Floor Statements

I want to talk about immigration and a part of the immigration issue that concerns me, and, by golly, it has something to do with government oversight as well.

Last August, some lawyers at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service drafted internal memos outlining ways that the administration could get around Congress and grant undocumented aliens in the United States legal status. These amnesty memos outline ways that the executive branch could use discretionary authority to make sure thousands--who knows, maybe millions--of people here illegally could stay here without a vote of Congress.

A number of Republicans sent a letter to President Obama urging him to abandon any such plan. We sent several letters to Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano asking for statistics and a briefing on these memos. We asked for assurances that such plans to bypass Congress--I emphasize ``plans to bypass Congress''--not be implemented. What did we get? All we got was radio silence.

I raise this issue again today because I am bothered by reports that there is another push for this administration to grant amnesty through Executive order, which only should be done by the law of this Congress, to certain groups of undocumented populations. Surprisingly, the push for this is coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle. Yesterday, 22 Democrats sent a letter to President Obama asking him to turn a blind eye to the law. These 22 Senators said they were OK with having an executive branch go ahead and go around Congress and grant amnesty to those who would be eligible under the so-called DREAM Act. These Senators said they didn't have the votes to get the bill through the Senate last year.

Their approach is in a nonconstitutional fashion to ask the President to have his administration use what is referred to legally as prosecutorial discretion to keep these undocumented individuals here. They claim doing so would be ``consistent with our strong interest in the rule of law.'' They say doing so would ``help to conserve limited enforcement resources.''

I am appalled, and I hope a lot of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are appalled, that Members of this body think that an Executive order to grant amnesty behind our backs is not an assault on the democratic process. Congress has the power to change immigration laws and only Congress has the power to change immigration laws. The President has limited authority to grant relief in limited and emergency circumstances. I support the President's power to do that, but it was not meant to be used in a blanket fashion. The request by 22 Members of this body is an affront to our country's longstanding belief in the rule of law, and it is an attack on this body's duty to legislate on behalf of the American people, a power to legislate that the President does not have.

I happen to agree that our immigration policies have to be reformed. I will commit to moving legislation that expands upon or improves the legal avenue we currently have in place. Once again, we have not seen leadership by this President to work on a bill this Congress can support. Until that time comes, it would be foolish and disappointing if this President circumvented the democratic process and did what 22 Members of this body asked him to do in the letter to which I referred.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it is with deep sadness that I address my colleagues today. A hero from my home State, SPC Brent M. Maher of Honey Creek, IA, was killed in action on Monday, April 11, 2011 in the Paktya Province of Afghanistan. He was 31 years old. Specialist Maher was the gunner on a ``Cougar'' mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, MRAP, that was struck by an improvised explosive device.

Specialist Maher served in the Iowa Army National Guard, Company B, 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, out of Shenandoah, IA. Specialist Maher has been posthumously promoted to sergeant. Prior to his service in the Iowa National Guard, Specialist Maher served over 7 years in the U.S. Navy. In all, Specialist Maher dedicated 11 years of his life to serving and protecting our Nation. Words simply cannot express the debt we owe to Specialist Maher and all of the other servicemembers fighting for our Nation.

My thoughts and prayers are with Brent Maher's family and friends, including his wife Brenna and his three children, as well as his mother Cheryl and everyone else who will be grieving his loss.

Specialist Maher truly loved his job in the U.S. military. He was proud of the difference that he was making in the lives of the Afghan people. It is because of individuals like specialist Maher and his loving and supportive family that America is the nation it is today. At times like these, I think that it is important that we pause and remember the lives of those lost in order that we can enjoy our way of life. As we go about our lives as free people, we ought to bear in mind the sacrifices made by Specialist Maher and others in our Armed Forces.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Klobuchar, in cosponsoring the Combating Designer Drugs Act of 2011. All too often we are confronted with new and emerging drugs that spread quickly on the scene. However, what is most concerning about this new generation of drugs is how quickly these substances are sold and marketed to kids. Although these substances were created for scientific research they are now packaged as innocent products and sold on the shelves of local stores or via the internet.

Recent reports in the media along with increasing calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms reveals that more and more kids are using products laced with substances that are very dangerous. Although these products are currently legal and can be sold in stores and online, many people who use products are under a false impression that these products are safe because they are legal. However, use of these products is anything but safe.

Last month, a teenager from Blaine, MN, died after overdosing on a substance called 2C-E that he and others used at a party. Police report 10 other individuals were hospitalized after using this substance. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 2C-E along with its cousins in the 2C family are used for their hallucinogenic qualities. These drugs are marketed as similar to illegal drugs like LSD or Ecstasy and can be used in similar ways. A popular way to pass these drugs off as safe is by labeling them as ``fake,'' but clearly the victims of this drug have suffered very real consequences.

Last month, I, along with Senator Feinstein, introduced legislation to ban the chemicals found in synthetic or ``fake'' marijuana. This legislation came in part from the death of Indianola, IA, resident David Rozga, who committed suicide shortly after smoking a package of K2, a product laced with synthetic marijuana compounds. Since then the Drug Enforcement Administration has identified more substances that are used in a similar way such as 2C-E and others. The Combating Designer Drugs Act of 2011 is part of the ongoing effort to identify drugs that are being marketed as legal, safe alternatives to illegal drugs and places them among their rightful place as dangerous drugs like meth and cocaine. Specifically, this legislation targets drugs found in the 2C family, which were invented for scientific research but never intended to be used for humans and makes them schedule I controlled substances.

Mr. President, the sale and use of synthetic drugs like those in the 2C family represent a new and dangerous trend in drug abuse. We must take strong action to eliminate the ease in which these substances can reach the market before their use gets out of hand. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to remove these dangerous drugs from our society.

Mr. President, the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was specifically designed ``To close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.'' Going into the next reauthorization of this law, there has already been much discussion about the extent to which each element of that goal has been achieved. While there is some evidence of a narrowing of the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their more advantaged peers when it comes to meeting minimum ``proficiency'' goals, the achievement gap among high-ability students has been widening. Some of our most promising students, the scientists, inventors, and problem solvers of the future, are being left behind.

I want to be clear that I am not necessarily talking just about high- achieving students. I am talking about high-ability students with gifts and talents that go beyond simply the ability to master grade level content. There is sometimes a tendency to assume that gifted students are the straight A students and vice versa, the students we needn't worry about because they are doing fine on their own. Sadly, that's far from true. A student may get straight A's because his or her abilities and pace of learning just happen to be exactly matched with the grade level curriculum and pace of instruction. Those are not the students I am talking about. By definition, a gifted and talented students is one who gives evidence of high achievement capability and needs services beyond the standard content provided in the standard way in order to fully develop those capabilities.

In fact, gifted students may significantly underperform. Many high- ability students get poor grades due to boredom. Some drop out of school or exhibit problem behaviors, and gifted students are often well represented in alternative schools. Still, even if they are getting straight A's on content that is not challenging to them, they are still underperforming. That hidden gap between achievement and potential ought to be alarming to all of us who are concerned about our Nation's future economic competitiveness.

On the most recent international tests, students in China topped the charts in math, science, and reading, while U.S. students were in the middle to bottom of the pack. Few American students are reaching the most advanced achievement levels on national and state-level tests, with miniscule numbers of children of color or children from poverty reaching those levels. A dynamic economy needs a steady supply of individuals capable of achieving at advanced levels, yet we rely on imported talent while systematically holding back our brightest young minds here at home.

I would recommend to my colleagues the book Genius Denied by Jan and Bob Davidson of the Davidson Institute in Nevada. It describes the many obstacles faced by some of our brightest students in trying to get an appropriate education. The book tells the story of a boy named Carlos who didn't speak until he was 3\1/2\ years old, but then began to speak in complete sentences like a much older child. His mother had been told he might be autistic or have a learning disability, but when she had him tested, she learned he was actually gifted. He learned to read and write with incredible speed and was able to grasp simple algebra problems. However, in his Kindergarten class, they were learning to add single digits by grouping teddy bears. He was miserable, and despite his natural love of learning, he cried to stay home from school. He was teased for being different and the stress of school got to be so great that his hair started falling out. He began talking about wishing that he was dumb or even dead.

The book also talks about a boy named Tim who is dyslexic and also profoundly gifted. His gifts compensated for his inability to read so he was able to earn normal grades, but his school would not make appropriate accommodations for his learning disability because he was achieving at acceptable levels. School officials also maintained they had no obligation to accommodate his gifts. This left Tim frustrated. His zeal for learning waned because his disability held him back while his gifts went undeveloped, but both went unaddressed by his school because he was not failing. Eventually, his mother was forced to pull him out of the public school and educate him at home.

Many schools have special gifted and talented programs with staff trained in gifted education strategies, but a great many others do not. This leads to the uneven availability of appropriate services. Title I schools are far less likely to have any services for gifted students. Is this because there are no high-ability disadvantaged students? Certainly not. There are high-ability students in every school and low income doesn't mean low ability. It is of course appropriate to ensure that struggling students receive the support they need to achieve to their potential, but when disadvantaged high-ability students go unrecognized and unchallenged, thus falling short of the level of achievement they are capable of attaining, the tremendous loss of human

potential is truly tragic both for the students and for our society.

So should every cash-strapped Title I school hire special teachers with a background in gifted and talented education and start offering gifted education programming? Well, that would be ideal, and would likely help improve the academic achievement of all students in those schools, but a lack of funds need not be a barrier to schools meeting the unique learning needs of their high-ability students. For instance, a report by some of the leading experts in the field at the University of Iowa's Belin-Blank Center titled ``A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students'' outlines both the problem of schools systematically failing to support their high-ability students and an almost no-cost solution--acceleration. Simply allowing students to take classes with their intellectual peers, where the curriculum is matched to their ability rather than to their age, often results in better academic results as well as happier, better adjusted students. Also, knowing that all teachers have high-ability students with unique learning needs in their classrooms, there is a great need for professional development opportunities to incorporate the ability to recognize and meet those needs.

Today, I am introducing a bill, with Senator Casey of Pennsylvania, to ensure that Federal education policy no longer overlooks the needs of high-ability students. It's called the TALENT Act, which stands for: To Aid Gifted and High-Ability Learners by Empowering the Nation's Teachers. My bill corrects the lack of focus on high-ability students, especially those students in underserved settings, including rural communities, by including them in the school, district, and state planning process that already exists under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It also raises the expectation that teachers have the skills to address the special learning needs of various populations of students, including gifted and high-ability learners. To that end, my bill provides for professional development grants to help general education teachers and other school personnel better understand how to recognize and respond to the needs of high-ability students. Finally, because we have much to learn about how best to address the very unique learning needs of this often overlooked population of students, my bill retools and builds upon the goals and purpose of the existing Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act so that we continue to explore and test strategies to identify and serve high-ability students from underserved groups. These strategies can then be put into the hands of teachers across the country.

Meeting the needs of our brightest students, the ones our country is counting on for our future prosperity, is not a luxury, it is a necessity. That isn't a justification for embarking on some sort of new spending and sticking them with the bill, however. Instead, my legislation would accomplish its goals in a cost-effective way by amending existing law to account for the needs of gifted and high- ability learners as well as retooling the old Javits program to have a greater impact. For too long, Federal education policy has been so focused on preventing failure that we have neglected to promote and encourage success. We can no longer afford to ignore the needs of our brightest students and thus squander their potential. My legislation will put our country on track to tap that potential which is so essential to the future happiness of the students and the future prosperity of our Nation.

Mr. President, I am pleased to join my colleague, Senator Klobuchar, in cosponsoring the Combating Designer Drugs Act of 2011. All too often we are confronted with new and emerging drugs that spread quickly on the scene. However, what is most concerning about this new generation of drugs is how quickly these substances are sold and marketed to kids. Although these substances were created for scientific research they are now packaged as innocent products and sold on the shelves of local stores or via the internet.

Recent reports in the media along with increasing calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms reveals that more and more kids are using products laced with substances that are very dangerous. Although these products are currently legal and can be sold in stores and online, many people who use products are under a false impression that these products are safe because they are legal. However, use of these products is anything but safe.

Last month, a teenager from Blaine, MN, died after overdosing on a substance called 2C-E that he and others used at a party. Police report 10 other individuals were hospitalized after using this substance. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, 2C-E along with its cousins in the 2C family are used for their hallucinogenic qualities. These drugs are marketed as similar to illegal drugs like LSD or Ecstasy and can be used in similar ways. A popular way to pass these drugs off as safe is by labeling them as ``fake,'' but clearly the victims of this drug have suffered very real consequences.

Last month, I, along with Senator Feinstein, introduced legislation to ban the chemicals found in synthetic or ``fake'' marijuana. This legislation came in part from the death of Indianola, IA, resident David Rozga, who committed suicide shortly after smoking a package of K2, a product laced with synthetic marijuana compounds. Since then the Drug Enforcement Administration has identified more substances that are used in a similar way such as 2C-E and others. The Combating Designer Drugs Act of 2011 is part of the ongoing effort to identify drugs that are being marketed as legal, safe alternatives to illegal drugs and places them among their rightful place as dangerous drugs like meth and cocaine. Specifically, this legislation targets drugs found in the 2C family, which were invented for scientific research but never intended to be used for humans and makes them schedule I controlled substances.

Mr. President, the sale and use of synthetic drugs like those in the 2C family represent a new and dangerous trend in drug abuse. We must take strong action to eliminate the ease in which these substances can reach the market before their use gets out of hand. I urge my colleagues to support this legislation to remove these dangerous drugs from our society.

Mr. President, the last reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 was specifically designed ``To close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind.'' Going into the next reauthorization of this law, there has already been much discussion about the extent to which each element of that goal has been achieved. While there is some evidence of a narrowing of the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their more advantaged peers when it comes to meeting minimum ``proficiency'' goals, the achievement gap among high-ability students has been widening. Some of our most promising students, the scientists, inventors, and problem solvers of the future, are being left behind.

I want to be clear that I am not necessarily talking just about high- achieving students. I am talking about high-ability students with gifts and talents that go beyond simply the ability to master grade level content. There is sometimes a tendency to assume that gifted students are the straight A students and vice versa, the students we needn't worry about because they are doing fine on their own. Sadly, that's far from true. A student may get straight A's because his or her abilities and pace of learning just happen to be exactly matched with the grade level curriculum and pace of instruction. Those are not the students I am talking about. By definition, a gifted and talented students is one who gives evidence of high achievement capability and needs services beyond the standard content provided in the standard way in order to fully develop those capabilities.

In fact, gifted students may significantly underperform. Many high- ability students get poor grades due to boredom. Some drop out of school or exhibit problem behaviors, and gifted students are often well represented in alternative schools. Still, even if they are getting straight A's on content that is not challenging to them, they are still underperforming. That hidden gap between achievement and potential ought to be alarming to all of us who are concerned about our Nation's future economic competitiveness.

On the most recent international tests, students in China topped the charts in math, science, and reading, while U.S. students were in the middle to bottom of the pack. Few American students are reaching the most advanced achievement levels on national and state-level tests, with miniscule numbers of children of color or children from poverty reaching those levels. A dynamic economy needs a steady supply of individuals capable of achieving at advanced levels, yet we rely on imported talent while systematically holding back our brightest young minds here at home.

I would recommend to my colleagues the book Genius Denied by Jan and Bob Davidson of the Davidson Institute in Nevada. It describes the many obstacles faced by some of our brightest students in trying to get an appropriate education. The book tells the story of a boy named Carlos who didn't speak until he was 3\1/2\ years old, but then began to speak in complete sentences like a much older child. His mother had been told he might be autistic or have a learning disability, but when she had him tested, she learned he was actually gifted. He learned to read and write with incredible speed and was able to grasp simple algebra problems. However, in his Kindergarten class, they were learning to add single digits by grouping teddy bears. He was miserable, and despite his natural love of learning, he cried to stay home from school. He was teased for being different and the stress of school got to be so great that his hair started falling out. He began talking about wishing that he was dumb or even dead.

The book also talks about a boy named Tim who is dyslexic and also profoundly gifted. His gifts compensated for his inability to read so he was able to earn normal grades, but his school would not make appropriate accommodations for his learning disability because he was achieving at acceptable levels. School officials also maintained they had no obligation to accommodate his gifts. This left Tim frustrated. His zeal for learning waned because his disability held him back while his gifts went undeveloped, but both went unaddressed by his school because he was not failing. Eventually, his mother was forced to pull him out of the public school and educate him at home.

Many schools have special gifted and talented programs with staff trained in gifted education strategies, but a great many others do not. This leads to the uneven availability of appropriate services. Title I schools are far less likely to have any services for gifted students. Is this because there are no high-ability disadvantaged students? Certainly not. There are high-ability students in every school and low income doesn't mean low ability. It is of course appropriate to ensure that struggling students receive the support they need to achieve to their potential, but when disadvantaged high-ability students go unrecognized and unchallenged, thus falling short of the level of achievement they are capable of attaining, the tremendous loss of human

potential is truly tragic both for the students and for our society.

So should every cash-strapped Title I school hire special teachers with a background in gifted and talented education and start offering gifted education programming? Well, that would be ideal, and would likely help improve the academic achievement of all students in those schools, but a lack of funds need not be a barrier to schools meeting the unique learning needs of their high-ability students. For instance, a report by some of the leading experts in the field at the University of Iowa's Belin-Blank Center titled ``A Nation Deceived: How Schools Hold Back America's Brightest Students'' outlines both the problem of schools systematically failing to support their high-ability students and an almost no-cost solution--acceleration. Simply allowing students to take classes with their intellectual peers, where the curriculum is matched to their ability rather than to their age, often results in better academic results as well as happier, better adjusted students. Also, knowing that all teachers have high-ability students with unique learning needs in their classrooms, there is a great need for professional development opportunities to incorporate the ability to recognize and meet those needs.

Today, I am introducing a bill, with Senator Casey of Pennsylvania, to ensure that Federal education policy no longer overlooks the needs of high-ability students. It's called the TALENT Act, which stands for: To Aid Gifted and High-Ability Learners by Empowering the Nation's Teachers. My bill corrects the lack of focus on high-ability students, especially those students in underserved settings, including rural communities, by including them in the school, district, and state planning process that already exists under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It also raises the expectation that teachers have the skills to address the special learning needs of various populations of students, including gifted and high-ability learners. To that end, my bill provides for professional development grants to help general education teachers and other school personnel better understand how to recognize and respond to the needs of high-ability students. Finally, because we have much to learn about how best to address the very unique learning needs of this often overlooked population of students, my bill retools and builds upon the goals and purpose of the existing Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act so that we continue to explore and test strategies to identify and serve high-ability students from underserved groups. These strategies can then be put into the hands of teachers across the country.

Meeting the needs of our brightest students, the ones our country is counting on for our future prosperity, is not a luxury, it is a necessity. That isn't a justification for embarking on some sort of new spending and sticking them with the bill, however. Instead, my legislation would accomplish its goals in a cost-effective way by amending existing law to account for the needs of gifted and high- ability learners as well as retooling the old Javits program to have a greater impact. For too long, Federal education policy has been so focused on preventing failure that we have neglected to promote and encourage success. We can no longer afford to ignore the needs of our brightest students and thus squander their potential. My legislation will put our country on track to tap that potential which is so essential to the future happiness of the students and the future prosperity of our Nation.

Madam President, we are all kind of on pins and needles about what the President is going to say today in his speech on the budget at George Washington University. I hope he comes forward with a strong program to get the budget deficit down because Presidential leadership will help us get the job done. Congress can do it on its own, but it will be a lot easier if we know we are working with the President instead of against the President.

I hope the President's remarks reflect the fact that elections have consequences and the consequence of the last election was a very strong message to Washington that we ought to get spending down and government ought to be smaller. In anticipation of what he says, I wish to make some remarks, and my anticipation is based upon things that have already been said from the White House by staff about the direction the President's speech is taking.

If we learned anything during the last 2 years, it is that America can't tax and spend its way back to prosperity. The voters understood that and sent a powerful message to Washington last November: Stop piling debt on the next generation. Stop the overspending that mortgages our children's future and jeopardizes job creation.

Thanks to the gravitational pull of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives responding to the results of the last election, the compass is starting to point in the right direction. Despite the two-against-one lineup of the debate, meaning the President and the Democratic Senate on one side and the House under the control of the Republicans on the other side--that two-to-one lineup--we have a continuing resolution at the start of what must be a long-haul, committed effort.

The continuing resolution we will pass this week is just the beginning because the hard work has only just begun. That is reflected in the leadership demonstrated by the House of Representatives' Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan. He did what the President failed to do in his budget proposal--get serious. Today, I hope we have evidence that the President is getting serious. But up until now, the President ducked, even ignoring his own deficit reduction commission report fresh off the printer. He hasn't said yes or no whether he supports the recommendations of the Bowles-Simpson commission.

In sharp contrast, House Chairman Ryan stepped up and put ideas on the table for fiscal responsibility. Today, in response to this effort, to show the voters we got it in the last election and that it is time to reduce spending in Washington, the President is giving his speech on reducing the debt. After reluctantly coming to the table for very modest reductions in spending that are going to be in this continuing resolution we will hopefully pass this week, the President has quickly moved past any focus on getting spending under control and seems to be going back to that same old saw that we have to have tax increases to reduce the deficit. But history proves tax increases do not bring an additional dollar to the bottom line. Tax increases are a license to spend even more than the $1 that might come in from a tax increase, and we also know increasing taxes is not going to reduce the deficit. Only growing the economy is going to reduce the deficit. Tax increases can have a detrimental impact on growing the economy because government consumes well; it doesn't create well. Only workers and investors and people who invent and people who create, create wealth.

There has always been a tug of war in Washington between tax-cutters and big spenders. There are those of us who believe taxpayers have a right to keep more of their own money and decide how best to save and spend and invest those dollars. Others in Congress and in Washington believe Washington knows best and work relentlessly to divert more private resources into the public coffers. Recycling even more tax dollars through Washington, especially during an economic downturn which we are in now, and eight-tenths percent unemployment proves it. Doing more of that doesn't make sense if we want recovery.

Consider the work of two U.S. Presidents from opposite sides of the political spectrum. Study the history of John Kennedy on one end and Ronald Reagan on the other. They understood that raising taxes bore negative consequences for job creation and economic growth. My colleagues may remember that during World War II and afterwards, we had 93 percent marginal tax rates. Who decreased that? Not some Republican President but a Democrat President. He reduced it because it was not raising revenue and it was hindering the economy. We had a situation when corporate and personal income tax rates climbed during the Great Depression, we have proof unemployment kept climbing as well. In fact, if there are two things we want to remember from Hoover that we should never make these mistakes again, they are that he raised taxes tremendously high and he signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, leading us into the Great Depression. As America struggles to shake off the biggest economic downturn in decades, we can't afford to repeat the same mistakes. We should learn from history.

In an economy where consumer spending accounts for nearly 70 percent of the Nation's gross domestic product and small businesses account for 70 percent of the new jobs, it would be foolish to divert even more of America's taxpayer money into the Federal Treasury. With a smaller tax liability, small business owners can expand their operations, upgrade their equipment, and hire more workers in their hometown communities. But tax policies designed to increase revenues for more government spending will not help these hometown business leaders create new jobs that can attract and retain talent and vitality in those small towns. What is more, raising Federal tax rates would stunt the positive ripple effect that occurs in the local economy and in the local tax base when small businesses are able to grow and expand their sales output and profits.

Raising taxes sets the stage for paralyzing setbacks for small business. So we should not forget that many small business owners are subject to the highest marginal tax rates and Federal estate taxes. I have worked for a long time for tax policies that give small business owners the freedom and opportunity to hire, expand, and grow their businesses without having profit-burning taxes and overly burdensome regulations get in the way of getting ahead and living the American dream and creating those jobs. Marginal tax rate increases are especially harmful to small businesses because small businesses are typically organized as flow-through entities. Since small businesses create 70 percent of the new jobs

and unemployment, at 8.8 percent, remains historically high, it doesn't make sense to raise taxes on small businesses.

Supporters of the tax increases for those earning $250,000 a year would like to camouflage the tax hit on small businesses, but their attempts to mislead cannot withstand an honest examination. The marginal tax rate hikes would directly target flow-through businesses that employ 20 million American workers. It is a waste of resources for Washington to recycle tax dollars through the public sector when small businesses can do more good and get more bang for their own buck and taxpayers, in general, deserve more bang for their buck.

I have a chart that shows my colleagues an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the official nonpartisan scorekeeper for Congress. In its January 2011 ``Budget and Economic Outlook'' report, CBO reports that taxes have averaged 18 percent of the gross national product from 1971 to the year 2010. So this is the historical average. What is very significant about an average going back to 1971--is it seems to me a level of taxation the people of this country have not revolted against. It is a level of taxation that has not been harmful to the U.S. economy, as we have seen great growth during this period of time.

So here is where we are. Beyond the very negative impact of tax increases, there is no evidence that tax increases lead to deficit reduction. In fact, if history is any guide, Washington will simply spend the money.

I often quote a Professor Vedder of Ohio University who has studied tax increases and spending for more than two decades. This is the very same study I was referring to as I started my remarks today. ``Over the entire post World War II era through 2009, each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 in new spending.''

So it is akin to a dog chasing its tail. It is never going to catch it. If we raise $1 and it doesn't go to the bottom line, and Professor Vedder says it doesn't go to the bottom line, it is a license to spend $1.17. How do we ever get ahead? Then we have people who want to increase taxes because another dollar coming in is going to lead to $1.17 of spending. It would be one thing for me to vote for a tax increase if it went to the bottom line. It is another thing to vote for a tax increase that just allows more spending and raises the deficit instead of getting the deficit down. People in my State of Iowa don't tell me they are undertaxed. They know all too well the problem is that Washington overspends.

Before this chart is taken down, just so my colleagues can understand, there is no reason to raise taxes above this historical average to bring in more revenue because we can see the projection by CBO. The existing tax rates are going to bring in more revenue without increasing tax rates just because of the economy growing.

With the existing tax rates, revenues coming in will return to the level we had after the 2001 tax bill--that bill reduced taxes by providing the biggest tax decrease in the history of this country. We brought in additional revenue with reduced rates--more revenue than would come in by raising marginal tax rates. That ought to be calculated. You should not do anything that is going to destroy this situation.

Some are proposing eliminating the cap on wages for social security taxes. This would result in a huge tax increase of 6.2 percent on income over $106,800. Both employees and employers pay these taxes. Those in favor of this will argue that it is needed to protect benefits for social security beneficiaries. We have been down that road before. We raised the tax rate in the 1980s. This was supposedly also to protect benefits, but look where we are now. There is no guarantee that raising taxes in that way will guarantee benefits.

Referring to this chart again, to be specific on this growth out here, CBO projects that taxes will average 19.9 percent of gross national product from 2010 to 2021, rising to 20.8 percent of GDP by 2021. If we increase taxes, I think it will put that economic growth in jeopardy.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article from Investors Business Daily.

According to this article, even if the government confiscated all of the income of people earning $250,000 a year, the money would fund the Federal Government today for a mere 140 days. CBO statistics tell us that the top 5 percent of households earn 29 percent of the income and pay 43 percent of the income tax collected by the Federal Government. This chart here shows that these 5 percent of households have seen their taxes go up or hold steady while the other 95 percent of households have seen their taxes go down.

We are in a situation where people are talking about increasing taxes on higher income people because, supposedly, they can afford it--and probably they can afford it. But I get sick and tired of the demagoguery that goes on in Washington of taxing higher income people. This group of people is already paying 43 percent of all of the income tax coming in to the Federal Government, while 47 percent of the people in this country don't pay any income tax whatsoever. How high do taxes have to go, generally, to satisfy the appetite of the people in this Congress to spend money? And particularly, how high do marginal tax rates

have to go to satisfy those clamoring for higher taxes that the wealthiest in this country are paying enough money?

In addition to the CBO statistics on households, IRS statistics show that 1 percent of the wealthiest people make 27 percent of the income and pay 40 percent of the income taxes. If it be 41 or 42 percent, maybe we can look at it. But I never get the sense from anybody who is proposing these higher marginal tax rates on upper income people that they are ever going to be satisfied that those people are paying enough taxes. So I will get back to what I said. You could confiscate all the income earned by people that make over $250,000 a year but you are only going to run the government for 140 days. What do you do for the rest of the year if you only want the wealthy to pay all the taxes?

We ought to have some principles of taxation that we are abiding by. I abide by the principle that 18 percent of the GDP of this country is good enough for the government to spend. That leaves 82 percent in the pockets of the taxpayers for them to decide how to spend. Because if 535 of us decide how to divide up the resources of this country, it doesn't do as much economic good. If the money is left in the pockets of the 137 million taxpayers to decide whether to spend or to save it, and how to save it, or what to spend it on, it responds to the dynamics of our economy. They would be participating in the American free enterprise system in a way that the 535 Members of Congress don't know enough how to do. If we relied upon the 535 of us to decide how to spend more resources of this country, we would not have the economic growth we have. We would be Europeanizing our economy, and we know that is bad.

This principle of 18 percent of gross domestic product is good and it has been consistent throughout recent history. This chart here shows that it is not a straight line, but it is pretty even over a 50-year average. I think it averages out at about 18.2 percent. You have the marginal tax rates going back to 93 percent during World War II and staying there until, as I said, Senator Kennedy becomes President and he decides the marginal tax rate is too high for the good of the economy and he reduces it. I am told because of the Vietnam war, it went up. It stayed even at 70 percent until President Reagan. Then it goes down to a 50 percent marginal tax rate. Then it stays there a while. In 1986, it goes down to 28 percent. Then we have the promise of no new taxes when President Bush reneged on that promise, and it went back up to almost 40 percent. Then they went up again here and stayed here, and then we had the tax decrease of 2001.

Do you know what this shows? Everybody has an idea that if you raise the marginal tax rates, you will bring in more revenue. But the taxpayers, workers, and investors of this country are smarter than we are. We have had a 93-percent marginal tax rate--then 70 percent, 50 percent, 28 percent, and now a 35-percent marginal tax rate. But, regardless of the rate, you get the same amount of revenue, because taxpayers have decided they are going to give us bums in Washington just so much of their money to spend, and it works out to be about 18 percent of gross domestic product.

So we have a President who will probably give a speech today and say we are going to raise taxes on higher income people because, like him, they ought to pay more money. What do you get out of it? You can mess with these marginal tax rates all you want to, but you will bring in about the same amount of revenue. Why? In part because people have decided that, if we are going to tax them to death, they are going to take more leisure and they are going to invest in nonproductive investments. Bottom line--increasing taxes doesn't bring more revenue into the federal Treasury.

You have to keep marginal tax rates low so you can expand this economy. As we have seen, when taxes go down, unemployment goes down; when taxes go up, the incentive to employ is gone. So here we are.

The national debt poses serious risk to the long-term economic health of the United States. It puts a heavy burden on taxpayers who will have less take-home pay to save, spend and invest if they have to send more money to Washington.

Washington needs to champion policies that grow the economy and create jobs, and in turn, increases revenue to the federal Treasury, enabling deficit and debt reduction, not defend ways that grow the government.

The President and 535 Members of Congress collectively represent many different constituencies across the ideological, political, geographic and demographic spectrum. Although representing many, we can work as one to make America an even better place for posterity. If we continue to live beyond our means and get in the way of job-creating economic opportunity, we will push future generations over a fiscal cliff of no return. That is why Washington must clamp down on new spending and shrink the national debt.

I hope we have a President who is willing to look at history and learn from history in his speech today.

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

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

Mr. President, I suppose I and a lot of my colleagues had an opportunity to hear the President's speech this afternoon. It is very nice that the President is being engaged for the first time in the budget debate and the long-term fiscal problems of this country, and the deficit problems of this country. It is good he is following on with some of the recommendations of his own deficit reduction commission. We have to remember a little less than a year ago he appointed a deficit reduction commission. They reported on December 5. It seems as though they had broad bipartisan support because the four Senators on the commission--two Democrats and two Republicans with probably very different political philosophies of the four--have endorsed it. Then, all of a sudden, since December 5 until today, there has been a lot of quiet on the part of the President of the United States about whether he

likes what his deficit commission suggested.

I don't know the details of where he is coming from, whether he agrees with every detail that is in the deficit reduction commission recommendations, but at least he is getting on board along the lines of what 64 Senators--32 Republicans and 32 Democrats--said in a letter about a month ago to the President: We are ready to start tackling some of these big problems, but we need leadership. Maybe this speech today is an answer to that leadership. Or, if I want to be cynical about it, I could say maybe the President gave his speech today because of the very positive comments that Congressman and Chairman Paul Ryan got for his budget ideas that he released last week.

But the President also took advantage to renew the class warfare--the demagoguery of taxing the wealthy. It doesn't contribute much to the debate. In fact, I think it makes it very difficult to bring people together. Or, if I want to be cynical, I could say this is maybe the President's first speech about his reelection. But either way, I think there is analysis that we have to look at very carefully and see if it does the economic good that is intended in the speech, even though it is welcome that the President is being engaged at this time.

So I would give some reaction to some of the things the President said, but I want this as background: From World War II through 2009, every dollar of new Federal tax revenue coming into this Treasury resulted in $1.17 of new spending. Think of that: Every new dollar coming in wasn't a dollar that reduced the deficit, it was a dollar that resulted in $1.17 of additional spending. That is like a dog that chases its tail and never catches it. So we are sending a new dollar to Washington to do something about the budget deficit and nothing happens as a result of that, except more deficit.

The President made the point that tax reductions in 2001 and 2003 added tremendously to the deficit he inherited or the part of the deficit that now exists. But, in fact, the tax reductions of 2001 and 2003 resulted in more revenue to the Federal Treasury. The expanding economy, spurred by the Tax Relief Acts of 2001 and 2003, helped to reduce the annual budget deficit from $412 billion in 2004 to $160 billion in 2007, not because we taxed more but because we taxed less and we had more economic activity as a result. That brings me around to the principle of deficit reduction. Obviously, when I say a dollar of additional taxes doesn't go to the bottom line, that doesn't do anything about the deficit. But on the expenditure side, reducing that and the economic growth that comes from it is what reduces the deficit--more economic activity.

Even the most sincere arguments that raising taxes would reduce the deficit and the debt do not have history to back them up. Outside of Washington, it is obvious to people the problem is not that people are undertaxed but Washington overspends. The voters said this so loudly and clearly in the last election, and elections are supposed to have consequences. I think the budget agreement of midnight Friday night is evidence of words from the grassroots of America getting through to Washington, DC. I think most people at the grassroots are cynical whatever happened, and I suppose we have to do a lot more to prove to them there might be a different day in Washington. But it was pretty loud and clear the results of the last election and the message sent to Washington.

Government spending increased by 22 percent during the last 2 years, a nonsustainable level of increased expenditures. If we follow the budget proposed this year by President Obama, we would add another $13 trillion to our national debt over the next decade. This debt gets in the way of economic activity that creates jobs, and it is a terrible burden to leave to future generations. We talk dollars and cents when we talk about the deficit and the debt, but it is a moral issue of whether those of us of our generation ought to live high on the hog and leave the bill to young people such as these pages here who have to pay for it. It is a moral issue as much as it is an economic issue.

This trillions of dollars of debt gets in the way of economic activity that creates jobs, and it is a terrible burden on future generations. Washington needs to get behind policies that clamp down on spending and, as a result, we will grow the economy. Increased economic activity increases revenue to the Federal Treasury, enabling deficit and debt reduction. We know that to be a fact, because from 1997 to the year 2000, we actually, because of the growth of the economy, paid down $568 billion on the national debt during that period of time. The answer is not ways to grow government. We need to grow the economy, but we don't grow the economy by growing government.

Getting back to the issue of the President making a big deal in his speech about the 2001 tax cuts being a major cause of the budget deficit, and probably the implication of the unfairness of it because there weren't higher taxes on higher income people, I would suggest that the President is wrong in both regards.

In 2001, the tax cut included an across-the-board income tax reduction and reduced the tax rates on the lowest income people from 15 percent to 10 percent. It resulted in removing millions of low-income people from the Federal income tax rolls entirely. It increased the child tax credit from $500 to $1,000. The legislation included marriage penalty relief and the first-ever tax deduction for tuition.

Two years later, after 9/11, the 2003 dividends and capital gains tax rate cuts spurred economic growth and created jobs.

The result was more revenue to the Federal Treasury, not less. The expanding economy helped reduce the annual budget deficit--and I am repeating these numbers because they are significant--from $412 billion in 2004 to $160 billion in 2007.

I know it is counterintuitive to a lot of people to hear a Member of the Senate say if you reduce marginal tax rates, you are going to bring revenue into the Federal Treasury, because the obvious common sense tells people that if you increase taxes, you are going to bring in more revenue. As I said earlier in a speech today, it doesn't work out that way because some people in this country can decide I have paid enough taxes, I am not going to pay any more. So they disincentivize to be productive, probably do leisure or invest in nonproductive activity. When you lower marginal tax rates, it encourages those people to be productive and, at the same time, creating jobs, growing the economy, and bringing more money into the Federal Treasury.

When you look at the sources of the deficit, contrary to the President's claim, tax relief has been a small part. Unprecedented spending contributed much more to the deficit than the tax relief did and particularly in the last 2 years--a 22-percent increase in expenditures on top of the $814 billion stimulus.

Here is something that probably is counterintuitive as well and probably something the President misses from his analysis of the 2001 and 2003 tax relief bills, which he blames the big budget deficit on. Those reductions actually ended up with taxes being more progressive. The effective Federal tax rate on the top 1 percent of households is more than seven times the rate paid by the bottom 20 percent of households. That is up from less than five times as much in the year 1979.

If tax relief enacted since 2001 is allowed to expire in a little more than a year and a half--because last December we only extended the existing tax policy until December 31, 2012--if that happens at that time, a family of four with two kids who earns $50,000 today would see a $2,155 increase in their tax bill. More than 6 million low-income people who currently have no Federal income tax liability would be subject to the individual income tax, and that would be at a rate of 15 percent instead of the current 10 percent.

Washington needs to learn that leaving more money in the pockets of the taxpayers unleashes a positive chain reaction in our economy. On the other hand, government spending doesn't create wealth because government is not an institution that can create wealth. Government is an institution that can only provide an environment for people outside the government to create wealth. In fact, what the government does is it consumes wealth and, as a result, doesn't generate a stronger economy.

Instead of growing the government, Washington needs to focus on helping

create private sector jobs. The President's new plan will reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 12 years. He does that by reducing spending by $2 trillion but raising taxes by $1 trillion, and, thus, lowering interest payments by $1 trillion. The President has again failed to realize that we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

At least a couple times since I have been in the Senate, I have heard this argument: Let's increase taxes $1, and we will reduce expenditures $2 or $3 or $4--sometimes it is $2, sometimes $3, and sometimes $4 behind those ideas. That sounds very good, doesn't it? But here is why it doesn't work and why bringing in $1 in new taxes actually leads to spending of $1.17. I often quote Professor Dave Vedder of Ohio University, who has studied tax increases and spending for a long period of time. In fact, you increase taxes until you decide to do something else with the taxes. But appropriations are reviewed annually and, for some reason or other, after that first year, appropriations tend to creep up and up and up. Consequently, the well-intentioned raising of taxes $1 and reducing expenditures by $3 or $4--as well intended as it is, it gradually is eroded on the expenditure side--that half of that proposition--so you end up not reducing expenditures as you have originally indicated.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Adam Rohloff of my staff be granted floor privileges during this period of time.

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

Mr. President, the Senate will confirm two more of the President's judicial nominees. Both of these nominees are for seats termed ``judicial emergencies.'' My Republican colleagues and I continue to demonstrate our cooperation. We have worked with the Democratic majority in moving consensus nominees through the committee and on to the Senate floor. With today's votes, we will have confirmed 17 judicial nominees in just 39 short days the Senate has been in session this Congress. Twelve of these confirmations were for those positions that are termed ``judicial emergencies.''

We have reported out of committee a total of 32 judicial nominees. That is 51 percent of the total nominees who have been submitted to the Senate by the President of the United States. To date we have held five nomination hearings with 21 judicial and executive nominees giving their testimony. We have another hearing scheduled for tomorrow, with four judicial nominees and one executive nominee on the agenda. With this productive pace, we have taken positive action on 60 percent of the judicial nominations sent to the committee this year by the President.

Today the Senate will consider two nominations: First, Vincent Briccetti, nominated to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. He received a B.A. from Columbia University and a juris doctorate from Fordham University School of Law. The nominee began his legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable John M. Cannella, U.S. District Court for the Southern District New York.

After a short term in private practice, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney. That was also for the Southern District of New York. Later, he became a deputy chief appellate attorney. After working as an associate attorney in a law firm, the nominee started his own firm in 1992 and, as I report to my colleagues regularly on the ABA standing committee on the Federal judiciary, that committee has unanimously rated this nominee ``well-qualified.''

The second nominee is John Kronstadt, nominated to be U.S. District Judge, Central District of California. He received his B.A. from Cornell University and juris doctorate from Yale Law School. He began his legal career as law clerk to the Honorable William P. Gray, U.S. District Court, Central District of California. This nominee practiced law for nearly 24 years, most recently as a partner with Arnold & Porter.

On November 14, 2002, Gov. Gray Davis appointed Judge Kronstadt to the Los Angeles County Superior Court. There he presided over criminal, civil, and family law matters. Again, reporting on the American Bar Association rating of this nominee, the nominee had substantial majority ``qualified,'' a minority, ``well qualified.''

I support these two nominees and urge my colleagues to support them as well. I congratulate each of the nominees for their achievement and, more importantly, for their long period of public service which will continue after their confirmation by the Senate.

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

Mr. President, before I speak, is there a time limit in morning business?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may speak for 15 minutes.

Mr. President, usually by this time on a Friday, or even a little earlier, I have had the pleasure of going back to Iowa on the weekend. I would much rather be doing that. Obviously, we have problems that have to be worked out, and there is reason for staying around this weekend, particularly for those of us who do not miss votes, and we do not want to miss a vote, hopefully, to keep government functioning.

There is one advantage of not being on an airplane going back to Iowa on a Friday when I do not have committee meetings and constituent meetings: I have been able to listen to a lot of the speeches today. We do not get that opportunity Monday through Thursday very often. It is quite a pleasure to be able to hear my colleagues speak, as they have on both sides of the aisle, so strongly about differently held views in this body about the budget issues and subsidiary issues that are being discussed at this time.

Listening to the debate, I have come to the conclusion that it was one big mistake that we did not get appropriations bills passed last year. I hope people on the other side of the aisle realize if those appropriations bills had been passed, we would not be here today worrying about shutting down government and reaching some gigantic compromise.

I suppose on the other side of the aisle there is a lot of ill feeling about not taking advantage of the fact that last year there were 59 Democrats and only 41 Republicans in this body. The majority party could do just about anything it wanted to do. Of course, in the House of Representatives it was overwhelmingly controlled by the other political party, and that control particularly where appropriations bills pass.

Looking back now, I realize there was not any attempt to bring up any appropriations bills, which obviously is not a good way to run the government. I did listen to some excuses from the other side of the aisle when people were asked: How come no appropriations bills were passed? The answer from one Senator: We only had 59 votes, and Republicans would not let us bring it up.

Then I was in a quandary. There was not anything stopping the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party in the other body from passing almost anything they wanted to because it is just a political fact of life, whether you have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives or a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, as long as they stick together they can get anything done they want to get done. They can ignore the minority. They may not have been able to ignore the minority in the Senate, if 41 Republicans would stick together, but they hardly ever do. What a mistake it now must be for the Democratic Party not to have passed appropriations bills last year so we wouldn't be going through this. But it wasn't done.

I think, now, looking back, it was probably because they didn't want discussion of budget issues before the election. They didn't want the public being reminded about the $1.5 trillion deficit. In other words, we borrow about 42 cents out of every $1 we spend, and we take in about $2.2 trillion and spend $3.7 trillion. That is in the neighborhood of a $1.5 trillion deficit. They probably didn't want that talked about. So come October 1, they passed a continuing resolution until December to get through the election, and then, when they got through the election, they would take care of it when we got back here.

But the elections are supposed to have consequences, and they do have consequences. If they do not have consequences, representative government and democracy doesn't mean much. So as the President himself said, he took a shellacking and they couldn't get it passed before Christmas. So the new people came in and took over--and it was the biggest turnover in Congress since 1938--and with a lot of new people there were a lot of new things to learn and it didn't get done by March 4. It was extended before Christmas until March 4, then 2 weeks, until March 18, and then 3 weeks, until this very day.

But what a mistake, with overwhelming majorities, this didn't get done in the usual time when we pass 12 appropriations bills to get things funded. It was very clear in the election that people wanted to stop this deficit spending, get the spending down, and get the size of government down. With the biggest turnover in Congress since 1938, they are going to expect some changes to be made, and that is what is going on right now with the level of expenditures.

We are led to believe by people on the other side that money is not the issue; that it is some social policy that is being debated and holding this up from happening. But I know this. The only possibility of not shutting down government, at least that is partly through the Congress, the Republicans are the only ones who have put forward legislation to reduce spending and to keep government open. It is kind of a commonsense approach that is used by the other body in sending us a bill that will fund Defense through the end of the year, and it will give more time for negotiation on the rest of the budget.

In funding Defense through the end of the year, we can't fight a war from week to week with how much money we have to spend. When we voted to put our men and women in danger in fighting this war on terror--with our men and women in danger, we should give them as much certainty as we can. Even now, with the possibility of not being paid--or the possibility their families are not going to get the support they are entitled to--it is just a terrible sin, when we have asked people to defend the country.

So that is the bill we ought to be taking up. But here we are, and there isn't any desire here to take it up, and the President says he is going to veto the bill. Why would the President be vetoing a bill that is going to give certainty to the military, the Defense Department, and what they can have to spend to do the job they are supposed to do, which is the No. 1 function of the Federal Government, our national security, and particularly for the families who are standing behind them?

So here we are trying to preempt, as far as domestic expenditures are concerned, the 22-percent increase that took place in 2009 and 2010. When we only have economic growth of 2\1/2\ to 3 percent, we can't be spending money at 22 percent increases, and that is on top of the $814 billion stimulus bill that was passed that was supposed to keep unemployment under 8 percent--and which, obviously, hasn't kept unemployment under 8 percent. So preempt that and go back to the 2008 level of expenditures.

I never heard people complaining in 2008 that there wasn't enough money appropriated to perform the functions of government. It is very necessary that we do that. But we can't incorporate that 22 percent up here and build that into the base over a 10-year budget window. There are hundreds of billions of dollars in difference between the 2008 level of expenditures and the 2010 levels of expenditures, and that is what it is going to take. We have to be

looking ahead for the next 60 years, not just the next 6 months.

We need to take this gradual step toward the reduction of spending so government stops spending money it does not have. We have to start making decisions that are necessary about the future of our country. To a great extent, Washington is responsible for some of this. We have to reduce wasteful government spending. We have to tighten our belt in Washington, as families do at home. When you have dug yourself into a hole, the No. 1 rule is, stop digging. This bill, sent over from the House, will be the first step toward doing that. But for sure the public has a right to know the facts. They do not want us, with the facts they know, leaving our children in a bankrupt situation, which is what we will do if we don't immediately intervene and do something about it.

Also, this discussion about getting government spending down has something to do with simply creating an environment of certainty for our private sector. We have uncertainty in taxes, we have uncertainty in EPA regulations, and we have uncertainty from the standpoint of fiscal policy of the Federal Government--how much money are we going to continue to borrow and take away from the private sector. All these things lead to a reluctance of employers, large and small, in this country to hire people. So this debate is about creating jobs and putting in place a fiscal policy, along with a lot of other sensible policies.

But when we use the words ``sensible policy''--people back home might not know this--we have to remember this city is an island surrounded by reality, and the only business in this town is government. People in government, including those of us who are elected, are in the wagon with somebody else pulling the wagon. So we have to go home to our districts and bring back some common sense. That common sense says government ought to live as families live--within their means.

Those are the President's words, not mine. When we put his budget out in early February, he said: Government has to live within its means. Then what sort of a budget does he put out? A 10-year budget window that increases the national debt from $14 trillion to $26 trillion.

I hope we get something agreed to tonight. I hope government does not shut down. It doesn't save money, like people think it should. It actually costs money, and it costs people the services they are entitled to. But if you don't remember anything else this Senator has said tonight, remember this: Elections have consequences, and there were great messages sent in this last election. The people expect us to let them know that we get it and that there aren't any excuses in the process.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, in March, I introduced S. 454, the Strengthening Program Integrity and Accountability in Health Care Act, to enhance the government's ability to combat Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

One of the provisions in that bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to make Medicare claims and payment data available to the public similar to other federal spending disclosed on www.USAspending.gov.

That website was created by legislation sponsored by then-Senator Obama and Senator Coburn. It lists almost all federal spending, but it doesn't include Medicare payments made to physicians.

That means virtually every other government program, including some defense spending, is more transparent than spending by the Medicare program.

Medicare is funded by taxpayers, and in 2009, the federal government spent $502 billion on Medicare.

Taxpayers should have a right to see how their hard-earned dollars are being spent.

Also, if doctors know their billing information is public, it might deter some wasteful practices and overbilling.

On the day that I introduced S. 454, I learned that Senator Wyden was also working on legislation to make Medicare payments to physicians available to the public. We decided to work together.

Today, Senator Wyden and I are introducing the Medicare Data Access for Transparency and Accountability Act, Medicare DATA Act.

This bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to make available a searchable Medicare payment database that the public can access at no cost.

Our bill also clarifies that data on Medicare payments to physicians and suppliers do not fall under a Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, exemption.

Under a 1979 court decision, Medicare is prohibited from releasing physicians' billing information to the public.

But before that injunction, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare--now the Department of Health and Human Services--was in the process of releasing reimbursement data for all Medicare providers.

Third parties that have tried to obtain physician specific data through the FOIA process have failed in the past because the courts held that physicians' privacy interests outweigh the public's interest in disclosure.

The nonprofit, consumer organization--Consumers' Checkbook--for example, had filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services to compel disclosure of that data.

The organization made its FOIA request to determine whether or not Medicare paid physicians who had the qualifications to perform the services for which they sought federal reimbursement, especially those performing a high volume of difficult procedures.

In particular, the organization was looking for physicians with insufficient board certifications or histories of disciplinary actions.

My question is: why wouldn't we want individuals examining this data to ensure that the government is protecting taxpayer dollars by preventing improper billing to the Medicare program?

And why wouldn't we want public interest watchdog groups helping to look out for potential abuse or fraud?

In January, the Wall Street Journal reported the American Medical Association's, AMA, concerns about making

Medicare claims data publicly available.

The AMA President said that physicians ``should not suffer the consequences of having false or misleading conclusions drawn from complex Medicare data that has significant limitations.''

But I would like to note the value of access to Medicare billing data.

Even with limited access, the Wall Street Journal was able to identify suspicious billing patterns and potential abuses of the Medicare system.

The Wall Street Journal found cases where Medicare paid millions to a physician, sometimes for several years, before those questionable payments stopped.

Volume alone doesn't automatically mean there's fraud, waste, or abuse.

More patients may be going to a specific physician for a particular service because that physician is a leader in his or her field.

Nonetheless, to alleviate the concerns raised by the American Medical Association, our bill would require a disclaimer that the data in the public database ``does not reflect on the quality of the items of services furnished or of the provider of services or supplier who furnished the items or services.''

I believe transparency in the health care system leads to more accountability and thus less waste and more efficient use of scarce resources.

I have often quoted Justice Brandeis, who said, ``Sunlight is the best disinfectant.''

That is what Senator Wyden and I are aiming to accomplish with the Medicare DATA Act.

When it comes to public programs like Medicare, the Federal Government needs all the help it can get to identify and combat fraud, waste and abuse.

Our bill will add to the reforms Congress passed last year.

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

Mr. President, in March, I introduced S. 454, the Strengthening Program Integrity and Accountability in Health Care Act, to enhance the government's ability to combat Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

One of the provisions in that bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to make Medicare claims and payment data available to the public similar to other federal spending disclosed on www.USAspending.gov.

That website was created by legislation sponsored by then-Senator Obama and Senator Coburn. It lists almost all federal spending, but it doesn't include Medicare payments made to physicians.

That means virtually every other government program, including some defense spending, is more transparent than spending by the Medicare program.

Medicare is funded by taxpayers, and in 2009, the federal government spent $502 billion on Medicare.

Taxpayers should have a right to see how their hard-earned dollars are being spent.

Also, if doctors know their billing information is public, it might deter some wasteful practices and overbilling.

On the day that I introduced S. 454, I learned that Senator Wyden was also working on legislation to make Medicare payments to physicians available to the public. We decided to work together.

Today, Senator Wyden and I are introducing the Medicare Data Access for Transparency and Accountability Act, Medicare DATA Act.

This bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to make available a searchable Medicare payment database that the public can access at no cost.

Our bill also clarifies that data on Medicare payments to physicians and suppliers do not fall under a Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, exemption.

Under a 1979 court decision, Medicare is prohibited from releasing physicians' billing information to the public.

But before that injunction, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare--now the Department of Health and Human Services--was in the process of releasing reimbursement data for all Medicare providers.

Third parties that have tried to obtain physician specific data through the FOIA process have failed in the past because the courts held that physicians' privacy interests outweigh the public's interest in disclosure.

The nonprofit, consumer organization--Consumers' Checkbook--for example, had filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services to compel disclosure of that data.

The organization made its FOIA request to determine whether or not Medicare paid physicians who had the qualifications to perform the services for which they sought federal reimbursement, especially those performing a high volume of difficult procedures.

In particular, the organization was looking for physicians with insufficient board certifications or histories of disciplinary actions.

My question is: why wouldn't we want individuals examining this data to ensure that the government is protecting taxpayer dollars by preventing improper billing to the Medicare program?

And why wouldn't we want public interest watchdog groups helping to look out for potential abuse or fraud?

In January, the Wall Street Journal reported the American Medical Association's, AMA, concerns about making

Medicare claims data publicly available.

The AMA President said that physicians ``should not suffer the consequences of having false or misleading conclusions drawn from complex Medicare data that has significant limitations.''

But I would like to note the value of access to Medicare billing data.

Even with limited access, the Wall Street Journal was able to identify suspicious billing patterns and potential abuses of the Medicare system.

The Wall Street Journal found cases where Medicare paid millions to a physician, sometimes for several years, before those questionable payments stopped.

Volume alone doesn't automatically mean there's fraud, waste, or abuse.

More patients may be going to a specific physician for a particular service because that physician is a leader in his or her field.

Nonetheless, to alleviate the concerns raised by the American Medical Association, our bill would require a disclaimer that the data in the public database ``does not reflect on the quality of the items of services furnished or of the provider of services or supplier who furnished the items or services.''

I believe transparency in the health care system leads to more accountability and thus less waste and more efficient use of scarce resources.

I have often quoted Justice Brandeis, who said, ``Sunlight is the best disinfectant.''

That is what Senator Wyden and I are aiming to accomplish with the Medicare DATA Act.

When it comes to public programs like Medicare, the Federal Government needs all the help it can get to identify and combat fraud, waste and abuse.

Our bill will add to the reforms Congress passed last year.

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

Mr. President, I would like to briefly explain my vote in favor of amendment No. 273, offered by Senator Coburn. The amendment seeks to save at least $5 billion by consolidating duplicative and overlapping

government programs. I wholeheartedly support efforts to save taxpayer money by eliminating waste, fraud, abuse and inefficiency within the Federal Government. A congressional responsibility that I take very seriously is our day to conduct oversight of Federal agencies.

I recognize that Senator Coburn's amendment is based on a Government Accountability Office report to Congress which identified programs and initiatives that have duplicative goals or activities. The report included 34 areas where billions of dollars could be saved. It included seven areas within Defense Department programs. It proposes saving millions by consolidating Federal data centers that today are spread across 24 Federal agencies. It identifies duplication in 44 separate employment and training programs, which could save millions of dollars. I also understand that the blender's credit for ethanol was singled out in the report.

In voting in favor of the amendment, I want to make clear that I do not consider the ethanol blender's credit to be a duplicative program, nor do I believe it should simply be eliminated. I would also like to make clear that the GAO report suggested a number of policy options that Congress could consider when revising the tax incentive. My colleagues should know that I, along with other Members of the Senate, are currently working to reform and restructure the tax incentives for ethanol production and consumption. Many of the reforms we are exploring are the same options suggested by the GAO report.

It is my hope then, that the Senate will consider thoughtful, constructive reforms to the ethanol tax incentive, rather than the proposal put forth by Senator Coburn with amendment No. 220 that would end the incentive immediately.

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

Mr. President, today our body, the Senate, is going to vote to confirm the 15th judicial nominee for this year. If it seems to my colleagues and to the public that we have been voting on a nominee every week, well, we have been voting on a nominee at least once a week. Both in committee and on the floor, judicial nominees have regularly appeared on the Senate's agenda. We have taken positive action on 34 of the 61 judicial nominees submitted to this Congress by President Obama. We continue to hold hearings every 2 weeks to examine the nominees' records and to receive testimony. The committee meets every week to report nominees to the floor. So far, the committee has reported 27 nominees, which is ahead of the 23 reported by this same time in the 108th Congress.

This demonstrates my commitment and the commitment of Republicans on the Judiciary Committee to cooperate with the chairman to move forward on consensus nominees. Even as we do so, we continue to thoroughly examine the records and the qualifications of all nominees, which is the responsibility of the Senate.

I would note that a number of judicial nominations and at least one executive branch nomination which remain on the Senate's Executive Calendar are controversial in nature--in other words, not the consensus approach which I have spoken about concerning other nominees to the judiciary. I appreciate the efforts of our leadership to move in a timely manner the nominations which are consensus nominees.

Today, we will vote on the nomination of Jimmie V. Reyna to be a U.S. circuit judge for the Federal Circuit. Mr. Reyna received his B.A. from the University of Rochester and his juris doctorate from the University of New Mexico School of Law.

After graduating from law school, the nominee served as law clerk for a firm and as an associate at an insurance defense firm in New Mexico. It was in 1981 that Mr. Reyna formed his own firm and practiced plaintiff injury, civil rights, and criminal law. He then moved to the Washington, DC, area in 1986 and worked at an international trade firm, eventually making partner of that law firm. Mr. Reyna continues to specialize in international trade matters with the firm of Williams Mullen, where he directs the international trade and customs practice group and the Latin American Task Force.

The American Bar Association has rated this nominee unanimously ``well qualified,'' and of course I am pleased to support that nomination.

The Federal Circuit is unique among the courts of appeal. It is not geographical-based but has nationwide subject matter jurisdiction in designated areas of the law. In addition to international trade, the court hears cases on patents, trademarks, government contracts, certain money claims against the U.S. Government, veterans' benefits, and public safety officers' benefits claims.

Of particular interest to me, this court has exclusive jurisdiction over cases related to Federal personnel matters. That includes exclusive jurisdiction over appeals from the Merit Systems Protection Board, which hears whistleblower cases under the Whistleblower Protection Act. If anybody wonders why this Senator said that I have a particular interest in this court and what it does on Federal personnel matters, it is because I have been a longtime advocate for whistleblower protection legislation and have been involved with my colleagues in this body in passing some of that whistleblower protection legislation.

I congratulate Mr. Reyna and his family on this important lifetime appointment.

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