Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the passing of disability rights pioneer and my longtime friend, Ms. Evelyne Villines. Ever since I first met Evelyne during my early years in the Iowa House of Representatives, I knew her to be a fierce advocate on behalf of those with disabilities. She had an outstanding work ethic and never stopped campaigning for those with disabilities to be recognized for their abilities and not by what others saw as their limitations.

Thanks to people like Evelyne, our society has made a lot of progress in this area. Evelyne's tireless work earned her recognition on both the State and national levels as an inductee into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame and the national Hall of Fame for Persons with Disabilities. Evelyne's efforts were recognized as paving the way for passage for the American with Disabilities Act of 1990.

She served on numerous commissions and joined the board of SourceAmerica in its infancy, leading the company to become one of the largest employers of people with disabilities in the Nation. Evelyne's advocacy and resulting accomplishments have opened the doors of opportunity for people with disabilities.

I am honored to stand before you in recognizing Evelyne for

her lifelong commitment to service. Evelyne's legacy will

live on for years to come through the countless individuals

who will continue to benefit from her life's work.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, before I read from my remarks, I would like to make the point that I get the impression that what some Members of the other political party--but more often editorials and think tanks--believe and want the public to believe is that there is actually a tax bill produced by the tax-writing committees of the Congress, something that is very definitive in what it does to the tax policy. I want to make clear that there is no such document. All we have so far is what is called a framework agreed to by the leaders of the two tax- writing committees and the Treasury Department and the leaders of the House and the Senate. You cannot draw conclusions about who is going to pay what taxes just from the framework.

I will get into real detail on this, but the other thing I would like to make clear is the fact that there are a lot of people drawing conclusions about who is going to get tax benefits and who is going to be hurt as a result of all this information that is out there, from which no one can draw conclusions because there isn't any bill before the Congress at this point. There will be in a matter of weeks.

The budget that we are debating this week paves the way for fundamental tax reform. For more than a decade, both sides of the aisle have talked about the need for tax reform that provides tax simplification, tax fairness, and gives us the ability to increase our economic competitiveness so that we can grow the economy.

Under President George W. Bush, we had a bipartisan tax reform panel. Under President Obama, we had the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. We have had individual Members also authoring tax plans, including a bipartisan bill authored by Finance Committee Ranking Member Wyden, the Senator from Oregon, and former Senator Coats, then representing the State of Indiana.

In addition to these high-profile plans that have been out there over the years, the Senate Finance Committee has also had countless tax reform hearings over this extended period. The

committee also held a series of bipartisan options papers discussions under then-Chairman Baucus. Additionally, under Chairman Hatch, we had bipartisan tax reform working groups. All of this work over the years has laid the foundation and informed the unified framework released by the Big 6. That is the framework I previously referred to.

The influence of these prior discussions and proposals on the Big 6 framework is evident. In other words, all of that work that has gone on over the years in different environs is bearing fruit now in getting a consensus of what we ought to do in a broad way of moving forward on tax simplification, tax reform, and tax cuts.

The framework is nothing but a framework and will be filled in with details by the tax-writing committees. It is at that point that any think tank, any Member of the other political party, any Member of our political party, any college professors, any economists anyplace can make some sound judgments as to the extent to which certain people benefit or don't benefit from the legislation before us.

I think they ought to take into consideration that you have to think about the country as a whole, which hasn't grown by more than 1.6 percent in each of the 8 years of the previous administration. If you are going to have jobs created, you have to grow at about twice that amount, at 3 percent or more. That is some of the thinking behind this budget that is before the Senate right now and the thinking behind the tax reform measures that will follow our adoption of the budget.

I will be repeating myself to some extent here, but for illustration, I have a chart here comparing the Big 6 framework, the Wyden-Coats bill, and the Simpson-Bowles plan to which I have already referred. You can see here the main point about putting these three plans together is to show similarity. All proposals would consolidate the current tax brackets down to three. That is one point the chart makes.

Two plans provide for a top rate of 35 percent, while one provides for a top rate of 28 percent. Yet the Big 6 framework, the framework that will evolve into a piece of legislation called tax simplification, tax reform, and tax cuts, is being criticized for having a 35-percent top rate that somehow is a giveaway to the wealthy, whereas you can see from this chart that plans that have been bipartisan in the past have had the 35-percent top rate or less. Of course, the 35-percent tax rate that is said to be a giveaway to the wealthy is not even the one that proposes a lower 28-percent rate. The 28-percent rate is reserved for the Simpson-Bowles plan. That Simpson-Bowles group was put together by none other than a Democratic President.

Let me ask: Were Democratic members of the Simpson-Bowles Commission, which voted for that plan, voting to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy? Do our Democratic colleagues expect us to believe that a 35-percent top rate is a sensible bipartisan compromise when offered by Democrats but a giveaway to the rich once it is associated with this administration or with Republican Members of Congress?

Well, another thing is the same: All three plans would repeal the alternative minimum tax. This is very surprising. From listening to my Democratic colleagues, I thought repealing the alternative minimum tax was some nefarious plot to benefit President Trump, but that just doesn't square with the reality and what has gone on in the Congress over the last decade and a half with regard to tax reform. Repealing the alternative minimum tax has had strong bipartisan support.

While serving as either chairman or the ranking member of the Finance Committee, Senator Baucus and I introduced bipartisan, stand-alone legislation to repeal the alternative minimum tax. We did that across several Congresses. Of course, we were not successful. I hope this Congress will be successful in doing that.

Our legislation eliminating the alternative minimum tax garnered bipartisan support from across the political spectrum. The current ranking member of the Finance Committee and the current minority leader of the entire U.S. Senate even joined Senator Baucus and me at that time in these efforts as cosponsors of that legislation.

At the time, a few years ago, the current ranking member even went so far as to say that ``the alternative minimum tax should be Congress' number-one priority for tax reform.'' I agree with what the current ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said a few years ago, which I just quoted. The alternative minimum tax repeal should be a top priority, and it seems as though it is going to be a top priority this year because the alternative minimum tax adds needless complexity to the Tax Code and often hits middle-income taxpayers rather than the wealthy, as originally intended.

Let me give a history of the alternative minimum tax. I think it was passed in 1969. Studies of wealthy people showed that about 150 people who were very wealthy paid no income tax, and there was a feeling that everyone ought to pay some tax. The alternative minimum tax was set up to hit those 150 and some other people, but it wasn't ever indexed. Now it hits millions of middle-income taxpayers. To help those middle- income taxpayers who should have never been hit by the alternative minimum tax--that is the rationale for doing away with it.

We even have the Internal Revenue Service's Taxpayer Advocate Service repeatedly calling for the repeal of the alternative minimum tax, noting that it ``does not achieve its original goal'' and ``stealthily increases marginal rates for middle-income taxpayers.''

I want to move now to the corporate tax part of the framework. I am back at the chart now. Similarity between these plans exists for reform of corporate taxes. For instance, each one of these three plans seeks to significantly lower our corporate tax rate.

The Wyden-Coats bill calls for an 11-percent reduction in the corporate rate, bringing that rate down from 35 to 24 percent. The Big 6 framework aims for 20 percent as the highest corporate tax rate. Yet, according to the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, the corporate rate reduction in the Big 6 framework is ``a massive corporate tax cut that overwhelmingly benefits shareholders.''

The last time I checked, the distribution of the benefit from a corporate rate reduction is the same no matter what party or what President proposed it. This chart shows that similarity between the bipartisan plans and the Big 6 framework. I don't think the Senate Finance Committee ranking member proposed a 24-percent corporate rate when that Wyden-Coats plan was developed because he wanted to provide a massive benefit to the shareholders he now talks about. I also know for certain that isn't why the Big 6 framework aims for 20 percent.

The truth is, there has been a really big, growing, bipartisan consensus that our corporate tax rate is out of step with other major trading partners. Now, at 35 percent--and it has been at 35 percent for decades--our corporate tax rate is the highest among developed countries. While we have been at 35 percent, our major trading partners have been lowering their rates. On average, their rates are more than 10 percent lower than ours, so averaging maybe about 24 percent.

Now, that obviously has a great impact on jobs in America because it puts American companies at a competitive disadvantage globally, costing American jobs. It has also strained our corporate tax system to its breaking point as we have battled corporate inversions and foreign takeovers. Now, how much in the last several years have we heard Members of this body complaining about foreign takeovers and inversions to skip the country, to save taxes? Well, that is one of the reasons for reducing the corporate tax rate so that doesn't happen.

Moreover, a growing body of economic literature is showing that a significant portion of the corporate tax does indeed fall on workers in the form of lower wages. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation as well as the Congressional Budget Office assumes 25 percent of corporate tax falls on workers. So if you reduce the corporate tax rate, according to congressional researchers here who work for us, one would assume that workers are going to get 25 percent of that benefit to their wages. We even have other studies--many--finding that workers could bear more than 70 percent of the burden of a high corporate tax rate.

While the exact burden borne by workers may be debated, the economic

research is very clear. A corporate rate reduction means a significant wage increase for workers. In fact, the Council of Economic Advisers very conservatively estimates that workers could see their wages increase by more than $4,000 due to lowering the corporate rate to 20 percent.

In reality, there is very little in this tax framework that has not had bipartisan support in the past or is not well within the mainstream of bipartisan proposals before us. Once again, that statement I just made is the purpose of this chart, to show that this bipartisan agreement and what we have before the Congress coming up--the Big 6 framework--have so many likenesses in it that there is absolutely no rationale for the partisanship we are having in the news media and on the Senate floor talking about this framework. This is why the accusations that the Big 6 tax framework is nothing more than a giveaway to the rich--why that statement we hear so often is so dumbfounding.

I want to move on to another issue about whether these are tax cuts for the rich, and I want to show how one of the proposals before the Congress will help the rich. More perplexing is that those who are screaming ``tax cuts for the rich'' and saying it the loudest have also been the most ardent supporters of maintaining one of the largest loopholes for the wealthy; namely, the State and local tax deduction.

I know the minority leader was on the floor last week, I think, citing IRS statistics to claim that the deduction was really a middle- class benefit, but the minority leader told only part of that story. I would like to look at some estimates by the liberal Tax Policy Center that my Democratic colleagues like to cite so often. According to the Tax Policy Center, 90 percent of the tax increase from eliminating the deduction would fall on taxpayers with incomes exceeding $100,000, and 40 percent of the total would be paid just by taxpayers with incomes exceeding $500,000 a year.

Think of it this way. Those with incomes exceeding $500,000 make up less than 1 percent of all tax filers, yet receive 40 percent of the deduction benefit of claiming the State and local tax deduction.

I would like to illustrate it a better way. I have a chart based on IRS data that looks at the benefit of the deduction by adjusted gross income. Prior to going to the chart, I think it is important to point out that only about 30 percent of the taxpayers even itemize and have the State and local tax deduction available to them because you have to itemize to get that. This chart is going to focus on that 30 percent.

The first group I have highlighted on this chart are taxpayers with incomes below $50,000. As we can see on the chart, only about 12 percent of the tax filers in this group claim the deduction. In other words, 88 percent of the taxpayers in this category receive no benefit from the State and local tax deduction. That 12 percent does get a fairly nice benefit from it. They are deducting an average of a little over $3,000 in State taxes for a State benefit of just under $500, assuming they are in today's 15 percent bracket.

From further down the chart, we can see that the benefits afforded to low- to middle-income taxpayers are very much dwarfed by the benefits afforded to the wealthy or, as some of my Democratic colleagues might have become accustomed to referring to them, the millionaires and billionaires. Where only 12 percent of taxpayers with incomes under $50,000 have any benefit from the State and local tax deduction, over 90 percent of filers with incomes exceeding $500,000 claim the deduction. Tax filers in the $500,000 to $1 million range are, on average, deducting more in State and local taxes--$53,000--than the incomes of the taxpayers in the first group.

If we assume taxpayers in this second group are, under the current law, in the 39.6-percent tax bracket, that translates into a tax benefit of nearly $21,000. For those with incomes exceeding $1 million, there is an average tax benefit of about $100,000.

So if you are truly interested in eliminating tax loopholes for the rich, look no further than the elimination of the State and local tax deduction. This elimination provides an opportunity to better target more tax relief where we want to target it--to the middle class--making up for any benefit the middle class may lose from deductions and then some. In other words, the income tax would remain much more progressive.

The Big 6 framework provides the tools to do a middle-income tax reduction, including nearly doubling the standard deduction, reducing the current 15-percent rate to 12 percent, and significantly increasing the child tax credit. The framework also grants significant leeway to the Finance Committee and the Ways and Means Committee to explore additional options to ensuring middle-income tax relief.

In addition to being a benefit that overwhelmingly goes to the wealthy, the State and local tax deduction also has the effect of disproportionately benefiting States with high State and local taxes. Essentially, the deduction allows wealthy individuals in high-tax States to then offload some of their State and local tax burdens onto taxpayers in other States.

This new chart lists the top 10 States that benefit the most from the State and local tax deduction. The States are listed, and we can see the extent to which they benefit from it. We see we have New York at the top, a little lower is California, and a little bit below that is Massachusetts. It would seem to me that our Democratic colleagues like to talk a big game about eliminating loopholes for the wealthy, but when it comes down to actually doing it, they are more interested in holding on to a tax subsidy that favors the tax-and-spend policies of overwhelmingly blue States.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I request unanimous consent that the text of the resolution urging the President of the United States to allow for the full public release of all remaining records pertaining to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that are held by the National Archives and Records Administration and to reject any claims for the continued postponement of the full public release of those records, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I request unanimous consent that the text of the resolution commending the National Archives and Records Administration and its staff for working to comply with the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 and release all records related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy by October 26, 2017, be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, today, I wish to congratulate and thank Mr. David Ahart and Ms. Cathy Glenn on their retirement for their more than 28 years of service to the U.S. Senate.

I have worked with Dave and Cathy in various roles within the U.S. Senate Recording Studio for nearly three decades.

Before working in the radio division, Dave worked on the television side of the Senate Recording studio.

Cathy also worked on the television side before coming to radio. Before that, she worked for Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona.

It is not unusual for me to go to the Senate recording studio multiple times a week. If you do the math, you can see I have gotten to know Dave and Cathy very well over the years.

I have always said that representative government is a two-way street, and communicating with Iowans through the media has always been an important part of my job. Dave and Cathy are an instrumental part of that process. Put simply, they have helped me keep in touch with Iowans, and for that, I couldn't be more grateful.

It's also worth noting that Dave and Cathy are immensely kind and patient. Many days, my schedule can change in an instant. Dave and Cathy are always generous with their time and help me and my staff complete the work that needs to be done.

Those who know Dave and Cathy know you never leave their studio without a smile and laughter. They are as friendly now as they were 30 years ago.

Dave, I hope you get back to Denison soon and stop at Cronks.

Dave had family who lived in Denison, IA. Cronks is a mutually favorite restaurant that I always try to stop at when traveling through the area.

Cathy, as you celebrate, make sure to eat an extra piece of chocolate for me. I think you have as big of a sweet tooth as I do.

I wish Dave and Cathy all the best in retirement and the years to come.

So to you two, I say thank you for all you have done. The U.S. Senate, the Senate Recording Studio, my staff and I will be forever grateful for your service.

Mr. President, today, the Senate is voting to confirm Makan Delrahim to serve as the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. When Mr. Delrahim was 10 years old, his family fled the tyranny of Iran and settled in the United States, knowing no English. Since then, Mr. Delrahim received his B.S. from the University of California in 1991, his J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law in 1995, and his M.S. from Johns Hopkins University in 2002.

Mr. Delrahim's professional career and broad range of legal experiences have prepared him well to lead the Antitrust Division. He has experience in both the private and public sectors. He has worked at various law firms and served in government, including as staff director to then-Chairman Hatch of the Senate Judiciary Committee, deputy counsel to the President of the United States, and Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. He also served as a Commissioner of the U.S. Antitrust Modernization Commission.

Mr. Delrahim will serve as the highest ranking Iranian-American official ever at the Department of Justice. His journey epitomizes the American dream. He is well known and liked by my colleagues and me. I am pleased to support his nomination today.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for approximately 6 or 7 minutes.

Mr. President, I come to the floor because I am very disturbed about some actions coming out of EPA affecting biofuels and contrary to what the President promised. In other words, I think people working for the President aren't following the President's direction.

As my colleagues know well, I have championed renewable fuels and other energies for a long period of time. I have worked hard to enact policies to encourage the growth of renewable electricity from sources such as wind and solar. The same is true for biofuels. I have pursued policies to grow our country's production of renewable fuels, such as conventional corn ethanol, biodiesel, and cellulosic ethanol. I support renewable energy because it is good for the economy. It is good for our national security. It is good for our balance of trade. It is good for the rural economies, and it is good for energy independence.

I was pleased that in the most recent Presidential election, then Candidate Trump--now our President--made clear his support for ethanol and the renewable fuels standard. He said clearly: ``We are going to protect the Renewable Fuels Standard.''

On another occasion, Candidate Trump recognized the benefits of the industry when he said this at an ethanol biorefinery:

Amazing what you've been able to do--amazing. And it's

great for the country and

the investment is great. Beyond even the product, the

investment and the jobs and everything else are great for the

country.

Finally, at a summit focusing on renewable fuels in Iowa, as a candidate in January of 2016, Mr. Trump said this:

The RFS, which is Renewable Fuel Standard, is an important

tool in the mission to achieve energy independence to the

United States. I will do all that is in my power as President

to achieve that goal. . . . As President, I will encourage

Congress to be cautious in attempting to charge and change

any part of the RFS. . . . Energy independence is a

requirement of America to become great again.

Candidate Trump continued:

My theme is `Make America Great Again.' It's an important

part of it. The EPA should ensure that biofuel RVOs, or blend

levels, match the statutory level set by Congress under the

Mr. President, I am pleased to support Noel Francisco to serve as the next Solicitor General.

Mr. Francisco comes to us with impressive credentials. He graduated from the University of Chicago Law School and clerked for Judge Luttig on the Fourth Circuit and Justice Scalia on the Supreme Court. He has spent time in both the private sector at prestigious law firms and in the public sector as counsel to the President at the White House and in leadership roles at the Department of Justice.

Mr. Francisco has impressive experience arguing before the Supreme Court. His client won in each of the three cases he argued there. He has been named one of Washington, DC's ``Super Lawyers,'' as well as one of the ``100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.''

It is vital for the Office of the Solicitor General to have its leader in place, so I am pleased that, after waiting for over 3 months on the Senate floor, we are finally voting on this nominee today.

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

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to question the plan for auditing the Department of Defense. The new Chief Financial Officer, Mr. David Norquist, presented a plan to the Armed Services Committee on May 9. It appears flawed, like a lot of other such plans. The Department

may be audit ready by the September 30 deadline, but the goal--and the goal ought to be a clean opinion--isn't in the mix. In its place, we get another lame excuse: ``I recognize it will take time to go from being audited to passing an audit.''

We have heard this story over and over for 26 years. When will it come to an end?

I don't think the Pentagon has a clue if the Department is truly audit ready. Then, why is the Chief Financial Officer predicting failure before the audit even starts?

Doubletalk is necessary to accomplish that goal. A monster is lurking in the weeds, and nobody wants to talk about it. It is the ``deal- breakers.'' That is a term that is often used in audit reports. They are red-flagged accounting issues listed in Department of Defense reports for years and years. They are prefaced by this warning: ``The deal-breakers prevent clean opinions.''

If Mr. Norquist wants to win this war, he had better get on top of the ``deal-breakers.'' But he ignored them in testimony, focusing instead on this apparent distraction: DOD has spent too much time ``preparing for full-scope audit without starting it.''

We need to pinpoint ``vulnerabilities''--those are his words, and he went on--``to drive change to a clean opinion.'' Suggesting that the Department of Defense lags behind on audit starts or needs more audits to spot weaknesses seems very wrongheaded. The Department has conducted nonstop audits since 1991--294 financial audits, to be exact--and 90 percent were failures, but a few were full-scope audits with clean opinions. Together, the Corps of Engineers and the Military Retirement Fund earned 28 clean opinions out of 43 starts. In the case of the Corps of Engineers, auditors relied on unorthodox procedures known as ``manual workarounds'' or ``audit trail reconstruction work.'' Highly paid auditors scramble around searching for missing records. These procedures work on small jobs, but the point is that they are an inefficient substitute for a modern accounting system.

Now, I have talked about small jobs. To the contrary, on big jobs this approach is a nonstarter. Yet, that is exactly where Mr. Norquist intends to go--the toughest, the unauditable: the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, and the rest of the Defense Department. This is where auditing hits the wall--over 200 starts without a successful finish.

If these audits begin before the accounting house is in order, the Norquist plan may be swallowed up by the swamp. The destructive power of the deal-breakers was hammered home by the most important audit so far--the Marine Corps audit. Their impact was exposed in a first-rate report issued by the Government Accountability Office. I spoke at length about that report on the Marines on August 4, 2015. Today, I will touch on it just briefly. This background is very, very important.

Back in September 2008, the Marine Corps, the smallest of the big ones, stepped up to the plate. The Marine Corps boldly declared that it was audit ready. As a pilot project, the Marine Corps would lead the way. High hopes for a breakthrough were not to be. Ten years and five audits later, the Marine Corps is still stuck on square one. The inspector general and the Government Accountability Office determined that it was never ready for audit. It failed for the same reasons as all the other audits failed, going back to the term ``deal breakers.''

To make matters worse, there was an attempt to cover up these shortcomings. Initially, a clean opinion was issued. The then-Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, gave the Marine Corps an award for being the first service to earn a clean opinion. The opinion did not stand up to scrutiny. The evidence did not meet ``professional auditing standards.'' So the inspector general had to withdraw, leaving Mr. Hagel with egg all over his face.

The deputy inspector general for audit was removed and reassigned, and the accounting firm involved lost the contract to Kearney & Company, where the now Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Norquist, was a partner.

Without strong leadership, the Marine Corps could be the Norquist template. This is where we have been before: audit ready but light years away from a clean opinion. So that takes you to nowheresville. Why go there when you know what you are going to find? Although lessons were learned, the end result was mostly waste--$32 million for five premature audits. DOD is big, big business for these auditing firms, and what do we get? No clean opinion.

The deal-breakers, which doomed the Marine Corps audit and all the others, are alive and well. They are still driving the freight train with no fix in sight. Yet, in spite of these formidable barriers, the Marine Corps is once again shooting for the moon. It jumped out in front of all the other military services by starting a full financial audit, which the press calls a ``mammoth task.'' Why would the outcome be any different this time around, when we just exposed within the last 2 years that what they thought was a clean audit was not such a clean audit.

The government's expert on accounting--and I call him the expert on government accounting because he is Comptroller General Gene Dodaro-- understands the dilemma. The $10 billion spent annually on fixing the accounting system, he says, ``has not yielded positive results.'' Money is being spent in the wrong places. Mr. Dodaro wonders if the Department of Defense has the talent to get it right, and that is his word--``talent.''

With his plan resting on shaky ground, Mr. Norquist may need to shift gears. For starters, the cost of the full financial audits, which are touted as the largest ever undertaken, could top $200 million. Spending so much money on audits doomed to failure would be a gross waste of tax dollars.

Now, I am not suggesting that Mr. Norquist back off. Mr. Norquist just needs to get a handle on the root cause of the problem, and the feeder systems are that root cause. As a main source of unreliable transaction data, the feeder systems are the driver behind the deal- breakers. Fix them, and then the rest should be just a piece of cake.

Department of Defense reports have repeatedly called for ``testing the feeder systems.'' However, according to the Government Accountability Office, those tests were never, never performed.

So the aggressive testing and aggressive verification of transactions are the right places to start. Senators Johnson, Ernst, Paul, and this Senator are sponsoring an amendment to make that happen.

Once all of the tricky technical issues are ironed out and testing provides confidence that the system is reliable, the plan will gel. Audit readiness will be self-evident, not contrived. Full financial accounting could begin. Clean opinions should follow, and those clean opinions should be our goal.

There has been 26 years of hard-core foot-dragging that shows that internal resistance to auditing the books runs very, very deep. It will take strong, confident leadership and strong determination to root out that internal resistance to auditing the books. I am counting on Secretary Mattis and Chief Financial Officer Norquist to get the job done in the shortest time possible.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the IRS has never been, and likely will never be, an agency anyone is glad to hear from.

However, American taxpayers should at least have confidence that they will receive a fair shake from the agency. Without this, our system of taxation that relies on voluntary reporting of income will fall apart.

In recent years, gross mismanagement and inappropriate actions by certain IRS employees have shaken what confidence taxpayers have had in the agency.

Today, Senator Thune and I are reintroducing legislation we introduced last Congress aimed at ensuring that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect taxpayer rights by preventing IRS abuses.

Called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Enhancement Act (TBORE), our bill updates and strengthens several provisions enacted in prior Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation.

I am pleased that several of the provisions in last Congress' version of the bill were enacted into law, including codifying the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

However, more must be done if we are going to renew the taxpaying public's confidence in the IRS.

No legislation is likely to fix all of the IRS recent shortcomings on its own. There is a need for a change of culture within the IRS.

We hope our bill will serve as a catalyst for a cultural shift within the IRS. Our bill sends a clear message to the IRS--Congress is not going to tolerate poor service and the systematic abuse of taxpayer rights.

We look forward to working with our colleagues toward reforming the IRS and protecting taxpayer rights.

Mr. President, the IRS has never been, and likely will never be, an agency anyone is glad to hear from.

However, American taxpayers should at least have confidence that they will receive a fair shake from the agency. Without this, our system of taxation that relies on voluntary reporting of income will fall apart.

In recent years, gross mismanagement and inappropriate actions by certain IRS employees have shaken what confidence taxpayers have had in the agency.

Today, Senator Thune and I are reintroducing legislation we introduced last Congress aimed at ensuring that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect taxpayer rights by preventing IRS abuses.

Called the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Enhancement Act (TBORE), our bill updates and strengthens several provisions enacted in prior Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation.

I am pleased that several of the provisions in last Congress' version of the bill were enacted into law, including codifying the Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

However, more must be done if we are going to renew the taxpaying public's confidence in the IRS.

No legislation is likely to fix all of the IRS recent shortcomings on its own. There is a need for a change of culture within the IRS.

We hope our bill will serve as a catalyst for a cultural shift within the IRS. Our bill sends a clear message to the IRS--Congress is not going to tolerate poor service and the systematic abuse of taxpayer rights.

We look forward to working with our colleagues toward reforming the IRS and protecting taxpayer rights.

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

Mr. President, today I am pleased to support the nomination of Tim Kelly to be a judge on the DC district court. Tim serves as my chief counsel for national security, senior crime counsel, and majority staff director for the Caucus on International Narcotics Control. That is quite a professional title, isn't it? And he has done an excellent job serving not only this chairman of the Judiciary Committee but all of the Judiciary Committee.

Tim's career boasts a wide range of legal experience. After Tim graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 1997, he served as a law clerk to Judge Buckwalter of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He worked as an associate at Arnold & Porter, and he dedicated 6 months of his career to work for the Legal Aid Society. Tim spent a significant portion of his career serving as a Federal prosecutor, including several years as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, where he prosecuted a wide range of criminal cases in the very court for which he is being considered today. He also served as trial attorney in the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice, where he prosecuted public corruption cases. He has tried approximately 30 cases during his career, as well as negotiated dozens of guilty pleas.

Tim is a very talented attorney and is well liked by everyone--by staff and Members on both sides of the aisle. His collegiality and ability to get along with folks will serve him well on the bench. I know he will show proper respect to the litigants and attorneys who appear before him, as well as the staff who will serve his court.

Tim's counsel and advice have served the members of the Judiciary Committee well. Just to point to one example of his work on behalf of this committee, I would note he was the lead Senate Republican Judiciary staffer on

the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of last year, which happened to be signed into law by President Obama. This bill will help countless numbers of folks struggling with drug addiction.

Tim's vast legal experiences and his thoughtful approach to his work will help him be an excellent Federal judge. I believe he has the temperament to hear any case that will come before him with a fair mind, seeking to do justice for all.

Of course, others have recognized Tim's merits as well. The American Bar Association gave him a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating, which is the highest rating the ABA gives, and he has received awards for his work from the Department of Justice, the Department of Energy, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Tim will make an excellent judge, and I am honored to support his nomination today. I urge all of my colleagues to vote in favor of his nomination.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from California for her fine remarks on Mr. Wray. I am here for the same reason she is, and I thank her for also facilitating getting this through the committee in a very quick way.

Thank you.

Mr. President, I am pleased to support the nomination of Christopher Wray to be Director of the FBI. Mr. Wray possesses the skill, the character, and the unwavering commitment to impartial enforcement of the law we need in an FBI Director. Based on the unanimous vote Mr. Wray received from the Judiciary Committee, I am confident my colleagues believe this as well.

Mr. Wray has an accomplished record as a lawyer. He was a Federal prosecutor for a number of years and went on to serve in various senior roles at the Department of Justice, including leading the criminal division at the Department.

Mr. Wray earned the Department's highest award for public service and leadership. His prior record of service demonstrates his competence in leading within the Federal Government and demonstrates he will be able to lead effectively at the FBI. He has shown he has the expertise needed to address the wide range of policy issues currently facing the