Floor Statements

Would the Chair announce the business for the day?

Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

As provided under the previous order, at 5 p.m., the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 676.

For the information of all Senators, we expect a rollcall vote on the nomination of Michael Shea, a district court judge for the District of Connecticut, at approximately 5:30.

We will go into executive session at 5 and move toward that.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that no amendments be in order to H.R. 6156; that following the reporting of the bill, there be up to 5 hours of debate, equally divided by the two leaders or their designees during today's session; that on Thursday, December 6, at a time to be determined by the majority leader, after visiting with and consulting with the Republican leader, there be up to 10 minutes of debate, equally divided by the two leaders or their designees; and that upon the use or yielding back of time the Senate proceed to vote on passage of the bill.

I reserve the right to object.

Just a minute ago, Mr. President, I moved to the Russia trade bill. The purpose of moving this bill is to protect American jobs. If we don't do this legislation, we will lose American jobs for sure and put American companies in even worse shape than they are with Chinese and European companies. So the question is really this: Are we going to get serious here and legislate or is this more of the obstructionism we have felt so much of during this last Congress? The answer to that is really obvious. The answer is yes. Are we going to continue the sort of political stunts the minority leader is trying to pull here and now?

On the substance, the Senate has passed a bill that will go a long way to address the fiscal cliff. It has already passed here. Last July the Senate passed a bill to continue tax cuts for 98 percent of all Americans and 90 percent of all American small businesses. If the Republican leader were serious about preventing us from going over the fiscal cliff, he would urge his colleague, the Speaker, to get the House to take up the Senate-passed bill now. There are Republicans who have already said that is the right thing to do. Conservatives, more moderate Republicans--we even had one Republican Senator today say she thinks that will happen and it should happen.

In the meantime, the Republican leader's request is just a stunt. But the election is over. It is time to get down to business. These pieces of paper he has--Secretary Geithner didn't bring that stack of stuff to me. It was a private meeting--a private meeting--trying to work something out with this very troublesome issue facing this country--the deficit, the debt. And this private meeting turned out to be a publicity stunt for the Republicans talking about what he had said in private.

So, Mr. President, I object.

Mr. President, there is no Geithner proposal. This is all made up.

Mr. President, I remember Dorothy in ``The Wizard of Oz''--I think she was from Kansas and she wound up in Oz. We are here in Washington, DC, and yet suddenly we are in Oz--a real strange place.

The Republican leader is an expert in ways to kill legislation, and people who are watching can see he is trying to torpedo the fiscal cliff negotiations which are ongoing.

Republican Senators have spoken to people in the White House today. This is no serious way to negotiate, out here on the Senate floor. At the end, the Republican leader is complaining because President Obama wants the rich to pay their fair share, and as usual Republicans are defending the rich, holding tax cuts for the middle class hostage.

At the first of the year, unless we work something out, taxes will go up for people making less than $250,000 a year, an average of $2,200 each--not per family but each person. The Senate has already passed the centerpiece of President Obama's offer, and his offer has always been the same.

We are not going to go through the same thing we have gone through here for years where we lay out different

ways to cut spending and there is never any revenue. The President has made it very, very clear. They have already passed the President's proposal, which is to make sure people making less than $250,000 a year are not burdened with an extra $2,200 each after the first of the year. That passed in July. The House could take that up. Every Democrat in the House has agreed they will vote for that. We need only 25 or 26 Republicans in the House to make life something that is stable for people making less than $250,000 a year.

Mr. President, following leader remarks the Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the disabilities treaty. The time until noon will be equally divided and controlled between Senators Kerry and Lugar, the managers of this treaty, or their designees.

At noon there will be a rollcall vote on the Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

I have a number of requests. We don't do treaties often, and our requests from Senators on both sides of the aisle have suggested, and I think they are right, that because this is a treaty, the votes will take place from our desk today. Everyone should be on notice, they should be here, and we will vote from our desks.

Following the vote, the Senate will recess to allow for the weekly caucus meetings.

Additional votes on the National Defense Authorization Act are expected during today's session.

Mr. President, I am told there is a bill, H.R. 6429, due for a second reading.

Mr. President, I would object to any further proceedings with respect to this legislation at this time.

Mr. President, it has been almost 3 weeks since we all met with the President to avert that fiscal cliff we hear so much about. Yesterday, after weeks of delay, and as the days dwindle and taxes are set to go up for millions of families and businesses, Republicans in the House finally showed up at the negotiating table.

Now we know why they have been holding their cards so close to their vests. Their proposal would raise taxes on millions of middle-class families. Their plan is to raise $800 billion in revenue by eliminating popular tax deductions and credits that would reach deep into the pockets of middle-class families. Republicans are so intent on protecting low tax rates for millionaires and billionaires, they are willing to sacrifice middle-class families' economic security to do so.

In the first year, unless we do something, middle-class families; that is, people making less than $250,000 a year, will get an average of $2,200 in additional tax, taxes they will have to pay.

Their proposal that we received yesterday was short on specifics, but we do know from independent analysis that it is impossible to raise enough revenue to make a dent in the deficit

without using one of two things: raising tax rates on the top 2 percent or raising taxes on the middle class.

As my friend, the senior Senator from Missouri, said on the Sunday talk shows, the Speaker has to make a decision whether it is more important to keep his job or to do something about the economy that is in such difficult shape in America. He has to make a choice.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center called it mathematically impossible to reduce the deficit and give more tax cuts to the rich without harming the middle class. This is the same thing President Clinton talked about so often during the campaign, saying to everyone it is arithmetic.

As usual, given the choice between millionaires and billionaires and the middle class, Republicans again sided with the wealthy of this country. In fact, their plan doesn't just keep rates low for the richest 2 percent, it actually lowers them further. The Democrats' plan would protect 98 percent of families and 97 percent of small businesses from painful tax increases by asking the top 2 percent to pay a little bit more to reduce the deficit.

The Republicans' plan, on the other hand, is more of the same. Not only does it balance the budget on the backs of the middle class, it voids our promise to seniors with steep cuts to Social Security and Medicare, all to pay for even more handouts to the rich.

At least we now know where they stand. Republicans have sought cover by invoking Erskine Bowles' name, but he has disavowed their plan in no uncertain terms. We are glad to finally see Republicans joining in the negotiating process instead of watching from the sidelines.

While their proposal may be serious, it is also a nonstarter. They know any agreement that raises taxes on the middle class in order to protect more unnecessary giveaways to the top 2 percent is doomed from the start. It will not pass.

Democrats would not agree to it. President Obama wouldn't sign such a bill, and the American people would not support it. That is in all the polls that are in at press this morning.

The American people are tired of budget-busting giveaways to the wealthiest few people who have enjoyed growing paychecks and shrinking tax bills for more than a decade. The American people want a balanced deal. Simple math dictates that a balanced deal must include higher taxes on the richest of the rich. Republicans would be wise to keep that in mind as negotiations move forward.

We are willing to compromise, but we also will not consign the middle class to higher tax bills while millionaires and billionaires avoid all the pain.

I have been told the leader of the Democrats in the House will file today a discharge petition asking the Speaker to bring the bill to the floor. All Democratic House Members, as far as I know, every one of them will sign this discharge petition.

We have heard Republicans in the House who are willing to move forward. If every Democrat signs this, we will only need about 25 Republicans to join. The American people should see that picture. With 25 Republican votes--25 Republican votes--middle-class America would be able to rest assured that they will not have a tax increase at the first of the year. Twenty-five Republicans is all it would take.

Mr. President, it would be hard to travel to a university campus or to a chamber of commerce meeting or anyplace in the country, travel just to a supermarket and talk to people where they wouldn't all agree that the Senate is dysfunctional, has not worked well. To show how right they are is a statement made yesterday by John McCain.

Now, Mr. President, John McCain and I have had our political differences, but no one--no one--can quibble with the fact that John McCain is an American patriot. He was a Navy aviator shot down in Vietnam, spent years--I think it was 6\1/2\ or 7 years--as a prisoner of war, 4\1/2\ of those in solitary confinement.

He and I came to the House of Representatives together. I know how the House works. I served there. While I appreciate my friend the Republican leader giving me a minilecture on the House, I don't need one. I served in the House, and I know how the House works. And I know what John McCain said yesterday because I am reading a verbatim transcript from those proceedings, and here is what he said:

. . . I apologize for what seems to have happened. Much to

my dismay, it lends credence to the argument that maybe we

ought not to do business the way we are doing here in the

Senate.

That is a direct quote from John McCain.

As I said in my opening statement, I served in the House, and the reason I mentioned today in my opening statement about the discharge petition is that when I served there, under the leadership of Speaker O'Neill, Majority Leader Michel, and then Jim Wright and Michel, a Republican, there was no way they would ever consider doing a vote with the majority of the majority. They wanted to get 218 votes. That is what they did on reforming Social Security; that is what they did on virtually everything--get Democrats and Republicans together and get 218 votes.

And that is the challenge I gave to the Speaker today, Speaker Boehner. Let the House vote. One Republican House Member suggested that more than half of the Republicans in the House would vote for giving tax security to people making less than $250,000 a year. So I say, let's have Speaker Boehner call upon the Republicans in the House to add 25 or so votes to what the Democrats would do, and they would have 218 votes and we could go on to taking care of the fiscal cliff.

Mr. President, my friend protesteth too much. The Senate is broken, it needs to be fixed, and we need to change the rules. We change them all the time. Last year we changed the rules. Why? Because of what they were doing--the Republicans--just to stop and slow down everything. After two cloture votes--and remember that takes a long time, to file two cloture motions, a couple of days and then 30 hours. So after 60 hours, you would think the debate would be all over. Oh no. What they decided to do was to suspend the rules and have more votes. We put up with it for a while--a couple here, a couple there. I think the last time they had 15 or 16 motions to suspend the rules. That was enough. They overruled the Chair. They can't do that anymore.

What the Republicans have done is they have brought the Senate to its knees, and that is unfortunate. We need to be able to have the Senate operate the way it should operate, and we need to make sure people understand how dysfunctional we are and how we need to move forward.

They can say all they want about ``we need more amendments.'' Nobody criticizes having more amendments, but when we spend 9 or 10 days getting on a bill, we have wasted all that time. Nothing happens during that time. We do nothing here in the Senate. Everything comes to a standstill. Yet they complain because they do not have time to offer amendments.

Would the Chair announce the business for the day.

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

Mr. President, we hope shortly after the caucuses are ended today that we will have a vote on final passage of the Defense authorization bill. The managers have a few more amendments they are going to try to clear, but I think very quickly after the caucus we will have a vote. ``Very quickly'' around here is kind of a relative term, but we hope to do it as soon as we can.

I move to lay that motion on the table.

The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. President, I now move to proceed to calendar No. 552, H.R. 6156, which is the Russia-Moldova trade agreement.

Mr. President, if I could say a word, I was looking for an opportunity to express my appreciation to the two managers of this bill.

This has been hard, but they have done an excellent job. There is nothing

more important we do here than make sure that our fighting men and women have the resources to do what they need to do for our country, and there are no two better managers that we could have on this bill than these two fine Senators. I appreciate very much their hard work.

Mr. President, I took no risk, because Senator Levin from Michigan and Senator McCain from Arizona said, We will finish the bill in 3 days. So I had no risk because I knew that is what they would do. We may have spilled over a few hours, but basically they held to their agreement.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 4, 2012, at 2:30 p.m. in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on December 4, 2012, at 2:30 p.m.