Floor Statements

Mr. President, I am proud to be joined today by a number of my colleagues in introducing the American Energy and Job Promotion Act, a bill to extend a tax incentive for the production of electricity from a number of renewable sources, including wind. The wind production tax credit is scheduled to expire at end of 2012. This bill would extend the credit for two years, through December 31, 2014. I am joined in this effort by Senators Mark Udall, Scott Brown, Harkin, Heller, Wyden and Bennet.

The production tax credit is a sensible policy that promotes homegrown energy and American manufacturing jobs. The wind industry currently supports 75,000 American jobs and is driving as much as $20 billion in private investment. During the past 5 years, 35 percent of all new electric generation in the United States was wind. This expansion has directly led to the growth in domestic wind manufacturing. There are nearly 400 manufacturing facilities today, compared with just 30 in 2004.

The American Energy and Jobs Promotion Act would prevent a lapse in the credit. Without an extension, as many as 37,000 jobs could be lost, including thousands in Iowa. With national unemployment at 8.3 percent, it would be irresponsible to send thousands of Americans employed in the wind industry a pink slip. Unfortunately, because of the long lead time in the production of wind equipment, many manufacturers are already announcing layoffs.

I recognize that some have questioned the need to extend this important credit, particularly in light of the effort to reform the tax code. I fully support tax reform and believe we need a simpler, more efficient tax code. However, we need to take action to support jobs and alternative energy producers in light of the slow pace on tax reform. This 2-year extension will provide certainty for the renewable energy sector while recognizing that tax reform efforts could further modify or address this incentive in the next few years.

Additionally, due to our Nation's dire fiscal situation, many of my colleagues have rightly focused their attention on ensuring that the deficit is not exacerbated. While in the past I have generally opposed permanent tax increases to offset temporary tax incentives, I am willing to work with my colleagues to extend the incentive in a manner that minimizes its impact on the deficit.

Extension of the tax incentive is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Edison Electric Institute and the American Farm Bureau Federation. A similar extension in the House of Representatives currently has the support of 80 bipartisan cosponsors.

I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation that will continue to grow domestic, renewable electricity, create jobs and provide cleaner air. We must enact this extension as expeditiously as possible. Further delay will harm our economic recovery and our energy security.

Mr. President, I am proud to be joined today by a number of my colleagues in introducing the American Energy and Job Promotion Act, a bill to extend a tax incentive for the production of electricity from a number of renewable sources, including wind. The wind production tax credit is scheduled to expire at end of 2012. This bill would extend the credit for two years, through December 31, 2014. I am joined in this effort by Senators Mark Udall, Scott Brown, Harkin, Heller, Wyden and Bennet.

The production tax credit is a sensible policy that promotes homegrown energy and American manufacturing jobs. The wind industry currently supports 75,000 American jobs and is driving as much as $20 billion in private investment. During the past 5 years, 35 percent of all new electric generation in the United States was wind. This expansion has directly led to the growth in domestic wind manufacturing. There are nearly 400 manufacturing facilities today, compared with just 30 in 2004.

The American Energy and Jobs Promotion Act would prevent a lapse in the credit. Without an extension, as many as 37,000 jobs could be lost, including thousands in Iowa. With national unemployment at 8.3 percent, it would be irresponsible to send thousands of Americans employed in the wind industry a pink slip. Unfortunately, because of the long lead time in the production of wind equipment, many manufacturers are already announcing layoffs.

I recognize that some have questioned the need to extend this important credit, particularly in light of the effort to reform the tax code. I fully support tax reform and believe we need a simpler, more efficient tax code. However, we need to take action to support jobs and alternative energy producers in light of the slow pace on tax reform. This 2-year extension will provide certainty for the renewable energy sector while recognizing that tax reform efforts could further modify or address this incentive in the next few years.

Additionally, due to our Nation's dire fiscal situation, many of my colleagues have rightly focused their attention on ensuring that the deficit is not exacerbated. While in the past I have generally opposed permanent tax increases to offset temporary tax incentives, I am willing to work with my colleagues to extend the incentive in a manner that minimizes its impact on the deficit.

Extension of the tax incentive is supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, Edison Electric Institute and the American Farm Bureau Federation. A similar extension in the House of Representatives currently has the support of 80 bipartisan cosponsors.

I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation that will continue to grow domestic, renewable electricity, create jobs and provide cleaner air. We must enact this extension as expeditiously as possible. Further delay will harm our economic recovery and our energy security.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a member of my staff, Lake Dishman, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the 112th Congress.

Before I ask permission to speak as if in morning business. I don't disagree with anything the majority leader said, but I would like to bring these facts out about judicial vacancies.

There are 83 judicial vacancies, and some of those are emergencies. And in the case of the total of 83 vacancies, the President has only sent up 44 nominees for those 83 vacancies. So I want to make it very clear--and it is something that is quite obvious--that the U.S. Senate or any of its leaders can't be expected to act upon vacancies where the President hasn't submitted nominees.

I think it is intended to make Republicans look bad when they use those vacancies as a statistic without making it clear that the President of the United States is the one who is dragging his feet as far as filling those vacancies.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 25 minutes as if in morning business.

Madam President, one or two times a year, out of the many speeches I give on the floor of the Senate, I report to my colleagues on a crusade I have to wake up the Department of Defense to give more respect to audit reports coming out of the Office of Inspector General.

In the last 2 years I have been very critical, and I am somewhat critical now, but there has been vast improvement by the Department of Defense in responding to their use and the quality of their audits.

So I am coming to the floor once again to report on the latest results of my ongoing audit oversight and review. I will refer to some figures, but to kind of give you an overview, each year for the last 3 years we have roughly reviewed in my office between 100 and 120 audit reports.

You have all those reports that have recommendations in them, and we have seen a reluctance to move ahead to carry out the results of those audits, and in so many instances we would save so much money if the audit reports were carried out. When you spend $100 million every year in the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Defense, you would expect that you ought to get some results from that $100 million expenditure, and we are seeing some improvement.

Our work examines audits issued by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Defense. After receiving anonymous letters in early 2009 alleging mismanagement of audit resources, I and my staff initiated an in-depth oversight review. This is my third report in that series. The goal of the report is to assess audit quality in 2011 and make recommendations for improvements.

I am doing this work for one important reason. Like investigations, audits are a primary oversight tool. In fact, audits may be the most important tool, and that is because the auditor's core mission is to watchdog how the taxpayers' money is being spent in the Department of Defense. That puts them on the money trail 24/7. If fraud is occurring, that is where it will happen. That is where they need to be, and hopefully the auditors will find it.

These audits cost the taxpayers, as I said before, roughly $100 million a year. Are the auditors getting the job done? Are they rooting out waste and fraud, and as a result are they attempting to save the taxpayers money?

My first report was published on September 7, 2010, and clearly indicated that the audit oversight capabilities in the Office of Inspector General were seriously degraded. The inspector general at that time, Gordon Heddell, responded to my first report in a very constructive way: he promptly approved a transformation plan designed to improve audit quality.

In order to assess progress on reforms, I issued a second report on January 1, last year. I called this one a report card. It evaluated and graded 113 reports issued during fiscal year 2010. I awarded those 113 reports a grade of D-minus. The low overall score was driven by the very same deficiencies pinpointed in my very first report. Instead of being hard-core, fraud-busting audits, most reports were policy and compliance reviews. There was little or no attempt to even verify the exact dollar impact of the misguided policies examined. Such reports offered zero benefit to the taxpayer, though many of these reports were mandated by the Congress of the United States.

Out of those 113 reports, I identified 27 good reports that involved commendable and credible--and in some cases nitty-gritty--audit work. Were it not for their long completion times, all of those 27 reports would have earned very top scores.

At the conclusion of the second audit report, my staff presented a list of the ``Top Nine Audit Roadblocks'' standing in the way of reform. After the second report was issued, Inspector General Heddell issued a sharp rebuttal, disagreeing with me very much. He complained that I did not give sufficient credit for 18 audits that identified $4.2 billion in potential monetary benefits.

I addressed Inspector General Heddell's criticism on the floor of this Senate on two separate occasions, July 5 and July 28 of last year. At that time I admitted he had a legitimate gripe about my report. My staff reviewed the matter and upped the score on 12 of the 18 reports, but those adjustments did not move the overall score of the 113 reports out of that D range.

Today I am issuing my third audit oversight report. This one examines the latest batch of reports, the 121 reports issued between October 1, 2010, and September 30, 2011. They are known as the fiscal year 2011 audits. I am giving those reports an overall score of 3.51 or C-plus.

As my report indicates, there was an across-the-board improvement in every category except one, timeliness. I am very happy to report to my colleagues that audit quality appears to be improving. The best possible indicator of improvement is the doubling of top-rated reports. Those numbers jumped from 27 reports, or 25 percent of the total in 2010, to 70 reports or 58 percent of the total production last year. That is better than a twofold increase. The auditors have achieved a breakthrough. The apparent progress is promising.

The most important area of improvement in audit quality was in the strength of the recommendations. There was a surge in this key area. It was propelled by calls for accountability and recovery of wasted money. Although modest and limited in number, these initiatives had force. Recommendations are the business end of an audit, and these recommendations were based on rock-solid findings.

At least 50 reports of the 121 arrived at findings that documented flagrant mismanagement, waste, negligence, fraud, and even potential theft. Sixteen of these reports recommended that responsible officials be considered for administrative review. A comparable number contained recommendations for the recovery of improper payments, and 10 reports, largely those on ``stimulus'' projects coming out of the $814 billion stimulus bill that was voted on in February of 2009, recommended--on those 10 reports--that wasteful projects be terminated.

These reports jumped out at me, as I hope they would you, if you read these. These are quite remarkable. But 50 reports with rock-solid findings should generate 50--not just 16--sets of hard-hitting recommendations. So I am sorting out 16 out of the 50 for special recognition. These 50 reports add up to a good beginning, but they do not confer world-class status on the inspector general's audit office. Within the grand totality of the 121 reports published in 2011, they are a drop in the bucket. The vast majority of the reports still offer weak recommendations. Most reports merely instruct audit targets to do what they already are required to do under law and regulation. In my opinion, that is a waste of ink and paper.

There are still four distinct trouble spots needing intense management attention. The biggest problem continues to be the number of unsatisfactory reports. While I can no longer say most reports were poor, at 40 percent the proportion of low-scoring reports remains unacceptably high. Those reports continue to suffer from the same deficiencies identified in a report commissioned by Inspector General Heddell in response to my first report 3 years ago. This report was produced by two independent consulting firms and dated October 7, 2010. It is known as the Quest Report.

Their conclusion, which matched by own, was as follows:

We do not believe Audit is selecting the best audits to

detect fraud, waste and abuse. The organization does not

audit what truly needs to be done. Some audits hold little

value in the end.

As I have said many times, far too many audits offer little or no benefit to the taxpayers. That was still true in 2011.

Long audit production times remain another big problem. Old reports offer stale information that weakens the power and relevance of audit reports. Between 2010 and 2011, the average time needed to complete reports jumped from 13 months to 16 months. As I understand it, those numbers do not tell the full story because they do not include the extra weeks or months reportedly needed for the planning and approval process that occurs before an audit even begins. Add those numbers

together and we are looking at probably 1\1/2\ years to publish a completed audit. Stale information reduces audit impact to zero over a period time.

The Quest Report previously referred to pinpointed the root cause of this problem: ``It is apparent that in the planning phase of audit selection, audits are written to fit a team as opposed to a team established to conduct the needed audit.''

Such organization inflexibility drives long completion times. It also leads to the publication of audits having objectives that are so narrow and limited in scope that they are virtually worthless. Audit teams need to be organized to support more challenging and relevant audit tasks. Mr. Blair indicated recently he was moving in that direction.

There are two other outstanding problems. Far too few reports--just the nine in all--verified actual payments using primary source accounting records. Failing to nail down exact dollar amounts of waste and mismanagement, including those resulting from misguided policies, ends up undermining the credibility and completeness of audit reports.

I will give you an example. Using invoices and contracts to estimate payments would not appear to meet the most stringent audit standards. A more acceptable procedure is essential because of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service's longstanding track record of making erroneous and unauthorized payments. In the face of such sloppy accounting practices, verification of payments should be mandatory.

Last, referral rates to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the DCIS, are still far too low. Only five reports generated potential criminal referrals, which appears to point to a lack of concern about fraud. Surely there was enough grist in the 50 reports which documented egregious waste and misconduct to warrant additional referrals to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and/or the Justice Department.

A number of audits stand out as candidates for further review and possible prosecution. I have urged Secretary Panetta and the acting inspector general to reexamine some of these issues. Acting IG Halbrooks has put the public spotlight on disgraceful and scandalous waste and alleged misconduct that demands accountability. Unfortunately, unless the recommendations in those hard-hitting audits are somehow converted to concrete action, all this good work will amount to nothing more than a bunch of auditors ``howling in the wilderness.'' It will simply ``fall through the cracks.''

Converting tough recommendations into concrete action takes determination and it takes relentless followup. The key is making such agencies do what they agreed to do at the conclusion of an audit. However, all indications suggest that corrective actions proposed in 16 hard-hitting reports have run into some serious roadblocks in the Pentagon bureaucracy. Without high-level intervention--in other words, eliminating those roadblocks in the Pentagon bureaucracy--most if not all accountability and savings measures could be slowly and quietly quashed in the bureaucracy.

A recent report from the Navy surely indicates that this fate awaits at least 1 of those 16 reports, and probably all the others as well. In order to assist in the audit resolution process, I have asked Secretary Panetta to conduct a top-level review of all the allegations contained in those 16 most disturbing reports, out of the 121 that we looked at in this last year. I urge the Secretary to establish a reasonable path forward on all unresolved recommendations. Until there are meaningful consequences and real penalties for such gross waste and misconduct, the culture of the organizations involved will not change.

In other words, that culture is going to perpetuate a lack of concern and action on the recommendations of these auditors because in a bureaucracy, not just in the Department of Defense, if heads don't roll you are not going to see any change in the culture. Without accountability there will be no positive results. Good audit value will go down the drain. Unabated waste of the taxpayers' money will continue.

Clearly, significant progress was achieved between 2010 and 2011, but the inspector general's audit capabilities are not yet out of the woods. Much more work remains to be done. Management needs to build on the strengths exemplified by the 50 reports containing rock-solid findings and 16 sets of hard-hitting recommendations. Those reports could be used as models or building blocks for improving audit quality in the future.

In order to start producing more top-quality reports, management needs to consider the following suggestions, of which I have eight: Bring report recommendations into balance with the findings; increase calls for accountability and recovery of improper payments; verify all payments using primary source accounting records; organize audit teams to match more complex and challenging tasks; pick up the pace of fraud referrals to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service; develop a more effective audit followup strategy; and lastly, follow up to ensure that prosecutions occur where warranted or necessary.

These adjustments should be achieved using available resources. Correct these problems and top-quality reports will be the norm. All these goals are within easy reach. Once accomplished, audits will be fully aligned with the core mission of the inspector general.

In closing, I want all the auditors in the inspector general's office to know that I consider their oversight mission to be of the highest importance. There is nothing more important to the taxpayers than having an aggressive team of auditors watchdogging how the taxpayers' money is being spent. I know there has been a concerted effort over the past few years to improve the quality of their work. I deeply respect, deeply appreciate, and will support these efforts. They are starting to pay off. I can see the results of all the hard work.

I encourage all the auditors to keep moving ahead until the job is finished, and I urge Mr. Blair to unleash the auditors. I want them to be tigers. Encourage them to call waste what it is--waste. Let them follow their instincts and the guidance in their audit manuals that instructs them to: ``Think fraud and plan audits to provide a reasonable assurance of detecting fraud.''

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

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

Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent that I can speak in morning business for 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I want to talk about judicial nominations. I come to the floor many days to talk about judicial nominations. Most of my remarks at those times as well as this time are to respond to some of the claims made by my colleagues from the other side of the aisle. If you listened to some of my colleagues over the last couple of days, you would think the sky is falling on the issue of judicial nominees. They act as if the Senate is treating President Obama's judicial nominees differently than nominees have been treated in the past. This is simply not true.

A fair and impartial look at the numbers tells a far different story. The fact of the matter is that President Obama's nominees are being treated just as well, and in many cases much more fairly, than the Democrats treated President Bush's nominees. I want to take a few minutes to set the record straight.

Let me start by taking a brief look at 17 cloture motions that the majority has filed. Seven of those nominees were reported out of the Judiciary Committee within the last month and three of them were reported just last week. That is without precedent. To our knowledge the majority, Republican or Democrat, has never filed cloture on district court nominees within a month of them being reported out of the Judiciary Committee. That accounts for 7 of the 17.

What about the other 10 nominees? What our colleagues fail to mention is that they could have gotten a majority of those nominees confirmed at the end of the last session, just before recessing at Christmastime. Our side cleared quite a few nominees and we offered to confirm them as a package the end of last session. However, the President refused to offer assurances that he would not bypass the Senate and make so-called recess appointments.

I made a mistake when I said when the Senate adjourned just prior to Christmas, or recessed just prior to the session. We did neither. We stayed in session during the period of time from December 18 until January 24. In other words, the President was not in a position to make recess appointments because we were not in recess.

And of course, the President does not have the power, under our Constitution, to determine whether or not the

Senate is in session. Only the Senate can make a determination of when we adjourn. The President of the United States cannot do that. But he presumed that he could and he went ahead and made what he called ``recess appointments.'' So he shredded the Constitution once again.

In regard to what we are talking about here, it was the President who chose not to confirm those nominees at the end of last session because he refused to give us assurances that he would not make recess appointments. The bottom line is this, if the President believes we should have confirmed more nominees last fall, he should look to his own administration for that explanation.

That is the background of the 17 cloture motions before the Senate. Let me comment on something I read in one of our daily newspapers that covers the Congress. A famous reporter said, in the second paragraph of a report I read today, that the Republicans are filibustering nominations. I told the writer of that article that you can't filibuster anything that is not before the Senate and these nominees were not before the Senate until the leader of the majority filed these cloture motions.

Wouldn't you think, if you believed you needed to stop debate, that you would at least let debate start in the first place? But no. The game that is played around here is that, in order to build up the numbers, you claim the minority is filibustering, when in fact they are not filibustering.

I wish to take a step back and address some of the claims I've heard from the other side. I cannot believe some of the comments I am hearing, so I believe it is important to set the record straight. First of all, everyone around here understands that it takes a tremendous amount of time and resources for the Senate to consider Supreme Court nominees. For that reason, when a Supreme Court nomination is pending before the Senate, the Judiciary Committee considers little else. During President Obama's first 3 years in office, the Senate considered not one but two nominations to the Supreme Court. Those nominations occupied the Judiciary Committee for approximately 6 months. The last time the Senate handled two Supreme Court nominations was during President George W. Bush's second term. During President Bush's entire second term we confirmed only 120 lower court nominees. Under President Obama, as you can see from the chart we have here, we have already confirmed 129 lower court nominees. I think that is a pretty explicit picture of how the other side's arguments do not hold water.

For repetitive purposes, but to drive a point home, we have confirmed 129 of President Obama's judicial nominees in just over 3 years. That is more than were confirmed under George W. Bush's entire second term of 4 years. Again, the comparison between President Obama's first 3 years to President George W. Bush's second term of 4 years is the appropriate comparison. These were the only two time periods in recent memory when the Senate handled two Supreme Court nominations during such a short period of time--obviously consuming a great deal of time of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Even if you compared the number of President Obama's nominees confirmed to President Bush's first term, it is clear that President Obama has fared very well. More specifically, even though the Senate did not consider any Supreme Court nomination during President Bush's first term, we have confirmed approximately the same number of President Obama's lower court nominees as we did President Bush's, relative to the nominations President Obama has made.

In other words, although fewer lower court nominees have been confirmed under President Obama, the President made approximately 20 percent fewer judicial nominations during his first 3 years than President Bush did during his first term of 4 years. I think it is pretty simple, isn't it? You cannot complain that we have not confirmed enough judges, if they have not been sent up here in the first place.

As a practical matter, if the President believes he has not gotten enough confirmations, then he should look no farther than the pace at which he has been making nominations. Maybe he should have spent less time on the 100 or so fundraisers he has been holding all over the country recently and more time making judicial nominations. Or, at least he should have his political party in the Senate give us a little leniency, and quit complaining about nominations not being approved. The fact of the matter is this: If a backlog exists, then it is clear that it originates with the President. The Senate cannot confirm anybody the President has not sent up here in the first place.

If you need even more evidence that the President has been slow to send judicial nominees to the Senate, all you need to do is examine the current vacancies. My colleagues have been on the floor talking about the so-called vacancy crisis. What my colleagues fail to mention is that the White House has not even made nominations for over half of the vacancies. To be specific, of the 83 current vacancies, the White House has not submitted nominations for 44 of those vacancies. Once again, the Senate cannot confirm anybody who is not sent up here. How can my friends on the other side of the aisle complain about a vacancy crisis when the President has not sent up a nominee for over half of the vacancies?

As a result, it is clear if there is a vacancy crisis, once again the problem rests with the White House. If the President believes there are too many vacancies in the Federal courts, he should look no further than his own administration for an answer.

What about the other side's claim that nominees are waiting longer to get confirmed than they have in the past? Once again, this is not true. The average time from nomination to confirmation of judges during the Obama administration is nearly identical to what it was under President Bush. During President Bush's Presidency, it took on average approximately 211 days for judicial nominees to be confirmed. You can see from the chart that, during the first 3 years of President Obama's Presidency, it has taken 218 days for his judicial nominees to be confirmed. I am sure this will be news to many of my colleagues. If you had listened to the other side you would think that we have somehow broken new ground. We have not, obviously. We are treating President Obama's nominees virtually the same as President Bush's nominees.

It is not our primary concern to worry about whether one President is being treated differently than the other. We just proceed with our work. But the numbers you see here are the result of our work. And the fact of the matter is that the numbers are not much different than for other Presidents. To suggest we are treating President Obama's nominees a whole lot differently is intellectually dishonest. The fact of the matter is that the Senate has been working its will and regularly processing the President's judicial nominees in much the same way it has in the past.

Given that the President's nominees have received such fair treatment, why would the majority leader then choose to take the unprecedented step of filing 17 cloture motions on district court nominees? Why would the majority leader choose to manufacture controversy that does not exist--because there is no doubt in my caucus, even if there are a few votes against some of these nominees, there is very little doubt that most if not all of these 17 nominees are going to be approved by the Senate. These votes are a stunt. They are a smokescreen. They are designed to accomplish two goals. First, as even Democrats concede, the President cannot run for reelection on his own record so these votes are designed to help the President's reelection strategy by somehow portraying Republicans as obstructionists. But how can you obstruct when there are 83 vacancies, and the White House has failed to nominate someone for over half of those slots? How can you be considered as obstructionist when these judges will be approved just as we have already approved seven?

Second, the other side simply does not want to talk about the extremely important things and very real problems facing this Nation. Look at any poll, go to any town meeting, and what people in this country and my State of Iowa are concerned about is the economy and jobs. With 8.3 percent unemployment, why wouldn't they be expecting us to work on jobs? There is a small business tax bill that passed the other body. How come we are not

taking that up? It is ready to take up. It would probably pass here without much dissent.

Why aren't we taking up a budget this year? It has been 4 years without taking up a budget. This is budget week for most years in the Senate. We are spending more time on deciding judicial nominees who are not going to be filibustered to stop a filibuster that doesn't even exist when we ought to be taking up and spending about the same amount of time on a budget, but no budget for 1,040-some days.

The American people are sitting at home listening to the debate. They want to know how we are going to get the unemployment rate down. They are not concerned about whether the Senate will confirm one of the President's district court nominees this week rather than next week. They are not concerned about this debate we are going to have over the next couple of days. They want to know what we are doing to help their father, mother, brother, and sister get back into the workforce. Given the millions of Americans who remain out of work, why aren't we considering and debating the jobs bill the House just passed?

Why aren't we tackling the energy crisis? With $4 gas in this country, we ought to be talking about drilling here and drilling now. We ought to be talking about building a pipeline. We ought to be talking about, how can we stop sending $833 million every day overseas to buy oil? We ought to be talking about extending the energy tax extenders that have sunset as of December 23.

Unlike the so-called vacancy crisis, the energy crisis is not manufactured. It is real. The rising cost of gasoline matters to millions and millions of Americans. If they are fortunate enough to have a job in this economy, millions of Americans are trying to figure out how they can afford to get to work with the rising cost of gasoline. Rather than spend time working on the energy crisis, which is all too real for millions of Americans, we are spending time on this manufactured controversy of somehow a vacancy crisis, somehow a filibuster against judges. And not one of these judges has had one speech given on the floor of this Senate against them, and probably won't.

What is even worse, this is the week we are supposed to be debating a budget, but you'd need a high-powered microscope to find any budget the majority has put together. The majority has failed to produce a budget, so they manufactured a so-called crisis on nominations to throw up a smokescreen to hide their failure.

I will have more to say on this subject when we move forward on this debate, but for now I conclude that a fair and impartial examination of how the Senate has treated President Obama's nominees reveals that, contrary to what you hear from the other side, the President's nominees are being treated more fairly. Rather than waste time on the so-called crisis that everyone realizes is entirely manufactured, we should be focusing on those issues that matter deeply to the American people. And according to what I hear at my town meetings, what I hear and read in the papers about what polls show, what candidates for Presidents are talking about--even the President of the United States--is about jobs, about the economy, and tackling our energy crisis.

I urge my colleagues to reject these cloture petitions that have no legitimacy for existing in the first place so we can get back to the business of the American people--the economy and jobs.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, throughout my years in Congress, I have worked to keep drugs out of our communities. We have all seen the destructive impact drugs have on our communities, and our families. For years, we have heard tragic stories of the lives impacted by drug abuse. These problems plague our society and we must remain united in this struggle to end abuse and addiction.

In 1997 I, along with then-Senator Biden, sponsored legislation to create the Drug Free Communities, DFC, program. I believed then--as I still do today--that one of the most effective ways to prevent drug abuse is by supporting community antidrug coalitions to identify, prevent and eradicate the sources of abuse at the grass roots. Since the enactment of the Drug Free Communities Act, thousands of community antidrug coalitions have received Federal support to further their efforts to halt drug abuse in their communities.

Coalitions, across the country and in my home State of Iowa, are confronted with unique challenges, but they are leading their communities in finding ways to overcome them. For example, the Van Buren Safe Coalition in Keosauqua, IA implemented comprehensive community wide strategies to address the growing marijuana problem in their community. They conducted town hall meetings to raise awareness about the dangers of drug use; facilitated various community and youth education opportunities; and partnered with local schools to ensure drug policies and codes of conduct were in place. As a result, the Van Buren County SAFE Coalition reduced marijuana use among 11th graders by one-third in a 5-year time span according to the Iowa Youth Survey.

The Kossuth Connections coalition, which is headquartered in Algona, IA, is also taking action to fight underage drinking and smoking within its communities. According to the Iowa Youth Survey, current underage drinking and smoking, although still below the statewide average, has increased slightly between 2008 and 2010 in this county. As a result, the Kossuth Connections coalition has partnered with local businesses that sell alcohol and tobacco to ensure compliance with laws requiring age restrictions on selling alcohol and tobacco products. Youth from the county have surveyed area stores, inspected advertisements and product placements, and helped to determine whether or not the store displays a ``We ID'' sticker at the counter. These youth are committed to ensuring local stores are in compliance with the law and are actively working to reduce underage drinking and smoking.

These coalitions are a small sampling, but they represent the incredible efforts that many are putting into controlling and reducing drug abuse in our communities. Now is not the time to abandon community drug prevention efforts.

Unfortunately, recent trends indicate youth drug use nationally is on the rise and new synthetic drugs like K2/Spice and bath salts are gaining in popularity. In fact, the latest Monitoring the Future Survey indicates that one in nine high school seniors used synthetic drugs like K2/Spice in the past year. This is the first year this survey tested students on synthetic drug use. The high number of users in such a short time span illustrates how rapidly drug use can spread among certain populations and communities. It is discouraging to see these surveys and to read about more tragedies on a daily basis. These negative trends will continue if they are not aggressively addressed.

It is vital that communities are made aware of abuse trends and the new drugs coming on the horizon. The actions community antidrug coalitions can take to stem the growing tide of rising drug abuse, like synthetic drug abuse, can and have made a real difference. By holding town hall meetings, launching school programs, and confronting local businesses that market or sell inappropriate products community coalitions are making a real positive difference.

Whether it is a synthetic drug outbreak, a meth epidemic in a Midwestern town, or an increase in underage drinking, community antidrug coalitions will lead the way to unite their community against drug abuse. It is vital in these tough times that these coalitions continue to receive support from their communities and from the Federal Government. That is why I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Leahy, in introducing a bill to reauthorize The Drug Free Communities Support Program for an additional 5 years.

This reauthorizing legislation recognizes the good work local antidrug coalitions have done over the years, but it also recognizes the fact that resources at the Federal level are tight and that authorizations need to more closely resemble appropriations. Further, this program is part of an ongoing review conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that I, along with Senator Feinstein, requested to study the effectiveness of the program. This study will take some time to develop and should not hinder our efforts to reauthorize the program, but should also be taken into consideration once the results are available.

We must remain vigilant and not relent in our efforts to eradicate drug abuse. Drug abuse flourishes when the problem is ignored. If we are going to make a better future for our children and communities, we must face this menace together.

Mr. President, throughout my years in Congress, I have worked to keep drugs out of our communities. We have all seen the destructive impact drugs have on our communities, and our families. For years, we have heard tragic stories of the lives impacted by drug abuse. These problems plague our society and we must remain united in this struggle to end abuse and addiction.

In 1997 I, along with then-Senator Biden, sponsored legislation to create the Drug Free Communities, DFC, program. I believed then--as I still do today--that one of the most effective ways to prevent drug abuse is by supporting community antidrug coalitions to identify, prevent and eradicate the sources of abuse at the grass roots. Since the enactment of the Drug Free Communities Act, thousands of community antidrug coalitions have received Federal support to further their efforts to halt drug abuse in their communities.

Coalitions, across the country and in my home State of Iowa, are confronted with unique challenges, but they are leading their communities in finding ways to overcome them. For example, the Van Buren Safe Coalition in Keosauqua, IA implemented comprehensive community wide strategies to address the growing marijuana problem in their community. They conducted town hall meetings to raise awareness about the dangers of drug use; facilitated various community and youth education opportunities; and partnered with local schools to ensure drug policies and codes of conduct were in place. As a result, the Van Buren County SAFE Coalition reduced marijuana use among 11th graders by one-third in a 5-year time span according to the Iowa Youth Survey.

The Kossuth Connections coalition, which is headquartered in Algona, IA, is also taking action to fight underage drinking and smoking within its communities. According to the Iowa Youth Survey, current underage drinking and smoking, although still below the statewide average, has increased slightly between 2008 and 2010 in this county. As a result, the Kossuth Connections coalition has partnered with local businesses that sell alcohol and tobacco to ensure compliance with laws requiring age restrictions on selling alcohol and tobacco products. Youth from the county have surveyed area stores, inspected advertisements and product placements, and helped to determine whether or not the store displays a ``We ID'' sticker at the counter. These youth are committed to ensuring local stores are in compliance with the law and are actively working to reduce underage drinking and smoking.

These coalitions are a small sampling, but they represent the incredible efforts that many are putting into controlling and reducing drug abuse in our communities. Now is not the time to abandon community drug prevention efforts.

Unfortunately, recent trends indicate youth drug use nationally is on the rise and new synthetic drugs like K2/Spice and bath salts are gaining in popularity. In fact, the latest Monitoring the Future Survey indicates that one in nine high school seniors used synthetic drugs like K2/Spice in the past year. This is the first year this survey tested students on synthetic drug use. The high number of users in such a short time span illustrates how rapidly drug use can spread among certain populations and communities. It is discouraging to see these surveys and to read about more tragedies on a daily basis. These negative trends will continue if they are not aggressively addressed.

It is vital that communities are made aware of abuse trends and the new drugs coming on the horizon. The actions community antidrug coalitions can take to stem the growing tide of rising drug abuse, like synthetic drug abuse, can and have made a real difference. By holding town hall meetings, launching school programs, and confronting local businesses that market or sell inappropriate products community coalitions are making a real positive difference.

Whether it is a synthetic drug outbreak, a meth epidemic in a Midwestern town, or an increase in underage drinking, community antidrug coalitions will lead the way to unite their community against drug abuse. It is vital in these tough times that these coalitions continue to receive support from their communities and from the Federal Government. That is why I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Leahy, in introducing a bill to reauthorize The Drug Free Communities Support Program for an additional 5 years.

This reauthorizing legislation recognizes the good work local antidrug coalitions have done over the years, but it also recognizes the fact that resources at the Federal level are tight and that authorizations need to more closely resemble appropriations. Further, this program is part of an ongoing review conducted by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that I, along with Senator Feinstein, requested to study the effectiveness of the program. This study will take some time to develop and should not hinder our efforts to reauthorize the program, but should also be taken into consideration once the results are available.

We must remain vigilant and not relent in our efforts to eradicate drug abuse. Drug abuse flourishes when the problem is ignored. If we are going to make a better future for our children and communities, we must face this menace together.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation designed to help family farmers across this nation have a more level playing field when it comes to livestock markets. The bill would prohibit meat packers from owning livestock. The ownership of livestock by packers compromises the marketplace and hinders the ability of the farmer to receive a fair price. It is simple, as one meat-packing executive once told me, packers own livestock so that when prices are high, they slaughter their own livestock. When prices are low, they buy from farmers.

I would love to say opportunities for independent producers have gotten better since the last time we debated this bill during the 2008 Farm Bill. But that simply isn't the case. We are to the point where most farmers have to deliver their livestock to one of a few very large packers. Farmers' bargaining power is diminished by the sheer size and economic position of the packers. But beyond that, farmers have to compete with the livestock owned by the packing plant itself. The packer ban would make sure the forces of the marketplace work for the benefit of the farmer as much as it does for the slaughterhouse.

I am sure there will be folks in the packing industry that point out that farmers are doing okay right now, and that's great that farmers are experiencing a good period. I am pleased anytime the hard work of livestock farmers results in a good price. But I don't want my colleagues here in the Senate to be lulled to sleep and think just because prices are good right now means we don't have competition issues in the livestock industry that need to be addressed. This is about ensuring farmers are able to get fair prices for years to come. We need to work today, and implement this reform, to ensure the next generation of independent farmers has an opportunity to raise livestock and receive fair prices as a result of their hard work.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation designed to help family farmers across this nation have a more level playing field when it comes to livestock markets. The bill would prohibit meat packers from owning livestock. The ownership of livestock by packers compromises the marketplace and hinders the ability of the farmer to receive a fair price. It is simple, as one meat-packing executive once told me, packers own livestock so that when prices are high, they slaughter their own livestock. When prices are low, they buy from farmers.

I would love to say opportunities for independent producers have gotten better since the last time we debated this bill during the 2008 Farm Bill. But that simply isn't the case. We are to the point where most farmers have to deliver their livestock to one of a few very large packers. Farmers' bargaining power is diminished by the sheer size and economic position of the packers. But beyond that, farmers have to compete with the livestock owned by the packing plant itself. The packer ban would make sure the forces of the marketplace work for the benefit of the farmer as much as it does for the slaughterhouse.

I am sure there will be folks in the packing industry that point out that farmers are doing okay right now, and that's great that farmers are experiencing a good period. I am pleased anytime the hard work of livestock farmers results in a good price. But I don't want my colleagues here in the Senate to be lulled to sleep and think just because prices are good right now means we don't have competition issues in the livestock industry that need to be addressed. This is about ensuring farmers are able to get fair prices for years to come. We need to work today, and implement this reform, to ensure the next generation of independent farmers has an opportunity to raise livestock and receive fair prices as a result of their hard work.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today we turn to the nomination of Margo Brodie to be U.S. District judge for the Eastern District of New York. This will be the 69th judicial nominee of President Obama which the Senate has confirmed during this Congress. Overall, more than 70 percent of President Obama's judicial nominees have been confirmed.

We continue, on the Senate floor and in the Judiciary Committee, to work together to reduce the number of judicial vacancies. We have held 21 nominations hearings during this Congress, with 80 judicial nominees appearing at those hearings. All in all, over 85 percent of President Obama's judicial nominees have received a hearing. We will hear from additional judicial nominees later this week.

So even as we continue to hear concerns about the judicial vacancy rate and claims of obstructionism, I would note we are making progress as we continue to confirm judicial nominees. But let me emphasize again that for more than half of the vacancies, including those designated as ``judicial emergencies,'' the President has failed to submit a nomination. So critics need to look at the beginning of the process when commenting on vacancies.

I would like to say a little about our nominee today. Ms. Brodie earned a BA from St. Francis College in 1988, and her JD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law in 1991. She began her legal career as an assistant corporation counsel for the City of New York in 1991. In this role, she defended city agencies and officials in the performance of their duty to manage municipal affairs.

In 1994, Ms. Brodie became an associate with Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, representing clients in various types of civil litigation.

Since 1999, Ms. Brodie has served as an assistant U.S. attorney with the Eastern District Court of New York. From May 2005 to March 2006, she served as a legal advisor to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offices Commission, ICPC, in Nigeria. From 2006 to 2009, she supervised new AUSAs in the General Crimes Section in roles as deputy chief and chief. In October 2009, she became the counselor to the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office. In her current position as deputy chief of the Criminal Division, she supervises over 100 Criminal Division AUSAs in the areas of public corruption, civil rights, terrorism, organized crime, gang violence, narcotics trafficking, and business and securities fraud. She also advises the office on legal policy and management issues.

Ms. Brodie has received a majority: ``Qualified;'' minority: ``Well Qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 15 minutes in morning business.

Mr. President, in recent weeks, we have seen the Obama administration reverse quite a few of its positions on very important issues, so I am going to go through several of those positions that have been reversed to remind people of the number and the consequences of those reversals, and also to remind people that when Presidents make promises, they do not always keep them.

This has continued to be a recurring pattern, where the administration's deeds have not lived up to its words. Here is the record:

The administration reversed its position on employer funding for employee contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs under the new health care law. Those of us who opposed the President's law when it was passed in 2009 and 2010 warned Catholic groups that, if it passed--meaning if the health care reform bill passed--religious institutions would be required to pay for these services.

For some religious institutions, payment or providing these services would violate their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion under the first amendment. Sure enough, when the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation implementing the President's health care law, religious-affiliated entities, such as colleges, hospitals, and charitable organizations, were required to pay for these services. If these institutions did not pay, then they would face a $2,000 fine per employee, per year under the health care reform bill.

Many Catholic entities objected. They correctly saw the rule as a threat to their freedom of conscience, protected by the first amendment. But many non-Catholics also were angered. They knew and feared that if the health care reform bill proposed by President Obama allowed the government to run roughshod over some people's freedom to practice their religion,

it could do the same for practices of other religions beyond Catholicism. The regulation was a direct assault on freedom of conscience, and the American people knew it.

It was no longer a contraceptive issue. The issue was freedom of religion. So last week the President ordered a change. No longer would the employer, such as religiously affiliated institutions, have to pay for coverage of services to which it conscientiously objected. Instead, the cost supposedly would be paid by insurance companies. Of course, somebody will ultimately have to pay the cost.

After the President's reversal, employers will still pay insurance companies to provide for coverage and, more directly hitting the institutions, those that are self-insured will still have to pay not indirectly but very directly.

Since the substance has not changed, the change appears to be designed to undercut opposition rather than to respond to legitimate objections to the earlier policy. Then we get back to basics: There is no such thing as a free lunch. We have to wonder how carefully the original policy was vetted by the administration.

As a result, President Obama has been accused of waging war on religion. This particular policy violated the rights of religious entities and individuals, and the administration considers the matter somehow to simply be closed by the press announcement 1 week ago. But the Catholic bishops and many other religious organizations violently disagree. So Congress may have to overturn the policy if we want to abide by the strict words of the Constitution and freedom of religion, because if we don't, I expect the President's new policy will be challenged in the courts on the first amendment, free exercise clause, and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Moving on to another change of policy. Another recent policy shift occurred on a different first amendment issue beyond freedom of religion. Turning to the right of free speech.

The Supreme Court ruled that the first amendment required that corporations and labor unions be allowed to make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates. President Obama severely criticized that ruling of a couple years ago, and right after it was made he even objected in his State of the Union Address right in front of the same Supreme Court Justices. Even the New York Times has said his criticism at that time of the Citizens United decision was probably wrong. Nonetheless, President Obama has repeatedly said he thinks the ruling harms democracy.

But now, President Obama has changed his mind. He is encouraging, under Citizens United, donors to give to a super PAC that supports his candidacy. He now says Democrats need to match the Republicans to tap these sources of campaign funds.

Here, though, he has made more than a 180-degree turn. He has gone beyond simply asking donors to give to super PACs that independently support his candidacy. Under the new policy, even White House staffers and Cabinet Secretaries can attend super PAC events.

At these events, corporations, unions, and wealthy individuals can pay large sums for access to key administration policymakers. These administration officials do not directly ask for money, of course, but they help to raise unlimited funds from corporations and unions. Of course, this is allowed under Citizens United, but it is the very same decision the President criticized and now he is going against his own criticism.

I do not know what principled position would allow a President to condemn a decision and then have his administration officials help corporations and unions capitalize on that decision for his benefit.

I suspect, of course, that the President would say he will still oppose that decision, even if he indirectly obtains the benefits of the Citizens United case. But I think it is very important that we understand letting a President have it both ways is not principled.

Let us consider another issue--the issue of lobbyists. In December 2011, through a fundraising e-mail, President Obama wrote:

We don't take a dime for D.C. lobbyists or special-interest

PACs--never have and never will.

But one of his campaign bundlers, former Representative Ron Klein, has raised between $200,000 and $500,000 for the Obama campaign. Do you know what. Mr. Klein is a registered Federal lobbyist.

On the 2008 campaign trail, President Obama pledged there would be no revolving door between lobbying and serving in his administration. He issued an Executive order to bar former lobbyists from joining his administration to work at agencies they recently lobbied. Yet he issued a waiver allowing William Lynn, who had been a top lobbyist for a major defense contractor, to manage day-to-day operations at the Pentagon. More recently, he made Cecilia Munoz the head of his Domestic Policy Council. Ms. Munoz was a registered lobbyist through 2008. The administration has admitted to granting waivers for only a few lobbyists. Yet it has declined to identify all lobbyists to whom it granted waivers.

The promise of transparency doesn't apply in this case, evidently. So the President's actual policy is, ``No lobbyists in my administration, unless I absolutely want them.''

Then there is the President's public commitment to transparency in government. I just mentioned one violation of that transparency. Now we go on to talk about his transparency problem.

President Obama issued an Executive order to department heads. The order reads:

My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented

level of openness in government. We will work together to

ensure the public trust and establish a system of

transparency . . . ''

But that is not policy the administration followed in responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. The Obama Justice Department advised agencies to tell Freedom of Information Act requesters seeking certain national security- or law enforcement-related documents that those documents did not exist.

He said to tell them these documents do not exist, even if the agency knew the documents did exist.

The process seems to have been to make a grand pronouncement and score political points. Then, when they think no one is paying attention, the policy shifts. I do not know who was responsible for vetting this blatantly dishonest policy, but the predictable firestorm ensued and, thank God, the administration has now backed down.

This is not the only instance of the administration failing to practice what it preached concerning FOIA requests. A different Obama Executive order gave these directions:

The government should not keep information confidential

merely because public officials might be embarrassed by

disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or

because of speculative or abstract fears.

Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect

the personal interests of government officials at the expense

of those they are supposed to serve.

That is not how the Department of Homeland Security handled FOIA requests. Homeland Security FOIA requests were sent to the Secretary's office for political appointees to review. Career FOIA staff were not allowed to respond to the requests without the approval of political appointees.

The House Governmental Reform and Oversight Committee has demonstrated these political officials misused FOIA exemptions to prevent the release of embarrassing records. This was in direct violation of the President's promise.

Moving on. As a candidate, President Obama stated that:

[i]t is a clear abuse of power to use [signing] statements

as a license to evade law that the President does not like or

as an end-run around provisions designed to foster

accountability. I will not use signing statements to nullify

or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.

However, in his first year in office, President Obama signed an omnibus appropriations bill that contained a standard provision that Federal funds could not be used to pay the salary of Federal employees who attempted or threatened to prevent another Federal employee from communicating with Congress.

This provision has always provided important protection for whistleblowers against waste, fraud, and abuse in government, and somehow these whistleblowers, under the President's signing statement, wouldn't dare talk to Senator Grassley or other Senators about waste, fraud, and abuse. So how

are we supposed to find out about it? Whistleblowers are very helpful.

It happens that President Obama's signing statement contended that this provision did not detract from his authority to direct department heads to supervise employee communication with Congress. Worse, it said this authority would be used when employee communication would reveal ``confidential information.''

This signing statement, if carried out, would undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law, and it would harm the ability of Congress to conduct its constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the executive branch.

Then just this week, the President flipped again on yet another subject. In 2009, he said he was ``pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office.''

At the time he was sworn in, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. The fiscal year 2013 budget the President has just proposed would create a $900 billion deficit--much more than half of the 2009 level that he promised to cut in half. This is true even after he proposes to raise taxes, since the amount of the new government spending he seeks is so enormous.

This is a long list of flip-flops, of failure to keep commitments, and hypocrisy. There are others as well.

I give the President the benefit of the doubt in his altered views of the PATRIOT Act, Guantanamo, and other national security issues. He holds an office in which he sees daily the unrelenting national security threats the country faces. But for the other issues I have raised, the consistency of the Obama administration is its inconsistency.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today we turn to the nomination Jesse M. Furman, to be U.S. district judge for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Furman was reported out of the Judiciary Committee last fall by voice vote.

When we considered his nomination last year, a few items of concern were raised. These issues included writings he made while in college on gun control and an amicus brief he drafted opposing a religious club's access to school facilities for meetings.

Based on his hearing testimony and responses to written questions, I was willing to allow Mr. Furman's nomination to move to the full Senate for consideration.

In the interim, conditions have changed which require me to give a closer scrutiny to Mr. Furman's record and to the confirmation process in general.

Generally, I am willing to give the President's nominees the benefit of the doubt when the nominee on the surface meets the requirements I have previously outlined. But as I indicated over the past few weeks, we are not operating under normal circumstances. The atmosphere the President has created with his disregard for Constitutional principles has made it difficult to give his nominees any benefit of the doubt. Given that I did have some doubts about Mr. Furman's record, I oppose his confirmation.

If it is appropriate, I would like to ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for about 15 minutes.

If a Republican like this Senator says that the President's 2013 budget doesn't pass the smell test, I would probably have half the country questioning my judgment. But I would like to quote the Washington Post's Dana Milbank's comments on the President's budget. This was recently in the Washington Post, these words by a columnist who I think is generally pretty favorable toward President Obama as a person and his administration, but there is great disagreement by this columnist about the President's budget.

The White House budget for fiscal 2013 begins with a broken

promise, adds some phony policy assumptions, throws in a few

rosy forecasts, and omits all kinds of painful decisions . .

. the proposal would add $1 trillion more to the national

debt than Obama contemplated a few months ago.

Dana Milbank added that the Obama budget ``is a nonstarter on Capitol Hill, where even Senate Democrats have no plans to take it up. It is, in other words, exactly what it was supposed to be: a campaign document.''

So with that background from somebody who is not a Member of Congress, not a Republican or Democrat--I don't know how he might be registered--I would like to give my views on the President's budget, but just so that people know it isn't just Republicans who disagree with the President's budget.

I think you could sum up the President's budget with three words that might say you are giving it a D grade, and probably most people would give it an F grade, but they would be debt, deficit, distrust, and disaster--too much spending, too much taxing, and too much debt. This comes from the fact that earlier this week the President submitted--as he has to every year--a budget proposal, and this budget proposal was all too predictable. It was predictable because it follows the same path as his previous three budgets. With breathtaking irresponsibility, the President's 2013 budget would expand the scope of government by spending more money, increase taxes on job creators, particularly small business, and continue on the path of enormous deficits and record debt--deja vu.

The President's budget proposal is supposed to be a serious document, a document that lays out the President's priorities along with the President's ideas on how to address our national fiscal and economic challenges. This budget fails those goals miserably.

As a member of the Budget Committee, I have heard from numerous experts who come before that committee about the need for Congress and the President to get serious about the fiscal cliff we are approaching. We have had deficit commissions--you remember Simpson-Bowles, as an example--we have had task forces, and we have had what we call gangs, the Gang of 6, six Senators trying to work things out, and other Members of Congress. All have put forward deficit reduction plans. It is going to take more than a commission, and the President didn't even back the recommendations of his own commission a year ago. It is going to take more than task forces, and it is going to take more than gangs of Senators because the single most important political and moral leader in America is whoever holds the Presidency of the United States. In this particular instance of this executive budget, that person and that document has failed to lead on this critical issue. It does not matter how many commissions, how many tasks forces, and how many gangs of Senators we have, without Presidential participation a problem as big as this country's national debt is never going to be solved.

What President Obama put forward on Monday of this week is not a serious budget. As I said before, it is a political statement. The fact is Americans are going to pay a heavy price for the President's unwillingness and inability to lead.

While President Obama claims his budget will create an America built to last, his budget builds higher deficits and debt, a bigger, more intrusive government, and economic decline for future generations.

We want to remember that more important than the economic points of a budget is, when we get a more intrusive government, the less economic and social freedom people have.

By nearly every fiscal measure, President Obama's budget makes matters much worse. Not only has the President chosen to ignore the looming fiscal catastrophe, he has chosen to continue the course and even step on the accelerator.

This year, the Federal Government will spend $3.8 trillion--equal to 24.1 percent of our GDP. During the past 60 years, we have averaged about 21 percent of GDP. So we quantify government growing dramatically from taking 21 percent out of the economy--that government spends, 535 Members of Congress spend; instead of 300 million Americans--and that is raised to 24.3 percent.

Alarmingly, over the 10-year period ahead, in the 2013 budget, in this budget, spending never gets below 22 percent. So forever they are growing government and detracting from individual freedom.

The President intends to lock in historically high levels of spending. Do not take it from me, but it is right here in these budget documents we have all been given this week. He is a big spender of other people's money.

In dollar terms, spending goes up from $3.8 trillion this year to $5.8 trillion 2022. Over a 10-year period of time, this budget spends about $47 trillion, and during that period of time, it increases the national debt by $11 trillion. So it is clear this document the President gives to Congress under law is built to spend.

President Obama's budget is also harmful to our fragile economy because it would impose a $1.9 trillion tax increase.

I always go back to what I thought was a very wise decision President Obama made about 2 or 3 weeks before he actually took the oath of office. During the campaign, he reminded everybody he wanted to raise taxes. But when he got to being sworn in, he looked at how bad the economy was, and he clearly said it is not too wise to raise taxes when we are in recession.

Maybe technically we are not in a recession, but for the 8.3 percent of the American people who are unemployed, it is not just a recession, it is also a depression for each one of them.

So since the unemployment rate stands at 8.3 percent, and the President seems to be just fine this year, compared to 3 years ago when he was sworn in, that hiking taxes is not going to be harmful to the economy, it is not going to be harmful to those 8.3 percent of the people who are unemployed and looking for jobs, it is going to be. So why has the President flip-flopped on this issue of whether you ought to increase taxes when people have such high unemployment rates?

This tax increase will harm the economy and result in fewer job opportunities, particularly among the small businesspeople who create or provide for 25 percent of the jobs in America and generally create 70 percent of the new jobs in our economy. That is where it is going to be very harmful.

I recently asked Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke about the prospects of a tax increase and the impact it would have on our economy. He indicated a significant tax hike could slow the economy, slow the recovery. In my question to him before the Budget Committee, I quoted the Congressional Budget Office that says unemployment would go up and the economy would grow less if we had this big tax increase the President wants.

The President has spent many hours speaking about helping our economy, investing in our future, and increasing economic opportunities for all Americans. While he is saying all those things that he is probably sincere about, at the same time he does not put his actions where his words are because he does not allow a pipeline to be built that will create 20,000 jobs right now and 110,000 indirect jobs connected with it.

If he gets his wish to hike taxes by $1.9 trillion, it will harm all Americans, further prolong this already 3-year slowdown, while growing an even larger, more intrusive Federal Government impinging upon personal liberties to a greater extent.

Maybe the President's purpose in imposing this huge tax increase is an effort to reduce the Nation's debt and that is probably what he would tell us, and he may truly believe that. Unfortunately, that is not what he has planned. He wants to spend every dollar. His budget leads to an additional, as I said before, $11 trillion increase in debt--national debt--over the next 10 years. Debt held by the public increases from 74 percent of our economy today to 76 percent of our economy by the year 2022, at the end of this 10-year budget window.

We have to compare that to the historic average since World War II, and that was just 43 percent, compared to where it is right now: 74.2 percent, going up to 76 percent.

If people believe President Obama is putting us on a path to fiscal sustainability by taxing increases, I would suggest they look at the annual deficits over the next 10 years. These deficits never drop below $575 billion, and actually go up toward the end of his budget, rising to $704 billion by 2022. This budget puts America on the course of deficits and debt as far as the eye can see into the future.

Additionally, the President took a pass on proposing any real changes to our entitlement programs, which are the real driver of future deficits and debt. That is only part of it. The main part of it is, do we want to preserve Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for future generations? Because if we do not do something about it, it is not going to be preserved. Again, he is absent from the discussion when Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid comes up.

He has offered no solution in this budget, even though the Simpson- Bowles Commission he appointed--he never endorsed their recommendations 1 year ago; and why he did not endorse and trust the people he put in place to get a solution to these problems I do not know, but even the Simpson-Bowles Commission has solutions for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That is further evidence that the President has chosen not to lead on these very difficult issues.

President Obama has spoken a lot lately about the issue of fairness. President Obama believes this type of budget, with higher taxes, more borrowing, and enormous deficits and debt will bring about fairness.

If the President is referring to sharing in our Nation's economic decline, he is right. If he is talking about sharing in a Japanese-like prolonged period of stagflation, he is right. If he is talking about sharing in an economic collapse such as the one going on in Greece, he is right. It may not be tomorrow, but all signs point down the road in those directions because based upon the national debts of those particular countries, that is where we are headed.

The budget proposed by President Obama will have all Americans sharing in higher taxes, a larger, more intrusive government, less freedom, and deficits and debt that will lead to economic decline for future generations.

We all know a large budget deficit reduces national savings, leading to higher interest rates, more borrowing from abroad, and less domestic investment, which, in turn, would lower income growth in our country.

This will hurt the lower and middle class the most. The gains President Obama touts in his budget that he is delivering to the middle class will be dwarfed by the loss of economic activity caused by deficits and debt.

This is not a serious document. It is a political document. As evidence of how out of touch this budget is, few of my Democratic colleagues have even acknowledged President Obama submitted a budget, much less defend it.

I hope the Senate will have an opportunity to debate and vote upon President Obama's budget. Last year, we had such a vote. Last year, the President's budget was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 97 to 0. Not a single member of the President's party supported his budget.

So when constituents ask me why we cannot do something in a bipartisan way in Congress--and we do a lot in a bipartisan way that does not get the attention of the press, so people are cynical about Congress being bipartisan--I quote a 97-to-0 vote about whether there is bipartisanship, and that was a vote against the President's budget. Every Republican and every Democrat agreed. Once again this year, if we ever get this to a vote, I predict that very few, if any, will support this budget.

Quite frankly, it would be humorous if the consequences of inaction were not so serious. We have a moral obligation to offer serious solutions for today and for future generations. The President's budget fails in this responsibility. He has chosen a politically expedient path rather than a responsible, forthright path.

Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will suffer as a result of this failure, and that suffering comes from this fact: that for nine generations of Americans, each succeeding generation has lived better than the previous generation, and a lot of Americans feel that is not going to happen with the next generation. That would be a sad commentary.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.