Floor Statements

Mr. President, I want to express my appreciation to the Republican leader for his remarks about Captain Utley. I have had the honor to talk with McConnell scholars on a number of occasions from Louisville. They are such a fine group of people, and I know how deeply our leader feels this loss. I certainly will join him in my expressions to the family.

I recall General Myers, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, when someone suggested soldiers who were injured or lost their lives were victims, saying they are not victims, they are heroes. They committed themselves to serving their country. They believe our country is worthy of defense and they are willing to put their lives on the line for it, and they are heroes. And certainly this captain was.

I thank the leader.

The Budget

Mr. President, this Sunday, April 29, in a few days, will mark the third anniversary of the last time the Democratic-led Senate has passed a budget. Since that date, our Nation has spent $10.4 trillion while adding $4.5 trillion to the national debt. And that is how it is that we say nearly 40 cents of every dollar we are spending now is borrowed.

We have accumulated $10.4 trillion in spending over these years since we have had a budget and we have added $4.5 trillion to the debt. We are in our fourth consecutive year of trillion-dollar-plus deficits and heading into the fifth year. Prior to these 4 years, the largest deficit we ever had was about $480 billion. We have more than doubled that every year since.

It is a systemic problem--and not a little problem. The economy coming back would help, no doubt, but it will not put us on a sound path. We have to make some choices. Every person in America now owes, as their share of the national debt, $45,000--every American. Every man, woman, and child is carrying that amount as their burden as a result of the overspending of this Congress.

For perspective--and we need perspective because the numbers are often hard to grasp--that per-person number is larger than any of the rest of the world, including Greece. Our per-person debt is greater than the per-person debt of Greece. Yet at this time of financial crisis, the majority in the Senate refuses to perform its legally required duty and moral responsibility to produce a budget plan, which is part of the United States Code dating back to 1974 under the Congressional Budget Act. And a budget requires, as under that Act, only 51 votes to pass. It cannot be filibustered. It is given a priority.

In 1974, Congress was obviously disappointed that we were not moving forward effectively with budgets, and a budget is crucial to the financial stability of a nation. That is why they passed the Congressional Budget Act and ensured that a budget cannot be filibustered in the Senate. It is guaranteed a right to have a vote. It is required to be brought up in committee by April 1 and moved forward by April 15. That is what the statute requires. Unfortunately, it doesn't require that Congress go to jail if it doesn't pass a budget. Or perhaps, as Senator Heller from Nevada has suggested, maybe Congress ought not to be paid if they do not pass a budget. Maybe that reform would be good for us.

The majority has refused to bring up a budget. They have not even attempted to pass a budget this year, and they refused to do so the last 2 years before this. The absence of a budget is not simply a case of inaction; the Senate majority has pursued a systemic, deliberate, and determined policy--I believe a politically driven policy--to keep a budget off the floor. Why? To attempt to shield its conference from public accountability during this period of financial danger.

The worst possible time not to have a budget, not to have a plan, not to stand up and tell the American people what our financial vision for the country is, would be in a time of deep financial crisis, when we are on an unsustainable path. Yet they are not even willing to present a financial plan for the future of America. And when criticized about it, the White House says one thing, Speaker Pelosi another, the Democratic leader here has another explanation, but none of reasons are coherent or make real sense.

Why? I guess there is no explanation. There can be no justifiable reason why this responsibility is not fulfilled. They say, maybe one day. Maybe it wouldn't pass ultimately. Maybe we wouldn't agree. But the Republican House felt its responsibility to comply with the law, and it has for the last 2 years. They laid out a long-term plan for America that changes our debt course and puts us on a financial path to stability. That is our responsibility. Oh, yes, the Senate called it up here. For what reason? So they could attack it and bring it down, but not to lay out any plan of their own.

When Senator McConnell called up President Obama's budget last year, he said, let's see if you want to vote for that. You voted down the House budget and attacked Paul Ryan and his colleagues for the historic work they put into drafting their budget. Let's see what you think about your President's budget. It went down 95 to 0. Not a single Member voted for it.

So while government workers have been throwing lavish parties in Las Vegas, President Obama has not been roused to impose managerial discipline on this government. He has yet to call on his party, which is running the Senate, to produce a financial plan. His own budget this year was brought up in the House and didn't receive a single vote. Yet both he and the Senate Democrats continue to call for higher

taxes. They say we must have higher taxes. How can they ask Americans to send more money to Washington when the Senate's majority won't even write a budget; won't even tell them where they are going to spend the money? They just say, send us more. We need more. We are not going to cut spending. Oh, we can't cut spending--that would be terrible--but you need to send us more money, and maybe one day we will pass a budget; maybe not.

The American people shouldn't send one more dime in new taxes to this dysfunctional government. They should say to Washington, you lay out a plan that puts us on a sound financial path, you bring wasteful spending to a conclusion, you quit spending money on Solyndras and hot tubs in Las Vegas, then you talk to me about sending more money. That is what the American people need to say. That is what they are saying. That is what they said in 2010, I thought pretty clearly, but the message has not been received.

National Review's Rich Lowry recently wrote an article in which he refers to Senator Conrad, our fine Democratic chairman of the Budget Committee. This is what he wrote:

Senator Conrad said it was too hard to pass a budget in an

election year.

So that was one of the arguments--well, we don't need to

bring up a budget because it is an election year and we don't

want to be having a vote before we have to be voted on by the

American people. They might not like the way we voted. They

might vote us out of office. They might be disappointed in us

if they see us actually take tough votes on what we are going

to have to do about the future of the Republic.

Mr. Lowry goes on:

But Senate Democrats hadn't passed one in 2011 or 2010,

either. This year is a presidential election, 2011 was an

off-year, and 2010 was a midterm election. That covers every

kind of year there is in Washington. By this standard, the

Senate will have an annual excuse not to pass a budget

resolution for the rest of time.

I think there is a lot of truth to that. So they can't pass a budget this year because it is an election year. Well, last year wasn't.

So this Sunday, April 29, we will have gone 3 full years since the last time the Senate Democrats have brought a budget to the floor of the Senate--3 years. They won't produce a plan because they are unable to produce a plan. And it is hard, I have to admit. The House has done it, but the Senate seems to be unable to do it. They are unable to unite behind a financial vision for this country that they are willing to go to the American people and advocate for and publicly defend. Now, that is my view of it. Maybe it is unfair, but I don't think so. So they can't put on paper how much they want the government to grow, how much they want to raise taxes, and how much deficit each year they are willing to accept and whether that deficit is going to be brought under control permanently or whether it will continue at the unsustainable rate it is.

There have been a lot of secret meetings and discussions about what might be involved in an agreement that could or could not occur. There has been a lot of talk about that. But what has been carefully avoided is actually letting the American people see the numbers so they can be totaled and we can precisely measure the impact.

Last year our colleagues indicated that we would have a Budget Committee markup on a budget, that they had a plan, and it was going to be Monday, and then it was going to be Tuesday. Then the Democratic conference met, and they laid out some broad outline for it. Then apparently they told Senator Conrad not to have a budget markup. So we didn't even have anything brought up in the Budget Committee last year as required by the law.

But you could take a look at that budget. It would have increased spending, not reduced spending. It would have increased taxes significantly but would have managed to cut the Defense Department $900 billion. That is what the outlines of it appear to be. That is a pretty tough budget to go to the American people with--increase spending, increase taxes, and savage the Defense Department. Well, I don't think that was very popular. Maybe politically it was foolish, as Senator Reid had said, to bring up such a budget to the American people. Maybe they ought to look at the Ryan budget in the House. It is much more responsible. It reduces spending, even simplifies and lowers taxes, creating a growth environment, and it puts us on a financial path for the next 30 years that anybody who looks at America would say: Wow. They have changed. They have a plan that will get them out of this fix they are in. They have gotten off the path to the waterfall, and they are on a sound course now.

So I would encourage my colleagues who think there is a legitimate reason not to lay out a plan, not to fight for the future of America, a reason not to advocate for the kinds of changes we all know have to occur--if you think those are not important, then I invite you to come to the floor and dispute what I have said and explain why we don't need to move forward as the law requires us to do.

I don't know how things will happen, but as ranking member of the Budget Committee and seeing the numbers, I know reality is not going to be easily confronted. It is not going to be easy. We are going to have to look at the almost 60 percent of the budget now that is entitlements and interest on the debt. I believe interest on the debt last year was calculated by the Congressional Budget Office to go from $240 billion to over $900 billion under the President's budget. These are annual interest payments on the trillions of dollars we now owe in debt--that is unsustainable.

I know it is not going to be easy. I would just say that if we on the Republican side are honored with a majority in the Senate, we will pass a budget. It will be an absolute duty, as far as I can see, for us to do so. It will be an honest budget. It won't be easy, and the American people may be surprised at what would be required to change the debt and deficit course we are on. But our budget would put us on a path to a financially prosperous America, get us off the road to debt and decline, and put us on a path to growth and prosperity. That is what we have to have.

Until the world's financial community and the American people understand that we are on a good path and not a bad path, we are not going to see the economic growth we should be seeing. And it is through growth and prosperity and more jobs that we will pay more taxes. It will be those actions that will put America on the way to meet the great challenge of our time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his thoughtful remarks on this important subject. I hope our colleagues are listening.

Later today, I will offer a budget point of order on the postal bill. It adds $34 billion to the debt. It violates the agreement we reached last August, in which we said there would be limits to how much debt we would increase and how much spending we would increase.

The first big bill coming down the pike adds $34 billion. Every penny of the new spending is added to the debt. There is no offset to it. Those of us who supported the concept of a limitation on spending--and I didn't think it limited it enough last summer, but many thought it did, but agreed to that limit--have to know this. When I raise that budget point of order, somebody will probably rise and ask for a vote to waive the budget, waive the limitations on spending and debt that we just passed last August.

We need not kill reform of the Postal Service. We need to send this bill back to the committee and let them produce legislation that either spends not so much or doesn't spend money or, if they do spend money, pay for it through cuts in spending that are perfectly available.

GAO has said there is over $400 billion spent each year in duplicative and wasteful programs. We have GSA off in Las Vegas in hot tubs on taxpayers' money. We could pay for this bill if it is so important that we have to do it; if we don't, that is what the vote would be.

I urge my colleagues to understand the importance of it. Our Members who believed it was important to have a

limit on spending in order to gain a debt increase last summer, increase the debt ceiling, should vote against the motion to waive because to do so--to vote for waiving the budget would undermine, in the first real opportunity, the agreement we reached.

I thank the Chair and reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I appreciate the good work of our colleagues on this legislation. Unfortunately, the legislation spends $34 billion, all of which would be borrowed, all of which adds to the debt of the United States and is contrary to the Budget Control Act limitations that were passed just last August. It is really a grievous problem, not one that can be avoided lightly.

Just last August we agreed to certain debt limits--the amount of debt we would incur and add to the U.S. Treasury. It was a fought-over agreement, but we reached it and we stood by it. I believe we have a moral obligation to not mislead the people who elected us when we said we intend to stand by the limits on increasing debt. This bill increases debt above that limit. The Congressional Budget Office scores it as adding $34 billion in debt to the United States.

Chairman Conrad has certified that a budget point of order is legitimately placed against it. I would expect we would have a motion to waive the budget point of order. I would expect there might be a motion to say, well, we do not agree with CBO or that somehow this is so important we need to add to the debt anyway. But, colleagues, if we mean what we say, if at this time in history we begin to at least stay within the limits we agreed and we don't do that, then I think we will lose further credibility with the American people.

I respect the work of my colleagues on the bill, but I think we are setting a great precedent. It is a matter of importance for our own integrity and the fiscal stability of America. I believe it is important that we adhere to that limit.

The spending measure, amendment No. 2000 to S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Service Act, would violate Senate pay-go rules and increase the deficit; therefore, I raise a point of order against this measure pursuant to section 201(a) of S. Con. Res. 21, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2008.

I object.

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senators who have expressed their disagreement on the budget point of order. Even if one disagrees over the $11 billion, there is $23 billion in additional spending that will be borrowed over the decade, according to CBO. With regard to the $11 billion, that money will be borrowed and given to the Postal Service. It increases the debt of the United States.

Therefore, CBO scores it as a violation of the debt limit in the pay- go provision. It clearly is. So we are not saying we should not have a postal bill. Let's vote, stand firm with the debt limit agreement we had in August. Let's ask our good committee to produce a bill that is paid for in some fashion. We spend $3,700 billion in the United States. We need to find about $3 billion a year to fund their proposal to solve this problem. That is what we should do. We are at a defining moment. There is no middle ground. I say vote to sustain the point of order.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss S. 1789, the 21st Century Postal Service Act. I regret to say there is a fundamental problem with this bill that we have to address. I wish it weren't so, but I am afraid it is. The bill would increase the Federal deficit by $34 billion. This violates the deficit neutrality provisions for spending that we adopted as part of the Budget Control Act just last summer. As a result, there are at least five budget points of order that lie against the bill, and I, the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, will be raising points of order at the appropriate time. That means it would take 60 votes of our 100 Members in the Senate to say we don't want to agree and follow the law we passed last summer.

Under the Senate rules, no committee can bring a bill to the floor that spends even one penny more than already is going to be spent under the current law or increases the deficit more than it would increase under current law. Current law is the Budget Control Act of last summer, and it was passed, as we all recall, as part of a major debate over raising the debt ceiling, so we could continue to borrow money. Borrowing at the rate of--about 40 cents of every dollar we spend.

In August we agreed to modest, though insufficient savings. Although we talked about big cuts, we only managed to reduce the growth in spending, not the actual level. The debt deal established basic spending limits. Not one word in that law prevents us or any Member of Congress from saving more. The law set the maximum, not the minimum, that we can spend.

But this bill violates that legislation. It spends above the agreed- upon limits. Only in Washington does spending below a limit get one accused of breaking a deal while spending more than the agreement means people just look the other way.

The majority leader and the chairman of the Budget Committee are proud of the Budget Control Act. They say it has iron-clad restraints on spending. They say we do not even need a budget.

But where are they when it comes to making sure this agreement is actually followed? It is curious that we don't have leadership from the majority leader or the Budget Committee chairman to tell the committee: Look, we understand the Postal Service has serious problems. We understand that. Something probably needs to be done to fix that and improve that situation. It may even cost some money. But to do so, shouldn't we comply with the law of the United States and what we agreed to just last summer?

As this unfolds you will hear part of the reason that spending increases is because the bill requires the Treasury to repay the Postal Service $11 billion that the Postal Service has overpaid to the U.S. Treasury for retirement contributions of current employees.

I am not debating that argument and whether it is an overpayment. I am not debating it. We have experts who have looked at it and said it is basically accurate, that the Treasury does owe the postal department $11 billion. Maybe under some circumstances we are required to pay that back. I don't argue that at this point.

I say if we pay it back, is it not an expenditure of the United States? If you are behind on your car payment shouldn't you look to see where else you can cut spending? That is all we are talking about. You have to understand it costs money. The money comes from somewhere.

I think most people understand the U.S. Government borrows money through T-bill sales, and we pay interest on the money we are borrowing. The fastest growing item in our budget is interest on our debt, so we ought to be cutting spending to pay for this. Over 10 years that is $11 billion. That is a lot. But $11 billion is a little over $1 billion a year, and this year alone we will spend, as I recall, approximately $3,600 billion. So we couldn't pay this money back? We could not find $1 billion a year to pay the money back? We have to just borrow it in addition to the money we have agreed to borrow, breaching the debt limit we have agreed not to breach?

I have to note, unfortunately, the $11 billion is only one-third of the debt impact of the legislation. It is only one-third of the amount by which the bill breaks the agreement of last summer.

What else accounts for the total $34 billion? Most of the deficit increase of the bill, about two-thirds, occurs because the bill would restructure the amount the Postal Service is supposed to pay to the Office of Personnel Management to fund the future retiree health benefits of the current Postal Service employees--coverage for them when they retire.

In 2006 the Congress enacted the Postal Accountability Act to set the Postal Service on a self-sustaining course. According to one of the managers of the bill, that law included ``a requirement that the Postal Service endorsed at the time,'' that the Postal Service prefund the future retiree health benefits of the current postal employees on an accrual basis. That 2006 law set out a schedule of those required payments to the government.

Now, 6 years later, the Postal Service says they are unable to make those required payments. We already enacted a bill last year partially relieving the Postal Service of some of their required 2011 payment, so this bill would defer those payments and stretch out the amount of time to pay them.

How much is the Postal Service allowed to defer? The legislation allows the Postal Service to defer $23 billion in payments for retiree health benefits. This legislation would transfer, in part, the burden of these restructured payments from the users of the Postal Service, the stamp buyers, to taxpayers.

This means the Treasury has to go out and borrow the money over the next 10 years because the Postal Service is relieved from making the health care payments. Again, a budget produced under regular order that I have truly felt we should have done--and remain disappointed, deeply, that has not occurred--should have planned for this by including policy changes somewhere else in the budget that would have offset the cost of this bill.

Because the bill does not do that, because it adds to the debt of the United States, and violates the Budget Control Act I will raise a point of order that will require 60 votes to waive it.

If this new spending is necessary, and I suspect some of it may be, then isn't it worth cutting spending somewhere else to pay for it? Do we really have to break our spending agreement when we are facing the fourth straight deficit in excess of $1 trillion.

Washington is in a state of financial chaos. We are in denial. We are not owning up to the fact that there are limits on what we can do. You tell me how long we can borrow $1 trillion a year, substantially more than we take in every year.

The Government Services Administration is throwing lavish parties in Las Vegas. The Government Accountability Office has identified $400 billion--maybe we could pay the $34 billion out of this $400 billion-- being spent every year, each year, on waste, inefficiency, and duplication. That is the official Government Accountability Office.

Far worse, the Senate's Democratic majority has failed to produce a budget plan in calendar year 2010, 2011, and now 2012. This Sunday, in fact, marks exactly 3 years since the last time the Senate passed a budget.

A budget means responsible behavior. It requires and forces Congress to make tough choices.

Now we say the Postal Service needs more money, and we will just borrow it. This is not responsible behavior.

The White House warns that Republicans want to cut too much spending. But the American people know the truth, and the truth is we have never spent more money than we are spending today and spent it more recklessly and with less accountability.

This is in many ways a decisive moment. I deeply respect my colleagues who have worked on this legislation. It is very complex; it is very important; it is a very difficult issue. But this country has to rationally confront the difficulties in the Postal Service. The world is changing. E-mail continues to erode the market for traditional mail. The Postal Service has to adapt to keep up with the times. We cannot just keep throwing money at it.

I deeply respect the people who worked on this, but I do believe it is a crucial vote. Even if one supports every dollar of spending in the bill, do you support violating the Budget Control Act? I ask my colleagues to vote to sustain the budget point of order. Let's stand up for fiscal responsibility.

In effect, we would send the bill back to our good committee, and say to them: Look at it. If they can spend less, please do so. But if they feel they have to spend more money to sustain the Postal Service, propose how it should be offset. It would meet the requirements and promises we made to the American people.

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to share these remarks. It is going to be difficult to fix, but certainly not impossible. If this bill is sent back--I know my colleagues will figure out a way to pay for it.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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

Madam President, my friend and colleague Senator Conrad said earlier this morning, protesting a bit, that he never said we would have a markup in the Budget Committee--mark up a budget, as required by law. But that was what I understood. I am not here to argue the details of it. But he said publicly, as I understood it, that he was going to have a markup. Our people were working on as many as 80 amendments. I was working on amendments, key health care amendments, at the time. I heard the Senator was having a press conference, we turned it on, and he basically said we are not going to have a markup.

He said there was a markup, we started a markup, we had opening statements, and I offered a bill but we just did not have votes, no amendments, no final vote on passage; didn't ask a single member on the Democratic team on the Budget Committee to vote for or against anything. That is how it happened.

I am not accusing him of deliberately misleading me. What I would say is I thought we were going to have a markup--and a markup means the chairman lays down the chairman's mark, it is marked up with amendments, others can offer substitutes, and you vote, and citizens of the United States of America can hold us accountable for what we do and if they do not like what we do, they vote us out of office. They have been pretty good at that in recent years. A couple of times they whacked the Republicans, last time they whacked the big-spending Democrats in 2010. That is what America is all about. We are accountable. But there is no ability or need or right to avoid responsibility for the critical issues of America. I wanted to say that.

Let me tell you what happened. This is not a mystery here. There is no mystery here. This started 3 years ago when the Senate Budget Committee--Senator Conrad was chairman--moved out a budget. But the majority leader, Senator Reid, decided it was going to be uncomfortable to vote on that budget. The United States Code requires that by April 1 the Budget Committee produce a budget and by April 15 it is voted on, on the floor. Congressmen and Senators who passed the Congressional Budget Act in 1974 did it because we were not having budgets moved promptly, on time. They laid out how it should be conducted. They did not put down that you lose your pay if you do not produce a budget, they did not put down you go to jail if you violate

the statute, they just said that you should do it. So there is no penalty in the code. Senator Reid blocked the budget from coming to the floor 3 years ago.

Then last year, despite the code requiring that we have a budget, Senator Reid and his Democratic colleagues decide they did not want to have a budget even in committee. There was no budget in committee as the law requires, no budget was brought to the floor, except Senator McConnell forced a few votes but without the normal debate that you have on a budget as it moves through the Senate.

What was going to happen this year? What happened this year is that Senator Conrad is not going to be running again. He is proud of his service on the Budget Committee. He served on the Erskine Bowles- Simpson fiscal commission, the Gang of Six he was involved in--he had some ideas. He wanted to do what the law said, I think. I think he wanted to bring forth a budget. At least the last thing he did, he was going to comply with the law--at least that is what I thought.

He got started. We were prepared. On the eve of the hearing to mark up the budget we were told we were going to not have a normal markup, but a markup in which we would not vote. You get to have opening statements--everyone could make one--and then he would lay down the mark, but nobody would vote for it or any amendment or any other substitute mark.

I think that is a pretty sad thing. The reason Congress passed the Congressional Budget Act in 1974 is that Congress recognized they were not fulfilling a fundamental responsibility of good government, and that as the largest entity in the world, the entity that spends more money than any other government agency or so forth in the world, the United States of America, ought to lay out in advance a plan for spending its money. That is so basic. So it required a budget and usually we have had one--at least with regard to committee work.

We do not produce budgets in election years, they say. There have been times in election years when budgets have not been passed and reconciled with the House. But I have never known in the 15 years I have been in the Senate, other than these 3 years, a year when the Budget Committee did not move a budget. The Budget Committee has always managed at least to move forward. And usually we have had votes on the floor--virtually every year. I think this is all miscommunication. It is a concern to me.

The question that we need to ask--and what the American people need to ask is this: Why don't you consider a budget? Why don't you have a budget?

There have been several excuses in the last 3 years about why we do not have a budget. Senator Durbin, Speaker Pelosi, Jack Lew, Chief of Staff at the White House and former Director of OMB, who ought to know better, said on television: You can filibuster a budget and we can't have a budget because you can filibuster it.

Wrong, you cannot filibuster a budget. The Congressional Budget Act was passed in 1974 to make sure we pass the budget. It is passed with a simple majority. You are guaranteed 50 hours of debate and then you have a vote. But in that 50 hours of debate you can offer amendments. So it cannot be filibustered. That is a bogus excuse. So that is not the real reason, is it?

They said we had the Budget Control Act last summer and that takes care of it; we don't need a budget. Wrong. If it is ``the budget control act is the excuse,'' why didn't we have a budget last year, before the Budget Control Act passed? Why didn't we have one the year before that? That was not an election year; last year was not an election year. Why? The Budget Control Act is not the reason they did not bring up a budget. It was not the reason they did not bring up a budget last year and the year before, because we did not have the Budget Control Act last year or the year before and a budget was not brought up. It was not brought up for other reasons.

This is the code book, United States Code, Annotated, where the Congressional Budget Act is, and it requires us to pass a budget out of committee by April 1.

If the Budget Control Act said we did not need to have a budget, why did the President submit a budget this year? He submitted a budget. The Budget Control Act was passed last summer. If that obviated the need to pass a budget, why did Congressman Ryan and the House lay out an historic budget that would change the debt course of America, put us on a path to prosperity and not decline? Why did they do it? There were six other budgets offered in the House, some by Democrats, some by a bipartisan group, and some by conservative Republicans. But the Ryan budget passed and the others were voted on, too. Why did they go through that process if the Budget Control Act eliminated the need for a budget? So that is not the reason.

All they said is that we cannot have a budget during an election year. What does that mean? We don't want to vote on tough economic issues with an election coming, do we? Somebody might note how we voted. They might not be happy with it. They might vote us out of office and the last thing we want is to be voted out of office. We don't want to be held accountable. We don't want the American people to know what we are doing. We want to allow the debt to continue year after year without taking any leadership to change it. That is getting close to the matter.

Senator Conrad said we may reconvene the committee after the election. But we don't want to bring it up before the election. I have to tell you, in this town, with the media, old hands around Washington, lobbyists, political gurus--they probably think that is clever. They say it is clever on TV. ``Oh, Senator Reid didn't want to bring up a budget because his people would have to vote. That's good politics,'' they would say. Senator Reid said he would not bring up a budget last year because it would be foolish to bring up a budget. Foolish for the United States of America to have a budget at a time when the debt is the greatest threat to our future of any thing that is out there? It dwarfs any other danger our Nation faces, our surging debt, and yet it is foolish to have a budget?

No, he wasn't saying it is foolish to have a budget. He was basically saying it was foolish for us Democrats to lay out a plan on how we are going to spend the Nation's money, because we are going to propose big tax increases in our plan and if we put it out there they are not going to like it. The great unwashed out there, these tea party people, they might be angry with us if they find out how much we are going to increase taxes and how little spending is going to be cut in our budget. That is what he meant, ``it is foolish.'' It was politically foolish, not substantively foolish.

We were at this so-called markup--this faux markup I called it yesterday--and the Democratic members were speaking, and you would have thought they were serving the Nation's interest by not having a vote: You know, we are going to talk about this. We should talk about it so we can begin to make plans for next year. Next year? We have gone three years without a budget. They were serving the national interest?

All that was rhetoric. The interest they were serving was political, and the political interest was not to have to vote and be held accountable, because the President's budget is so irresponsible. I offered it last year. Senator McConnell called it up and got a vote on it. We did not get to debate it. We called it up, and Senator McConnell was able to force a vote--97 to 0 against the President's budget. Every Democrat voted against the President's budget last year.

Earlier this year the President's budget was brought up in the House. It went down 414 to 0. Then they brought up Congressman Ryan's budget here in the Senate. All our Democratic colleagues voted against it because it cuts spending and doesn't raise enough taxes. They voted against it, but they did not say what they would do. They brought up Senator Toomey's budget, which would balance the budget in 10 years, last year. He has one that would balance maybe even sooner this year--a tough thing to do, but he has a budget that would do that. It was brought up on the floor of the Senate, and every Democrat voted against it.

So with regard to budgets last year, what happened? Our Democratic colleagues voted against the President's budget, they voted against the Toomey budget, they voted against the Ryan

budget, they voted against the Rand Paul budget, and they didn't vote for anything. They didn't go on record for anything because they don't have the courage or the coherence or the willingness to agree on a vision for America. It is that simple. One can spin all this any way one wants to, but the Democratic majority in this Senate is incapable of uniting behind a plan that the American people would see as credible and would change our dangerous debt path.

Alan Simpson, the former Senator, and Erskine Bowles, former Chief of Staff to President Clinton, chaired the Fiscal Commission. The President appointed them to the Fiscal Commission. They told us this Nation has never faced a more predictable financial crisis, and they were talking about the surge in debt. I think that is true. I think the needle is in the danger zone. Our debt-to-GDP is now over 100 percent. Our total gross debt is greater than the entire gross domestic product of our country. Our debt per capita is greater than Europe's. Our debt per capita is greater than Greece's. Our debt per capita is $50,000 per person, and under the President's 10-year budget, it would go to $73,000 per person--greater than Europe, which is in a financial crisis today. We have some unique advantages now, but we could lose those. We are heading to a crisis unless we change our path.

I am so disappointed in the President. This is the leader of the Nation. What does he do? Not only does he not lay forth a credible plan for the future, he attacks Congressman Ryan. He invites him to come sit in on a meeting and then attacks him. Meanwhile he says he wants to have a bipartisan plan to change America.

We need to make some tough decisions--a lot of tough decisions. They are not going to be easy when we borrow 40 cents of every dollar we spend. Last year we were taking in $2,300 billion and spending $3,600 billion. I know people think this is not true. I am telling my colleagues that it is true. That is why Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives acknowledge we are on the wrong path.

The budget that Senator Conrad laid down but none of his colleagues voted for--and he didn't vote for it either--the budget he laid down yesterday would not cut any spending over the agreement of the Budget Control Act next year. After the Budget Control Act passed, we were projecting to spend $44 trillion over 10 years, and under Senator Conrad's budget, we would spend $44 trillion over 10 years. But he claimed we are going to reduce deficits. How? By getting $2.6 trillion in new taxes--no cuts, but $2.6 trillion in new taxes. No wonder they don't want to have it out here on the floor where it can be talked about and amendments can be offered and the American people can know what is in it. That is no way to solve our Nation's problem.

The President goes around saying we need the Buffett tax. We know the Buffett tax and how horrible it is, and people don't see that as a solution to our problem when, in fact, it would raise $4 billion a year and this year our deficit is projected to be, again, $1,300 billion. This Buffett tax is going to raise $4 billion. How irresponsible is that? Is this all we are getting from the other side? Tax oil companies, raise the Buffett tax--there is no reality here.

So what I believe is this: A budget lays out a comprehensive plan. It lays out a plan for 10 years. We have some smart people around here, and they can add up the numbers, and they will know how that budget raises taxes, how little it may be cutting spending, how much debt we will be accumulating each and every year in the years to come, and the Congressional Budget Office tells us how much interest we will pay on our debt each year.

We could ask Congressman Ryan: How much interest are we going to have to be paying on our debt over the next 10 years? We could ask Senator Conrad or Senator Reid: How much interest will your budget cause us to pay? For example, President Obama's budget--last year we paid $230 billion in interest on the debt of the United States. According to the Congressional Budget Office, which has analyzed the numbers, they calculated that at the end of the 10th year, we would pay $743 billion in interest--in one year. The Federal highway program spent faster to meet the $40 billion budget this year for highways. Federal aid to education is $70 billion. The Defense Department's base budget is $530 billion. Interest would be the fastest growing item in the Federal budget based on the fact that we are running virtually trillion-dollar deficits for the rest of the decade.

Also, the President's budget fails to alter the debt course in the future. Congressman Ryan's does. It deals with the surging entitlements--at least the ones that can be dealt with. We can't deal with Social Security in a budget by law, but we can deal with Medicare, Medicaid, and other surging entitlement programs that have to be brought into some sort of stable control so they don't go bankrupt. Congressman Ryan dealt with that, but the President doesn't deal with it in a realistic way, and he has failed to lay out a plan.

I guess what I am saying is I am just frustrated this morning to hear that our colleagues are aggrieved that they did not get--that we felt we should have had a markup on the budget, but we didn't get one. The reason we didn't get one is because a decision has been made in the highest counsels of the majority party of the U.S. Senate that they do not want to be held accountable for the votes necessary to put our country on a sound path. I am very disappointed about it, and that is the bottom line. Hopefully, as time goes by, we can come together and work together to pass a plan for America--including tax reform--that will put us on the right path. That certainly is what is needed.

I would just say, though, that a budget can be passed on a party-line basis. It has been done many times in the past. The majority party in particular has a responsibility, in my view, to lay out its vision for the country, and the biggest part of that vision is where they intend to spend the taxpayers' money. I can't imagine they would want to go to the American people and ask for higher taxes when they refuse to comply with the plain statutory law that says they should have a budget to show where that money is going to be spent. If they won't tell the American people where they are going to spend the money, how much debt they are going to run up, how much spending they are going to cut or not cut, then I don't think the American people ought to send another dime to this place--not another dime. That is why the polling numbers show we are in such sad shape.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for up to 15 minutes.

Madam President, I am here today to share a new and stunning revelation unearthed by my staff on the Senate Budget Committee. One of my responsibilities as the ranking member is to look at the long-term cost of legislation, so we wanted to ascertain the long-term cost of the President's health care bill--I mean the kind of long-term cost analysis that has been going on for a number of years with regard to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid, over a 75-year period. I was floored by what we discovered.

First, let's put in a little context. President Obama told the American people repeatedly that his health care bill would cost $900 billion over 10 years and that it would not add one dime to the public debt. But we have shown that the cost score for the first 10 years of implementation, when the bill is fully implemented, is actually $2.6 trillion--almost three times as much.

In addition, the offsets used to reduce the law's official cost were enormous and phony, as I have discussed before and will detail at another time. These are unacceptable offsets. You have heard the story of Mr. Mistoffelees, the Napoleon of Crime. I say that this bill is the Napoleon of criminal offsets. The more we learn about the bill, the more we discover it is even more unaffordable than was suspected.

Over a period of about 3 months, our staff worked diligently to estimate the new unfunded liability that would be imposed by the passage of this legislation. This is not the total cost of the bill but the unfunded mandatory coverage obligations incurred by the U.S. Government on behalf of the people of the United States over a period of time.

An unfunded obligation is basically the amount of money we will have to spend on a mandatory expense that the bill does not have a funding source to meet--money we don't have but money we are committed to spend. It is this kind of long-term unfunded obligation that will place this Nation's financial situation at such great risk. It is the thing that has called witness after witness before the Budget Committee, on which I am ranking member, who tell us we are on an unsustainable path. That means money we will either have to print, borrow, or tax to meet the obligations we would incur as a people as a result of the passage of this bill.

For instance, it is widely agreed that Social Security has an unfunded liability of $7 trillion over 75 years. That is an enormous sum. It is double the entire amount of the U.S. budget today. My staff used the models that are used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They talked with the individual experts about these numbers and worked diligently to come up with a figure using appropriate methods. That figure, using the administration's own optimistic assumptions and claims about the cost of the law, is an incredible $17 trillion that would be added to the unfunded liabilities of the United States over the next 75 years. That is more than twice the unfunded liability of Social Security.

I wish to emphasize that this $17 trillion figure is not an estimate based on what we think the bill will really cost if all the administration's claims and promises were to be proven false--and certainly there have been matters proven false already. We used the administration's own figures. So the unfunded liability is almost certainly not going to be less than $17 trillion, but if any more of the administration's claims unravel--as so many already have--the cost of the program's unpaid-for obligation will rise radically higher than $17 trillion. For instance, former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an expert in these matters, says that millions more individuals may lose their current employer coverage and be placed into the government- supported exchanges than currently projected--than what the administration has projected. But we didn't follow Mr. Holtz-Eakin's arguments or concerns; we took the administration's assumptions.

Let me briefly explain some of what now comprises this additional $17 trillion in unfunded obligations.

Madam President, $12 trillion is for the health care law's premium subsidy program. You see, the law created new regulations that drive up the price of insurance for millions of Americans. The writers of the law knew it would inflate the cost of insurance premiums, so to cover that cost, they had to include new government subsidies so people could pay for their more expensive insurance.

On Medicaid, this new health care law has added another $5 trillion to its unfunded liabilities. This is on top of the substantial unfunded obligations the Federal and State governments have already had to take on in order to support Medicaid. They have protested vigorously to us, warning of these additional deep expenditure requirements that are falling on the States.

These figures don't even account for the dozens of new bureaucracies that will be created to implement the President's health care law or the expansion of the bureaucracies. Those costs are not included in the $17 trillion or the cost estimates the administration used for the bill. For instance, the IRS has requested 4,000 new IRS agents and $300 million in additional funds for their part in implementing the new law.

At a time when we should be trying--we have to--to shore up programs that are threatened by default--Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid-- this health care law adds an entirely new obligation--one we cannot pay for--and puts the entire financing of the U.S. Government in jeopardy. We don't have the money. We don't have another $17 trillion in unfunded liabilities that we can add to our account. We have to reduce the ones we have. This has been obvious for several decades. People have talked about it repeatedly.

Instead of doing something about those programs that are headed to bankruptcy, we add--under this President's determined insistence and a straight party-line vote--one of the largest unfunded mandates in history on top of what we already have. How can we possibly justify this? It cannot be justified.

This bill has to be removed from the books because we don't have the money. There are a lot of other reasons, but that is one of them. It is inescapable. It would be absolutely irresponsible for this Congress to maintain a law that would run up this kind of debt--2\1/2\ times the unfunded obligations of Social Security--and we are worried about our children being able to have their Social Security checks on time.

This is not a little bitty matter, it is important. So I will be sending a letter to the GAO, the Government Accountability Office. They do these kinds of scorings over 75 years. We will ask them to construct their independent estimate of the unfunded health care law obligations. I believe they will be similar to the ones my staff has produced. I hope they are better, but I am afraid they are not. And even if they come close to what we have calculated, it is pretty clear that the money that

will be coming in could be far less and the obligations could be far more than what are being projected, as Mr. Holtz-Eakin and others have said. It is an urgent matter.

I plan to come to the floor in the coming days to continue to explain the true fiscal cost facts about this legislation. There are many other serious problems with it. It is unpopular, unaffordable, unconstitutional, and it has to be repealed.

I yield the floor.

I thank the chairman and join him in commending Ms. Smith for her many years of dedicated, faithful, and outstanding service to CBO, to the Senate through her work in the Parliamentarian's Office and the Budget Committee, and to the Congress and American people. We wish her all the best in her well-deserved retirement.

We hope our colleagues will join us in thanking Ms. Smith--and really all of the hard-working employees at the Congressional Budget Office-- for her and their service.

Madam President, my understanding was that Senator Durbin is going to make a UC request, which I plan to object to, and there might be some brief discussion of that. But I don't see Senator Durbin on the floor.

No, although I wouldn't mind seizing the opportunity to speak about Senator Mikulski for a minute, but otherwise, if the Senator has no----

Mr. President, although I do not have prepared remarks, I wish to join with my colleagues in making a few comments about Senator Mikulski.

Senator Mikulski is a great Senator. She is a delight to work with, a formidable adversary, and a formidable ally in any important debate. She is someone whom all of us respect and admire. It surprises me she has been at this business so long. It doesn't seem as though it is possible. She certainly hasn't lost her enthusiasm for the job and she has played an important role in quite a number of issues with which the country has had to deal.

I remember her leadership on an important issue during the post-9/11 time, when we were wrestling with how to deal with security for our country. She spoke firmly and strongly in favor of firm action to defend America from attack.

Another issue I don't think has been mentioned but is exceedingly important--something I have observed her deal with and provide leadership on for some time--is space and NASA. She is one of the absolutely most knowledgeable and experienced Members of this Senate and the entire Congress in dealing with the complexities and the needs of NASA and she is a champion and advocate for exploration of space. This is an area where America has led the world, and for all her time in the Senate, she has been a champion of advocating that the United States maintain this leadership because I think we share the view that America is a nation of explorers. We are a nation that leads the world in exploring and it is part of our DNA. So I appreciate her leadership in that particular area, as I have watched her with great admiration in her activities.

I didn't realize this tribute would be going on this afternoon and I didn't have prepared remarks, but I wish to join with my colleagues to say how much I appreciate her efforts. We celebrate her great accomplishment in the Senate. I believe that as we go forward, we will find that on issue after issue she will play a critical and a positive role in making America a better place.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I want to congratulate my colleague Senator Durbin for his able articulation of his view. This is a matter that the Senate and the Congress has considered for quite a number of years. It has not decided to take this step to direct a coequal branch of government on how to conduct their business, and I don't think we should. So I think it would be inappropriate to pass this on a UC without a full debate and discussion and a full vote on it.

So I would say that.

Also, I would note the Justices have opposed this policy. I think we have a duty to respect the coequal branch of our government. They feel as though it would impact adversely the tenor and tone of the oral arguments. The Justices would also have to feel a burden and explain why they are asking a question, perhaps citing a case by name that all the lawyers would know but having to explain to nonlawyers now what is on their minds as a part of their process of questioning. So I think that is a factor.

I would also note it raises constitutional questions. Why would we want to push to the limit and perhaps push over the limit and try to dictate to a coequal branch how to conduct the adjudicative process? Not the political process; we are the political branch. Theirs is the nonpolitical branch, where Justices are given lifetime tenure so as to insulate them from pressure and to allow them to dispassionately decide complex issues. I would also note that in terms of what is said and how an argument goes, there is no difference, I suppose, between that and what goes on in chambers when the Justices meet in private and talk about what issues are before the Court and how they should be decided.

What is important in the adjudicative branch? What is the criteria and the fundamental essence of a judicial proceeding? Ultimately, it is the judgment. The judgment speaks. The arguments don't speak. The in camera discussions don't speak. The judgment itself represents the opinion of the Court. It is the law and the defining process.

I appreciate very much the work of my esteemed colleague. I know he loves the law; we both do. He believes this would improve justice in America. I can't conclude that to be correct. I believe Justices should be given the responsibility to conduct their branch consistent with their best judgment of how do to it. Therefore, I object. I thank and respect my colleague for his different opinion.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 247, S. 671; that the committee-reported amendment to S. 671 be agreed to, and the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed.

Mr. President, I appreciate the suggestion by the Senator from Illinois, as I believe I will be able to support all those bills, but I have information that Senators on our side oppose or have objections to two of them and would like to offer amendments or modify them. So I am not able to agree on behalf of colleagues that all the bills would be passed as written.

Mr. President, I would note that the Presiding Officer is a cosponsor with myself of S. 1792, the Strengthening Investigations of Sex Offenders and Missing Children Act of 2011, and perhaps we will be able to make that work sooner or later. I am sure we will.

Mr. President, on behalf of Senator Pryor and myself, I ask unanimous consent that the transcript of the 60th Annual National Prayer Breakfast be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business for 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I was a bit surprised--although one is never totally surprised in this body--when my Democratic colleagues were saying this morning that something bad has happened because the historic budget that would change the debt course of America, that has been announced by Congressman Paul Ryan and his House Budget Committee today, violates the Budget Control Act. It spends a few billion dollars less than what was capped in the Budget Control Act. The Budget Control Act that passed put a cap on the roughly $1 trillion of discretionary spending only. And from that $1 trillion-plus cap, the House would reduce spending by $19 billion in the proposed budget today, and this somehow violates good spirit around here and is the wrong thing. But I would just say that when the Budget Control Act passed in the wee hours of the morning at the eleventh hour and the 59th minute before a government shutdown occurred, we knew it wasn't enough of a reduction in spending. It wasn't half of what experts have told us needs to be reduced over the next 10 years to put America on a sound debt path.

We are on a disastrous debt path. We are heading to the most predictable financial crisis this Nation has ever faced because we are spending 40 cents per dollar more than we have. We are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend--borrowing it--just to maintain this level of spending.

So the House made some changes or made a proposal to reduce the spending level below the Budget Control Act, and they also recognized that the $1 trillion or so in spending that was covered by the Budget Control Act--and that is the discretionary spending--is only a little over 40 percent of total spending. Over half of the spending is in the entitlement mandatory spending category. They proposed really nothing

under the Budget Control Act to make any changes.

So the Ryan budget proposed to spend next year $180 billion less than the President's budget proposed that he submitted earlier this year. And did the President's budget adhere to the BCA? My colleagues say, oh, they are mostly disheartened that Republicans would take the spending down below the level by about $19 billion or so under the Budget Control Act numbers. But I didn't hear them complaining when President Obama submitted his budget.

Do my colleagues know what the President's budget did? It wiped out over half of the spending cuts in the Budget Control Act. Can my colleagues imagine that? We agreed on $2.1 trillion in spending reductions, and $1 trillion of that was voted on explicitly, and $1.2 trillion was an automatic sequester or an automatic cut in spending if the committee didn't reach a long-term agreement. The committee didn't reach an agreement, so automatically $1.2 trillion in cuts was to be imposed. That is the current law. President Obama's budget wipes it out. Not only does he add, therefore, $1.2 trillion immediately to spending as a result of wiping out the sequester we agreed on just last August, he adds another $500 billion in spending. His budget he submitted just a few weeks ago calls for spending increases of $1.6 trillion more than was in the Budget Control Act.

So my good friend Senator Conrad, who chairs the Budget Committee, and our Democratic leadership, who are threatening a government shutdown because Congressman Ryan and the responsible House Budget Committee proposed actually taking a few more billion dollars out of discretionary spending, want to complain about that. I didn't hear them complaining when we had the most astounding event after the President signed the Budget Control Act that passed both Houses at the eleventh hour: a compromise agreement--a compromise we all knew was not sufficient. And 5 months later, before the ink is hardly dry on it, he proposes to wipe it out.

No wonder the American people don't trust Congress. We say in August: We are going to save $2.1 trillion--trust us--and we are going to raise the debt ceiling so America can continue to borrow at this extraordinary rate, but we are going to cut spending. We are going to raise the debt ceiling, but don't worry, we promise to cut spending. And the President of the United States, within 5 months of that agreement being reached, submits to us a budget that wipes out half of it. I am amazed that nobody has been talking about it. I have tried to raise the issue. It just points out to me how silly it is that our colleagues in the Senate would complain about Congressman Ryan.

The American people gave Republicans a majority in the House of Representatives. We are facing the most systemic debt threat this Nation has ever faced, and they knew it, and they proposed last year and again this year a historic budget that would alter the debt course we are on. It would take us from unsustainability to sustainability. It would take us on a path that we would hope avoids a debt crisis, although we are so close to it, I am not sure we can avoid it. Hopefully, we can avoid a debt crisis, but our debt is tremendous. Our individual, per capita debt is $44,000 per man, woman, and child-- greater than any country in Europe and greater than Greece. We are in the danger zone; clearly, we are.

So they proposed this budget last year and again this year, and it laid out a plan. So what happened? The President of the United States calls out Congressman Ryan and castigates him in a speech, and he is sitting right in front of him. The Senate Democrats, who haven't produced a budget in 3 years because they are afraid to, because they don't have the courage to lay out the tough choices that are going to be necessary to save this Republic financially, attacked Congressman Ryan and his House Members for trying to do the right thing. It is unbelievable to me. I am just amazed. Now we have them complaining that he goes a little below the Budget Control Act numbers. Give me a break.

Does anybody not know what is going on here? The American people do. They gave a shellacking to a lot of the big spenders in the last election. Surely we would have thought Congress got the message. The House did. Apparently, the Senators have not.

Senator Reid, our majority leader, said it would be foolish to have a budget. Foolish to have a budget? The law requires us to have a budget. By April 1, we should have one in the committee. We are not going to be meeting before then. We should have one pass both Houses by April 15. That is the law. It is in the United States Code. Unfortunately, I guess, we don't go to jail as a result of not passing one because we haven't passed one here for 3 consecutive years. We haven't passed a budget in 3 years.

Senator Reid said it is foolish to pass a budget. Why? I think he meant politically. It would be foolish for him to allow a budget to come to the floor where there is free debate, an opportunity to offer amendments in large numbers, and actually debate the challenges and vote on them. Senators--in public; not in secret meetings but in public--actually vote on these issues that are important to America and held accountable, and the American people can see how tough the choices are because the choices are tough. It is not going to be easy to balance this budget. I am telling my colleagues, I have seen the numbers. I am ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, and I have sat down with my staff, and I wish I could say it would be easier than it is. It is not going to be easy.

So this is a frustrating moment. I am not really surprised. Here we are, going into the summer, trying to deal with a financial systemic threat to America that Admiral Mullen calls the greatest threat to our national security--our debt. We have done nothing about it. The House has. The Republican leadership in the House has done their duty. They produced a courageous, thoughtful, responsible debt course change that will put us on the road to prosperity, not decline. Their budget includes tax simplifications and tax reductions even, while they are doubling the amount of savings President Obama achieves. The House budget, although it doesn't balance in 10 years--and I wish it did, but it doesn't balance in 10 years--adds half the debt in the next 10 years that President Obama's budget proposes. It cuts it more than half. It puts us on a path. And in the outyears, it is even more positive in its effect and clearly takes us out of this disastrous course we are on. So they should be congratulated for being honest and detailed.

Speaking of details, why don't we see the Democratic Members of this Senate lay out their budget plan?

Last year, Senator Reid called up the House budget so all could vote against it. So Senator McConnell called up the President's budget. Every Democratic Member voted against that. Senator Toomey's thoughtful budget----

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for 1 additional minute.

The net result was that the President's plan was brought up, and voted down 97 to nothing. All Democrats voted against the Toomey plan. All of them voted against the House plan. They voted against everything. Not one plan did they produce that they voted for. That is the course we are on today. I do not think that is a plan and a policy you can be proud of. I think it is unworthy of a party giving leadership in the Senate at this critical time in history.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

I couldn't agree more about the concerns the Senator raised.

Senator Johnson was a successful businessman. He provided health insurance for his employees. He had to purchase it. I will just ask him one quick question. Based on his experience--a year and a half ago he was doing this business. What are the incentives for a business that is already in existence, providing health care, why might they not continue to provide it? Why might a new company, a startup company, a small business that hopes to grow and have hundreds of employees--why might they never start with employer-based health care?

I think all of us need to be listening to this because it is something that was not sufficiently considered during the debate; that is, that dramatically more employers may quit providing insurance, new companies that get started will not provide it, people will be on the exchanges, and it will cost far more than was expected. That is an entirely new issue.

Assuming the low numbers the Congressional Budget Office said will go

into the exchanges, just taking the numbers they assumed, let me point out what Senator Kyl said. President Obama, in an exact quote to the joint session of Congress when he was promoting this legislation, not some off-the-cuff figure, said this:

Now, add it all up. And the plan I'm proposing will cost

around $900 billion over 10 years--

This was a deliberate attempt, as has been suggested, to manipulate the figures because the taxes started right away, but the spending was 4 years delayed essentially, so we only have 6 years of spending under the plan. It also excluded many other provisions.

For example, the bureaucratic implementation costs were not counted. The amount of effort, even the IRS will have to hire people who have to be involved, and this was not counted. New spending to close the Medicare doughnut hole. We didn't have the money in 2002 or 2003 to fund that provision. We have never been in worse shape. We are borrowing 40 cents of every $1 we spend, far worse than we were. Next year will be the fifth consecutive $1 trillion deficit. We don't have the money. So now we are spending more on that program that we don't have, the new or early retiree program.

So once we add all the different provisions in the health care law, total gross spending over the original 10 years, when only 6 years is being paid for--over 10 years is actually 1.4 trillion. Those are the numbers we have. So this was a misrepresentation. This is from 2010 through 2019, 1.4 trillion. But when we add all the costs over the first full 10 years of this health care bill, it will be $2.6 trillion.

The point is, the bill is not good health policy. The American people oppose it overwhelmingly. Absolutely, we do not have the money. We have never had a more systemic death threat to America, and it is so painful to see this happen.

I thank Senator Johnson for his energy, for the commitment he has brought to this issue. He has seen it on the other side, the real-world side, and he is helping to motivate us all to explain to the American people the dangers of the bill.

Yes.

As a part of the funding for the ObamaCare legislation, there was an increase in Medicare taxes and a cut in Medicare benefits totaling $400 billion. That money was used to fund the new health care bill by the U.S. Treasury, an entirely new program. But it is Medicare's money. It is not the Treasury's money. Medicare has trustees. Medicare loaned the money to the U.S. Treasury. It was borrowed money that was used to fund this bill, not money that came in new and free of charge. Since Medicare is going into default and going to claim its debt in a few years, the Federal Government is simply going to have to either raise taxes, cut spending somewhere else or, more likely, convert the borrowing from Medicare, borrow money on the open market from China and other places, and then pay Medicare back.

It is, as the CBO Director told me in a letter, December 23, the night before we voted: You are double counting the money.

No wonder this country is going broke. This isn't extra money. Half the original estimate of the bill, $900 billion, was funded by borrowed money from Medicare. This is how this country is surging in its debt and why we are in danger of the entire economy entering into collapse.

That is a good point, because in the past we have attempted and claimed we were going to make savings in Medicare and they never occurred.

What I am saying is if these savings were to occur and if the new taxes on Medicare go into effect, as they are, that money is what is being used to fund an entirely new health care program. There is real doubt it will ever achieve those savings in Medicare, because if we keep cutting doctors and we keep cutting hospitals, they can't keep doing work. They will start refusing Medicare and Medicaid work. We are in that position already on some of the cuts that we rescind every year because we know the health care system would collapse if those cuts were to go into effect.

Senator Kyl and the Senator from Kansas, as he has indicated, were engaged in this cost curve-bending plan. The essence of the President's proposal--it went to the core of other proposals financially--was that by a Federal Government expansion of our authority, we would bend the cost curve and make health care cheaper for all Americans. That was a fundamental principle that was sold to businesspeople, and some businesspeople thought it was a great idea, but it has not happened. Already the premiums in private health care in America have gone up $2,000, almost $200 a month, and we are going to see it continue to go up. It does not bend the cost curve down. In fact, we are seeing the opposite occur.

We have to know that our per-person government debt--Senator Johnson is on the Budget Committee, and he knows this--is worse than any other Western world nation. Per capita, we have more debt than Greece, Spain, Italy, and Ireland, with $44,000 per person that every man, woman, and child owes. And if the President submitted a budget and if it were to be enacted--and certainly it will not be--that would go to $75,000 per person in 10 years.

This health care bill is dramatically adding to that. Every expert we have had at the Budget Committee has told us that we are on an unsustainable spending and debt path that will lead to financial collapse. Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, who chaired President Obama's debt commission, both issued a written statement that America has never faced a more predictable financial crisis. What they told us was that spending and running up debt as we are today guarantees a financial collapse that could impact every person in America and deeply impact our ability to have health care in this country.

So I think we have to recognize that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives will unveil a budget plan tomorrow. The Senate is not going to bring up a budget. The Democratic leader said it is foolish to have a budget, so we will go for the third consecutive year without even attempting to pass a budget. It is supposed to be out of the committee by April 1. It is supposed to be passed by April 15. The House is going to do it. They are going to step up to the plate, and they are going to lay out a plan like they did last year, a plan that will change the debt course of America, a plan that would put us on a sustainable path so that we don't have to fear financial collapse.

They are going to look at this legislation, and it cannot be imposed. We do not have the money. It is going to make health care worse, as we have heard, but more than that, we simply--even if it were a good idea, a nice thing to have, we do not have the money. We are borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend, and they misrepresented the cost. It is far higher than anyone has expected, and it is going to continue.

For example, our people have looked at the CBO score--on the Budget Committee--and they have analyzed it fairly, and I am prepared to defend these numbers. Based on CBO's scores, from 2014--the first year the law is really in effect--until 2023, it will cost $2.66 trillion. It is far more than was projected. How much money is that? Over the same 10-year period, we would spend $626 billion on Federal highways. We had been fighting over highways, and we finally passed a highway bill. The Federal money for the whole highway system would be $626 billion, while we are adding a new program that is improperly funded for $2,600 billion. Over the next 10 years, we expect to spend $1,000 billion for education, and this health care cost is going to be $2,600 billion. We have disasters. We spend a lot of money on disasters. It is expected that we will spend $111 billion on disasters, whereas we will spend $2.6 trillion on the health care bill.

This is the kind of thing that has the American people asking us: Are you crazy? How can you borrow 40 cents of every dollar you spend, as we are doing today. How can you do that to America? What is the matter with you people?

They say people back home are not smart, they are just angry. Well, aren't they right to be angry? We are adding a program that is financially unsound, that is going to make health care worse, and we don't have the money. This money needs to be used to save Medicare and Social Security--programs that are already in great jeopardy. If we have money, we have to use it to save them, not start a new program of massive proportions that, over 60, 75 years, is going to cost far more than anyone imagines.

I thank Senator Johnson for raising this, and I am concerned about the costs. I know Senator Boozman and others have talked about the rationing. There are a lot of reasons why we simply can't go forward with this health care bill. It must be eliminated as we know it. We can make reforms, but this legislation cannot go into effect.

Madam President, I thank our Republican leader, Senator McConnell, for bringing some perspective to this situation. I have seen the circumstances in the Senate and how the nominations process has changed over time. When I came here, there were no filibusters. Maybe there had been one in which a nomination was delayed and the nomination was withdrawn because it had certain problems, but virtually none. It was the position of the Senate that we did not filibuster nominations, and I still believe in that.

But I would point out that in 2001 the Democrats met in conference, and they had a plan to change the ground rules of confirmations. They announced it to the New York Times. Cass Sunstein, Marcia Greenberg, and Laurence Tribe met with them, and they came out and started filibustering systematically the fabulous nominations that President Bush had sent to the Senate. He sent eight nominees early in his administration. Two of them were renominations of President Clinton's nominees. They were promptly confirmed in the Senate. But immediately filibusters of superb nominees such as Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and others commenced, and we had a long process with that. This was led by the Democrats. Then-Senator Obama was one of them. He filibustered Justice Alito's nomination. We had not done that before. He participated in other filibusters. Senator Reid voted to block an up-or-down vote 26 times. Senator Leahy voted to block an up-or-down vote 27 times.

What happened was there was such a controversy over this changing of the rules in the early 2000s that it resulted in a compromise. Fourteen Senators--called the Gang of 14--decided they would break the logjam and create a new rule. It was not a perfect rule. I really think filibusters are not the

right thing for judges. But they said: We will have them only in extraordinary circumstances. That sort of became the new rule, and a number of nominees eventually, after years of waiting, were confirmed. Others were not. That is sort of the way we operate today. But that is not the problem. That is not the problem at all.

Since President Obama has been in office, he has had about the same percentage of confirmations as President Bush had during the same period of time. He has had fewer lower court nominations because he has submitted fewer nominations--about 20 percent fewer nominations than President Bush. The average time from nomination to confirmation for President Obama's nominees is within a week of the average time from nomination to confirmation for Bush nominees. The process is working here.

What is happening? I am telling you, I know what is happening. This Democratic leadership in the Senate--and make no mistake, they control this body--has been trying to create a perception that there is obstruction going on, and they are going to pretend that these 17 nominees, who would have come up for a vote in regular order, are being blocked. This is part of an obstructive tactic, and it is not accurate, and it is not correct. Nominations have been moving at the regular pace. It is a gimmick. It is a political stunt.

What ought to be done in the Senate? We need to be working on what is important. We now will have, finally, after 3 weeks, votes today-- maybe--to pass the highway bill. Well, why did it take 3 weeks? We went about 2 weeks without doing anything. We have had about 2 days' worth of votes all of a sudden at the end of 3 weeks, and the bill will be up for final passage.

Why was that not done 3 weeks ago? Because Senator Reid obstructed the ability of Senators to offer amendments, and he tried to move this bill forward without amendments, except the ones he picked, and that is not right. The majority leader does not get to pick amendments or how many should be offered to legislation in the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world, the U.S. Senate. He does not have that power. So he tried to move the bill forward, and Republicans said: No, we will not move to a final vote until you agree on amendments. Now he has agreed to 20 or 30 amendments. In about 2 days' time, they will have all been voted on--some of them were withdrawn--and the bill will come up for final passage.

Why didn't it happen earlier? Because this is a rope-a-dope. They do not want to talk about the things that this country needs. One of them is a budget. It has been over 1,000 days since this Congress has passed a budget. Why aren't we spending time on that? Senator Reid said it is foolish to pass a budget. It is not foolish to pass a budget. We are required to pass a budget. This country has never needed a budget more than it needs it today--never.

We are heading to financial catastrophe. Erskine Bowles chaired the debt commission--President Clinton's Chief of Staff--and he said we are heading to the most predictable financial crisis in our Nation's history. Why? Because of the debt we are running up. And we need to confront that, but Senator Reid did not want to talk about it. He did not want his Members to have to vote. If you bring up a budget, Members have to vote. They get to offer amendments. They will talk about the debt course of America, which is on an unsustainable path. Everybody says that. Why aren't we talking about that?

Judicial nominations are moving at a reasonable pace, as they have always moved. There is nothing unusual about President Obama's ability to get his judges confirmed. I have probably voted for 90 percent of them. What is unusual is that we are violating the statutory law of the United States of America that says you should have a budget. We are required to pass a budget. By April 1, it should be before the Senate. It should be passed by April 15. Isn't that perfectly sane, that the United States of America would have a budget? And the Senate does not want to do that.

What else should we be talking about? We should be working to have more affordable American energy. We all want to create jobs. Our colleagues on the Democratic side rammed through a big stimulus bill that spent government money, ran up $800 billion--every penny added to the debt of the United States. We were in debt and we spent $800 billion--all borrowed, all adding to our debt. It did not really do anything for the economy. Only 4 percent of it went to roads and bridges. What a tragedy that was. It was supposed to fix our crumbling infrastructure. At least we would have had something concrete to show for it had we built roads and bridges.

So now we are in this situation: How do you create jobs? We cannot keep borrowing money. We do not have it. Expert after expert who has testified before the Budget Committee, where I am the ranking Republican, has told us you cannot keep borrowing this kind of money. Experts have told us that the size of the debt we have now--$15 trillion--already is slowing growth in the country. We need economic growth, we do not need it slowed, and it is being slowed because we have run up so much debt, experts tell us. So I am worried about that. We have to deal with it.

How do we create growth? One of things we need to do is produce more American energy. We do not need a Secretary of Energy--I have taken to calling it the Department of Anti-Energy--who said in 2008 that he wanted to see the price of energy go up.

He was asked I think yesterday in the committee: Do you still believe that?

He said: Well, no, I have changed my mind since 2008. You know, the economy is not doing well, and maybe now at this point I don't think energy prices should go up.

Can you imagine the Secretary of Energy fundamentally having as his guiding principle that he wants to raise the price of energy? And the President said it himself before he was elected.

This is a radical idea driven by extremists who do not understand that the cost of energy hammers the American people. The average American is spending $4,000 a year on gasoline, at almost $400 a month. You were spending $200 a month on your gasoline when President Obama took office. Now you are spending twice as much: $400--$200 a month in the form of a basic tax on you.

We are importing oil. But we are finding more in the United States, and we have better techniques for bringing it out of the ground. We can produce a lot more. Privately owned lands are showing increases in energy production and exploration. They are doing a good job. But the government owned lands are down 14 percent because the President is blocking production on government lands, blocking offshore production. He really is.

We were projected to have issued lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico on 12 major tracts. That has been reduced to just two in the last 2 years. This is putting us behind. Production of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico is down. Jobs are down. When we allow drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, oil companies bid for those rights. They pay money to the U.S. Government. Not only do they create jobs in America, they pay us money to get the right to drill and then they pay us for every barrel of oil they produce. It creates wealth for America. Why do we want to loan money to Brazil to produce oil and gas offshore when we can produce it in our own gulf?

So those are things on which we need to be focused. Why aren't we talking about that, in addition to the budget?

And taxes. I was talking to a businessman the other day. He said this investment tax credit that encourages you to invest in new machinery and other equipment for his company--he examined that, and he decided he would take advantage of it and accelerate a purchase of some things for his company. He got a big tax credit, but he said the paperwork was this thick. The lawyers and accountants and effort he had to go through cost him at least a third of the advantage he was supposed to get from the government. It is not necessary for things to be that complicated.

We need simplified, progrowth tax reform. Why is that not on the floor of the Senate? Isn't that a priority for America? I think everybody can agree that if we simplified our tax procedure, if me made it more growth-oriented, we could create jobs without losing revenue to the Federal Government, create economic growth, and put our country on a path to a sound future.

We have to have economic growth, and we cannot get it by continuing to borrow from our children--really borrowing currently--to spend money to try to jump-start through a sugar high the American economy that is dragging along.

We have this major problem with governmental regulations. I am hearing it everywhere I go--from farmers who are being told they cannot have dust on their farms. When Senator Roberts asked an EPA witness how are we going to keep dust down, they said, well, you can have a water truck and go by and water it. Now, how silly is that? They have work rules that keep children in families from helping out on the farm. They have rules dealing with a ditch, calling it a navigable stream. This is regulatory overreach of a monumental degree, and I am hearing it from business, I am hearing it from taxpayers, I am hearing it from farmers all over.

Every regulation needs to be examined. If it produces a positive result for America in terms of health and safety and the general welfare, OK, I am for it. But if it is the kind of regulation that does not produce a benefit but adds to the cost of doing business--costs that add up for the average American consumer--then it needs to be eliminated.

It would help create jobs and help make us more productive, as we work on producing American energy, which creates jobs in itself. That additional production of energy does have the tendency to pull down prices. There is no doubt about it. It may not happen day to day. But as energy reserves are increased, as energy productions and exploration occur and more is produced, it tends to bring down prices. So we need to focus on things that bring down prices of energy. We do not need to be mandating forms of energy that cost 2, 3, 4, 8, 10 times as much as the basic energy we have today.

We cannot afford it. It adds to the cost of doing business. The consumers pay it with their pocketbooks when they go to the store, and when businesses look for a place to build a plant, they look at the rest of the world. If our energy prices are lower and reliable, then they can afford to invest here, hire American workers.

But if our energy prices are too high--and I can cite examples of investments in my State of Alabama that were determined one way or the other based on energy prices. If the price of energy is too high, they go somewhere else. They cannot afford it. They have to seek the lowest price. That creates jobs and growth.

We need to have an Energy Secretary who understands his job is to protect the health and safety of America and produce as much energy as we can at the lowest possible price, not to be engaged in some social engineering. I have to tell you, it troubles me that the Secretary of Energy does not even own a car, he rides a bike. I mean, this is who is running this country. It is the kind of idea that is not realistic for the average American citizen. People with big salaries and so forth, when the price of energy goes up, it does not bother them. But the average guy, the high prices hit his rent payment, hit his health care, his food, and he has to pay $100 more a month, $150 more a month for the same amount of gasoline.

We have small business paying more. Tell me that does not hurt this economy. Tell me that does not raise unemployment. It absolutely does. It is stupid. We do not need to be doing things that do not make sense. We cannot afford it. This Senate needs to be focused not on some unprecedented, unheard of, gimmicked-up complaint that we are now going to have 17 cloture votes on judges, many of whom have been on the Senate floor less than 1 month.

Half the nominees who have made it to the Senate today are now in committee. Senator Leahy, our Democratic chairman, has not moved them out of committee yet. They will move. He moves them very fast, frankly. How can it be Senator McConnell's fault that they have not been confirmed? It is a lifetime appointment. Judges are not entitled just to be given a lifetime appointment like that. People running for Congress, they work for months and years trying to achieve the job, putting a record out there. So it does not hurt for a judge to be sitting on the floor for a while.

Maybe someone will come forward and say: Let me tell you what that judge did to me or this is what he did wrong or something. Sometimes that happens. So we need a steady process, and we are moving forward well within the traditions of this Senate.

But what has happened is this Senate is obstructing legislation that is coming out of the House that would fix energy, that helps tax reform. There are small business growth proposals that are on the floor now, they are not even being brought up. They are being obstructed by Senator Reid and the Democrats. That is a fact. I am not making this up. So this is a body that is not doing its job. The House produced a budget. They produced a historic budget. That was realistic. I would like to have seen them go a little further, frankly.

We may not have agreed with everything in it. But it was a historic budget. It changed the debt trajectory of America. It began to bring our debt on a downward path instead of this surging, upward path we are on. They did it last year and they are going to do it again this year.

What is the Senate going to do? Nothing. We are not going to have a budget for the United States of America. It is a sad day. I feel strongly about this. I have seen the debates over judges. I saw fabulous judges, like Justice Alito on the Supreme Court, be filibustered. I saw Chief Justice Roberts' nomination sit for a long period of time when he was nominated for the circuit bench.

Alabama's fabulous Justice Bill Pryor, now on the Eleventh Circuit, was blocked for months and months and months. Janice Rogers Brown, Supreme Court of California, African-American, great justice; Priscilla Owens, ``unanimously well qualified,'' Supreme Court Justice of Texas. She was fabulous. They held them all.

The only ones they confirmed were the two judges President Bush had graciously reappointed, whom President Clinton had nominated but were not confirmed at the end of his term. I will close by saying we do need to work on this issue of what the Senate needs to be focusing on. I believe it needs to be focusing on a budget, energy, taxes, regulations, things that will make a difference for America, make our country stronger and healthier and more productive and more competitive without adding to the debt.

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

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Johnson from Wisconsin and I be able to conduct a colloquy.

Mr. President, it has not been that long since the President's health care proposal has been passed. If we recall, it was passed on Christmas Eve, after a long battle. We were told: Don't worry what is in it; we will have to pass it first to find out what is in it. I remember Senator Brown was running in the State of Massachusetts, a liberal State. He said, If you elect me--and he was running in the special election--I will vote against it and provide the vote that kills it. But the matter was delayed--his appointment and confirmation, after he won his election. It was put off and the interim Senator cast a vote for the bill and it passed by a single vote and the result was 60 to 40. I think it was a dangerous step for America.

I am the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee and the Senator from Wisconsin is a member of that committee. We have serious concerns about what is in this bill now that we are beginning to read it and beginning to apply it and see what might happen. Senator Johnson is a successful businessman who ran for the Senate and joined us just a little over 1 year ago. He came here to do something. I have been exceedingly impressed with his approach to business. He had looked at these numbers and challenged the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary Sebelius, on some numbers last week. The situation was quite troubling.

Maybe Senator Johnson can tell us about his concern and what he raised last week--the economic impact of what happened with jobs, the American economy, and the debt of our country. Maybe we can begin our discussion with where he is coming from and what he observed from his exchange last week.

The Senator has been in the real world, having to make a payroll and manage a company. If he, as a CEO, made a representation that this was going to reduce the cost of insurance for your employees by $2,500, and it increases by 2,200, that would be a stunning event, would it not? Does it bother the Senator, as a person from the real world--and this is the first time he has been in elected office--to have people walking around with numbers that are so divergent, promising to reduce health care costs, and they actually are driving costs up?

The Senator is right. I was here. There was a promise made to achieve passage of the bill. A lot of Americans didn't believe these promises and thought they were inflated to begin with, and this promise--a fundamental promise--has already been proven to be wildly inaccurate. And thank you for raising that.

Well, the promise was that--and it was repeated here, and the President went on national TV, and I believe he said it at the State of the Union--this bill would not add one dime to the deficit. If you drop out the $80 or so billion--and he estimated that his plan, if passed, would actually create $143 billion in surplus, in extra revenue for the Treasury; it wouldn't cost anything, it would create more money. So you lose $80 or so billion because the CLASS Act has proven to be the Ponzi scheme Senator Conrad said it would be, and we just saw in the President's budget a request for $111 billion more for the exchanges. Well, that already wipes out entirely, does it not, the promise that it wouldn't add to the deficit? Even before the bill is implemented, the projections are that it would cost money rather than make money for the Treasury. Is that the Senator's analysis so far?

Well, Senator Johnson has been talking about this issue for some time, and it looks as though reports are coming along to validate his concerns. But the administration estimated that only 1 million would go into the exchanges, and these are the areas where, if you don't have employer-based health care, the government will subsidize your health care program for you, and it costs the Treasury money. This is how we get in financial trouble, when we make bad estimates.

The Senator thinks the numbers that go into the exchanges could dwarf 1 million. How many could it be, based on the reports the Senator has seen?

That is astounding.

Now, for example, $400 billion a year over a 10-year window would be $4 trillion. If the Budget Control Act that we worked on so hard last summer, which the President is already undermining, were to take place, it would only reduce spending over 10 years by $2 trillion. And this would be an unexpected $5 trillion, $4 trillion added on top of that, would it not?

And it is not baked into the numbers now. We are not assuming it is going to be $4 trillion or $5 trillion more under Obamacare, we are assuming only 1, I guess.

Well, is it too late? Is this a fait accompli, this health care law that was passed? Can we not reverse it or is it, in the Senator's opinion, practical at this point for us to pull back from this path?

Well, the Senator raised these issues with Secretary Sebelius last week in the committee, and the exchange has been on the TV and on the Web and has become a bit of a sensation, really. People have been looking at it, and it has been very troubling.

Would the Senator tell us what troubles him about Secretary Sebelius's answers--or her lack of them--and what you think we should do next?

Well, a $111 billion error is a big deal. You think about it. We brought in $2,200 billion, and this is $100 billion--about 5 percent of the entire estimated revenue we had in the government last year. To miss that on one part of one bill is very troubling to me. We are fighting every day, wrestling with a highway bill, and we came up $2 billion short over 2 years. And the whole bill is held up, votes on it, points of order raised on it, and here, blithely, into the President's budget comes another $111 billion. I am sure there can be some explanation for it, but I really do think the American people, don't you, are owed a prepared Secretary before the Budget Committee who can lay out explanations for what this is so we will know how much over cost we already are on this plan.

So you are an employer. You have employees, and you have been helping them, you have been providing health coverage, and you realize, well, I can cancel my employer contributions, let the employee go to the exchanges, and they will be subsidized by the American taxpayer.

Where is the money coming from that will provide the extra money they will need to get full coverage?

What about a new business--some small business starts up, and they are thinking about whether they are going to provide health care for their employees, and they have the option of the exchanges. Do you think a new business would be even more likely to not provide coverage and let the employee go to the subsidized exchange?

I had a number of people in a meeting I was at explain the realities of it.

They told us the whole fear of regulation and the health care bill and the revenue that is going to be extracted from them to pay for it would result in lesser employees, making it impossible for them to provide the coverage. One told me they could lose as many as 70 employees. I remember that figure.

It is not fully implemented yet. There are a lot of opportunities for us to get off this train before a disaster occurs. I truly believe it is not too late for us to alter the course.

I think the American people have never been happy with it. They have been told they wouldn't have to give up their health care. They were told it was going to bring down the cost curve and reduce the costs, and they were told it was going to pay for itself; there would be more money coming in than the bill would cost.

Would the Senator say all three of those promises have now already been proven false?

I will add one more thought to the costs, and I have looked at this very carefully.

On December 23, the night before the bill passed, I got a letter back from the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, who also had stated it would create a surplus in the bill of $143 billion based on conventional accounting procedures. I asked him: Were they not double counting the money, about $400 billion? Were they not double counting it, counting it as income to Medicare and counting it as money available to fund the bill here, President Obama's ObamaCare? Weren't they using the money twice?

Think about that. Here we are on the eve of a vote, December 23, the vote is tomorrow morning, December 24, and we are not agreed on whether the money is being double counted. He wrote back and said it is being double counted, ``although the conventions of accounting might suggest otherwise.''

The way they scored this bill was carefully done by experts to get the score they got, that it would make a surplus of $140 billion. But the money was Medicare money. They raised taxes for Medicare. They cut costs for Medicare. It created some money in Medicare, but the money was borrowed by the U.S. Treasury and spent on this new program. The money is owed to the Medicare trustees, who are trustees by law. They are holding debt instruments from the United States. But because it is an internal debt, it doesn't score. That may seem complicated, but it is not. Trust me, they borrowed this money. Sooner or later, when Medicare is going into deep financial distress, they will call their bonds from the Treasury and the Treasury is going to have to pay it, and they are going to borrow the money on the open market is what they are going to do so they can pay the Medicare trustees the money they borrowed from them. This is not a good way to do business. That is just one of the additional problems we have with this.

But, I thank Senator Johnson for focusing on all these issues but particularly for raising the cost of the exchanges. Because that, by any estimate--wouldn't the Senator agree--is a dangerous number. It could surge above the number we are at. Does the Senator think most any person, even if they thought it would be 1 million people, would have to admit it could be 5, 10 or 20 million people? Nobody knows for sure.

We have to know that. We have a responsibility, as representatives of the people, to understand are we talking about another $100 billion in cost over just 1 year's time that we weren't expecting.

I believe the Budget Committee is a good forum to have that. The Senator and I serve on that committee, and I hope Senator Conrad can agree and would agree to give Secretary Sebelius an opportunity to state her view of the situation.

I have to say, I am more and more convinced that we cannot afford this health care bill. We cannot afford it. We don't have the money. We don't have the money. I think it will damage health care, and we have had a lot of debate and experts tell us that, and it will reduce the quality of care in America. But what I am saying to the Senator is, we can't afford it, and it threatens the financial viability of our future. We need to save Medicare and Social Security, the programs we have. It would be a terrible tragedy if we start off on another program. As the Senator talked about Medicare 30 years ago, 40 years ago, it surged way beyond any estimate they would ever have expected in terms of costs.

If we start on another program, I don't see how this country can sustain it. The entitlements we have today are now taking up about 60 percent of the entire budget of America: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Over 50 percent, almost 60 percent of our entire spending goes for those three programs. To start another massive new program, when those are all unsound financially and in crisis and need to be fixed, is the height of foolishness, in my opinion.

I hope we can have a good hearing. I thank the Senator for his leadership; he is a great addition to the Budget Committee. I thank him for spending hours digging into these numbers, bringing his business and accounting skills to bear, and letting our lawyer bunch benefit from somebody who can actually add and subtract.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.