all, but it is especially hard on small businesses that can't afford coverage under the current law.

Small business owners from my State have come to me for two decades looking for more affordable ways to make health insurance available. They want to be able to provide insurance for their people. That is why I have long been a champion of small business health care reform.

Does the majority's bill include strong reform that will allow small businesses and the self employed access to more affordable, more accessible health care? No.

Does the bill include protections for small businesses that disproportionately feel the burden of increased government mandates and taxes? No.

In fact, CBO has said that this bill will increase premiums for individuals in the non group market by 10-13 percent.

Premiums for small businesses could increase by 1 percent or be reduced by 2 percent but it is easy math. If a small business cannot afford to provide health insurance now, they will not be able to afford to do so under this bill.

According to CBO, under current law families in a small group plan today pay about $13,300. In 2016, they will pay about $19,200 if this bill becomes law.

That is the wrong direction.

Health care is already too expensive for small businesses. We need to make it cheaper. It should not cost a family $19,200 in 2016 for health insurance.

This bill continues down the path of unsustainable health care costs.

In fact that is one of the main reasons the National Federation of Independent Businesses opposes this bill. They say, ``Small businesses can't support a proposal that does not address their number 1 problem-- the unsustainable cost of healthcare. With unemployment at a 26-year high and small business owners struggling to simply keep their doors open, this kind of reform is not what we need to encourage small business to thrive.''

This bill also imposes new taxes and fees, like the $6.7 billion per year tax increase on health insurance companies.

Yes, the majority wants to sock it to the insurance companies.

Well, guess what. The insurance companies are going to pass the costs along to consumers.

Small businesses cannot self-insure, they must purchase products available in the marketplace. That is why CBO has found that increased costs due to fees being passed on to the consumer will be more pronounced for small businesses. NFIB has also said this new tax will fall almost exclusively on small businesses.

This bill just does not help small businesses.

I know the argument my colleagues on the other side offer.

They say they provide a tax credit to help small businesses.

What they don't say is that this is a bait and switch.

First of all, in order to get the full credit, you cannot have more than 10 workers who get paid an average of $20,000.

After that, the credit begins to phase out for each employee you have above 10. It also phases out for each $1,000 increase in average wages above $20,000. If you have 25 employees or you pay more than an average wage of above $40,000, you don't even get the credit.

The real kicker is that the full credit is only available for 2 years after the exchange takes effect. Then that is it.

A small business will either have to offer an employee health insurance--which will really not be any cheaper than it is today--or they will have to pay a fine. Or an employee can go into the exchange as an individual where insurance will cost 10-13 percent more.

Let us examine a realistic situation using Jim from St. Louis as an example.

As I mentioned before, the small business tax credit is filled with thresholds and variations that make it of limited value for the few small businesses that are eligible to claim the credit.

The full value of the credit, which is equal to 50 percent of the business owner's costs, is available for small businesses with 10 or fewer workers that pay their employees an average annual wage of $20,000 or less. But the credit also starts to phase out as the employer adds employees or gives raises, so the entire credit is gone if the employer has 25 or more employees and pays them an average wage of $40,000 or more.

Jim has six employees and his average annual wage is about $39,000. Jim has to ask if he meets the two threshold questions before he can determine whether he gets the tax credit. He passes the first test, since he only has six employees. But Jim's credit is reduced because he has paid his employees too much in wages.

Today, Jim's health care costs are $30,540. If he qualified for the full value of the credit, his annual health care costs would be $15,270--about half of what he pays now.

But the value of his small business tax credit is directly related to wage, so the value of Jim's credit is reduced to $763 based on the formula. That is a small fraction of his health care costs and wouldn't even cover the cost of hiring an accountant to figure out how much the credit is worth.

Because Jim is already so close to the highest average wage to be eligible for any credit at all, this means if he gives his employees a well-earned and well-deserved raise, he will lose the credit altogether.

In these tough economic times, the government is encouraging small business owners like Jim to create more jobs, but if they create too many or pay people too much, then the government will reward them by taking away their small business tax credit.

And even worse, the phase-outs mean that Jim has a disincentive to hire more workers.

So this bill completely misses the mark for small businesses.

Mr. President, our small businesses are struggling. We owe more to this critical sector of our economy which is responsible for half of the private-sector jobs and employees than a bill that mandates taxes and fails to provide real health care reform.

In a recent letter to Senator Reid, the NFIB outlines how the bill will adversely affect business owners.

When evaluating healthcare reform options, small business

owners ask themselves two specific questions. First, will the

bill lower insurance costs? Second, will the bill increase

the overall cost of doing business? If a bill increases the

cost of doing business or fails to reduce insurance costs,

then the bill fails to achieve their No. 1 goal--lower costs.

In both cases, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care

Act (H.R. 3590) fails the small business test and, therefore,

fails small business.

They further say in the letter:

Despite the inclusion of insurance market reforms in the

small-group and individual marketplaces, the savings that may

materialize are too small for too few and the increase in

premium costs are too great for too many. Those costs, along

with greater government involvement, higher taxes and new

mandates that are disproportionately targeted at small

business and are being used to finance H.R. 3590, create a

reality that is worse than the status quo for small business.

It is worse than the status quo.

Mr. President, it is time to stop attacking small business and work on real reform. We should defeat this proposal that does not make insurance more affordable, is a massive government intrusion into health care and that will pay for new entitlement programs on the backs of our small businesses.

Let us put this debate in context. If small businesses do most of the hiring, and we are counting on them to help lead us out of the recession, why would we want to increase their costs of doing business and make it less likely they will hire new workers?

President Obama hosted a Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth last week, where he invited ideas to jump start job growth in our sluggish economy.

Now, he and the majority are considering a new plan to jump-start job growth using ``unspent'' or returned TARP funds. Have they forgotten that it is all borrowed money, and thus deficit spending, in the first place?

Let me submit that the bill before us will hurt job creation.

Before practicing medicine, doctors often take an oath, the Hippocratic Oath, where they promise to refrain from doing harm. I would like to see Congress and the President take the same oath.

How can you on the one hand legislate new taxes on businesses in the name of health reform--coupled with new energy taxes in the name of climate protection--and on the other hand ask businesses to generate new jobs? It cannot be done. Massive tax increases and job creation are mutually exclusive.

Employers who face uncertainty regarding new, oppressive taxes and mandates are not going to want to sink money into new jobs. It is that simple.

We should think about the harm we will do to small businesses through this legislation and instead work on commonsense reforms that have bipartisan support.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter from the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Mr. President, I have a couple of other comments I wish to add.

We have now learned that there is a new proposal coming out of the back rooms--the smoke-filled rooms. Every time something new is thrown up on the wall, we stand around with a great deal of interest to see whether it sticks. When you look at this one, I don't believe it sticks. I think it stinks.

If you read the Washington Post's lead editorial today, its headline is ``Medicare sausage? The emerging buy-in proposal could have costly unintended consequences.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record, after my remarks, the Washington Post article.

At the end of the article, it says:

The irony of this late-breaking Medicare proposal is that

it could be a bigger step toward a single-payer system than

the milquetoast public option plans rejected by Senate

moderates as too disruptive of the private market.

To say that it moves toward a public takeover is confirmed by one of the most outspoken backers of the public option, the one most interested in getting public control or governmental control of all of health care, New York Representative Anthony Weiner. He is quoted in Politico today as having hailed the expansion of Medicare as an unvarnished triumph for Democrats like himself who have been pushing for a single-payer run health care system. In the article, he says: ``Never mind the camel's nose, we've got his head and his neck in the tent.''

I think that is clear. Trying to expand Medicare will almost assuredly drive all the private plans out of the market. Why? Medicare pays 80 percent of the cost of hospitals and less for doctors, and they have to make up the rest of their cost by charging privately covered patients more money. It will raise the cost so that private health care can no longer succeed.

Exhibit 1

[From the Washington Post, Dec. 10, 2009]

Medicare Sausage?

The only thing more unsettling than watching legislative

sausage being made is watching it being made on the fly. The

11th-hour ``compromise'' on health-care reform and the public

option supposedly includes an expansion of Medicare to let

people ages 55 to 64 buy into the program. This is an idea

dating to at least the Clinton administration, and Senate

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) originally

proposed allowing the buy-in as a temporary measure before

the new insurance exchanges get underway. However, the last-

minute introduction of this idea within the broader context

of health reform raises numerous questions--not least of

which is whether this proposal is a far more dramatic step

toward a single-payer system than lawmakers on either side

realize.

The details of how the buy-in would work are still sketchy

and still being fleshed out, but the basic notion is that

uninsured individuals 55 to 64 who would be eligible to

participate in the newly created insurance exchanges could

choose instead to purchase coverage through Medicare. In

theory, this would not add to Medicare costs because the

coverage would have to be paid for--either out of pocket or

with the subsidies that would be provided to those at lower

income levels to purchase insurance on the exchanges. The

notion is that, because Medicare pays lower rates to health-

care providers than do private insurers, the coverage would

tend to cost less than a private plan. The complication is

understanding what effect the buy-in option would have on the

new insurance exchanges and, more important, on the larger

health-care system.

Currently, Medicare benefits are less generous in

significant ways than the plans to be offered on the

exchanges. For instance, there is no cap on out-of-pocket

expenses. So would near-seniors who buy in to Medicare get

Medicare-level benefits? If so, who would tend to purchase

that coverage? Sicker near-seniors might be better off

purchasing private insurance on the an exchange. But the

educated guessing--and that's a generous description--is that

sicker near-seniors might tend to place more trust in a

government-run program; they might assume, with good reason,

that the government will be more accommodating in approving

treatments, and they might flock to Medicare. That would

raise premium costs and, correspondingly, the pressure to dip

into federal funds for extra help.

In addition, the insurance exchanges proposal is being

increasingly sliced and diced in ways that could narrow its

effectiveness. Remember, the overall concept is to group

together enough people to spread the risk and obtain better

rates. But so-called ``young invincibles''--the under-30

crowd--would already be allowed to opt out of the regular

exchange plans and purchase high-deductible catastrophic

coverage. Those with incomes under 133 percent of the poverty

level would be covered by Medicaid. The exchanges risk

becoming less effective the more they are Balkanized this

way.

Presumably, the expanded Medicare program would pay

Medicare rates to providers, raising the question of the

spillover effects on a health-care system already stressed by

a dramatic expansion of Medicaid. Will providers cut costs--

or will they shift them to private insurers, driving up

premiums? Will they stop taking Medicare patients or go to

Congress demanding higher rates? Once 55-year-olds are in,

they are not likely to be kicked out, and the pressure will

be on to expand the program to make more people eligible. The

irony of this late-breaking Medicare proposal is that it

could be a bigger step toward a single-payer system than the

milquetoast public option plans rejected by Senate moderates

as too disruptive of the private market.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, on behalf of my fellow Missourians, I extend my warmest congratulations to Mill Creek Elementary School in Columbia, MO.

Mill Creek Elementary is celebrating 20 years of dedication to educating its students. When Mill Creek opened in 1989, it served 486 students. Now, the school is home to 90 faculty and staff members and 760 students.

Mill Creek Elementary has educated and advanced thousands of students over the years. The faculty and staff have helped students to develop the knowledge and skills that will serve them throughout their lives so they may contribute to their communities one day.

At Mill Creek, students pledge to be respectful of themselves and others, responsible for their own learning and behavior, and resourceful problem-solvers. These standards are known as the 3 R's: respect, responsibility, and resourcefulness. Mill Creek hopes to instill these standards within its students so they will use them not just at school but also in their homes and their communities.

Public education is strengthened when schools have the support of the local community. KMIZ-17, Rolling Hills Veterinary, Columbia Insurance Group and Boulevard Bank have all stepped forward to be involved at Mill Creek through the Partners in Education program. These businesses provide time and support to students through mentoring, hands-on lessons and even a school weather station.

Strong parental involvement also leads to school success. Mill Creek benefits tremendously from the countless PTA and volunteer hours donated by family members and community leaders each year.

Mill Creek Elementary has been committed for over 20 years to providing a high quality education to its students and preparing them to be leaders in their community. Parents, students, teachers and staff can all be proud of their accomplishments.

Congratulations to the Cougars!

Madam President, I thank the Senator from New Hampshire. I wish to clarify some things he said because they are truly important. I wish to make sure everybody understands it because Senator Gregg, in his position on the Budget Committee, as well as his other positions in writing this bill, is intimately acquainted with the costs of this bill.

The cost for 2010 to 2019, how much was the cost for that 10-year period?

Is this the total expenditure or are these just the expenditures that are not covered after 2014, that are not covered by the so-called tax or revenue raisers? In other words, does this all go onto the debt?

Cuts in Medicare. How much are the cuts in Medicare?

Madam President, $1.1 trillion cuts in Medicare. How much are the taxes and the other ``revenue raisers'' in that period?

So how much will go onto the debt? How much is uncovered?

My friend has been very active in the Budget Committee. How many times have we cut Medicare, have we allowed Medicare cuts to go into effect? I think that is a rather rare occurrence, isn't it?

I thank my colleague from New Hampshire because he has been a very solid, consistent, credible voice. What he is pointing out today is that the legislation we are debating has major implications for every American family, every American taxpayer, every American small business.

In the 1992 election, President Clinton's famous slogan was: ``It's the economy, stupid.'' Seventeen years later, it is again the economy that is a major issue facing the people. But this time the majority party does not seem to be paying attention. Instead, the majority has used its supermajority position to spend trillions of dollars that we don't have, including a misnamed stimulus that stimulated the growth of the deficit and the Federal Government but not jobs. We had takeovers and bailouts of banks, insurance companies, and major auto manufacturers. They have adopted a budget that would double the debt-- the debt our grandchildren owe--in 5 years and triple it in 10.

It is little wonder that the unemployment rate has skyrocketed, because employers are afraid to hire. Families are seeing their budgets strapped such as never before. But the bill before us is a crowning achievement of the drive to destroy our economy and hope for the future.

Just 1 year after a narrowly averted financial collapse, with unemployment at its highest level since 1983, instead of how to create jobs, we are debating a bill that will take over one-sixth of our economy and likely kill jobs.

Don't get me wrong, our health care system is in need of reform. It costs too much, too many people are uninsured, there are too many junk lawsuits and too much defensive medicine and not enough focus on prevention and wellness.

While we all agree reform is necessary, the American people expect us to answer the questions: How much will reform cost and can we afford it? Will it lower health care costs? Can you keep your current plan? What role will the government play?

The answer to two and three on this bill is: No, it will not lower our health care costs; no, you will not be able to keep your current plan.

Then the question is: Who will make health care decisions? We are seeing evidence that they have government committees that say when you can get a mammogram, when you should get Pap screening.

Will Americans and Members of Congress have time to evaluate what is in the legislation? We hope today, as yesterday, that we will bring out for the American people the cost of this bill because what we are seeing in this massive pot, 2,047 pages, is there is a lack of commonsense reform. It is filled with costly budget gimmicks and asks the people of America to spend over $2 trillion on proposals that will heap a mountain of debt on our children and grandchildren.

Two trillion dollars is an almost unfathomable amount of money. But in Washington, trillion is the new billion, and that is not the kind of health care reform Americans want. It is not reform at all. It spends too much, it taxes too much and it cuts Medicare too much and does not provide reforms we need. Nearly $\1/2\ trillion in taxes will be added on the backs of the American people, $28 billion in taxes on businesses, which will kill jobs at a time when we have over 10 percent unemployment and even higher if you include the number of people who are no longer working or underemployed. These higher costs will ultimately be passed on to American workers and consumers.

Anybody who thinks you are going to tax health care insurers, device providers and expect that those costs will not be passed on to the consumers--that is you and me, Madam President. The head of the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation have said these higher taxes are passed along, and they will land on families, small businesses, and individuals.

It will also force Americans into a government-run health care plan. It will ration care and limit access to lifesaving treatments and put a bureaucrat between you and your doctor. In life, two things you can count on are said to be death and taxes. I didn't expect to see them both in a health care reform proposal.

We call this a pig in a poke. The only way to sell a pig in a poke is to hide from Americans what their tax dollars are buying. If I were to outline all the problems in this 2,000-page bill, we would be here until Thanksgiving. It is sort of like a mosquito in a nudist colony-- there are so many targets to attack in this bill we don't know which one to hit.

Let me give you just a few. As the Senator from New Hampshire pointed out, the real cost of this bill to the American people is a whole lot more than they admit. The majority is claiming that the bill only costs $850 billion, but the way the majority gets to say that is because they are pulling a great smoke-and-mirrors trick.

Even more incredible is the Democrats' claim their bill will cut the deficit. It is a great scheme, but no one outside Washington actually believes this health care bill will do anything but increase costs and pile more debt on our kids and grandkids, and they are right.

Right now, as the ranking member of the Budget Committee has pointed out, the national debt already exceeds $12 trillion. This bill will put more on that. The true cost of the bill is not just a ``he said, she said.'' Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office acknowledges that the majority's bill includes gimmicks that hide the true cost of the bill.

Part of the majority's scheme to hide from Americans the true cost is the great stunt, as the Senator from New Hampshire described, to push back implementation of parts of the reform to 2014 but start collecting money in taxes now. That means tax now and pay later. That sure makes your numbers look good, doesn't it?

For example, Medicaid expansion does not begin until 2014. That is in section 2001. Section 1311 says health insurance exchanges are not fully operational until January 2014. Section 1323 says a public health insurance option is not available until 2014. Most of the major insurance reforms, however, in section 1253 take effect in 2014.

The tax on health insurance starts in 2010. That is section 9010. Section 9009 says the tax on medical devices starts in 2010. Section 9008 says the tax on pharmaceutical manufacturing starts in 2010. That is even worse than the Senate Finance Committee bill which initially had it starting in 2013, but it is a great gimmick to allow them to hide the cost of the bill. Claiming savings of $122 billion by recording taxes over 10 years and only scoring costs over 6 years would get an officer in a publicly traded corporation sent to jail. Move over, Bernie Madoff. Tip your hat to a trillion-dollar scam. This is magnificent, and that is in this bill. I am glad all Americans can read it. They can check out the sections I cited.

Even the Congressional Budget Office has called ``bull'' on this stunt, saying it would be difficult to maintain the savings the majority has been touting. No wonder. And the true cost, as the Senator from New Hampshire has pointed out, is $2.5 trillion. But it will also be increasing taxes. In fact, everyone will be taxed one way or another. Forget what the President promised about no taxes. Sections 9004 and 9010 will tax Americans who have insurance. Section 1501 will tax Americans who do not have insurance--almost $8 billion. Taxes will be placed on medical device manufacturers, section 9009; and as the CBO has said, those taxes will be passed on in the form of higher prices and thus in the form of higher insurance premiums.

Because of the tax on health insurers, section 9010, the CBO and the Joint Committee have said these taxes will be passed on in the form of higher health care premiums. Pricewater-houseCoopers says that is $487 a year per family. That is how much these taxes on the health insurers and health payment plans will cost the average family.

Employers will be taxed. About $2 billion in new taxes will be placed on employers who do not meet government approved health care plans. That is section 1513. That is where American workers are going to pay for it because that is where they lose their jobs. Headlines in the Wall Street Journal and letters I have seen from leaders of businesses say we are not expanding; we cannot afford to expand; we cannot afford to take on more employees.

Why are we having a jobless recovery? Because the threats of Washington's overspending, overcontrolling, overtaxing, and overregulating are telling prospective employers that they are about to hit the ditch with all the things the Government is putting on them.

For all of the taxes and mandates, according to CBO, about 5 million Americans would lose their employer coverage. That is because the costs would go up, the regulations would go up. Currently, 83 percent of Americans have health insurance, and they are concerned that it costs too much. Americans want affordable health care, but this bill raises the cost of health care. New taxes and mandates will be passed on to American families, the American taxpayers, and American small businesses.

The bill still leaves 24 million Americans without insurance. According to the CBO, the government-run plan will have higher premiums, and the CBO said it will drive up the cost of health care. This was supposed to lower the cost of health care. It will not do anything of the kind.

To sum up, $2 trillion in more spending gets the American taxpayer, in the 2,074 pages, a Federal bureaucracy that increases the cost of health care, raises premiums, slashes Medicare for seniors, and puts unfunded burdens on States.

Let me just make two last points: The States, according to CBO, will get coverage for these new Medicaid eligibles for the 2 years that they will get covered and then they will dump it on the States--$25 billion. There is a $25 billion cost.

The Senator from New Hampshire and I were both Governors of our States. I can tell you, States do not need that kind of burden, particularly in their difficult circumstances.

Slashing Medicare for seniors? In Missouri, Medicare already only pays 80 percent of the costs. More and more hospitals and doctors have to limit the number of Medicare patients they can accept. If we continue, and if they push through this Medicare cut, then fewer and fewer Medicare patients are going to be able to get health care.

I hope my colleagues will listen to what the American people are telling us and vote against the bill. That is certainly the message I am getting from Missouri.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, faith has written many painful chapters in America's history. Each is sharply engraved in our memories. Many involve military conflict: the British burning of Washington, the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Pork Chop Hill.

Others were singular acts of aggression, such as the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Presidents Lincoln, McKinley, and Kennedy.

September 11, 2001, is the latest painful chapter in American history, one that forever will be burned into our memories as a day of horror unlike any we have experienced before. The sheer magnitude and deliberate evil of the attacks that day defy comprehension. Who among us will soon forget the wrenching images of passenger planes used as missiles aimed at the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon or the people diving out of 70-story windows to avoid being burned again, and the heroic and selfless final acts of passengers aboard Flight 93 as it headed toward the Nation's Capital? Who among us will forget the pictures and the hopeful messages that sprang up around the area where the World Trade Center once proudly stood as relatives searched in vain for loved ones?

Three thousand men and women perished that day at the hands of terrorists who cared nothing for the innocent lives they stole. As the towers fell, their comrades and sympathizers, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, diabolically cheered the devastation.

It is these memories of 9/11 that make last week's decision by the Obama Justice Department to give the mastermind of these attacks and his associates all the rights and benefits of a civilian trial in New York City unexplainable and compel me to rise to voice my strong objection to that decision.

It is an insult to the memories of those who were brutally murdered on September 11 that the perpetrator of these cowardly acts will sit in a courtroom blocks away from Ground Zero and reap the full benefits and protections of the U.S. Constitution. Even worse than the insult to the victims and their families is the dangerous precipice the Obama Justice Department has now crossed with this foolhardy decision. Earlier this year, the Homeland Security Secretary signaled an alarming change of perspective about the nature of the enemy we face. No longer would we call the acts of terrorism what they are: acts of war. Instead, according to Secretary Napolitano, the accepted terminology for an attack such as 9/11 would now be a ``man-caused disaster.'' Apparently, 9/11 was no different than a forest fire started by an arsonist.

This initial change in terminology was troubling enough, but trying Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his 9/11 associates in civilian Federal court sends a loud and clear signal that this administration is now comfortable recasting certain acts of terrorism as simply what the Attorney General calls ``extraordinary crimes.'' I have to wonder if the Attorney General thinks Pearl Harbor was an extraordinary crime. In the logic of this administration, murdering 3,000 civilians, including servicemembers at the Pentagon, is an extraordinary crime, justifying trial in a civilian court. Yet killing 17 servicemembers aboard the USS Cole is an act of war or the murder of 13 servicemembers at Fort Hood justifies continued proceedings before the military commissions. This arbitrary distinction makes no sense and shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the nature of this war.

It also creates a perverse incentive for terrorists to attack civilians so they may benefit from our treasured constitutional protections. KSM understood the benefits of these protections when, as former CIA Director George Tenet has said, KSM defiantly told CIA interrogators after his capture: ``I'll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer.'' He was counting on going to New York to get the protections of our Constitution.

Words are simply words, but the mentality that these words represent is dangerously naive. Whether it is called a man-caused disaster or extraordinary crime, refusing to treat the September 11 perpetrators as terrorists, deserving only of a trial before a military commission, is a dangerous throwback to the pre-9/11 mentality that resulted in the attack on the USS Cole, the bombings of our embassies, and the first World Trade Center bombing.

Ordinarily, I support the concept of prosecutorial discretion and the right of the executive branch to bring criminal actions against perpetrators as supported by the facts. But in this instance, this discretion must give way to the larger national security interests of our country. In spite of the stated intention of KSM to plead guilty in the military commission, the Attorney General has asserted he believes there is a greater chance of success against these 9/11 coconspirators in civilian court. This belief--one I do not share--does not justify the enhanced risks to our security and the dangerous precedent for the treatment of future terrorists this trial will bring.

That this case will establish a very bad precedent was made clear by the Attorney General in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, when he summarily dismissed concerns that the decision to bring 9/11 coconspirators into the Federal justice system would preclude an intelligence community interrogation of Osama bin Laden if he were captured. The Attorney General refused to say whether bin Laden would be given Miranda warnings upon capture and claimed ``the case against him is so overwhelming'' that there would be no need to rely on any statements he might make after capture. Mr. Holder called the concerns about not being able to interrogate bin Laden a ``red herring.'' Well, unfortunately, the Attorney General's testimony shows a complete lack of understanding that the purpose of intelligence interrogations is to stop planned attacks and to take down terrorist networks, not to elicit confessions for use in a criminal trial.

It is beyond troubling that the Attorney General, as the head of the Department of Justice, the Justice Department's FBI National Security Division--the very people charged with preventing terrorist attacks, such as those disrupted in New York, Illinois, and North Carolina, seem to have no interest in obtaining valuable intelligence from bin Laden. As the leader of al-Qaida, bin Laden clearly has considerable knowledge of its network, its members, its methods, and its potential plots to kill more Americans. So what the Attorney General calls a red herring, I call a red flag.

Some have hailed the administration's decision as a way to showcase our judicial system for the world, but the Attorney General has confirmed that in the event KSM or one of his associates is acquitted, he will still be

detained indefinitely. Are you sure, Mr. Attorney General, that a court will not order him released?

This begs the question: Why should we incur the time, expense, and risk our national security on a show trial if we are just going to detain these terrorists forever anyway? Rather than showcasing our judicial system, this strange logic seems to make a mockery of the civilian judicial system. While the Attorney General has declared that failure is not an option, he does not control judicial rulings, nor the facts and perceptions that may sway any one of 12 jurors who will decide KSM's fate. A conviction will be expected, but there can be no guarantees.

Make no mistake, America is still at war. The war on terror is real. It will not go away just by calling it another name. We cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand. While Khalid Shaikh Mohammed may ultimately be convicted, our success in the war against terror will only be final when we have hunted these terrorists into extinction. We need look no further than the terror plots disrupted earlier this fall in New York, Colorado, Illinois, and at Quantico, to name a few, to understand the threats we faced on September 11 are still very real. For the men and women massacred in cold blood at Fort Hood, the ongoing threat of terrorism is all too real.

The Obama administration is standing at a crossroads of history. It can either persist in downplaying the reality that we are at war with terrorists or it can affirm that its top priority is to keep Americans safe by winning this war on terror.

Madam President, success in this war on terror cannot simply be defined as getting a guilty verdict against KSM in a civilian Federal court. If the Department of Justice jeopardizes our intelligence sources and methods, incurs unnecessary security risks, and creates a high-profile public platform for KSM to spew his hatred and espouse hirabah, they will only increase the likelihood that these detainees will proselytize fellow inmates in Federal prisons and convert followers worldwide. That is not success; that is failure of the worst kind--an avoidable failure.

These are not the hypothetical gambles that some on the left have dismissed casually. As former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who presided as a judge over one of the trials, has stated, we know these domestic terror trials have exposed sensitive classified information and given important intelligence information to al-Qaida, allowing them to go undetected in more ways than they need.

A few examples:

The east Africa Embassy bombing trials made Osama bin Laden aware that cell phones were being intercepted, prompting al-Qaida to alter its methods of communication.

The trial of the World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef, tipped off terrorists to a communications link that provided ``enormously valuable intelligence,'' but was ``shut down'' after the disclosure.

Within days of being provided to the defense in the Omar Abdel-Rahman trial, the blind shaikh, a list of unindicted coconspirators, including Osama bin Laden, was provided to bin Laden.

During the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, 48 classified documents-- reports of FBI interviews with witnesses--were inadvertently provided to Moussaoui as part of the government's pretrial discovery response. In ordering the U.S. Marshals to seize the documents from Moussaoui's cell, the judge noted that ``significant national security interests of the United States could be compromised if the defendant were to retain copies of this classified information.''

I believe these examples provide ample evidence that public trials of these types of terrorism cases are a clear win for terrorists seeking to learn more about our intelligence sources and methods.

Were there no alternatives, we would proceed with this type of trial, despite the risk, because our Nation values due process. However, the military commissions process, first approved by Congress in 2006, and again last month, ensures a fair trial with rights to counsel, discovery, and appeal, but without the costs and risks of Federal civilian trials.

The concept of military commissions is one our Nation has relied upon before. When Congress created the military commissions process after September 11, it established a framework to ensure that intelligence sources and methods would not be jeopardized. While changes have been made over the years to the process itself in light of Supreme Court decisions, the general framework and principles remain solidly in place.

This process isn't new to this administration either. The administration is not only using this process, the Attorney General announced that the USS Cole bomber will still be tried under the commission. They worked with Congress to make the changes to it themselves.

Yet in the case of the 9/11 conspirators, the administration has chosen to reject the tried and true method of prosecuting enemy combatants in a venue where intelligence sources and methods are unlikely to be compromised in favor of circuses that will make the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, with its endless motions and Moussaoui's challenge of a duel to former Attorney General Ashcroft, seem like a mundane proceeding.

This is an unnecessarily dangerous gamble. While the decision to take this gamble with our national security is clearly a matter for the executive branch, the administration has found a willing ally in many of my colleagues in Congress. Earlier this month, I joined 44 other Senators, from both sides of the aisle, in supporting an amendment to prohibit taxpayer funds from being used to prosecute in a civilian court the 9/11 perpetrators. Unfortunately, we were outvoted. The amendment didn't pass.

I encourage my colleagues to rethink their opposition. When the appropriate time comes, I hope they will reaffirm that our national security interests must have priority over politically correct prosecutions.

America is rightfully a different nation today than it was before September 11. We were attacked in a way and at a magnitude that we hope never to experience again. But we simply cannot rely on hope alone. Following these terrorist attacks, we took critical steps to try to ensure we are never attacked like this again. We made sure that we gave our intelligence professionals the tools they needed to fight terrorists, not just criminals. We gave them the tools they needed to fight a war and keep America safe.

We must always remember the lessons of September 11. We owe it to the victims of these and other terrorist attacks to keep our Nation safe. I call on the President from this floor to reverse this disastrous decision by the Attorney General and reaffirm his commitment to our national security and to winning this war against terrorism.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor a fine Missourian, Peter S. Levi, for his distinguished career as well as his lifelong commitment to community and economic development.

Mr. Levi has worked tirelessly in developing and fostering economic development throughout the Kansas City area for over 30 years. He first became involved in the region as executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council. After 13 years as the executive director, he moved on to become president of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Levi's lifelong dedication to the city of Kansas City and surrounding area is evident through his championing of Kansas City and its economic potential. His 19 years as one of the chamber's most effective presidents has seen the chamber grow to represent about 9,000 area businesses while expanding the chamber's annual budget to over $6 million.

Along with Mr. Levi's work with the Chamber of Commerce he has been an active member of several boards including the Kansas City Symphony, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Midwest Research Institute, University of Kansas Medical Center, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Kansas City.

Mr. Levi is a graduate of Northwestern University, B.A, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, J.D., masters of law in urban legal affairs. He is married to Enid Levi and they have two sons Josh and Jeff.

Mr. Levi will retire from the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce on December 31 of this year. From his honorable service to the community to his impeccable leadership within the Chamber of Commerce, Peter S. Levi has always worked to inspire those around him with his vigor, sense of duty, and pride in his community.

With his many Kansas City friends, I thank Pete for his service to the city of Kansas City, and I wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

Mr. President, in this ever-difficult era of economic recession

and troops engaged overseas, I am proud to introduce this amendment with Senators Udall of New Mexico and Bingaman which addresses a dual front plaguing our country's war heroes. That dual front emerges from two troubles that exist for our veterans dealing with the horrors of war abroad and lack of affordable housing at home.

This sad duality has a dark and tragic reality. To date, one out of every three homeless men sleeping somewhere in our cities and communities is a veteran. Veterans make up a significant and disproportionate amount--over 20 percent--of our country's homeless population. The number of homeless Vietnam-era veterans is greater than the number of service persons who died during that war. Regrettably, this dark shadow cast behind our Nation's veterans is stretching because we are seeing homelessness spread to veterans returning from the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead of receiving the services and benefits they deserve, veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan--as well as many American families--are at greater risk of homelessness due to a number of factors, such as the economic downturn, the acute shortage of affordable housing, and lingering mental health illnesses. Further, despite the efforts of the federal government and its partners at the State and local levels and their progress in addressing homelessness, there remain too many gaps in our safety net system to prevent homelessness.

For our troops and their families to whom we owe so much, who make great contributions to defend our country, and who risk their lives; is homelessness an acceptable outcome for them? Clearly, the answer is no. That is why I am proud to support this amendment with my colleagues from New Mexico and I value the work I have been a part of with my other colleagues and friends like Senators Murray, Mikulski, Reed, and Hutchison.

This amendment sends a clear and strong message that we cannot allow our veterans to return to their communities without providing them the support they need. This is why we introduced this amendment which combines the necessary support and housing services to help our veterans. Veterans need a comprehensive approach that begins with secure and stable housing in order to provide them the opportunity to reintegrate into society and support their families. Our amendment fully funds the Homeless Grant and Per Diem Program, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and promotes the development of supportive housing and services with the goals of helping homeless veterans achieve residential stability, increase their skill levels and income and develop greater self-determination. In closing, I thank my colleagues from New Mexico and the managers of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill for their support. I sincerely believe that the passage of this amendment will be another example of our shining and unwavering commitment to our veterans.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed as in morning guess.

Mr. President, tomorrow our Nation will honor the thousands of men and women who have answered the call to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies. Today I rise to pay tribute to these veterans and their commitment to the cause of freedom. These brave men and women are ones throughout ages who have made the contribution, who made the efforts, and some made the ultimate sacrifice to keep our country free. We owe them no less than our heartfelt thanks.

In Kansas City, MO, we are very proud to have a facility called the Liberty Memorial which was set up many years ago as the only memorial to World War I veterans. That facility continues today to be a very proud part of the Kansas City heritage. We want to make sure that as we look back and honor the veterans of World War I, we recognize that this was the first, the best, and the most outstanding memorial to the veterans of World War I. I ask my colleagues to work with us as we appropriately recognize and elevate the Liberty Memorial to the status it deserves in honoring the men and women who served in that very difficult First World War.

But also as we mark this Veterans Day, the massacre of 13 of our servicemembers at Fort Hood Texas is in all of our hearts.

It is unthinkable that the brave men and women in our military, who already sacrifice so much when they go forward on the battlefield to fend off attacks, now find the attacks can come at home. But in the midst of this horrific tragedy, our Nation has also witnessed the courage, the heroism, and the quick thinking we have come to expect from our military personnel and law enforcement.

There are many questions that need to be answered, and as vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and also as the father of a marine and as an American, I want answers about how this could have happened and whether we could have prevented it. What do we learn from this? How do we take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again? I want to find out the who, what, when, where, if anything, our intelligence community knew and whether such information was shared with the appropriate action agencies.

Whatever those answers turn out to be, we must ensure that our Nation remains vigilant against the threat of terrorism both from within and outside of the United States; that our law enforcement and intelligence agencies and our military have the tools and resources they need to defend and protect us here at home and abroad; and that their vigilance is never hampered by unreasonable restrictions on the use of those tools that end up aiding only the terrorists. In doing so, we will not only honor the memory of those men and women who died on this horrible day, in this unprovoked attack, but help save future men and women from such a fate.

It is fitting that we honor our veterans and pause to recognize the hardships and sacrifices they have endured throughout wars, conflicts, and many difficult times. We remember especially those men and women who gave their lives so that others--whether comrades, families, total strangers, or the rest of us--could live in freedom. We owe these heroes and their families our eternal gratitude and respect.

As a Senator from Missouri, I offer my very special thanks to the men and women in uniform and the men and women who have served in uniform from our State. In Missouri, the history of service is long and proud. My great State is home to Whiteman Air Force Base, Fort Leonard Wood, and many smaller Guard installations and bases. I am particularly proud of the work being done by the Missouri National Guard's Agricultural Development Team, currently in Afghanistan, where they are helping sow the seeds of peace and providing the security needed to ensure those seeds can grow.

We owe these heroes in Missouri and across the Nation a debt too large ever to repay. At the same time, we recognize the many accomplishments and victories of our military forces. Since the September 11 attacks on our country, we have witnessed their bravery and determination as they fought al-Qaida and other terrorists head-on. Even when naysayers here in Washington were predicting certain defeat in Iraq, these men and women soldiered on and turned the tide toward victory.

Turning to the battle we fight today, the battle in Afghanistan has been described by President Obama and many in this body as a war of necessity. The President has rightly said that we cannot retreat, we cannot fail, we cannot

be deterred from our efforts to counter the forces of evil in Afghanistan. But the voices who advocated cutting and running from Iraq, who predicted certain defeat, have been peddling the same pessimism with respect to Afghanistan.

Seven months ago, I was very encouraged when President Obama outlined a strategy--a full-blown strategy--for achieving success in Afghanistan. I strongly supported this strategy, and particularly the appointment of GEN Stanley McChrystal to lead our troops on the ground. Yet here we are, on the eve of Veterans Day, and the latest indications from the President are troubling. Instead of a firm commitment to his own strategy, there is indecision. Instead of trusting the judgment of his own hand-selected commander on the ground, there are endless war councils and sessions with commanders who are not on the ground. Instead of one strategy, there are now five. Instead of certainty, there is only one possibility; that is, that a decision may be made by November 19. That is no way to run a war, at least not if we want to win the war. Dithering and wavering are not viewed with favor in any situation. When the lives of our men and women are on the line and the threat from al-Qaida and the Taliban grows stronger every day--as General McChrystal said, they are growing stronger--these delays are simply unacceptable. Yet the delays continue, threatening to undo the hard work by our military and intelligence professionals on the battlefields of Afghanistan.

I have heard some congratulate the President for ``taking his time'' on such an important decision. As a father of a marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, I agree that whenever we send Americans into battle to risk and possibly lose their lives, the decision must not be a hasty one. But it must not be unnecessarily delayed either. On the eve of Veterans Day, the gravity of this decision is even more moving.

As I said earlier, the President has been advised by General McChrystal that every day we wait, the Taliban is gaining momentum. Our allies are wondering where we are going to come down. Our troops are wondering if they are going to be supported. The people of Afghanistan, who are and must be the target, are wondering if they are ever going to see the troops they need. That is why I applauded the President for making the firm decision on his war strategy in March of this year, months after campaigning on what he called a war ``fundamental'' to the defense of our people, months after he was sworn in as our Commander in Chief.

As I said earlier, I also applauded President Obama for wisely choosing General McChrystal to implement his strategy for success in Afghanistan. The President was right to wait until hearing from his commander on the ground on what resources were needed before moving forward--an assessment that was delivered in July. Now we are hearing there are four other strategies, and what I want to know is: Who are the other four generals with responsibility for the troops on the ground, with responsibilities for their success, who are coming up with different strategies? We should learn one thing: When you are fighting a war, you need to listen to the commander whom you have selected and who is carrying out your strategy as you announced it. But now, as November goes by, months later, we are simply witnessing dangerous delay. Unfortunately, those in Washington whispering ``delay, delay, delay'' to the President are really whispering ``defeat.''

I urge the President to ignore the pundits peddling pessimism in Washington. Instead, as we honor our veterans for their sacrifices today and in the past, I urge the President to honor our brave troops currently on the battlefield. Mr. President, honor the commander in chief you chose by giving him the resources needed to succeed in Afghanistan. Mr. President, please honor our warfighters in Afghanistan by recommitting to your own strategy, ending this indecision in Afghanistan, and giving our troops the support they need to succeed. That would be the most fitting tribute to our veterans of past, present, and future wars. I hope this opportunity will not pass.

Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 10 minutes in morning business.

Madam President, yesterday Afghanistan's Independent Election Committee announced that a runoff election is no longer necessary, which means Afghan President Hamid Karzai has secured a second term.

Whatever your feelings about President Karzai, this peaceful resolution of Afghanistan's electoral mess should have brought a sigh of relief for anyone waiting with bated breath for our own administration's decision on whether to support General McChrystal's troop request, whether to support the President's plan for Afghanistan.

After all, according to the White House, President Obama's decision was ``weeks away'' because he was waiting to announce a decision until after the Afghan election was decided. But yesterday I read in the New York Times that the White House Press Secretary said the President's announcement was, once again, ``weeks away.'' This is beginning to sound a little bit like Charlie Brown and the football, only the game the White House is playing has deadly consequences.

While the White House continues to dither and delay in Washington, American heroes and our Afghan allies are dying on the battlefield.

Last month was the bloodiest month in Afghanistan since the war started. As the people of Afghanistan see America's will waiver in Washington, the terrorists gain strength.

General McChrystal said last July we have only about 12 months to get in the troops necessary to reverse the momentum the Taliban has gained because their forces overwhelm the number of ISAF and trained Afghan troops we have on the field.

It is going to take some time, once a decision is made, to get the troops we need there to support General McChrystal's implementation of the President's plan.

So I call on President Obama to end this deadly indecision. Mr. President, please recommit to the very strategy you announced in March. Recommit to the ``war of necessity,'' as you so eloquently--and rightly--called by name the conflict our troops are engaged in, in the villages and mountains of Afghanistan.

In addition to calling on the President to end the delay, I call on the pundits here in Washington to abandon their excuses to justify further delay. We have heard excuse after excuse, constant attempts to justify delay by some in the media and some on the far left. The latest red herring was the Afghan elections. Now that the election is resolved, the next excuse is corruption in Kabul.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that corruption must be tackled. In fact, I outlined the need to take on corruption in the ``Roadmap to Success'' for the region that I sent to then President-elect Obama, the Defense Department and the intelligence agencies and his national security team last November. But don't forget this critical truth: ``All politics is local,'' and so is security.

Everyone in Washington is all too familiar with that truth, but it is undeniable in the mountains and villages in Afghanistan. The Taliban is not waiting for a Jeffersonian democracy to flourish in Kabul as they continue to kill our troops and attack the people of Afghanistan.

Yes, we must tackle corruption at every level. There are lots of other challenges we must take. But security in Afghanistan will not come from Kabul. It has to be built village by village, valley by valley. The knowledgeable professionals who advise us in public and in classified sessions have told me, time and time again, that security must come first.

I have spoken on this floor many times about the need for smart power. That is military power backed by economic development, better governance, the provision of basic services. But that additional element--all the other things besides military force--awaits the establishment of security so the people we are working with can feel secure and not be subject to intimidation by the Taliban.

For too long, the international community has been too fixated on the machinations of Kabul and questions about various leaders who have been elected by the people of Afghanistan and not focused enough on the fights in the villages and the valleys.

I am proud to say our brave American National Guard units in provinces in Afghanistan are showing what can be done when you provide security, along with the economic development tools to provide a better life and a way forward without the Taliban control over their communities.

We will only succeed when the people of Afghanistan feel secure from the intimidation and violence of the Taliban, when Afghan forces can be developed to the point where they can protect the population for good, when local governance begins to deliver schools, wells, and fundamental institutions for economic development and justice.

These institutions, from national security forces to economic development, to the institutions of justice--courts, jails, cops--will only stay if Kabul organizes itself to support them. But the progress we must commit to now is a necessary precondition. It is imperative in the rural areas now and all the regions to establish that security. Then it is important for them to work from the bottom up to secure the government they want in the capital.

The time for excuses is over. Every day we delay, the enemy grows stronger. Our troops and allies, who are beginning to be dispirited by our delay, are essentially being told: Wait. We are not sure what you are doing is worthwhile. The people of Afghanistan whom we are counting on to side with us rather than the Taliban are beginning to wonder: Is the United States going to pull out again, like we have done too often in the past?

The President and this Congress need to send a signal today to the Afghan people that America will not abandon them in this critical fight against terrorism. Our allies need to know we will remain by their sides to defeat this

enemy together. Our enemies need to know they cannot wait us out, that America will be strong.

If we fail to deliver this message and to commit the troops General McChrystal has asked for, the dangers are very real. Let there be no doubt, from everything we have heard, everything we have learned, if we do not send the additional troops, if we try to stand off and use a fire-and-fallback policy--that failed in Iraq until we brought in the counterinsurgency strategy that our NATO allies tried without success in Afghanistan--not only will the Taliban come back in, they will come over the mountains, and Taliban rule will be established in Afghanistan. With Taliban rule comes their sometimes witting, sometimes unwitting allies--al-Qaida--which will use it to establish the same kind of base they had in Afghanistan prior to the 9/11 attacks. Failure will embolden the enemies of freedom who launched the attacks of 9/11 from Afghanistan.

I call on President Obama to end this indecision, commit to his own strategy--which he announced so powerfully last March and which I was proud to support on the floor--and show the American people and our allies the same resolve and determination I heard in his words this past spring. He said:

Our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot

outlast us, and we will defeat you.

It is time we delivered on that promise.

Czech and Slovak Republics

Madam President, I also have a statement in recognition of the tremendous success that has occurred in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic since 1989. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1989, the people of Czechoslovakia joined together to oust communism and adopt democracy.

We have seen tremendous success in the past 20 years. Remarkable changes have taken place, as both the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic have sought and achieved membership in NATO and moved to the kind of progress and peace we expected for them.

In 1989 the former Soviet Union was in the final throes of a slow demise which concluded in 1991. Many of the former Soviet republics were in a state of uncertainty as the situation deteriorated further.

In the fall and winter of 1989, the people of Czechoslovakia joined many other recently separated republics and chose to oust communism and adopt democracy through the Velvet Revolution. Twenty years ago the country then known as Czechoslovakia freed itself of communist control, instituted democratic elections, and set out to adapt its command economy to the free market.

The remarkable swiftness which ushered out the former government while maintaining relative order and peace was inspiring to the world as we watched apprehensively the events unfolding. Czechoslovakia's move away from communism and toward greater political independence, led to the eventual separation of the country into the current Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.

During the past 20 years, remarkable change has taken place as both the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic have sought and achieved membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. The Czech Republic was accepted as a member of NATO in 1999, as was the Slovak Republic in 2004. Both nations are now formal members of both NATO and the United Nations, and their military units now contribute to important missions throughout the globe and continue to play a strategic role in the region.

Furthermore, the Czech Republic has a local tie near to my heart associated with its NATO admission. The documents of admission were signed at the Presidential library of Missouri's own President Truman in Independence, MO. As we work to pursue our mutual interests, I wish both the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic continued success and prosperity as we work toward mutual goals.

Madam President, I yield the floor.