Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 92, the Franken Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act. Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, if any, the Senate will be in a period of…
Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 92, the Franken Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act.
Mr. President, following my remarks and those of the Republican leader, if any, the Senate will be in a period of morning business until 12:15 today.
Because of a change in schedule, the Republicans will have their caucus today rather than yesterday as we normally do.
The time until 12:15 will be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
At 12:15 there will be a rollcall vote on the confirmation of the Fischer nomination to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. I am happy we are going to get this good man confirmed, but, as I will talk about in a minute, this obstruction is unbelievable. Fischer is going to now be a member of the Federal Reserve Board. He also has been chosen to be the Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve Board.
Janet Yellen, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has called many of my colleagues saying: Why do we need another vote? I need him here. There are administrative duties--this is a huge organization-- waiting to be done.
But we are going to have to go through the cloture process all over again on this man. What a waste of our time--our time--the people's time. Anyway, that is what we are going to do. We are going to vote to confirm him today and then come back at some later time and confirm him to be the Vice Chair. We could not confirm him as Vice Chair first because he is not a member of the Board.
Following that vote, the Senate will be in recess until 2 p.m. today, allowing for the Republican caucus meeting.
At 2:10 there will be up to five rollcall votes in relation to several nominations: cloture on the Barron nomination to be a circuit court judge for the First Circuit; confirmation of the Cook nomination as a member of the Privacy and Civil Liberty Oversight Board; confirmation of the Daly nomination to be U.S. attorney in Connecticut; confirmation of the Green nomination to
be U.S. attorney for Louisiana; and confirmation of the Martinez nomination to be U.S. attorney in New Mexico.
Measure Placed on the Calendar--S. 2363
I am told that S. 2363 is due for its second reading.
I would object to any further proceedings with respect to this bill at this time.
Mr. President, my good friend the Democratic whip, the assistant leader, is seated next to me. He and I came to Washington at the same time many years ago. Judging from what he does, I think he works very hard. The Presiding Officer served with us in the House of Representatives. It is a hard job, the jobs we have. We seek these jobs. They are the choice of our lives. It is an extreme honor to be a Member of the House of Representatives or the Senate, but we have traditionally worked very hard. I have seen it. Our families recognize how hard we work. It is not uncommon for us to wake up in the middle of the night: I should have done that. Then you write yourself a note. This has been going on since we have had a Senate, I am sure.
I have seen Members of Congress work themselves to exhaustion. But I confess, I have never seen some Senators--those Senators on the other side of the aisle--work so hard to do nothing, so little. My Republican colleagues have exerted so much effort to cause nothing to get done. They prefer it that way. They have broken their backs ensuring that nothing happens here on the Senate floor.
Last week was another example of the Democrats' fruitless hard work. The Republicans blocked debate on the bill that would reinstate important and expired tax provisions--tax cuts. This legislation extends tax cuts and helps American families and American businesses as they recover from the recession.
The bill they stopped last week extends current tax provisions that have bolstered students, teachers, workers and employers, American families and businesses, saving money and growing our economy.
Listen to this. Now the Republicans are against tax breaks. They have been against extended unemployment benefits in recent weeks. They have been against raising the minimum wage. They have been against pay equity. They deny climate change. Now they have added a new one to that. They are against tax cuts. It is hard to comprehend how hard they work to get nothing done.
Stunningly--listen to this one--stunningly, some of the very Republicans who helped craft the legislation that they killed helped filibuster the bill. The primary Republican who negotiated this, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, voted against his own bill. That is what I said. It is true. Republicans are voting against their own legislation again. For what? To stop President Obama from accomplishing anything. That is what they set out to do 5\1/2\ years ago. They have stuck to that, to the detriment of the American people.
We have a letter signed by 152 different organizations--152. That is pretty stunning. There are so many names on this, it takes three or four pages to get all of the names. I ask unanimous consent to have this list printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks. There are conservative organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers--two of the most conservative organizations in the world, certainly in our country, but they are joined by 150 others saying: We want tax breaks. Everybody in America wants them. Democrats want them. Independents want them. Republicans want them; that is, Republicans who are located everyplace except in the Congress of the United States.
Now we have a new one. The Republicans in Congress are against tax breaks. So what have they accomplished? Nothing but bringing anxiety to the American people, businesses, individuals, and certainly hurting our economy. They continue to obstruct. They have broken my legislative heart so many times.
Yesterday afternoon, in a couple of conversations here with the Republicans, they said they are going to try to do this. They are going to meet with their caucus today. Well, that caucus has ruined a lot of legislation. I hope the people I talked to are strong and emphatic in saying: It is not good for the country, and it is certainly not good for this body. We need to move forward and get certain things done, some things done.
So I hope that my legislative heart is not broken again, that I can respond to the people of Nevada that we are going to have a tax deduction and subsidies for transit. We have a lot of transit now. In the wisdom of the Congress, we created a tax break for those people who take the trains, subways, monorails, and buses.
The Presiding Officer has worked really his entire career to do something about the environment. That tax break I talked about is part of what the Presiding Officer has always advocated: Let's do what we can to get people off the highways to reduce pollution.
We have in this bill something for Nevada that gives--it is not for Nevada; it is for everybody--that sales tax is a deductible item.
We have not been able to bring up these tax breaks. There are many other things all across this country.
Tax cuts--that is what the Republicans have stopped. So I hope the few Republicans I talked to yesterday will be extremely strong in their caucus and say: This is the right thing for the country. We have done enough to try to embarrass the President. Let's try to do something that helps our people in all 50 States.