Floor Statements

Mr. President, we commend Senator Hatch for his efforts on this most important bill. We would like to ask for confirmation on a question that will be of considerable importance to millions of seniors housing residents, including those living in assisted living and memory care residences and in continuing care retirement communities, CCRCs.

As you know, capital for seniors housing, including assisted living and memory care residences and CCRCs, essentially comes from the same lending sources that fund other types of real estate. HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and commercial banks finance seniors housing through their respective housing related programs. Seniors housing competes with other real estate based investments for both equity and debt and it is critical that our tax law treat these seniors housing units in a manner that is comparable to other housing.

Provisions relating to the deduction for business interest and to the deduction for depreciation in the bill include rules governing a ``real property trade or business,'' as that term is currently defined in the tax law. Under these rules, the conferees stated that they intended that a real property operation or a real property management trade or business includes the operation or management of a lodging facility. We would like to ask the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Finance if he agrees with us that the operation or management of residential rental property housing the elderly, such as an assisted living residential facility, memory care residence, or a continuing care retirement community, are not excluded from the definition of a ``real property trade or business'' merely because they provide necessary supplemental assistive services that meet the needs of aging seniors.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we are in the middle of a very protracted conversation about tax reform. This conversation started in January. I have heard people say that it has been rushed through at the end. We started in January, and we are starting month 12 of this process: hearings in the House; hearings in the Senate; different drafts coming out, shot down, starting over again, and coming back and forth. Now we are starting our 12th month of going through this process.

As we get close to the end, I want to outline a few things we are actually working on to be able to send back to this body and the American people--what is actually happening here. The focus of this from the beginning--from the very start--was two simple things: How can we reduce the rates for individuals so they can keep more of their own money and spend their own money, which stimulates the economy? The second aspect was this: How can we simplify the system? There is a lot of back and forth on the final details of it, but those two things are very clear.

This dramatically simplifies the tax structure that we have, and it reduces rates for people, so that people have more of their own money to be able to spend, and businesses have more of their own money to be able to invest in their businesses, to be able to pay their workers more, to be able to buy more equipment, and to be able to expand their businesses. That helps everybody in the economy. Whether you save your money or whether you spend your money, you are able to keep your own money.

So here is what this means for hard-working Americans and, in particular, in my State, for hardworking Oklahomans. Every bracket gets a tax deduction. In fact, as the Tax Foundation studied the Senate plan, going State by State, it looked at the middle-income family in Oklahoma, and the Tax Foundation stated that the middle-income family will have an increase in its take-home pay of $2,200 over the next year. People will see it in their own paycheck from what is not being withheld anymore, because they are able to keep more of their own money.

The Senate plan doubles the standard deduction. For a single working adult, the first $12,000 of their money is not taxed at all. For a married couple, $24,000 of their income is not taxed at all. We also double the Child Tax Credit to $2,000, directly, to be able to protect the people who need the help the most.

What does that look like for us?

Take an Oklahoma family of four. That typical family of four in my State, with all incomes put together and with two working parents, makes about $73,000, combining all of their incomes together. That family of four, with $73,000 of total income for the family, will see a cut in their tax bill of $2,200 next year. Typically, they pay about $3,600 in Federal taxes. Next year, they pay $1,500 in Federal taxes. It is a pretty dramatic shift for them.

Let's take a teacher in Oklahoma who has been teaching for a couple of years--a single mom, a couple of kids, with $41,000 in total income and trying to make ends meet. That single mom with a couple of kids will see a tax reduction of $1,400. That is incredibly significant in just her day-to-day life. I can assure you that every Oklahoman would be glad to see an extra $100 or $150 in their paycheck every single month. That buys a lot of groceries, and it sure does help.

This is a process that really does affect real people, and it has been lost in the conversations. It has been interesting to hear the debate and all the noise on it.

I am hearing things I am calling tax myths of this bill. The most common one is that it is actually going to increase taxes on those in poverty. So for people who are saying that this is going to increase taxes for those individuals, it does not. It actually does exactly the opposite--not only by reducing rates but by increasing the standard deduction, by increasing the child tax credit. It helps people that need help the most.

I have also heard individuals in the media saying: This is going to hurt people because the individual mandate--something unrelated to tax policy entirely--has been snuck into the tax bill. The individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act is a tax policy that was actually added to a healthcare bill.

So this is a tax bill dealing with the tax aspects that were snuck into the original Obama healthcare bill. How does that work? The individual mandate says: If you don't buy the insurance approved by the folks in Washington, DC, then, you get an extra tax on you.

Where does that tax go? In Oklahoma, 81 percent of the people who pay that extra tax make $50,000 or less. That extra ObamaCare tax--that penalty that was put on there--was targeted directly at the middle class, and the middle class in Oklahoma pays that fine. Eighty-one percent of the fine that is paid is paid by people making $50,000 or less, in my State. We want to see that tax rate go down for those individuals, and we want to allow people to have a choice. That is a significant change for those individuals, who not only are trying to make ends meet, but they don't want to see one more tax laid on top of them.

Here is another myth I have heard. The tax cuts for the individuals aren't

permanent. May I remind everyone that the tax changes for the individuals made by the Bush administration had the exact same effect. They had a 10-year life span. As we went out to the end of that 10-year life span, they were then renewed. This is the same type of experience, where this individual tax is put in place, and a future Congress will go back and evaluate: Are all of these tax rates correct? Is this the right formula that should be in place? And they will be able to evaluate them at that time--just like we did in 2011, when those tax rates were made permanent--look at them again, give them that future window, and evaluate: Is this the right direction?

There has been an interesting one I have heard several times by people saying this will hurt teachers and it will hurt schools. I even heard someone this past weekend specifically say: The Senate bill takes away classroom expenses from teachers. The ironic part about that is that the Senate bill actually doubles the deductibility for teachers and classroom expenses. The lie out there is that the Senate bill takes it away. The truth, if you read the bill, is that it actually doubles it so that teachers have twice as much that they can deduct.

Teachers make a limited salary already. The last thing we need to do is to hurt teachers as they are trying to take care of the kids in their own classes. So this doubles the deductibility for teachers for classroom expenses.

It also puts in place an extension of the 529. Many parents set aside a little bit of money every month to go toward their child's college education. This would allow that to also be used for education, if they choose to have those expenses, in kindergarten through 12th grade, as well as college. It increases that opportunity.

The House bill did have a portion in their bill about student loan interest and tuition waiver for graduate students. The Senate actually does not have those two areas, protecting graduate students in their tuition waiver expenses. I think that is important.

There has also been a great myth out there that Republicans are cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid with this bill. Can I tell you, there is nothing in this bill about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We are not trying to damage or change any of those programs. In fact, it was in one of the hearings just last month where JCT, or the Joint Committee on Taxation, was asked that question directly, and they affirmed that there is nothing in this bill that is trying to change those policies. That is just a myth that is sitting out there.

What we need is a healthy, growing economy. Our economy has been flat for the last 8 years, growing at around 2 percent. Historically, the U.S. economy since World War II has grown at about 3 percent. That little 1 percentage point change may not seem like a big deal, but that is a lot of jobs across the country. It is increased wages across the country, and it is increased opportunity.

I feel sorry for college graduates who graduated in the past several years because they are trying to land a job in this economy and finding out how difficult it is to get a job. They wonder: Has it always been like that? It has not. Go back just a decade or two decades ago, and people were graduating out of college and landing into great jobs because the economy was growing faster.

If we don't do something to get this economy growing faster again, we will continue to have limited opportunities for all Americans, and people's paychecks will continue to be flat yet another decade. This is a way to nudge the economy, to say: Let's get it going again.

Quite frankly, my Democratic colleagues 8 years ago passed a $1 trillion stimulus package and said that is what would nudge the economy, but the economy didn't budge at all. This is an opportunity to come back and say: Let's actually do this right, not having the government spend your money but allowing you to keep more of your money and allowing the free market--just from people spending, buying, and saving--to lift the economy. That lift makes a tremendous difference.

One last interesting conversation. There have been a lot of folks who talked about deficit or debt effects in this bill, that this bill could be up to $1 trillion in addition to the deficit. This is typical Washington speak and the challenge of serving here in Washington.

There are 130 economists that looked at this. All turned in reports. Everybody has a different outlook. Economists study hard, they look at the numbers, and they run their models, but everyone is guessing, and I get that. They are educated guesses, but they are all guesses. It is the responsibility of us here, in this Chamber, to look at the models, to look at the study, and to determine: Does this work?

For instance, JCT in their study said there will be about a half trillion in deficit because of this bill. But what they didn't take into account, when you look at their actual numbers, is any real increase in international funding--any increase in our American businesses that do business here in America and across the ocean. That is not really taken into account in theirs.

They also don't look at tremendous swaths of our economy because they don't have that in their model. But the JCT estimates that we will have half a trillion dollars in deficit spending. As I mentioned before, over the last 10 years, our economy is stuck at less than 2 percent GDP growth. In the context of the Senate bill, current policy assumes that tax extenders expire, meaning we start with a $500 billion headwind. Our tax bill should not have to cover the effects of current policy extensions. The $1 trillion gap that is left equates to around 0.4 percent increase in GDP over the 10-year budget window. CBO's current GDP baseline is 1.9 over 10, and given the pro-growth policies in our bill, we should fully expect to a .4 percent boost, getting us to 2.3 percent, which closes the deficit gap, and brings future growth much more in line with where we should be historically.

Moreover, by JCT's own admission, eight one-hundredths of a percent could yield $500 billion in dynamic economic growth. So using those numbers, sixteen one-hundredths in boosted GDP should provide the sufficient revenue to cover any shortfall.

The focus of this is that, when you look at the studies and you ask the questions, they all have very conservative estimates--as they should, as economists. But if our economy even goes up to maybe 2.5 percent--so a half percentage point, which is typical for us--we are far in the black.

I understand that it is always a risk. My Democratic colleagues took a risk 8 years ago when they spent almost $1 trillion in the stimulus package, saying: I hope this works. And it did not.

I understand it is a risk, but I think it is an appropriate risk, to be able to say: Let's allow Americans to keep more of their own money to invest in this economy on the risk that we grow the economy by 0.2 percent more to be able to break even. I think the American economy can grow much faster than that. She has for decades, up until the last decade. Let's get us back to our old normal and allow that to be our new normal.

There are a lot of questions on the tax policy, rightfully so. It is important to all of us. Let's get it right, but let's keep moving. Over the next couple of weeks, this body, along with Members of the House, will do a conference committee. It is a back-and-forth about how we resolve the differences between the House bill and the Senate bill. When that is done, it will have to pass the House, pass the Senate, and go to the President's desk.

In the days ahead, Americans will see the changes in their own paycheck as they see the rates go down and are able to keep more of their own money. The rates of the median family are set to go down by 60 percent in this bill. It will be a tremendous benefit to them. I think that opportunity is one we shouldn't miss.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I am honored to be here with several other Members to talk about the issue of immigration. This has become a very contentious issue. As soon as you say the word ``immigration,'' there is a whole group of people who immediately start screaming amnesty on every part of the conversation. Another whole group starts screaming ``jack-hooded thugs'' trying to take grandmothers out of their homes, and the whole conversation diminishes, and we lose the policy issues that are in place.

There are obvious problems with immigration. We have not taken those obvious issues on in decades. They need to be resolved, and every year they are not resolved, this issue gets harder and it gets more complicated. We should address the issue of immigration. For years, the conversation has been out there, and for years, it has remained unresolved. I would challenge this body in the next 3 months: Let's resolve some of the big issues in immigration.

Almost 4 years ago, I was in Central America with a group of other Senators and House Members. We were meeting with Central American leaders, and we were meeting with them to talk about immigration and about some of those individuals leaving those countries who were coming to the United States illegally. But also, we met with them in Central America to determine what they should do for immigration. Multiple countries that were there in the conversation were talking about how they were increasing their border requirements at their borders, how they were managing their workforce within their country, and how individuals from other Central American countries were traveling to their countries and changing the job structure and changing the pay structure.

We somehow get this belief that the immigration issue is only an American issue. Every country in the world deals with immigration because every country in the world has the right and the responsibility to know who is in their country. Are they citizens? Are they noncitizens? I should have the ability, in my country, to be able to know who is coming in as a guest and to be able to say yes or no. That is a basic right. For some reason, that becomes lost in all of this conversation.

When we fly anywhere else in the world, we have a visa or we have a passport because when we enter that country, that country requires it. That country, when we land, wants to know who is in their country and where they are. That seems normal to us when we talk about travel, but for some reason, it gets lost in this issue of immigration. This should be a normal conversation--that our country would know who is in the country, that we would know where they are, if they are a guest, and that we would know when they are leaving.

After the 9/11 Commission finished, they challenged our Nation to resolve one of the issues of immigration that sat out there that is still unresolved to this day. It is entry-exit visas. Why can

we not know if a person comes in under a legal visa? We know when they come in, but we don't know when they leave. That is still unresolved a decade and a half later. Year after year, when I talk to Homeland Security, they say: We are doing a pilot project. We are close.

Year after year, that is unresolved. The vast majority of the people who are in our country illegally didn't cross a border illegally. They came with a visa, they overstayed it, and they never left. We are never asking the questions: Who is here, who is not here, and where do those connections come from?

What I would like to find is a way to establish a group of foundational issues that are commonsense solutions to the obvious immigration issues that we face--and find common ground. We will have disagreement in this body, but we should be able to find common ground on immigration issues that we can all look at and say: That is a reasonable way to do it. Probably, every Member of this body would do it a little bit different, and we would have a different set of preferences, but we should all agree it should be done. We have to solve the obvious issues, and there are areas of common ground to be able to do it.

Quite frankly, the President of the United States gave us quite a gift about 3\1/2\ months ago when he said to the DACA Program: That is an administrative program. It should be a legislative issue. I am not going to renew that any more as an administrative issue. That needs to be done in Congress.

For the first time in a long time, Congress has a deadline to be able to deal with immigration. That is actually a very good gift because this Congress has punted the immigration issue year after year without a deadline to get it resolved. Now we do have one. That deadline is in early March. I would suggest to this body: Let's get it resolved. Let's find the areas where we can actually find common ground in this area. Some should be pretty obvious.

Immigration courts, right now, have over half a million cases backlogged and pending. Currently, if you are going to hire a new judge to be able to be in the immigration courts, it will take 742 days to hire one immigration judge. That is not right. That is ridiculous. We should be able to get that resolved, to be able to add new judges to our immigration courts, and to be able to help deal with the backlog of over half a million people. The E-Verify system has been renewed in a bipartisan way year after year. Let's take it beyond the temporary program that it is right now. Some people don't know it is a temporary program. Let's move it from a temporary program to a permanent program. Let's do a permanent reauthorization. And let's make the tweaks and changes that are needed, whether it is to be able to move E-Verify into the hiring system, whether it is to be able to encourage individuals in their hiring--for more companies to be able to use it, for it to be a faster system that is more reliable. At times it can take up to 6 months to get a final answer from E-Verify. Again, that is absurd. That is a fixable issue that we should be able to do.

We should be able to resolve the issue of chain migration. We somehow believe that chain migration is an issue that has existed forever. It has not. It has been around only since 1965. Prior to 1965, our immigration issues were tighter than they are now. But now it has formed into this system where you can have initially your nuclear family, and then as you gain citizenship, you can add parents, and you can eventually add siblings, and you can add other individuals, and it continues to accelerate.

I am always frustrated when I hear people talk about our legal immigration system in the United States and say that we should be more open. We admit 1 million people a year through legal immigration--1 million a year. We are a very open country to legal immigration.

We need to be more precise. We need to base our immigration not just on chains of family connections but actually what our Nation needs to grow economically. I am not anti-family--far from it--but we should have a reasonable system. Canada doesn't do it this way. Australia doesn't do it this way. The UK doesn't do it this way. We still do. We should be able to resolve this.

We should deal with the issue of border security. There has been a lot of conversation about a wall. I don't think we should have a 2,000- mile-long wall on our southern border and a multithousand-mile-long wall on our northern border, but I do think we should be able to monitor our border and know who is coming in and out. Not everyone is coming just to work. There are individuals who are trafficking drugs and people. We do need to be able to monitor them.

I have heard folks say that we don't need a wall anywhere. I totally disagree. This whole adage of a 20-foot wall just begs for a 21-foot ladder--if you talk to the homeland security folks and the border security folks, they would say: Fine, put a 21-foot ladder there because it slows you down in the process. A wall is not designed to prevent you entirely; it is designed to slow you so we can actually interdict you, prevent you from coming in.

Yuma, AZ, can tell us the story about when they put up a wall, how it dramatically slowed down crime in Yuma, AZ, rather than just having an open border. There are areas where we desperately need a wall. There are other areas where we just need vehicular barriers. There are other areas where we need drones, and we need greater technology. But we certainly need more personnel in that area. It is one of the other challenges we face.

The President said: Let's add 5,000 new people. Great. Do you know how long it takes to hire one Border Patrol person? It takes 450 days-- 450 days to hire one person on the Border Patrol. It is a broken system of hiring. We need to fix that.

We need to do more rapid screening.

We certainly need to take care of the issue of sanctuary cities. All of the Nation last week did a giant sigh for Kate Steinle's family. Kate was murdered in San Francisco--a sanctuary city--by someone who had seven felonies and who had been deported five times. Then a jury said that because the bullet ricocheted off the ground, it wasn't really murder. He can go free. We have to resolve the issue of sanctuary cities. That is unjust. We are better than that as a nation.

We certainly should resolve the issue of DACA. We have kids who have been in this country and have grown up in this country. They get up every day, and they say the Pledge of Allegiance to this country. They speak perfect English. They have great grades and no criminal history. I asked people in my State: Who would you like to come into the country and be free to join this country? If they say the pledge every day, if they speak perfect English, if they are passionate about entrepreneurship and starting companies and getting engaged, if they have joined the military--that is exactly whom the people of my State would like to see immigrate to this country to be a part of it.

Well, guess what. We have almost a million of them already living here, but they have no legal status. They were brought here as a child by their parents under no decision of their own. We should have a long- term legislative solution. This particular bill that is under discussion now has a short-term solution to that, something called the BRIDGE Act. It is a 3-year legislative solution. It cries out for a longer solution, but it at least gives additional certainty more so than what DACA has.

I would challenge this body to look at all of these reasonable solutions and to say: If we can't decide on these, let's start the conversation. What can we decide on? How far can we get? How much can we resolve in immigration?

Let's do it, and let's do it right. Let's start the conversation, but let's finish it this time. We should negotiate with the House. They have some great ideas. We should negotiate here. There are some tremendous ideas on both sides of the aisle. But let's certainly get it done. I look forward to that ongoing conversation. Let's get this resolved in the days ahead.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Cardin be recognized to offer a motion to commit, which is at the desk, and that the time until 2 p.m. be equally divided in the usual form on the motion; further, that at 2 p.m., the Senate vote in relation to the motion with no intervening action or debate. I further ask that following disposition of the motion, the majority leader or his designee be recognized.

Mr. President, I want to address this body and talk about an issue that we do not talk about enough--the deficit. It is an issue that, for whatever reason, we have stopped talking about in Washington, DC. We talk about tax policy, which we should. We talk about disaster relief areas, which we should. We talk about healthcare policy, which we should, and a lot of other things. We have stopped talking about the debt and deficit, and I think that is a mistake for us.

You see, after 2011, the trend moved from a high point. Deficit spending that year was $1.3 trillion--overspending in a single year. After that point, the deficit went down a little bit each year until 2015. In 2016 our deficit number--that is a single year of overspending--started going back up. It went up in 2016, and it went up again in 2017. It is turning in the wrong direction. As you will recall and as many people in this body will recall, deficits were a major topic for us starting in 2010. Each year, Congress was trying to find ways to be able to reduce the deficit. That does not seem to be the issue anymore.

What I bring is a set of solutions and a set of ideas. How do we get out of this? Are there bipartisan solutions to actually deal with deficit overspending? There are priority things that we need to spend money on, and we should spend money on those things. Yet, as to the things that are nonessential for us and on which we might all find some way to agree that there is a better way to be able to spend our dollars, we should.

So this week I have produced our third annual ``Federal Fumbles'' book. We call it ``100 ways the Federal Government has dropped the ball.'' None of these should be all that controversial, though we will not agree with all of them. But there are simple ways to look at what the Federal Government is doing, what it is not doing, where we are spending, where we are overspending, and where additional oversight is needed. There is no problem in this country that can't be solved, and, certainly, our deficit is an issue that can be solved. We just have to commit to each of us making the decision that this is actually important and that we are going to try to resolve this to try to get us back toward balance.

I have lumped all of these issues from this book back into a whole series of different process things because each one of the 100 things that we identify is not just a stand-alone; it is part of a bigger problem. So I have put them together into budget process reforms and grant process reforms, which allow for more transparency in how decisions are made and as to what decisions have been made. I would say, as well, that there are Senate rule changes that are going to be needed to be able to resolve any of these issues. We put together these four big blocks to be able to ask: What are we actually dealing with? Let me just give you a couple of ideas.

If we are going to actually deal with some of the budget issues, we are going to have to actually deal with the budget process. We are not going to get a better product until we get a better process. Since 1974, the Budget Act has only worked four times, and every year the American people have asked over and over: What just happened? How

come we are back in this budget fight? How come it is at the end of the year? How come this is not resolved? Because we have a bad process-- that is why. Our process is not constitutional. It is the product of a law that was put in the Budget Act. We need to be able to change that, and I think there are some basic ways to be able to resolve that.

I would like to do budgeting and appropriations every 2 years. That would give us more time to be able to do more oversight, and that would give us more time for floor debate on it to be able to walk through this. There are multiple other areas that need to be resolved, like aligning our committees and other things that need to be done if we are actually going to get budget work done. In the meantime, we need to be able to push through what we can with the greatest efficiency, but, long term, we are going to have to fix the broken process that we have.

We should fix the grant-making process. There has been a lot of pressure to be able to move dollars toward grants because now we have put more and more restrictions on contracting. Because there are very few restrictions on grants, a lot of agencies are now spending more on grants than they are on contracting, and they are pushing dollars out the door with there being very little supervision.

We have to work on transparency. I am ashamed to say that for 6 years I have pushed on a very simple bill called the Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act. It passed unanimously in the House in 2 different years. It came over to the Senate, and it got tied up. The Taxpayers Right-To-Know Act is very simple. It asks every agency to list everything that it does. What a shocking thing it would be to actually know everything that every agency does--to be able to see what it does, what it spends on it, how many employees it allocates to it, and how many people it serves.

Every business in America can give a list of everything that it does except for the Federal Government. We cannot. We should. It would give the opportunity for agency heads to find out, before they start a program, and to know if someone else already does it in the Federal Government. I have talked to multiple agency individuals now, under two different Presidents, who have said that they have started a program, gotten it developed, committed people to it, and then a couple of months or years later determined that somebody else was already doing it. Even our agency folks do not know what the other agencies are doing. This should be a simple, straightforward solution to be able to help our agencies and to be able to help all of us have greater supervision over the budget.

The fourth thing is dealing with Senate rule changes. If we do not solve the issue of our nominations, we will never be able to get actual legislation on the floor and get back to debate again. We have stopped debating on major bills. We have stopped debating on small bills. Because it takes so much time, it is easier to just not do it at all. That is not what the American people sent us here to do. When we say that the Senate cannot debate a topic, no one can believe it. That rule doesn't get better based on inactivity. It gets better when we actually fix the basic problem that we have, and that is getting us back to debate and solving the nomination process. Let's actually get this resolved.

In saying all of that, all of the things that are in this book this year are things that I and my staff and my team--and Derek Osborn, who has led in all of the compilation of this on my team--have put together. We have put together this basic package to say: Here are 100 items. Quite frankly, I would hope that all 100 Senators could go through budget areas and that everybody could find 100 items and could identify them and say: Let's compare our lists and then ask: What are we going to do to be able to deal with the debt and deficit? How are we going to deal with some of the spending and inefficiencies of the Federal Government? We would probably have 100 different lists, but I would bet that, of the 100 different lists, we would find a lot of common ground, and we would actually start to solve some things.

What type of things did we find on our list this year? Let me give you some examples.

The National Science Foundation did a grant this past year to study the effects and how things are going for refugees in Iceland. Now, I am sure that the country of Iceland would like to know how it is going for their refugees, and maybe even the U.N. would like to know, but I am a little stunned that the National Science Foundation used American tax dollars to study refugees in Iceland.

The National Endowment for the Arts did a grant this past year to help pay for a local community theater in New Hampshire in its performance of ``Doggie Hamlet.'' ``Doggie Hamlet'' is an outdoor presentation in which a group of people yells and sings around a group of sheep and sheep dogs. I have watched the performance, and I think it is fine if the folks of New Hampshire want to do that performance. I am just not sure why the people of Oklahoma are being forced through their Federal tax dollars to pay for the production of ``Doggie Hamlet.''

Last year, the Department of Defense moved some equipment into Kuwait to be able to give it to the Iraqi army. So $1 billion worth of equipment was moved into Kuwait to give it to the Iraqi army--Humvees, small arms, mortars. All of that is fine, as we were helping to equip the Iraqi army to allow them to be able to defend themselves. The problem is that we lost track of them somewhere between Kuwait and Iraq, and the DOD doesn't know what happened to $1 billion of equipment after it was delivered to Kuwait.

The IRS has had multiple issues that we have tried to identify in different segments of this. One is that several years ago we noticed that the IRS was rehiring employees whom it had fired--the employees who were not paying their income taxes but were working for the IRS or the employees who were using their positions to spy on other Americans and pull up their tax information just because of their own interests. It is a fireable offense at the IRS--and it should be--to violate an American's privacy. The problem is that the IRS has started rehiring those same people right back. I don't know many companies that fire somebody and then later decide they are going to change their minds and rehire him, but, apparently, the IRS has become proficient at that. We identified it several years ago. The IRS said it would stop it. We did a check on that last year, and guess what. The IRS is still doing it-- rehiring the employees it has fired, some of them even with their files that are stamped ``do not hire.'' The IRS hired them anyway. We have to be able to stop that.

The IRS also did a study, through a program that it has, to be able to research tax compliance--not of changing tax rules, just of how people are complying with the tax rules and evaluating: Are they paying the correct amount of tax? Quite frankly, our tax system is so incredibly complicated that it is hard to be able to track what is the right amount, but the IRS should be able to look at it and determine whether someone is paying the right amount based on those figures. The IRS has developed some programs to be able to recommend, but the problem is that it has not implemented those programs. Over $400 billion of taxes has never been collected by the IRS because it has not implemented the recommendations that it has in front of it already.

The IRS has also had an issue that we are trying to deal with, along with several other entities by the way: Who is alive and who is not alive? You see, the Social Security Administration keeps track of something called the Death Master File. It sounds wonderful; doesn't it? The Death Master File basically says who has passed away in America and what Social Security number is not functional anymore. The IRS is not fully implementing that list and, at times, it is still sending checks to people who died years ago. Then, some fraudulent people take a Social Security number from someone who has passed away and file a return on that Social Security number in January or February, and the IRS sends them a check simply because it has not listed that this person has passed away and that the Social Security number is not active. Yet the IRS is not the only one.

We also identified in the SNAP program--what some people call the food stamp program--that there are thousands of retailers who are using these

false Social Security numbers from people who have passed away. Last year, $2.6 billion was sent out to SNAP retailers based on the Social Security numbers of the people who had passed away or on the numbers that are not operable. Those are things that are fixable. There is $2.6 billion of fraud that is in the system.

We have asked the question about immigration, and immigration has been an important topic here. We talk about immigration as well and not just of the financial portion of it but of the fumble portion of things that are actually going wrong in immigration currently. A lot of folks--and some folks even in this body--say: If we will just enforce the law as it exists and build a fence, we will be fine. The problem is that 66 percent of the people who are in the country illegally came into the country legally, with a legal visa, but they overstayed the visas. They never left.

After 9/11, the 9/11 Commission said that one of the major aspects in dealing with immigration was to do an entry-exit visa system so that we would know who they were when people came in, and we would also know when they left. That was a recommendation from the 9/11 Commission, but it has still not been done a decade and a half later.

If we are going to deal with immigration, one of the key things that we have to have is not just a wall or a fence or some sort of barrier. We also have to deal with when people come in and when they leave under legal visa systems. I have heard comments about hiring more Border Patrol folks and more ICE folks. That is OK, fine. I am good with that, actually, but here is the problem. With the current system that is set up, it takes over 450 days to hire one person as a Border Patrol person because the process is so convoluted--450 days. What if you would like to apply for a job and you wouldn't hear back about it for a year and a half--450 days?

What about if we are going to add more immigration attorneys? We have a half-million-person backlog in our immigration courts right now. What if we were to hire more judges for that process? Great idea. Guess how long it takes to hire more judges in the immigration court? It takes 742 days right now to be able to hire a judge to add to the immigration courts. Our problems are not just in immigration. There are structural problems in the Federal Government right now in hiring, oversight, and in managing the reports.

I mentioned the IRS's not implementing one of the reports they have. There is also an issue with some other agencies that will put on the back of Federal vehicles their phone number with this question: How is my driving? What a great idea that is for a Federal vehicle. The problem is that when we looked at it, we found out that the agencies never actually read the reports that came in. If people called in and said that this particular car number is driving crazy, no one is actually looking at it. It is the fear that Americans have that no one is really listening to them in the Federal Government.

Claire McCaskill and I just worked to be able to pass something in this body to try to deal with solving this basic question: Can agencies ask: How am I doing?

When most of us get a rental car or a hotel room online, we will get an email after we check out of the room or stop using the rental car asking: How is our service? How can we improve?

Do you know that Federal agencies can't do that or that it has become so complicated that they can't produce a three-question e-survey to send out to people saying: How are we doing in Social Security disability? How are we doing in the Veterans' Administration? How are we doing in our HUD assistance to you? The reason for that is the Paperwork Reduction Act, of all things. An old law that was supposed to help us is actually now in the way, now in the modern age, of our trying to do basic surveys. We need to be able to resolve that. That is something this body can lead on to be able to change.

There are a lot of things we want to be able to identify and to say that we can do better. This is our list. Quite frankly, this is our to- do list for the next year, just as the previous two volumes have been. We have seen some things that we have been able to accomplish over the last couple of years from previous ``Federal Fumbles'' books, but we can't get started on them until we actually identify them and say: That is a problem. How are we going to fix it? Our simple question for the rest of this body is this: Here is our list; what is yours? What are the things we are working on? What are the issues that we are actually going to get done and solve for the American people? What are the crazy stories and things we are wasting money on? If we only identified it and said: Let's stop that, we could and would. Let's do it together.

There is no reason that reducing the deficit should have to be an issue that has become a partisan issue. Deficits and the growing debt affect every single American. So let's work on it together, and let's stop finding ways to not work on it and find areas of common ground where we can work on it.

Let's fix inefficiencies in Federal Government hiring. Let's fix inefficiencies in our system. We have a tremendous number of great Federal employees who are all around the country and who work extremely hard for the American people every day and do great work, but they are trapped in a system that slows them down, that prevents them from being as efficient as they would like to be. Let's help them out by fixing the broken things that are in these agencies and systems. Let's set them free to be able to serve people the way they want to be able to serve people.

There are things we can do. Let's get busy doing it. If you are interested in knowing more about ``Federal Fumbles'' go to our website at lankford.senate.gov. We will send a copy over. We will send you a link to our website because it is cheaper and we will not have to print it off, and you can look at it online.

The issue of the day is this: Let's find out what your list is; we have started ours.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 6 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at 9:45 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Brian D. Montgomery, of Texas, Robert Hunter Kurtz, of Virginia, and Suzanne Israel Tufts, of New York, each to be an Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; to be immediately followed by a hearing to examine the nomination of Jerome H. Powell, of Maryland, to be Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Christopher Ashley Ford, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Secretary (International Security and Non-Proliferation), and Yleem D. S. Poblete, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary (Verification and Compliance), both of the Department of State.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at 10 a.m. in room SD-430 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Examining Proposals to Simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)''.

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226, to conduct a hearing entitled ``S. 1241: Modernizing AML Laws to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing''.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at 2:30 p.m., in room SH-219 to hold a closed hearing.

Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety

The Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, November 28, 2017, at 10 a.m., in room SD-406 to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Kenneth E. Allen, of Kentucky, A. D. Frazier, of Georgia, Jeffrey Smith, of Tennessee, and James R. Thompson III, of Alabama, each to be a Member of the Board of Directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Mr. President, our economy has been stuck between 1.4- and 1.9-percent growth over the last 10 years. Compare that to the 10- year cycles before that, over and over again, all the way back to the Great Depression. Every group in a 10-year block was at 3 percent or more growth. Literally, we have had half the growth in our economy over the last 10 years than we have had in any 10-year time period, going all the way back to the Great Depression. We have to be able to deal with that.

I hear people over and over again say that regulations are choking our businesses and are driving up the cost of products for consumers. Yet our Tax Code is full of loopholes, and it is full of confusion. It is complicated. When I go through to fill out my individual taxes, it seems as though there are deductions for everybody else but for me, and people want to get that fixed. Quite frankly, no one likes paying taxes, and everyone wants to make sure that whatever taxes they pay are spent efficiently and are the lowest possible. I cannot tell them that right now because the spending is not on track and is not efficient. I also cannot tell them that they are as low as possible. We need to fix that.

The tax reform that we are discussing in the Senate right now deals with some very basic things. It begins with more take-home pay for individuals. You can either be paid more by an employer or you can be taxed less by the government. Either one of those increases the take- home pay. This solves the ``tax less'' by the government so that individuals can have more take-home pay--around $100 a month. That is serious money for most Oklahomans to have going back to their families.

The way that happens is by starting with the standard deduction that doubles, which is $24,000. To say it flat, if you make between zero and $24,000 as a family, you wouldn't have any tax at all on that first $24,000. That is a great help. Your tax does not even begin at all until after $24,000. You would be in that zero percent bracket.

We double the Child Tax Credit. For families who are raising kids, it is exceptionally helpful for them to have a larger tax credit.

Then we take out the individual mandate in ObamaCare.

We have already had folks who have asked: What does ObamaCare have to do with tax policy?

Let me tell you, very simply, that the individual mandate is a tax. That is what the Supreme Court labeled it as, and that is what individuals understand it to be. If you don't buy the type of insurance of which Washington, DC, approves--and you may sign up for different insurance--you will get an additional tax penalty on your taxes.

Who pays for that?

In Oklahoma, 81 percent of the people who pay the individual mandate tax penalty make $50,000 or less a year. It is a tax aimed directly at the middle class.

I think that this is unfair. We want to remove that tax penalty from the middle class and say that they do not have that penalty and that they are allowed to buy insurance they can actually afford.

What does this mean for jobs?

If small businesses have a better Tax Code and their passthroughs, then they are able to hire additional people. That means more jobs.

Based on where our economy is right now, the unemployment rate has continued to drop over the last several years. At the spot it is right now, that means that there is more competition; there is more hiring; and more people have to compete for those jobs. That means that employers have to pay a little bit more money to get the people to be able to do it. That raises wages for people all around the country and means additional people who are not working will actually get back to work. With more people working and actually paying taxes, it pays for itself.

Getting a growing economy going is essential to us. The way you do that is you take care of the Tax Code for small businesses, and you take care of the Tax Code for corporate businesses.

I have had folks who have asked me: If you drop the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent, what does that really do?

Again, it allows those big companies, as well as the small companies, to hire more people, to engage in more investment, to build more factories, and to buy more machinery. That is what it allows them to be able to do to grow their businesses. Yet, on the international stage right now, our Tax Code is 35 percent. Compare that to those in other countries that are somewhere around 22, 23, 24 percent. Some of them are less than that.

Let me make this simple. If you are going online to buy a shirt and if you can see that shirt for $20 on one website or $35 on another website, where do you buy the shirt? It will probably be from the one that is selling it for $20. If you are starting a business or founding a business, and you can go to one spot where the tax rate is 20 percent or to another spot where it is 35 percent, guess where you will found the business. It will be where it is lower.

We are the higher rate right now. If we don't fix that, businesses are going to continue to move overseas. We can make fun of them in the news. We can yell at them and tell them that they are un-American, but they are going to continue to move where they pay less, exactly as every American does with his online shopping. That is fixable.

In the middle of all of this, we have to deal with the debt and deficit. We cannot ignore that reality. The things that I am still going through in the proposal that we are working through right now are the things that are unrealistic in the proposal because, at the end of the day, we have to get the economy growing again, but we have to deal with half a trillion dollars in overspending from this government right now. We can do both. We have to be able to do both.

I am encouraging this body to take seriously a proposal to be able to deal with how we get our economy going again. Let's figure out how to get it done, and then let's actually solve this for the American people.

I yield to the Senator from South Dakota.

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

Mr. President, I have the opportunity to speak to this body today about Amy Barrett. Her nomination is currently pending to be a circuit court judge. There is a pretty high standard for those individuals because they handle some incredibly difficult constitutional cases. What is good about this is that Amy Barrett meets the high standard for those qualifications.

Professor Barrett received her B.A. in English literature magna cum laude from Rhodes College and her J.D. summa cum laude from Notre Dame University Law School, where she served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.

She currently serves as a research professor of law at Notre Dame University Law School. Professor Barrett teaches and researches in the areas of Federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation, publishing scholarship in leading legal journals, such as the Columbia, Virginia, and Texas Law Reviews. Those aren't easy areas to be able to publish in or an easy professorship to be able to land.

Before joining Notre Dame, Professor Barrett clerked for Justice Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and for Judge Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Following her clerkships, she was an associate, where she litigated constitutional, criminal, and commercial cases both in trial and appellate courts. Professor Barrett also served as a visiting associate professor at George Washington University Law School.

She seems to be eminently qualified. Then what seems to be the issue? Interestingly enough, she faced a very odd set of questions during her confirmation process--questions not about her legal scholarship, not about her qualifications, but, oddly enough, about her Catholic faith. It wasn't about her temperament. It wasn't about her fairness. It wasn't about scholarship. It was whether her Catholic faith would get in the way of her being a good judge. Quite frankly, it wasn't about whether she had chosen a faith; it was the problem that she actually seemed to live her faith that became a big challenge during the questioning time period.

It is odd for us as Americans because this seems to be an issue we resolved 200-plus years ago. We resolved it in article VI of the Constitution, which says that there is no religious test for any officer of the United States. There is no requirement to be of a certain faith or, if you are of a certain faith, to take that faith off if you are going to serve in the United States. We have in our Constitution a protection not of freedom of worship, which I hear some people say--they are free to worship as they choose--that is not our constitutional protection. Our constitutional protection is the free exercise of your religion--not just that you can have a faith, but you can both have a faith and live your faith according to your own principles. That is consistent with who we are as Americans, that we allow any individual to have a faith and to live their faith both in their private and public life or to have no faith at all if they choose to have no faith at all. That is a decision for each American.

But we don't ask individuals--as has been asked of this individual-- whether faith will be the big issue and whether faith becomes a question in whether they are capable to serve other fellow Americans.

What is so dangerous, quite frankly, about her Catholic faith and her Christian beliefs as far as her being a judge? Are people afraid that she will actually live out what the Book of Proverbs says--to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, speak for the rights of all who are destitute, speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor and the needy? Is that what everyone is afraid of, that she will actually live out that Biblical principle?

I am a little confused why comments, such as ``The dogma lives loudly within you,'' were said during her questioning in the committee, and there were other questions to challenge her Catholic faith. Faith is a choice that each individual has, and it is an extremely personal but also extremely important choice.

Some individuals in America--myself included--choose to look past the mundane, day-to-day events and to think there is someone and something higher than us. We don't just look at the creation around us; we wonder about the Creator who made it. We don't just wonder about cosmic dust smashing into each other; we ask a logical question: If cosmic dust were to smash into each other in space and create all there is, who made space and who made the cosmic dust that smashed into each other, and how did that happen? Faith drives us to ask harder questions and to look a little longer at things that other people just see as plain in front of them. We ask what is behind it. A lot of Americans do. It is not irrational; it is a part of who we are and a part of how we are made.

It is a challenge to us as Americans to be able to challenge an individual and to say: That person is so radical that they believe in things like do not murder, do not steal, do not covet, honor your father and mother, or even things as radical as, in whatever you do, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

It doesn't seem that radical of a belief that we would have to challenge and wonder whether one was able to be a judge if they believe in those things. We dare to believe in something beyond us, as do millions of other Americans.

I really thought that our Nation was past this, that our Nation that speaks so much of diversity and of being open to other ideas is somehow closing to people of faith. People who say they want to demand that everyone be included are afraid of people who have faith and live their faith. Why would that be? If we are going to be an open society, is it not open as well to people of faith to not only have a faith but to live their faith?

We hit a moment like this in the 1960s, and I thought we had moved past it. There was a Senator at that time who was running to be President of the United States. We know him as John Kennedy.

Senator Kennedy was speaking to a group of ministers in Houston, TX, in the 1960s, and he had to stand before them and explain his Catholic faith because, quite frankly, there was this buzz: Could someone be a Catholic and be President? What would that mean? Would you have difficulties with that?

The questions that were asked of Professor Barrett were strikingly similar to the questions that were asked of Senator Kennedy when he was running to be President of the United States. Here is how Senator Kennedy responded:

For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the

finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been,

and may some day be again, a Jew--or a Quaker or a Unitarian

or a Baptist. It was Virginia's harassment of Baptist

preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson's

statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but

tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our

harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national

peril. . . . And in fact, this is the kind of America for

which our forefathers died, when they fled here to escape

religious test oaths that denied office to members of less

favored churches; when they fought for the Constitution, the

Bill of Rights, and the Virginia Statute of Religious

Freedom; and when they fought at the shrine I visited today,

the Alamo.

JFK had visited the Alamo that day.

For side by side with Bowie and Crockett died McCafferty

and Bailey and Carey. But no one knows whether they were

Catholic or not, for there was no religious test at the

Alamo.

Then he made this closing statement:

If I should lose on the real issues [of the Presidential

race], I shall return to my seat in the Senate, satisfied

that I had tried my best and was fairly judged. But if this

election is decided on the basis that 40 million Americans

lost their chance of being president on the day they were

baptized, then it is the whole nation that will be the loser,

in the eyes of Catholics and non-Catholics around the world,

in the eyes of history, and in the eyes of our own people.

This should be a settled issue for us, not a divisive one. We are a diverse nation--diverse in backgrounds, perspectives, attitudes, and yes, diverse in faith.

I look forward to supporting Professor Barrett in this position, and I look forward to seeing her decisions as they come out of that court, consistent with the law--as she is well trained to be able to do--and consistent with our convictions as Americans.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 9 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

committee on commerce, science, and transportation

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 10 a.m., in room SR-253 to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Leon A. Westmoreland, of Georgia, to be a Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors, Raymond Martinez, of New Jersey, to be Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, of Maryland, to be an Assistant Secretary of Transportation, and Bruce Landsberg, of South Carolina, to be a Member of the National Transportation Safety Board.

committee on energy and natural resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 to conduct a hearing.

committee on health, education, labor, and pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-430 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Implementation of the 21st Century Cures Act: Achieving the Promise of Health Information Technology.''

committee on homeland security and governmental affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``2017 Hurricane Season: Oversight of the Federal Response.''

committee on homeland security and governmental affairs

The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``2020 Census: Examining Cost Overruns, Information Security, and Accuracy.''

select committee on intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 9:30 a.m.., in room SD-106 to conduct a hearing on the nomination of John C. Demers, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice.

select committee on intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 2:30 p.m., in room SH-219 to conduct a closed hearing.

subcommittee on oceans, atmosphere, fisheries, and coast guard

The Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 2:30 p.m., in room SR-253 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Exploring Native American Subsistence Rights and International Treaties.''

subcommittee on crime and terrorism

The Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism of the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, October 31, 2017, at 2:30 p.m., in room SH-216 to conduct a hearing entitled ``Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online: Working with Tech to Find Solutions.''

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for 2 minutes.

Mr. President, we are about to vote on a gentleman named Scott Palk, who was nominated by President Trump to serve as a U.S. district court judge for the Western District of Oklahoma on May 8.

On June 15 of this year, he passed the Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support. It has taken us this long, from June 15, going through the committee process, to finally getting this to the floor in the last days of October.

This is the issue we face as a Senate right now. We have an opening with a judge who has already gone through the committee process, who has already been approved--who will be confirmed, I hope, with wide bipartisan support--but because of the ongoing delay of every nominee, of everything in the process, this is slowing down the wheels of our government across the country. Whether that be judges or whether that be individuals in the executive branch working in the agencies, we are seeing a constant slowing. We have to be able to correct this.

I would state that Americans will be very pleased when they get a chance to see Scott Palk on the bench. He will be a fair judge. He comes from a great family and has a great passion to serve people, both as he served in the U.S. attorney's office in the past and at the University of Oklahoma, working at the law school there. He will make the Nation proud. I am glad we have finally gone through this extremely long process to finally get him on and to get him seated on that bench.

In the days ahead, I look forward to the other positions in government being filled as well with other well-qualified individuals. I look forward to seeing this done. I look forward to seeing Scott Palk not as Scott Palk but as Judge Palk.

With that, I yield back.

Mr. President, I rise to speak to the Senate about the nominee that is currently in front of this body and on whom we should vote in the next few hours. We just finished a cloture vote to actually start 30 hours of debate. In the past, we wouldn't have had 30 hours of debate for a district court nominee, especially a district court nominee like this. This would have been something that would have been done by consent. We would have had a vote on this individual, rather than burning up 30 hours of time in debate on a single individual who just passed a cloture vote 79 to 18. This is not a controversial nominee.

Let me introduce you to Scott Palk. Scott Palk was actually reported out of the Judiciary Committee on June 15 of this year. He was nominated by President Trump on May 8. He has been pending since June 15 to get a vote on this floor because of the ongoing delays for each nominee as we go through the process.

Why do I say Scott Palk is not a controversial nominee? It is not just the fact that he passed the cloture vote 79 to 18. Scott Palk, if you remember his name in this body, was also a nominee of President Obama for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. He is now a nominee of President Trump for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

There may be five things total that President Obama and President Trump agree on. Scott Palk is one of those five. This is not a controversial nominee, and he will be a great judge for us. He will also be a great judge in Western Oklahoma.

He currently serves as the assistant dean for students and the assistant general counsel at the University of Oklahoma College of Law in Norman, OK, a position he has held since 2011. He has the strong support of the president of the University of Oklahoma, who happens to be former Senator David Boren, a Democratic Senator from this body, who is now leading the University of Oklahoma and has done that with great excellence for the past two decades. He is also strongly behind this nominee as well.

Scott Palk joined the University of Oklahoma College of Law after 19 years of public service as a State and Federal prosecutor. He graduated in 1992 from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where he began his legal career as a legal intern for the district attorney's office of district 21, serving in Cleveland, Garvin, and McClain Counties.

After graduating and passing the bar, he became an assistant district attorney for Cleveland County, where he prosecuted a variety of crimes and death penalty cases. In 1994, he became the multicounty drug task force coordinator, initiating and directing the district's first wire- interception drug investigation and coordinating Federal and local resources, culminating in the successful prosecution of a significant multicounty methamphetamine distribution organization.

The Association of Oklahoma Narcotics Enforcers awarded him the Prosecutor of the Year award in 1993. In 1992, he became the first assistant district attorney for district 21 and served in a dual prosecutorial and administrative role.

In 2002, he joined the U.S. attorney's office in the Western District of Oklahoma, where we are pushing him to be a judge now, as an assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting violent crimes, gangs, and domestic terrorism.

In 2004, he became the deputy criminal chief of the U.S. attorney's office and served in the additional roles of violent crime, national security coordinator, anti-terrorism, advisory council coordinator, and crisis management coordinator.

That same year, in 2004, the Oklahoma Gang Investigators Association awarded him the Prosecutor of the Year award. The Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys awarded him the Director's Award for Superior Performance.

In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration awarded him the Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Drug Law Enforcement.

In his most recent role at the U.S. attorney's office, he supervised administrative staff and assistant U.S. attorneys, handling a criminal caseload primarily consisting of national security and organized crimes and coordinating efforts with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, the FBI foreign counterintelligence squad, and the National Security Division of the Department of Justice.

His work in national security matters included both traditional criminal investigations, as well as investigations utilizing provisions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

In 2011, the FBI awarded him the Director's Certificate of Appreciation for Assistance to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Scott Palk is eminently qualified for this task. He shouldn't be a controversial nominee, and he should already be a judge. We are missing three judges in the Western District of Oklahoma. President Trump nominated him on May 8, and it is now the end of October when we can finally get him to the floor to be able to move him.

This delay tactic, this stalling tactic that is out there, this resist movement to try to prevent the President of the United States from getting his staff in every agency and to prevent judges from being able to actually go on the bench is delaying good people who are not controversial to be able do the job that is needed in each district. He is an individual who passed 79 to 18 on a cloture vote, and I am confident we will not consume the next 30 hours of debate about him. The hours will now expire as we sit in silence on the Senate floor, waiting for us to be able to have a final vote--just delays.

I have made a proposal to my colleagues. It is not a radical proposal. Quite frankly, it was a proposal in 2013, first proposed by a Senator named Harry Reid: to be able to move the nominations time period from 30 hours of just wasted time on the Senate floor to 2 hours--2 hours for district court, 2 hours for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of whatever agency it may be, having 2 hours of debate. These are for individuals who have already gone through committee, already gone through extensive vetting, already moved to the floor, and who most certainly will pass because it is a simple majority to be able to move these individuals based on the change of rules that at that time Senator Reid led.

Let's also do the same rule on time. Instead of 30 hours of wasted time on the floor when we could do other things for the American people, let's go back to the 2-hour agreement that we had in the past. It was a simple rule of 2 hours for individuals like for district courts and other individuals and agencies, 8 hours for higher tier individuals, who may be for a circuit court and such, and 30 hours for Cabinet officials.

I don't think that is an unreasonable request to make. It is a rule that we have done in the past, and it is a rule that we need to go back to. The American people are frustrated with the block in timing on moving people, especially people with wide bipartisan support. No one understands why someone who President Obama nominated and President Trump nominated has to take up 30 hours of time on the floor on debate when no one will really debate him and it is certain what the outcome of these people will be.

The American people are expecting us to debate and to engage on issues. I recommend again to this body: Let's go back to the Harry Reid rule--2 hours of debate for individuals like this in district courts, 8 hours of debate for higher tiered courts, and 30 hours of debate for Cabinet officials and the Supreme Court. We can do that again. We have done that in the past, and I recommend that we move back to that, not just for a single congressional body but as a change in the rules of the Senate, so that, permanently, we are able to be more functional again. A body that is

dysfunctional can be fixed by its own Members, moving us to a functional set of rules. That is what I hope we would achieve in the days ahead.

I look forward to voting for Scott Palk, whenever we finish with a 30-hour clock of time--of wasted time--to be able to move on a nominee and to see wide bipartisan support again for a good nominee. Scott is going to do a great job on the bench. We need him there to be able to get started.

I yield back.

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

Madam President, I want to be able to give a quick update to this body on a conversation that started yesterday and has been ongoing for months about Russia and their interference in our elections and how they are trying to engage with us in a way that much of Europe has seen for decades but that we just haven't seen in the United States.

Yesterday, Senator Burr and Senator Warner stood up and gave an update of where we are in the status of the investigation of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. They walked through some of the statistics. We have done over 100 interviews. We have 4,000 pages of transcript from those interviews. We have 100,000 documents that we have gone through so far, and there is more to go. We have completed some areas where we have interviewed everyone who we could possibly interview in that area. In other areas, as we do one interview, they quote a couple of other people, and we chase down those individuals, and it continues. So parts of the investigation are not done at this point, but some of it is.

Several aspects are clear from the investigation, though, again, it is not complete, and we will have a final document at the end. Some of the areas that are clear are that Russia was trying to use active measures to engage us in our last election. That part is very, very clear.

The question comes for many people: Why would they do that? Quite frankly, this is the way Russia has worked for a very long time--this asymmetric warfare they do where they try to constantly interfere in other people's thoughts and conflicts. They have done it across Europe for a long time. They are now doing it here.

Some of this is a product of Russia's having a very weak economy and trying to find some way to bolster themselves up. In the last 2 years, the Russian ruble has dropped 40 percent in value. As they struggle with low oil prices and struggle in the way they function with their government with the oligarchs and have a select group of people who can succeed and other folks who continue to struggle around the country and as they struggle under that system where they have fake elections and such, they try to reach out to other countries and try to interfere in our elections to make us look like them.

We have a free press that they try to engage in. We have free speech that they don't have in Russia. We have freedom of religion, which they don't have in Russia. We have the ability to be able to have disputes on political issues. They clearly don't have that in Russia. If you disagree with leadership in Russia, you will end up in prison. If you disagree with leadership in the United States, you will end up on TV. It is very different to be in an open society like ours. But they reach into what we consider a strength and try to make it our weakness.

We are going to try to get the facts out on this over the next several months as we work through this process. We are going to expose what Russia is really trying to do. Do they use some overt propaganda networks like Sputnik Radio and RT? Is their Russian propaganda on multiple cable and satellite channels throughout the United States? Their version of the facts are designed to create discord in our Nation. That is what they do.

They also have ways that are not quite as overt. They reach in on social media platforms. They have their trolls in Russia who have thousands of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter and other social media apps. They use those thousands of apps to search around any news in America and find a place where there is conflict in America and then try to amp up the volume.

To be clear, the Russians are not creating conflict in America. We have plenty of it. We disagree on issues. Again, it is our free society. When we disagree on something, we disagree on

it publically and sometimes loud. That is who we are as Americans. We try to work things out, sometimes at a high volume. But just like two kids who are fighting on the playground in the fifth grade--remember those two kids that started a fight and their friends were watching them? Then, eventually, someone on the other side of the playground started yelling ``fight,'' and the crowd started forming. The Russians aren't starting the fight. They aren't even in the fight. They are the kids on the far side of the playground, trying to get more people to run to the fight. They are not starting the Twitter wars and the battles, but they look at where America is divided, issues like race. Their troll farms will try to find areas where we disagree, such as areas of race, and reach in and try to amplify the volume on that by repeating accusations and by trying to be even more hostile online. They are trying to stoke disunity in our Nation.

It is important that we know that every time you see something with a high number of hashtag counts that goes up, it is not always Americans who are pushing that up. Occasionally, it is an outside body trying to raise the volume and make a conflict look even bigger than it already is in America because they are into sowing discord. That is what they love to do. That is what the rest of the nations have seen them do. We should be very clear that the Russians are trying to continue to sow chaos into us.

They have reached into our election systems. In the previous couple of weeks, the FBI notified 21 different States that during the last election season, the Russians tried to interfere in their election process as a State. Now, that doesn't mean they did interfere. That means they reached in and tested systems. That means they tried to go into voter databases to see if they could access a voter database to see who was registered to vote. They tried to get into a secretary of State's office in a local State to see if they could figure out how they do their elections. That means they reached into systems in States to see what voting machines they used and if they tried to connect them in. They were trying to find out how they do elections, learn as much as they could about their process, and see how far they could get.

Through all of our work, we have yet to find a single vote that was changed. The Russians didn't get into voting machines. They didn't alter the election in any way, but they were constantly probing through multiple States to see what they could get access to.

Now, it is my belief that they are preparing for something else. They are trying to see what they could get access to in the last election to see if they could get back into it and do even more in the next election. We should be aware of that. We should be aware not only of their propaganda, but we should be aware that they are going after our elections to see if they can find a way, at the end of the election, to make us doubt the outcomes.

What can we do about that? I will give you several ideas. One of them, I would say, is that we need to protect the primacy of States running the elections. There is absolutely no need for the Federal Government to go to States and take over their election process. It is a constitutional protection that those States have to be able to run their elections, but every State is also responsible to do it. Of the 21 States that I noted here that the Russians tried to engage in, they couldn't get to a single voting machine. The States are already doing a good job, but they need help.

There is no reason the State of Oklahoma should have to work alone to be able to protect itself from the Russians trying to invade it in the cyber attack. They are going to need some allies to come along with them, but the States should still be able to run the system. There should be more sharing between the State and the Federal Government. There should be an opportunity for the Federal Government to be able to say to a State, earlier than 10 months after the election: Hey, you are being hacked. For the FBI to notify States a couple of weeks ago that they were hacked in the 2016 elections is a little late. When it is occurring, we need to have that engagement between State IT folks and Federal IT folks. We need to be able to have that conversation as it is ongoing so the State can take protective measures as it is occurring. We need to have that cooperation between States and the Federal Government. We need to be able to help States come up with ways they can audit their system after the election is over.

When every election occurs, you should be able to audit it and make sure the machines that were running the election actually were not hacked. You can verify that. In Oklahoma, we have optical scanners. You fill out a paper ballot. You run it through an optical scanner at the end of the election time, and they can count everything from the optical scanner. If there is any question, they can go back to the paper and actually do a hand count. We can literally audit our elections and their process. It is a safe system that we have set up in our State. Every State does it differently, but I would encourage every State to set up a system where they can audit their system.

We know this year that the Russians were trying to engage in our election. It could be someone else who could do it. Any number of groups could try to interfere in our process. It is basic common sense to say we should have a system of elections we can actually audit. Perhaps Russia, in the days ahead, hopes that our Nation will be more like theirs. We will not be.

We are the longest constitutional Republic in the world. We still need the world. We still put out our values about free speech, free press, freedom of religion, and opportunities for individuals to actually engage and to have conflict with their own government and to be able to disagree publically on things. We still can disagree with each other. We need to be aware that they want to turn us into them. I would hope for the sake of the Russian people, in the days ahead, that they could be more like us.

Ronald Reagan told a story about a friend of his who had a conversation with a Cuban refugee fleeing from communism and oppression in Cuba in 1964. He said that his friend, this Cuban refugee, said:

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to.

This is the last stand on Earth.

We are still a role model for the rest of the world. As much conflict as we have with each other, we are still a role model. I have no issue disagreeing at times with people on this floor. We can have our disagreements, but I don't want the Russians to interfere in our disagreements. They can keep their business over there. In the days ahead, we will continue to expose the things they are doing. So they can back off and go bug someone else because we are akin to what they are doing.

With that, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I would recommend to this body something that is obvious to all of us. Our economy is stuck. We are in a bad spot of just treading water. Over the last 11 years, our gross domestic product--that is how much our economy is growing--has been 1.9 percent, and 1.9 percent is a tiny change.

Just to give you a perspective, over the last 100 years, there has not been a single decade when we have not had a year without at least 3 percent growth, until the last decade. Literally, our economy, is typically growing; that is, more jobs are being added, people are making more money, there is more happening, and we are selling more internationally. In America, over the last 100 years, it has just slowly grown and grown and grown until the last 10 years, and, then, it has flattened out. We are stuck.

Now, when I was younger, we had a record player in the house. Now, for all of you under 40, I would explain that a record player is kind of like a CD player, only it was larger and made of vinyl. But if I say that, then, all the under-20 crowd will say: What is a CD player?

Let me just say this. The big black pieces of vinyl that played music at my house occasionally would get stuck. The record needle would land in the same groove and play the same part of the song over and over. It was my job, as the youngest one in the house, to go over to the record and bump it and get it out of that. Our economy needs that.

We need to be able to get over to our economy, which is stuck in the same groove at 1.9 percent in this incredibly low-growth rate, and give it a bump. Now, that bump can come in a lot of ways: increasing international trade would be a great help, engaging more internationally, keeping our regulations common sense and as nonintrusive as possible so that small businesses and medium-sized businesses aren't panicked all the time of what the Federal Government is going to do to them with a new regulation. Just keep them common sense and simple.

How about making sure that there are fewer Federal forms and that the Federal forms that people have to fill out not only are simple to do but they don't duplicate over multiple different agencies. It would be good if people who worked in small, medium, and large businesses spent more time selling products than they did filling out a form for some Federal bureaucracy that is never going to read that form anyway.

The obvious way to be able to bump the record needle in our economy right now is tax reform. It is not the main thing that is going to do everything, but it is a pretty big element. If we can get tax reform done, it actually gives our economy a little bit of a boost. Now, I have folks that will say: How does that make a difference? When you do tax reform, why does that actually increase economic activity?

Well, quite frankly, people around the country and in my State of Oklahoma are struggling to be able to save money because their wages aren't growing at the same speed that everything else is going up in price. So people need to be able to save more money and to be able to have more money to be able to spend.

Also, we need to create more jobs and we need to get companies going again and actually developing more jobs. If people can actually get a job, if people can make more money at that job, and if people actually have more take-home pay, they spend a little more, they save a little more, and the company expands a little more. If each

place does that a little bit, it dramatically increases our economy around the country, and we know it because we feel it.

Making the Tax Code simpler for every person in every business means people don't have to pay as much to have their taxes done. Maybe you can do your own taxes because it would be simple enough to do it, and it wouldn't cost so much. Accountants who work for businesses could go back to working for their businesses to see how they can make their businesses more efficient rather than spending all of their time just on tax policy.

I think we should follow the lead of the President on this. The President made a very clear statement. He said: Let's help our companies compete, but to do that we have to also knock down barriers that stand in the way of their success. For example, the President said:

Over the years, a parade of lobbyists have rigged the tax

code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those

with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up

paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of

the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no

sense, and it has to change.

So tonight, I'm asking Democrats and Republicans to

simplify the system. Get rid of the loopholes. Level the

playing field. And use the savings to lower the corporate tax

rate for the first time in 25 years.

Did I fail to mention that the President who said that is President Obama? President Obama did, right down the hallway, in 2011, in his State of the Union address. That is what he said we should do: simplify the system, lower the corporate tax rate, and be able to deal with all of the loopholes that are in the system.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. Everyone sees this, Republicans and Democrats alike.

So my focus is this. How do we actually get this done and not make it into a partisan food fight here but actually do what is right for the American people and help bump the economy to be able to help get us going again?

In my State--whether you live in Valliant, Gotebo, Healton, Sayre, Muskogee, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, or Lawton--this matters because everyone unfortunately pays taxes. Everyone knows it is a necessary thing, but we want to have it as simple as possible and to have it as low as possible, and we want to make sure it is as fair as possible.

So the framework has been presented this past week. It is a simple framework for how we deal with tax policy. It talks about consolidating our rates. We have seven rates now. We would drop that down to four rates. There would be a 0-percent rate, a 12-percent, a 25-percent, and a 35-percent rate.

Now, some folks have asked me about the 0-percent rate, because a lot of Americans say one simple thing: Every American is an American, and every American should pay a little bit in taxes. I would agree, by the way. But every American is paying some taxes. For those folks at the lowest end of the scale, I would propose dropping the rate to zero for them on income taxes, but they are paying their fair share in property tax, in gas tax, and in sales tax. They are helping their local fire department and their local police department. They are paying for the roads that are federally subsidized, based on their gas tax. They are paying taxes, but if they are not at a rate and at an income high enough to be able to survive at that rate, then let's drop theirs to 0 percent for income tax. They will keep some of the other taxes so they can still contribute to society and still be a part of this great Nation.

Dropping those rates down to the lowest bracket being 0 percent for income tax, then 12 percent, 25 percent, and 35 percent is a pretty standard rate. Quite frankly, this is something that was proposed in the Simpson-Bowles proposal before, which was a bipartisan proposal, for it to be able to come out, on how we can reform the system.

Eliminating the alternative minimum tax--do you want to talk about a complicated tax code? Basically, we have two Tax Codes. We have the standard Tax Code, and then we have the alternative minimum tax. Everyone who does their taxes has to do them twice to be able to evaluate which one of the codes they actually fit into. Now, if are using an electronic system, you lose track of it because the electronic system on the computer is doing that for you. But the AMT dramatically increases the complexity of the code. We should do away with that.

If we want to be able to protect the folks who are in the lowest bracket, then let's double what is the standard deduction. Right now the standard deduction is about $12,000. Let's double that to about $24,000. That $24,000 amount for families would mean that the first $24,000 of income that you would make as a family would fall into that 0-percent bracket. So you are paying zero income tax to the Federal Government until you make more than $24,000. That protects a lot of families in the lowest end of the bracket to make sure they are not falling into this.

Quite frankly, in Oklahoma, most Oklahomans just use the standard deduction. They don't itemize. Doubling the standard deduction would mean that for a lot of those specialized deductions that everyone else gets, it actually flattens that out. It makes it fair. The No. 1 thing I hear from people when they fill out their taxes is not only that they filled them out and turned them in, but they say: I have no idea whether I did them right. It was so complicated, and I don't know if it is right. Then, the second thing they say, though, right behind that, is this: Why is it that, when I read through the hundred pages of instructions on the 1040 form, every deduction seems to be for someone else?

So let's increase the standard deduction so everybody gets a flatter, simpler, and fairer system, and let's keep the biggest of the deductions that most Americans use, like the charitable deduction or the mortgage interest deduction. If there are any two deductions that most people use, it is those two. So let's protect those two in the system.

As for reducing the corporate tax rate, I have folks say that it only benefits the biggest businesses. I always smile and say: Those are actually people who employ people. If you reduce the corporate rate, that means they are more competitive internationally and that means they are not having to move their corporate headquarters overseas.

For years, as a nation we have used the carrot-and-stick approach on trying to keep businesses here in the United States; that is, if they go overseas, beat them with a stick and try to punish them for trying to move. Why don't we use the carrot approach? Why don't we find out why they are moving overseas and fix that? Many of these companies are moving overseas because of the very high corporate tax rate here in the United States. Let's fix that. Over the decades, many of our competing nations have done that. We should fix that. That increases the number of jobs, that increases economic activity, and that keeps American jobs in America.

We should deal with the child tax credit and continue to be able to protect that for families.

We can deal with how we do expensing. Now, if you don't run a business, that doesn't matter much to you. But if you are the one who owns the small business, you understand how expensing works. If you have a cost to your business this year and if you can't write it off in this year, you have to expand that out, and you know that slows you down.

Here are the basics. If you are running a small business and you need to buy a new pickup for your business, if it takes you years to be able to depreciate that out, you are slower to do it. But if you know you can depreciate it out this year in your business, you are more likely to buy that. So that business buys a new truck this year. Well, that not only benefits that business in having new equipment, but it also benefits the Ford dealership down the street that actually sold them the truck, and it benefits all of the people in the area who helped supply that vehicle. So it trickles down through the rest of the economy.

There are ways to be able to accomplish all of these things and to be able to be as simple as we possibly can be.

There has been a lot of conversation about worldwide taxation as well. People seem to get confused on that area because most people don't live in that world. Here are the basics of it: Right now, if you are an American company and you are selling things overseas and

doing business overseas, when you make a profit overseas and you try to bring that money back, you get taxed overseas at their tax rate, which you should, in that country you are making the product and selling it, but you get taxed again when you bring it back to the United States. We are the only country that does it that way.

If we will just simplify the system, it will actually encourage companies to be able to stay in America and then do business all over the world rather than moving their company out of America. It is a simple way to be able to do it, and it is a way that we can do and should do. You will hear the term ``repatriation,'' and that is really what it is about. It is Americans being able to move their money from overseas accounts back to the United States and get that money moving.

There was a lot of conversation about the stimulus plan back in 2009 trying to get almost a trillion dollars of government money--that is money from you and me--and to be able to move that around in a stimulus package. Let me give you the figure. Right now, it is estimated that American companies have about $2.5 trillion of private money parked overseas that they are not going to bring back to our economy because of the high cost of the tax coming back. If we were able to change that system, $2.5 trillion of private money would move from overseas back into the United States. What effect would that have on our economy? I would stipulate that it would be a pretty dramatic effect that it would have on our economy.

We can fix this. We can resolve this. This shouldn't be as hard as we are making it, and it can be a bipartisan approach to be able to address some basic things--taking care of our families, making sure we are watching out for those who are in poverty, simplifying the code, making sure deductions aren't for a few but that they are spread out across the way that we handle it, protecting things like charitable giving and the mortgage interest deduction and things that most Americans use. These are the parameters we are trying to be able to work through over the next couple of weeks.

Hopefully in the coming months, as we work through all the details in the committee process with amendments and coming to the floor and being able fight our way through the process, we will be able to actually get to a decision that will help us long term as a nation. This is something that can and should be resolved. It is one of the issues I have to raise to this body again.

This body has had a hard time actually moving on the biggest issues we face as a nation because the rules of this body prohibit us from debating them. The rules haven't changed over the past multiple decades, but the way we operate has. The American people are ticked about it, and rightfully so. The Senators in this body are frustrated with it. May I remind us that the rules of the Senate are set by the Senate? So if we are frustrated with the rules, we should address them.

Many of you have heard me speak about this in the past.

There are three basic rule changes that I think will change dramatically how business gets done in the Senate. The biggest one is the filibuster rule. We have two filibusters for every single bill that comes up. There is one at the beginning. You have to get 60 votes to start debate; you have to get 60 votes to stop debate; then the bill passes with 51. That needs to change. We should take away the first 60 votes at the beginning. We should be able to get onto a bill. Regardless of whether it is Republicans or Democrats in the majority, the majority party should be able to bring up a bill and debate it without being stopped. Let's bring up any issue and actually debate it. Let's not inhibit debate in this body. If we can't find agreement, keep the 60 votes at the end of it so we can keep the debate going until it gets resolved, but we should be able to debate the issues.

The second big issue is that we have to deal with nominations in an appropriate time period. Currently, my Democratic colleagues are forcing the long periods of time in debate for every single nominee who comes up. I had folks say that is what Republicans did in the past. That is actually not true. This is the first time it has happened like this.

This week, we are going to move four nominees for the President in 1 week--four. Under the current structure, it will take 11 years for President Trump to get his staff. Let me give you a barometer of where things have been in the past. As of yesterday, President Trump had 153 confirmations. At this same point, President Obama had 337 total. President Bush had 358 total at this same point. President Trump is not getting his nominees heard, and they are being slow-walked through the process.

We have to fix that. A simple way to fix it is to allow only 2, 4, or 8 hours of debate, not this protracted 30 hours of debate per nominee. It is already a resolved issue. Everybody knows it. These individuals have already gone through committee. They were already voted on in committee. By the time they get to the floor, it is resolved. The 30 hours of debate time is purely delay tactics. We should be able to resolve that within 2, 4, or 8 hours total.

Here is a radical idea: If we want to get the Senate going again, we can agree to a rule change that would allow for what is called dual- tracking. We would do nominations in the morning and legislation in the afternoon. Right now, we can only do one thing at a time in the Senate, so while we are waiting on a nomination vote, everything waits until that is done. It slows down the process. Why can't we do nominations in the morning and legislation in the afternoon?

There are basic rule changes that will help that are not partisan issues. They are designed to get the Senate moving regardless of who is in the majority. We have to resolve this long term. If we don't, the American people will continue to be frustrated, and we as Senators will continue to be frustrated.

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