Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I introduce the Effective Teaching and Leading Act to foster the development of highly skilled and effective educators.

We are working towards reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act--ESEA--this Congress for the first time since 2001. One of my highest priorities for reauthorization is to build the capacity of our Nation's schools to enhance the effectiveness of teachers, principals, school librarians, and other school leaders.

Decades of research have demonstrated that improving educator and principal quality as well as greater family involvement are the keys to raising student achievement and turning around struggling schools. To strengthen teaching and school leadership, the Effective Teaching and Leading Act would amend Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, to provide targeted assistance to schools to develop and support effective teachers, school librarians, principals, and school leaders through implementation of comprehensive induction, professional development, and evaluation systems.

Every year across the country thousands of teachers leave the profession--many within their first years of teaching. A report by the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future has estimated that the nationwide cost of replacing public school teachers who have dropped out of the profession is $7.3 billion annually.

Fortunately, we have some proven strategies to support teachers that will keep them in our schools. Evidence has shown that providing new teachers with comprehensive mentoring and support during their two years reduces teacher attrition by as much as half and increases student learning gains. The Effective Teaching and Leading Act would help schools implement the key elements of effective multi-year mentoring and induction for beginning teachers.

The bill also significantly revises ESEA's current definition of ``professional development'' to foster an ongoing culture of teacher, principal, school librarian, and staff collaboration throughout schools. All too often current professional development still consists of isolated, check-the-box activities instead of helping educators engage in sustained professional learning that is regularly evaluated for its impact on classroom practice and student achievement. Effective professional development is collaborative, job-embedded, and data- driven.

It is also clear that evaluation systems have an important role to play in teacher and principal development. Through Race to the Top and other initiatives many states and school systems are focusing on reforming their evaluation systems. When evaluation is done right, it provides teachers and principals with individualized ongoing feedback on their strengths and weaknesses and offers a path to improvement. The Effective Teaching and Leading Act would require school districts to establish rigorous, fair, and transparent evaluation systems that use multiple measures, including growth in student achievement.

Principals and school leaders also have a critical role to play in leading school improvement efforts and managing a collaborative culture of ongoing professional learning and development. Research has shown that leadership is second only to classroom instruction among school- related factors that influence student outcomes. As such, this bill would provide ongoing high-quality professional development to principals and school leaders, including multi-year induction and mentoring for new administrators.

Recognizing the importance of creating career advancement and leadership opportunities for teachers, the Effective Teaching and Leading Act supports opportunities for teachers to serve as mentors, instructional coaches, or master teachers, or take on increased responsibility for professional development, curriculum, or school improvement activities and calls for significant and sustainable stipends for teachers that take on these new roles and responsibilities.

The bill also addresses working conditions that are so critical for effective teaching. Under the legislation, districts would conduct surveys of the working and learning conditions educators face so this data could be used to better target investments and support.

Improving teaching and school leadership is not simply a matter of sorting the good teachers and principals from the bad. What is needed is a comprehensive and integrated approach that supports new teachers and leaders as they enter the profession; provides on-going professional development that helps them improve and their students to achieve; and that fairly assesses performance and provides feedback for improvement. This is the approach taken by the Effective Teaching and Leading Act.

I worked with a range of education organizations in developing this bill, including the American Federation of Teachers; American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education; Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development; National Association of Elementary School Principals; National Association of Secondary School Principals; National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; Learning Forward; and the New Teacher Center. I thank them for their input and support for the bill.

I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Effective Teaching and Leading Act and work for its inclusion in the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

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

Madam President, as a cosponsor, I rise today in strong support of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act. This is a bipartisan effort that will protect U.S. manufacturers from economic harm caused by unfair and damaging currency manipulation.

Unemployment throughout Rhode Island and the Nation has been persistently high and corrosive. It is caused in part by the effects of currency manipulation, particularly China's devaluation of the yuan. This is one of the challenges that manufacturers and hard-working individuals in Rhode Island and across the Nation face each day.

The effects of unfair currency manipulation have caused far too much harm for far too long. It has resulted in distorted trade balances that hurt U.S. workers and our Nation's economy as a whole.

Confronting Chinese currency manipulation sends a very strong signal. If implemented correctly, it will create jobs, aid our economic recovery, and lead to the creation of an estimated 1.6 million American jobs. Free trade only works when it is fair. China is not playing by the rules, and U.S. workers are harmed as a result.

China is, by any measure, keeping its currency artificially weak and engaging in trade practices that are harming the U.S. economy. By devaluing the yuan relative to the dollar, China is essentially subsidizing its exports and taxing U.S. imports at the expense of U.S. companies and workers.

It has been estimated that the yuan is undervalued relative to the dollar by as much as 40 percent, effectively subsidizing Chinese manufacturers and spurring our $273 billion trade deficit with China.

The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that the trade deficit with China has cost the U.S. economy 2.8 million jobs--1.9 million of these were manufacturing jobs--between 2001 and 2010. This resulted in approximately 12,000 jobs lost in Rhode Island.

A recent study by a team of three economists confirmed what many in my State already know: Jobs in Rhode Island are among the most vulnerable to cheap Chinese imports. And job losses are directly attributable to the U.S. trade deficit with China, which has been exacerbated by China's persistently undervalued currency.

Our trade deficit with China, which grew over 10 years from $83 billion to $273 billion, has had an outsized impact on my State because Chinese goods compete directly with many products that were produced and that will continue to be produced in Rhode Island. From textiles to toys, Rhode Island has been harmed as the artificially cheap yuan and exports from China have hollowed out industries, jobs, and communities.

If China and other Asian economies such as Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Hong Kong let their currency float freely against the dollar, U.S. GDP would increase by as much as $287.5 billion, that is a 1.9-percent increase, creating up to 2.25 million jobs in the United States.

So much of our efforts are focused today, and they should be, on growing our economy, measured not just by GDP but, more importantly, by jobs. This bill is one of those measures that is consistent with growing jobs in America and also respects the fact that in order for trade to work in the world, the trade has to be fair as well as free-- that everybody has to follow the rules, and there is no exception. What we expect of ourselves, we should demand of others. That is at the heart of this bill.

Currently, private businesses in the United States are not able to compete on a level playing field with Chinese manufacturers and exporters who have an unfair advantage because the Chinese Government is manipulating its currency. Undervaluing the yuan isn't even in the best interest of the Chinese economy because it wastes resources and erodes wages of Chinese workers. The benefits of an undervalued yuan primarily flow to politically powerful Chinese companies dependent on trade, many of which are state owned.

According to China's own national economic census, Chinese state- owned enterprises control over 40 percent of the assets in their industrial sector. When countries stack the deck for companies and industries they control, it hurts businesses in the United States. This is not free trade or fair trade. Those who hold up China's economic growth and favorable tax conditions, as one Fortune 500 company CEO recently did, should realize this: After all, China has little reason to tax corporations when so many of the country's largest corporations are state owned.

We would not dare to suggest the form of ownership or government intervention in our economy China uses consistently and persistently as a major way to fund their government and fund their activities. So I think we have to recognize what is being posed in the guise of their version of free trade.

It is not fair trade, it is not free trade, and it doesn't even help the people of China. But it certainly helps the powerful forces of the Chinese Government and their favored business partners.

So we have a clear choice, and we have legislation that will be effective because it is consistent with what we do, which is follow the rules. We are simply asking every nation to follow the rules when it comes to currency.

The legislation before us today would level the playing field for businesses in Rhode Island and throughout the country. It requires the Department of Treasury to identify misaligned currencies using objective criteria and requires the administration to take action if countries fail to correct this misalignment.

It ensures that our trade laws can address currency undervaluation when it harms American workers and manufacturers by offsetting the benefit foreign producers and exporters receive from their country's currency manipulation.

The effects of unfair currency manipulation have caused far too much harm for far too long. It has resulted in distorted trade balances that have hurt U.S. workers and our Nation's economy as a whole. This legislation will strengthen the tools we have to make sure our businesses can compete on a fair and level playing field against foreign companies that benefit from undervalued currency.

Let me be clear that this is not a silver bullet for our economy, and there are many other steps we have to take. As we continue to press for solutions to revitalize our economy--with a front-and-center focus on saving and creating jobs--addressing unfair subsidies and trade practices must be part of this effort. So I would urge swift passage of the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senator Hutchison in the introduction of the Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Research and Quality of Life Act of 2011.

The population of survivors of childhood cancer has grown exponentially over the years. In 1960, only 4 percent of children with cancer survived more than 5 years. Today, nearly 80 percent of children with cancer survive more than five years. While this is heartening news, as a result of their cancer and treatment, many of these children unfortunately have health complications, often life-threatening, for years to come. Indeed, after beating cancer, as many as \2/3\ of these children suffer from late effects of their disease or treatment, including second cancers and heart and lung damage. There are also serious psychosocial impacts that these survivors face.

With so many facing the risk of these late effects, it is critical that resources are made available to help these survivors, especially those in underserved communities. Our legislation would enhance research on the late effects of childhood cancers and improve collaboration among providers so that doctors are better able to care for this population as they age. It would also establish a new pilot program to begin to explore models of care for childhood cancer survivors. Creating standard protocols and procedures will help providers, patients, and families know what to expect after beating cancer, including when to get certain check-ups and tests that guard against late effects.

This bill is part of a continuing effort to focus greater attention on childhood cancers. In 2008, I worked on a bipartisan basis to enact, the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act. This law has increased support for research on childhood cancers and improved treatment for patients. But we must not stop there.

The legislation Senator Hutchison and I are introducing today to address the late effects of childhood cancer, will do more to help childhood cancer patients. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation and help ensure that children who survive cancer live a long and healthy life.

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

Mr. President, I introduce with my colleague Senator Johanns, the Healthy Housing Council Act. I thank Senators Boxer, Merkley, and Franken for joining us as original cosponsors of this bill.

Many factors impact health and wellness. Typically, doctors and other health professionals are able to counsel patients on the importance of exercise and healthy eating, for example, to prevent diseases and conditions. Too frequently, however, these providers overlook the possibility of housing-related health hazards that patients knowingly or unknowingly come into contact with, which can also cause a variety of preventable diseases and conditions like cancer, lead poisoning, and asthma.

While there are many programs in place to address these hazards, these programs are fragmented and spread across many agencies. Our legislation, the Healthy Housing Council Act, would establish an independent interagency Council on Healthy Housing in the executive branch in order to improve the coordination of existing but fragmented programs, bringing these various efforts out of their respective silos and reducing duplication to improve the efficiency and efficacy of these efforts.

Through periodic meetings, Federal, State, and local government representatives, along with industry and nonprofit representatives will meet to discuss ways to educate individuals and families on how to recognize housing-related health hazards and access the necessary services and preventive measures to combat these hazards. This collaboration is particularly critical as every member of the council

will bring a different perspective to the table on how to review, monitor, and evaluate existing housing, health, energy, and environmental programs and work together to collectively improve these programs for the future. Then, in order to ensure that members of the public are informed of and benefit from the council's activities, the council would hold biannual stakeholder meetings, maintain an updated website, and work to unify healthy housing data collection and maintenance.

It is our goal for this council to help reduce the more than 5.7 million households living in conditions with moderate or severe health hazards, 23 million additional homes with lead-based paint hazards, 14,000 unintentional injury and fire deaths every year that result from housing-related hazards, and 21,000 radon-associated lung cancer deaths every year. Indeed, the council will help us embark on a path to assure that affordable and decent homes are also healthy.

This council could also be critical in helping to curb overall health care expenditures. For example, the annual cost of environmentally attributable childhood diseases, including cancer, lead poisoning, and cancer was $76 billion in 2008 dollars, 3.5 percent of total health costs. Low-income and minority individuals and families who are disproportionately affected by housing-related health hazards are the same individuals and families who are typically enrolled in Medicaid or forgo insurance altogether, which costs Federal and States governments. Helping to improve housing conditions can help prevent an estimated 250,000 children under the age of 6 from having elevated blood levels each year, nearly 10,000 emergency department visits for carbon monoxide exposure, and 12.3 million asthma attacks. Keeping children out of the doctor's office and emergency rooms will save families and the government money.

As Congress continues to explore methods to reduce spending and reign in our deficit and improve the health of individuals, children, and families, promoting low-cost measures to eliminate subpar housing can make a dramatic and meaningful difference, and I urge my colleagues to join me and Senators Johanns, Boxer, Merkley, and Franken in supporting this bipartisan bill and other healthy housing efforts.

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

Mr. President, I am pleased to be joined today by Senator Hutchison in the introduction of the Pediatric, Adolescent, and Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Research and Quality of Life Act of 2011.

The population of survivors of childhood cancer has grown exponentially over the years. In 1960, only 4 percent of children with cancer survived more than 5 years. Today, nearly 80 percent of children with cancer survive more than five years. While this is heartening news, as a result of their cancer and treatment, many of these children unfortunately have health complications, often life-threatening, for years to come. Indeed, after beating cancer, as many as \2/3\ of these children suffer from late effects of their disease or treatment, including second cancers and heart and lung damage. There are also serious psychosocial impacts that these survivors face.

With so many facing the risk of these late effects, it is critical that resources are made available to help these survivors, especially those in underserved communities. Our legislation would enhance research on the late effects of childhood cancers and improve collaboration among providers so that doctors are better able to care for this population as they age. It would also establish a new pilot program to begin to explore models of care for childhood cancer survivors. Creating standard protocols and procedures will help providers, patients, and families know what to expect after beating cancer, including when to get certain check-ups and tests that guard against late effects.

This bill is part of a continuing effort to focus greater attention on childhood cancers. In 2008, I worked on a bipartisan basis to enact, the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act. This law has increased support for research on childhood cancers and improved treatment for patients. But we must not stop there.

The legislation Senator Hutchison and I are introducing today to address the late effects of childhood cancer, will do more to help childhood cancer patients. I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation and help ensure that children who survive cancer live a long and healthy life.

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

Mr. President, I introduce with my colleague Senator Johanns, the Healthy Housing Council Act. I thank Senators Boxer, Merkley, and Franken for joining us as original cosponsors of this bill.

Many factors impact health and wellness. Typically, doctors and other health professionals are able to counsel patients on the importance of exercise and healthy eating, for example, to prevent diseases and conditions. Too frequently, however, these providers overlook the possibility of housing-related health hazards that patients knowingly or unknowingly come into contact with, which can also cause a variety of preventable diseases and conditions like cancer, lead poisoning, and asthma.

While there are many programs in place to address these hazards, these programs are fragmented and spread across many agencies. Our legislation, the Healthy Housing Council Act, would establish an independent interagency Council on Healthy Housing in the executive branch in order to improve the coordination of existing but fragmented programs, bringing these various efforts out of their respective silos and reducing duplication to improve the efficiency and efficacy of these efforts.

Through periodic meetings, Federal, State, and local government representatives, along with industry and nonprofit representatives will meet to discuss ways to educate individuals and families on how to recognize housing-related health hazards and access the necessary services and preventive measures to combat these hazards. This collaboration is particularly critical as every member of the council

will bring a different perspective to the table on how to review, monitor, and evaluate existing housing, health, energy, and environmental programs and work together to collectively improve these programs for the future. Then, in order to ensure that members of the public are informed of and benefit from the council's activities, the council would hold biannual stakeholder meetings, maintain an updated website, and work to unify healthy housing data collection and maintenance.

It is our goal for this council to help reduce the more than 5.7 million households living in conditions with moderate or severe health hazards, 23 million additional homes with lead-based paint hazards, 14,000 unintentional injury and fire deaths every year that result from housing-related hazards, and 21,000 radon-associated lung cancer deaths every year. Indeed, the council will help us embark on a path to assure that affordable and decent homes are also healthy.

This council could also be critical in helping to curb overall health care expenditures. For example, the annual cost of environmentally attributable childhood diseases, including cancer, lead poisoning, and cancer was $76 billion in 2008 dollars, 3.5 percent of total health costs. Low-income and minority individuals and families who are disproportionately affected by housing-related health hazards are the same individuals and families who are typically enrolled in Medicaid or forgo insurance altogether, which costs Federal and States governments. Helping to improve housing conditions can help prevent an estimated 250,000 children under the age of 6 from having elevated blood levels each year, nearly 10,000 emergency department visits for carbon monoxide exposure, and 12.3 million asthma attacks. Keeping children out of the doctor's office and emergency rooms will save families and the government money.

As Congress continues to explore methods to reduce spending and reign in our deficit and improve the health of individuals, children, and families, promoting low-cost measures to eliminate subpar housing can make a dramatic and meaningful difference, and I urge my colleagues to join me and Senators Johanns, Boxer, Merkley, and Franken in supporting this bipartisan bill and other healthy housing efforts.

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

Mr. President, I rise to thank and commend Senator Whitehouse for inviting Rabbi Leslie Gutterman here to deliver the prayer.

Les Gutterman has been an extraordinary figure in our State, a man of great wisdom, compassion and kindness, who has, since 1970, contributed extraordinarily to the State of Rhode Island and to the people of Rhode Island.

His congregation goes far beyond denominational lines. He is literally the rabbi for everyone. In fact, he is my rabbi, and I am pleased and proud to say that.

Mr. President, again, I am delighted to welcome Rabbi Gutterman here today.

Mr. President, these are challenging economic times and Republicans have taken us to the edge of the cliff. In the limited time left to prevent government default for the first time in our Nation's history, I think we can all agree on at least one thing--the consequences of default benefit no one. That is why I made the necessary but difficult decision today to support an agreement to prevent our economy from being driven off the cliff.

Default and a downgrade of our credit have the potential to cause job loss, higher interest rates, and another economic recession or even a depression. Unfortunately, the legislation before us today only staves off potential default, while doing nothing to fuel job creation and spur economic growth. In fact, it could well increase recessionary pressures on the economy.

As the richest country in the world, we should never have reached this crisis point. The United States always pays its bills. And, let's be clear, the bills we are talking about are not new ones; they exist because of prior policy decisions.

Fault for the linking default on our debt and an ideological budget plan rests with my Republican colleagues. The President thought he could negotiate a grand bargain, but it turned out Republicans were not interested in compromise.

Since the onset of the debate surrounding the need to raise the debt ceiling, the American people have made their position clear: They want a fair and balanced approach to reducing the deficit. Like the majority of Americans, I understand the need to get our fiscal house in order, and I took tough votes in the 1990s to create a record budget surplus. On Sunday, I also voted for a plan that would have controlled spending to a greater extent than the bill before us today.

As in the 1990s, and so many other times in the past, reining in the budget deficit has meant spending cuts and revenue from closing loopholes in the Tax Code enjoyed by the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations.

Despite this precedent and the fact that such changes would not take effect in the short term, Republicans refused to accept a balanced approach.

Indeed, the price for averting the economic disaster of failing to raise the debt ceiling--a failure that some of my Republican colleagues were quite willing to see happen, to have our Nation go off the cliff-- was a deal predicated on sacrifice by the middle class and no one else.

And so the agreement forged by the President and congressional leaders is by no measure ideal. It not only makes fundamental concessions, but ignores the No. 1 issue on the minds of Americans-- which is how to address job creation and the unemployment situation.

In doing so, it also evades not only common sense but ignores economists who have warned that this trend toward drastic cuts threaten to choke off a faltering recovery. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich expressed these sentiments in saying that the agreement: ``[. . .] hobbles the capacity of the government to respond to the jobs and growth crisis.''

This agreement doesn't extend unemployment insurance at a time when too many Americans remain out of work. It doesn't stave off automatic tax increases on employers in distressed States with outstanding loans from the UI trust fund. Nor does it include common sense measures to save jobs like work sharing, which has proved so effective in some of our states and abroad, nor infrastructure spending to create jobs.

Instead, the first part of this agreement includes spending cuts that could hurt the middle class and those in need--nearly $1 trillion--at a time when Americans can literally least afford it. While working men and women are coping with stagnant wages, 14 million other Americans are simply without a job in an economy that is still climbing out of a deep economic recession. In Rhode Island the jobs situation remains especially difficult and double-digit unemployment persists.

Rather than set in place a longer term debt reduction agreement that would bring much-needed certainty to the economy, this agreement brings unnecessary uncertainty by tasking a joint committee to come up with at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction. These recommendations would receive expedited consideration with no amendments before the end of the year. A failure of this committee to come up with the required level of cuts or a rejection by the Congress or a veto by the President of the committee's recommendations would mean sequestration--automatic across the board cuts, half to domestic and half to defense spending.

I support the need to make continued decisions to eliminate wasteful and duplicative spending, and I perhaps this committee could come to a fair and balanced approach. Yet there remains a real likelihood that Republicans could very well dig in again on the question of ending tax giveaways to very profitable corporations and millionaires and call for drastic changes to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in order to meet targeted savings. The Joint Committee could also reverse the gains we made to reform health care.

In fact, Speaker Boehner, in presenting this legislation to his Republican conference, said that it would be effectively impossible for the joint committee to raise revenue. This means that the joint committee could recommend legislation even more austere and imbalanced than the $917 billion in cuts we are passing today. Republicans could again choose to balance the budget on the back of middle-class Americans. What should make us think that a few months down the road Washington Republicans will sing another tune and be willing to put revenue on the table?

Cuts are about more than just numbers. They are about priorities, and I worry that the cuts from the joint committee or from sequestration would continue to be based on Republicans' extreme ideological beliefs, and not on common sense priorities like jobs and the well-being of the middle class.

The bill before us has two outcomes as I see it. The unknowns of a joint committee that, depending on who you talk to, will either fail spectacularly or succeed spectacularly in producing a balanced proposal of shared sacrifice. The thought is that the threat of sequestration, which should be considered a meat cleaver approach to priorities, could produce an equitable compromise by the joint committee. Others believe sequestration will somehow be ameliorated or avoided altogether--that Congress will somehow pass legislation in the future to blunt its impact. I hope those positive predictions prevail, but I am dubious.

In this spirit, the agreement marks a turning point for our nation at an extraordinary time. Following the Great Depression, we faced another set of extenuating economic circumstances. And only after years of misguided cuts urged by fiscal conservatives, did the Congress finally listen to those who voiced the need for spending to buttress economic growth.

It is widely known that the best way to ensure economic recovery is to get people working--paying taxes and stimulating demand that has a multiplying effect on our economy.

Of course the irony of the situation lies in how we got here. President Bush was handed the biggest surplus on record, $236 billion-- indeed, we had 3 straight years of budget surplus before he drowned our Nation in red ink as far as the eye can see.

In fact, Republicans at the time were concerned the budget surplus-- which was projected to be $5.6 trillion over 10 years--was in itself a danger. Federal Reserve Chairmen Greenspan expressed this sentiment: ``The emerging key fiscal policy need is to address the implications of maintaining surpluses beyond the point at which publicly held debt is effectively eliminated.''

The resulting Bush policies--led by the $1.8 trillion tax cuts skewed to the

those making over $250,000--erased this record surplus, and replaced it with a $6.2 trillion deficit over this time period. This is an extraordinary swing of $11.8 trillion from fiscal year 2002 to 2011. To give some comparison, our current-dollar-GDP, the market value of the Nation's output of goods and services, is approximately $15 trillion.

While Americans are hard pressed to make ends meet and find work in an economy that isn't creating enough jobs, the largest corporations are doing extremely well.

We are seeing now corporations rack up huge profits. The nonfinancial members of the S&P 500 index are sitting on about $1.1 trillion in cash. The Federal Reserve indicated similarly that nonfinancial businesses have about $1.9 trillion in cash defined as liquid assets. We need policies that get businesses to make investments that put Americans back to work.

So a better approach would involve a serious commitment to deficit reduction that asks more from all Americans in the interest of our Nation's long-term economic wellbeing. It would be bigger than the bill before us, perhaps closer to $4 trillion in debt reduction, because it would be balanced and would call for shared sacrifice. It would ask the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations to pay their fair share instead of relying solely on spending cuts that will hurt programs that Americans depend on particularly when economic growth remains fragile. This view is in line with numerous economic experts who have voiced concern about how cutting back too soon could undermine our recovery.

A better bill would finally discard the perverse tax loopholes that reward companies that ship jobs overseas and end ethanol subsidy giveaways to profitable corporations. Put simply, a balanced approach wouldn't ask nursing home residents to sacrifice without asking the same of wealthy folks.

In fact, I have voted for plans that took this balanced approach in 1993 and 1997 and helped create a record surplus.

I have also voted against those proposals that have built up this mound of debt--including the unfunded Bush tax cuts skewed to the wealthy; an unpaid for war in Iraq for which we have paid dearly; and the unpaid for, costly, and ill-designed Medicare prescription drug plan.

We are also missing an opportunity to address the broader problems facing middle-class Americans. They are struggling in large part because we are going down a road of conservative ideology rather than common sense. We need to work on economic growth through education, infrastructure, currency exchange fairness, a trade policy that supports our manufacturers, and yes even tax reform to simplify our system but not as an excuse for more tax giveaways like the Bush tax cuts.

Just as I have taken tough votes in the past to ensure the long-term prosperity of our Nation, today's vote was another difficult choice.

However, this agreement is the only option left to prevent default and evade what would be the greatest artificial crisis in our Nation's history. It hopefully provides a powerful lever to achieve significant and smart deficit reduction in the future.

In the words of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during his second inaugural address, ``Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people.''

Now is one of those pivotal times in our Nation's history, where we face a stark choice that requires us to make sacrifices that put nation ahead of self.

For over 200 years, this country has been known as a hallmark of economic stability. We have always paid our bills regardless of who was President and what party was in charge.

Now that this manufactured crisis that has distracted us for too long is over, we need to get to the business of putting Americans back to work.

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Joining Forces for Military Mental Health Act with my colleagues Senators Ayotte, Kerry, Shaheen, Scott Brown, Whitehouse, Leahy, and Blumenthal.

This legislation seeks to improve the coordination of research, treatment, education and outreach of mental health, substance use disorders, and traumatic brain injury, TBI, among members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families.

These service members often return from a tour of duty and transition into civilian life far from military bases and without easy access to the care they might need, which can make transitioning back into family life and careers more difficult. Those who do seek care in their community may not always receive the most appropriate and effective treatment.

The Joining Forces for Military Mental Health Act would authorize the Secretary of Defense to provide grants to community partners that engage in research, treatment, education, and outreach. This will help ensure that every member of the military receives innovative and effective treatments and the most updated information about mental illness, substance abuse, and TBI connected with military service.

This type of coordination of research, treatment, education, and outreach, and collaboration with community partners could improve the health outcomes of members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families. This bipartisan legislation has been endorsed by the National Guard Association of the United States, and the Red Sox Foundation and others have already shown this type of coordination to be effective in providing quality care. I urge my colleagues to take a close look at this legislation and join me in supporting this effort to improve the mental health care that members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families receive in the community.

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

Mr. President, today I am pleased to introduce the Joining Forces for Military Mental Health Act with my colleagues Senators Ayotte, Kerry, Shaheen, Scott Brown, Whitehouse, Leahy, and Blumenthal.

This legislation seeks to improve the coordination of research, treatment, education and outreach of mental health, substance use disorders, and traumatic brain injury, TBI, among members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families.

These service members often return from a tour of duty and transition into civilian life far from military bases and without easy access to the care they might need, which can make transitioning back into family life and careers more difficult. Those who do seek care in their community may not always receive the most appropriate and effective treatment.

The Joining Forces for Military Mental Health Act would authorize the Secretary of Defense to provide grants to community partners that engage in research, treatment, education, and outreach. This will help ensure that every member of the military receives innovative and effective treatments and the most updated information about mental illness, substance abuse, and TBI connected with military service.

This type of coordination of research, treatment, education, and outreach, and collaboration with community partners could improve the health outcomes of members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families. This bipartisan legislation has been endorsed by the National Guard Association of the United States, and the Red Sox Foundation and others have already shown this type of coordination to be effective in providing quality care. I urge my colleagues to take a close look at this legislation and join me in supporting this effort to improve the mental health care that members of the National Guard and Reserve and their families receive in the community.

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

Mr. President, I believe libraries are critical institutions to our Nation and our democracy. Today, I recognize one library in particular, Brown University Library, for its 150th anniversary as Rhode Island's oldest Federal Depository Library.

The Federal Depository Library Program was established by Congress to ensure that the American public could access government records and information locally. The 10 depository libraries in Rhode Island are part of a network of more than 1,200 libraries nationwide that provide free access to Federal Government materials, both in print and online.

In 1861, under a newly enacted law granting each Senator the authority to assign one depository in their State, Senator James F. Simmons designated the Brown University Library as an official depository to receive U.S. Government publications. While Brown University had been receiving government documents through various channels since revolutionary times, this designation established Brown as the first depository library in Rhode Island and one of the earliest so designated libraries in the Nation.

For the past 150 years, the Brown University Library has helped students, faculty, and residents throughout Rhode Island find and use government information. The collection at Brown contains a wide variety of government documents that reflect the rich history of Rhode Island and the Nation as a whole, including historical debates surrounding the adoption of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery and legislation authored by my predecessor Senator Claiborne Pell establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It is also home to a wealth of information useful to Rhode Islanders, such as demographic

data on the changing and diverse nature of the State's population; a vast array of health and wellness materials; and business and economic news and reports.

Since 1994, Brown and other Federal depository libraries have worked in partnership with the U.S. Government Printing Office to make government information in a digital format directly accessible to the public via the Internet. First, through the GPO Access online system, and now through GPO's Federal Digital System, the American public has free access to authenticated information from all three branches of the Federal Government.

Across the country, Federal depository libraries enable the public to stay informed on the workings of our government and provide free access to all types of essential information. Additionally, they play a vital role in preserving the historical record of our democracy. I congratulate Brown University Library for its 150 years of serving as a resource for the people of Rhode Island and am proud to celebrate an institution that is dedicated to informing Rhode Islanders and advancing the values of our democracy.

Mr. President, Senator Whitehouse and I have come to the floor today to pay tribute to Governor Bruce Sundlun. He passed away last Thursday. He was an extraordinary gentleman.

I think it is particularly appropriate that my colleague is here along with me because he was the director of policy for Governor Sundlun, and many of the achievements in the Sundlun administration were directly attributed to Senator Whitehouse's extraordinary efforts.

Today, I am here, first, as a Rhode Islander to say on behalf of the people of my State how much we appreciate the leadership, vision, and determination of Governor Bruce Sundlun. He was elected in the middle of the worst financial crisis in the history of our State since the Great Depression--a collapse of the private credit union system. He got through that crisis as only he could. Then he went on to reconstruct our airport, to reform our workers' compensation system, and to make lasting contributions to the people of Rhode Island.

So I come to salute an extraordinary Governor. I also come as a colleague in government. When Governor Sundlun was elected to the statehouse in 1990, I was elected to my first term in the Congress. I was there to observe his extraordinary intellect, determination, skill, and his relentless commitment to doing his best to help the people of Rhode Island. I saw it firsthand.

Truly, without Bruce's leadership, we would not have weathered the financial crisis of 1991 in Rhode Island. His extraordinary grasp of the financial details, his unwavering determination to do the right thing, not the popular thing, and his ability to withstand withering criticism from all quarters resulted not only in the restitution of the savings of thousands of Rhode Islanders, but essentially the repayment of the moneys that had to be borrowed to take care of the crisis. It was extraordinary work. Frankly, I think everybody in Rhode Island rapidly conceded that only Bruce Sundlun could have done it.

I also come here, like Bruce, as a veteran of our Armed Forces, but unlike Bruce, who was a combat veteran. Bruce joined the U.S. Army and qualified as a pilot in the Air Corps in World War II. He was brave. He was tough. He led his crew with great distinction on numerous bombing raids over occupied Europe. In one of those raids, he was shot down. Of course, he had the presence of mind to keep the aircraft as steady as he could to let crewmen escape.

Finally, at the last moment, he himself parachuted to Earth. He was behind enemy lines without any weapons except his determination, his courage, and his determination, again, not only to survive but to return to the fight.

Through an amazing series of breathtaking episodes that read like a novel, Bruce would go from village to village and seek out the priests in the French village, or Belgian village. He would

say in fluent French that he was an American flier and needed their help. He always received their help. He would be given assistance and would be hid for a while. He told me with his great sardonic smile-- that he would find unusual ways to get around. He would go into the village at market time when the ladies of the village parked their bicycles, and he would take one of them and pedal as fast as he could to the next village where he could find another bike. So he covered the route through occupied Europe, finally making his way into Switzerland. That was a remarkable bit of courage.

After the war Bruce continued to distinguish himself in business, and in so many ways. But one thing is that he left a legacy not just to the people of Rhode Island, not just a public record, but he was part of the ``greatest generation'' that left an indelible image on the soldiers, sailors, aviators, and marines who serve today, a fidelity to duty, of courage, and of determination to serve and sacrifice on behalf of your comrades and your country. That image continues to sustain our forces in the field and this great Nation.

To Governor Sundlun, to his family, as a Rhode Islander, I thank you. As a colleague in government, I thank you. As someone who was inspired by your service to this country, I thank you. May you rest in peace.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, these are challenging and daunting times. While we are coming out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with continued high unemployment, our economy remains fragile.

The fragility is not simply a macroeconomic phenomenon. It affects every family in this country who is worried about their employment, about the future of their children, and about whether their parents will still enjoy adequate coverage under Medicare and will still be able to draw some sustenance from Social Security checks. All these worries are in the daily lives of all Americans. We have to respond to that.

The most salient fact that affects most Americans is the dramatic loss of employment, beginning in 2007, 2008, as the financial crisis engulfed this country.

The U.S. economy has lost about 8.8 million private sector jobs just in 2008 and 2009 alone. These were times when a Republican President continued to accumulate huge deficit spending--most of it beginning with tax cuts, which my Republican colleagues supported enthusiastically; two wars that were not paid for, which was supported overwhelmingly by my Republican colleagues; and an expansion of Part D of Medicare, which again they supported. At no time did I hear the kind of outcry about growing deficits we are hearing today.

We all understand that after the 10 years of this decade--8 of which were under the Presidency of George W. Bush--we are in a very difficult deficit position. That position is made worse because our economy has not generated enough jobs. One of the aspects of all these so-called plans--the cut, balance, whatever plan, and all the rest--should be the answer to the fundamental question: How is it going to help us grow our economy and grow jobs in Rhode Island, in Vermont, and in Wyoming? That seems to elude all the proponents of these plans at the moment.

We have seen, since President Obama has taken office, some growth in employment, with 16 consecutive months of private sector job growth-- about 2.1 million jobs--in sharp contrast to what was happening during the last 2 years of President Bush's administration. But we have a long way to go. Indeed, we have a long way to go to make up for the surplus which President Bush and the Republican Congress inherited in 2001 and the deficit and economic destruction President Obama inherited when he took office.

Our most immediate and pressing business is to reach some principled compromise on raising the debt ceiling--something that was done, I must say, rather routinely under President Bush about seven times, even though Democrats had very serious disagreements with him on tax policy--a tax policy that was increasing the deficit--and disagreement on wars, which were increasing the deficit as well as distorting our strategy internationally. At no time did we try to use the debt ceiling as the ultimate apocalyptic weapon to bring the President and, perhaps in doing so, even the country down. Yet I hear too many of my colleagues on the other side talking in those terms, particularly in the other Chamber.

The bill that has been passed in the House is an attempt to shrink government, protect the wealthy and special interests in the Tax Code. It ties the debt ceiling increase to passage of a constitutional amendment that would require 38 States for ratification. Once again, we are taking what was routinely done and necessary so we don't default on our credit and making it the vehicle for altering the Constitution of the United States, of building in even additional protections in the Tax Code for our wealthier citizens. This approach they are taking will needlessly jeopardize Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, while it enshrines in the Constitution further protections for loopholes in our Tax Code and the tax benefits that many of the wealthy and the large corporations enjoy today.

At the heart of what they are trying to propose in the House, and what they have sent to us, is to make it easier to cut these vital programs--a range of programs that involve transportation security agents at our airports, flight controllers in the towers, and can even involve the distribution of agriculture programs, which affect large parts of our country--not so much in my State but large parts of this country. All that would be subject to the calculation of cutting, cutting, cutting, while it would be extraordinarily difficult to raise revenues.

I don't think that makes sense. I don't think that is what the American people want. From what I have seen from the polling, huge numbers of Americans are frankly saying the wealthiest in this country are enjoying huge tax benefits. I believe approximately 80 percent of the American public believes the first step we should take in balancing the budget is to raise the taxes on the wealthiest Americans. That is what they are saying. They are not saying cut benefits from people who are on the margin, who are struggling--the working poor, who may be just under or over the line to qualify for Medicaid benefits in a State and get health care for their children. I think the American people are smarter and more decent than some of the proposals that have surfaced around here.

Again, the caps on spending are all dressed up as if they will have no real effect on the important programs, but they will have an effect on every program, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. For people who are still struggling to find work, who are still struggling to find some type of traction in a difficult economy, these cuts can be devastating. Indeed, one of the challenges we have is to generate more growth in our economy again. When we pull back from spending in the economy, that will further accelerate the lack of demand and the lack of any incentive for private hiring.

We are already seeing companies cut back and cut back. What are they saying? There is no demand. People aren't buying. People are saving. They sense--not sense, they know--they have to save more because they are not quite sure whether they will get all of their Social Security check or their Medicare benefits or any other benefits. That drives demand further down and slows the economy further down.

The Republican plan includes overall spending caps that reach 19.9 percent of GDP in 2017, but we have to look at this number in historical perspective. Over the past 40 years, this rate of spending is not only lower than the average spending but, moreover, outlays as a percentage of gross domestic product have only declined to 19.9 percent or lower when unemployment has been 6 percent or below. That makes sense. When the American economy is working, people don't collect a lot of benefits. They have a job and so they do not need the kind of assistance they need today. This cap of 19.9 percent is totally out of the context when it comes to the present unemployment rate of 9.2 percent and, frankly, could perhaps cause an even larger unemployment rate if this program is enacted.

Again, I don't think this makes sense in terms of the simple mathematics or the history or the underlying policies it would inevitably produce in the country. Yet still, in this Republican proposal, we are protecting the most special interests in this country--Big Oil and corporations. Those tax breaks, those tax perks, are still there, and they will continue to be there.

We all recognize we have to make tough decisions about spending and about revenue. What I find acutely ironic is Democrats did that in 1993 and 1997 and we heard about it for years and years, with Republicans assailing us. Of course, by 1998, we had a surplus. We had an economy with an unemployment rate much closer to 5 percent than 10 percent. But all that hard work--without any assistance from the Republicans--was completely squandered beginning in January 2001. Now we are back to the same challenge we faced in 1993 and 1994. But we did it before by making tough decisions. We did it over several years. We did it by trying to balance both cutting expenditures and increasing appropriate revenue and also by recognizing that working Americans need the assistance and support of their government. So we can do it again, and I hope we do.

But the first challenge--the one that has to be met--is to raise the debt ceiling. Defaulting on our debt would have catastrophic consequences. As we approach this deadline, the mere fact we haven't done anything yet is prompting credit agencies to suggest they will downgrade our credit rating. One of the most salient figures I have heard in this debate is that for every increase of 1 percent in our cost of credit and the interest we pay to borrow over 10 years, we will add $1.3 trillion to our deficit. The longer we avoid raising the debt ceiling, the closer we come to actually accelerating the deficit dramatically by increasing the rate we have to pay to borrow funds.

The final point I would make is, raising the debt ceiling is not for new spending we want to borrow money for. This is for the accumulation of the deficit that began dramatically in January of 2001. So I would urge my colleagues to move promptly and responsibly to raise the debt ceiling and then to get to the hard, difficult work of balancing our budget, as we did, as Democrats, in the 1990s, and then later, in 1996- 97, with a Republican Congress, further adding to the deficit reduction under the leadership of President Clinton and not some magic plan that is produced overnight.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I pay tribute to an exceptional U.S. Sailor, HM2 Jacob Emmott, known as ``Doc Emmott'' to the marines with whom he serves. ``Doc'' was awarded the Silver Star medal on July 14, 2011, for his extraordinary bravery and service.

Petty Officer Emmott, a resident of Wakefield, RI, served as a platoon corpsman with Company C, 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. On April 20, 2010, Petty Officer Emmott was on patrol with his fellow marines when they began receiving heavy fire from multiple enemy positions. One of the marines sustained multiple gunshot wounds and, with complete disregard for his own personal safety, Petty Officer Emmott rushed through enemy fire to aid the fallen marine. While tending to yet another fallen comrade, Petty Officer Emmott sustained a gunshot wound directly to his face, rendering him unconscious. After Petty Officer Emmott regained consciousness, he refused morphine in order to supervise the care of the other wounded marines. His courage and dedication to duty rallied the spirits of his squad mates as they were evacuated from the battlefield.

The Silver Star Medal is the third-highest military decoration that can be awarded to a member of the U.S. Armed Forces for valor while engaged in an action against an enemy. Petty Officer Emmott is clearly deserving of the Silver Star medal for his actions to aid his fellow marines at his own personal risk.

I join all Rhode Islanders in expressing deep appreciation and gratitude for Petty Officer Emmott's extraordinary commitment and service to our Nation. We also thank his family for their support and sacrifice. Congratulations and best wishes.

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

Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the regrettable and avoidable looming debt crisis if we don't take appropriate and timely steps beginning today and continuing over the next few days.

As we continue to work to get our economy out from under a protracted and painful recession and on a more robust path of growth and job creation, not having an agreement to pay our country's bills has severe consequences. Defaulting could mean not only a potential stoppage of Social Security and veterans' benefits checks, but even more worrying than what could happen to bondholders and the middle class is the question of whether this could push us back into not only a severe recession but a worldwide economic catastrophe.

We can look across at European governments struggling with sovereign debt crises. Also, one of the lessons we should have learned from the events of 2008, and particularly that fall, is that a lack of confidence and a vulnerability in one part of the world's financial systems can be magnified dramatically because of connections and interrelationships and could potentially produce a worldwide crisis.

So this is an issue we have to address. A failure to act would cripple our government almost immediately. In August, if there is not a solution, it is estimated that spending in the economy could contract immediately from 40 to 50 percent. That means the U.S. economy would be hit with a loss of about $134 billion or about 10 percent of GDP for the month of August if we fail to find a solution. A 10-percent loss to August's GDP could bring our credit markets to a standstill and could lead to the loss of millions of additional jobs.

One of the ironies of this debate is that the proposal by some on the other side to simply not pass debt limit legislation would be tolerable. In fact, it would be catastrophic. It would be catastrophic in terms of the very objective they are urging--controlling the deficit. As people drop out of the labor force, they require more benefits. They are not able legally or in a position to pay the taxes they were paying while working. In addition to that, it has been estimated that for every 1 percent increase in interest rates--and if we default, interest rates will go up on U.S. Treasuries--we will over 10 years accumulate $1.3 trillion in additional deficit. So in one fell swoop, the deficit hawks who are screaming so loudly today could put us on an even worse deficit trajectory.

We all know the job of bringing this budget into alignment is not going to be easy. It involves many tradeoffs, some of which are likely to be very unpopular. It started in 1990, when Republicans joined us in a balanced approach. Along with my colleagues who served here in the 1990s under President Clinton, we then took some tough votes with not one Republican vote in support of us in 1993 when the process of balancing the budget continued. It takes time. It takes difficult votes. It was done in the 1990s.

As we all know, when President George W. Bush assumed office, we were looking not at massive deficits, we were looking at a potential surplus of trillions of dollars over a 10-year period. But with the programs that President Bush, together with his Republican colleagues, embraced, of significant tax cuts, an expansion of entitlements, such as Part D Medicare which was not paid for, which was put on the credit card, and two unfunded wars, we are sitting today with this huge deficit.

Frankly, this proposal to raise the debt limit is very simply paying for what President Bush and Republican Congresses did several years ago. Yet we find my colleagues on the other side saying: Oh, we cannot do that. We cannot do that without significant reductions in programs that are vital to Americans.

We have already demonstrated--we did that in a continuing resolution that is covering this year's funding--we can and will make difficult cuts. We can reduce spending. But we have to do it in a measured way. The other thing we have to do is recognize that any solution, just as it was in the 1990s, will

require revenues as well as expenditures. That is the only way the arithmetic will work.

I find it sometimes ironic when I go around and talk and they say: Oh, if we don't solve this problem, you are putting all this burden on our grandchildren. Where was that spirit when the President cut taxes and began to eliminate a surplus that would have benefited our grandchildren? Where was that spirit when the President decided to engage in two major wars but not pay for them? Where was that spirit when the President decided he was going to expand entitlements and not pay for them? There were very few of my colleagues on the other side worrying about grandchildren then.

Well, we do have to worry about our grandchildren. That means we have to start taking the tough steps today. We have to start making the sacrifices that will get our budget in order. Those sacrifices are not simply in cutting programs that are so vital not only to so many Americans but are so vital to our continuing economic growth.

I am sure everyone here will say they have important highway projects in their States, they have important infrastructure projects in their States. Do we sacrifice those projects? If we do, then we sacrifice our economic efficiency, we sacrifice our productivity, and we give the results to our grandchildren: a decrepit infrastructure, with the inability to be competitive in a very competitive global economy.

We have to move forward. We have to move forward to avoid a catastrophe to the economy if the debt ceiling is not raised. Also, we have to move forward to begin to balance our budget in the way it has been done in the past and, frankly, in the way it only can be done; that is, we have to start, beginning today, to make the sacrifices and make the tough choices that will provide a better future for our grandchildren.

We have done it in the past. In 1990 and 1993 we took tough steps, as I mentioned before, to begin to balance the budget. And in 1997, with a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, we took additional steps. We can do it, and we must do it.

The idea that we are going to default is difficult to imagine, but, still, there are those out there on the other side who are saying they will not vote for raising the credit limit in any way, shape, or form. I think that is irresponsible. I think we have to be responsible. We have stood up before. We have taken tough votes. We have to do it again.

Failing to do that puts a huge burden on the middle class. The wealthiest amongst us may be able to negotiate through the vagaries of what might happen after a credit default by the United States, but for Social Security recipients, for military retirees, for those people who are looking for the basic services of government--transit to get to work, the ability to get on a plane--who is going to be manning the TSA posts if the government cannot essentially pay its debts? All these issues have to be considered.

We have to, as I said, talk about revenues too. It is astounding that people would literally be suggesting we cut back Social Security benefits, that we cut back retirement benefits, that we do all these things at the same time we are providing about $4 billion in annual tax incentives to the oil industry, when the price of oil is at record levels, their profits are at record levels. These are a host of tax provisions that do not make us anymore productive. In fact, one might argue they do not even encourage employment here in the United States. One could make the suggestion, at least the way we set up the system, that it might encourage employment overseas, and then we repatriate the profits here. Well, that might be fine for the big companies and the executives, but what about Americans who are looking for jobs? What about Americans who are looking just to get by?

We also have to recognize that some of the proposals we have made--in fact, all of them the President has talked about with respect to revenues--would not be effective immediately because we are still in a period of very fragile economic growth. They would be effective in 2013. But they would go to that long-term goal of deficit reduction, which we can achieve, but it will take time, just as it took time in the 1990s.

But even these proposals to close loopholes, which are, in my view, very difficult to defend--and to do so not immediately but several years from now--even these proposals are being resisted by Republicans. That does not make sense to me. I also do not think it makes sense to a growing number of Americans across this country. They want us to be responsible. They want us to be able to pay our debts. Then they want us to get our debts under control. They recognize that requires not just good will and good wishes, it requires real, difficult choices and sacrifices.

We are seeing now an economy that is racking up huge profits for industry. The nonfinancial members of the S&P 500 index are sitting on about $1.1 trillion in cash. The Federal Reserve indicated similarly that nonfinancial businesses have about $1.9 trillion in cash defined as liquid assets.

Record profits are being accumulated by corporations. All of this is good, but it is much better if those cash resources and profits are put back into the American economy in terms of creating jobs. That should be part of our effort too, not simply reducing the deficit, but reducing it in a way where we grow jobs here in the United States. That is also at the heart of what the President is talking about in terms of his efforts.

We are on the verge of tough votes and tough choices, and I hope we make those tough choices and tough votes. We do have to pay our debts, but then we have to get our debt under control. We have done it. We did it in the 1990s. I would argue without some of the policies that were enthusiastically embraced by many who are here today, who are talking about sacrifice for the middle class but no sacrifice for the very wealthy, we would not be in the same position we are in today.

I believe we are at a very critical moment. We have to resolve this issue by August 2. I hope we can do that. I hope it will turn on the same kind of sensible, balanced approach that we adopted previously in the 1990s. We have to go ahead and think in terms of restoring our financial house and then getting our American people back to work. If we do that, I think we will fulfill not only the best hopes and wishes of the American people but their strong desires.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.