Floor Statements

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 5 minutes in morning business.

Madam President, sometimes change comes quietly. Sometimes it comes with a big bang. Today change came quietly. I want to make sure everyone realizes the change that occurred.

For 3 years I have been talking about the problem of illegal immigration and what has caused this problem to flourish. I have been talking about the problem of the magnet of jobs that has drawn people over the border without documentation because they are trying to feed their families and the fact that no one was doing anything about employer enforcement.

When I got to Washington and I asked the head of immigration enforcement how many employers have been held accountable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, how many have been arrested, she could not even tell me. They didn't even keep the statistics. Think about that for a minute. They didn't keep the statistics of how many employers were held accountable for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. I began pounding on immigration and customs enforcement about this, talking to them about basic investigative techniques.

In Missouri right now there are hundreds of employers that are breaking the rules knowingly. They are hiring people, paying them under the table, cash on Fridays. They are bringing pickup trucks from Mexico full of people, stuffing them all in an apartment. The vast majority of the business people are doing it right. They are trying to play by the rules, doing the very best job they can. But there is a chunk of employers out there that knew they were not going to get caught, knew nobody cared if they did, and they knowingly violated the law.

I asked the new head of immigration enforcement if that was going to change. I asked the new Secretary of Homeland Security if that was going to change. Today they announced a new policy. Finally, they have a set of guidelines going to everyone in the country about how we are going to prioritize going after those employers that knowingly hire illegal immigrants. We finally are going to get to the magnet. This is a crime we can deter.

If you think somebody is going to put you in jail for saying: Hey, I didn't care if you have papers or not, I can pay you cheaper; work you harder. I don't care if you are illegal or not; I don't want to know. In fact, bring your friends--if you don't think those people being held accountable is going to make a difference, then you don't understand law enforcement.

Today I am proud to say change came. The new guidelines require that, in fact, instead of working off tips, they are now going to embrace basic investigation. They will use undercover. They will use informants. They will use all kinds of documentation they can look at in terms of paper documentation. They will enlist the support and cooperation, ahead of workplace enforcement, of local law enforcement agencies, including the Justice Department. They have decided it is a new day in immigration enforcement and that we will get at the root of the problem.

I support E-Verify and I support giving employers all the tools we can to do the best job they can in hiring legal workers. But for those employers that don't care, that are doing it on purpose and knowingly doing it, we need to come down on them and come down hard.

This administration has figured it out. I congratulate the Secretary of

Homeland Security for these new policies. I stand in full support, and I know most of my colleagues do also. We finally will do something about illegal immigration when we shut down the magnet.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I rise this afternoon in support of an incredibly gifted public servant. I don't normally stand up and sing the praises of Kansas. I am not a huge fan of Kansas. I am a Missourian, and we have issues between Kansas and Missouri--usually between our basketball teams and our football teams.

During the last decade, I have had an opportunity to get to know Kathleen Sebelius as a person, as a mother, as a wife, as a Governor, and as a friend. I want my colleagues to know that they are voting to confirm an extraordinary individual who will do an excellent job as Secretary of Health and Human Services in the United States.

Kathleen Sebelius has shown courage and guts many times in her career. Frankly, running for Kansas's Governor as a Democrat shows guts and courage. We are talking about a State that is not warm and fuzzy about Democrats. We are talking about a State that is as red as Dorothy's ruby slippers. But she ran for Governor after she had served as commissioner of insurance in Kansas. So why was it that all these Republicans got excited about voting for Kathleen Sebelius? It was because she demonstrated, when she was commissioner of insurance in Kansas, that she was about fighting for them. It happened over an insurance company. Everyone needs to realize this is an experience she has had that relates directly to what we need right now as Secretary of Health and Human Services as we embark upon the most aggressive and ambitious health care

reform agenda this country has ever faced.

When the largest health insurance company in Kansas wanted to sell-- this was a mutual company owned by the policyholders of Kansas and covered 70 percent of Kansans--all Kathleen Sebelius, the insurance commissioner, had to do under the law was sign off on it and say no harm would be done. But she took a look at it and said, wait a minute, I don't think the test should be that no harm is going to be done. I want to know what this sale is going to do to make things better for Kansans. She took on a titan--a big, huge insurance company. That is what we need right now, someone willing to take on the calcified silos of profit in our health care system and blow them up in order to deliver a better product. She said: I want to make sure this sale is going to reflect a better environment for health insurance for the people of Kansas.

She fought them all the way to the Supreme Court of Kansas and eventually she won and was able to block the sale of this company. She said at the time that bigger is not always better, and unless they could show how this was going to be better for the people of Kansas, she would continue to fight them toe to toe. It was that kind of fighting spirit on behalf of regular people who don't have the tools to fight big insurance companies that uniquely qualifies her to be at the head of this important agency as we embark on the health care reform agenda.

Not only did she have the guts to run for Governor--she won, which was remarkable. Here is an even more remarkable part. She went to Topeka, the capital, and began working with the Republicans. As President Obama has said over and over again, she said: I want to work with you. And she did. She wrestled with a senate and a house that was dominated by the Republican party in Kansas and, at the end of 4 years, what did the people of Kansas do? Did they say they were sick of the gridlock and didn't want this liberal Kansas woman anymore from the Democratic party as Governor? Oh, no, they did not; they reelected her by a wide margin.

It is a remarkable thing, when you think about it, because this is a State that our former President won by 20, 30 points. Yet the people of Kansas realized they had a fighter. They looked past the party label to her courage, integrity, intelligence, and her willingness to go toe to toe with the big guys for them. I am proud she has been nominated. I know there have been some distortions about her record. I can assure my colleagues that she will make us all proud in this job. She will work with every one of us to try to find that common ground. She will leave no opinion behind as they consider the best way to move forward on this health care reform agenda.

I am pleased to be able to stand for a few minutes and tell everyone in America to celebrate today, because we are about to confirm a fighter--someone who will fight for you and deliver the kind of health care in America that we deserve, at a price we can afford.

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

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

Madam President, once upon a time, someone had a good idea about trying to open the mortgage market to as many people as possible. Between that moment and now, we have seen a giant economic crisis that has mushroomed out of control. We have sat around for months now trying to figure out how did it happen and why did it happen.

One of the reasons it happened is, using common sense, we said to people: You can go make money by talking people into borrowing money, and you do not have to worry about whether they pay it back. Let me go through that one more time. We said to a market, the mortgage market: If you go talk people into borrowing more money than they can afford, it does not matter if they can pay it back, you do not need to worry about that because you are going to make your money anyway.

In other words, the people closing their loans had no skin in the game. They were not a partner to the risk. So that is how we got people qualifying for loans by wearing a special costume and photograph. That is how you got these ``liars loans.'' They were called ``liars loans.'' Everybody knew people were lying to get these loans, but no one was doing anything about it because the people who were making the loans were making the money and had no risk.

You would think with this occurring, we would now be on hyper alert for the exact same set of circumstances, but we are not. Because it is going on today as we speak. If you turn on any cable channel almost anywhere in America, before midnight you are going to see an ad that says to seniors: You need to take advantage of a great Government program, a Government benefit. You can be paid cash for the value of your house without any risk. They are called reverse mortgages.

It is a type of home loan that converts the value in your home you have acquired over a lifetime and converts it to cash. Now, in and of itself, this is not a bad concept. People ought to be able to borrow against the value of their homes. We do it with home equity loans.

Here is the problem. We have the people closing these loans who have no skin in the game. Guess who is insuring all these loans. We are. The taxpayers. There is no risk to those people paying for those ads on cable TV, no risk. Reward. No risk. We are taking the risk.

If, in fact, the housing markets go down and the value of someone's property goes down and it is time for that loan, the value of that loan to be recovered when the house is sold, if it does not sell for enough money, guess who is left holding the bag.

Hello. Subprime mortgages chapter two. We are back. We have the same issue we had with the subprime. Since we began this program in 1990, HUD has endorsed and insured 500,000 loans. But, wait, we took the cap off it recently. We anticipate that HUD will, in fact, insure 200,000 of these loans this year alone. We have done 500,000 loans since 1990, and we are going to do 200,000 loans this year. We are talking about a huge growth in the potential liability to the American taxpayer.

These are complex and expensive loans. For many elderly, the equity they have in their home is it. With the economic circumstances we have right now, there is going to be a lot of pressure on the elderly to enter into one of these reverse mortgages, maybe to help other family members who have lost a job.

It is important we fix this program. It is embarrassing that we let the subprime mess go for as long as we did, without anybody saying: Whoa, hold on. It will be doubly embarrassing if we allow this reverse mortgage situation to go down the exact same path.

With these loans, as they increase dramatically in number and value, we are also seeing an increase in fraud. The HUD inspector general has been working in the reverse mortgage field, and all the other inspectors general in our country have done a great job of beginning to find problems of a specific nature as it relates to fraud.

Some of it is where we have inflated appraisals. Some of it is where you have shoddy repairs being done, which decrease the value of the home, which increase the risk to the taxpayer. Some of it is people continuing to collect the proceeds on the home past the time they should, past perhaps the death or the moving out of the senior who did the loan in the first place.

Why is the fraud increasing? I have a theory why the fraud is increasing. All the bad actors over there in subprime, they are looking for a new stream of money so they are all sliding over and saying: Hey, let us start making these reverse mortgages to seniors.

OK. We have to do something about this now. I filed an amendment to the legislation that is in front of the Senate that will do some important things in terms of fraud prevention and detection and enforcement provisions: We are going to require the borrower to certify they reside in the property; to report the termination of the residence to HUD; require that in the case of a property that is purchased with the proceeds of a reverse mortgage, the property is owned and occupied for at least 180 days, so we do not have the flipping we have seen in the subprime market; require these properties be appraised by certified appraisers, HUD-certified appraisers; we have to verify the purchase price to ensure the appraised value is not inflated and make sure the appraised value is not too high in relation to comparable properties-- you can imagine how important this is right now since our housing market values are in such flux--to require the counselors to report suspected fraud or abuse to HUD's inspector general and to inform prospective borrowers how they can report suspected fraud and consumer abuse; require that the lenders and consumers maintain a system to ensure compliance; explicitly state that the HUD inspector general has the authority to conduct independent audits and inspections of the lender.

Would it not have been nice had we done that back when we started having the problems with subprimes? Conduct independent audits and inspections of reverse mortgage lenders to make sure they are in compliance with the requirements; and to compare the reverse borrower's record against the Social Security's death master file for early indications for when payouts should end because payouts under these reverse mortgages stop at the death of the recipient of the reverse mortgage; provide that any limitation on when criminal charges can be brought against fraud perpetrators in this area be calculated on when we find out about the criminal activity, not when it occurred. Because, in many instances, we may not find out about the fraud until the elderly person dies, and then they find out that maybe they thought they still had value in their home, but they were lied to.

This is an important one: Provide that advertising for reverse mortgages cannot be false or misleading and must present a fair and balanced portrayal of the risks and the benefits of the product.

The fraud is the first step. Going after fraud is the first step, but we have to do more. It is very important that we protect our seniors from predatory lenders. When you see these ads on TV, it sounds too good to be true. ``Government benefit,'' ``No risk.'' But there is a huge risk. There is a risk of a senior paying more than they should for a product that does not work for them and a very big risk for the taxpayers of this country.

I look forward to working with the Senate Judiciary and Banking Committees as well as HUD and the HUD inspector general and GAO to get the things done we must do to clean up this problem. If we do not learn from our mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. I urge all my colleagues to become knowledgeable about this reverse mortgage area, get word to their constituents to be careful about these reverse mortgages. They are very dangerous.

At the end of the day, if someone is making money off you and they do not care whether you can pay it back, it is a dangerous combination.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. President, as we look around at the problems we are

facing in this country now when it comes to our economy, all of us are trying to figure out what caused this mess, what is the root cause of this incredible meltdown in the financial sector of our economy, in our housing sector. It comes back to one simple concept: greed. It is just about a bunch of really greedy people, brought to you by the current executive pay structure we have on Wall Street and in some parts of corporate America. It is the largest part of the problem.

These potential payouts under this corporate structure of pay we have right now are so large that executives at financial institutions, including institutions such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that were supposed to have a public purpose, had incentives to create rules that would reward them no matter what happens. Why did all these exotic derivatives and swaps start happening? Pay. Pay. And greed. Performance, not so much. It didn't matter whether you failed, you got paid anyway. That is the culture that caused the problem. Failure and you walk with huge money.

These AIG bonuses are just one symptom of this very serious illness that is gripping our economy and harming our competitiveness. The Merrill Lynch bonuses, which I stood on the floor and railed about a few short weeks ago, were exhibit B. Those guys failed, and they made sure they got the money and walked with it before Bank of America took over. They moved up their bonuses. Retention? Not so much. It doesn't have much to do with that. These AIG bonuses--52 of the people had already walked out the door when they got the money. We weren't paying them to stay; they had already left.

Our competitive disadvantage in this regard is real. Two of the most productive competitors to our country, Germany and Japan--their trade surplus per capita is the highest. Do you know what their average corporate pay is? It is 10 or 11 times the average worker's. What is it in the United States of America? It is 400 times the average worker's.

We need to get back to our American values of hard work equals success, equals financial reward--not failure and you get paid anyway. It is most insulting on the American taxpayer's dime when it comes to Merrill Lynch and AIG.

There is a great column in the New York Times today by David Leonhardt. I recommend it to my colleagues. In that column, he makes the following statement, and I paraphrase: Stop the deference to this culture. Stop the deference to Wall Street. Treasury, can you hear me? Stop the deference to the culture of Wall Street. Be bold, stand up to them.

That deference has now created a cold anger of populism that is going to make it very politically difficult for us to do anything else to free up our credit markets that are so essential for our economy to survive.

America's economy has a hangover from the drunken greed of high pay and bonuses for failure. Sober up. Sober up, folks, because the American people are paying too high a price.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I disagree with earmarks. I disagree with the process. Although we have made great strides in reforming earmarks, I do think there are further steps we need to take.

Today, I have introduced a resolution, a Senate resolution, with the senior Senator from Colorado, Mr. Udall, to bring even more transparency to this process. Basically, this resolution requires all requests to be posted on committee Web sites and the Member's Web site within 48 hours of request. It requires all information in the request letter be listed online, including location, purpose, and cost. This is not presently required. It requires electronically searchable text of all bills and conference reports, and it strengthens the ability to remove earmarks by a point of order.

There are some loopholes that we, I think inadvertently, created when we did S. 1 early in my first year as a Senator.

This resolution will require earmarks to be in the bill text. I discovered that there were some airdropped earmarks in a bill. Because they were in a managers' statement, the point of order was not possible. So this requires all the earmarks to be in the bill text, which will subject them to the rules. It applies the airdrop point of order to the authorization bills in addition to the appropriations bills, and it further limits earmarks to public projects only.

In this time, I do not believe we can afford to be earmarking in the private sector or anywhere other than the public sector as we struggle with our deficits and our spending.

But I really rose today not to speak so much about the resolution I have introduced today but more to speak a little bit about how confused I have been over the last few weeks by many of my friends on the other side of the aisle. While we have a lot of work to do in regard to earmarks, I congratulate my party because we have created transparency. We now know who is earmarking, and because of that we now know that earmarking has nothing to do with party. Yes, there are thousands of earmarks in this bill by Democrats, but there are thousand of earmarks in this bill by Republicans.

Earmarking is not about party. Earmarking is about power. This is about whether you have the power to get an earmark, and power depends on various things when it comes to earmarking. It depends on what committee you are on. It depends on whether you are an appropriator. It depends on your seniority. It depends on whether you have a tough election fight. It depends, to some extent, on whether you are in the minority party or in the majority party because the split is 60-40 right now. Sixty percent of the earmarks--it is kind of an unwritten rule--go to the majority party and 40 percent go to the minority party. It was the other way around when the Democrats were not in power. That doesn't seem to me to be a very logical way to spend public money. It should be about the merit of the project. It should be about cost- benefit.

There are many people making the argument that we should not let bureaucrats decide. Congress has had the power of the purse for over 200 years. Congress has been directing spending in this country for over 200 years.

Earmarks are a new creation. The first earmarking started in the 1970s, that ability to make a solitary, lonely decision as to where money is going to be directed. In fact, in 1991, there were only 541 earmarks, and at the height of earmarking, under President Bush and under a Republican-controlled Congress, there was $27 billion in earmarks. In fact, the number of earmarks has been cut in half under the leadership of my party.

This notion that bureaucrats are doing the decisionmaking is wrong-- we have the power to tell the bureaucrats how to spend the money. We can tell them it is formula grants. We can tell them it is competitive grants. In fact, that is what we do for 99 percent of the budget. We tell the executive branch how to spend the money. It is now only for 1 percent that we decided we cannot tell the bureaucrats how to spend the money, so this notion that somehow we need to do earmarks because the bureaucrats are going to run amok--I don't get it.

In fact, most earmarks skim money off other programs. You can look at the history of the Byrne grants. They have gone down over the last 8 or 9 years. Now we are increasing them--which is great. Byrne grants are competitive at the local level. But what happened while the Byrne grants were going down? In the same time, earmarks were going up. There is a connection.

When money is skimmed off the formula for highways, that is just more local projects that the local people want to build that are not built because a Senator or Congressman knows better.

Now, here is the weird part about this. This is what I want to focus on today: my friends on the other side of the aisle. I listened while podiums were pounded about wasteful spending during the debate on the stimulus bill, during the debate on the economic recovery bill. I watched as my friends across the aisle took to the airwaves and gave many different speeches about wasteful spending in the stimulus bill.

Let me quote some of the things they said:

Pet programs. Honey pot for whatever you need. A porkulus

bill. Wasteful spending. Pet projects. Earmarks. Earmarks.

Earmarks. An orgy of spending.

That was what they said about the stimulus bill, when, in reality, there were no earmarks in the stimulus bill. Everything that was spent in the stimulus bill was either competitive grants or formula funding.

Now, here is the weird part. They went on and on and on during the stimulus bill about earmarking. No fewer than 17 different Senators stood, and with absolute righteous indignation, talked about the pet projects in the stimulus bill. Guess what? Every single one of them has earmarks in this bill. One member of Republican leadership said:

That is the problem with earmarks. All Senators are equal,

except some Senators are more equal than others when it comes

to slipping things in bills.

Every single member of the Republican leadership has earmarks in this bill. Every single one of them. Every single one of those people rejected the stimulus that was one of the largest tax cuts in American history, but had no earmarks, because supposedly they were so upset about wasteful spending.

Those very same Senators have earmarks in this bill, such as the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference. The Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference, beaver management, parking lots, all brought to you by the very same people who called out wasteful spending in the President's economic recovery bill.

If you do not take my word for it, check out the Taxpayers For Common Sense Web site. According to their statistics, 6 of the top 10 earmarkers in this bill are my friends on the other side of the aisle. In fact, the Republican leader has twice as many solo earmark dollars in this bill than the Democratic leader.

America, do not be fooled. Earmarking is an equal opportunity activity. It is a bad habit. The minority party is taking full advantage of it. Do not take anyone seriously who says one thing and does another. That is the worst sin of all. Any parent knows one basic rule: The example you set is way more important than anything you say.

Mr. President, there was an omission of money for the inspector general at the IRS. The modification adds the money for the inspector general at the IRS.

I would like to talk about a few of the amendments I will be offering to this very important piece of legislation. Let me say this again: This is a very important piece of legislation. I think everyone needs to take a moment, take a deep breath, and consider what the alternatives are. Either we come together in the Senate over the next few days and pass this bill or we do nothing--or we do nothing. I will tell you, where I live in Missouri, ``nothing'' is not an option. If people think we can do nothing and this problem will begin to take care of itself, they do not understand the economic situation we are facing. So I have no problem with a full debate. I have no problem with us looking at every line and figuring out whether there is money we can take out that is wasteful or not stimulative. But at the end of the day, this notion that we are going to put this on the shelf--are you kidding me? Put it on a shelf.

We have a crisis in this country. We are in a dramatic recession. The Government must act to stimulate job creation. If we do not, then we are going to have some explaining to do. Being brave and bold enough to do something is always harder than finding something wrong with something. And we will always be able to find something wrong in everything we do around here. So buck up. Be strong. Move forward for the American people because that is what they said to us last November. That is what they want. They wanted it to be a new day.

I am glad we are talking with each other. I am glad we are debating amendments. I am glad we are working in a bipartisan fashion to try to pull some of the things out of this bill that have distracted the conversation about the Economic Recovery Act. They have distracted us. They put us on defense. Excuse me, we are on offense. We are trying to help our economy. Sitting back and shooting that thing is not going to get us there.

There are some things I think we can do to make it better, and several of the amendments I have offered have to do with our ability to make this process transparent and to make sure we are accountable for the money.

First, I have submitted an amendment to strengthen the whistleblower protection. We have to make sure our whistleblowers are well taken care of. Some of the best information we get in cleaning up Government comes from inside the companies that work for the Federal Government. We gave these protections to defense contractors in last year's Defense Authorization Act. We need to give it to every Federal contractor so that we can get the best information possible about what is going on internally in these companies as they spend public money.

Another amendment improves the transparency requirements for the public database Web site.

We need this public database to work, because it is a new tool to allow us to track all the money to make sure the money is going where it was intended to go, to make sure we don't have fraud, waste, and abuse in these contracts and programs, as we fund the various infrastructure needs of the country, whether it is building a school, a bridge, or an electric grid.

Another amendment I have will boost the resources for the inspectors general. Those are our cops in terms of accountability. We cannot do this kind of government spending without giving the same kind of increase to the inspector general community for them to do their jobs.

Also additional funding for acquisition personnel is included. Acquisition personnel are going to be called to this cause in a dramatic fashion. As we spend this money, we have to make sure we have enough folks that we can monitor the contracts, make sure the contracts are drafted in a way that protects taxpayer money. So we need to increase both acquisition personnel and inspector general resources.

There is also another technical amendment I will be offering that has to do with a vagary in Missouri law and another State's laws as it relates to the ability of my State and another State to use water and sewer funding.

Let me say this before yielding the floor. I compliment the President today on the dramatic steps he took on curbing executive pay in the various companies that have received Federal money. The proposal he laid out today is aggressive. It is broad in scope. It is just what the doctor ordered. I am so pleased that not only the President but Senator Wyden and Senator Snowe offered another amendment in the area of taxing some of the excessive bonuses that have occurred. We are watching Wall Street. We are paying attention. Please behave as you should, if you have taken this kind of public money. Please understand it is not business as usual. It is not luxury retreats and fancy parties and big- time bonuses. It is a new day. Please start behaving as if you get it. Because if we cannot convince the American people that we are looking after them, we will never get the recovery we must have so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed. That is all it is about, that opportunity that is unique to America--that everyone can have a chance to succeed.

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

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, through the Presiding Officer, I wish to ask my colleague from Connecticut whether, when we were trying to deal with the foreclosure crisis last year, there were many people in the Chamber who said: Well, let's just shelve that for awhile. Let's forget about that problem right now. We don't need to do anything right now.

My recollection is that is what a lot of the response was from some of our friends.

Mr. President, I would ask my colleague, it is almost like what a famous baseball player once said: ``It is deja vu all over again.'' Because what I am hearing, if I am correct--and I would certainly ask him this question--I am hearing the same thing now on the economic recovery bill, that we need to shelve it.

I heard one of our colleagues, who I believe is the ranking member on Senator Dodd's committee, actually today on TV and the last couple of days saying: We need to shelve this thing.

I would ask the Senator from Connecticut, through the Presiding Officer, I have this feeling that if we shelve it, we will be back here next year and, as with the housing crisis, the economic crisis in this country will do nothing but get demonstrably worse and more painful for the American people.

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

Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague from Rhode Island. There are a lot of things we need in this country right now. We need jobs. We need something to stimulate our economy. We need certainty in the credit market. But probably more than anything what we need in this country right now is confidence, confidence that we can face down these problems and move forward like America has always done.

What do we have instead of confidence? Raw anger. I am mad. Everyone I work for is mad. Anger can be constructive. It can be channeling. I am here today to say it is time we channel this anger and change the law. We do not need anger. We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street who are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. My colleague talked about some of them. Let me review. These financial institutions, on the brink of extinction, come to the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions of dollars at the very same time they think they are going to buy a $50 million corporate jet. They are going to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They paid an average of $2.6 million to every executive at the first 116 banks that got taxpayer money under TARP. Let me say that again: An average of $2.6 million in executive pay to the folks at the first 116 banks that got money from the taxpayers.

They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. Merrill Lynch is unbelievable. They saved $3 billion to $4 billion from the pot of money that was going to Bank of America, the sale that was going to close the first week in January. They always gave bonuses in January. Do you know what these sneaky guys did? They decided to give their bonuses in December before the Bank of America took over. They paid out $3 billion to $4 billion in bonuses in December, and that quarter, Merrill Lynch lost $21 billion. What planet are these people on? What could they be thinking about?

So here is what this bill is going to do. This is called the Cap Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009, and it is very simple. Going forward, you want taxpayers to help you survive? You want the people at your financial institution to have a job tomorrow? Then you are going to have to limit everyone's pay at your company to the same salary the President of the United States makes. Is that so unreasonable? It is eight times the median household income in the United States of America--$400,000 a year. I don't think that sounds like a bad deal. Should these people be making more than the President of the United States? Now, really, should they? They should not be making more than the President of the United States. So every executive going forward could not make more than $400,000 a year, and they have to limit that executive compensation for everyone in their company until they pay back every dime to the taxpayers.

Now, once they are off the public dole, once the taxpayers aren't footing the bill, then it is not as much our business what they get paid. But right now, they are on the hook to us, and they owe us something other than a fancy wastebasket and a $50 million jet. They owe us some common sense. If any of them think it is a hardship to take the salary of the President of the United States, I dare them to say so out loud right now because that is not going to instill confidence.

What is going to instill confidence is for the men and women in these companies to realize it is time for everyone in this country to tighten their belt. It is time for everyone to realize we must have our financial institutions survive but not with a culture that thinks it is OK to kick the taxpayer in the shins while they drink champagne and fly in fancy jets. It doesn't work; not in the United States of America.

I ask my colleagues to sign on to this bill. I think it makes sense. We should have done it in the first place, but I don't think any of us thought these guys were this stupid. I don't think any of us believed they would take billions of dollars of bonuses while their institutions were literally days from being wiped out, but they did, and we have learned our lesson.

So I hope all my colleagues will sign on this bill. I hope we can get it passed quickly so that from this day forward, the President of the United States will make the same amount of money as the executives of these companies who owe the taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mr. President, I could not agree more with my colleague from Rhode Island. There are a lot of things we need in this country right now. We need jobs. We need something to stimulate our economy. We need certainty in the credit market. But probably more than anything what we need in this country right now is confidence, confidence that we can face down these problems and move forward like America has always done.

What do we have instead of confidence? Raw anger. I am mad. Everyone I work for is mad. Anger can be constructive. It can be channeling. I am here today to say it is time we channel this anger and change the law. We do not need anger. We have a bunch of idiots on Wall Street who are kicking sand in the face of the American taxpayer. My colleague talked about some of them. Let me review. These financial institutions, on the brink of extinction, come to the American taxpayer for hundreds of billions of dollars at the very same time they think they are going to buy a $50 million corporate jet. They are going to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. They paid an average of $2.6 million to every executive at the first 116 banks that got taxpayer money under TARP. Let me say that again: An average of $2.6 million in executive pay to the folks at the first 116 banks that got money from the taxpayers.

They don't get it. These people are idiots. You can't use taxpayer money to pay out $18 billion in bonuses. Merrill Lynch is unbelievable. They saved $3 billion to $4 billion from the pot of money that was going to Bank of America, the sale that was going to close the first week in January. They always gave bonuses in January. Do you know what these sneaky guys did? They decided to give their bonuses in December before the Bank of America took over. They paid out $3 billion to $4 billion in bonuses in December, and that quarter, Merrill Lynch lost $21 billion. What planet are these people on? What could they be thinking about?

So here is what this bill is going to do. This is called the Cap Executive Officer Pay Act of 2009, and it is very simple. Going forward, you want taxpayers to help you survive? You want the people at your financial institution to have a job tomorrow? Then you are going to have to limit everyone's pay at your company to the same salary the President of the United States makes. Is that so unreasonable? It is eight times the median household income in the United States of America--$400,000 a year. I don't think that sounds like a bad deal. Should these people be making more than the President of the United States? Now, really, should they? They should not be making more than the President of the United States. So every executive going forward could not make more than $400,000 a year, and they have to limit that executive compensation for everyone in their company until they pay back every dime to the taxpayers.

Now, once they are off the public dole, once the taxpayers aren't footing the bill, then it is not as much our business what they get paid. But right now, they are on the hook to us, and they owe us something other than a fancy wastebasket and a $50 million jet. They owe us some common sense. If any of them think it is a hardship to take the salary of the President of the United States, I dare them to say so out loud right now because that is not going to instill confidence.

What is going to instill confidence is for the men and women in these companies to realize it is time for everyone in this country to tighten their belt. It is time for everyone to realize we must have our financial institutions survive but not with a culture that thinks it is OK to kick the taxpayer in the shins while they drink champagne and fly in fancy jets. It doesn't work; not in the United States of America.

I ask my colleagues to sign on to this bill. I think it makes sense. We should have done it in the first place, but I don't think any of us thought these guys were this stupid. I don't think any of us believed they would take billions of dollars of bonuses while their institutions were literally days from being wiped out, but they did, and we have learned our lesson.

So I hope all my colleagues will sign on this bill. I hope we can get it passed quickly so that from this day forward, the President of the United States will make the same amount of money as the executives of these companies who owe the taxpayers hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Mr. President, there are certain things that just reflect common sense. One is the reality of the workplace, who has power and who does not. Generally, the people who are being subjected to unfair treatment--doesn't it make sense they are not the powerful ones? Doesn't it make sense they have the least information about what is going on in terms of policies and procedures?

The thing about the Ledbetter case that just defies common sense is that we are asking the least powerful people in the workplace to be all seeing and all knowing. We are asking them to know what clearly they cannot know because they are being discriminated against. How unfair is it that we are saying to a woman: You must know when they start denying you a promotion. It is not just about equal pay. With all due respect to my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania, it is not just about pay. It is about promotions. It is about whether you are considered for the big job not just whether you are making the same amount when you get the big job. We cannot ask those people who have been kept in the dark because they are not considered as worthy as others to be the ones to know what the policies and procedures have been in the workplace.

I think it is important we defeat these amendments. I think it is important that we restore common sense to allow someone to take action when they have, in fact, been kicked to the curb in the workplace--not because of their job but because of who they are, because of whether they are a man or a woman, whether they are old or young, whether they are Black or White.

The secrecy in the workplace sometimes invades other places. There are so many rules around here that I respect, but I tell you, I do not get anonymous holds. I do not get anonymous holds. I do not understand why any Member of the Senate would not be proud to explain why they were willing to hold up someone's nomination.

Imagine my frustration when I look at the nominations that are being held now in secret. Do you know what is amazing about it? They are women, the same women who have suffered in the workplace because they do not get enough information. There are now four women who are secretly being held from doing their jobs: Lisa Jackson at EPA, Nancy Sutley at White House Environmental Council, Hilda Solis for the Department of Labor, and Susan Rice for the Ambassador to the U.N. Just like Lilly Ledbetter, they are being kept in the dark as to why they are not being allowed to step up to service.

I implore the Senators who are secretly holding these women--by the way, those are almost all the women who have been nominated. Proportionally, almost every woman who is being nominated is being secretly held, compared to the men who are nominated.

I urge everyone to defeat the amendments on Lilly Ledbetter. I urge its passage.

unanimous consent request--executive session

I ask unanimous consent the nominations of Lisa Jackson, Nancy Sutley, Hilda Solis, and Susan Rice be moved forward.

On behalf of those women, I am disappointed at the objection. I look forward to the passage of Ledbetter and the confirmation of those women so they can serve.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on Tuesday our Nation witnessed the historic swearing in of President Barack Obama. President Obama has nominated Mr. William Lynn to the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense. In this time of war and economic crisis, the U.S. Senate has endeavored to rapidly take up the nomination of Mr. Lynn, as well as many other senior nominees to the Obama administration, to provide our new President the ability to begin his work with key members of his team from the outset.

Last week, Mr. Lynn faced the members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services in a hearing conducted to vet Mr. Lynn. I attended that hearing and posed questions to Mr. Lynn. The day prior I also visited privately with him to discuss his nomination.

I have significant concerns about the message the nomination and confirmation of Mr. Lynn will send within the Department of Defense and across the Federal Government. While I will not object to Mr. Lynn's confirmation by the U.S. Senate today, I feel it important for me to express my concerns as a matter of record.

Following service in various defense ``think tanks'' and as a Senate aide, in 1993 Mr. Lynn joined the Department of Defense as an executive, first as Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation. In 1997 he was promoted to be the Department's Comptroller, where he served until 2001 when the Clinton presidency concluded.

After a short stint as a consultant, Mr. Lynn made a decision that many DOD executives before him have made. He decided to accept a senior position in defense industry, where his expertise, experience and contacts within DOD were greatly sought after and valued. Specifically, Mr. Lynn joined the defense giant Raytheon as a senior executive handling management and government relations.

Mr. Lynn has served with Raytheon since that time and continues there pending his confirmation today. Importantly, it appears that Raytheon substantially improved the integrity of its government contracting operations during Mr. Lynn's tenure, a time when Raytheon also built itself into the fourth largest defense contractor in the U.S. and the fifth largest in the world.

On repeated occasions in this body, I have expressed my deep concerns with the revolving door between industry and government. Those concerns are amplified when I speak of DOD, which is well known for its wealth of ``insiders'' and its closeness to the military-industrial complex. It is not uncommon to hear people speak of the fact that DOD is an insider's game. Some try to explain away this insider's notion by claiming that the complexity of DOD and its weapons and services buying operations require these types of relationships. Even as I acknowledge the complexity of the DOD operation, I tend to believe this ``special knowledge'' concept is a double-edged sword which at a minimum can lead to an appearance of impropriety.

Returning to Mr. Lynn, it is clear that his case presents a strong example of this industry-government executive revolving door phenomenon. Frankly, we live in a time when many Americans, not just those who watch DOD closely, know of concerns about the relationship of DOD with contractors. More specifically, many believe that defense contractors have the ability to influence DOD decisions for the profit of the contractor but not necessarily for the best interest of DOD or, for that fact, the taxpayer. With this backdrop, setting aside Mr. Lynn's merits, the narrative of his story alone is problematic. Further, it comes at a time when we are vigorously endeavoring to restore public confidence in government.

My concern perhaps might be mitigated were it not for the fact that Mr. Lynn is nominated to what is fairly characterized as the most critical management position within DOD and perhaps the most important position in the making of significant decisions on major defense acquisition programs. In other words, Mr. Lynn will have possibly the most powerful position in the Department to influence how the Department does business with private industry and, in some cases, to influence with whom the Department does business.

To be frank, the way DOD does business with defense contractors must change because the status quo is unacceptable. In part because of Mr. Lynn's recent past, I am concerned that he will not bring the sense of urgency to or, worse yet, see the need for substantial reform in DOD's weapons and services procurement practices. Further, in my limited interaction with Mr. Lynn to date, I have not sensed a strong commitment to this type of change, although I understand he has communicated such a commitment to others with greater vigor.

To be clear, I am not questioning Mr. Lynn's integrity. His integrity has been testified to by many of his present and former colleagues. He is clearly highly regarded by our incoming President and his administration. And I am encouraged by the historic ethics guidelines that President Obama has put in place just today for officials in his administration. I am confident that Mr. Lynn will fully meet the letter of these new rules and act much more broadly in living up to their spirit both in his individual actions and in his oversight of other DOD officials.

Let me close by making mention of the exchange I had with Mr. Lynn at the Committee on Armed Services. I put much of what I have discussed here in regards to my concerns with the revolving door at DOD before Mr. Lynn. I further discussed concerns that he may face a conflict of interest because his former employer Raytheon is a major defense contractor. Mr. Lynn offered a limited response to my question, committing to meet every ethical requirement of the Department of Defense. I have no doubt that he will meet these requirements and frankly exceed them. But Mr. Lynn did not discuss his views on the revolving door at DOD, of the adequacy of the ethical controls at DOD or of any willingness to further study these issues if confirmed. I hope nonetheless that he will take these issues up during his tenure at DOD. I firmly believe that business as usual must come to an end at DOD, both as to these matters and in regards to many more. The chief management Officer at DOD, of which Mr. Lynn will serve, must be a reformer, a disciplinarian, a person committed to change and a person willing to challenge the system in order to drive change.

As stated earlier, I will not oppose the nomination of Mr. Lynn. Even as I have expressed my concerns today, I respect Mr. Lynn and the views of so

many of my colleagues and of his former colleagues about his abilities and his commitment to improving the state of affairs in business operations at DOD. I am excited by the opportunity he has before him. And I am optimistic about what he will accomplish alongside many others on the team that will form at DOD. But I will be watching closely because this is my duty to the people of Missouri, to the people of America and to the command of our constitution.

Mr. President, today I recognize Mr. Norris O'Neil Chandler and his lifetime of service to his country and his community. Mr. Chandler was born in Chaffee, MO, on August 11, 1923, and enlisted in the Regular Army at Jefferson Barracks. Following basic training he was assigned to a special amphibious engineering unit activated for World War II--the 149th Engineer Combat Battalion.

Mr. Chandler bravely participated in the monumentally important invasion of France on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, as a demolition specialist for the 149th. He would fight alongside his brethren, all of whom have rightfully become known as the Greatest Generation, from those Normandy beaches all the way to Germany, enduring hardship, tragedy, and triumph along the way. His efforts were one small part of changing the world as the forces of evil that sought to exterminate an entire religion and to deny freedom to so many were defeated. Mr. Chandler returned home, and like so many of his fellow veterans never stopped doing his small part to serve his country nor ever asked for anything in return for his humble service. This type of character cannot be taught, but it certainly can be appreciated. It is the finest exemplar of American values, and I honor Mr. Chandler and his American values today.

More specifically, following his service in WWII, Mr. Chandler became part of the newly activated Organized Reserve Corps, which developed into what is known today as the U.S. Army Reserve. Mr. Chandler continued his service in the Reserve Corps from December 1945 until October 1951, at which point he entered civilian service with the Missouri Military District, 11th Army Corps, St. Louis, MO, where he held various positions. Over 40 years later, Mr. Chandler remains employed by this organization, now known as the Directorate of Logistics-Washington's Media Distribution Division. This sort of longevity, commitment and humble service is hard to even comprehend in today's world, but it is easy to understand when you think of the values of the Greatest Generation that Mr. Chandler exudes.

It is because of people like Mr. Norris O'Neil Chandler that I am so proud to be a Senator representing the State of Missouri. I have even been told that he has more than 3,300 hours of unused sick leave, and has donated much of his annual leave to other employees through the leave donation program. It is because of the generosity and dedication of people like Mr. Chandler that the United States of America is the great Nation that it is.

For 60 years, Mr. Chandler has given so much to his country, his community, and his family, yet demanded so little back. I wish today to give my simple, humble thanks to this American hero. I have the utmost respect and gratitude for those who live their lives like Mr. Chandler. As we honor him today, he is a reminder to all of us of the true value of selfless service, and the impact of that service in our communities, our States, and our country.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, this week, the Senate passed an important piece of legislation sponsored by Senator Grassley and myself, that was needed to assure the new Special Inspector General for the $700 billion financial rescue program could staff up quickly and have the ability to do his job. S. 3731's other cosponsors--Senators Collins, Lieberman, Snowe, Dodd, Bunning, Schumer, Levin, Carper, Coleman and Cantwell--were also key to securing unanimous support for this bill in the Senate. Finally, I want to give special thanks to Senators Baucus and Shelby for working closely with us to craft a strong bipartisan bill.

This legislation, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, SIGTARP, would specifically grant the Special IG created under TARP earlier this fall to have full oversight over all activities under the TARP program. The bill would have also granted the IG the temporary hiring authority needed to quickly hire the dozens of auditors required to conduct this critical oversight.

As the original Inspector General language is written under current law, Mr. Barofsky, who was confirmed as the Special Inspector General this week, must hire his entire staff using normal civil service channels. I am a big proponent of using the normal hiring process whenever possible. But that process is time consuming and can take weeks, sometimes months, to hire one person. Meanwhile, this money is flying out the door. TARP has given out nearly all of the first $350 billion, and they have already told us they want the second half soon. Yet, Mr. Barofsky has no staff, and he won't have staff for some time. We need to fix this--right now.

Our bill would also make clear that the Special Inspector General has oversight authority over the entire relief program. As written right now, SIGTARP has oversight authority over only two sections of the relief program. Why would we want to limit the Inspector General to only certain sections of this program? Our legislation would make clear that SIGTARP has oversight duties over all of TARP. This would include sections related specifically to assistance to homeowners and promulgation of conflict of interest rules by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Senator Snowe added some provisions to assure that the IG would provide Congress and the public a thorough analysis of TARP's spending, as well as a requirement for Treasury officials to report to Congress an explanation if they did not implement the IG's recommendations.

As a former auditor, nothing is more frustrating than seeing your recommendations completely ignored. I would never claim that all audit recommendations can, or should, be immediately implemented. But we need to be able to assure ourselves that these recommendations are taken seriously and are being considered. We should know the reason if these recommendations are not implemented.

Finally, Senator Snowe suggested that we should make sure that the Special Inspector General has the resources he needs by imposing a time limit on providing him with the money allocated to his office in the original bill. The relationship between an agency and an office charged with overseeing them is a delicate one. Tensions sometimes arise due to the fact that IGs must rely on the agency they audit and investigate for their resources. While I have no reason to think that the Treasury Department would deny Mr. Barofsky the funds needed to perform his duties, this provision would eliminate that tension.

Unfortunately, we were not able to secure passage of this legislation in the House before we adjourned this week. I will do everything I can to bring it back first thing in the 111th Congress to secure its quick passage in both chambers and signed into law to assure we have strong oversight on the $700 billion financial rescue program.