Floor Statements

Madam President, what is the time on this side?

Madam President, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Madam President, I return again for the fourth time now to ask that the Senate be allowed to vote on my E-verify amendment. That amendment has been refiled to make sure it is applicable to the substituted bill.

I do not see any Members from the majority, so I will not ask at this moment to get UC. The bill managers and the majority leader have been ever so nice, as we have discussed, but having been around here a few years, I have to say I am getting a message, and the message is: The answer is going to be no.

The fact is that this legislation has been moving in a certain way with a unanimous consent agreement that was obtained late Friday night that is going to make it not possible to get a vote on the amendment without unanimous agreement of the Senate. The people who participated in that should have known and I am sure did know they were eliminating the amendment I desire to offer. I want to ask again for that unanimous consent and will before I give up the floor.

E-Verify is being used by over 100,000 businesses across America. It is a free, voluntary system set up by the Department Homeland Security. E-Verify allows any employer who has an interest in making sure they hire legal workers to simply punch in the Social Security number, and within a few minutes it shows whether there is a problem with that number. Ninety-six percent of the persons queried are approved immediately. Employers can feel good, even feel safe in hiring those approved by the system, even though that is not absolute proof of the legal status of that applicant.

I simply want to offer in this amendment exactly the same language that was accepted, without a vote, in the House bill. Furthermore, the language that extends the E-Verify program passed the House by a vote of 407 to 2 last July. The amendment simply extends the E-verify program, No. 1, and also says that if a company gets stimulus money, money which is supposed to create jobs for Americans, they ought to take the 2 minutes to check to make sure that the people they are hiring are lawfully here. We want to make sure that only citizens and people who are here legally can be hired. This includes green card holders and temporary workers who are here on valid visas. This amendment would ensure that only people who are illegally here don't get hired.

The leadership in the Senate, for some reason, has made up their minds that they are not going to let us vote on it. If we had a vote on it, it would pass. It already passed the House, and if it passes the Senate, it must be a part of the final bill. It cannot be taken out in conference without real sculduggery undertaken, and I think it would be in the final bill.

The game here is clearly to subtly and otherwise keep this vote from occurring, let this bill be forced out of here. It will not be in the Senate bill. It will be in the House bill. And the conferees will meet and they will decide to take it out. That is what is happening. If the American people want to know, if the Members of Congress would like to know why people are so upset with us, it is this kind of game playing. All the Members of the House who voted for it can tell their constituents: I voted for it. I don't know why it wasn't in final passage. And people in the Senate could say: I didn't vote on it. I would have been for it if I didn't get to vote. But the net result is it is not part of the law.

I cannot imagine why persons would not want this amendment to be in any legislation that would at least take the steps to see that those who are illegally in the country do not get this money.

I thank the Chair. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment I offered, the E-verify amendment, be made pending and we have a vote on it.

I would be delighted to talk with you.

Madam President, what is the request?

Mr. President, I will tell you.

I will just speak for about 2 minutes.

Mr. President, all we really have to rely on to help us figure out the arguments about how this stimulus package will work is our Congressional Budget Office. We just chose a new Director, Mr. Elmendorf, who is a very impressive guy. Mr. Elmendorf was really chosen by the Democratic majority in the Congress. They have the majority and this is who they chose. We like the man, and Republicans voted for him too.

Mr. Elmendorf produced a report the day before yesterday in which he said that if you take the number of jobs this bill would create, and you take the various numbers that are in the bill, the ranges that are in there would be between $600,000 and $300,000 per job. I do not think any estimate has come in less than $300,000 per job. One argument was it was $900,000 per job. Mr. President, $1.2 trillion at 1.3 million jobs is not that good a deal in terms of a return on jobs.

But the fundamental question is: will the thing work? We know one thing. We know it will cost us $1.1 trillion when this bill passes. It will not be like the TARP, which was an investment on which we hope to get some of the money back. Every bit of this is money is spending and it will go right out of the door. The Congressional Budget Office notes that this money will be borrowed and that it will cost us about $40 billion a year to service this borrowed money. The Congressional Budget Office notes, in addition to that, we have to get the money from somewhere. In addition, this borrowing by the federal government crowds out other private companies that are in trouble, and who may want to borrow money to keep going until this recession ends. Yet now they cannot borrow the money to keep their businesses going.

The Congressional Budget Office concludes that over the next 10 years we will have less growth than if we had not passed this bill in the first place. Let me say this: It will be worse the second 10 years because all the short-term economic benefit that will come from it will be gone completely 10 years from now, and we will then have a $40- billion-per-year tax burden on the American people.

How big is $40 billion? That is the annual road budget, highway budget for the United States of America. That is a lot of money. So the question is, Can we reduce the size of it? Can we have some infrastructure spending that can actually be spent quickly and create jobs and build something important and permanent for America? Can we infuse money into the economy effectively and targeted and temporarily to get us out of this difficult time we are in? I think we can. I think we can do a lot better than this bill at less of a cost and more of a benefit.

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I think I have inherited that job from Senator Kyl. I yield such time as Senator Ensign would choose to use.

Mr. President, I would ask the Chair to notify me after 8 minutes.

Mr. President, there are some fundamental things that are important in America that can't be denied. They are like the law of gravity. They won't go away. One of them is that there is no free lunch. Nothing comes from nothing. Something has to be produced by somebody at a cost, and debts must be paid. If we incur debt, we incur an obligation. Money does not come from the air, and if we were to be irresponsible and print large amounts of money to use to pay our debts, we would inflate the currency and debase the value of every asset held by every American and the value of the dollar, which has very pernicious consequences for us.

I would like to take a moment to share some thoughts. This is a quote from Larry Summers, President Obama's No. 1 economic adviser and a very experienced man. I am not quoting Mr. Summers to claim that he has changed his position; I am quoting Mr. Summers because fundamentally these statements are accurate statements. Mr. Summers has said that:

As with any potent medicine, stimulus, if misadministered,

could do more harm than good by increasing instability and

creating long run problems. A stimulus program should be

timely, targeted, and temporary.

That was in January of last year. I think that is a fundamentally true statement. And one of the things I am worried about in this bill is that it is so diffuse, it is so untargeted and so large that it does not meet any of the standards mentioned by Mr. Summers.

Mr. Summers has also said that:

Fiscal stimulus, to be maximally effective, must be clearly

and credibly targeted . . . with no significant adverse

impact on the deficit for more than a year or two after

implementation.

I believe that the bill before us violates the criteria Mr. Summers outlined in this statement. In January of last year Mr. Summers said:

Poorly provided fiscal stimulus can have worse side effects

than the disease that is to be cured.

Now, that is why I have cited the Congressional Budget Office report of just 2 days ago so often. In this report, Mr. Elmendorf concluded:

Over the 10-year period, the growth of the economy would be

less if we pass the stimulus than if we had no stimulus at

all.

I didn't make that up. It is difficult to accept that you can't create something from nothing very easily. We can get a little bump in the economy now by reaching into the future and bringing $1.1 trillion or $2 trillion and spending it now and let our children worry about paying it. You can get that. But it quickly gets away from us.

So in 10 years, the Government borrowing $1 trillion-plus from the marketplace crowds out credit and denies small businesses and other people the ability to get loans. So there are costs in this. It is just critically important that every dollar be properly accounted for and that we not stick in a bunch of programs that may be ineffectual and

that don't go through the normal committee process.

President Clinton's Budget Director, Alice Rivlin, warned a few days ago that:

A long term investment plan should not be put together

hastily and lumped in with the anti-recession package. The

elements of the investment programs must be carefully planned

and will not create many jobs right away.

To interpret that language, the long-term investment plan means new programs--new health care programs, new environmental programs, and new energy programs. Alice Rivlin warned that these programs shouldn't be lumped in with an antirecession package. She warned that the elements of the investment programs are the things that will continue to be out there for a long time. She says that these programs are not going to create jobs right away. In addition, money could be wasted because the investment elements may not be carefully crafted.

We have to be careful in crafting this bill or we will not create jobs; we will create ineffectual programs. Yet we are going to run them through without going through the normal budgetary process and the normal authorization committee process. We have all kinds of bills in here, all kinds of legislation in this bill that would normally be the product of committee hearings and public debate. They have just been stuck in and they are being run through with a few days of debate. The proponents of these programs like them. They think they sound good and they are pushing them forward. I don't dispute their integrity or their goodwill, I am just saying history tells us we have to be careful.

I supported ethanol, and I know Senator Grassley did. Some now think we went too far. Senator Grassley doesn't. I don't know where we are on it, but we were all excited at the time. We thought we were going to fix all our problems.

I would also like to point out that Senator Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, a Democratic leader in the Senate here, really a fine Senator, has repeatedly expressed his grave concern about a bow wave that is being created with the stimulus. In other words, the stimulus, in perspective, seems to be legislation that will be one- time, temporary, and targeted. But Chairman Conrad says there are at least $120 billion of programmatic changes that are not going to quit, and therefore we are increasing our permanent expenditure baseline by $123 billion. Senator Coburn from Oklahoma believes it is a $300 billion bow wave of permanent spending in this bill that is never going to end. It is very difficult. We are doing it so rapidly that it is troubling.

I want to say one more thing. Senator Rockefeller and Senator Grassley have been here longer than I, but if you look at what we are doing--

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to use 2 more minutes.

Mr. President, if you look at what we are doing, it does not reflect well on the Congress and the Senate.

Last fall, we were told by Secretary Paulson that we had to pass a $700 billion bailout for Wall Street. I remember one day they told us we had to pass it before the next day, before the Asian markets opened. Do you remember that? You have to do it before the Asian markets open. We fiddled around and were panicked and pushed and shoved and threatened and everything. Eventually Congress folded up and passed the $700 billion TARP program. Only $350 billion of that has been spent to date, so it obviously was not the most important thing in the world. Furthermore, most economists think it has done very little good.

Now we come up with a stimulus. All of that was in addition to our debt. It was classified as emergency spending and went outside of the budget process with very few hearings. Every penny of this bill is now going to the debt. None of this money is going to be returned to the Government. Once we sign the bill, the money goes out of the door and gets spent. That is another $1.1 trillion. It did not go to the authorizing committees and in-depth hearings on all these programs were not held.

We know in another few days we are going to have another multibillion, maybe $500 billion plan proposed by the administration for the second part of the Wall Street bailout and maybe additional legislation for housing.

I say to my colleagues, somehow all of this is spent outside the budget. We pass a budget and we are supposed to stay within that budget. Yet all of these huge, unprecedented expenditures are spent without any requirement that those expenditures compete with other programs. We want to do hybrid cars, but it doesn't compete with other legitimate efforts to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We just stick it into this bill without any hearings.

I am really worried about it. I think we are losing our discipline. I think Congress has been rubberstamping the Executive. I voted against President Bush's request to give this money to Wall Street, and I am going to vote against this stimulus package unless it is substantially changed.

I do believe Senator McCain's legislation is one of the best alternatives proposed thus far. I support it. It is over $400 billion. It has more for roads and highways than this bill. This bill only has $30 billion for highways and bridges. It is supposed to be an infrastructure bill, yet $30 billion is less than 3 percent of the entire package. This funding represents even less than 3 percent if you count the $347 billion in interest the bill would cost.

It is a very troubling bill. It is being ramrodded through. It is not going to have the kind of impact on this country's economy that we would like it to have. Indeed, I am afraid that unfortunately the Congressional Budget Office is right. Whereas we might have a temporary boost in the economy for the first 2 or 3 years, over the next 10 years it will be negative, and over the next 10 years after that it will be a flat negative with no benefit whatsoever to the economy.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I see my colleague from South Carolina; perhaps he is ahead of me. If he is, I would be pleased to yield to him.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for 7 minutes.

I ask to be notified at 7 minutes.

Mr. President, unemployment is rising, and it was not a good month. We saw those numbers today, but it was not higher than people have been expecting. But it is a very serious thing to have unemployment rising as it is, and we know it will continue to rise. I believe there are things we in Congress can do to help confront this problem.

My Democratic colleagues are so committed to this legislation and saying this bill will save and create jobs and it must be passed now and there can be no serious alteration in it. The question really is, for the American people, what is in the national interest? What will serve this country best both now and in the long run? What is the best information we have to make realistic decisions? Finally, will the projections we are hearing here actually work? Just to say the bill will create jobs is not enough for us in Congress. We are not experts in all of this. We do have some experts we rely on, but we need to look at it carefully.

According to our Congressional Budget Office, in a letter written to Budget Committee Ranking Member Judd Gregg, whom the President has asked to serve as his Secretary of Commerce--dated February 4-- remember, this is a bipartisan organization, and we rely on it for reliable data. We depend on it for objective advice. The new leader of CBO was selected in a bipartisan way. Our Democratic colleagues clearly have a majority in the Senate, and they would not have approved the nominee if they didn't think he was a qualified person.

What did he say just yesterday? This is the truth, I think:

The Senate legislation would raise output and lower

unemployment for several years.

We certainly hope so. We don't want to spend a lot of money and not get any unemployment easing.

Then it goes on to say:

In the longer run, the legislation would result in a slight

decrease in the gross domestic product (GDP), compared with

CBO's baseline economic forecast.

The baseline economic forecast is without any stimulus package. We don't have any stimulus package under current law. The baseline without the stimulus package indicates it would do better over 10 years than if we passed this bill. I know we are not running for election 10 years from now; we are running for election today, some people seem to think. But I believe we have a responsibility to the long-term interests of this country. It is stunning to me that this report says that over 10 years, it would be a net negative. And GDP means jobs. If GDP is down-- gross domestic product, which is all the goods and services produced in the country--if that is down, jobs are down. If GDP is up, jobs are up.

What else does the letter say? It says this:

The macroeconomic impact of any economic stimulus program

is very uncertain.

So we don't know for certain whether we will get any impact at all.

It goes on to say:

For those reasons, some economists remain skeptical that

there would be any significant effects, while others expect

very large ones.

Quoting from the letter again:

According to these estimates, implementing the Senate

legislation . . . would also increase employment at that

point of time [the fourth quarter of 2010, when we would

expect the results to be most pronounced] by 1.3 to 3.9

million jobs.

Well, Senator McCain has already explained to us that he has run the numbers on that. This is what it would be. The bill is scored at $1.2 trillion-plus, and with additions, we think it is $1.27 trillion, one and a quarter, which is the largest spending package in the history of this country or any country, in the history of the world, and much larger than anything that has ever been approached. The entire 5-year Iraq war has cost around $500 billion, just to give some perspective.

How much would that be per job? It would add 1.3 million jobs, according to CBO. That is on the low end of the estimate. At that number and a $1.2 trillion deficit--remember, the bill is about $888 billion, but with the CBO scoring, the interest on that over the 10- year budget window, that means it would be $1.2 trillion-plus. So Senator McCain worked it out at $1.2 trillion. If you divide that out at 1.3 million jobs, it turns out to be about $765,000 per job. That is just plain mathematics. They

say we are going to create jobs and the cost will come out on the lower end to about $765,000 per job. If you assume it creates jobs on the high end, 3.9 million jobs, it would be $255,000 per job.

This is just not good legislation, Mr. President.

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

Mr. President, the problem here is that this is not good legislation. For the rest of our lifetime, this $1.2 trillion debt--I think now really $1.27 trillion--will be a burden on our children for years to come, indefinitely. Every penny of this spending is debt. We are already in debt, so we are spending on top of our debt. There is no way we can deny that. It is just not responsible. A smaller, more targeted program, designed to spend out in 2 years, create jobs in an effective way, is something I think we can all support. This legislation--I truly believe we should not do it. I urge my colleagues to study it.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I also have an amendment on the E-Verify system that I believe very strongly should be voted on or perhaps accepted. It is in the House bill. I wonder what kind of confidence Senator Baucus can give us. That would be a matter that would be voted on. It is not in the next group of amendments.

I thank Senator Baucus. I know he has an incredibly difficult job in working through all of this. I would say, I am uneasy about this. I will not object now, but I do want to have some assurance this very important amendment would at least have a right to have a vote.

Mr. President, I ask the manager if I might have 2 minutes. Just 2 minutes. I would like to respond.

Mr. President, from what we understand so far, one part of this bill is $9 billion. It scores at $9 billion. We have a strong commitment to hybrid automobiles. I have supported that in the past. We are dealing with that issue in the Energy Committee. As I understand it, this is spending in addition to what is already in the bill. I think that is going to cause concerns.

I ask my colleagues to be cautious about signing on to a bill that has not gone through committee and represents such a huge expenditure of money that is unpaid.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, briefly, I appreciate Senator Cantwell. I know she is one of the leaders in the effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce emissions. But I will note, the amount of money going into hybrids reaches a point where we have to be careful.

Diesel engines get about 40 percent more mileage than regular gasoline engines. Europeans have half their vehicles in diesel. We have about 3 percent. We have to be careful when we have this kind of incentive that it is going at the best possible thing.

I am not prepared to say this is not the best way to do it, for sure. I believe the Energy Committee and maybe EPW ought to be able to have hearings on this before we make such a dramatic change.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to share a few thoughts about where we are. The enormity of the legislation that is before us can hardly be comprehended. The bill, with interest, scored by the Congressional Budget Office, is $1.25 trillion. That is more than twice as much as the 5-year Iraq war has cost. It is the largest expenditure in the history of this country or any country in the history of the world.

Remember, we have a big budget. We are spending a lot of money, too much money, most people think, in our normal budget. Every penny of this money is debt. We do not have the money to pay for it. We already are in deficit. This increases the size of that deficit.

It increases the interest we will have to pay on it. I would note the Congressional Budget Office, which is our nonpartisan group, hired a new Director--the Democrats have a majority, but it is a bipartisan selection, so, of course, he is approved by everybody, a good leader.

Their numbers show the interest on the debt today, this year, will be $195 billion. We are very fortunate because low interest rates, in the very short term, are out there today. But by 2014, when you add the stimulus package into that, we will be looking at a deficit of $440 billion each year and thereafter. It could be higher if interest rates go higher. That is the equivalent each year of the Iraq war, for example--almost.

This is how big the numbers are. I think the American people understand what is happening. They are very uneasy. I talked to my 90- year-old shut-in aunt a little earlier today. She said: Who do they think is going to pay that money back? That is a pretty good question, is it not?

Let me give perspective to my colleagues on how big and how dangerous a condition our economy is in. These are numbers that are important. Back in 2004, that is when we had the largest deficit ever, after 9/11, after the Iraq efforts and the slowdown in the economy, it hit $413 billion.

President Bush was roundly criticized by members of this body, many on the other side who are supporting this trillion-dollar bill, for allowing the deficit to go to $413 billion. That was 3.6 percent of the total gross domestic product in America, to give some perspective. But we whittled it down a little bit. In 2005, it dropped to $318 billion; in 2006, $248; and in 2007, the year before last, the budget deficit fell to $161 billion.

I am a member of the Budget Committee. I kept an eye on that. I felt like we were going in the right direction. I thought we were. It was 1.2 percent of GDP. I felt the deficit was heading in the right direction. We were not there, but I was pleased.

Then, last year about this time, President Bush decided we were heading into economic troubled waters and that we should stimulate the economy. They came up with an idea to send everybody a check. I am sure most people enjoyed receiving their checks. They went out, though, and it cost us over $150 billion right there.

It was all debt because, see, we were already in deficit. It just about doubled the deficit to $455 billion last year. Now, this is what the Congressional Budget Office says the deficit will be this year, when we complete the fiscal year, September 30, how much it is going to be for 2009.

Well, the numbers--you can see what a dramatic thing it is--total $1.4 trillion, almost three times as much as the largest debt we have ever had in the history of the Republic.

Now, this is scoring about $200 billion-plus, a little over $200 billion out of the financial bailout, that $700 billion. They are saying that will be lost during this period of time.

We will lose that much on that. They are scoring money for Freddie and Fannie, bailing out those institutions that helped get us in this fix. Add this gray area down here, this is the stimulus. They are projecting out of the trillion dollars we would have 232 sent this year. The Freddie and Fannie and the Wall Street bailout, the $700 billion, they are scoring right now as a one-time cost. The next year, with those one-time costs out, we are still over a trillion, $1.16, almost $1.2 trillion. These are huge numbers, and they impact us so severely. They will burden us forever, and we are not going to pay this back. We are just going to borrow the money and pay the interest on it. There is no way in our expectation that we will get the money to pay this debt back.

Therefore, we should listen to what the Congressional Budget Office wrote. They conclude that the effects of this legislation would ``diminish rapidly after 2010.'' They say that over the 10-year period, the stimulus package ``would be a net negative to the economy.'' They say that the gross domestic product over 10 years will be less if we pass this bill than if we don't.

We all want to do the right thing. I had a feeling that this was not good legislation in the long run. That is why I have been opposed to it. People I respect questioned it. Now we have our own independent Congressional Budget Office issuing a report yesterday, saying that over 10 years, already, we would be hurt by the legislation more than benefited. Then think about the next 10 years or the next 10 years or the next 10 years. A lot of people living today will still be alive 30 years from now. I probably won't be one of them. But I will just say that they are going to be feeling the negative pressure of the interest burden every year for as long as we can foresee. It portends dangerous times.

Where does the money come from that will pay this debt? That is what an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today, written by George Melloan, asked:

As Congress blithely ushers its trillion dollar

``stimulus'' package toward law and the U.S. Treasury

prepares to begin writing checks on this vast new

appropriation, it might be wise to ask a simple question:

Who's going to finance it?

Where does the money come from?

He goes on:

That might seem like a no-brainer, which perhaps explains

why no one has bothered to ask.

He makes the point that right now we have low interest rates. He then says:

Congress is able to assure itself that it will finance the

stimulus with cheap credit. But how long will credit be

cheap? Will it still be when the Treasury is scrounging

around in the international credit markets six months or a

year from now? That seems highly unlikely.

Senator Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee, a fine Member of the Senate, really worried about the debt, a Democratic leader and a fine leader in the Senate, passed out an article in the Budget Committee the week before last from the New York Times.

I ask unanimous consent for 30 more seconds.

The article said that China's trade surplus with the United States had dropped from $50 billion a month to $20 billion a month. They are going to spend more on their own economy. The question is, How could they buy more and more and more of our debt, even if they wanted to, when they don't have the money to do so? It portends higher interest rates, as Mr. Melloan wrote.

I yield the floor.

I thank Senator McCain for his leadership. Actually, I felt strongly that his combination of substantial infrastructure and targeted tax relief would have injected more strength into this economy than the present bill, and with a cost of half of that. As we know, this bill cost over $1.1 trillion. The bill itself is $827 billion, but when you add the $300 billion plus in interest, which the Congressional Budget Office adds to it for the 10-year budget window, you end up with an unprecedented amount of money--with far too little impact.

In fact, if you look at what our own Congressional Budget Office tells us--and who else can we rely on--hired by the Democratic majority, they conclude that over a 10-year period--shouldn't we be thinking at least 10 years ahead? Senator Coburn says it will be on our children and grandchildren. But they conclude that the bill will have a negative impact on the economy. Yes, it will help some in the short term. Over the 10-year period, the drain of the interest and capital taken out of the economy to fund this effort will actually weaken the economy, and the total gross domestic product over that period of time will be less than if we had no bill at all. That doesn't mean we should not have a bill. What we should have is a bill from which we can get some results.

I hope and I do believe the American people will continue to talk to their Congressmen and Senators; they will be sharing their thoughts with them. My phones are ringing off the hook. They know you cannot get something for nothing and that debts have to be repaid. There is nothing mysterious about these fundamental principles. We act like they are not a reality. The CBO score points out what happens is when you take money out of the future to put into today--or when you borrow it and put it into the economy today, it crowds out about a third of a dollar's worth of private domestic capital. That is the kind of thing that weakens our potential to bounce back from this problem we are in. It is real and it is serious and I certainly favor taking action.

Madam President, I thank the Chair. I am grieving tonight. Hopefully, there will be an opportunity to do better than the bill before us now. I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object, I hope I did not miss something, but I asked earlier several times today about an amendment, I believe 239, the E-Verify amendment that I think has broad support.

But it keeps not getting on the list. So I am wondering what kind of assurance the leader could have, that if we are not on this list, what opportunity there will be to get a vote, and if there is a decided intention to deny a vote on this, it is something I feel very strongly about and would have to resist, if I could.

Well, I thank the majority leader. I am very uneasy about it. I am afraid this amendment, which I am confident would have an overwhelming vote, there may be some objections somewhere from having a chance to vote on it. So I withdraw my objection at this time and hope we can work on it.

It has to do with the people who get money, contracts under this agreement who would have to use the E-Verify system to make minimal checks that the persons they hire are legally in this country.

Madam President, I thank the Senator from Washington who is committed to improving our environment and our energy efficiency. I have great hopes for hybrid automobiles. However, I urge my colleagues on this day when we are passing so much on this bill and going around our committees to not support the amendment.

I note that I wrote earlier in the year and hope to receive a response soon from the Department of Energy to do a study on hybrids, diesel, ethanol, and other methods for both environment and efficiency. Our committees have been having hearings. This would choose one technology. It would have a cost of about $8 billion for the subsidies which are 10 percent of a vehicle's cost. I would say I favor moving forward, but I think it is premature. So I raise a point of order that the pending amendment violates section 201 of S. Con. Res. 21, the concurrent resolution on the budget for fiscal year 2008.

Mr. President, I ask a question of the majority leader. I had an amendment that would simply require those who get contracts to build infrastructure, that they would use the E-Verify system to determine whether a person is using a valid Social Security number. It is a proven system; 2,000 businesses are voluntarily signing up each week.

So I would hope we get a vote on that. Am I now being told we will not be able to vote on that amendment? I hate to object.

I thank the majority leader. I know he has a million things to worry about. But it is an important matter. I would be very disappointed if we did not get a chance to vote on this.

I object.

Mr. President, I ask to be notified when I have used 3 minutes.

Mr. President, Senator Whitehouse and I both served as U.S. attorneys. Eric Holder also served as a Federal judge supervising prosecutions and tried cases in the District of Columbia as a U.S. attorney. He served 4 years as Deputy Attorney General and did many good things during that time. He also made several serious errors, which I think and believe he has understood. He has committed not to make them again. He was influenced by the President, President Clinton, to do the pardons, and he should not have been influenced. I note that he moved away from that area of judge, prosecutor, and was active in the Kerry and Obama presidential campaigns. I have talked to him, and I believe he will be a responsible legal officer and not a politician as the Attorney General. I intend to support him.

I want to take a minute to express a growing concern I have about my beloved Department of Justice, where I spent 15 years as a prosecutor. It is something I respect highly. We do need to eliminate politics from that office. Some of the nominees coming up disturb me, and the pattern of them is disturbing. One is Elena Kagan, nominated for the Solicitor General. While dean of the Harvard Law School, she barred the U.S. military from coming on campus as long as she could successfully get away with it. She actually filed a brief in the Supreme Court when the Congress got so fed up with the idea that American universities would not allow the U.S. military to come on campus to ask students if they would like to be a part of the American military. She led the fight with an appeal all the way to the Supreme Court to reverse the Solomon amendment, which would require colleges and universities to either allow the military on campus or get no Federal funds. She led that battle. It was voted down in the Supreme Court 8 to 0, as well it should have been.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

Yes.

Dawn Johnsen, nominated to be assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, was the legal director for NARAL, the National Abortion Rights Action League, one of the most aggressive--probably the most aggressive--pro-abortion group in the country.

David Ogden, nominated for Deputy Attorney General, represented the murder defendants in Roper v. Simmons, which led to the unprincipled decision about defendants and the death penalty.

Thomas Perrelli, who represented Michael Schiavo in the Terry Schiavo case, is nominated for Associate Attorney General, third in command.

D. Anthony West, who is nominated for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Division, represented John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban who has been prosecuted and convicted.

We are heading into problems on some other nominations. We do not need the Department of Justice to become a liberal bastion. It needs to be the cornerstone of defending Americans and our safety.

I yield the floor and reserve the remainder of our time.

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

Mr. President, there is a growing recognition in the Congress that the so-called spending stimulus bill is colossal in nature, and it is going to be moved through the Congress with little or no significant changes. Those of us who have been around a while can see what is happening. The bill moved through committee. A lot of good amendments and suggestions for change were made in the Appropriations Committee, but none passed. A lot of ideas and suggestions were made in the Finance Committee, and none were agreed to, at least none of any significance. There are provisions in the bill I would strongly support and believe should be part of a stimulus package because I think a targeted, smart bill can help improve our economy, but it is not going to change the difficulties we are in, I am convinced of that.

Christina Romer, President Obama's top economist, has predicted that if we pass a stimulus bill, the unemployment rate will not reach quite so high. Her numbers were referred to in the Budget Committee, of which the Presiding Officer, Senator Warner, is a member. Those numbers were brought out, but even without any stimulus, she projected the unemployment rate would not reach 10 percent.

During the tough recession when President Reagan broke the inflationary spiral we were in, we hit almost 11 percent unemployment. The Congressional Budget Office also projected that with no stimulus, the unemployment rate would not reach 10 percent. When asked if the stimulus package would make it any better, Mr. Sunshine, the Acting Director of the Budget Office at that time, said it might.

I think a stimulus package can help but I do not think a stimulus package is going to change the fundamentals of this tremendous economy, which is going through a period of rebalancing and adjustment that is painful. It is not going to be bought away by throwing a few billion dollars or maybe even a trillion dollars at it.

I wish to make that point in general. We are in a tough time. We are going to go through a tough time. It is not going to be easy, but this country has gone through tough times before. We can hope and pray it will not be as tough as the tough recession we had in the early to mid- 1980s. We survived that. We developed some economic principles that ended inflation, and we had 25 years of steady progress based on a sound dollar and sound economy. I guess I would say let's be a bit humble in what we think we can accomplish.

I will add one more point. Politically, Presidents and Congress like to do something. When there is difficulty out there and the TV every night is coming with some bad news stories and our constituents are worried, elected officials feel like they must do something; if we don't do something, our constituents will get mad at us and vote us out of office. But what if the right thing to do is to not overreact?

What if the right thing for America is to ask ourselves what it is that can actually be of benefit, and let's do that. But let's not go hog- wild, let's not do some things that are going to do long-term damage to the country. That is where we are. Good people can disagree on where that line is drawn. A lot of people are talking about politics-- Republicans did not get this amendment or that amendment. I am beyond discussing those issues at this point. My view is: Is the stimulus bill that is going to be moved in this Senate, which is even bigger than the one in the House--it was $818 billion, I believe, in the House legislation, and this one is already now at $888 billion. They added $70 billion for the AMT tax fix. So it is now almost $900 billion.

I am not sure how much thought we have given to it. We certainly have not had extensive hearings on this legislation. That is where we are strategically.

Let me say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, the more people look at this so-called stimulus bill, really a spending bill, the more disastrous and the more flawed they are finding it to be. Most Members of Congress, most Members of the Senate, I think, want to support a stimulus bill. They probably have made public statements that they want to support a stimulus bill. But all of a sudden, people are saying: Whoa, really? Is that much in it? This is in it? Only 3 percent of the money goes to roads? Really? I thought it was a roads bill. We are hearing that kind of talk. People are beginning to ask questions about what is in the legislation that can spend $900 billion.

It doesn't just cost $900 billion. The Congressional Budget Office has looked at it, as they are supposed to do. They are a nonpartisan office. They give us good information on how much legislation costs, among other things.

Remember, every dime of spending, all of this $900 billion increases the debt. We are already in debt. Any other dollar that is spent increases the debt. So the $900 billion spending bill will increase the debt in 10 years by $900 billion, and you have to ask yourself: Where do we get that money? We have to borrow the money. And to borrow the money, we have to pay interest on it. The Congressional Budget Office has calculated it. They didn't at first, but now they have. They calculate $347 billion over the next 10 years, the budget period we are looking at, will be expended by the American taxpayers to pay interest on this debt. By the way, the deficit this year is the largest one in the history of the Republic.

I will talk about the debt a little bit more because it is important. There is no free lunch. Julie Andrews in ``The Sound of Music'' said nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. Debts will be repaid. You think: Well, we may not repay these debts. We will have to, and we will pay interest on it. We may succumb to the very pernicious temptation to inflate the currency and pay back our debt with dollars less valuable than the ones we borrow today. That is what we call debasing the currency. That is inflation. That is a corrosive situation the country must not get into and has not been in for the last 25 years. Those are the temptations we can fall into when the debt gets too great.

The argument is we want to have shovel-ready projects, and those shovel-ready projects will increase employment and will help us work our way through this recession. It is going to be longer than most recessions. It is going to end, but it will be longer than most recessions.

The message that has gone out is infrastructure is behind. Roads and bridges are not up-to-date. We need to spend money on them. Now would be a good time to go into debt and borrow money and fix roads and bridges and that we would, therefore, be able to create jobs and have something concrete after it is all over.

I like building bridges because it is a concrete thing, and when it is over, people can benefit from it for generations to come. Unlike a lot of the Government programs that are in this bill, we spend billions and billions of dollars, and when it is over, we ask ourselves: Did it do any good at all?

As I indicated, we now know the request for roads and bridges in the $900 billion stimulus bill amounts to around $30 billion--$15 billion the first year, $15 billion the second. There is other infrastructure spending--on hospitals, school money, those kinds of things.

The idea that this is a roads and bridge bill is false. It is false. It is not so.

In addition to that point, I note the Congressional Budget Office examined the legislation to ask whether this spending we would be participating in would actually come forward quickly, as everybody says it must, to create jobs now and, therefore, help us ease the rising unemployment we are seeing.

CBO has found that only around 50 percent of the spending that is in the legislation will occur in the first 2 years.

What about this year, the first year? But even over 2 years, only 50 percent of it is spent. The other 50 percent is going to be spent after 2 years, in years 3, 4, 5. According to Ms. Romer, the President's top adviser on the economy, we will be coming out of the recession by then anyway without a stimulus package.

The programs, in addition to the construction projects and spending plans that are put together, have been poorly cobbled together in haste. They have not been well thought out. There is no way they could have been well thought out.

Three hundred economists, including three Nobel laureates, have signed a petition condemning the stimulus plan as it is now written. Many of them would favor a stimulus plan, but when they look at this one, they are aghast, and they are warning us that infrastructure spending has never successfully lifted a country out of an economic slowdown. There are many examples of that around the world. These economists are saying that.

Marty Feldstein, an economist President Reagan admired and conservatives have admired and most Americans have admired, said at one point he favored a stimulus bill. I think about $350 billion. He has now written an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal saying this is bad; do not pass this stimulus bill. He opposes it.

The Chamber of Commerce--I like the Chamber of Commerce. They are great folks. But if anybody thinks they are not self-interested does not know what they do. They have a lot of Members who are going to benefit from this program. They are going to get bucks out of it. They favored a stimulus package sometime ago, and they said we need a stimulus package. Now they are saying they are not for this bill. They are opposing it, even though their members, a lot of them, are going to get bucks out of it. Because we are throwing a lot of bucks out there, and they are going to get some. Even they, in the interest of their country and the long-term vision for the economy, have concluded it is not good for this country to pass the bill we are dealing with now.

The bottom line is that I am convinced now that the extreme long-term cost of this legislation outweighs any short-term benefits. And remember, the $1.2 trillion, the $900 billion plus the interest on it that CBO has calculated--and it is only right that they do so--comes on top of a $700 billion bank/Wall Street bailout that proved ineffectual, has not been successful. We are being told now--and President Obama met with the Republicans in a very nice discussion, and the President acknowledged that they are going to have to be coming back and asking for more Wall Street money not that many weeks from now. So we are not through yet with throwing taxpayers' money into this vortex.

The surge in debt and reckless spending that we have seen in the last year, from both parties, is unlike anything this Nation has ever seen in its history, yet there has been such little serious discussion about where the money is going, how we are going to account for it, and whether we will receive a legitimate benefit from it. It is amazing to me. So I think we have to reconsider the size and the nature of this legislation. We cannot do this. It is bad for America. It is not a question of Republicans and Democrats and that kind of thing. I know the conventional wisdom is we have to do something; if we don't do something, people will be mad at us; if we don't do something and the economy gets worse, they will say: You didn't do anything, you stupid goof. You sat on the sideline and didn't do anything. But I have to say, at some

point you can do too much and you can do things that are unwise, and that is what we are paid to decide here.

So I am committed, and I will do what I can, to defeat the bill as written. I will support a more targeted, cost-effective, temporary plan that can help our economy, but it must be done at a price we can afford.

I am going to talk in a minute about the size of the deficit we are facing. As a member of the Budget Committee, I know it is a grim discussion. I have concluded that this is a fight for the very financial soul of our country. I mean, what is it we are doing here? Are we fulfilling our responsibilities to watch over the taxpayers' money? Presidents can't spend money if we don't appropriate it. Every dime President Bush spent on the Wall Street bailout, we gave to him. Every dime President Bush spent on sending out those checks last spring that were supposed to stop the recession went to the debt. It increased our debt, causing us last year to have the biggest deficit in the history of the Republic. It didn't work, but we gave the money. It is not President Bush who did it; we funded it. And no stimulus spending bill is going to get passed and no money is going to be available to be spent unless Congress spends it. It is our responsibility. We can't pass it off on President Obama.

Let me show this chart. As a member of the Budget Committee who has dealt with these issues for a number of years, this chart is where my mind is, if you want to know the truth. In 2004, after that recession, when President Bush cut taxes and did some other things--I think he even sent out some stimulus checks in that period of time--the deficit that year amounted to $413 billion. That is how much we spent that year more than we took in, in 2004. It was the largest number we had ever seen. And he was pummeled by the loyal opposition, my Democratic colleagues, for wasteful spending and for putting us in deficit and that kind of thing, and some of that was justified, in my view.

In 2005, the deficit dropped about $100 billion. It dropped to $318 billion. In 2006, it dropped to $248 billion. In 2007, a year and a half ago, it was $161 billion. We were heading in the right direction. I began to feel better about the country. Last spring, we sent out $160 billion in checks to try to stop this economic slowdown, and that virtually doubled the deficit. We came in, September 30 of last year, when the fiscal year ended, the deficit was $455 billion--the largest, I think, ever, but certainly the largest since World War II--and we didn't hear much talk about that. The Congressional Budget Office is our expert office on this, and we now see that they have estimated that without the stimulus package, without the stimulus bill, the deficit this year will be $1.2 trillion, more than twice the highest deficit in the history of the Republic. To give you some idea of how much money we are talking about, imagine all the income tax payments that come to our country from individuals. That amounts to $1.1 trillion. Right here, without the stimulus, we are at $1.2 trillion, equal to the entire revenue from the income tax in America. With the stimulus package, CBO estimates it will be just over $2 trillion, and that does not include the interest that will be accumulated on it.

That $1.2 trillion deficit that they are projecting now includes $200-plus billion for the Wall Street bailout, and they are also including about $240 billion for the Freddie and Fannie financial bailout, those huge institutions that bought up these bad mortgages and then we bailed them out. That is what helps drive the number. Next year, they are projecting $703 billion and then $498 billion--all of those bigger than any in previous history, and we will be seeing some additional expenditures there.

For example, this $703 billion does not include the alternative minimum tax fix, which costs $70 billion a year. I think most of my colleagues probably know this, but I see some new Members of the Senate here, so to tell you all how we gimmick the system, the alternative minimum tax is $70 billion a year to fix it. Everybody knows we are not going to allow it to kick in and hit the American economy at the full amount. So why don't we go on and fix it permanently and set a rate? Because CBO will score it. And if we score it for $70 billion a year, for a 10-year budget, that is $700 billion. So we pass a law that fixes it for 1 year, and the next year, when they calculate the debt, they assume we are going to have $70 billion more in revenue from the alternative revenue tax. But we are not going to have that money because we are going to fix it again. There are a lot of gimmicks in here, so those numbers are going to be a lot higher. I know this. I have been here, and I know how the system works.

Finally, I will add one more thing to the discussion, and that is the interest on the debt. We are now a little under $200 billion a year in paying interest on the debt. The debt has been growing. I think it is about $10 trillion. In the next 10 years, the estimates are it could be $21 trillion in debt--the total debt of America. This bill, by the way, raises the debt limit. It has to, because we are adding another trillion dollars in debt. The Congressional Budget Office scores that in 2014--5 years from now--the interest on the debt will not be $200 billion, but counting the stimulus package it will be around $430 billion.

Now, how much money is that--$430 billion? Today, it is $200 billion, and 5 years from now it will be $430 billion. Big deal. But that is every year, No. 1. It is every year. And to give some perspective on how large that is, it is more than a third of the income tax revenue of the entire U.S. Government from individuals, and it is a number that is almost equal to the 5-year cost of the Iraq war. We have spent about $500 billion on the Iraq war in the 5 years that has occurred. That has been a major expense of the U.S. Government, and it has been very painful to us. People have been not happy about it. But by surging this debt, we will in the future be incurring an interest payment almost equal every year to the 5-year cost of the Iraq war.

So I say to my colleagues, I know the momentum has been going forward. I know the House moved forward with the bill and people have expected that we are going to pass it, but I am not sure. I think the American people are getting concerned about this, and they are saying, let's pare this down. Why can't we do a $200 billion or a $300 billion dollar stimulus package that will actually create jobs and won't add so much money to our deficit and will create things that are of permanent value to the public, not providing relief to soldiers who fought with us in world wars and other programs that are in the legislation.

This is the beginning of a discussion, or it ought to be the beginning of a national discussion about what this country is about. We need to ask ourselves: Isn't it important that we have a sound currency? Shouldn't a sound dollar be one of the highest possible goals of the Congress? And to have that, aren't we, as a Congress, going to have to be responsible enough to, in times of uncertainty and fear, be able to rationally think through this and do this right?

My 90-year-old aunt, who I was with last week in Alabama, said to me: You all don't know what you are doing up there, do you? And I don't think we do. I think that was as good a synopsis of what the American people are thinking about us as anything I have heard. We don't know, and we have to get serious here. It is our responsibility. When we are talking about trillions, we are talking about real money.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask to be notified after 5 minutes.

Madam President, I don't look forward to criticizing the nominee, Mr. Geithner, for the Secretary of the Treasury. It is not something I take any pleasure in. I will vote for 98 percent of the nominees of President Obama. I believe he is entitled to select good nominees to serve, and he gets to basically choose whomever he wants.

I would say the American people are unhappy. They are unhappy about Wall Street. They are unhappy about the way this financial system has been conducted, and one of the individuals at the very center of it is Mr. Geithner, the nominee to be the Secretary of the Treasury, a position that now has incredible authority and the power to distribute $350 billion virtually any way that individual citizen wants to spend it. It was a mistake for Congress ever to give that kind of power to Mr. Paulson or to Mr. Geithner or whomever the Secretary of the Treasury would be.

Let me say quickly, as a former Federal prosecutor, I am not taken in by the idea that this tax problem is a minor matter. The Secretary of the Treasury supervises every Internal Revenue agent in America. The Treasury Department has the IRS inside it.

The International Monetary Fund, for which he worked starting in 2001, sent out this brochure about the tax allowance system that says: The Fund pays the difference between your U.S. self-employment tax, which is the Social Security tax that self-employed citizens pay. You pay the employee's share of the Social Security taxes as you would be required to do if you worked for any U.S. employer.

Then it says down here: And a tax allowance is added to help cover the income taxes you owe.

You get a special tax allowance. How do you get this tax allowance if you work for the International Monetary Fund? You make an application. The form says: Tax allowance application. You apply for it. You sign at the bottom that says you want the money. What does it say that you certify above your signature? You certify that I will pay taxes on my Fund income. I authorize the Fund of individual staff members designated by it for the purpose to ascertain from the appropriate tax authorities whether tax returns were received. I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund.

So he seeks a tax allowance application. He certified that any money he gets for this he understands is for tax purposes, and he will pay it. That is the certification form. I have blown it up on this chart. It says, again, I certify I will pay the taxes for which I have received the tax allowance.

Now, that was done four times. He personally signed it. That is his signature at the bottom, with his room number, in his hand, and his phone number, in his hand--4 different years.

I see Senator Kyl, and I will yield to him because I am sorry we don't have much time. In his examination, Mr. Geithner left me with a feeling that he was not candid.

Finally, let me say this. I believe the American people want a Secretary of the Treasury who was not in the middle of the problem in New York as head of the Federal Reserve Bank when it occurred and who gave no warning to the American people whatsoever that this was about to happen. The Wall Street Journal recently had six investment experts on the front page who predicted this would occur. Where was Mr. Geithner? The same place as Mr. Paulson: asleep at the switch. Based on merit, I don't believe this is what the American people want. The American people desire to have a professional of knowledge, an economically trained person with financial experience and impeccable integrity. I am sad to say, I don't believe Mr. Geithner meets that standard.

I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I would like to share a few thoughts about this subject. The need to ensure that women are not discriminated against in the workplace is very real. Congress has acted on that more than once.

In fact, this litigation and legislation has arisen from statutory actions to make sure discrimination does not occur. The Supreme Court held that one woman lost her suit because she brought it too late. Because of this her allies, friends and others have promoted the idea that we should change the statute of limitations in a historic way; in ways we should not in order to deal with this problem.

I think that is a mistake. I practiced law for a lot of years. I have seen the power of the statute of limitations. Clarity in that issue is important to me in the practice of law and for every American citizen.

For example, I was a federal prosecutor for many years. A lot of Americans may not know that a burglar, a robber or a thief can get away with his crime if, after 5 years, they are not arrested or charged. They are home free and cannot be prosecuted because of a statute of limitation.

There are only a few crimes, such as treason and murder, that have extended statutes of limitations. The entire legal system we have inherited, this magnificent legal system that began in England and we have worked with here serving us so well, has always recognized, as a matter of policy, that people ought not to sit on their claims.

If someone has a claim they have a responsibility to come forward and make it. Sometimes that makes for difficult choices. There was a case recently in Alabama where an individual who had a claim went to the local probate judge. In Alabama, the probate judge is more of a ministerial office. Some are not lawyers; most are. I am not sure if this probate was a lawyer. He told the individual they could file a lawsuit next Wednesday. He filed it next Wednesday, and the person who was sued went to court and moved to dismiss it, saying the man filing the suit waited too late. In truth, he was 1 day late. The Alabama Supreme Court said: The law says this much time. You file it late, you are out.

This is the nub of the matter. The statute of limitations means something. Before the Ledbetter case arose I had on more than one occasion objected to a special piece of legislation in this Senate. I think they finally got it passed through the House, but not the Senate. I was the only one who objected. It would give a law firm in one of the Nation's big cities a special law, a bailout, that would excuse them for missing the statute of limitations on a big, expensive matter. They said: ``Well, you know, this is a lot of money. It is millions of dollars. We only missed it by 1 day.'' I think it was a 1-day thing. ``Give us a new law that allows us to get in there and get around our mistake.''

One time I suggested, well, would that law firm from hereafter commit to every client they have in their law firm, that if somebody files a lawsuit too late they will waive the statute of limitations defense; they won't raise that defense, and let the other party go ahead and file a case? Of course not.

A statute of limitations is a part of the law. Every lawyer knows the best way to get sued for malpractice is to miss a deadline, which is what I said of this big law firm and its mistake. That is why you have malpractice insurance and why it exists in the first place. If you miss a statute of limitations or you advise your client wrong on the statute of limitations and filing deadlines, your client can sue you for malpractice. You better have insurance or a lot of money to pay for your mistake.

I want to say to my colleagues how deeply embedded in our legal system is the concept of the statute of limitations, the length of time in which you are entitled before you sue somebody.

Then there came another situation that is more difficult. Courts have worked their way through it, which is how these issues are resolved. Well, what if you are an average American citizen working and somebody cheats you or somebody mistreats you in the workplace and discriminates against you in the workplace. What if you are unaware? What if you had no evidence, you didn't know the true facts and you didn't know they had cheated you? What about that? Well, basically the courts have had an equitable relief that says you have a certain amount of time from the time you discover you have been mistreated in order to file a lawsuit. In other words, the statute of limitation is extended from the point of discovery to allow you to seek relief.

In the Ledbetter case the Supreme Court concluded that the person complaining about the mistreatment, the discrimination in the workplace, had known about it for years, several years, 4 or 5 years. They said: You can't wait that long. One of the key witnesses involved in the alleged discrimination had died. So the argument was: Well, I get a percentage of my wages in pension benefits from the company. And because I didn't get promoted, my pension benefits are not as much as they should be. And every time I get a check from the company I worked for, it is somewhat less than what I would have otherwise been entitled to and, therefore, that is a new cause of action that begins to run every time I get a new check.

This is not the way the law has been interpreted. Let me say with more clarity, the philosophy and the history of limitations on actions has never operated in this proposed fashion. If you head down that path of dealing with the issue there is virtually no limit on the statute of limitations. For this class of cases--and it goes beyond employment cases--a very broad piece of legislation here today, it provides an extension of the statute of limitations, a tolling of the statute of limitations to an almost indefinite time. That is not good.

We need to understand what we are doing. I know politically this has been ginned up into a big issue. It is complex and technical in some senses. A lot of people haven't taken the time to grasp what we are doing. But I urge my colleagues to consider the legislation moving forward and some of these amendments; that there are sound reasons that limit the time for which a party can file a lawsuit against you. And they are legitimate reasons. It has been a part of every action since the founding of the Republic, to my knowledge, unless it was an oversight. They all provide for a statute of limitations, even criminal cases. Criminals can walk free totally, if they cannot be charged for 5 years, usually. I say 5. Alabama and most States still have 5 years for burglary and larceny and assaults.

I support equal pay for equal work. I urge my colleagues to recognize that this evisceration of an historic principle of limitation of actions is not a way to fix it. It has ramifications far beyond these cases that have been discussed.

I urge my colleagues to spend some time in reviewing this, making sure that we realize what kind of hole we are knocking through the historic principle of the Anglo-American rule of law. If we do that, this legislation will not become law in its final form.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I am thankful Senator Corker is with us. He has involved himself in these matters. He said something I truly believe: that we have not been told what the problem is and what kind of plan really exists to fix the problem. That is the difficulty we are facing. We have not had that kind of honest assessment from President Bush's administration, and we have not had it under President-elect Obama's administration. I think a lot of that is because they do not know, and a lot of it is because they are things that cannot readily be fixed.

The credit problem is the No. 1 problem. Some people say that the economy is like this big interstate, and the problem we had last October was 18-wheelers blocking the interstate, and if we could just get that aside and open the free markets again, everything would be OK. But that was not the problem. The problem was, as Senator Corker indicates, much bigger than that. Fundamentally, there was a housing bubble, fueled by Government-sponsored programs and low-interest rates and a lack of discipline with respect to lenders and the sale of mortgage-backed assets. And this lack of discipline sort of hid the danger in those transactions. That was the problem. So when these houses started adjusting downward in value, because they were too high--how many people did you know who could not afford a house? They were going up two and three times the rate of inflation, two and three times the increase in gross domestic product. Housing prices were going up. That was unsustainable, yet everybody acted as though it would never fall. But it fell.

I remember in the early 1980s when President Reagan worked us through that recession and we had to foreclose on farms and land, and savings and loans--which were a big part of our real estate lending market at that time--failed right and left. But we took our hurts. We worked our way through it and created a foundation, with Mr. Volcker as the Federal Reserve Chairman, for 25 years of growth and progress. We did go through a period in which the dot-com bubble burst, and a lot of those markets have not yet recovered from that period in the late 1990s.

So I guess what I am saying, first of all, is this is a very difficult problem, but it is one we can work through. In the course of it, we have to ask ourselves exactly how it occurred, and we need our governmental leaders to tell us precisely how the legislation--and the money our American citizens allow them to utilize--will make it better. That has not been done. So we are talking today about another release of $350 billion in troubled asset funds.

This is the centerpiece of the Wall Street bailout. It was rushed through last fall in a season of panic. Many people didn't know what to do. We had the Secretary of the Treasury telling us if we didn't pass this and give him maximum flexibility, this economy could hit a depression, and that terrified everybody. I think the fear engendered by all that rhetoric is still a factor in slowing the potential for our recovery. But anyway, that is what happened.

I didn't vote for it last fall. I felt it wasn't properly presented. I didn't feel good about it. I didn't like buying these types of assets, these bad mortgages. Though it presented some plausible basis for a good program, I wasn't sold. I didn't vote for it. I am glad I didn't.

Now that it has been enacted, we have had a great amount of time to actually think it through and see how the program has worked so far. I think we should have had more hearings. We should have called in more experts. I think the new administration should have a more open discussion of the real problems out there--which I will admit the predecessor Bush administration didn't do either--and tell us what is going on and why we have to go forward with this.

I think it is pretty plain--and most people admit--we didn't see any progress from the first $350 billion in this package. That is little disputed, although the argument is difficult to contend with when they say: Well, it might have gotten worse if we hadn't thrown $350 billion at it. Of course we don't know what might have happened. But I want to know why we haven't had more congressional hearings, more public discussions of what is going on and how we need to fix it. Are we afraid of something? Why haven't we taken more time to discuss this?

An article in the Wall Street Journal talked about the difficulties we are facing--actually, on the front page--and the article quoted one financier as saying, well, it may have helped some--this first bailout.

Then he said:

Nobody yet has any idea how much permanent damage may have

been done to the structural underpinnings of the U.S. and

global capitalism.

Well, I couldn't agree more. We don't know how much damage we have done in this adventure.

The passage last fall of the TARP plan, which gave to a single, unelected official of the executive branch virtually complete authority to dispense $350 billion--maybe $700 billion, if he receives it--as he alone saw fit and sees fit, I think, has to be considered one of the, if not the, greatest abdications of congressional fiscal responsibility in our Nation's history. Seven hundred billion dollars is the largest expenditure in the history of the Republic. I know we are going to get some of that back; how much I don't know. Right now the Congressional Budget Office says we are going to lose about $200 billion of it--maybe more--but we committed $700 billion without even knowing how it was going to be spent.

So if my colleagues will remember, we were told we were going to spend that money to buy bad mortgages, take them off the books of the banks and make them able to lend money. At the House hearing, someone asked Secretary Paulson: What about buying stock in a bank? He said: Oh, no. We don't want to buy stock. We have a plan. One thing he told us that was truthful: He wanted maximum flexibility. So when that bill was written, it gave him the ability to do virtually anything with that money, including bailing out individual manufacturing companies such as the Big Three, which he eventually approved out of that money. So within a week after flatly rejecting the idea that he would buy stock in private companies, private banks and insurance companies, the Secretary announced that is exactly what he was going to do.

He called them in and some didn't even want to participate with the Government program, but he thought if they didn't participate, it might look as though they were a healthier bank than somebody else's bank, and he twisted their arms and virtually insisted they participate in the program.

Then we put $100 billion into an insurance company--AIG, which is competing against other American insurance companies that operate on a sound basis--because they got involved

in these speculative swaps, credit swaps, and buying these types of assets and using them as collateral. So it is a difficult thing to know where we are, but it showed two things. I don't think Secretary Paulson deliberately misled Congress, although I believe he knew when he got that maximum flexibility he might buy stock one day. I can't believe he wasn't aware he had the possibility of doing that. But I think, fundamentally, they don't know what to do with the money because there is no certain answer. I have a vision in my mind of the guy who flew into the hurricane off the Gulf Coast where I live and he threw out dry ice and he thought he could cool off the hurricane and stop the hurricane. So now we have the Secretary of the Treasury getting $700 billion, and he thinks he can get in there and stop the financial hurricane by throwing money around. As steward of the taxpayers' money, we need more than that. Yes, Congress has the power of the purse, but I would suggest to my colleagues, that power is more than a power; it is fundamentally a responsibility. It is a duty to ensure that when we allocate money, we know where it is going and that we have a reasonable expectation of success.

Madam President, I thank the Chair and ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.

Madam President, I will conclude by saying the buying of stock and the government's direct involvement in the economy has ramifications. The Wall Street Journal had an editorial: ``Treasury to Ford: Drop Dead.'' They loaned General Motors' financial arm, GMAC, billions of dollars. The next day, GMAC is offering zero percent loans to encourage people to buy GM products, while poor Ford, who is getting by and not asking for any money, is losing competitive advantage. That is our problem.

There was an article in USA TODAY that said that a nation founded on excessive personal debt, excessive Government debt, and a sustained, large trade deficit is not a healthy economy. We all know that. We are going to have to adjust. This economy is going to have to adjust. Housing prices may fall somewhat lower, but they will bottom out soon. We will come out of this downturn. The projections I have seen by CBO and the Obama administration officials tell us that we are not going to have a recession as steep and as deep as the one in the early 1980s.

I think we have to be far more responsible in ensuring that these huge sums of money--$700 billion total, which exceeds the 5 years of the Iraq war's $500 billion in expenditures--are wisely done, are necessary, and will actually improve the situation we are in today. So, therefore, I cannot support the further release of funds today.

Madam President, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity of sharing some thoughts this afternoon. We are going to be moving forward, presumably even this week, with the second tranche. That is the second portion of $350 billion of the Wall Street bailout, the TARP money.

And we will have that coming up, and there will be an attempt to move that through. I have believed from the beginning that it was unwise for this Congress to allow one individual, the Secretary of Treasury, to disburse $700 billion. The way this is set up, and even with the way the votes might occur in Congress, is very troubling. The whole $700 billion will be spent by the two Secretaries of Treasury, without any real accountability, without any real responsibility.

I think Congress is beginning to see the lack of wisdom that we displayed, the lack of fidelity to the responsibilities of the Senate, when we passed that bill with so little control. We do not even know where the money is going, and whether Secretary Paulson, who is a Wall Street guru, is moving money around among friends for friendship reasons, or meritorious reasons, or even if he can tell in this rush- rush effort to put out money, who is deserving and who is not deserving. It is not being done in an open and transparent way.

It is an indication and further proof that we in the Senate and the Congress were not rigorous enough when we passed it. I would add one more thing about that. It is something we ought not to forget. I hoped not to bring it up, but Secretary Paulson announced that he was going to buy toxic mortgages, bad mortgages from banks, in order to get those off their books. He said that most of them would be good and eventually they could be sold for a profit and the taxpayers would not lose any money, and that would be the way we would do this.

Well, within a week--and he was specifically asked at one hearing if he thought we should buy stock in private banks, and he said, no. Within a week or so, he had already changed his mind on that. Instead of buying toxic mortgages, he was now going to buy stock in private American companies. And, in fact, he has now spent over $100 billion in one company, AIG, the insurance company.

AIG is competing with other American companies. How should they feel, I ask you, that the U.S. Government is now providing $100 billion-plus to their competitors? What about the banks who did things right and were cautious and managed their money well? How should they feel about the Government injecting capital into their competitors by buying stock?

And what about those of us who are not of the socialist bend? What should we think about the idea of the U.S. Government buying stock in a multitude of banks, at tens of billions of dollars, and now buying and investing in automobile companies? Someone said the newspapers are next. Well, I guess they are in trouble. They are not doing well financially. They can write a lot of editorials. I mean, maybe we ought to make them happy and give them money. What I am saying is, where does it end?

Out of that background, I want to have a little discussion of the possibility of a stimulus bill that would add some $800 billion to the current level of deficit spending we already have. $800 billion.

There is no doubt that our economy is not performing well. We know that economies historically are cyclical; they go through good times and bad times. They normally respond. We are clearly going through a very difficult recessionary period. The unemployment rate is increasing, and businesses are struggling. We had a hearing before the Budget Committee last Thursday. The Director of the Congressional Budget Office testified, and he predicted that this would be a 2-year recession. Someone later asked him: Well, did that include the stimulus package? And he said, no.

Well, would the stimulus package help? Spending another $800 billion, would that help? He said: Well, it might. That is a little less than a ringing endorsement. He did not say that if we did not pass this bill the economy would never recover and we would continue on a downward spiral forever. So I would say that.

But I do think the Government can play a positive role in helping to shorten the length of the recession that we are in.

There are some things I am prepared to discuss and see if we can agree on. I know President-elect Obama feels very strongly about this. He has been out campaigning, and he made promises to do all he could to recover this economy. He intends to do something, and he promised to do something. He is going to do something.

Now, President Bush has already done some things that I also did not approve of. Doing something can be good. But doing something may not be so good if you do the wrong things. So I am aware that the new administration wants our country to prosper, and

so do I. If there are reasonable, commonsense steps we can take to do that, I say let us do so without delay.

But I want to share some thoughts with you about the fundamental truths that I think all of us in this country know, and especially the area where I come from. One of them is that there is no free lunch. Nobody can get a lunch and say someone did not have to work to put it on the table. There is nothing free. When something is given, somebody pays for it.

There is another thing that is a truism: one way or the other, debts have to be repaid.

You say: Well, you know, sometimes people go bankrupt, you do not get paid back. But the whole system is damaged when debts are not paid back. The next guy may have to pay higher interest rates because his neighbor did not pay his debts and the bank lost money and the bank has got to charge higher interest rates to account for that higher risk.

So there are costs out there, and nothing is free in this country. I wish to focus on this question first. What is the best thing we can do for America in the long run? What should we, the responsible Senate, where we're supposed to be the saucer that cools, what should we do and how should we approach this issue?

Let's be frank. The stimulus bill, the recovery bill as some are calling it now, may well provide some stimulus to the country. I am not sure. But I would say this: at its face, it is a spending bill. It spends money in order to create projects that might create jobs, and this is the theory behind the effort to stimulate the economy.

We spend the money to try to create jobs. So it relies on the theory that ramping up government spending will flood the country with money, $800 billion worth, acting like a booster shot for a sick economy.

This is not a new theory. It has been tried before all over the world. Many economists say this type of spending-stimulus simply does not work. They have cited examples of it throughout history.

President Bush tried it in February last year, less than a year ago, when he began the process to send out a $600 check. I think there is a general consensus now that the plan that was sold to Congress as a stimulus for the economy did not have the desired effect.

I wish it were not so. I wish it had. I would point out that I did not think at the time that it would work. I did not vote for it. There were not many of us who did not vote for it, but I was one of the few. But it did not work, in my opinion. It cost $168 billion. Every penny of that $168 billion, since we were in a deficit and it was new spending on top of what we planned to spend, and we knew we were there, is a deficit added to the deficit. As a result, it basically, in one piece of legislation, doubled the annual deficit last year.

Then we had some more spending that went on later on in the year. I will show this chart in a minute that sort of dramatizes where we are.

So I would say both parties have some fingerprints on some policies that have not been very helpful. We did not ask enough tough questions when President Bush proposed his agenda, and we also did not ask enough questions when they passed the $700 billion bailout in October, in my opinion. I hope we do not make the mistake again of rushing to approve the second phase of that along with this $800 billion stimulus package.

We need to ask the right questions. We should not be intimidated by it. We should not be panicked. The bill does not have to be passed in 1 day, or else the country is going to be permanently damaged. We need to try to improve the economy without wasting money or creating long-term problems for the Nation.

So there is this effort to continue what Secretary Paulson promoted, a rhetoric that says we have got to do something and we have got to do it in a hurry. We have got to do it now. We are still hearing that. Well, I think we don't need to be afraid to say, let's slow this down a little bit.

When something of such historic proportions is on the table, a bill of this magnitude, the Senate has a responsibility to carefully scrutinize it and to insist on accountability and responsibility of every single dime. That is why we exist. That is why taxpayers send us here. Someone has to ask the tough questions. I do not want to dampen anybody's spirits. We have a wonderful new President. He has a positive attitude. He is proposing a lot of things and nobody wants to ask a lot of grim questions.

I am going to ask a few, though, because it is my duty to do so. First, how big is this plan? How much will it cost? We have heard some general numbers. It has been stated, although we still haven't seen any details, that it might be between $800 billion and $1.3 trillion, which is one thousand three hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money. It would be the single largest Government expenditure of all time. Consider the enormity of a trillion dollars. It is the equivalent of paying for the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf wars at once.

Then, my next question is: Where will the $800 billion to $1.3 trillion come from? Where will we get it?

As I indicated, we are in a deficit now. So we are talking about spending another $800-plus billion. Where does it come from? We will have to borrow every single penny of it from whomever will lend us the money, private investors or foreign countries. We have been depending, frankly, too much on foreign countries. We didn't budget for this $800 billion. We don't have any money in the bank that we can get and pay for it. We don't have any savings we can draw on. All $1 trillion will have to be borrowed. Since loans have to be repaid and you have to pay people to borrow their money--that is what borrowing money is, you borrow it from somebody or some country, and they are not going to give the money for nothing--you have to pay them interest. Every bit of it will have to be paid back. Every American over the years, for generations to come, will have to sacrifice to pay off the debt we incur today.

The United States is, indeed, deeply in debt already, about $10.6 trillion. My generation probably will not be the one to pay most of that back, nor will even our children. It will probably be our grandchildren who will begin to feel the heavy burden of this debt. We should consider that.

Then I will ask this question: What impact will the Obama plan have on the Federal deficit and the national debt? This spending program, virtually all of it, will increase the deficit, which is the difference between the money the Government takes in each year and what we spend. We spend more than we take in, so we have a deficit right now. To fund that deficit, we borrow money. Each year we have been running a deficit, and each year the deficit gets added to the total national debt. One might ask: How do these deficits and debts affect me? Well, when politicians are responsible and deficits are kept small as a percentage of the gross domestic product, we probably don't notice the impact. Interest rates remain low, and debt payments are easier to make. But when we have a sustained and systemic habit of growing deficits, the United States becomes a riskier investment for people who might like to loan us money. Interest rates will go up, and more debt at higher interest rates means the taxpayers have to pay a larger percentage of GDP towards interest on the debt. The most likely way those high payments would be met is by a tax hike. I am not sure that is the most likely, but one way those higher interest payments and higher debt payments will have to be paid back might be a tax hike.

In 2004, President Bush was criticized because, under his tenure after 9/11, after the economic slowdown, he had a big stimulus package, and it led to a deficit of $412 billion. He was savaged for a $412 billion deficit. I thought he did deserve criticism for that. Although it is not well known to most Americans, some work was done in the next years to bring that deficit down. By 2007, it was down to $160 billion, a lot better than $412 billion. That amounted to 1.2 percent of the gross domestic product.

This chart reflects that. We had a $413 billion deficit in 2004. This was the largest deficit since World War II. President Bush was roundly criticized for it. A lot of people felt strongly about it. The next year the deficit dropped to $318 billion; the next year, it was 248. The year before last, 2007, it dropped to $161 billion. We were heading in the right direction.

Then we had the economic slowdown. Those things have a number of different ramifications, one of which is, when the economy slows down, people don't make as much money, so they don't pay as much taxes. So we lost about $200 billion; we expect to lose about $166 billion in revenue this year, according to the CBO, as a result of the slowdown. But last year, including the $160 billion stimulus package, sending out checks, the deficit jumped to $455 billion, the highest we have had since World War II as a percentage of the gross domestic product. That is a huge number.

We had a hearing last Thursday with the Congressional Budget Office Acting Director. A longtime professional budgeteer by the name of Mr. Sunshine did a fabulous job, but his remarks weren't so bright and encouraging. The Congressional Budget Office projects that even without any stimulus package, under current law, the deficit this fiscal year, the one we are already in--we passed the first quarter of it, and it ends on September 30 of this year--will be $1.2 trillion. Remember, last year it was $455 billion, the highest ever. This year we are looking at $1.2 trillion. Senator Conrad, chairman of the Budget Committee and a Democratic leader in the Senate, a good American, called that number jaw dropping. What else can one say?

That does not even include the stimulus package. If we add the numbers as proposed in the stimulus package, according to Mr. Sunshine, that will reach almost $1.8 trillion. So we are talking about a deficit more than three times the largest amount ever. It may sound fine as a businessman. I heard today a very prominent American businessman on Joe Scarborough's show. They asked him about spending and the deficit. He said: Well, we have to do it. They asked: Isn't this going to create financial problems in the future? And the only answer he could give was: Well, we will worry about that later.

I think it is a little late to worry about spending an extra $800 billion. It is a little late to worry about it later. We need to worry about it when we, the entity responsible for appropriating money, are deciding how much to appropriate and for what purpose. We ought to be thinking about it now, before we vote. This includes some of the expenditures for the TARP that they project. That is the $700 billion bailout and some other things, some of which are one-time expenditures. They project next year the deficit will be $871 billion. It might look like we made progress, but $871 billion is twice what this number is, almost. The next year, 2011, it will $572 billion.

Those numbers still are not the full number because they do not include, for example, about $40 billion a year for the alternative minimum tax fix and several other things. So these are numbers based on existing law, and each year we have not allowed the alternative minimum tax to go up. There are other things we extend each year. It does not include extensions of the current Bush tax cuts which would expire in 2010. He is not projecting they will be extended, but some of them, I am sure, will be. Those numbers are correct, technically, but in reality they are going to be larger, in all probability.

This deficit, almost $1.8 trillion, amounts to 8.3 percent of the entire value of the American economy, the gross domestic product. That would be the highest in real dollar numbers maybe ever. As a percentage of the economy, it is the highest since we were in a life-and-death struggle in World War II, with millions of soldiers deployed all over the world putting their lives on the line for this country. We were building airplanes and ships and tanks with all the capacity this Nation had.

Today Mr. Sunshine told us the debt payment we are paying each year out of tax receipts is $200 billion just to pay the interest on the money we already owe. Let me say a little bit about that. Interest rates are oddly at a very low rate today. It is inevitable, though, that people will stop loaning money to anybody, the U.S. Government or anybody else, for 1 or 2 percent. They are going to demand higher interest rates. That is what is going to happen.

The CBO predicts that interest rate amount will balloon in a few years to $450 billion a year annually. So the Congressional Budget Office says, as a result of our profligate spending and huge deficits, we now are heading in a few years to a point where we will be spending $450 billion a year only on interest. I ask, how big is $450 billion?

I will give a couple examples to provide perspectives that are fair to consider. The 5 years of the Iraq war cost $500 billion. We are creating a permanent interest rate payment every year that will have to be paid by our children, by our constituents. Our constituents today will be paying $450 billion every year, just on interest, because we had to spend so much today and last year for responses to crises I am not sure justified this kind of spending.

I certainly think many of our programs deserve to be reformed, eliminated, or increased in efficiency, and a lot of savings could occur. We have not been doing that. All we have been doing is spending more and more, adding to our debt.

Madam President, $450 billion is the equivalent, as I said, of the Iraq war. It is about one-third of the discretionary spending for our country every year. My recollection is that our general fund discretionary spending, including the Department of Defense, is about $1.5 trillion. I think that includes the $200 billion or so for interest now. So that number goes up to $450 billion. It would be about a third of that amount.

We spend more on Social Security and Medicare and entitlement programs. That is on a separate accountability factor. But just on the Defense Department, Homeland Security, our salaries, highways, everything we spend money on--our interest on the debt would be that high. It is not a little bitty matter. It is a big deal.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts that by 2019, the share of Federal expenditures allocated to debt payments will increase from 6 percent to 13 percent of the entire economy. That does not include the stimulus plan the President will be sending to us.

So the next question. A trillion dollars is a staggering sum of money to borrow and pay back with interest. How do we know it will be spent in the most efficient way to jump-start our economy and get the most productivity for the taxpayers?

Well, the truth is, we do not. We know this proposal will have two components. The so-called tax credits and direct spending. Now, I have to tell you, a good bit of this tax cut is temporary and a good bit of it is a sales job. Tax cuts, tax credit: What does that mean? Well, some say 40 percent of that will go to people who do not pay taxes. So how do you get a tax cut if you do not pay taxes? The Government sends you a check from the Treasury just as they did last spring. They got $600. So you get a check from Uncle Sam that is supposed to stimulate things and somehow help the economy.

The Congressional Budget Office, really under the supervision of the Congress--and the Congress is under the control of our Democratic colleagues; they have the majority now--the CBO rightfully scores these provisions not as a tax cut but as direct spending. What else can it be? It is a direct spending of taxpayers' money to send individuals a check to make them happier for the short term. What kind of long-term impact will there be on them, their children, and the economy in the years to come? What will this unwise prospect create?

The Wall Street Journal has pointed out many of these ideas are temporary and that temporary tax cuts do not result in positive economic behavior. But a more permanent change, when people know it is permanent, does have more of an impact in helping our economy.

Permanent tax relief, including--I have to say, please, do not think this is a way to pander to big business. But the corporate tax rate in America is one of the highest in the world: 35 percent. In Ireland, I think it is 11 percent. Most European nations--only one or two nations have as high a tax rate on the corporate community, which gets passed on as a cost of doing business and makes those corporations less competitive in the world marketplace.

We would be in a lot better shape if we could reduce that in a more permanent way. Then those companies could see, well, I am saving on my corporate tax rate. I will not have to lay off as many people. I can keep this company

going. Maybe we can invest and be more competitive when we export because I do not have as much of a burden on me, and it would help this economy. So I want to say many economists truly believe the corporate tax is not that, if reduced, would actually encourage economic growth and create more jobs.

So we know that just rapid expenditures of huge amounts of money have never been a very effective way to grow the economy. Are these spending programs--this $800 billion plus--is that going to end cold turkey in 2 years? I have doubts about it. I want to tell you, I have my doubts about the wisdom of our idea that we can jump-start the economy by pumping $800 billion into it.

So they are talking about--you have heard these numbers--well, we are going to spend a good bit of money on the infrastructure. Everybody likes highways. Everybody knows they are there for generations to come. Highways and bridges have good things that can be said about them and can make our lives better. There is always a line formed whenever there is highway money with people wanting to build more highways and more bridges. Currently, the Federal Government, which spends a lot of money on highways, spends, according to Mr. Sunshine, around $40 billion a year on highways. OK. States match it on a 20-percent basis; 80 percent Federal, States 20 percent. In some areas it is 90 percent Federal, 10 percent State. We use this matching mechanism to fund highway construction in this country, and it amounts to $40 billion a year.

We are talking about $300 billion in 2 years? You take the $300 billion, and cut it in two, that is $150 billion each year. So now we go from $40 billion a year for highways to $150 billion? Well, let's say you only spend $100 billion on it. With $200 billion, that is $100 billion more per year for highways, 2\1/2\ times what we are currently spending.

I would suggest those kinds of figures are unrealistic. When the chips are down, I doubt we are going to see anything like that much money being allocated to highways because it cannot be spent. There are not enough asphalt mixers, there are not enough concrete mixers, there are not enough dump trucks to actually spend that much money. That is a fact. You cannot triple the amount of work. And if you do, the bid per mile and the cost per mile is going to go way up. There is going to be a shortage dealing with everything in construction.

We simply cannot throw money at road construction and infrastructure. It has to be understood that since some of this is dropping off as a result of economic slowdowns, we can put that back on, and maybe a little on top, and keep this thing going at a more healthy rate. That may be possible, and I am willing to discuss that. But we ought not to sell the stimulus package that is being discussed that somehow the biggest chunk of it is going to get spent on highways. Right? So $800 billion. Maybe $30 billion a year extra; so $60 billion out of $800. So $740 billion. Where is the rest of it going to be spent to stimulate the economy, I ask? ``Shovel ready'' they say. I do not know what that means. But I know you could not start off in the next few months and triple the number of highways built in America. There are not enough engineers. There is not enough heavy equipment. There is not enough material to do that. If you were to even try, it would drive up the cost, and so we would spend a lot of money, a lot more. We would make it much more expensive per mile to build highways in America. We have to be careful about that.

Well, they also talk about how there is going to be more money in this bill for the automobile companies, and maybe a bailout for State governments. They need more money too, don't they? So why doesn't the Federal Government--which sort of prints money--why don't we bail out our good friends at the State level? Unemployment insurance is going to need to be expanded. And some are talking about expanding broadband, and, of course, hiring an additional 600,000 Government employees. That is part of what is being discussed here.

As the Washington Post said, of course, many of these items were featured in President-elect Barack Obama's campaign pledges. There was a fine column by Mr. E. J. Dionne, who is openly a good, liberal columnist and has been a pro-Obama writer throughout. Mr. Dionne said it has been rather fortunate for the Obama campaign that he can utilize--and I am paraphrasing now, but I think this is close to the heart of what he said--it is very fortunate for President-elect Obama that all the spending he promised can now be justified, and they can call it a bailout or a stimulus package and not just a big spending program.

So I think we have to ask questions about that. Can we justify this? Fundamentally, every dollar we spend as part of regular Government spending programs or this stimulus program should result in an effective return to the taxpayers. We have no money to waste. We are in a time of unprecedented, incredible deficits. We ought not to waste a single dollar. Cannot we all agree on that?

Finally, my question would be, how will we Americans pay the trillion dollars back? There are three ways: cutting spending in the future. I do not hear anybody saying we need to be cutting spending, not on the majority side here. We talk about education, health care, highways, expanding the number of military personnel. All these things cost money. I do not see any realistic prospect we will see any huge reduction in spending, I have to tell you.

You could raise taxes. But I do not like raising taxes. I have tried to oppose that throughout my career. President-elect Obama says he wants to give everybody a tax break. Who is going to raise taxes in any significant way? Oh, you can tax the rich and get a little out of them when the economy is doing pretty good. When the economy goes down and the rich income drops dramatically, the country's tax revenue also drops dramatically. So I do not think we are going to get a lot of money from that.

One way for it to happen and would be a result more pernicious than many have thought about would be where we would basically debase the currency. We would weaken the value of the dollar. So you borrow $100 billion from somebody, and you pay them back $100 billion, but you printed a lot more dollars, so the dollars they get paid back are less valuable than the ones they gave you when you borrowed it. That is a pretty slick deal, isn't it? That is what you call inflation. There are huge ramifications from that kind of policy that are very damaging to the long-term health of America. We do not need to debase our currency. That is why the price of gold jumped. People get scared the dollar is not going to be worth anything.

So I think the debate we are about to begin is really about individual responsibility and governmental responsibility. We do need to resist the cries of many who have self-interests in this stimulus package.

I heard one prominent businessman make a speech recently. He said: We are going after this money. Well, if we put it out there, every business is going to go after it and be happy to get it. So we have to be responsible. We need to scrutinize it. We need to act in the long- term interests of America.

I believe Congress so far has not done well in responding to the economic crisis we are going through. I think everybody pretty well universally has agreed that the $160 billion send-out-the-checks program did not benefit the economy. I heard a group of well-known economists recently agree that the first $350 billion--remember, the entire Iraq war has cost us $500 billion--that $350 billion in the first tranche of money that has gone out has not helped the economy. So I think we have to be careful. I hope Congress will not fail our constituents again, by making sure that the fiscal illness we are living with now does not damage our children.

I know people are hurting. I know people are worried that their job might not exist in the months to come. If you are working at the clothing store, I am not sure some of these jobs are going to be that helpful to you. But at any rate, that is the kind of thing we are dealing with. People are worried. We are going through a serious downturn. As the CBO expert told us, we are going to come out of this in 2 years, in his opinion--and he was firm about it--whether we did anything or not. He said a stimulus package might help. Another member of the panel said, well, it

should help, but neither one said it was critical to us coming out of the recession.

So whatever we do, whatever monies we spend--and I am not against every idea for stimulating the economy--let's just be sure it is productive. Approving $1 trillion in deficit spending could do more harm than good if we don't do it right.

It is time that we as a Nation stop living beyond our means. We need to get our house in order. We need to know there is no free lunch; that debts will have to be repaid one way or the other--raising taxes, cutting spending in the future, debasing the currency. That is basically the way we can reduce the debt, and those are the only ways we can. We are putting a burden to the future. I know some money invested now might make a positive difference. Let's talk about that and let's see what we can do. But the numbers being floated out and the rapidity with which the program is being proposed creates in my mind a great danger that much of the money will not be stimulative, as it has failed to be in the past, and that much of it will not produce the kind of tangible benefit to which the taxpayers are entitled.

Madam President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Briefly, Mr. President, I see the Senator from Hawaii is in the Chamber. I see he has some remarks, and I would be pleased to yield to him and would ask unanimous consent that I be recognized after he has full opportunity to make any remarks he desires.

Mr. President, I thank Senator Akaka for his comments about the Senate and Senator Byrd, and I would share those. Certainly it is a good lead-in, I think, to the remarks and thoughts I wish to share right now.

In the Senate, individual Senators have traditionally had substantial powers to participate in the debate and to offer amendments to improve legislation. The Senate has been described as the saucer which allows the hot coffee to cool, and I think that is a good description.

I have been very concerned that Senator Coburn of Oklahoma, who has desired to offer just one or two amendments to legislation that is pending in the Senate before it becomes automatically passed into law, has systematically been denied that right and has been held up as someone who does not respect the body and is doing something wrong. I think that is a very bad analysis of the principled stands he takes. I think he is one of the finest Members of this Senate. He has the odd belief that a Senator should actually read the legislation, and if it can be improved and should be improved, a Senator has an obligation to offer an amendment to fix that, and he has done so. However, as we know, Senators have gotten into the habit of believing that if they have produced a piece of legislation and it is essentially a piece of legislation that a lot of people would agree ought to be passed without any debate and/or without, certainly, any amendments--and the majority leader, who I have to say is going to have to watch this and is going to lead continued activity in this area--to deny the fundamental right of Senators to debate and vote to improve legislation cannot continue without causing very serious disruption of the body because it changes the historical nature of it.

I participated in a bankruptcy bill. It was my subcommittee. We passed the bankruptcy bill. It took several weeks. It was an important piece of legislation. We had 39 votes asked for by the Democrats, who were in the minority. They got those votes, and eventually the bill passed with 83 or 87 votes, I have forgotten which. That is what this body is capable of doing and should do much more often.

Let me go back to what has happened here. Senator Coburn has objected to various pieces of legislation. They asked unanimous consent that the bill be passed without amendment and basically without debate. That is what the request is. Senator Coburn has said: Well, I have an amendment. I don't like section such-and-such. I don't approve of provisions in this bill that will restrict further our already restricted ability to produce oil and gas in America, for example or I don't want to see that become law or I think that expenditure in the bill is unacceptable and it ought to be eliminated or cut substantially or my constituents think this is not good policy for America, and I wish to at least be able to offer an amendment to it. Well, the powers that be are not comfortable with that. It has been done during Republican times, but it has gotten to the high-water mark now, where the leadership of the Senate systematically denies people the right to vote.

I was really taken aback that Senator Coburn has announced that not a single amendment has been voted on in this Senate since July. How can that be? It is unthinkable to me that that has been the case, but I can't remember any. I know they were able to ram through a $700 billion TARP financial bailout without an amendment. Unthinkable.

So I think the history, the integrity, the traditional role of the Senate is being eroded because leadership does not want votes. They don't want their members to have to take tough votes. That is what you hear. They want to pass bills quickly--let you have a little say and then pass the bill, but nobody really gets to try to offer amendments to make the bill better and anybody who insists on that is obstructing.

So basically what has happened in this body is that we now have a public lands bill that has attached to it some of what Senator Coburn has objected to, and they want to move the bill without any amendments. I don't think that is right.

Let me just say this about Senator Coburn: He is a medical doctor. He works extraordinarily hard. He is highly intelligent. He has been a successful businessman, an inventor, and one of the smartest Members of this body. He campaigned in his State that he was going to read the legislation that comes before this Senate and he would work to make it better. He committed to his people that he would work to control wasteful Washington spending. I think almost every Member of the Senate has said the same; the only difference is he does it with a tenacity and a courage and an analytical ability that few of us possess. He is willing to come down here and ruffle feathers by saying: I know, Senator, you love this bill and you think it is perfect, but I have a different view. I think this part of it ought to be fixed. I have an amendment, and I want a vote on it to see if my colleagues agree with me. We have gotten in the habit of denying this opportunity.

If anybody thinks this is such an insignificant matter--when we passed last fall, over my objection, the financial bailout, the $700 billion bailout, I think I can say without fear of contradiction it was the greatest expenditure in the history of the Republic or allocation of Federal money in the history of the Republic. Not one amendment was allowed. Blame it on President Bush. Blame it on President Bush, but the Democrats had the majority in the Senate. I didn't support it. I would have been delighted to stand with them to object to the breadth of this bill, the lack of control that was exercised over $700 billion in taxpayers' money. But Senator Reid brought it up in a fashion that allowed no amendments, and they rammed it right through the great Senate of the United States, and we committed this country to $700 billion in expenditures and guarantees.

Well, how did it work out? Most economists now tell us that using that money to buy stock in banks, private banks, to buy stock--$100 billion-plus--in a big insurance company with taxpayers' money has not helped the economy. Had the money been spent on buying toxic assets, as promised, it might have worked. At least we would have been further along in the game. Why did that happen? Secretary Paulson told us he wanted to buy toxic assets. He told us he didn't want to buy stock. He was asked about that in the House committee. He said: No, I don't think we should buy stock. But one thing Secretary Paulson told the Congress--and I was stunned by it, really--he said it publicly and repeatedly: I want maximum flexibility to do what I think is necessary to fix this economy. That is what this Senate gave him. Within a week of getting $700 billion to buy toxic mortgages to try to stabilize the housing market, he was spending the money to buy stock in banks and insurance companies--directly contrary to what he said.

All I am saying to my colleagues is that the Senate is a great body. I am just commencing my third term. I remember when I first came up here and I attended a luncheon and they asked me to say something briefly. The words I recall saying were that I can think of no greater honor than to represent the people of Alabama in the greatest deliberative body in the history of the world. That is this Senate. But we are eroding that tradition, that heritage. If we can't have amendments, it can no longer be called the great U.S. Senate. I think Senator Byrd can't help but be uneasy about these trends in the Senate he has so loved and served for so long.

We ought to be appreciative of Senator Coburn from Oklahoma for taking

the time to study this legislation, to offer amendments to fix it and to make it better, and to serve in the classical manner of ``Mr. Smith Goes to Washington'' to serve the American people. We ought not create a freight train designed to run over him and to silence and muzzle him and to deny him the ability to offer amendments. That is what we are about.

There is no reason for us having to vote on Sunday except the majority leader has insisted on it and tried to blame Senator Coburn. If we are going to stay in session until Sunday, why are we not voting? Why don't we have some votes? What are they afraid of to have a vote? I am serious. What could be so fearful about casting votes? Isn't that what we were sent here to do? We know on every vote, we are going to make somebody unhappy. The Senate, since the founding of the Republic, has found it acceptable to vote. Why are we stopping voting now?

I want to be counted in his favor. I know the legislation before us today has a number of good provisions in it. I support some of them, and some of them I have worked hard to support and see they are in the legislation. I don't think it is a horrible piece of legislation. But just as a matter of procedure, we ought not to deny good Senators the right to offer amendments. I object to that procedure.

I believe we will have to confront this change in the procedures of the Senate because we are going to wake up and find it is not the same Senate we used to know.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask to have printed in the Record an article about Senator Elizabeth Dole, who will be departing the Senate this year. She has been my seatmate, and, I must say, she is my favorite in the entire Senate. A brilliant thinker, an incredibly hard worker, gracious, a person of sincere faith who lives it every day, she has lifted the Senate to a higher level throughout her tenure and through many difficult times. Her record of service, as Paul Weyrich notes, is truly extraordinary. Throughout her long and distinguished career, her commitment to America has never been questioned. Her decency, experience, and leadership qualities have blessed us all. She grew up in small town North Carolina and the values instilled in her by family, church, and school were never lost. I wish her every success in her future endeavors and am confident that in this next stage of her life she will continue to contribute to the betterment of our nation.

The article follows.

[Townhall.com. Dec. 11, 2008]

A Tribute to Senator Elizabeth H. Dole

(By Paul Weyrich)

A good lady is about to leave Washington, D.C. after

decades of public service. I refer to Senator Elizabeth

Hanford Dole (R-NC), who was defeated in her bid for re-

election in the 2008 election. Dole married Senator Robert J.

``Bob'' Dole in 1975. President Gerald R. Ford named him his

running mate after dumping the unpopular Vice President,

Nelson A. Rockefeller. Dole was Majority Leader of the Senate

from 1985 to 1987, when Democrats regained control of the

Senate and he became Minority Leader. Dole remained the

leader of the Senate Republicans until he resigned his post

to be the GOP Presidential nominee in 1996.

All this time Elizabeth Dole was at his side. But she

became an important figure in her own right. When Ronald W.

Reagan was elected President in 1980 Dole became Reagan's

liaison to conservatives, veterans and others. Soon Reagan

named her Secretary of Transportation. By all accounts she

did an admirable job. In the Administration of George H.W.

Bush, Dole became Secretary of Labor. She and Bob Dole became

a power couple in D.C.

When Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) retired after 40 years in

the Senate, Elizabeth Dole ran for his seat. He campaigned

for her. She suggested she would vote like Helms and indeed

she did. However, some North Carolinians suggested that her

constituent services left much to be desired. And by all

accounts she ran an inadequate re-election campaign.

I watched with sadness as she questioned automobile

manufacturers in the lame duck session of Congress. Soon she

will have to pack up her office and head home. Her husband is

now all but retired. This once-powerful couple is out of

power. Dole is gracious about her loss. One would hardly know

she had been defeated. Yet she leaves Washington having

accomplished much in her service in the White House, the

Transportation and Labor Departments and the United States

Senate. This is one fine lady, the likes of whom we probably

will not see in this town for many years.

Mr. President, it has been one of my great honors to serve with one of the most distinguished Senators in our body, Senator John Warner of Virginia. A man of great wisdom, a man committed to the country that he has served for many decades in a host of important positions. John Warner has never failed his Nation. In addition to his knowledge and

judgment which I so deeply respect and have so often followed, he is a true delight to be with and has the rare collegial skills to bring highly intelligent and committed Senators together for the common good. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, as its ranking member and in the last 2 years as its de facto ranking member he has continued his record of superb service. We have gone through many difficult times and without his leadership I don't see how we could have worked our way through some of our Nation's great challenges.

John Warner is a product of the heart of Virginia. Our affectionate title of ``squire'' reflects the recognition of his Virginia heritage and style. Among other good qualities no one is more delightful to travel with than John Warner. I cherish the opportunity to have listened to many of his stories both humorous and insightful. He is a walking student of American history. I urged him to seek reelection but he chose not to. He will be greatly missed. My best wishes go with him and his wife Jeanne.

Mr. President, one of the great privileges of my tenure in the Senate has been to serve with my colleague Wayne Allard from Colorado.

He and his wonderful wife and partner Joan have contributed greatly to the life of the Senate. Wayne has been a leading advocate for a strong space and missile defense program, an important issue when he chaired the Strategic Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Armed Services. I was honored to follow him in that position when he moved to the prestigious Appropriations Committee.

Wayne has also been a firm and consistent voice for a sound economic policy based on the free market, lower taxes, free trade, and restraint in spending. Day after day--year after year--he never wavered in those principles.

I deeply regret that Wayne took a pledge to not seek a third term in the Senate. His unqualified commitment to principle will be sorely missed. Wayne is a man of integrity, and he never hesitated to keep the promise he made to the voters of Colorado.

Wayne and I came to the Senate together. We have been good friends throughout our time here. We have stood together in the Armed Services Committee in support of our men and women in uniform. We were thrilled to see the child tax credit become law, providing relief to hard- working American families. We witnessed many other important pieces of legislation be enacted into law. And we were able to stop quite a few bad pieces also.

Mary and I send our best and most sincere wishes to Wayne and Joan. I know that he will continue to contribute to the good of Colorado and to the Nation.

Mr. President, I will share a few remarks on the matter before us. I was pleased to support Mr. Holder when he was nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General. He came as a Superior Court Judge in DC, and as a U.S. attorney. I thought he had many of the gifts and graces that would be appropriate for a Clinton deputy. He might not have been my top choice, but I thought he had a good background and I supported that. I have considered him a friend. I tried to be supportive of him throughout his tenure.

But I have to say there are some problems that are going to have to be dealt with. I went through the very painful process of Attorney General Gonzales and the difficulties he had. It was very painful for me. I am not sure he was treated fairly, to tell you the truth. But it came to a point where I think he concluded, and maybe everybody concluded, it was best for him to step down as Attorney General. He wanted to do the right thing, I believe, but made some errors. It damaged the Department.

I spent 15 years in the Department of Justice. I was an Assistant U.S. attorney for 2\1/2\ years and U.S. attorney for 12. That is a pretty long time; the biggest part of my professional career, for sure.

I love the Department of Justice. I believe it is very important that we have leaders committed to following the law regardless of position or power or influence; that the Attorney General should set the example. When I was there they did and there was no doubt about it. We were encouraged to do the right thing. If you took political heat, if you were right, the Attorney General would back you up, no matter what politician might call or what influential contributor or friend might try to intervene. You were expected to do your duty. That is the way I trained my assistants and that is the way I was expected to perform.

So I have no more grim prospect in mind, in the beginning of next year, than to have to go through a contentious hearing for the Attorney General of the United States. As I said, I have had nothing but personal affection for Eric Holder.

I want to make a couple of points. First, I believe Senator Specter is justified in asking that this hearing not start so soon. President- elect Obama is not in office. He will not be President. President-elect Obama will not be President at that time. He is talking about starting it on January 8 and that is very early. Members of the committee have sought a bunch of documents. I am not sure they are entitled to all of those documents, but many of them are public record documents that are quite appropriate to be requested. These members have requested those documents and they need to be looked at because there are some questions here that are going to have to be examined.

I note Attorney General Griffin Bell, who is one of the great Attorney Generals ever to serve in this country, serving under President Carter, that his hearings lasted 6 days.

John Ashcroft, a member of the Judiciary Committee, one of our own, and I believe a man of great integrity and commitment to the law, had 4 days and my colleagues on the other side had 23 outside witnesses testify in an effort to try and find something to complain about. Basically, they did not have

anything to say of importance, and he was confirmed.

But a confirmation hearing is not a coronation, particularly when there are questions out there that need to be conducted in the right way. I think, first, that Senator Specter is well within propriety and collegiality to ask that we not start this hearing so soon. Second, we need to be sure there is enough time set aside that it can be fairly discussed. And I will not go into the allegations that are out there, but I wish to say that not rushing this nomination through is not some sort of partisan attack, but instead a duty that must be performed.

Let me say that commentators and newspapers across the spectrum have raised questions about the nominee. The Senate has been called upon to do its job and ask the kinds of questions that need to be asked and clear the air on some of these allegations. And I hope Mr. Holder is able to do so.

The New York Times, a strong supporter of President-elect Obama, more and more known to be a liberal newspaper, said this recently:

Mr. Holder . . . must answer serious questions before the

Senate votes on his confirmation.

They had an editorial on this subject and seemed to be troubled by the nomination and flatly stated that we should look at that seriously.

The Wall Street Journal said this:

For a politicized Justice Department, none can compare to

the Clinton Administration's, and the role that Mr. Holder

played in it deserves the fullest airing before he is given

the opportunity to return.

To return--he was Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton, the second in command in the Department of Justice.

Richard Cohen from Mr. Holder's hometown paper, the Washington Post. Mr. Cohen, who I think it is fair to say is a liberal columnist, certainly not a conservative, I think probably recognized as a Democrat, had some strong words. This is what Mr. Cohen, a longtime columnist, wrote in the Washington Post:

Holder was involved, passively or not, in just the sort of

inside-the-Beltway influence peddling that Barack Obama was

elected to end. He is not one of Obama's loathed lobbyists;

was merely their instrument--a good man, certainly, who just

as certainly did a bad thing. Maybe he deserves an

administration job, just not the one he's getting.

Well, in October of last year, before the election and after Attorney General Gonzales was forced to resign because really he did not manage his Department well--I think little has shown that he had a malicious intent, but he was forced to resign, and the chairman and the ranking member, Chairman Leahy, the Democrat, and the ranking Republican, Senator Specter, published a joint op-ed in the Politico newspaper. They made clear that they expected the next nominee to be independent of political influence and loyal to the rule of law, and the Department of Justice personnel.

They said this:

The attorney general must hold everyone, no matter how

powerful, accountable to the law. Any nominee must have a

visceral commitment to pursuing and achieving justice, and a

record of doing just that.

They went on to say:

Finally, the attorney general must be someone who deeply

appreciates and respects the work and commitment of the

thousands of men and women who work in the branches and

divisions of the Department of Justice day in and day out,

without regard to politics or ideology, doing their best to

enforce the law and promote justice.

Well, I agree with that. So I would hope that in the process going forward, that we do take the time to analyze some of these allegations and dig into why Mr. Cohen, or the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal has expressed serious reservations about this most important nominee.

The Marc Rich pardon--let me tell you why that is troubling to me as a longtime U.S. attorney. Very few people obtain pardons. That is just the way it is. Thousands apply. I have a bunch of them who write me right now, and they want me to help them get their pardon. Little people, who committed small drug crimes; maybe forged a check; maybe did something that violated Federal law in some fashion, are convicted and charged, and they do not get pardons. In fact, the process is set up with a pardon attorney. They have to complete their time in prison, they have to complete their parole, and only after a period of time of good behavior, only after that does a pardon attorney even consider their application for a pardon. But the President of the United States is constitutionally empowered

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

So the President is constitutionally empowered to do the pardon.

So in the instance of Marc Rich, this was a major fraud case. He was indicted--one of the largest fraud cases in the country. He was a fugitive. He never reported and answered the indictment against him, as I understand. He was a fugitive, at least, and did not come and show up for trial. For some reason, over the strong objections of the prosecutor involved in the case, the President of the United States, with a positive recommendation from then-Deputy Attorney General Holder, granted that pardon. Of course, we know that through some method, Marc Rich--he, or people close to him, had been a very substantial contributor to matters of importance to the Clintons, to President Clinton personally. It was not a good deal. That was not a good deal. It was wrong. And every little person who has asked for a pardon and did not get it and deserved it 99 times more than Marc Rich did has a right to be offended. The rule of law and the respect for the Department of Justice was definitely lowered by that act. I wish Deputy Attorney General Holder had done the right thing, which was tell President Clinton: President Clinton, you cannot do this, and if you do this, my resignation will be on your desk. I cannot serve in an administration that would issue this pardon.

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

Mr. President, earlier in the week I pointed out that I believe the best way for the big three automakers to reorganize, come out lean and aggressive and competitive, was through the reorganization procedures in chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. So many companies have taken advantage of it over the years. It is the regular order, as we say in the Senate. It is what happens when companies are not able to meet all of their debt obligations and payments. When this happens they seek protection under chapter 11.

The bankruptcy court has a desire that those companies be successful; that they continue to operate; that people are not laid off; and that the business is not liquidated as it would be if it had filed under chapter 7 of bankruptcy code. In chapter 11, every effort is made to help the company to survive; to eliminate the burdens and legacy costs or other problems they have that are pulling them down, making them noncompetitive.

This week, on December 9, 2008, the Heritage Foundation published a document called ``Bankruptcy Is Best: Responding to Automakers' Arguments Against Chapter 11 Restructuring.'' Mr. Andrew Grossman, a senior legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, writes:

Though a bailout--

That is the Federal Government just giving money to the corporations--

may be better for the automakers' current executives and

shareholders, restructuring in bankruptcy remains the best

choice for the automakers' continued viability and future

success.

In other words, a bankruptcy restructuring and reorganization will be in the best interest for American workers, employees and people who want to buy American automobiles.

We have two cars in my home in Mobile, both of them are pushing 100,000 miles, and both of them are American big three automobiles. I am very happy with them. A lot of people want these automobiles. But the best way to keep the company going, experts say, is through this established legal procedure of bankruptcy, not some special bailout. We have heard this argument: Bankruptcy would lead to failure and millions of jobs lost. The Heritage Foundation responds: ``Bankruptcy protection actually prevents failure.''

Mr. Grossman notes that when a person files bankruptcy, ``it does not mean that the business and its assets will `fail'--that is, cease operations. Many companies, including the bulk of the airline industry following 9/11, have entered bankruptcy, reorganized under its protection, and then emerged as stronger, sustainable businesses.''

That is so true and it is so important to say. Grossman and the Heritage Foundation went on to note:

Once a company has filed for bankruptcy, it receives an

automatic stay and may suspend payment of all debts, giving

it breathing room to take stock of its assets and situation.

Once you file bankruptcy, everybody knows about bankruptcy. I am not an expert, but I have been involved with it off and on. I helped write the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill. But in bankruptcy, every lawsuit, every claim against your money is stayed. You don't have to pay them off. The judge takes over and makes sure that payments are done in a way that is fair to everyone concerned.

The next argument: Automobile makers are too complex for bankruptcy. The Heritage Foundation report says:

Fact: The bankruptcy process is designed to confront and

resolve complex problems and has successfully done so many

times in the past.

By chance, one of Alabama's best bankruptcy lawyers was in my office just yesterday. I have known him and respected him. He is totally independent of the circumstance.

I asked him: What do you think?

He said: Chapter 11 is perfect for these companies. It is exactly what is needed. It is set up to handle these kind of circumstances. People keep confusing reorganization under chapter 11, like Delta Airlines went through, with liquidation under chapter 7 bankruptcy where there is no hope of saving the company. They are saying: If you go into bankruptcy, it means the company is doomed. That is not so.

As to the complexity of the matter, the Heritage Foundation report says: ``It is a universal feature of bankruptcy law that creditors and other stakeholders''--that is, creditors, people who are claiming money from GM, Ford, or Chrysler--that they can ``be forced to accept concessions that are necessary to maximize the common pool. Thus some debtors may see their claims transformed into equities stakes''--that is, stock in the company--``so that a business, free of debt, can operate profitably and sustainably. Others may receive pennies on the dollar. Collective bargaining agreements may, as described further below, be modified to put costs in line with industry norms, and other contracts may be rejected. In contrast, a bailout''--that is what we are talking about, giving the automakers money--``fails entirely to address the complexity of the automakers' problems. Unlike the finely honed tools of bankruptcy reorganization, a bailout fails to provide any mechanism (other than money) to restructure debt, repudiate contracts, or renegotiate labor agreements. In short, bankruptcy is a solution to the complexity.''

The report goes on to say:

And these features are most valuable in large and complex

cases that would be impossible otherwise.

The Heritage report goes on to note that chapter 11 organizations have included energy and finance giant Conseco; Delta Airlines; the parent corporation of United Airlines; telecom giant WorldCom, now MCI; Texaco; Adelphia Communications; and Global Crossing. All those have been in bankruptcy and have come out reorganized.

The report continues:

Despite this enormous complexity, all of these businesses

were able to reorganize under the protection of the

bankruptcy process and emerge as viable, competitive

businesses.

And these companies did all of this without, let me add, a penny of Government money being put into them.

What about the argument that you could not renegotiate labor agreements in bankruptcy? The Heritage Foundation and Mr. Grossman found this:

Chapter 11 provides a straightforward mechanism,

unavailable outside of bankruptcy, to modify collective

bargaining agreements to adapt to economic realities.

The report sets forth some of the additional protections that labor has and additional proofs that have to be made to modify a labor contract, but the evidence is taken, and labor contracts can be modified to help make the business viable. But do not miss the fact that the law provides workers a very fair chance to defend their legitimate interests.

The report concludes on this question:

Thus, the bankruptcy judge has significant discretion and

power to push the parties toward an agreement that is

mutually acceptable, conforms to economic realities, and

ensures that the business is able to return to profitability.

They go on and note about the bailout, however:

A bailout, in contrast, would likely provide no new legal

authority to achieve this result.

Now, there is an argument being made that restructuring in bankruptcy would not work because sufficient debtor-in-possession financing is not available for an automaker in the current economic climate. Let me explain how debtor-in-possession financing works. If a company were to file for chapter 11 protection, then a judge takes control, has hearings and listens to testimony, keep in mind there is a stay in place that holds off the debtors making claims for money, that judge then may find that for the company to survive, it may need to borrow more money. The court can induce a private lender to loan the corporation money, that is, financing a debtor who remains in possession. That lender then gets a priority over every other claim to the company because it is the money that keeps the company surviving.

I would say that were this scenario to play out, as I just described, I would be quite willing to consider legitimate assistance from the Federal Government in a way that would provide maximum protection to the taxpayer and would also provide a maximum opportunity for the company to be successful. That is the way the law provides for. That is the way every corporation I know of

that gets in trouble has to be handled. I do not see the advantage of providing one special industry billions and billions of dollars bailout when we know this $14 billion is just the first installment. One economist has predicted it would be $75 billion to $125 billion before we are through. So this minimal, legitimate government assistance as a provider of debtor-in-possession financing would be a better way to do it.

Proponents of chapter 11 for automobile companies include Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago and Edward Altman of New York University's Stern School of Business. They explain how this government supported debtor-in-possession mechanism operates. They note that:

This option would be superior to a nonbankruptcy bailout

because it would provide greater protection (bankruptcy's

``super-priority'')--

To the person who puts in the money at the end to make the company viable--

to taxpayers, would do more to force the automakers to reform

their operations while providing them greater flexibility to

do so, and would be more likely to succeed.

I know some ideas have been floated recently; that our distinguished colleague, Senator Corker from Tennessee, has proposed that we may well be able to accomplish most of these things without going into bankruptcy. We are studying that. But his proposal has the hammer that if agreements are reached to modify and protect the companies from claimants, then they would be required to go into bankruptcy.

One of the problems of Congress trying to fix the problem and the automakers not going into bankruptcy is a constitutional problem. Bankruptcy courts modify in part and sometimes invalidate in part, and entirely, portions of contracts. That is a great power and the Constitution provides for this use of bankruptcy.

I am not sure we in Congress can pass a law that could invalidate contracts. I have argued we should go in that direction always, I hope my colleagues understand, under the belief that this is the regular order; this is the proper legal way for a company to reorganize itself and survive if it is in financial difficulties.

We need to quit giving special privileges where they are not needed. Such behavior ought to be kept to the most narrow, special benefits outside of the traditional free market principles that have made this country great. If we have to go around them or violate them or bend a bit because of the size and the number of people who might be involved, well, let's do so within our heritage as much as possible, within the rule of law as much as possible. I think that is the best way to do it.

So I wished to share my thoughts with my colleagues. I would urge them, if they are interested in the details, to look into the Web site of the Heritage Foundation to examine what this bankruptcy report study shows and why, according to their report: ``Bankruptcy Is Best.'' I believe it is.

I thank the Chair and also express my appreciation for what I understand to be some progress toward reaching a proposal we could vote on in this body that would be much better than the one that has originally been put forward by the Democratic leader and the White House. I do not think the President or the Democratic leader has it right. I think a lot of other Members of this body do not feel like they have it right. What we need to do is to do what we can to assist these companies through a very difficult period of time, to give them an opportunity to eliminate some of the excessive burden they have been carrying so that when they enter into the race to the competitive marketplace, they will be leaner and more efficient and more capable of being successful, more able to be competitive, and can restore their vigor and vitality.

We have to do that, and they have to get out from under some of these burdens. I personally think the best way to do that is through bankruptcy. It may be that some of the work Senator Corker and others have worked on can get us there in a slightly different way. I am open to that thought and certainly am desirous of a conclusion that could gain bipartisan support.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.