Floor Statements

Madam President, I have been listening to the remarks of the Senator from Florida. I find myself in agreement with him. I want to elaborate a little bit. For that reason, I ask unanimous consent that my 10 minutes be extended to 15 minutes should I need that time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, EDA. EDA works with partners in economically distressed communities to create wealth and minimize poverty by promoting favorable business environments to attract private investment and encourage long-term economic growth. Authorization of EDA's programs expired on September 30, 2008. I originally introduced this bill in July 2008 so that we could avert this lapse in authorization. Unfortunately, my bill was never enacted, so I am reintroducing it today.

Unlike the majority of the spending in the so-called ``stimulus'' bill passed by the Senate earlier this week, EDA investments actually provide economic benefits. In fact, studies show that EDA uses federal dollars efficiently and effectively, creating and retaining long-term jobs at an average cost that is among the lowest in government. Knowing that, I was pleased to see some funding for EDA included in that massive spending bill; I only wish more of that bill had been legitimate economic stimulus.

Last year, I was disappointed to see an Obama campaign document refer to EDA as wasteful and ineffective government spending and propose cutbacks in funding for the agency. While I, too, am committed to eliminating wasteful spending, I couldn't disagree more with that characterization of EDA.

In my home State of Oklahoma, for example, EDA has worked long and hard with many communities in need to bring in private capital investment and jobs. Durant, Clinton, Oklahoma City, Seminole, Miami and Elgin are just some of the Oklahoma communities that have made good use of EDA assistance. In fact, over the past six years, EDA grants awarded in my home state have resulted in more than 9,000 jobs being created or saved. With an investment of about $26 million, we have leveraged another 30 million in State and local dollars and more than 558 million in private sector dollars. I would call that a wonderful success story.

Particularly in these difficult economic times, we should be doing all we can to ensure the continuation of such successful programs, and reauthorization is an important step. I hope now-President Obama reconsiders the rhetoric of then-candidate Obama and recognizes the effectiveness and importance of this agency. I look forward to working with my colleagues here in the Senate, as well as in the House of Representatives, to reauthorize the programs of the Economic Development Administration as quickly as possible.

Mr. President, I am introducing today a joint resolution, S.J. Res. 10, with Congressman Trent Franks introducing the identical joint resolution in the House, which sets a minimum baseline for defense spending.

By establishing a minimum defense base budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic growth.

For the past few weeks, this Congress has been debating an economic stimulus plan. Defense spending, along with infrastructure spending and tax cuts, has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than some of the provisions in there. In fact, I had amendments, which I will describe in a minute, that would have increased the percentage in this huge bill, so that you would have maybe up to 10 percent for transportation infrastructure and then defense--I will explain that in more detail later.

Our level of defense spending must consider the resources needed to meet current and future needs. In order to provide this stability, Congress needs to guarantee a not less than baseline in defense funding, enabling the Pentagon to execute sustained multiyear program investments. Guaranteeing a

baseline budget, not including supplemental, that sets the floor based on our GDP is the best way to accomplish this.

At this point, I acknowledge that I had an experience back during the first hearing we had for the confirmation of then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I asked the question at that time: We have serious problems. We don't know what our future needs are going to be. We may think we know what they are going to be today--and we have a lot of smart generals who will tell us, but they are going to be wrong. I remember at that time I said that in 1994 someone testified and said in 10 years we would no longer need to have a ground force, that everything would be done from the air in a precision, clean way. That would be awfully nice, but that is not the way it happened. I said, recognizing that we need to have the best of everything, what would be your recommendation? He said that he made a study of this--it was not his, but he said that if you will go back and study it over the last 100 years, the average amount of defense spending has been 5.7 percent of GDP. That was all during the 20th century, for 100 years.

Now, we went down at the end of the 1990 to as low as 2.9 percent, and now we are at 3.6 percent. The problem is the predictability. It is not there. We don't know in these systems what we can rely on. We know the cost of closing down a manufacturing line, but we don't have the predictability we need.

There are some who think by cutting unnecessary weapons systems along with reforming DOD's procurement process, we can reduce defense spending and still maintain a military level that could defend our Nation and reach the minimum expectations of the American people. The problem with that is that it doesn't happen that way. Yes, we need acquisition reform, I agree. But the overall budget outlays and the problems we have--this alone will not rebuild our military.

We could eliminate weapons systems that are called low-hanging fruit. That has already been done several years ago. I think we all remember-- and some would rather forget--that after the Cold War, there were so many in this Chamber who said we were in a position then where we did not need the military because the Cold War was over. We talked about all kinds of schemes that would transfer previous military spending into current spending for social programs. This is the way people were thinking at that time, that the Cold War is over. They had this euphoric attitude that we didn't need to continue a strong defense.

We have been trying to get past a bow wave created in the 1990s. As a result, the amount of defense spending actually appropriated during that 8 years, the 1990s, was $412 billion above the budget request. In other words, the budget request was $412 billion below what was sustained at the beginning of that 8-year period. This is what we are paying for now. Little did we know at that time that 9/11 would come, and that while we are trying to rebuild our military in terms of modernization, force strength, we would be attacked and have to start defending America and prosecuting a war.

I believe we should spend only as much as we need to ensure our national defense--no more, no less. This joint resolution sets a minimum baseline for defense spending. By establishing a minimum defense budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic health.

First, it will allow our military to develop and build the next generation of weapons and equipment. This is something we have been concerned about--weapons and equipment that will be needed to maintain our national security over the next 40 years or more. The age of the last KC-135R, when it retires, will be 70 years old, and the B-52 will be even older than that. We are still doing this. We need this contribution for more heavy equipment. Right now, we have gotten into a problem of not developing them. They say the old KC-135R--we have a few more years on that. If we started today on a new lift vehicle to replace that, it would be several years before we would be able to have these replaced.

The second thing is it will create and maintain jobs across America and sustain our military industrial base. Investing in our Nation's defense provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our national security at the same time. Experts estimate that each $1 billion in procurement spending correlates to 6,500 jobs.

Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the United States with our aerospace industry alone employing 655,000 workers spread across 44 States. The U.S. shipbuilding industry supports more than 400,000 workers in 47 States.

Establishing a minimum baseline defense budget will allow the Department of Defense and the services to plan for and fund acquisition programs based on a minimum known budget through what we call our FYDP program.

We are no longer able to complete purchases of large acquisition programs in 3 to 5 years. The KC-X will take over 30 years to complete once its contract is awarded. We will still be flying these up until that time.

Programming from a known minimum budget for the outyears will translate to less programming and more stability for thousands of businesses throughout the United States at decreased costs.

This week, I voted against this massive Government spending bill that provided plenty in the way of more wasteful Government spending and little in the way of stimulative opportunities such as defense spending.

I offered two amendments. One would have increased defense spending, and without changing the top line of the bill that was before us, it would change within it to have more defense spending and provide jobs. At the same time, in this entire $900 billion--or whatever it ends up being--bill that we are prepared to vote on out of conference, only $27 billion was in roads, bridges, and the things that Americans know we need.

If we had that along with the additional amount or percentage that would go to defense spending, it would equate to an increase of an additional 4 million jobs. This is what we have heard President Obama talking about for quite some time. That is one way to do it. At the same time, we have something that is lasting.

We--and certainly the Chair knows this because she sits on the same committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee--we are going to be doing a reauthorization of the highway bill. There is more we could have done in this particular bill that is totally inadequate in terms of putting people to work. The amendments we offered were defeated.

Today Congressman Trent Franks and I are simultaneously offering a joint resolution to keep this country safe, restore our military to the level of capability and readiness the people of this country demand, and provide for sustainable jobs in almost every State in the country.

By voting for this joint resolution, we send a clear signal to our military, to our allies, to our enemies--all alike--that we are committed to the security of this Nation and that we will not have to go through something like we went through during the nineties.

One of the great heroes of our time is GEN John Jumper. Before he was Chief of the Air Force, he stood in 1998 and made a very courageous statement. He said now the Russians are cranking out through their SU- 30s, SU-35s, a strike vehicle better than anything we have in this country. The best ones at that time were the F-15 and F-16. Had it not been for his statement as a wakeup call to the American people, China, that bought a bunch of SU vehicles from Russia would have better vehicles than we were sending up with our fliers in potential combat. All of a sudden, we were able to turn around and start programs such as the F-22 and F-35 so we could be No. 1.

The American people assume all the time we are No. 1, and obviously we are not. When the American people find out the best artillery piece we have right now, which is called Paladin--it is World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breach after every shot. It is outrageous. Prospective enemies in the field would have better equipment than we would have.

The best way to do this and ensure this in the future is to have a baseline. I am hoping we will get the support of enough Senators to get this passed in both the House and the Senate since it is a joint resolution.

Lastly, let me address some of the points that were said by the Senator

from Florida. I agree with all his comments. He is a little nicer about it than I am, I guess. Don't lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be a stimulus bill, not a spending bill. But it is a spending bill.

We had people analyze what in this bill will stimulat the economy. There are two things that can do it: the right types of tax relief. We know this is true. We remember what happened during President Kennedy's term and the recommendation he made when he said we have to have more revenues to run our Great Society programs. The best way to increase revenue is decrease marginal rates. He decreased marginal rates. Between the years 1961 and 1968, our revenues increased by 62 percent. Unbelievable.

In the year 1980, the total amount of money that came from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled in the decade when we had the greatest reductions in capital gains rates, in marginal rates, inheritance tax rates.

There are only two very minor items in this bill that address the tax situation. One has to do with accelerated depreciation. Another is with loss carryback, increasing it from 2 years to 5 years, I believe it is. If you add that together in terms of the cost that is in the bill, this $900 billion bill we are going to be passing, we have to keep in mind that is a very small part. It amounts to about 3\1/3\ percent. The other way you can stimulate is to increase jobs.

I mentioned we had an amendment to increase jobs. It is outrageous that there is only $27 billion worth of highway construction, road construction, and bridge construction that we desperately need in this country in this bill.

We have right now $64 billion worth of shovel-ready jobs that we could actually produce in this country, and all we have is 3\1/3\ percent of the entire amount of $900 billion going to that type of program. That is where I come up with the conclusion that this bill is 7 percent stimulus and 93 percent spending.

I have to tell you, back when the first $700 billion program came along in October, yes, that came from our administration, a Republican administration, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury. But also the Democrats were all very enthusiastically behind it. I opposed it at that time and said there are two problems with it. No. 1, this amount of money, $700 billion, is more money, it is the largest expenditure, largest authorization in the history of the world, and we are giving it, No. 2, to a guy with no guidelines, without any kind of oversight.

We have seen now that has not worked. Now we have the second half of that, and we find out yesterday the current Secretary of the Treasury is going to use it any way he wants. Again, no oversight. This was a horrible mistake. That was the $700 billion last October.

Now we are faced with something far greater than that. I know it is going to go through. It is a Democratic bill. It is not a bipartisan bill. It is not a compromise. It is a Democratic bill. They took the House bill and the Senate bill and something will come from that. Whether it is closer to the House bill or the Senate bill, it does not matter. It is going to be close to $900 billion, something we should not have had.

We are thinking in new terms now. I used to say back during the $700 billion, if you take the total number of families in America who are filing tax returns and do your math, it comes to $5,000 a family. That was bad enough. This bill comes to $17,400 a family over a 10-year period. That is what we have to start thinking about.

I am hoping the American people will look at this bill and realize this gigantic spending bill follows a philosophy that you can spend your way out of a recession. It has never happened before. It is not going to happen with this bill.

We want to do the very best we can. I know President Obama did not want to go as far this way. I think the House and the Senate have steered this into a bigger spending bill than he would have liked. I think he would have liked more stimulants in this bill.

Let's do the best we can with it and then let's get busy and try the things we know have worked in the past and will work in the future.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill to reauthorize the Economic Development Administration, EDA. EDA works with partners in economically distressed communities to create wealth and minimize poverty by promoting favorable business environments to attract private investment and encourage long-term economic growth. Authorization of EDA's programs expired on September 30, 2008. I originally introduced this bill in July 2008 so that we could avert this lapse in authorization. Unfortunately, my bill was never enacted, so I am reintroducing it today.

Unlike the majority of the spending in the so-called ``stimulus'' bill passed by the Senate earlier this week, EDA investments actually provide economic benefits. In fact, studies show that EDA uses federal dollars efficiently and effectively, creating and retaining long-term jobs at an average cost that is among the lowest in government. Knowing that, I was pleased to see some funding for EDA included in that massive spending bill; I only wish more of that bill had been legitimate economic stimulus.

Last year, I was disappointed to see an Obama campaign document refer to EDA as wasteful and ineffective government spending and propose cutbacks in funding for the agency. While I, too, am committed to eliminating wasteful spending, I couldn't disagree more with that characterization of EDA.

In my home State of Oklahoma, for example, EDA has worked long and hard with many communities in need to bring in private capital investment and jobs. Durant, Clinton, Oklahoma City, Seminole, Miami and Elgin are just some of the Oklahoma communities that have made good use of EDA assistance. In fact, over the past six years, EDA grants awarded in my home state have resulted in more than 9,000 jobs being created or saved. With an investment of about $26 million, we have leveraged another 30 million in State and local dollars and more than 558 million in private sector dollars. I would call that a wonderful success story.

Particularly in these difficult economic times, we should be doing all we can to ensure the continuation of such successful programs, and reauthorization is an important step. I hope now-President Obama reconsiders the rhetoric of then-candidate Obama and recognizes the effectiveness and importance of this agency. I look forward to working with my colleagues here in the Senate, as well as in the House of Representatives, to reauthorize the programs of the Economic Development Administration as quickly as possible.

Mr. President, I am introducing today a joint resolution, S.J. Res. 10, with Congressman Trent Franks introducing the identical joint resolution in the House, which sets a minimum baseline for defense spending.

By establishing a minimum defense base budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic growth.

For the past few weeks, this Congress has been debating an economic stimulus plan. Defense spending, along with infrastructure spending and tax cuts, has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than some of the provisions in there. In fact, I had amendments, which I will describe in a minute, that would have increased the percentage in this huge bill, so that you would have maybe up to 10 percent for transportation infrastructure and then defense--I will explain that in more detail later.

Our level of defense spending must consider the resources needed to meet current and future needs. In order to provide this stability, Congress needs to guarantee a not less than baseline in defense funding, enabling the Pentagon to execute sustained multiyear program investments. Guaranteeing a

baseline budget, not including supplemental, that sets the floor based on our GDP is the best way to accomplish this.

At this point, I acknowledge that I had an experience back during the first hearing we had for the confirmation of then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. I asked the question at that time: We have serious problems. We don't know what our future needs are going to be. We may think we know what they are going to be today--and we have a lot of smart generals who will tell us, but they are going to be wrong. I remember at that time I said that in 1994 someone testified and said in 10 years we would no longer need to have a ground force, that everything would be done from the air in a precision, clean way. That would be awfully nice, but that is not the way it happened. I said, recognizing that we need to have the best of everything, what would be your recommendation? He said that he made a study of this--it was not his, but he said that if you will go back and study it over the last 100 years, the average amount of defense spending has been 5.7 percent of GDP. That was all during the 20th century, for 100 years.

Now, we went down at the end of the 1990 to as low as 2.9 percent, and now we are at 3.6 percent. The problem is the predictability. It is not there. We don't know in these systems what we can rely on. We know the cost of closing down a manufacturing line, but we don't have the predictability we need.

There are some who think by cutting unnecessary weapons systems along with reforming DOD's procurement process, we can reduce defense spending and still maintain a military level that could defend our Nation and reach the minimum expectations of the American people. The problem with that is that it doesn't happen that way. Yes, we need acquisition reform, I agree. But the overall budget outlays and the problems we have--this alone will not rebuild our military.

We could eliminate weapons systems that are called low-hanging fruit. That has already been done several years ago. I think we all remember-- and some would rather forget--that after the Cold War, there were so many in this Chamber who said we were in a position then where we did not need the military because the Cold War was over. We talked about all kinds of schemes that would transfer previous military spending into current spending for social programs. This is the way people were thinking at that time, that the Cold War is over. They had this euphoric attitude that we didn't need to continue a strong defense.

We have been trying to get past a bow wave created in the 1990s. As a result, the amount of defense spending actually appropriated during that 8 years, the 1990s, was $412 billion above the budget request. In other words, the budget request was $412 billion below what was sustained at the beginning of that 8-year period. This is what we are paying for now. Little did we know at that time that 9/11 would come, and that while we are trying to rebuild our military in terms of modernization, force strength, we would be attacked and have to start defending America and prosecuting a war.

I believe we should spend only as much as we need to ensure our national defense--no more, no less. This joint resolution sets a minimum baseline for defense spending. By establishing a minimum defense budget of 4 percent, this country can achieve two critical needs--national security and economic health.

First, it will allow our military to develop and build the next generation of weapons and equipment. This is something we have been concerned about--weapons and equipment that will be needed to maintain our national security over the next 40 years or more. The age of the last KC-135R, when it retires, will be 70 years old, and the B-52 will be even older than that. We are still doing this. We need this contribution for more heavy equipment. Right now, we have gotten into a problem of not developing them. They say the old KC-135R--we have a few more years on that. If we started today on a new lift vehicle to replace that, it would be several years before we would be able to have these replaced.

The second thing is it will create and maintain jobs across America and sustain our military industrial base. Investing in our Nation's defense provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our national security at the same time. Experts estimate that each $1 billion in procurement spending correlates to 6,500 jobs.

Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the United States with our aerospace industry alone employing 655,000 workers spread across 44 States. The U.S. shipbuilding industry supports more than 400,000 workers in 47 States.

Establishing a minimum baseline defense budget will allow the Department of Defense and the services to plan for and fund acquisition programs based on a minimum known budget through what we call our FYDP program.

We are no longer able to complete purchases of large acquisition programs in 3 to 5 years. The KC-X will take over 30 years to complete once its contract is awarded. We will still be flying these up until that time.

Programming from a known minimum budget for the outyears will translate to less programming and more stability for thousands of businesses throughout the United States at decreased costs.

This week, I voted against this massive Government spending bill that provided plenty in the way of more wasteful Government spending and little in the way of stimulative opportunities such as defense spending.

I offered two amendments. One would have increased defense spending, and without changing the top line of the bill that was before us, it would change within it to have more defense spending and provide jobs. At the same time, in this entire $900 billion--or whatever it ends up being--bill that we are prepared to vote on out of conference, only $27 billion was in roads, bridges, and the things that Americans know we need.

If we had that along with the additional amount or percentage that would go to defense spending, it would equate to an increase of an additional 4 million jobs. This is what we have heard President Obama talking about for quite some time. That is one way to do it. At the same time, we have something that is lasting.

We--and certainly the Chair knows this because she sits on the same committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee--we are going to be doing a reauthorization of the highway bill. There is more we could have done in this particular bill that is totally inadequate in terms of putting people to work. The amendments we offered were defeated.

Today Congressman Trent Franks and I are simultaneously offering a joint resolution to keep this country safe, restore our military to the level of capability and readiness the people of this country demand, and provide for sustainable jobs in almost every State in the country.

By voting for this joint resolution, we send a clear signal to our military, to our allies, to our enemies--all alike--that we are committed to the security of this Nation and that we will not have to go through something like we went through during the nineties.

One of the great heroes of our time is GEN John Jumper. Before he was Chief of the Air Force, he stood in 1998 and made a very courageous statement. He said now the Russians are cranking out through their SU- 30s, SU-35s, a strike vehicle better than anything we have in this country. The best ones at that time were the F-15 and F-16. Had it not been for his statement as a wakeup call to the American people, China, that bought a bunch of SU vehicles from Russia would have better vehicles than we were sending up with our fliers in potential combat. All of a sudden, we were able to turn around and start programs such as the F-22 and F-35 so we could be No. 1.

The American people assume all the time we are No. 1, and obviously we are not. When the American people find out the best artillery piece we have right now, which is called Paladin--it is World War II technology. You have to get out and swab the breach after every shot. It is outrageous. Prospective enemies in the field would have better equipment than we would have.

The best way to do this and ensure this in the future is to have a baseline. I am hoping we will get the support of enough Senators to get this passed in both the House and the Senate since it is a joint resolution.

Lastly, let me address some of the points that were said by the Senator

from Florida. I agree with all his comments. He is a little nicer about it than I am, I guess. Don't lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be a stimulus bill, not a spending bill. But it is a spending bill.

We had people analyze what in this bill will stimulat the economy. There are two things that can do it: the right types of tax relief. We know this is true. We remember what happened during President Kennedy's term and the recommendation he made when he said we have to have more revenues to run our Great Society programs. The best way to increase revenue is decrease marginal rates. He decreased marginal rates. Between the years 1961 and 1968, our revenues increased by 62 percent. Unbelievable.

In the year 1980, the total amount of money that came from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled in the decade when we had the greatest reductions in capital gains rates, in marginal rates, inheritance tax rates.

There are only two very minor items in this bill that address the tax situation. One has to do with accelerated depreciation. Another is with loss carryback, increasing it from 2 years to 5 years, I believe it is. If you add that together in terms of the cost that is in the bill, this $900 billion bill we are going to be passing, we have to keep in mind that is a very small part. It amounts to about 3\1/3\ percent. The other way you can stimulate is to increase jobs.

I mentioned we had an amendment to increase jobs. It is outrageous that there is only $27 billion worth of highway construction, road construction, and bridge construction that we desperately need in this country in this bill.

We have right now $64 billion worth of shovel-ready jobs that we could actually produce in this country, and all we have is 3\1/3\ percent of the entire amount of $900 billion going to that type of program. That is where I come up with the conclusion that this bill is 7 percent stimulus and 93 percent spending.

I have to tell you, back when the first $700 billion program came along in October, yes, that came from our administration, a Republican administration, a Republican Secretary of the Treasury. But also the Democrats were all very enthusiastically behind it. I opposed it at that time and said there are two problems with it. No. 1, this amount of money, $700 billion, is more money, it is the largest expenditure, largest authorization in the history of the world, and we are giving it, No. 2, to a guy with no guidelines, without any kind of oversight.

We have seen now that has not worked. Now we have the second half of that, and we find out yesterday the current Secretary of the Treasury is going to use it any way he wants. Again, no oversight. This was a horrible mistake. That was the $700 billion last October.

Now we are faced with something far greater than that. I know it is going to go through. It is a Democratic bill. It is not a bipartisan bill. It is not a compromise. It is a Democratic bill. They took the House bill and the Senate bill and something will come from that. Whether it is closer to the House bill or the Senate bill, it does not matter. It is going to be close to $900 billion, something we should not have had.

We are thinking in new terms now. I used to say back during the $700 billion, if you take the total number of families in America who are filing tax returns and do your math, it comes to $5,000 a family. That was bad enough. This bill comes to $17,400 a family over a 10-year period. That is what we have to start thinking about.

I am hoping the American people will look at this bill and realize this gigantic spending bill follows a philosophy that you can spend your way out of a recession. It has never happened before. It is not going to happen with this bill.

We want to do the very best we can. I know President Obama did not want to go as far this way. I think the House and the Senate have steered this into a bigger spending bill than he would have liked. I think he would have liked more stimulants in this bill.

Let's do the best we can with it and then let's get busy and try the things we know have worked in the past and will work in the future.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be recognized for 10 minutes.

I thank the Chair.

(The remarks of Mr. Inhofe pertaining to the introduction of S. 412 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill I had introduced with then-Senator Hillary Clinton on two previous occasions. It is interesting, because this bill didn't have a lot of opposition in the Senate. It did, however, have some opposition from the Bush administration. What we were attempting to do was to take the Federal Emergency Management Agency out from under where it was put, in the Department of Homeland Security, by the previous administration and give it independent status. This is something that has been talked about for a long period of time.

We can draw from our experience in Oklahoma and the fact that we had a devastating tornado go through--as we did last night, although it was even worse--which killed many people. At that time, James Lee Witt was the FEMA Director. He was President Clinton's appointee. I will always remember when that happened. A matter of a

few short hours after it happened, I called Mr. Witt and he met me in Oklahoma, and we got it done. At that time, FEMA was under the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was under the Stafford Act and virtually had independent status at that time.

Contrast that with only a few months ago when GEN Russel Honore, the general placed in charge of the military's relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, said that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security should be separate agencies. In an interview reported in Politico, General Honore said of FEMA:

I just think we've had some experience that demonstrates

that the best thing to do is separate it and make it a

separate agency.

Most importantly, President Obama said in remarks he delivered in New Orleans in February of last year:

If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to

call on a competent government . . . the Director of FEMA

will report to me . . . and as soon as we take office, my

FEMA director will work with emergency management officials

in all 50 States to create a National Response Plan. Because

we need to know--before disaster comes--who will be in

charge; and how the Federal, State and local governments will

work together to respond.

I talked to the President a few minutes ago. He still has these same feelings. I think it is very appropriate now to bring up something we had talked about before. I know the Democratic platform, for example, has a provision which states that the FEMA Director will report directly to the President, and I couldn't agree more. I don't agree with a lot of things from the Democratic platform, but I do agree with that.

Oklahoma has had more than its share of natural disasters. Only last night, three confirmed tornadoes touched down throughout Oklahoma, impacting the communities of Oklahoma City, Edmond, Pawnee, and a small community called Lone Grove. In Lone Grove, this very tiny community, eight people were killed. There are 35 still missing, so I think the death toll, unfortunately, could rise above that. I had occasion to talk to civic leaders there--Gary Hicks and city manager Marianne Elfert--this morning, and the number of Lone Grove residents who are missing right now is still not determined. So I think it is a real disaster.

It wasn't that long ago that we had the Eagle Picher area of Oklahoma hit by a tornado, and that was a very similar thing there, with seven deaths in that case. On May 1 of last year, I surveyed other tornado damage up there with Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Paulison, Governor Henry, and Congressman Boren. As I said, seven people were killed, but that didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have hoped.

FEMA's integration into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 added an extra layer of bureaucracy and removed much of the autonomy that once kept the agency operating efficiently. We learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that the extra coordination required between the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was at least partly responsible for the shortcomings of the Federal response. I visited the area right after Katrina, and I think they did a much better job than the press portrayed, but I still think that extra level of bureaucracy created a problem in getting things done immediately.

My legislation takes the necessary steps in giving the Director of FEMA Cabinet level status in the event of a natural disaster and acts of terrorism and makes that person the principal adviser to the President, Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. So we are kind of reversing it, and he is going to be in a Cabinet-level position. Obviously, things can then be done a lot faster and a lot better. Perhaps most importantly, the legislation defines the primary mission and specific activities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Director, and places directly upon them the obligation to ensure FEMA's mission is carried out.

Now, that is exactly what President Obama said while he was campaigning for President and what he reaffirmed to me today on the telephone.

Let me explain some other events that originally led me to introduce this legislation. Oklahoma first encountered significant problems with FEMA when wildfires ravaged the State in 2005 and 2006. These devastating wildfires swept through the entire State, leading to declarations for public assistance, individual assistance, and hazard mitigation funding. In January of 2007, Oklahoma encountered severe winter storms with devastating results. These storms led to prolonged loss of power and extensive building damage for many of my constituents. One of my constituents happened to be my wife--we have been married 49 years--and she was without electricity for 9 days, so that does get your attention.

Later this year, Oklahoma was hit by heavy rain, tornadoes, and flooding from May through September. The State made a number of disaster declarations during each of these periods, but each and every time, the process it took to obtain aid from FEMA became increasingly difficult, wrought with indecisiveness and an inability of Homeland Security to communicate with each other. Prior to the placement of FEMA under DHS, my State had not encountered nearly the same level of bureaucratic delays or communications as it has since that time.

Oklahoma has also struggled with FEMA regarding the determination of dates of incident periods, which is why I put language in my bill to give deference to the State's documentation regarding the dates of such incidents. Now, some of you guys are not from States where you have the number of disasters we have had, so it is something you are not as familiar with. But we certainly are. I see the junior Senator from Oklahoma on the floor here, and he knows too that we live through these things on a regular basis. We have had tornadoes, ice storms, windstorms, and other things people haven't had.

I think Senator Clinton and I were right when we introduced this the first time, and I believe it is consistent with what President Obama has reaffirmed to me as recently as today. It will be a better arrangement and I will be looking for supporters.

We have introduced the bill. It is S. 412. Again, this bill takes FEMA out from under DHS and gives it more of an independent status so it can respond in a more rapid way as it did prior to 2003.

Mr. President, today I am reintroducing a bill I had introduced with then-Senator Hillary Clinton on two previous occasions. It is interesting, because this bill didn't have a lot of opposition in the Senate. It did, however, have some opposition from the Bush administration. What we were attempting to do was to take the Federal Emergency Management Agency out from under where it was put, in the Department of Homeland Security, by the previous administration and give it independent status. This is something that has been talked about for a long period of time.

We can draw from our experience in Oklahoma and the fact that we had a devastating tornado go through--as we did last night, although it was even worse--which killed many people. At that time, James Lee Witt was the FEMA Director. He was President Clinton's appointee. I will always remember when that happened. A matter of a

few short hours after it happened, I called Mr. Witt and he met me in Oklahoma, and we got it done. At that time, FEMA was under the Environment and Public Works Committee. It was under the Stafford Act and virtually had independent status at that time.

Contrast that with only a few months ago when GEN Russel Honore, the general placed in charge of the military's relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina, said that FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security should be separate agencies. In an interview reported in Politico, General Honore said of FEMA:

I just think we've had some experience that demonstrates

that the best thing to do is separate it and make it a

separate agency.

Most importantly, President Obama said in remarks he delivered in New Orleans in February of last year:

If catastrophe comes, the American people must be able to

call on a competent government . . . the Director of FEMA

will report to me . . . and as soon as we take office, my

FEMA director will work with emergency management officials

in all 50 States to create a National Response Plan. Because

we need to know--before disaster comes--who will be in

charge; and how the Federal, State and local governments will

work together to respond.

I talked to the President a few minutes ago. He still has these same feelings. I think it is very appropriate now to bring up something we had talked about before. I know the Democratic platform, for example, has a provision which states that the FEMA Director will report directly to the President, and I couldn't agree more. I don't agree with a lot of things from the Democratic platform, but I do agree with that.

Oklahoma has had more than its share of natural disasters. Only last night, three confirmed tornadoes touched down throughout Oklahoma, impacting the communities of Oklahoma City, Edmond, Pawnee, and a small community called Lone Grove. In Lone Grove, this very tiny community, eight people were killed. There are 35 still missing, so I think the death toll, unfortunately, could rise above that. I had occasion to talk to civic leaders there--Gary Hicks and city manager Marianne Elfert--this morning, and the number of Lone Grove residents who are missing right now is still not determined. So I think it is a real disaster.

It wasn't that long ago that we had the Eagle Picher area of Oklahoma hit by a tornado, and that was a very similar thing there, with seven deaths in that case. On May 1 of last year, I surveyed other tornado damage up there with Secretary Chertoff and FEMA Director Paulison, Governor Henry, and Congressman Boren. As I said, seven people were killed, but that didn't go quite as smoothly as we would have hoped.

FEMA's integration into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 added an extra layer of bureaucracy and removed much of the autonomy that once kept the agency operating efficiently. We learned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that the extra coordination required between the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was at least partly responsible for the shortcomings of the Federal response. I visited the area right after Katrina, and I think they did a much better job than the press portrayed, but I still think that extra level of bureaucracy created a problem in getting things done immediately.

My legislation takes the necessary steps in giving the Director of FEMA Cabinet level status in the event of a natural disaster and acts of terrorism and makes that person the principal adviser to the President, Homeland Security Council, and the Secretary of Homeland Security. So we are kind of reversing it, and he is going to be in a Cabinet-level position. Obviously, things can then be done a lot faster and a lot better. Perhaps most importantly, the legislation defines the primary mission and specific activities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Director, and places directly upon them the obligation to ensure FEMA's mission is carried out.

Now, that is exactly what President Obama said while he was campaigning for President and what he reaffirmed to me today on the telephone.

Let me explain some other events that originally led me to introduce this legislation. Oklahoma first encountered significant problems with FEMA when wildfires ravaged the State in 2005 and 2006. These devastating wildfires swept through the entire State, leading to declarations for public assistance, individual assistance, and hazard mitigation funding. In January of 2007, Oklahoma encountered severe winter storms with devastating results. These storms led to prolonged loss of power and extensive building damage for many of my constituents. One of my constituents happened to be my wife--we have been married 49 years--and she was without electricity for 9 days, so that does get your attention.

Later this year, Oklahoma was hit by heavy rain, tornadoes, and flooding from May through September. The State made a number of disaster declarations during each of these periods, but each and every time, the process it took to obtain aid from FEMA became increasingly difficult, wrought with indecisiveness and an inability of Homeland Security to communicate with each other. Prior to the placement of FEMA under DHS, my State had not encountered nearly the same level of bureaucratic delays or communications as it has since that time.

Oklahoma has also struggled with FEMA regarding the determination of dates of incident periods, which is why I put language in my bill to give deference to the State's documentation regarding the dates of such incidents. Now, some of you guys are not from States where you have the number of disasters we have had, so it is something you are not as familiar with. But we certainly are. I see the junior Senator from Oklahoma on the floor here, and he knows too that we live through these things on a regular basis. We have had tornadoes, ice storms, windstorms, and other things people haven't had.

I think Senator Clinton and I were right when we introduced this the first time, and I believe it is consistent with what President Obama has reaffirmed to me as recently as today. It will be a better arrangement and I will be looking for supporters.

We have introduced the bill. It is S. 412. Again, this bill takes FEMA out from under DHS and gives it more of an independent status so it can respond in a more rapid way as it did prior to 2003.

Madam President, first, let me state something that is unexpected at this time. I was with Wade Paschal yesterday, and we were talking a little bit about love, something we don't see or sense a lot of in this body. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, there are three things--faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. I find myself faced with this dichotomy sometimes with feeling this and yet telling the truth at the same time because sometimes the truth isn't that prevalent around here either.

I had an unpleasant experience last Thursday with the junior Senator from West Virginia. I was pretty well assailed in different ways, and yet it really didn't bother me. Keith Oberlin called me the worst person in the world; Vanity Fair, a conspiracy theorist. I have to say this, though: At least they are all liberals. I love them all.

Having said that, let me discuss the politics of what is happening right now because this is something I think is going to end up being a positive thing for Republicans. I know not many people have thought this through in the same way I am going to present it.

Tonight the Senate will vote on whether to shut off debate--well, first of all, it needs to be clarified. A lot of people do not know what is going to happen tonight. I have been asked a lot of questions: Is it tonight at 5:30 or tomorrow? The key vote is tonight. This one needs 60 votes to cut off a filibuster. They have to have, in this Senate, two Republicans. If all Republicans stuck together in this Senate, such as they did in the House last week, this legislation would be dead. It wouldn't go anywhere. However, that is not what is going to happen.

Martin Feldstein called this an $800 billion mistake. He is not the only one disappointed in the Senate. Democrats worked hard in the past week to make this nearly a $900 billion mistake. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office reported, during the House consideration of its $820 billion version of this spending bill, that the cost of servicing the debt on all new debt created by this bill would be roughly $347 billion over 10 years, which means at $820 billion, the real cost, as we have heard before from many other people, would be $1.2 trillion.

It is a hard thing for people to grasp. It is hard for me. I remember when we were talking about the $700 billion bill that came up last October in the bailout, as it has been called, trying to put that into words so people would understand it.

If you take the 140 million families who file tax returns--and do your math--that is $5,000 a family. Now we are talking about something far greater than that.

I have been quoted as saying this bill we are going to be considering at 5:30 p.m. today is 93 percent spending and 7 percent stimulant. We know what stimulant is. We know what it takes to stimulate the economy. When I talk about what is in this bill to stimulate, I find only two things. One, a very small tax provision, accelerated depreciation and a loss carryback provision and, second, it has $27 billion in highway construction. This is interesting because the House bill actually had $30 billion. My feeling is if we are going to spend all this money, let's at least get something for it, provide some jobs, get some roads, highways and bridges, things this country needs. But they elected not to do that.

If you add together the accelerated depreciation and the tax benefits, that is about 3\1/2\ percent, and the $27 billion is about 3\1/2\ percent of the total amount we are going to be talking about. That is where you get 7 percent of stimulus and 93 percent spending.

We know what works. That is the issue that is frustrating to a lot of people. We know how to stimulate the economy. We have done it. At the end of World War I, they said: We raised taxes to support the war. Now we are going to reduce taxes because we don't need that money anymore. They reduced taxes, and it increased the revenues.

The real one who discovered this who had the foresight was President Kennedy. President Kennedy, during that time, made a statement that we have to have more revenue to run all these Great Society programs, and the best way to increase revenue is to reduce marginal rates. He did. He lowered tax rates across the board. He helped create the longest economic expansion in American history.

Listen to this: Between 1961 and 1968, the economy grew by 42 percent--42 percent. Fast forward to the eighties. In the eighties, we had a President named Ronald Reagan. In 1980, the total amount of revenue that was derived from the marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. It almost doubled in the decade that had the largest tax reductions in this Nation's history. So we know what we can do.

I have to say that a lot of this started with the $700 billion mistake that was made, in my opinion, back in October. The Senate voted 74 to 25 to empower one unelected bureaucrat to buy billions of dollars' worth of troubled assets. As it turned out, interestingly enough, he didn't do that. That is what he said he was going to do. That is

what he told me personally he was going to do.

Finally, after all this bailout mania extended to the auto industry, Congress had the opportunity to redeem itself on the second half of that $700 billion mistake. In that vote, 33 Republicans and only 9 Democrats voted disapproving release of the second $350 billion.

We have to look at what has been going on in the debate. We are debating this multibillion-dollar legislation, and I think some of my Republican colleagues are too gracious to lay collective blame where it should be, and that is clearly on the Democratic side.

As the House considered this spending bill in a vote of 244 to 188, not a single Republican voted in favor of the $820 billion spending bill. Only by Republicans sticking together, 100 percent together in the Senate, can we stop this $1.2 trillion mistake. But should it pass this week, no one should be fooled and think it was done in a bipartisan way.

At the end of the Senate's consideration of H.R. 1, we are voting tonight to end debate on what is going to be called a compromise proposal. It is being called a compromise proposal. Let me tell the American people that the vote tonight on a proposal supported by all the Democrats and two Republicans is the furthest thing from a compromise proposal. In fact, the proposal we are now considering makes this past week in the Senate a waste of all our time.

Why do I say that? Let's look at the numbers. The House passed an $820 billion bill. In the Senate, we started with nearly $855 billion, more than the House. Although the compromise proposal reportedly only costs $780 billion, it includes the cost-raising amendments the Senate considered, bringing the price tag to around $827 billion. So what we are going to be considering tonight is actually $7 billion more than the House bill.

I do believe Senator McCain made an excellent statement. I am going to read the statement because I think he captures it. This is on the floor of the Senate. He said:

There are 178 Members of the House of Representatives who

are Republicans. They all voted against the bill, plus 11

Democrats. There are 40 Republican Senators here. We now have

2, count them, 2, who have decided behind closed doors,

without consultation with the other 38, to come to an

agreement, which you can call it a lot of things but

bipartisan isn't one of them, unless you say that 2

individuals and possibly a third, but no more than that out

of 40, are in agreement. I've been involved in a lot of

bipartisan legislation . . .

What we are talking about is 2 out of 535 in the Congress. This cannot be considered by anyone to be bipartisan.

I offered some amendments I thought would be good that would actually stimulate the economy. There are two of them. One was to redirect over $5 billion from programs, such as television coupons, trail improvements, renovations to Federal buildings in Washington, DC, to military spending and procurement. According to economic reports by Standard & Poor's, defense spending along with infrastructure investment and tax cuts has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than anything else the Government can do. However, how did my amendment fare? Thirty-seven Republicans and Senator Lieberman voted in favor of it. All the Democrats voted against it.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to continue speaking for another 10 minutes.

Five is fine.

Madam President, that is part of it. The other is infrastructure. To cut this short, the Department of Transportation recently estimated that for every $1 million invested in highways and bridges, 27,800 jobs were created, and the last jobless numbers show that 899,000 construction workers have lost their jobs. If you do the math and take both these amendments, had they been adopted, it would have provided over 4 million jobs. This is the number President Obama has talked about doing. Again, it should not have been defeated, but it was right down party lines.

We have had several amendments. Senator McCain had probably the best one because it substituted reducing payroll taxes, lowering marginal rates, lowering corporate rates, offering accelerated depreciation for small business. This is exactly what Presidents Kennedy and Reagan did. On this amendment, all the Republicans voted for it and all the Democrats voted against it.

A bipartisan amendment was offered to allow repatriation of foreign earnings at a reduced tax rate.

Senator DeMint offered a substitute with provisions to reduce corporate taxes and individual marginal rates, repeal the AMT, reduce capital gains and estate taxes. The result of that amendment was 36 Republicans supporting it and 57 Democrats opposing it.

Senator Thune offered a substitute to reduce marginal rates, offer AMT relief, offer bonus depreciation and small business tax relief, deductions for health coverage, and homebuyer assistance. The result of that amendment was 37 Republicans supporting it and 57 Democrats opposing it.

All these amendments would have stimulated the economy; however, they were all killed down party lines.

The reasons I said at the beginning--and I planned to get into a lot more detail, but I didn't know we would be operating under the rules under which we are operating. This does have a happy ending. Katie, my daughter--Senator Kyl was talking about his two grandchildren. These are my 20 kids and grandchildren. I equally have a great concern over what is happening. This little girl, Katie, my daughter, and these little girls asked the question: What does the United States do? If we did that, would our country go bankrupt?

I said: No. I want you to remember 1992. In 1992, a very similar thing happened. We had a Democrat in the White House, we had a Democratic-controlled House, a Democratic-controlled Senate, and we saw what happened. They started spending money. We had Hillary health care. All these things the American people know won't work.

So I would say this: I believe what is happening today, as bad as it sounds to conservatives right now, are things that can change this, if it will get the attention of the American people. I believe we are going through the same thing we did in 1992 and we are going to have the same results we had in 1994. This is the largest spending in the history of humankind and in the history of the world, and it is something we should not let happen, but it is going to happen right down party lines.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object--I object.

Mr. President, I have been talking for a couple of days now about two amendments that if the American people knew we had the option to do this, they would be very enthusiastic about joining us.

We supposedly have a stimulus bill that should be coming in two categories, one in tax provisions that would stimulate the economy, and the other is in work that needs to be done. I am talking specifically about highways.

I am the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. The chairman of the Committee, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, and I have introduced the amendment No. 374. To me it is a little bit naive to think we would have a bill that only has less than 3 percent of the money that would actually go to highways and to the projects that are ready, as they call them spade ready. So this would increase that amount to $50 billion. But it is done in a rather unique way. The amendment would not take funds, only the funds that would be not obligated within a year up to $50 billion from programs in the stimulus that are not spending or redirecting them to highways.

Now, I would assume that if something has been hanging around here for 12 months, it is not going to be stimulating the economy immediately. So that is what I want to bring up. I at least want to make an effort--I would hate to think that after all of this we have gone through, that I did not even make an effort to get it up.

I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside for the consideration of the Inhofe-Boxer amendment No. 374.

That is fine. I think I have 4 minutes left. I had another amendment, which is amendment No. 198.

We had a rather unpleasant conversation on the floor yesterday with myself and the junior Senator from West Virginia. It is regrettable because he would not yield for me to respond to accusations that were made about me. I even suggested a point of order and was turned down.

The other amendment I had was one having to do with the subject we talked about yesterday; that is, Guantanamo Bay. I have spent time down there. I will not go on to the same things, because there is not time that is given to me right now.

But what has happened, what is happening down there, this resource we have had since 1903, is something we need today. We all know the consequences and certainly even those individuals who want to close Guantanamo Bay know if that happened, you would still have to make a decision of what to do with the some 110 detainees who are considered to be pretty hard-core terrorists.

Some people say they might be integrated into our U.S. court system. We all know the rules of evidence are different and there is a possibility they could be released. I do not think anyone wants that. There has been a list of some 17 installations within the United States to which these detainees might go. One of those happens to be in my State of Oklahoma, Fort Sill. We do not want that to happen. And I do believe that this is something that we are going to need, so I want to at least make the motion.

I ask unanimous consent to set the pending amendment aside for the purpose of considering amendment No. 198.

Mr. President, I have several comments to make on two different subjects, one of which was broached by the Senator from New York. Before doing that, I would like to yield to my friend from Mississippi for no more than 2 minutes and then regain the floor.

I was making a request to yield 2 minutes to my friend from Mississippi without giving up the floor.

Yes.

Mr. President, the answer to the question of the Senator from Mississippi is yes.

Let me make a couple comments.

The Senator from New York talked quite a bit about this stimulus bill. I contend it is not a stimulus bill, and I will touch on that point in a moment. He was talking about coming here in 1980. I remind him that there are ways you can stimulate this economy. This bill does not do it. This bill spends money, astronomical amounts of money. It is just inconceivable that we could be thinking about it. Certainly, if you wind the clock back to 1980, no one ever talked in terms of the hundreds of billions of dollars we talk about today.

I remind the Senator from New York that back in 1980, the timeframe he was talking about, we had a President who came in 1980 by the name of Ronald Reagan. He repeated something that was said by another great President, who was John Kennedy. Back during the time John Kennedy was President, they were getting involved in the New Frontier programs. They had a great need for increased revenue. This is a quote from John Kennedy. He said: We need to increase our revenue, and the best way to increase our revenue is to reduce marginal rates. And he reduced marginal rates, he reduced capital gains rates, and he reduced inheritance rates. That resulted in a massive increase in revenue.

If you take the decade that is called the Reagan decade of the eighties, look at 1980, the total amount of money that came in. Revenue generated from marginal rates was $244 billion. In 1990, it was $466 billion. The revenue that was generated almost doubled in a decade. We had the largest tax reductions, I believe, in the history of this Nation.

Now we are looking at a bill that does not have that. It has two little, small things that might stimulate the economy in terms of depreciation in small business. The total amount does not even exceed 3 percent of the bill.

The area where I felt--and I know a lot of people disagree--we could do something to provide jobs for Americans, what should have a greater part of this, is road construction and infrastructure. But that did not happen.

We are looking at something that right now has a total of $27 billion in highways, roads, and bridges. Certainly the occupant of the chair understands, having served for many years on the Environment and Public Works Committee, the great needs in this country. We have had several statements made by economists who have said that if there is a way we can provide jobs, do something that is going to have to be done for America, this is the time to do it. If you look at the total amount in this bill, out of some $900 billion, we are talking about $27 billion is all there is in that area.

I say in responding to the comments of the Senator from New York, if he is talking about 1980 and what happened after that time, it is very clear that precipitated a decade in the history of this country where we had more revenue generated as a result of taxes being reduced than any other time in the history of the country.

When we look at what is in this bill that would really stimulate, all the rest of it is spending. I am not going to start reading the list of the $650 million to have people change their TVs and all these things.

There are two areas that would stimulate. One would be in the area of hiring people--road construction, providing jobs. In my State of Oklahoma, we happen to have a highway director who I think is the best one in the Nation. His name is Gary Ridley. He has identified just in my State some $1.1 billion of shovel-ready jobs. They already have the environmental impact statements. They are projects to get people to work tomorrow. Yet we cannot do that in this bill, and that is the type of thing we should be doing.

If you add together the tax stimulus and the amount of work that is being done in terms of roadwork and providing jobs, that comes to somewhere around 7 percent of the total amount. What about the other $900 billion? I think it is absurd.

The Senator from New York was talking about how Republicans did not respond favorably to the Pelosi bill on the other side. No wonder. It is the same type of bill we are looking at here. It actually had $3 billion more for construction than this bill. I think they acted responsibly.

I wish Republicans--and I hope this will be the case--would be willing to stand up and jointly, all of us, agree that this is not going to work and that there is a choice now. We do have a substitute that Senator McCain put forth. It resolves these problems. It has items in it that will actually stimulate the economy. I am hoping we will all be able to stick together. I would be very proud if the Republicans are able to do that.

Now, that is not the reason I wanted to get the floor. I want to mention an amendment I have that has not been cleared yet. I compliment Senator Inouye. I visited with him, and even though it is something he said he wouldn't vote for, he would still not object to having it considered because he thinks it is very important. It has to do with Guantanamo Bay.

On Monday, I was at Guantanamo Bay, and that was my third trip there. The first was right after 9/11. At that time I realized the statements that were being made about the treatment of detainees were not true; that a lot of the media had misrepresented it. Nonetheless, it is something that was out there and people felt this was something bad that was taking place in GTMO--Guantanamo Bay.

I might mention that we have had that resource since 1903, and it has served us very well. Ironically, our annual lease is $4,000 a year, and we are getting all this for that amount. But I want to share with my colleagues here what we witnessed this past Monday--a few days ago.

At this time, we are down now to 245 detainees. Of the 245 detainees, there are 170 of them where their countries will not take them back. In other words, what are we going to do with these guys? And by the way, even though President Obama came out in his first or second day in office and said two things about Guantanamo Bay--No. 1, we should cease all legal proceedings down there; and No. 2, close it within 12 months--there is a very courageous judge down there who, I guess, felt the separation of powers in the Constitution meant something, so he said, no, we are not going to do this; we are going to continue with our trials for now. He is trying such people as Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the brainpower behind 9/11, and four of his coconspirators; and Ali al- Shihri, who is the person who was involved in the USS Cole tragedy that killed many people, including 17 of our brave soldiers. These are the types of hard-core people who are being tried there. These are military tribunals, and they need to continue. That is what the judge said, and he is continuing to this day.

By the way, if we ended up starting to try those in our Federal court system, because of the rules of evidence and because of the nature of the terrorists and the testimony that would come up, they are estimating it would take about 12 months to build a courtroom--as it did down there--at a cost of about $10 million.

So my concern is this: In the event we were forced to close Guantanamo, it would not work to do it at the present time until some solution comes up as to what we are going to do with all these detainees. Some of the detainees are clean, ready to go back, and will be transferred back. But we have about 170 where there is no place for them to go, even if we tried them and turned them loose.

There has been a suggestion that if we close Guantanamo, there are some 17 military installations in the continental United States that would be able to accept some of these detainees and so that is where they would end up going. The problem with that is, I don't know of one Senator serving in here

who wishes to say it is all right to go ahead and put them in Mississippi or put them in Iowa or put them, in my case, in Oklahoma. One of the 17 installations happens to be Fort Sill, located in Oklahoma. We don't want that. You don't want them in West Virginia. So there is no reason for us unnecessarily to target ourselves in this case.

I have to also say that anyone who believes people have been abused down there, all you have to do is go down. I have done tours of prisons all over the United States, as well as military prisons elsewhere. I can say without any doubt in my mind that I have never seen a prison where people are cared for better than they are there. There is one medical practitioner for every two detainees who are down there. The medical facilities even do colonoscopies for anyone over 50, if they want them. None of these detainees would ever have treatment like that back in their country of origin. The food they are getting is better than they have ever had before. So it is not true they are being abused.

In fact, they have six camps, numbered from one to six, starting with those who have the least problems, to those who are ready to be returned someplace, and getting up to the real hard-core terrorists. Even in camp six, which is supposed to house the toughest guys, they are outside having recreation 3 hours a day. So people are not being abused there, and I think it is important that people understand that.

That is not, however, where I am coming from on this amendment. I know for a fact, if we can get this voted on, it would pass. Those individuals who believe we should close GTMO are always very careful to say we have to figure out what we are going to do with the hard-core detainees down there, because we can't turn them loose. You can't bring them back and try them in our court system because the rules of evidence in a tribunal are different. You can't read them their rights when you are apprehending them--apprehending a terrorist. It doesn't work. In a tribunal, hearsay evidence is admissible, but it is not in our court system. So that is something that wouldn't work.

So even though I think we should not close GTMO, now or ever--because I think it is a resource and an asset that we have in this country that we can use--for those individuals who feel we should at some point close it, I agree--and I can't find anyone who disagrees--that we should not close it until we determine what is going to happen to those 110 to 170 detainees where they do not have anyplace to go.

Let me explain my amendment, and it is No. 198, which I have not been able to bring up for consideration yet. It would prohibit the use of any of the funds that are in this stimulus bill--and the stimulus bill does have money that goes into modernizing and doing things for various penal institutions--toward preparing our institutions in the continental United States to accept these terrorist detainees and housing them in the continental United States instead of at GTMO.

I think if you look very carefully at how simple this legislation is, it says:

None of the funds appropriated or otherwise being made

available to any department or agencies of the United States

Government by this Act may be obligated to expend it for the

following purposes. To transfer any detainee of the United

States housed at the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to any

facility in the United States or its territories.

Who is going to oppose that? Is there one person who would vote against that?

Or to construct, improve, modify, or otherwise enhance any

facility in the United States or its territories for the

purpose of housing any detainee described in paragraph 1.

Those are the guys who are down there--the bad guys; the terrorists. And thirdly:

To house or otherwise incarcerate any detainee described.

I know the Senator from Iowa doesn't want the detainees coming to Iowa; the Senator from West Virginia doesn't want them coming to West Virginia; I seriously question whether they want them in Ohio; and I certainly don't want them in Oklahoma. So that is all this is. It is an amendment that, should this bill pass--and of course if it goes to conference, I don't have any way of knowing what will stay in and what will come out--and I hope it does not pass when we vote on it tonight or tomorrow, or whenever that time is--but if it does pass, I want an amendment in it so that no one will try to transfer those detainees now down in Guantanamo Bay to any of the prisons in the continental United States.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Will the Senator yield?

I ask the Chair, since I was directly referred to, am I not entitled to ask a question?

Will the Senator yield?

Madam President, first, I wish to make a comment on the remarks of the Senator from Missouri.

One of the most disturbing things, other than the cost of this stimulus bill, is the fact there is nothing in there to stimulate. There are two things that can be done that would be of great benefit to the United States of America.

One is, as he talked about, infrastructure. I was somewhat shocked that in the bill, on the other side, there was only $30 billion, in the Senate bill $27 billion that would go toward highways, bridges, and that type of construction. I am very much in support of his amendment No. 161 that will raise that amount by $5.5 billion. I have to say, it is not enough. That would still be less than 5 percent of the total amount that would go to those items that would provide immediate jobs.

In my State of Oklahoma, we can identify over $1.1 billion, just in Oklahoma, of projects that are spade ready, with environmental impact statements, everything has been done. We are ready to go on them. That is what will produce jobs tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

The other area is in the military. While those two amendments have to do with the infrastructure of which I am in strong support, the Boxer- Inhofe amendment has yet to be filed. It will be filed. We are talking there about some $50 billion that would go toward construction and infrastructure.

Amendment No. 262 to Amendment No. 98

I want to mention, though, there is one other amendment I do want to bring up for consideration. That is amendment No. 262. This is a recognition of investing in our Nation's defense. It provides thousands of sustainable American jobs and provides for our Nation's security at the same time.

Major defense procurement programs are all manufactured in the United States, with our aerospace industry alone employing more than 655,000 workers spread across the United States. At the end of last month, conservative economist Martin Feldstein wrote in the Washington Post about the $800 billion mistake. He was referring, of course, to the stimulus bill.

In that article, he pointed out the value of infrastructure spending on domestic military bases is the most significant we could do to try to stimulate the economy. In fact, it is clear that infrastructure investment alone with defense spending and tax cuts has a greater stimulative impact on the economy than anything else the government can do.

If our infrastructure needs repair, we equally need the tools to reconstruct our military readiness. That is what I am trying to do with this amendment. This is amendment No. 262.

I agree with everything that was said by the Senator from Missouri, that we need to do a lot of this with infrastructure. But, equally, my amendment increases defense procurement spending to manufacture or acquire vehicles, equipment, ammunition, and materials required to reconstitute military units.

We are accomplishing two things: We are providing the jobs; we are also rebuilding our military. The one thing we hear on the floor over and over, with the activity that is now subsiding in Iraq but, of course, escalating in Afghanistan, is that we are overworking everyone. The term we use in the military is the OPTEMPO is too high. We all recognize that fact.

We know we went through the decade of the nineties reducing spending on both end strength and modernization. What we need to do, if we are going to be having some kind of stimulative effect, if you can do it and rebuild our military, drop down the OPTEMPO for our people serving and at the same time do something about some of our FCS systems, for example, the Future Combat System, so we will become superior to our prospective enemies on the field in terms of equipment we give our kids.

Right now, we all recognize that with the exception of the F-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter, the Russians are making the SU series that is superior to our best strike vehicles, the F-15 and F-16. This is a procurement problem. We already have the lines going on C-17s and other vehicles, and it is going to be necessary to augment that.

This is fully offset. It does have $5.3 billion that would increase procurement.

I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment for the purpose of bringing up Inhofe amendment No. 262.

Madam President, I am hoping to be able to consider this amendment in the near future. Let me mention one other point of equal significance, and it is somewhat controversial.

I just got back a couple days ago from Guantanamo Bay. I have been down there several times. As a matter of fact, I was one of the first Members--I think the first Member of Congress, of either House, to be there after 9/11. I have watched it as the years have gone by, the criticism of things happening at Guantanamo Bay that have never happened at Guantanamo Bay. People are talking about torturing and all these things. This is not the truth.

What really bothers me is, all you have to do, if you want to know the truth about it, is pull up on your computer the Red Cross Web site. They are down there with regularity talking about what is happening.

There are no human rights abuses. In fact, 3 days ago when I was there, some of the detainees were kind of laughing about the fact they actually had better medical treatment than they ever had before. As far as the food is concerned, it is the best. There are six camps in conjunction with the severity of the problem with a particular detainee, what level of terrorist activities he was involved in. The first three are the ones ready to go back, and the last ones are the more severe.

In camp 5 and camp 6, we are talking about really bad guys up there. They still have recreational activities, health care, dental care, food. So things there are good.

I hope any preconceived notions by any Member of this Senate could be satisfied by going and seeing for yourself or pulling up the Web site. We even had al-Jazeera in there to evaluate how people are treated at Guantanamo Bay. It is an asset we have had since 1903. It is something we cannot do without.

I have submitted an amendment, which I will not call up at this time, amendment No. 198. People such as Senator Martinez, who is from Cuba, recognize the fact that we have to keep that facility open.

Right now, even though it has a capacity of 11,000, we only have about 425 detainees there. Of that, there are 170 who cannot be returned to their home country, cannot be repatriated because they will not let them back in. Of the 170, 110 are the real serious, most severe of the terrorists. What do we do with those? If something should happen--and, of course, the President came out with two edicts. One was to suspend legal proceedings at this time, which the judge down there has rejected, so they are continuing. The other is to close Guantanamo Bay within 12 months.

The reason the second one is not workable is because you have to figure out what to do with all these detainees. I don't know of one Senator on the floor who would like them sent to his or her State. I know they have come up with some 17 institutions, one of which is in my State of Oklahoma, where they could relocate these detainees. That becomes a terrorist target. It is something that is not acceptable.

All the amendment does, which I am hoping we get cleared before too long, is to prohibit the use of funds in this stimulus bill to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to any facility in the United States or to construct any facility for such detainees in the United States.

When I say that, it will be necessary to do it. The courtroom down in Guantanamo Bay cost $12 million to build. It took a year to get it built. Because of the sensitive nature of the information, they cannot be tried in a normal court facility. This would preclude funds from being allocated toward the relocation of those detainees from Guantanamo Bay to any of the Continental United States areas.

With that, I serve notice I would like to get others to look at this amendment very carefully. This may be the

only opportunity they have to ensure their State is not flooded with detainees, with terrorists, and create the problems we all know would come from that transfer.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senators Martinez, Chambliss, Roberts, Brownback, and Bunning be added as cosponsors to the amendment.

Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion and complaints about there not being enough funds in terms of infrastructure--roads and buildings and all that. Actually, it is under 4 percent in this bill. We have talked about that. What we have not talked about is the need for military procurement.

In a Washington Post article, Martin Feldstein talked about the fact that infrastructure spending on domestic military bases and procurement is one of the things we could do that would be very helpful, citing there are 655,000 employees in the aerospace industry alone.

Now, what I am trying to do with this amendment is to increase procurement by $5.3 billion. It is offset. So you have a decision: Do you want to spend $20 million for fish passage barrier removal, $34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce, or have a strong national defense? Do you want to spend $13 million to research volunteer activities or have a strong national defense?

I urge adoption of my amendment.

Mr. President, I move to waive the applicable portion of the Budget Act and ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I applaud the Senator from Washington in bringing this point to the attention of the American people, as I have been trying to do, that in this stimulus bill--and the same is true on the House side--there is far too little construction, far too little jobs.

I found it very difficult to believe that in the bill that came over from the other side there was only some $30 billion. I can share now, because it has been public, that 8 days ago on Monday, President Obama addressed our conference. During that conference, we talked about the stimulus bill. He was very generous with his time. In fact, he was there for an entire hour. I said: It is inconceivable to me--and here we were talking about the bill that was being considered on the other side--that with some $800 billion or $900 billion--that is without interest--it is going to be over $1 trillion when you add interest--but with those amounts, you only have $30 billion of roads and highways.

Quite frankly, President Obama was not sure my statement was accurate, and he asked Larry Summers, who was in the meeting. We were all a little bit confused about that, except I wasn't because very specifically it said $30 billion on roads and highways.

To be fair, there is another $19 billion in water projects. Infrastructure was a little higher than that. My concern is roads and highways.

The reason I am concerned is that we went through the 2005 Transportation reauthorization bill. At that time, Republicans were in the majority, so I was taking the lead on passage of that bill. I had the support of the ranking member at that time, who was Senator Boxer from California. We worked closely together on that bill. We actually were increasing all we could as time went by because the idea of funding infrastructure and funding roads and highways has a history to it.

When I was first elected, every year we had huge surpluses in the highway trust fund. That is probably the most popular tax out there. With the highway trust fund, people know or they believe that money is going to be used to increase capacity and increase the condition, the repairs, the maintenance of the transportation system we have now.

Senator Boxer and I worked together on that bill to do all we could to enhance it, to raise the amounts because even as large as that bill was, that did not even maintain what we have today.

Over the years, as people saw the surpluses in the highway trust fund, their tendency, as is always the tendency around this place, was let's grab it and put it into something else. We started having hiking trails, we started having other elements of transportation, over and above roads and highways, bridges and maintenance. Those are the things that originally the highway trust fund, way back in the early fifties, was there for. That is what was established back in the Eisenhower administration.

We have gone over the years, and this took a turnaround a few years ago with so many people loading on to the highway trust fund and less and less was used for maintenance and expansion of our highway system. We got into the position where in 1998, during the Clinton administration, he witnessed the very large surplus that was in the highway trust fund. He took it and put it into the general fund. The total amount was $9 billion. That was something to which I was very much opposed because I thought of that as a moral issue. The people of this country were led to believe that if they paid for gas at the pump, that money was going to enhance our highway system. That used to be the situation. Anyway, we were able to successfully remove that and bring that back into the highway trust fund a matter of a few weeks ago. We improved that a little bit. Still, we have a deficit that cannot do the job the American people expect.

I am considered by some of the rating organizations to be one of the most

conservative Members of the Senate. Yet I am a big spender in some areas--national defense, infrastructure. That is what we are supposed to be doing, and we have these opportunities to do it.

As I said, I applaud the Senator from Washington for recognizing the need to increase the amount of money for roads and highways.

During the reauthorization bill of 2005, we talked about what our needs were. We happen to have a guy in the State of Oklahoma, a guy named Gary Ridley, the best highway director anywhere in the United States. What he has done is put together what do we have in the State of Oklahoma that is spade-ready to employ people tomorrow if we are able to have enough money to take care of some of the things that are already authorized; we don't have to go through the environmental impact statements and other statements. This is all ready to go.

For that reason, I thought if this job stimulus bill is going to do something to stimulate the economy, it is going to have to hire people. To hire people, you are going to have to get a much larger percentage.

Getting back to 8 days ago when President Obama was before the Republicans, at that time I said: If I am right and you are wrong in terms of the fact that you only have 3.5 percent of the total amount of money that will go to roads and highways, would you be willing to raise that to some 10 percent? I am not sure the answer was very clear, but nonetheless, it is something that is very reasonable to make as a request.

I have one problem with the Murray bill. First, I agree that we need to have a larger percentage of the money going into roads and highways. But I think we also need a little bit of truth in advertising. If we are going to call this package a stimulus bill, then we need to direct the resources to the programs that have demonstrated the ability to create jobs immediately. However, merely adding the total number, as this amendment does, without giving priority to programs that are truly stimulative is perhaps not all that responsible.

In addition, the major problem I have is that the stimulus needs to be offset. You cannot tell me, if we are looking at $900 billion out there, we cannot find something to offset in order to take care of the immediate problems we have in this country in terms of our infrastructure.

I do not see the Senator from Washington on the floor now, but I would ask her--and I asked her a few minutes ago--if she was willing to offset this money. I believe her response was not at the present time. So if it changes as this develops, then perhaps I will change.

I will say this: If you are not going to be able to offset this amount, then I certainly would oppose this amendment. There will be lots of opportunities to increase the infrastructure investment over the next few days that do not add to the size of the bill. We cannot add to the size of this bill.

To me, the whole idea--well, the amount is inconceivable to most people, most thinking people, in America, and it cannot be increased.

We have numerous opportunities. We have the Boxer-Bond amendment to increase highway investment by $5.5 billion. It is fully offset. I strongly support Senator Boxer and Senator Bond in this effort. The program they eliminate is a discretionary program that would not even select projects for an entire year.

Then the program provides an additional 3 years to finish the project. That makes sense to me. My chairman, Senator Boxer, and I as the ranking member of Environment and Public Works Committee, go along with a bipartisan group of colleagues who will have a second amendment to add $50 billion to highway transit and clean drinking water. This amendment would take funds not obligated within a year up to $50 billion from programs in the stimulus that are not spending and redirect them to infrastructure projects that are ready to have a contract awarded within 120 days after receiving the funding. That is what we call a stimulus. That puts people to work in jobs. And it doesn't add to the cost of the bill.

Those are two opportunities coming up; we will have to get this done. It also moves the money from programs that are not stimulating the economy, which I think is a good idea.

I at this time urge my colleagues to oppose the Murray amendment even though I agree with what she is trying to do. I want to have this offset. We have these two opportunities that I mentioned coming up where we will have the opportunity to accomplish the same objective and have them offset.

Frankly, the amount she is talking about is not as much as I would like. I would like it to be an additional $50 billion which we will be talking about in another amendment coming up.

Since it is not going to be offset, I make a point of order against the Murray amendment's emergency spending designation under 204(a)5A of S. Con. Res. 21 of the 110th Congress.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who value their second amendment personal right to own their own firearms. I also believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who favor justice over political patronage. Finally, I believe I am speaking on behalf of Americans who realize we are in a war on terror and want to continue the strong efforts to bring terrorists to justice. I am opposed to the appointment of Eric Holder to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

I take particular interest in this nomination because I, as well as the voters of the State of Oklahoma, feel strongly that the rights conferred upon us by the second amendment of the Constitution guarantee an individual freedom that no government regulation can take away. Eric Holder's record and his true beliefs about the second amendment are clear. In a brief filed in the Heller case, Holder joined other past Department of Justice officials by saying: ``[t]he Second Amendment Does Not Protect Firearms Possession or Use That Is Unrelated To Participation In a Well-Regulated Militia.'' The brief also stated that the ``recognition of an expansive individual right to keep and bear arms for private purposes will make it more difficult for the government to defend present and future firearms laws.'' During his confirmation hearing, Eric Holder noted the importance of the Heller decision and recognized it as precedent. But I certainly do not believe that the decision in Heller has changed the underlying beliefs held by Eric Holder, and his leadership as the chief lawyer of the United States will be a detriment to the gun ownership rights of American citizens.

I am also very uncomfortable with Mr. Holder's judgment and record on pardons and clemency during the Clinton administration. He apparently chose to circumvent the standard process by which all pardons are considered and granted, and clouded this process with the appearance of impropriety. If the pardon of Mark Rich was not impropriety, and I believe it was, then it was at the very least extreme negligence, and such negligence has no place in any level of government. Mark Rich, whom many label a tax evader, is in fact even more than that. Rich was indicted in 1983 on 65 counts of not only tax evasion, but also fraud, racketeering, and trading with the enemy. Rich fled to Switzerland before he could stand trial, which is perhaps the most egregious element of this case--he was a fugitive and a regular fixture on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. How can one justify recommending a pardon, bypass the Department of Justice and the hundreds of individuals who worked to bring Mark Rich to justice, when the man who is being pardoned is not even willing to face the same justice system to which every other American must answer? In fact, Holder admitted during his confirmation hearing that he did not adequately acquaint himself with the facts of the case. The United States Senate should not allow such injustice to go unanswered.

Equally egregious, Holder was Deputy Attorney General in an administration which granted clemency to 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN. This is a group which not only carried out violent protests, FALN set off bombs several times in New York City and Chicago and were convicted for conspiracies to commit robbery, bomb-making, and sedition. The Clinton administration granted clemency despite opposition from the U.S. Attorney's Office, FBI, and most importantly, the victims of FALN terrorist activities.

Finally, we continue to be in a war on terror, however, Holder is an individual who is opposed to the military commissions which have tried terrorists and is opposed to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility for detaining terrorists. This Senate and the American people should know that since October 2001, the U.S. has detained almost 800 al-Qaida and Taliban combatants at GTMO. Currently, 60 more are ready for transfer or release to another country, 70 have either been tried or in process, and 130 are a high threat to the U.S. Since 2002, more than 525 detainees have departed GTMO for other countries. Today, there are approximately 240 detainees at GTMO. If GTMO is no longer a prison, some U.S. domestic or overseas prison will have to house these men while they await a habeas hearing and trial. All the while, the military detention facilities at GTMO meet the highest international standards. The Pentagon spends $2.5 million each year on Korans, prayer rugs, and special meals for prisoners. There are on average two lawyers for every detainee at GTMO. He believes our military commissions currently in place would have to be substantially revamped and even holds the position that U.S. interrogation techniques should be published for the world to see.

For at least these reasons, I cannot vote to support the nomination of an individual who holds opinions on a wide range of issues which I find so objectionable and objectionable to my constituents. I will be voting a definitive no on the Holder nomination.

Madam President, let me join my colleague from Georgia for some of the same reasons and for some reasons he did not mention. I declared some time ago that I would oppose the confirmation of Timothy Geithner for the position of Secretary of the Treasury.

First, I do not believe Mr. Geithner has been remotely candid about his tax issues. I think he has been less than forthcoming about all of the facts. For example, Mr. Geithner accepted compensation from his employer to offset taxes when he had never paid those taxes to begin with. And, having been informed about his oversight from the tax years 2003 and 2004, he never bothered to check for 2001 or 2002.

Now, I can tell you I am sure he did check, but he is denying he did. I can tell you for the people in Oklahoma and across the country, very much like the people in Atlanta who were referred to by the Senator from Georgia, that small businesses or an individual who made an honest mistake on their taxes have found their Government's treatment of them slightly more aggressive than they have seen in their treatment of Mr. Geithner, a man about to lead the IRS.

It is one of those things that makes people so angry about their Government. The man who wants to be in charge of the IRS messed up with his taxes and got a pass from the Senate. Now, for as much as we talk about leveling the playing field, it sure looks as if we do not walk the walk.

I was very proud of one of our Senators in the hearing; that is, John Kyl. He spent a long time--he tried; I counted about 20 different ways. He was trying to ask the same question to get an answer. He never got an answer. But he did everything he could.

I emphasize my objection to Timothy Geithner's nomination to head the Treasury Department is not just about what we have been talking about-- his tax problems and the tax issues. The matter which compels my coming to the floor is far more serious in my mind.

I want Senators to realize what a vote for Mr. Geithner really is. It is ratifying aggressive Federal Government intervention in the economy. It is the flippant use of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to prop up favored institutions and to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.

This has created a great uncertainty in the market, which is precisely what we do not want right now. I do not criticize anyone who voted in favor of the $700 billion bailout. I looked at it. I saw we were giving the largest amount of money ever--you could use the word ``authorized''--to one person, and that person being an unelected bureaucrat. There was no oversight responsibility from the Senate.

We were all criticizing Paulson. I criticized Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury. But Geithner was there putting this thing together at the same time. Let me say not all Federal intervention during a financial crisis is created equal. The FDIC did a good job managing the biggest bank failure in U.S. history while we in Congress were all debating TARP.

What I object to is the midnight rescue packages, the ad hoc approach. I object to the ``say one thing and do another thing'' type of programs. I object to the complete lack of any policy framework, explanation of principles or coherent approach. I object to the absolute lack of any transparency whatsoever. I object to the indifference to the taxpayers' interests. Put very simply, I object to the bailout mania we have all witnessed.

I can remember when we did this matter, the $700 billion bailout. When I was opposed to it, I made some statements. I said: We start bailing people

out, if that is the new policy of Government, who is going to be next in line? I think the airline industry; they have problems. I mentioned even the auto industry. Of course, we saw what happened. People got all ecstatic, even those who voted for the $700 billion bailout. They were all upset about the fact that we were bailing out the auto industry.

That amounted to 2 percent of the $700 billion. People lose sight when they hear big numbers. What I do when I am explaining it, so that I understand it and my 20 kids and grandkids will understand it and the people of Oklahoma will understand it, I try to put it in some kind of perspective to see how it affects us personally.

If you take the total number of families in America who file tax returns and divide that into $700 billion, do your own math. It comes out to $5,000 a family. That is huge. We have to understand we are not talking about their money when we talk about Government bailouts, we are talking about our money; and Geithner is all a part of this.

It all started with Bear Stearns a year ago. The initiator of the Bear Stearns deal was not Secretary Paulson or Chairman Bernanke, though, of course, they signed off on it. It was Timothy Geithner.

After the deal was announced, Robert Novak reported in his column that an unnamed Federal official confided in him at the time that ``we may have crossed a line'' in bailing out Bear Stearns. Mr. Novak wrote that it was an understatement, and that we would not know the ramifications of this decision for a long time. Well, now we understand.

We are now trillions of dollars past that line, and we are beginning to comprehend the course on which that decision has set us. I personally believe we are trillions of dollars past that line, and we are not much better off. I would say enough; the Government has gone too far, and under Mr. Geithner all indications are that we are not going to slow down anytime soon.

We need a change of course, and we need to finally, trillions of dollars later, find the strength to let those who made poor decisions bear some of the consequences, instead of the taxpayers. Timothy Geithner may take the helm of the Treasury Department at a time, if he is confirmed, when the Government has entangled itself into the economy to an unprecedented extent.

Given his strong support, stronger than by many accounts Secretary Paulson himself, for ad hoc bailouts of big firms, I cannot support this nomination. I think those people, and I know the people I talked to in Oklahoma because I am back every weekend--I call this going back and talking to real people, and they all look at this and say: Only in Washington could something like this happen, could we start with the $700 billion bailout.

I would say this: Anyone who supported that at the time, if they want redemption, this is the time to get it because you can be redeemed by opposing Geithner in his confirmation. So, anyway, there are several reasons I hold for opposing his nomination, and I will act accordingly.

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

Mr. President, we have some things that are going to happen this year that are very significant. In the committee I chaired when the Republicans were in the majority--it is now chaired by Senator Boxer--we have two major pieces of legislation coming up.

We have the Transportation reauthorization bill and we have the Water Resources Development Act reauthorization bill. In the case of the Transportation reauthorization bill, we had a good reauthorization in 2005. It is scheduled to be reauthorized again, and I would suggest we use that as somewhat of a pattern of what we are going to plan to go in this coming year, in 2009.

In spite of all of the things you are hearing about the inauguration and about the various confirmations, business is going to continue. The WRDA bill, the Water Resources Development Act, is something that should be done on an annual basis or every other year. Yet the last time we passed it was 7 whole years ago. We had a lot of making up to do. There is not one State represented on this floor that is not way behind in some of the programs that are dealt with in the Water Resources Development Act.

The reason I mention this at this time is we will be dealing with some type of a stimulus bill. When they talk about $800 or so billion, I already, in my previous remarks, talked about how big $700 or $800 billion is to individual families in America.

We will be dealing with this, and I regret that of the $800 billion, only $30 billion has to do with highway construction. We have a great need in this country for bridge construction, highway construction, and, hopefully--Senator Boxer and I both cosigned a letter to try to get a much larger percentage of whatever amount we end up authorizing in a stimulus bill.

So I would hope--and I would ask each Member to look at their own States, as I have done in my State of Oklahoma--Senators look at State projects that are out there that we call spade-ready: they have had their environmental impact statement, they have had their AS statements, and they are ready to go. They would employ people immediately. For those like me who are conservative, who do not believe the ingredients in this stimulus package, or at least do not believe what they are looking at in the House is going to really stimulate very much, one thing we do know is that there is nothing that puts people back to work faster than to get something that has already passed all of the environmental prerequisites and is ready for construction to start. Then, after it is over, you have something. You have bridges that are rebuilt. You have roads that are rebuilt.

So what I would encourage the Senate to try to do is get as much as we can out of the stimulus package that actually does provide jobs and provides things that otherwise we would have to do in the reauthorization bill.

There is no way in the world we are going to take care of the real need we have with infrastructure in America unless we get a very large amount in the front end of the stimulus bill.