Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, we have a lot of challenges before this Nation and this Congress. I believe the most critical challenge is how we handle financial matters that have been entrusted to us, how we handle the budget and spend the debt we are approving in America, and are we able--do we have the will, do we have the integrity--to stand up and put this Nation on a sound fiscal path.

I would note to all my colleagues that the week before last before the Budget Committee, our own Congressional Budget Office Director Mr. Doug Elmendorf repeated once again--which is absolutely accepted by virtually every economist in America--this country remains on an unsustainable debt course. This is an unsustainable path we are on. He indicated and said flatly we could, indeed, face a fiscal crisis, something like 2007, perhaps, something like Greece, because our debt is so large and growing at such a pace. We have never been here before. We are in the red zone on the tachometer. We are in the danger area, and we need to get out of it.

So I would say to my colleagues, isn't this true? Does anybody doubt it? Does anybody deny it? Then why don't we respond in an appropriate way?

I was shocked, deeply disappointed, amazed, and saddened that this headline appeared earlier in the week in the Washington Post. This is what it said: ``With 2015 budget request, Obama will call for an end to era of austerity.''

What does this mean? Every Member of this Congress knows what it means. It means the President of the United States is no longer interested in fiscal responsibility. He is saying: We no longer need to tighten our belt. He is saying he is going to attack anybody who suggests more spending is bad. He is going to say that he is going into this election with the idea that he is going to promise, promise, promise more and more spending, more debt, and he is not concerned about it. That is what it means. I am not exaggerating. I think every Member of this body knows exactly what that signal was.

So we will see the budget. It will be out next Tuesday, and we will have a hearing in the Budget Committee, of which I am the ranking Republican, on Wednesday. But I suspect and am confident it will do just like his last two budgets. It would increase spending $1 trillion above the amount of spending we agreed to in 2011 and reaffirmed essentially with the Ryan-Murray bill that he signed about 2 months ago into law.

We cannot do this. This is how we destroy a country, how we weaken an economy. I cannot--I do not have words to express it.

I will say one more point. Economists are telling us that our economic growth today is below what it otherwise would be because of the size of the debt this country faces right now--not in the future, right now. It is a wet blanket on economic growth. The Rogoff-Reinhart study talks about the slower growth, and we have consistently seen projections for growth not being met.

Director Elmendorf, in his testimony--I asked him about it 2 years ago. He predicted 2013 would allow us to see 4.6-percent economic growth. It came in at 1.9 percent--a stunning miss, well below. Below 2-percent growth means you are not creating jobs, you are not creating wealth, you are basically stagnant with an increasing population.

We need to be at 4.6 percent. We need some of that kind of growth. One reason we are not is bigger government, more taxes, more regulations, and more debt.

We are not going to get out of it until we get off that path.

So now we have a veterans bill before us. Nobody, I do not believe, is more committed to veterans in this body than I have been, and so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle want to do the right thing for veterans. But it is an audacious thing we are seeing here today.

Let's review some of the history.

Two months ago, every Senate Democrat--every Senate Democrat--voted for a bill to cut military pensions for our soldiers, our military retirees, and even our disabled veterans. It was in their bill.

Senate Democrats then blocked--not once but twice--my efforts, other Republican efforts to restore those cuts by closing a tax credit loophole for illegal immigrants.

Mr. President, I see my colleague and friend, Senator Sanders, in the Chamber. I am going to get to the point. I will do it now because I know he has a busy agenda, and I think I know how the script will all play out.

I say to Senator Sanders and colleagues, the pending measure before us today, S. 1982, the Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014--which is a good title for a bill--would cause the aggregate level of budget authority and outlays for fiscal year 2014, deemed pursuant to section 111 of Public Law 113-67, to be exceeded. Therefore, I raise a point of order under section 311(a)(2) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974.

Well, Mr. President, reclaiming the floor, now you have it in stark clarity. This bill proposes to spend more than we agreed to spend passing the Ryan-Murray Act a few weeks ago. President Obama signed it 2 months ago. The ink is hardly dry on it, and here we have another bill to raise that, to raise the spending again. And it will not be the only one. We are going to see bill after bill after bill, and it is part of the President's strategy.

What is it? The era of austerity is over. He signed Ryan-Murray. He signed the Budget Control Act. But he had no intention of complying with it. He will not support enforcement of it. That is a failure of leadership of a monumental proportion. It is a stunning event.

I do not know why we have a Congress, why we pass laws that say we are only going to spend so much money and then we waltz in, just a few weeks later, and spend billions more than we agreed to. And, oh, we will just waive the budget we just passed. Oh, this is important. But everybody knew when we passed the limits on spending that there were going to be important bills.

I am actually shocked, even by Senate and congressional standards, how blase this body has been about these laws. I thought at least people would pretend to honor them. There is no pretense here. And it is a failure of responsibility in this body if such spending were to pass.

So our colleagues voted to cut the retirement pay of veterans, which I opposed and Republicans opposed. That was already in law--a commitment we made to military people that if they served 20 years, they get this retirement benefit.

They waltzed in to save $6 billion, supposedly, and they were going to reduce their pension benefits. I did not feel, No. 1, it was necessary. There were other ways to save money. And I felt we had ways to save the money in a different way and offered legislation to that effect. So the attempts to fix it were blocked twice.

What was in the Ryan-Murray bill was fiscally responsible--bad policy but responsible fiscally. This bill is not. This bill increases, creates new veterans programs, new spending for veterans, and it is not paid for in any way. It is all borrowed money. We are already in debt, so when we enter and commit ourselves to additional obligations above what we have agreed to, every penny of that is borrowed, every penny of that will add to the debt of our country.

This bill busts the caps we agreed to. These are caps we all voted for--or at least our colleagues did, the Democratic colleagues, because I did not vote for the Ryan-Murray bill. I thought it eroded the Budget Control Act more than I wanted it to and it raised the caps. But it kept them in place. It eased pressure in several areas where the shoe was pinching badly. It eased that pressure. But that is not enough now? We have to have more?

It is using the veterans as a political tool, in my view. I do not think our veterans want their programs to be enhanced if every penny of money that is going to enhance those programs is added to the debt of the United States of America.

This is eight times at least since the Budget Control Act was passed that we have seen efforts to bust it. So our military men and women who worked tirelessly, selflessly, for the good of this country, have always put duty first. Shouldn't we put duty first?

This massive Federal budget of ours is filled with waste, filled with projects that cannot be defended intellectually. It was our duty to get rid of wasteful pet projects and do the right thing for our veterans.

I say to my colleagues, for example, you could have closed the tax credit loophole for illegal immigrants that is costing America billions of dollars. The cut to the veterans pension was about $6 billion over 10 years. Annually, according to the President's own inspector general at his own Department of Treasury, we are losing $4 billion a year in improper tax credit payments to illegal aliens. Why don't we fix that? The inspector general asked that we fix that. It would save $20 billion over 10 years. No, sir. What do they tell us? We are not doing anything on immigration.

Well, the first thing you should do to create a lawful system of immigration in America is to quit rewarding people financially who come illegally. That is the first thing. For Heaven's sakes, what is wrong with that? Is that immoral?

We had an instance in which there was a trailer, I believe in Indiana. A number of people lived there. No children. They claimed 19 children and got refunds from the United States of America of $30,000-- all of which were not proper, none of which were proper.

That is what the inspector general was talking about. You are not entitled to come to America illegally--have children in some other country--and then demand that we give you a tax credit, which is the equivalent of a direct check from the U.S. Treasury. A tax credit is not a deduction. It is a check from the U.S. Treasury.

But, oh no, we will not even discuss that. That is a nonstarter. So it looks like politics trumps helping veterans. So if we had had a plan to fix the veterans retirement, that could have all worked together on a good basis. Here we have now another veterans bill that is not going to work. Are there no programs, are there no spending plans out

there that could not be trimmed, eliminated or reconfigured that could help us honor the commitments we have made to our veterans? There surely are. Lots of them. We have seen a lot of them offered.

So I challenge any of our colleagues, Senate Democrats, to come to the floor and name one program they are willing to terminate in order to help fund our veterans adequately. Come down and let's hear it. There is a circling of the wagons in this administration. What did the President mean when he said: The era of austerity is over, as the Washington Post reported? What did me mean? He meant that we are not cutting anything else. He meant that he is going to propose, as he has in the past, new spending programs, not fewer spending.

We can't even get amendments up on this legislation. The majority leader has filled the tree. He will not allow us even to vote on alternative proposals. We cannot have an honest debate in this Chamber over how to legitimately and responsibly meet the needs of veterans or any other group, it appears. So really, in effect, the majority leader and his caucus will not allow votes on proposals. He will not allow our veterans to have a vote really. As long as that is the case, you have got no right to proceed with this legislation, in my opinion.

So to those who come to the floor and attack Republicans, saying we do not care about veterans, I will issue this challenge: Tell your leader--because he cannot function without your support--tell your leader to let us offer some amendments. Let us offer some offsets that would help pay for this. Tell your leader to let this Chamber work its will in the Constitutional and historic way.

If you do not, it is clear that your goal is to create a misleading headline and not do what is right for veterans. One more thing, because Congress has refused to live within its means, interest on our debt is surging, unbelievably so. It will crowd out this kind of spending, defense spending, education spending, highway spending, throughout our whole government.

Let me draw your attention to this chart. This is what Director Elmendorf told us 2 weeks ago--last week--in his testimony before the Budget Committee on the budget of the United States of America. He told us that the interest we pay this date, this past year, was $230 billion.

The savings from reducing veterans' retirement over 10 years was $6 billion. The Federal highway bill for 1 year is approximately $40 billion. The amount of money we spend on education is around $100 billion. That is all of those programs that we spend it on. The amount of money we spend on the Defense Department is about $500 billion.

So last year, we spent $230 billion on interest. When we borrow money, we go into debt. We borrow the money. People loan us the money. We give them Treasury bills, with interest. Look at this chart. This year, 2013, it is $230 billion. Look at the increase Director Elmendorf told us we can expect over the next 10 years. In 2024, 10 years from now, colleagues, interest on the debt will be $870 billion in 1 year.

How many good projects are going to have their programs cut to just pay the interest on the debt? It is the fastest growing item in the United States budget. What do we have? We want to do something for veterans a few weeks after we agree to limit spending. We come right in with a bill to waive the budget limit, spend above that, borrow every penny of that money, and increase this interest and debt situation.

The Director did not count that. His calculations assume we honor the Budget Control Act and the Ryan-Murray spending limit. He assumes we are honoring what is in law. But what do we have? A motion to waive. Spend above that limit. This whole reckless spending is what Admiral Mullen meant when he said: The greatest threat to America's security is our deficit, our debt. It is going to crowd out other spending. It threatens our economic viability, our growth potential, and it actually places us at risk for some financial crisis in the years to come.

Our voters deserve better. Look at how they tend to maneuver this legislation. It is so absurd sometimes. We should laugh about it if it were not so serious. It is serious. The Sanders bill, the veterans bill--we are being told we must vote for it or they will accuse us of being unkind and unsupportive and unsympathetic to our veterans. That day is over. We are not going to be intimidated on this. We are going to do the right thing for veterans and America.

This bill would exceed the spending limit for the current fiscal year that Congress and the President agreed to just 3 months ago. Initially--it gets worse in the outer years--it would clearly add another $260 million in mandatory spending and authorize another $182 million this year, fiscal year 2014, which we are already in--$182 million. It gets worse.

So we agreed in 2011, August of 2011, to set certain spending limits. The President signed that. Both Houses of Congress voted for it. Come January, the President of the United States, who signed that bill, laid forth his budget, which would increase spending $1 trillion over the limits that we agreed to in August. So less than 6 months later, he was coming back before Congress completely ignoring the will, the established law, the Budget Control Act limitations on spending that he agreed to.

He actually bragged about it. This is no way to get our country on a sound financial path. It is not any way to do it. Let me point out one more thing. They say that we are cutting spending, that this is austerity, that America is cutting its spending. Look at this chart. It is just a simple chart.

In 2007, before we had the fiscal crisis, we were spending about $2.6 trillion in that year. In 2011, right before we signed this August Budget Control Act agreement to limit the growth of spending--only the growth. It did not limit spending. It limited growth. We were spending about $3.5 trillion. The CBO baseline projects that in 2015, that is the year we are working on now, trying to prepare our budget and so forth, we are going to spend even more than we spent then.

So the spending is going up. We made a few adjustments to curtail the growth in spending, which is good, but really not enough to get us on a sound path. The reason I assure you that we are not on a sound path, as this chart shows that, is the interest we are going to be paying over 10 years. This is last year, 2013. This is what they tell us we are going to be paying in interest in 2024. It goes up every single year. We are on an unsustainable path. You can't get something for nothing. Julie Andrews tells us: Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could. It can't.

So I am flabbergasted really. The most disappointing thing to me is I know now what we are going to see in the President's budget come next Tuesday. Any hint at belt tightening is going to be gone. We are going to see proposals for massive increases in spending. Oh, not spending, investments. That is what we are going to see.

But we do not have the money. We do not have to damage America. We do not have to destroy our country. This is what we agreed to now. It shows continual growth. Under the Budget Control Act, we are going to see growth in spending every year. There is no reduction in spending. It is going to grow every year for the next 10 years. It will not grow quite as fast, as if we did not have a Budget Control Act.

It looks like, if we continue to have efforts to waive the budget and just spend above that, it will be even worse than this. The growth will be even greater.

I want to share one point, and I will wrap up. The bill also relies on a budget gimmick. It claims that it has got some pay-for, that it is not all borrowed money. It claims this pay-for. It is really a gimmick that every honest observer who has commented on it has just mocked it. It is the OCO gimmick. The bill proposes to reduce Overseas Contingency Operations programs used to combat terrorism worldwide, Iraq and Afghanistan, our OCO, Overseas Contingency Operations.

Every penny of that is borrowed. It is not in the regular budget. It is spent above that as emergency spending, war spending. That is how it has been done. For good or ill, that is the way it is done. At least while I am troubled by the President's policies with regard to Iraq and Afghanistan, the costs are coming down. They are projected to come down every year until we basically eliminate those costs.

It claims that reducing the amount of money we borrow to fund the war and support our military is somehow now available to spend on whatever the project of the day is. Today it is veterans. It will be something else tomorrow. They have tried this before. It is ludicrous. It is like claiming credit today for the end of Vietnam. We are not borrowing money to fight the war in Vietnam, so we can spend that money.

This is how a great Nation goes broke. They want to do this to the tune of $18 billion. That is what it is going to take to fund Senator Sanders' bill. The problem is, the money was never going to be spent at this rate. It is not a real savings. Every piece of legislation that the majority has tried to move since January has exceeded the levels that we reached in the December agreement: unemployment insurance, the farm bill, flood insurance, and now the veterans bill. All of them spend above what we agreed to.

Colleagues, these measures represent critical needs. I know we want to do something about all of them, and acknowledge that people have suffered and are suffering under the policies that promised to do so much good but have not.

The solution is not to abandon fiscal discipline. The solution is not to breach the agreements we reached only a few weeks ago to have some modest limitation on the growth of Federal spending.

This approach has been widely derided as a gimmick. The Congressional Budget Office says this is not real money that can be spent. Of course it is not.

Mr. Elmendorf followed up with a letter to Congressman Paul Ryan. Budget director Mr. Elmendorf wrote:

Establishing caps on discretionary appropriations in the

future would not affect spending under current law and would

not offset changes in direct spending or revenues. Further,

appropriations for war-related activities have declined in

recent years and may decline further as military operations

in Afghanistan wind down. Caps on OCO appropriations that are

lower than baseline projections might simply reflect policy

decisions that have already been made and that would be

realized even without such funding constraints. Moreover, if

policymakers believed national security required

appropriations above the capped amounts in future years, they

would almost certainly provide emergency operations that

would not, under current law, be counted against the caps.

It points out that this is an unacceptable way to count money.

Experts on the Federal budget have said the same. Maya MacGuineas, a capable observer with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said:

Using the war gimmick to offset other costs or to count

toward deficit reduction would send a message to the American

public and our investors that we are not serious about

controlling the debt. In fact, it would send the message that

not only are we not serious, but we are going to try to trick

everyone that we're actually doing something productive on

the deficit. That's the height of irresponsibility.

Maya MacGuineas--respected on both sides of the aisle, a person committed to getting this Nation to fiscal responsibility--is from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She said that last November.

So we are not going to go for this. We are not going to waive the budget in this fashion. It is not going to pass, and it should have been known beforehand when Senator Sanders and Senator Reid sought to push this bill through that it was never going to pass because there are enough Senators in this body who have enough strength of will to honor the commitment we made a few weeks ago in the Ryan-Murray legislation. We are not going to use some bogus gimmick to justify busting the budget. The deal is over, nada. It is not going to happen. And I will defend my commitment to veterans and seeing that they are treated fairly in this country.

There are a lot of positive things we need to be doing in America. This is certainly not one them. We need to figure out how to run this government on the spending increases to which we have already agreed. In fact, we need to reduce those increases more than we have.

Otherwise, we are placing at risk our economy today, job creation today, and the future of our children.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business for 7 minutes.

Thank you. I will yield the floor if some people wish to speak in executive session on the nominations.

Madam President, in the Budget Committee yesterday, on which I am the ranking Republican, Director Elmendorf of the Congressional Budget Office gave us the report and his projections for next year and what the consequences and financial situation will be for our country as he projects it. When I asked him about his projections for economic growth, he acknowledged they have been way too high over the last several years, and that has been disappointing. Our growth has not reached the level we want to it reach. He projects now a lower growth rate than he had been projecting for the next 10 years.

Let me share with my colleagues, as we vote on these matters on which we want to help veterans and we want to help the unemployed--and we can do that but we have to remember who we are, what we are doing, and how we got here. We virtually doubled the deficit in the last 10 years in the United States of America--added to the total debt of the United States of America. Deficits are going down over the last couple of years, and will for 1 more year, according to Mr. Elmendorf, but then will begin an inexorable rise to nearly a $1 trillion deficit at the end of 10 years from today. The interest we paid--and he testified to this; it is in his report--the interest we paid last year on the total debt of the United States, even with the extraordinarily low interest rates, was $230 billion--an amazing amount of money.

We have a group testifying right now about the highway bill. They would like to see more money spent on our infrastructure and highways. From the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Donohue, and Mr. Trump, to the top union leader, they all agree we need to spend more on highways.

Last year, the interest we paid on the debt, according to Dr. Elmendorf, was $230 billion. That is a stunning figure. It is half the total of the budget for the Defense Department. But let me tell my colleagues what he said that is most troubling. Projecting a modest increase in interest rates over the next 10 years and the increased deficits we will see, Mr. Elmendorf predicted last year that 10 years from now, the 1-year interest payment will be $830 billion.

We are having a dispute to try to get--not cut--the veterans retirement, and we should not cut veterans retirement, the way this was done. It would cost $6 billion over 10 years. Do we see the difference? We are paying $230 billion. If we pay at that rate for 10 years, that would be $2.3 trillion. But we are not going to be paying at $230 billion a year. By the time we get to the tenth year, according to Mr. Elmendorf, we will be spending $890 billion on the interest on the debt we have accumulated in the United States of America through reckless spending, so much of it producing very little benefit for anybody in the long term, and we cannot continue this. He testified that if interest rates go up 1 percent, we will pay $1.5 trillion more on interest over 10 years than if it didn't go up 1 percent. Who knows--he acknowledged he is no seer. Interest rates, many people predict right now, would surge dramatically and may go up to some of the levels we had in 1970. If it did, this country would probably be financially destitute.

So I have to say we are not playing games here. The money of the United States needs to be managed by the elected representatives. They expect us to manage our money wisely. They expect us not to put this country at financial risk, and they have every right. They have a responsibility, actually, as citizens of this country to be angry with their Congress, to be angry with their President for running up this kind of a debt. It is not a good thing.

Earlier this year there was deep concern that the Budget Control Act that was passed on a bipartisan basis, signed by President Obama, that limited the growth in spending--didn't cut spending, but over 10 years spending would increase $8 trillion--increase $8 trillion instead of increasing $10 trillion. So we ``saved'' $2 trillion. That was deemed too tough this year. So we had the Ryan-Murray bill that said we are going to fix some of the tight places, and we are going to avoid spending--we are going to put more money in. We are going to spend more than we agreed to, but we are not going to break the total debt situation because we are going to raise taxes some and we are going to cut spending some. One of the cuts they came up with, in secret, without any public hearings or debate, was to cut the veterans retirement plan, and it blew up. It meant $70- to $150,000 for retired veterans, how much they would lose in their retirement cost of living.

I opposed that. They passed it anyway. The Democratic majority here blocked proposal after proposal, and one was to more than pay for it by reducing fraudulent income tax credit checks being illegally sent out to people who don't qualify for it. That was blocked too. So what did we have just a few days ago? We had--we have a bill that saved the veterans so they don't have to have their pensions reduced. And how would they pay for this $6 billion in costs? Why, they wouldn't pay for it at all. There is no payment whatsoever. Actually, by voting and supporting that provision--the Pryor amendment, cosponsored by a number of Democrats--it would increase the spending of the United States above the agreement.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have one additional minute to wrap up.

It would have added to the debt of the United States directly above the agreement we just voted on in Ryan-Murray. It set the cap on how much spending. So less than two months later, we are in here directly having to defend against a proposal that would have broken the spending agreement that was in the Ryan-Murray legislation. It is unthinkable. I can't imagine this would happen. There are so many places we could pay for this kind of restoration of veterans' retirement benefits without raising taxes and without adding to the debt.

I guess I am saying I am frustrated about the mindset of this Congress. I don't think we are focused on the threat this debt poses to America. Dr. Elmendorf told us we are on an unsustainable path and he began to discuss the danger of a fiscal crisis such as we had in 2007 because we are in such a red zone, a marginal zone of debt.

I see the majority leader and I know he is busy.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I note the passing at age 90 of a truly outstanding American citizen, Yetta Glenn Samford, Jr., a lifelong resident of Opelika, AL. Opelika Mayor Gary Fuller rightly called him an icon. The product of a distinguished Alabama family, he was successful in law and business, all the while giving of himself for his Nation and community.

That such characteristics, such cast of mind and heart, have provided the unique values that have made America great is without doubt. The deeply held concept of neighbor helping neighbor has been the glory of the Republic. A member of the ``greatest generation'', Yetta Samford served his country and was consistently successful in his undertakings. He flourished in law and business. But, he was focused on giving back. He loved his country, State and community and was a strong believer in education. During World War II, he piloted B-17 bombers being stationed in England in 1944 and 1945--a calling that placed his very life at risk. Returning from the war, grateful for his survival, he declared, ``I thank the Lord for letting me come back.'' Then he married his wonderful lifetime partner, Mary Austill, got his degree at Auburn University and his law degree at the University of Alabama.

From then on success followed him and he lived a life of generosity. How many today will reach his level of service? Are we still producing such people? Perhaps so, but in the same numbers?

Yetta Samford was supportive of a host of positive activities. He was active in many local organizations, donated the land for the Opelika Sportsplex and Aquatics Center, and was a member of the board of deacons for the First Baptist Church of Opelika for 60 years. He served on the prestigious board of trustees of the University of Alabama, serving a 3-year-term as president pro tempore. He was, in addition, a founding trustee for the University of Mobile, a fine Baptist affiliated liberal arts college.

Mr. Samford was respected and loved throughout the Opelika area. He set a high standard for a life well lived. I was honored to have his friendship. Professionally accomplished, a man of high character and generous with his time, talents and resources, Yetta Samford's life reflected the highest qualities of American citizenship. It is fitting that this Senate take note of such a life.

He took great joy in his exceptional wife, Mary Austill Samford, and daughters Mary Austill Samford Lott and Katherine Park Samford Alford, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. They reflect these same qualities and can take solace in the heritage that he has left them.

Mr. President, we find ourselves today considering legislation to fix a problem that Congress and the President created only 2 short months ago. We knew from the Ryan-Murray spending deal that it cut military pensions. Yet this Senate passed the bill anyway, over my objections and those of many of my Republican

colleagues. Congressional Democrats insisted on keeping the military pension cuts in the Ryan-Murray deal. They would not accept change. Almost every Democrat supported Majority Leader Reid and rejected amendments to stop the cuts and voted for the final passage. So they ignored the warnings I and others issued, and virtually every Senate Democrat voted to keep these cuts rather than close clear Federal tax loopholes that allow illegal aliens to gain money improperly.

So what happens? Constituents back home were outraged. Senate Democrats are trying to claim credit for fixing the very problem they created--which, in itself, is not bad, but unfortunately, instead of doing this in a good-faith way consistent with our spending priorities and limitations under the Murray-Ryan bill, the Pryor bill before us now authorizes more spending, unpaid for, in direct violation of the spending limits set out in the Ryan-Murray legislation passed just a few weeks ago.

So we passed legislation, we set limits on spending, and here we are blithely walking in again. I am at a loss to see why my colleagues continue to resist replacing these cuts--cuts to veterans who have earned it, who have been drawing these benefits, and not replacing them by closing the tax credit loophole for illegal immigrants.

Closing of this loophole was recommended by the inspector general of President Obama's own Treasury Department. So why are there those determined to protect billions of dollars in tax fraud and allow it to continue? Would it not be in our national interest to close this loophole, restore these pensions for our veterans, and maintain the savings we promised to the American people? Indeed, the savings would more than pay for the replacement of the veteran retirement provision, and it would help reduce our huge deficits.

Let's review how we got here.

In August of 2011, as we approached the statutory borrowing limit-- the debt ceiling--Congress passed a Budget Control Act, which Congress agreed to immediately increase the debt limit by $2.1 trillion, but Congress promised to reduce the projected growth of spending from $10 trillion over the next 10 years to $8 trillion over the next 10 years. This was said to be a spending cut but was really a reduction in the growth of spending.

So this 2011 legislation, passed into law and signed by the President, promised to reduce the growth of spending by $2.1 trillion. I did not support this act. I thought we could have done more, and hoped to do more. Of course, I recognized it applied to our military in a disproportionate way--although we hoped it would ultimately be avoided, but it was not.

Once this legislation was passed, I felt--and I think most of us in Congress believed--we should honor the agreement we made to the American people. But almost immediately, many of our colleagues began saying even those spending reductions were too much. At every turn, the Senate passed or attempted to pass legislation which broke the spending caps.

I raised a number of budget objections. I am the ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, and when spending violates the spending limits we have, I have on a number of occasions raised objections, or budget points of order. It takes 60 votes to spend more than the budget allows us to spend, so it gives us a check on spending.

Many of my objections were sustained, almost entirely with Republican votes, but in plain fact our colleagues were unwilling to save the money they promised the American people. We agreed to save a certain amount of money--we promised to do so. But when things get tight and their political groups want more, we tend to spend more, make excuses, and violate the budget. That, of course, is why we are in this deep, adverse financial situation.

Chairman Murray and Chairman Ryan entered into a negotiation to ease the Budget Control Act spending cuts--the sequester. They unveiled a plan which increased spending above the BCA level in exchange for increased revenues and some spending cuts. They said the new increases in spending were paid for. The increases in spending happened in 2 years, promised cuts were over a long period of time in the future, but it did in fact balance as they described it at the time.

However, immediately my staff alerted me to a provision in the bill which proposed cutting military retirement benefits by $6 billion--not for future recipients but for current soldiers and retirees. Some servicemembers would see a lifetime reduction of $120,000 or more, some $72,000. This is a cost-of-living reduction of more than 60 percent for some people. I felt this was unacceptable. There are a lot of other things we ought to be cutting before we cut the promised earned retirement benefits to our veterans who serve 20 years. Only those who have a 20-year service record qualify for this. I thought this was unacceptable and pointed it out.

Of course, no one seems to know where this provision came from. The Department of Defense said they weren't consulted. This is not surprising, since the legislation was produced by a secret few behind closed doors--something I do not think is a good process. The traditional legislative conference committee process was abandoned.

The good news is it was caught before it came to the floor, and when the bill came up, some of us offered proposals to fix this problem while staying within the spending caps. So as to not cut veterans $6 billion we needed to find some other place to cut $6 billion. This would at least have kept the promises of the bill sponsors of Ryan- Murray.

Military retirement cuts were a significant part of pay for this new spending. In that spirit, I proposed what I thought was a reasonable alternative. For over 2 years now, I have been trying to close a massive tax loophole.

In July of 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department, part of President Obama's administration, reported that illegal aliens received more than $4 billion in free child tax credits in just 2010 alone. In some cases, households received tens of thousands of dollars year after year, in many cases claiming as dependents people who don't even live in the United States. A number of these filers had no tax liability--that is, they were paying no tax at all--but they were getting tax credit checks from the Federal Government. The inspector general of the Treasury Department asked Congress to act and close this clear abuse. And it is dramatic, really.

What we found, in 2005, is credits claimed under this provision amounted to $924 million. But the inspector general reported by 2010, it was $4.2 billion--it has gone up four times in 5 year or 6 years-- surging, as word got out that all you had to do was make these claims, nobody checks that the children were in the United States or if there were children at all. There is no way to check.

The inspector general of the Treasury Department has made at least three reports on this subject, and in its 2009 report pointed out the problems we face.

And it is not accurate to say that we somehow want to abuse children and deny them support. We are talking about plain fraud and abuse in this system.

This is what the inspector general said in March of 2009:

Legislation should be considered to require a Social

Security Number in order to be eligible for the Additional

Child Tax Credit--

That is basically the amendment I offered, and what the amendment Senator Ayotte is now offering and I cosponsored with her would do-- just require you to have a Social Security number before you claim a big check from the U.S. Treasury. This would be consistent with the requirements, the IG said, for the earned income tax credit. Americans who file an earned income tax credit have to have a Social Security number. This is for people who work and receive a low income.

The Inspector General goes on:

[A]s it now stands, the payment of Federal funds through

this tax benefit appears to provide an additional incentive

for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the U.S. without

authorization . . .

By the way, he said, this would appear to be an additional incentive for people to illegally enter the country, because you can come in unlawfully here and claim credit for children who may not even exist. And, if they do, they might be in a foreign country. It is now running at the rate of $4 billion-plus a year.

Remember, over 10 years the cost of the cuts to veterans is $6 billion. Closing this loophole would more than pay for this.

The inspector general goes on to say:

As far back as 2007, [IRS] employees responsible for

resolving errors on tax returns, including those filed by

individuals with an ITIN, raised concerns to IRS management

about its policies for handling errors in ITIN tax returns.

These employees stated that management did not take any

subsequent action to address their concerns. A formal

complaint was subsequently filed with the TIGTA.

In its 2009 report in December, some 6 or 9 months later, it goes on to say:

The volumes of ITINs is growing, increasing the risk that

fraudulent tax returns using ITINs could be submitted.

ITINs were issued without sufficient support documentation.

A statistical sample of 658 forms . . . selected from 1.5

million application[s] . . . submitted from January 1 through

November 1, 2008, showed that . . . 78 percent contained

errors.

The inspector general goes on to say:

There are . . . no controls to prevent an ITIN from being

used by more than one taxpayer on multiple tax returns.

Nobody is checking if the ITIN number is used again, so they just file multiple returns.

It goes on to say:

More than 60,000 ITINs were assigned and used on multiple

tax returns, processed in Calendar Year 2008.

So more than 60,000 of these numbers issued to individuals were used on more than one tax return. They shouldn't be using them but on one.

It goes on to say:

In addition, more than 55,000 ITINs were used multiple

times on approximately 102,000 tax returns with refunds

totaling more than $202 million. These are just the ones

which used the number on more than one return.

The report goes on:

97 percent [of] supporting identification documents . . .

were missing or illegible . . . 23 percent [of] signatures

were missing . . . [and] 5 percent [had incorrect] birth

dates.

And it goes on and on.

Something of interest is the news media has dug into this a bit. NBC's affiliate in Indianapolis in April of 2012 reported this:

An undocumented worker in southern Indiana told Channel 13-

Investigates just how easy it truly is.

He said four other illegal immigrants file tax returns

using his address, even though none of them actually lives

there. And he said this year, those four workers filed tax

returns claiming 20 children live inside his small trailer

home. As a result, the IRS sent the illegal immigrants tax

refunds totaling more than $29,000. But none of the 20 children listed as dependents on the tax returns lives in Indiana or even in the United States. ``No, they don't live here,'' admitted the undocumented worker. ``The other kids are in their country of origin, which is Mexico.''

On July 2012, they further reported about an IRS officer with a complaint in South Carolina. They reported that Howard, the IRS officer, received a stack of ITIN applications for dozens of children attending the same school in South Carolina. When he researched that school, he discovered it didn't even exist. When Howard reported the scam to his bosses, he claims his managers ordered him to approve the applications anyway. The inspector general also looked into that complaint.

This is not good. The taxpayers don't need to be subjected to this kind of fraud and abuse, and we absolutely should not cut veterans' earned retirement benefits while refusing to take action against such fraud and abuse as identified by our Treasury Department.

I offered the amendment to save the soldiers' pensions and pay for it by closing this tax loophole, but the majority leader--supported by his caucus, including the authors of this legislation--blocked the effort, not once but twice.

Let me make it clear that this bill before us--because our colleagues are refusing to utilize this possible fraud-closing mechanism to save enough money to more than pay for it--will be asking us to violate the fundamental principle of the Ryan-Murray Act. The Ryan-Murray Act promised we would spend more but that new spending would be paid for by taxes and spending cuts, and one of the spending cuts were the cuts to the veterans. If we take out the cuts to the veterans, where are we going to get the money to make sure the bill is paid for as promised? That is the question. We have offered a perfectly reasonable and essential loophole-closing mechanism to pay for that and pay even more than that. Let me make it clear: The bill before us is placing us in a position to choose from allowing an illegality to continue or cutting benefits earned by our veterans.

What we are seeing--in an astonishingly cynical move, if you think about it--is that we would restore the pensions to veterans without paying for it, without admitting that a mistake was made and not living up to the plain promises made in the Ryan-Murray bill, which reinforced and repassed spending limitations.

Congress passed spending caps in 2011. Ryan-Murray spent more but also established higher and clearer spending caps. It reestablished spending cuts. The Pryor legislation busts the in law Ryan-Murray caps. This is not acceptable. Are we blithely ignoring plain spending limits passed into law just a few weeks ago? Is there no shame, no embarrassment at such a dramatic breach of legal and budgetary spending limits?

Closing the ITIN tax credit loophole is a no-brainer. Let's stop this abuse and not cut current retirement of our veterans.

I hope we can move forward with the legislation today. I am uneasy and worried, but let's move forward. Let's bring the bill to the floor and maybe a compromise that is acceptable can be reached. I certainly believe that Senator Ayotte's proposal--the one I am supporting--is a perfectly reasonable compromise that ought to have overwhelming support in this body.

If such an amendment of this nature is not accepted to pay for this change, I think the legislation is not going to pass in its current form. It would be a plain violation of the promises we made to limit spending just a few weeks ago. It is the kind of erosion of integrity that will lead this country to financial disaster. We are running up too much debt.

The Congressional Budget Office Director will testify before the Budget Committee tomorrow, and I trust the Presiding Officer will be there. He is an excellent member of that committee.

The Congressional Budget Office Director is going to tell us that interest on the debt of the United States--which will increase every year for the next 10 years and begin to surge upward in the outer years--in the 10th year alone will be $890 billion. That is stunning. The Department of Defense is just at $500 billion.

Right now interest on the debt is $250 billion. It is going to $900 billion in 10 years. The first money this government will have to pay is the money we pay on our interest on the debt that we have run up-- $17 trillion. According to CBO, we are going to add another $7 trillion over the next 10 years. We will have to pay $24 trillion on interest.

He told us that if interest rates go up 1 percent, it will add $1.5 trillion to the amount of interest we would pay over the next 10 years. Most people tell us our interest rates are going up.

I guess what I am saying to my colleagues is that we know we face a financial challenge. We know we have to get spending under control. The Ryan-Murray bill was designed to ease this year's cuts in the Budget Control Act and sequester, and this was the tightest and toughest year of all. They eased that, and they said they paid for it with tax increases and spending reductions.

The bill before us would eliminate one of the pay-fors and substitute nothing else, which would mean we would add another $6 billion to the deficit. That is the path to fiscal irresponsibility and financial danger, and we need to get off of it.

I thank the Chair, yield the floor, and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, we often note in our record the passing of government and business leaders of renown, and that is appropriate. But it is also fitting to pause to reflect on some of those millions of American citizens who reflect in their lives the highest and best ideals of their faith and of America.

Jimmie Few of Mobile, AL, was one such person. I first got to know him when, in 1991, we took part in a mission to Russia as part of a United Methodist Church delegation. This was shortly after the fall of communism. We spent over a week in the small city of Vyksa, 5 hours east of Moscow. We roomed together in the home of a Russian family. This was the first chance the people of Vyksa had to actually meet and get to know Americans. Frequently, one of the Russians would, with surprise, say, ``You look just like us!''

Jimmie was a very large man and naturally took charge. When an agreement was concluded, Jimmie would seal it with a firm--very firm-- handshake. He loved the Russians. Indeed, after this he made some 19 more trips, assisting with orphanages, schools, and Bible schools as well as advising Russians on economic matters. Jimmie was a very experienced small businessman. He bought an orphanage a needed van on one occasion and fixed a road to the orphanage in another.

This kind of humanitarian, religious mission is not unusual for Americans. Thousands of such trips are occurring now involving hundreds of thousands of Americans who make trips to meet with millions around the globe. They don't focus on the rich and powerful; they focus on those in need, the poor and the children. No nation in the history of the world has ever matched such selfless giving. It reflects well on the United States, surely creating greater understanding among peoples, and it is in harmony, certainly, with the spirit of Jesus, which has inspired so many.

While Jimmy's business success and health suffered in recent years, his good life of service to his Lord and to others exemplifies the best in humanity.

Mr. President, today, I would like to pay tribute to COL William Edward ``Bill'' Callender, Sr., U.S. Army, Retired. Bill was a friend, a national hero proven in combat, a man who loved his family, and a man who committed himself to service to others. To an exceptional degree, he loved his country and most especially, he loved and honored those who served her in uniform.

The scripture says, in describing faith as more than intellectual assent, but action, that when Abraham was called, he ``went.'' When Bill's Nation called him, he went--even into great danger. And, to a most unusual degree, throughout the remainder of his life, he continued to hear that call and he went--in service to others in a host of ways and especially to veterans.

I believe Bill Callender was one of Alabama's most valuable citizens. Vivian Cannon, of the Mobile Press Register, wrote at the time of his receipt of the Distinguished Flying Cross, given for his actions on that harrowing day in Vietnam when he flew his chopper into a very hot landing gone to insert and later that day to extract American soldiers who were under heavy fire--a very fine piece on these events. Her article quotes a letter he wrote to his wife shortly after the events that included this line: ``By the grace of God, we came out OK.'' Such courageous actions cannot be bought with money. They arise from the character of the hero, from love of country and from loyalty to comrades.

It is part of the American sense of duty. Former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates talks about it in his new book, ``Duty.'' When the President and we in Congress send our magnificent soldiers into harm's way to achieve a military objective deemed important, there is also a duty owed them and their dependents of the highest order. It is a bond that must never be broken.

Perhaps Bill never forgot that experience in Vietnam and others like it that were up close and personal to him. There were those badly wounded he flew out for life saving care, those killed in action, and those young, anxious faces he looked into when he flew them into areas of great danger where lives would be lost and where, by the grace of God, Bill had been spared.

Thereafter, he began a lifetime of service to them and America. And serve he did--with joy and enthusiasm, wisdom and judgment, and responsibility.

By nature, he was supportive and affirming. He was just a ``good guy'' and ``humble,'' says Wallace Davis of Volunteers of America. I admired him greatly. He was a leader in the best sense of the word. He gave good advice and insight. I valued his judgment. He led by example.

When my senior military advisor, COL Pete Landrum, came to the Mobile area, we asked Bill to arrange meetings for veterans and sought his input on key issues. He was the go-to guy. In fact, few, if any, veterans activities in the area happened without his leadership and contribution.

Serving on the important Battleship Commission, his tireless advocacy for the new Veterans Cemetery, working with the Veterans Administration and Congress and others, and his vigorous support for the Honor Flight Program just reflect some of his work. He truly gave himself for many good causes.

Bill leaves behind his wonderful wife, Jacqueline Bachar Callender; his 3 daughters, Ginger (Jay) Hawkins, Cyndi Callender and Tammy (Jeff) Hadley; 12 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren, and many great friends who are feeling his loss but can take comfort in the knowledge that we have had the privilege of being in the presence of a remarkable man who lived a wonderful life, consistent with the great heritage of America.

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

Mr. President, the Agricultural Act of 2014 is the culmination of a lot of hard work by our conferees, Representatives Mike Rogers and Martha Roby from Alabama, as well as my colleagues in the Senate, Senators Stabenow and Cochran and others.

This important legislation contains a number of commendable measures. During my time in the Senate, I have been a strong supporter of Alabama's farmers and believe this legislation does make a number of positive reforms over the long term that should help in the effort to reduce, not grow, the involvement of the Federal Government in agriculture.

For example, the legislation transitions farm subsidies from a system of direct payments to a more market-based crop insurance support program. Senator Lugar always favored that. I think many other people who have thought about agriculture think that is the right path to go. I have supported that.

As a 5-year bill, this legislation should also give our farmers and their families some certainty that they need to make prudent planning decisions and give them choices to select programs that best meet their needs.

I believe our farmers can move forward and help our Nation remain a global leader in the production of food and fiber which is critical to our economic well-being and national security.

The final bill also contains many other essential provisions to reduce unnecessary regulations, such as the inclusion of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, forest roads fix, which I have strongly supported. It is an excessive intervention into the forest industry to have the EPA involved in the issues that they are talking about, and I think we have clarified that so that won't be a problem.

It also contains provisions that are designed to help Alabama catfish producers, peanut farmers, cotton farmers, and forest landowners who compete in the global economy.

I am pleased the final bill contains my provision to help farmers in States like Alabama that have not significantly used irrigation practices in the past. Under the current USDA policy, farmers have been excluded from the Federal irrigation program if they don't have a history of irrigation, and that makes no sense where we are trying to involve more people to smartly use more irrigation. I thank the ranking member and the chair of the committee for their work supporting us on that. My provision will help ensure that more Alabama farmers are able to access these programs. It has been a priority of mine for some time, although it is a small part of the overall bill.

As a whole, the Congressional Budget Office claims that the farm bill will reduce the deficit by $16.6 billion over 10 years. This is a step, a small step, however, in the right direction. It means that if current law were extended without change, we would be spending $16.6 billion more than if this bill were passed. So that is positive.

I wish we could do more, and we can do more. Unfortunately, we haven't done more, but this is a positive step. It is fair to say that the elimination of countercyclical and direct payments--almost entirely--is a historic occasion. Of course, Congress enacted Freedom to Farm in 1996, which was intended to slowly phase out these kinds of subsidies. But when times became particularly difficult for our farmers in the years following the 1996 bill with low prices and drought, these programs were, in essence, reinstituted by Congress. The retreat and the movement away from Federal intervention was greatly eroded.

In my view--and that is all I have at bottom, is my view--Congress should seek to steadily reduce the role of the Federal Government in farming. But millions are dependent upon farming for their livelihoods, and a thoughtful, conservative approach to reducing Federal intervention would be to continue this reduction steadily over time. It surely can't be done smartly all at once without some real dislocation in the agricultural marketplace--although I must say I think we could have gone a good bit further this year.

But I remain concerned that the reforms to the SNAP program, the food stamp program, are much too modest. I hope our actions today help set the table for continued and badly needed reforms that I and others have outlined during our debate on the farm bill in 2012, 2013, and this year.

Yet it seems clear to me that the bill before us today regretfully does not go nearly as far as it could in addressing the abuses and the wastefulness that are contained in those programs.

For example, the bill spends $956 billion over 10 years. Nearly 80 percent of that is for the SNAP program, food support programs.

It is, in reality, as someone has said, a SNAP bill, a food stamp bill. Eighty percent of the money goes to that one problem. It asks our farmers to contribute a disproportionate share to deficit reduction. The bill cuts food stamps by only about $8 billion and it cuts the agricultural programs by about $8 billion. That sounds fair, balanced, as my colleagues like to use that word, ``balanced.'' But we are cutting $8 billion from the 20 percent of the program and the other $8 billion from the other 80 percent of the program, and that is not balanced.

I want to say to my colleagues that there is no intent or desire of any Member of this Senate to have people who are hungry remain hungry and people who are in need of food not to have food. What we are saying is there are a great number of abuses in the program that have clearly been identified and should be fixed and haven't been sufficiently fixed.

Although it repeals direct payments, the bill replaces those payments with new programs that seek to help farmers in a more effective way and that will cost at least $27 billion. So we reduce some programs and increase others. I think most of that is in the agricultural insurance policy, which is probably, in general, a better way to help our agricultural industry.

Congress needs to be careful about spending more money, and many Senators and independent analysts think

these new programs may cost even more than CBO is currently projecting. It moves money from direct support to crop insurance, and I think that could be good. We have studied the farm bill conference report and note that the Congressional Budget Office has concluded it increases spending in 2014 by $2.1 billion above the spending limits Democrats and Republicans agreed to in December. It is more than what we agreed to in December--$2.1 billion over the limits we agreed to in a bipartisan way.

In the Senate this would normally subject the legislation before the Senate to two points of order, budget points of order, because it violates the budgeted spending limits we just agreed to. Proponents of the bill would then be required to either reduce the spending in the bill to the agreed-upon level or gather a supermajority of 60 votes to waive the point of order and agree to violate the budget.

However, the Senate majority, our Democratic colleagues have deployed a budget gimmick with Republican support that rendered these points of order--and consequently limit a minority's right to enforce the spending limits--ineffective. This is something I predicted 2 months ago when the Ryan-Murray legislation passed. I said on December 18, as that deal was being debated:

With 57 different reserve funds, the Murray-Ryan spending

bill that is before us now will allow Senator Reid and

Chairwoman Murray to bring to the floor a practically

unlimited number of big tax-and-spend bills. It will not be

subject to the 60-vote limit. Normally the minority party

would be able to raise a point of order under section 302(f)

of the Budget Act.

So the Budget Committee chairman has decided to make an adjustment to the budget spending levels, and she can do so because of the Ryan- Murray spending agreement that passed the House, the Republican House, and the Senate. This will allow increased spending in the farm bill above the amount we agreed to.

Though two points of order would lie against the bill, they are voided in the Ryan-Murray legislation because of the powers granted to the Budget Committee chairman in that legislation.

Let me explain this power that was granted, yet again. The Ryan- Murray agreement includes 57 deficit neutral reserve funds. Operationally, a reserve fund allows the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee to adjust the allocations of budget authority and outlays to a Senate committee or committees; aggregate levels of budget authority, outlays, and revenues; and other appropriate levels prior to Senate consideration. This allows the proposed legislation to avoid most spending and revenue-related budget points of order as long as the measure complies with both the subject matter and deficit neutrality instructions in the reserve fund.

In the case of the farm bill, the Ryan-Murray budget numbers refers to the Senate-passed budget which garnered bipartisan opposition.

The Senate budget, S. Con. Res. 8, in section 313 gives the chairman of the Budget Committee the power to adjust the budget for any farm bill reauthorization: ``Provided that such legislation would not increase the deficit over either the period of the total of fiscal years 2013 through 2018 or the period of the total of fiscal years 2013 through 2023.''

Those are complex words I just read. But in other words, the farm bill is now in a situation where it can increase spending in the first fiscal year and promise that it will recoup the money later on, which is exactly what this bill does, and the minority's rights are diminished in its ability to stop it because of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement. That is what I warned about in December. Some said there wasn't anything to it. I warned that there was, and I think we are already seeing that there is something to the complaints I made.

I said on the floor of the Senate that the ``power that Senators had to block tax-and-spend legislation that breaks spending limits has been eroded significantly'' by Ryan-Murray.

The danger is that we will certainly have spending increases in the short-term, but we have only promises of spending limitations in the future.

There is no point of order that lies against the bill because the Ryan-Murray agreement passed by Congress, I acknowledge--I am not sure if Members of the House and Senate fully knew what was included in the Ryan-Murray agreement after that secret meeting between the two budget leaders.

This legislation is far from perfect, and we will see how we proceed with the agriculture bill. I appreciate those who have worked on it. We need to do the right thing for agriculture. It is an important part of our Nation's economy and our national security. I have invested a lot of time and effort in it, as I know most of my colleagues have. I appreciate the work of those who have produced this legislation for us.

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 wish to share some remarks this afternoon concerning a very important issue; that is, the financial condition of working Americans. Things are not good for them at this point in time.

Just a few weeks ago on January 5, Gene Sperling, the key economic adviser to President Barack Obama, appeared on CNN's ``Face the Nation.'' He said most of the people are desperately looking for jobs.

. . . our economy still has three people looking for every

job opening.

It has been reported that the House is having a retreat today and that they are discussing whether to proceed with immigration reform-- apparently it would have to be somewhat like what passed the Senate or it would have no chance of passing the Senate--and they want to move this bill to try to solve a problem out there, but I think it is not practical at this point in time.

I wish to share some thoughts about what we should consider as we evaluate what the proper immigration flow into the United States is at this time. We are a nation that is founded on immigrants. We believe in that. We admit 1 million people a year lawfully now, and that is the largest number of any country in the world. We are about at the point-- and I think we have reached it--where we have the largest percentage of foreign born in the history of the United States.

We hear advice from certain businesses. Despite Mr. Sperling's statement that there are three applicants for every job opening--we have advice of a different kind out of the business community: this is a post from the CEO of Marriott Hotels. Mr. Bill Marriott, by all accounts, is a fine citizen. He says the House is ready to tackle immigration. He said: ``As unemployment inches downward, we also need a functioning immigration system that helps us staff positions that might otherwise go unfilled.''

Apparently, he would like to have even more applicants for positions at his hotels and would probably suggest that the Republic would be in great danger if there is not somebody available at every one of his hotel resorts to roll down somebody's covers and put a chocolate drop on it. I don't know if that is the No. 1 challenge America faces at this time.

The Financial Times of London says that business groups are pushing Republicans for immigration reform.

I just want to talk about the economics of massive immigration. We need to understand it, and we need to understand it clearly. The proper flow of immigration into America is good for our country, but we need to be careful about this--particularly at a time of financial stress for millions of Americans who can't get a job or who can only get a part-time job or who have not seen their wages increase for many years.

Responsible immigration, I would suggest first and foremost, should help the economy, not hurt it. The great public policy question of immigration reform is now before the House, and given the poor state of the economy and the abysmal condition of the Federal budget, immigration reform has become a cutting-edge debate, and a vigorous national discussion about our country's economic future and reform of the Federal programs that are driving unsustainable annual deficits.

Significantly increasing the inflow of immigrants into our country at this time would adversely shock an already weak economy, lower average wages, increase unemployment, and decrease each American's prosperity and share of total output. As experts tell us, the GDP, growth of America's economy per capita, will decline if the bill that was introduced in the Senate were to become law and pass the Senate.

The Congressional Budget Office--our own experts, the people who advise us--reported in its evaluation the Senate's effort to increase immigration substantially. So the immigration reform was touted as a tough immigration bill that was going to end all kinds of problems, but it dramatically increased the amount of immigration.

They evaluated this bill and found that the economy would indeed grow bigger because it would contain more people, but it would not be a stronger economy for Americans. GDP per person would actually decline. So that means the relative financial position of each American here would decline if the legislation were passed based on

the careful analysis of the Congressional Budget Office.

Considering the acute current weaknesses of labor markets and the slowest economic recovery from a recession since the end of World War II, the last thing the U.S. economy needs is a handicap--much less an enormous harmful economic shock.

We still have not seen job markets recover to 2007 levels--6 years after the start of the recession. Our economy still has three people looking for every job opening. President Obama's advisers have said that labor markets still have not recovered. A significant expansion of the flow of immigrants into America would be occurring at a time of substantial weakness in labor markets.

It is not the unemployment rate that is so definitive. It is the number of people who are actually able to find a job and are working. The current economic recovery has been too slow to produce an economic rebound. We still have fewer jobs than we had in 2007, when the recession began, even though the population increased each year.

This chart is about employment as a share of the population. It shows at the period of the recession that we had this rapid drop from 63 percent of the population working down to a little above 58 percent, and it stuck there and still there today. This represents millions of people who are not working today because they cannot find a job.

The concept that we would bring in more foreign workers to take the very limited number of jobs we have, and increasing our flow over the normal generous flow, makes no sense to me. I don't see how it can be defended intellectually. It might give Mr. Marriott the ability to have more cheap labor, and he may have to pay less to get somebody to work at his resorts, but that is not our problem. Our problem and our challenge is to help the average American citizen live a better life, and we are not doing that effectively. It has not happened, and this is years into this post-recession recovery--the so-called recovery.

The economy has produced 4.7 million jobs since the recovery began in 2009. There are 6.3 million people who have dropped out of the workforce. They have given up. They are discouraged workers who ceased to look for a job and do not show up on the unemployment rolls.

Some of them have taken disability. Some of them took early retirement. Some of them just quit. Maybe they have a spouse who is working and they are no longer able to work. This is an amazing statistic that dropouts exceed newly employed. This is unprecedented in the post-World War II period.

As of the end of 2013, 58.6 percent of the adult population was employed. This is down from 62.7 percent at the start of the recession. The percentage has been stuck at about 58.6 percent since September of 2009. It has not improved since 2009. If the same percentage of the population worked today as was working at the start of the recession, we would have 10 million more jobs. We would have 10 million more people working, 10 million more people able to support their families better, 10 million more people who are perhaps not on welfare than there are today.

In 2007, there were 146 million Americans employed. Today there are 144.6 million employed. At the same time, the population of those older than 16 years of age has grown by 13.5 million. So while the population is increasing, the number of people actually working is lower than it was in 2007.

Moreover, there has been no growth in the income of working Americans. Working American families are stressed. Jobs just are not being created at nearly the rate to keep up with the population, and millions are simply dropping out. To make matters even worse, the Census Bureau reported in August of 2013 that the incomes of working families have been in decline since 2007, adjusting for inflation.

This chart shows that it has been a fairly steady decline over a long period of time.

Look at this chart. A median income in 2012 dollars--constant dollars--was $56,000 in 1999. Today, in 2012, it is down to $51,000. That is a dramatic reduction in the average net income of American workers. Someone says: What does that have to do with immigration? I will discuss it. It is a factor in what is happening. It just is.

What does CBO say about immigration and wages? It is against this difficult economic backdrop that immigration reformers want to massively increase the number of work visas--doubling them--by increasing the flow of migrants and legalizing those in the country without documents. Basically, we would increase the current flow of legal immigrants to America from 10 million over 10 years to 30 million, and who would get permanent resident status in the United States, over a 10-year period. Each of those 30 million would be available to compete for any job in the marketplace. Having come from poor countries, many of them are glad to take a job for even the most minimum of wages. That is understandable. We respect that. I am not criticizing them; I am talking about the policy of the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States.

CBO found that an increase of this kind, if the bill that passed the Senate had become law, would do a number of things. No. 1, it would depress wages among low- and high-skilled native-born workers--depress wages, further, across the entire economy. That is what they reported to us. That is their official analysis.

They went on to say, No. 2, it would raise the national unemployment rate and increase the number of people unemployed.

No. 3, it would slow the growth of per capita output.

There may be someone who says this isn't so and insists it is not so. But I would suggest if we bring more iron ore into America, the price of iron ore declines. If we bring in more cotton, the price of cotton declines. If we bring in more textiles, the price of textiles declines. And if we bring in more labor, the price of labor declines. That is what the facts are. It is a matter of economics. It hasn't been repealed. It is amazing to me that some of our CEOs and some of our free market geniuses don't understand that simple fact.

What about depressing wages? The Congressional Budget Office concluded, based on extensive academic evidence, that low- and high- skilled native-born workers would compete at a wage disadvantage with similarly skilled immigrant workers.

CBO wrote:

Based on CBO's reading of that research, a 1-percent

increase in the labor force attributable to immigration has

tended to lower the relative wages for all workers with less

than a high school diploma by roughly three-tenths of 1

percent . . . and to lower the relative wages for workers

with at least a college degree by one-tenth of a percent.

CBO's analysis of S. 744, the bill that passed the Senate, shows that average wages across the entire economy are lower for the first 12 years of this policy change.

All right. So what CBO said: If we pass this bill that passed the Senate, it will lower wages across the entire economy for 12 years.

Is it not the deep, fundamental responsibility of the Members of this Senate to be attuned to and concerned about the wages of working Americans? And should we not immediately reject, at a time of low wages, declining wages, any policy our CBO tells us--certainly correctly--will pull down further the wages of American workers, at a time when we have record unemployment, record numbers of people outside the workforce? How simple is this for us to understand? I cannot comprehend what it is that this Congress is thinking.

Professor George Borjas, of Harvard, the leading expert in the world, I think, on immigration and wages, recently noted that immigration from 1960 through 2012, which is the last year he had data, has cost native- born workers an of $402 billion. Where did that money go, according to Professor Borjas? It went to the corporate profits in almost the exact same amount. He says that native-owned firms would gain $437 billion in income. So they would have their income increase and almost the entirety of that increase in income is paid for by the reduction in wages of their workers.

Right now, we have healthy profits but not healthy wages. Look at this chart which points that out. This growth in profits is directly caused by the advantage that accrues to a business out doing what it is supposed to do, which is try to produce widgets at the lowest possible price and make the best profits it can make for their stockholders, and pay people competitive wages. When there are a lot more

workers applying for jobs, they don't have to pay as high wages as they would if there weren't that many people applying for jobs.

I am not criticizing business. What I am saying is that as a matter of national policy, shouldn't it be our policy to listen to people such as Professor Borjas who studied this issue and tells us there is a direct relationship between declining wages and the number of immigrants we have coming into our country? I am not demeaning a single person who wants to come to America to work. I am just talking about facts.

In other words, Professor Borjas finds the increase for business is almost entirely paid for by the decline in wages for working Americans.

The problem today is declining wages for working Americans a lot more than it is about profits. I don't have any problem with corporate profits. I wish corporate profits were higher. But we should not be setting up economic factors and creating economic conditions that exacerbate an income problem that we have in America. That is all I am saying. I think American workers have a right to demand it, and they understand this. Maybe some of our geniuses don't understand it. Some have political gains they look for out of this. Some have economic gains they look for out of this. But somebody better be dealing with the concerns of the people in our country who are hurting.

Professor Borjas found that the impact of increased immigration from 1980 to 2000 resulted in a 3-percent decrease in the wage of average native workers and an 8-percent decrease in the wage of high school dropouts--those who don't have a high school degree. The poorest workers in America suffered the greatest amount during that 20-year period based on census data, empirical data, that he can defend.

As a matter of fact, this chart is a recent chart. Professor Borjas presented a paper to a large group of economists in June of last year-- last summer--and to my knowledge, nobody challenged it then or since.

So a 10-percent increase in the size of a skill group--that is high school dropouts, for example--reduces the wages of that group significantly.

Professor Borjas wrote:

Immigration has its largest negative impact on the wage of

native workers who lack a high school diploma, a group that

makes up a modest (and, in recent decades, shrinking) share

of the workforce. These workers are among the poorest

Americans. The children of these workers make up a

disproportionate number of the children in poverty: 24.8

percent of all children of the native-born working poor live

in households headed by a high school dropout.

That is what he said, not me. I think the economics has not been disputed and it is just common sense.

Professor Borjas is not alone in these findings. I would note Professor Borjas, I believe, was born in Cuba and came to this country as a young man, as an immigrant. Similar results were found by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta. They had a look at it. The prominent labor economist David Card of the University of California-Berkeley reached similar conclusions.

However, it is not only lower wages that working Americans have to bear, but it will be higher unemployment as well.

The rapid increase in the immigrant population, especially those in the low-skilled segment of the income distribution, will overwhelm the ability of the economy to produce jobs and increase wages. Thus, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that S. 744, the bill that passed the Senate, would raise the number of unemployed Americans during the first 5 years by an average annual number of 162,000, and that unemployment would ``remain elevated through 2020.''

This is a stunning conclusion, especially when compared with what CBO argued in its 2013 Outlook. In their Budget and Economic Outlook of February 2013--just last February--CBO projected--get this--in their projections last year about how many additional jobs would be created per month for the next 5 years, they projected we would only create 75,000 jobs a month.

I don't know what the future holds, but we are not seeing the kind of job growth we expected. This past December, the job growth was 74,000-- well below the 200,000 or so we need to just have a modest increase in the number of working Americans. So CBO projects a 162,000 reduction annually in the number of people who would be getting jobs in America as a result of the passage of this bill, and we are only going to create 75,000 a month. That is a serious hammer blow to working Americans and their ability to get a job. In other words, CBO's estimated increase in unemployed Americans will equal about a full month of average employment gain for the first 5 years after enactment. At today's job growth rate, that additional unemployment is like losing about a month of job gains every year.

What about economic output? As one might expect, the lower wages and higher unemployment reflect an economy that is not growing fast enough to absorb all of the new workers we have in the country now who become work-age eligible. While the size of the economy expands under the Senate's bill, because of the larger population, the growth rate is not fast enough to raise wages or lower unemployment. CBO estimates that GNP per capita will fall below baseline; that is, without passage of the immigration bill. So if we pass the immigration bill, the GNP-- gross national product--of America per person, per capita, will be lower and stay lower until 2030, than it would be if the bill didn't pass at all.

President Obama, talked to us the other night about his concern over wages, and I would suggest the first thing he needs to do is to revise his commitment to the passage of the Senate immigration bill and quit pushing for it, because it is guaranteed to have a negative impact on jobs and GDP per capita in America. It just is. It is something I hope all of us will consider.

I know the House wants to do the right thing. I know they want to reach out and be a positive force in America. I know a lot of our Senators felt the same way. But they weren't focused on the realities and the impacts that the legislation, if passed, would have. It would lower wages, it would increase unemployment, and it would reduce the growth in the economy per person over the next almost 30 years.

This not what we can afford to do now, colleagues. So I urge all of us to be honest about this and do the right thing. I know there are big businesses that want this. I know there are political interest groups that want this. I know some of the Democratic leaders want this real badly, and we have special activist groups that have one reason or another to favor virtually open boarders in America.

We cannot go in that direction. It is not good for our constituents, for the people who sent us here to serve the national interests.

I will just propose that instead of taking steps that are guaranteed, documented to make things worse, let's do a few things to make things better, things that would make jobs better and more profitable in America, without adding to the debt of the United States, which in itself is hurting the American economy.

We need more American energy that creates good-paying jobs right here in America. We need a more competitive tax and regulatory code that allows businesses and workers to compete in the global marketplace. We need a good trade policy that increases our exports and expands domestic manufacturing and demands that U.S. manufacturers and workers have their products fairly competed with on a level playing field around the world--fair trade as well as free trade. We need an immigration policy that serves the interests of the American people, as I have just noted. We need to convert the welfare office from a check- delivering institution to a job-creating, job-training center to help move people into jobs and help them become employed at better wages.

We need to make the government of this country leaner and more accountable to the taxpayers so that it produces more for every tax dollar that is extracted from the American public. We have an obligation to produce for the money they give us, and we are not being very productive by any fair analysis. We need to restore economic confidence by continuing our effort to produce a balanced budget.

Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts. I believe what I have said represents one of the most significant public policy issues facing our country today. We need to understand what we are doing.

We need to understand the impact of our legislation. If we take the time to do so, we will recognize that when we reform immigration, and it must be quite different from that which would be done if the Senate bill were to become law.

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

Madam President, I thank the Chair and thank Senator Klobuchar for allowing me to go ahead of her. I ask to be notified after 10 minutes.

Madam President, I wish to talk about recent rulings in the Yucca Mountain repository litigation. I am ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety. This is a matter I have followed closely. Our committee had a hearing this morning with the entire Nuclear Regulatory Commission and its new Chairman. These decisions are not simply political decisions, of course, they are legal decisions that adjudicated certain legal disputes that have been simmering for a number of years. The court's judgments were founded on law, not politics or nuclear policy. It adjudicated certain contested legal matters. From my perspective, it was an affirmation of plain law against plain defiance of law, and the court made that clear.

Last August the DC Circuit--in the case of in re: Aiken County-- rendered a decision that provided a clear legal victory to proponents of nuclear energy in America. More important, it was a victory for the rule of law and the U.S. taxpayer and a victory for the rightful power of Congress to adjudicate and legislate on energy policy. The judgment also rendered a resounding defeat for the policies advocated by the current administration, the majority leader of the Senate, and other politicians who have worked for years to thwart the law by refusing or blocking actions to implement the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which is the law of the land.

More recently, in November of 2013, the DC Circuit issued another ruling in the case of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners v. United States Department of Energy. These Commissioners around the United States sued the Department of Energy. These Commissioners represent our States. That court found that the current administration--the Obama administration--has been ignoring the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

The DC Circuit ordered the Energy Department to stop charging U.S. ratepayers $750 million a year in nuclear waste fees until the Federal Government complies with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

As a result, on January 3, just a few weeks ago, the Secretary of Energy was forced to formally submit a proposal to Congress to reduce the nuclear waste fee to zero--to end the fee--while at the same time asking the DC Circuit to reconsider the ruling it has rendered, which I don't think it will.

Taken together, these two rulings vindicate the concerns that many of us have raised since 2009 about the lawless

actions of this administration in failing to deal with our Nation's nuclear waste in the manner required by law.

I hear from people all the time who wonder how in the world the President doesn't comply with the law. He amends the health care act and does other things that most Americans are just taken aback by. They can't imagine how he is not bound by law like everyone else, and, of course, he is. Indeed, he takes an oath to ensure that the laws of the United States are faithfully carried out.

I am currently serving as the Ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety, which has oversight jurisdiction with respect to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I have been looking closely at this matter. The Administration's lawless actions regarding nuclear energy, supported by the Senate Majority Leader, are deeply disturbing and contrary to a sound national energy policy. No one Senator, no matter how prominent, can overrule established law.

The background: Over 30 years ago Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to require the Federal Government to accept nuclear waste from commercial nuclear reactors around the country with the objective of safely storing it in a single, permanent, geologic repository that is safe and secure.

A recent report entitled ``Yucca Mountain: A Post-Mortem'' in The New Atlantis provides some important statistics. It is estimated that, today, the U.S. has accumulated over 65,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, which is enough waste to ``cover one football field to a depth of approximately 20 feet.'' That number is expected to more than double by 2055. This nuclear waste is currently stored at 75 sites spread across 33 states. The 8 states with the most spent nuclear fuel are Illinois, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New York, Alabama, California, Florida and South Carolina.

This report also recognizes that ``there is broad consensus among scientists from around the world'' that geologic disposal is ``the best available option for permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high- level radioactive waste . . . '' This is not a surprising conclusion, as Congress determined decades ago that it is in the national interest to safely and securely dispose of nuclear waste deep underground far from populated areas. It is difficult to imagine a better location for such a repository than Yucca Mountain, NV, the remote site that has been selected by Congress.

Congress also created the Nuclear Waste Fund to collect the fees that were extracted from the nuclear power electric-generating companies. Money is taken from them, which they take from the ratepayers, and that money was to be used to cover the cost of this program. So far the Federal Government has collected $25 billion for this fund at a rate of about $750 million a year.

In 1987, the Congress passed--and President Reagan signed--a law that amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act by officially designating Yucca Mountain, NV, as the Nation's geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel.

In July of 2002, Congress overrode Nevada's objections. Their representatives didn't like it, although I would note the area of Nevada where this facility is to be in place strongly supports it and they opposed Nevada leaders who opposed building it.

Congress overrode the objections and passed a joint resolution that said:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled, that there

hereby is approved the site at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, for a

repository. . . .

An extensive scientific evaluation process ensued, culminating in the Energy Department determination, in an Environmental Impact Statement, that Yucca Mountain is an appropriate site for the safe, long-term geological storage of nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain is perhaps, according to a 2006 report by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, ``the most studied real estate on the planet.''

In 2008, the U.S. Energy Department submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an 8,600-page application for authorization to construct the repository. It discussed every possible complaint and concern that could be raised, analyzing all the issues.

Section 114 of the act states that once the application is received by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it ``shall issue a final decision approving or disapproving the issuance of a construction authorization not later than the expiration of 3 years after the date of the submission of such application. . . . '' That was in 2008, and they have not rendered a decision since.

This means the NRC is under a clear legal duty--as set out in statute, passed by Congress, signed by the President--to promptly complete the licensing process for Yucca.

Regrettably, in 2009, the Obama administration and its allies orchestrated a complex scheme to ignore the law, to control the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and shut down the Yucca mountain process.

How was this done? Here is how the Federal circuit court judge--Judge Raymond Randolph--described the administration's scheme. This is dramatic and crystal clear language. It blows the whistle on one of the most significant obstructions of law that I have seen during my time in Washington.

This is what the judge ruled:

Former (NRC) Chairman Gregory Jaczko orchestrated a

systematic campaign of noncompliance. Jaczko unilaterally

ordered commission staff to terminate the [Yucca] review

process in October 2010; instructed staff to remove key

findings from reports evaluating the Yucca Mountain site; and

ignored the will of his fellow commissioners.

That is a dramatic indictment of Mr. Jaczko's leadership. I would note parenthetically that Mr. Jaczko was the choice of Majority Leader Reid. He worked on Senator Reid's staff, and he insisted that Mr. Jaczko be made the Chairman of the Commission.

Here is how the Board of County Commissioners of Nye County, Nevada-- where Yucca Mountain is located and which strongly supports completion of the repository--explained it. They wrote in a recent letter that the Yucca repository has been ``hijacked by the politics of a single powerful senator and what some view as complicity by the NRC Chairman [Mr. Jaczko].''

Beginning in 2009, now former Chairman Jaczko was able to effectively block any further progress on Yucca Mountain; that is, until the DC Circuit finally ruled in August of last year that those actions were in clear violation of the law, which was an important victory for the rule of law and for the power of Congress.

In its ruling, the DC Circuit determined that ``the [NRC] has continued to violate the law governing the Yucca Mountain licensing process.''

The court then highlighted that the NRC had gone well beyond missing the statutory deadline for completing its review of the licensing application. Recognizing that ``Congress has not altered the legal landscape''; that is, Congress has not amended the Nuclear Waste Policy Act; the court explained that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is ``simply flouting the law.''

The court also observed that, under Article II of the Constitution, ``the President must follow statutory mandates so long as there is appropriated money available and the President has no constitutional objection to the statute . . . '' The court stated that ``the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition because of policy objections . . . '' That is, ``absent a lack of funds or a claim of unconstitutionality that has not been rejected by final Court order, the Executive [and its agencies] must abide by statutory mandates and prohibitions.''

The court further explained: ``It is no overstatement to say that our constitutional system of separation of powers would be significantly altered if we were to allow executive and independent agencies to disregard federal law in the manner asserted in this case by the NRC.'' On this basis, the court granted the request of the plaintiffs in the case for a ``writ of mandamus against the NRC.'' This is a writ that is rarely issued that orders a governmental body to comply with the law. It held that the NRC ``must promptly continue with the legally mandated licensing process.'' This was an important victory for the American constitutional order.

Completing Yucca has big implications for the Federal budget. As the ranking member of the Budget Committee, I believe we need to watch every dime we raise and spend. We have already spent, amazingly, $15 billion--

according to the Government Accountability Office--evaluating Yucca and other sites and doing work at the site.

We have already paid $2 billion as of January 2012 for claims resulting from the Government's failure to deal with the waste issue; in other words, people have sued and made claims against the government for not fulfilling its obligation to build this site, and we have already paid out $2 billion. It is a shame people can't be held individually responsible for obstructing the law and causing the Federal taxpayers to pay out $2 billion.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the Federal Government's total liability for breach of contract claims from the failure to resolve the waste issue could reach $50 billion. The government agreed and set up a method to receive this waste. The electric utility companies that generate nuclear power are now being forced--for decades--to keep the waste onsite at great expense, even though they paid billions of dollars into the fund to make sure it is taken care of at a single site.

With this important court victory, we may hope and expect that the Nation's nuclear waste program can be put back on track, and it is hurting right now. The costs are real, and they fall on virtually all Americans.

On October 28, the DC Circuit denied the NRC's petition for rehearing en banc. So the writ of mandamus stands. And, on November 19, 2013, the DC Circuit rendered another important decision in this arena. The court found the Energy Department in non-compliance with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and ordered the Secretary of Energy to ``submit to Congress a proposal to change the [nuclear waste] fee to zero until such a time as either the secretary chooses to comply with the [Nuclear Waste Policy Act] as it is currently written, or until Congress enacts an alternative waste management fee.''

In response, on January 3, 2014, the Energy Secretary submitted a proposal to Congress to zero-out the nuclear waste fee. Pursuant to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. Section 10222(a)(4), this proposal ``shall be effective after a period of 90 days of continuous session have elapsed following the receipt of such transmittal . . .''

Now an important question is, how will the NRC respond? Our nation derives almost 20 percent of the electricity needed to drive the economy through nuclear power, which is a clean, safe, and affordable source of energy. The failure of this Administration to deal with the issue of nuclear waste disposal over the last 5 years has posed a serious threat to the future viability of nuclear power. As a recent report by the Heritage Foundation, entitled ``Obama Administration: No Confidence in Nuclear Energy,'' explains:

President Obama's decision to abandon plans for removing

the waste to the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada creates

an uncertainty that could be a barrier to the expansion of

nuclear power.

So, this issue is critical to the future of nuclear power in America. We need to get this waste repository issue settled, and I believe the NRC should expeditiously proceed with the Yucca license proceeding in an independent manner worthy of the important task they have been assigned. I am hopeful that if we do so, we may have turned a final corner.

I received a letter dated October 23rd from the current NRC Chairman, Dr. Allison Macfarlane, providing a copy of the NRC's first monthly status report concerning compliance with the DC Circuit ruling and explaining that the NRC ``will deliberate and determine the various activities that might compose the agency's response to the court's decision.'' A day later, on October 24th, I was joined by Senate EPW ranking member David Vitter and all Republican subcommittee members in sending a letter to Dr. Macfarlane, urging the NRC to ``comply expeditiously'' with the DC Circuit's decision and explaining that ``the next step in this legally mandated licensing process is for the NRC to complete the [Safety Evaluation Reports]'' for the Yucca site.

On November 18, 2013, the NRC approved an order directing the NRC staff to implement the DC Circuit ruling by completing the Safety Evaluation Reports for Yucca Mountain. This is an important and crucial step in the process. I have, since, received other NRC reports dated December 18, 2013, and January 24, 2014, describing activities related to Yucca Mountain. The NRC has asked the Energy Department to prepare the supplemental environmental documents that are needed to move forward with the licensing process. It is my expectation that the Secretary of Energy will act promptly to provide the necessary information and support and to avoid the kinds of political schemes and unlawful acts that have previously derailed the Yucca process.

According to the NRC, the Energy Department has more than $15 million in funds that could be used to support Yucca-related efforts, and an additional $18 million that could potentially become available for these purposes. The most recent report from the NRC explains that ``completion of the [Yucca Mountain safety report] is scheduled to take approximately 12 months, ending in January 2015,'' and that available funds are sufficient to complete this task.

The NRC Chairman and other Commissioners must follow the law in this matter. During her confirmation process earlier this year, Dr. Macfarlane affirmed a strong commitment to the ``independence'' and ``impartiality'' of the NRC and pledged to defend those principles. For instance, in her responses to my questions during her confirmation process, she unequivocally agreed with me that the NRC ``should not allow political meddling from Congress or other parts of the executive branch to interfere with the NRC's independent decision-making processes.'' She committed to ``zealously guard the independence of the NRC and oppose any efforts to undermine it.''

During her confirmation, she also correctly recognized that the ``responsibility for establishing a nuclear waste policy resides with Congress,'' and she acknowledged that the ``NRC currently has approximately $11.1 million in unobligated carryover funds (and $2.5 million in obligated, unexpended carryover funds) appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Fund'' and that these funds ``could be used for a variety of activities related to the Yucca Mountain project, including the completion of the technical licensing review.''

We will be watching this process closely. I know that the leadership in the House of Representatives will be watching as well. In a letter dated August 23, 2013, the House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman, Fred Upton, and Environment & Energy Subcommittee Chairman, John Shimkus, wrote to the NRC, stating:

[I]t is our expectation that the NRC's first action to

implement the Court's decision will be to diligently resume

its review of the license application, complete the [Safety

Report], and issue it publicly. Our country has invested 30

years and $15 billion in determining whether Yucca Mountain

would be a safe repository. The NRC is this nation's nuclear

safety regulator and its reputation for independence and

objectivity rests on its transparency in this matter. As

such, NRC's objective, scientific findings regarding the

safety of Yucca Mountain would provide the public an

independent, authoritative assessment of this important

project.

I agree with Chairman Upton and Subcommittee Chairman Shimkus. In particular, the NRC should know that Congress will watch closely to make sure that costs associated with completing the safety report for Yucca Mountain are appropriate and in line with earlier estimates.

Importantly, the NRC should already have all documentation necessary for this process ready and available. In December 2011, I joined Senator Mark Kirk and eight other Senate colleagues in a letter to the NRC and Energy Department about Yucca Mountain. That letter--sent over 2 years ago--was out of a deep concern that we had that the Administration was purposefully jeopardizing the ability for future consideration of the Yucca Mountain application by failing to adequately preserve scientific information and other records. We explained that ``preserving the historical records and all scientific documents relating to Yucca Mountain is important to the nation's long- term goal of achieving a permanent solution to our nation's accumulating nuclear waste.''

In that letter, we also explained:

Yucca Mountain is one of the most extensive research and

development investments this country has ever undertaken.

More than

$14 billion of taxpayer money and nearly 25 years of

scientific research, data collection, geological

characterization and evidence was collected to study the

Yucca Mountain facility.

In March 2012, former NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko responded to our letter, stating: ``The NRC documents relating to the Yucca Mountain Program . . . will continue to be retained as permanent records . . .''

I will note that the members of the board are good people, and I think the new chairman, Dr. Macfarlane, is going to try to do a much better job. But it was unbelievable how the former Chairman was able to obstruct Federal law.

The NRC should be able to proceed promptly with completing the licensing process. But if they fail to do so, the NRC Chairman, or the entire Commission, could be held in contempt of court and appropriate sanctions could be issued by the court, and should be, if they fail, and that was discussed this morning at the hearing. The Commission says they are going to move forward. They say they don't have as much money as they would like to have. They haven't asked for more money. They have a duty to fix this problem and deal with it, and if they need more money, they should ask Congress for it.

After all of these years and the money spent, a contempt citation would be a colossal failure and a tremendous embarrassment, and it would be the result of a willful failure to follow the clear responsibility of law.

In conclusion, I believe the DC Circuit's recent rulings concerning the Nuclear Waste Policy Act have made an important contribution to the Rule of Law in the United States and to the future of nuclear power. In Congress, there is strong bipartisan support for completing the Yucca license review process. In 2012, the House voted overwhelmingly, 326- 81, in favor of appropriating the funds necessary for the NRC to continue the Yucca licensing process. Then, in July of 2013, the House soundly defeated an amendment offered by a member from Nevada that would cut funding for the Yucca licensing process. That amendment failed by a vote of 335-81.

Last July, Representatives Fred Upton (R-MI) and John Dingell (D-MI), chairman and chairman emeritus, respectively, of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, authored an editorial entitled ``Decision on Yucca Mountain Overdue.'' They wrote:

Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 to

establish a deliberate, collaborative and mandatory process

to site, license, build and operate a national permanent

nuclear waste repository. The act obliges the federal

government to safely dispose of high-level nuclear defense

waste and commercial spent fuel from power plants.

Electricity consumers and taxpayers have paid approximately

$15 billion to determine if the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada

would be a safe repository. The [NRC] owes them an answer.

I couldn't agree more. With the benefit of the DC Circuit rulings in August and November of last year, which so clearly stated the Administration's duties under law, Congress must not accept any further delay in the Yucca Mountain license process.

I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the flood insurance program is important to a lot of Americans. It is important for my constituents in Alabama, and they are concerned about it. The reform that has been passed into law is fundamentally the right approach to fixing the difficulties that we have, in my opinion. It moves this program from a big subsidy to a program that is actuarially sound and self-sustaining. I think that is the appropriate goal.

I think at some point a person living in the interior of the United States should not be required to have money extracted from him or her or from their family to pay for somebody who built their house on shifting sands on a beach somewhere. That is my view of it. There are people who might find themselves unexpectedly in a dangerous circumstance where floods may occur rapidly or may not occur for decades.

In my hometown of Mobile, a number of years ago they had a big flood problem. A lot of homes were damaged. They said it was the 100-year flood, and there was a lot of concern for everybody. I think a lot of people didn't have flood insurance. The next year it flooded again so they had two 100-year floods in two consecutive years. I say that because it is very difficult to manage a program like this in a sound way and to fully anticipate all of the dangers.

What I am hearing from my constituents is that premiums are going up rapidly--very high for some people. It has gone up multiple times from what the present premiums are currently. There is little time to protest or get a clear review of it, and they think this ought to be more thoughtfully done and phased in in a more effective way.

I tend to believe that, but I do not intend to support legislation that would fundamentally undo, reverse or retreat from the principle that was established when we passed legislation in 2012 that provided for the sustainability of this government program--the Flood Insurance Program. I think that is the right principle. It doesn't have to be done overnight. But, it does have to be done more carefully. It doesn't need to be done in a way that hard-working Americans who are struggling to get by find their flood insurance premiums--which they must have before they can get a loan to buy a house in a flood-prone area-- doubles, triples or quadruples, and it can be virtually as much as their house payment. This is the problem we are facing.

My colleague Senator Coburn has raised a budget point of order against the legislation, and I think the budget point of order is well taken. The chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Patty Murray, and her staff, have agreed that the legislation violates the budget, and I, as the ranking Republican on the Budget Committee, certainly agree with that.

There are two aspects of the budget point of order. Maybe I can summarize it. There is probably more to it than this, but in essence we can say two things about it. One, the bill spends more than the Banking Committee was authorized to spend; that creates a violation of the budget in itself. The other violation is that the underlying bill adds to the debt. It spends more money than we have, and the result would be to add to the debt of the United States.

What the bill's supporters have done is come before the Presiding Officer and moved to waive all budget violations. They say this legislation is so important that we should just waive the violations and not worry about it. I believe we need to worry about the budget, and we need to think about it. There may be occasions when the budget point of order should be waived when we go forward, and there will be points in time when it should not be waived.

My view is that we should not waive all budget points of order. I do not believe that is the appropriate vote at this time. We imposed a budget. We promised to limit spending to certain amounts, and we should stay within that and not add to the debt. I feel strongly that we ought to adhere to the budget and not go around waiving it any time somebody wants to spend more money and thereby weaken the commitment we made to the American people when we established certain limits on spending.

Both Houses of Congress have adopted it, and we passed it by law. The President signed the legislation that sets spending limits. This bill violates those limits.

I have given thought to this, and maybe good people will disagree. This is my view of it. We should not spend more on the flood insurance program than was projected and agreed to and add to the debt of the United States of America. We absolutely should not do that.

We should not reduce the constraints we placed on the Federal flood program so we can spend more money and then borrow the money to pay for that extra cost. That is not what we should do. This budget point of order would allow that to happen. The motion to waive the budget objection raised by Senator Coburn--waiving that and all objections to the bill would waive that.

There appears to be a second violation, and that violation is that it spends more than the Banking Committee was authorized to spend. I think that is a somewhat different issue. Some might disagree under these circumstances. I think that aspect of a budget point of order could be waived, and this is why. Under the law adopted by this body in 2012, the flood insurance program is to be moved to a fully self-sustaining actuarially sound program where all the premiums that come in are sufficient to pay all of the claims that go out--like any other insurance company in America tries to operate. That is the principle that Congress--both Houses--established when they passed the reform in 2012.

I don't think it is necessarily to be considered a tax increase or a violation of the budget if this insurance program, which is part of the Banking Committee's jurisdiction, results in increased premiums to ensure that the program, while it is transitioning, remains sound and is ultimately paid for. I think that is the kind of waiver that may be justified.

I am really impressed with Senator Toomey and how hard he has worked on his legislation to create an alternative to the base legislation that is before us today, which I don't think can be justified because it adds to the debt of the United States. We don't need to add to the debt. Every time somebody has a problem and then proposes a solution, the tendency is to not find reductions in spending somewhere to fix the problem that they have. They look around and see if they can just borrow the money and not pay for the extension.

I support Senator Toomey's approach to solving this problem. I mean, his amendment would require a surcharge on all new NFIP policies, but it would not add to the debt because the additional spending is paid for by the surcharges that are in turn paid for by NFIP policy beneficiaries. It is not taxing the American citizens to subsidize a group of people who have flood insurance when the general citizenry does not have flood insurance.

It is an increased fee on the people who benefit from flood insurance in the short term to transition this flood insurance program to the more rigorous self-sustaining program from the one that is not self- sustaining or is rather draconian in the way it is being implemented.

I think Senator Toomey's legislation may not be perfect, but I believe his legislation is actuarially sound. It raises sufficient revenue from the people who benefit from the flood insurance program to transition in a more gentle and logical and reasonable way to the new program. It would transition it in an effective way.

It does not--according to the people who really understand this-- threaten the integrity of the reforms that have been voted into law.

I think a good case can be made that the base legislation before us today violates several budget points of order and is drafted in a way that threatens the very integrity of the reforms we approved in 2012. We should not do that. We should not weaken the commitment we made as a Congress in any way that would lead us in a situation in which we don't follow through on the commitment we had to make sure that flood insurance becomes actuarially sound and self-sufficient.

For what it is worth, I will share with my colleagues my belief that we should not waive all budget points of order, although there may be a possibility that we can waive the budget point of order with regard to the spending limit because, should we adopt the Toomey amendment, the flood insurance program's indebtedness would be alleviated by placing a fee on the insurance policies which benefit the very people who receive the flood insurance subsidies.

I appreciate my colleagues Senator Menendez and others who are striving to alleviate some of the harsh results of the transition of the current law, but I think their proposal runs a risk of abandoning the commitments that we made, and I believe their plan would add to the debt.

I think the Toomey amendment would be the preferable way for us to meet the problems of this very rough transition period we are in without adding to the debt and without threatening to abandon the good goal of an actuarially sound flood insurance program.

I yield the floor.

lower rates

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

Mr. President, the immigration issue the country is wrestling with is broad and deep and has huge ramifications in a host of areas. But one area that has just been ignored systematically, it seems to me--at least to a degree that is unacceptable--is the impact a massive increase in immigration to America will have on the already declining wages and job prospects of Americans who are hurting today. That is just a fact that needs to be discussed. We need to be honest about it.

Prime Minister David Cameron in the United Kingdom has announced major reductions in immigration and said there may be more. He said we cannot expect that foreign workers would take jobs we need to be training Britons to do. How simple and valuable a concept is that?

So we are talking about legislation that can shift the power, wealth from working people to businesspeople, the corporations, because it will shift, if not done properly--and we believe in immigration. We are not opposed to immigration. It just needs to be done at the level and in the proper way so our workers are not so adversely impacted, as would occur if the Senate bill were to become law. Thank goodness the House is saying they are not going to pass that bill.

President Obama is preparing to deliver a State of the Union Address tomorrow night in which he will address the continued financial collapse of the American middle class, much of which has occurred on his watch. However, it did start before he took office.

Since 2000, the average wage of working Americans has declined. As adjusted for inflation, it is negative. In the last 2 or 3 years--since the recession is supposed to be over and has been announced is over-- that decline has accelerated. Professor Borjas and others have tagged a lot of that result as occurring because of a substantial increase in immigration that has been occurring in America. If the President wishes to demonstrate a sincere concern for struggling workers, then he must recognize the negative impact his immigration policies are having on wage earners throughout the country right now.

According to Harvard Professor Borjas, the Nation's leading expert on immigration and an economist--himself an immigrant from Cuba as a young man--Professor Borjas says every dollar of increased profit for companies that use immigrant labor is offset by a dollar in lost wages for the Americans competing with that immigrant labor. Think about that.

In fact, he estimates that businesses lobbying for this bill will benefit on an order of $400 billion. They and their political activist allies lobbying for this bill, they definitely receive a financial benefit. He estimates, based on rigorous analysis that virtually every dollar of that will come from reduced wages of American workers.

That is the way, colleagues, the free enterprise system works. If we have more cotton in America, the price of cotton goes down. If we bring in more labor than we have had before, the price of labor comes down. That is just the way it works. We have not eliminated the law of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand dictates that an increased supply of workers will result in a reduced cost of hiring workers.

The President's push for higher Federal wage controls and extended unemployment jobless benefits is effectively an admission that his policies have cut wages and reduced the ability of Americans to get jobs.

But these measures he is proposing are treating the symptoms. Why are not wages going up as they have throughout most of the history of our country, naturally through supply and demand? Could it be that we have had, as Professor Borjas said, for the last 30 years an incredible increase in the flow of foreign workers who are competing for these jobs every single year?

One cannot return to full employment and rising wages for workers at all skill levels without tightening the labor market. We have a loose labor market. We have a surplus of people looking for jobs.

Gene Sperling, the President's top adviser on the economy, said just a few weeks ago that we have three workers applying for each one job that exists in America. Why in the world then would we want to bring in and allow businesses to demand increased numbers of low-skilled workers?

The President's plan will provide companies an incentive to hire even fewer American workers, and they will be less likely to hire a person who has been unemployed for a long time--the long-term unemployed.

The United States has already formally admitted more immigrants, largely lesser skilled, in the last 10 years than any prior 10-year period in America's history. So the question every reporter, pundit, and lawmaker should ask is this: How does the President think it will help Americans trying to climb into the middle class to pass an immigration plan that would

double the number of immigrant workers competing against them for jobs and wages?

The single largest category in our budget right now is welfare and poverty support programs helping people who have lower incomes. Including State contributions, my Budget Committee staff has discovered we spend more than a $1 trillion on Federal means-tested support programs each year--over $1 trillion. That is greater than the defense budget, more than Social Security, more than Medicare. A record one in five households today received food stamps in 2013--one in five. The majority of them are working age. That is the first time that has happened that a majority of the recipients of food stamps are within the working age group.

Our urgent national mission is to begin transitioning these struggling workers into good jobs with rising wages. Instead, the President proposes to increase Federal spending even more to sustain millions on welfare while increasing the supply and the admission of lower skilled immigrants to take the available jobs that exist.

House leaders are reportedly rushing to assemble a plan that is similar to the President's. I hope not. But that is what is being suggested. This would be the worst thing they could do at such a time. Instead, the Democratic Senate having spoken, the Republican House must stand, expose the President's disastrous policies, and advocate a new direction that promotes assimilation, rising wages, and a growing middle class for all Americans, including those who have recently immigrated.

Our lower skilled workers are the ones who are adversely affected the most from increased flows of immigrant labor into the country. I just hope we will consider this and talk honestly about it because it is not going away. It is a reality. The suggestion that somehow this will not happen is not so. The Congressional Budget Office, in scoring the Senate bill, concluded it would pull down wages of Americans for 20 years.

The last thing this Senate or any President of the United States should do would be to advocate and promote a policy that will pull down wages. We need to be looking for ways to increase wages. When you are in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. Do not make it worse. Do not create four or five applicants for every one job that exists in America.

I hope the President will talk about that. I challenge him to talk about it. I am going to watch what he says. I expect him, as President of the United States addressing a joint session of Congress, to tell the truth and be accurate about his analysis and discussion of this important issue. It is important to America. We believe in immigration, but we want a lawful system of immigration, an immigration system that first and foremost does not damage, hurt, and weaken the financial position of already struggling American workers. Isn't that our first responsibility?

We should create this lawful system in a way that serves the long- term interests, the legitimate long-term interests of the United States of America and all the people who are in it, not just a few special ones with big money and special political power.

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

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

My late colleague Senator Byrd liked to say there have been two great Senates in the history of the world: The U.S. Senate and the Roman Senate. He understood the special and crucial role the Senate fulfills in our constitutional Republic. The Senate is where the great issues of our time are supposed to be examined, reviewed, and discussed before the whole Nation, in public. Yet in the last few years we have witnessed the dramatic erosion of Senators' rights and the dismantling of an open process.

We fund the government through massive omnibus bills. This is the bill before us now--1,583 pages stacked up here before us that no one really has a chance to read or evaluate or analyze. Senators are stripped of their rights to offer amendments. We won't have amendments. Bills are rushed through on the threat of panic, crisis or shutdown. Pass it today or the government shuts down. Secret deals rule the day. Work is done outside the public view, and so millions of Americans are essentially robbed of their ability to participate in the process by examining what their Senators do.

Under the tenure of Majority Leader Reid, the Senate is rapidly losing its historic role as that great deliberative body. If this continues, America will have lost something very precious.

One of the tactics by which Majority Leader Reid has suppressed Senators' rights and blocked open debate is the technique called ``filling the tree.'' This basically means that when a bill comes to the floor, the leader will use his right of first recognition to fill all the available amendment slots on a bill and then block anyone else from offering an amendment. One man stands in the way of his 99 colleagues.

I say one man, but not really all alone does he stand there. His power exists only as long as his Democratic colleagues support his blocking of amendments.

This prevents the body from working its will. It prevents legislation from being improved by amendment, and it prevents Senators from being accountable to their voters on the great issues of the day. This is, of course, why it is done. It has nothing to do with time. It is done because the majority leader does not want to have his colleagues vote.

Our majority leader has used this tactic--filling the tree--80 times already. To put this in perspective, the six previous majority leaders filled the tree only 49 times combined. Senator Reid has filled the tree on 30 more occasions than the six previous leaders combined. In so doing, he denies the citizens of each State their equal representation in the Senate. Majority Leader Reid, in his efforts to protect his conference from casting difficult votes in order to shield them from accountability, has essentially closed the amendment process. He has shut down one of the most important functions that Senators exercise to represent the interests of their constituents.

Recently, this tactic manifested itself in a dramatic way. To the surprise and shock of many, the December spending agreement contained a provision to cut the lifetime pension payments of current and future military retirees, including wounded warriors, by as much as $120,000 over their retirement period. Other Senators and I have had many ideas about how to fix this problem, but we were blocked from offering them by the majority leader. I tried to offer an amendment to replace the cuts by closing a fraud loophole used by illegal immigrants--cited by the Department of the Treasury--to claim billions of dollars in free tax credits they are not entitled to--billions. It would more than pay for this. But Senator Reid and his conference Members, save one--one broke ranks--stood together to block my amendment from a vote.

So I would ask my colleagues: Are you comfortable with this? Do you like having to beg and plead with one person for the right to offer an amendment in the Senate? Do you believe the Senate should operate according to the power of one man?

This omnibus bill, though it restores pensions for our heroic wounded warriors, leaves more than 90 percent of those cuts in place. Shouldn't we be allowed to offer amendments to provide a fair fix for all our warriors and veterans?

But blocking amendments is only one of the many abuses. The other erosion of the Senate has also been front and center in the budgeting process. We are now in our fifth year without adopting a budget resolution. We went over 4 years without the Senate even passing a budget, as required by plain law in the 1974 Budget Act. Instead, taxpayer dollars are being spent through a series of late-minute negotiations and legislative pay caps that are driven through the Senate.

Then we face a massive omnibus bill--this 1,583-page monstrosity-- which is rushed to passage without any amendments or meaningful review. The American people have no real ability to know what is in it or to hold us, their elected representatives, accountable. That is, of course, why it is being done.

Today the Senate and the House are considering another omnibus bill, one that will spend more than $1 trillion, with thousands of items of government spending crammed into this single legislative proposal. The bill will be sped through under the threat of government shutdown, with very little debate and no ability to amend.

If you don't accept what is in the bill and vote for it and pass it, Senator Reid says, I will accuse you of blocking the bill and shutting the government down. You don't dare vote no. So it is yet another time when we must pass it to find out what is in it. My staff and I have had less than 48 hours to digest this behemoth, but already we have found provisions that would not survive if considered in the regular order where we have amendments.

How is the process supposed to work? Each year, Congress is supposed to adopt a budget resolution. The law requires it. Then, based on spending levels contained in the budget resolution, individual committees report 12 authorization bills. I serve on the Armed Services authorization committee. Based on the expertise and experience of Members serving in those committees, they authorize spending. Senator Levin is our Armed Services Committee chair. Senator Inhofe is the ranking member. Senator McCain is on the committee. These are people who have given years of their life to understanding the challenges of military matters.

Then the 12 subcommittees of the Appropriations Committee are to produce appropriations bills for their area of the budget, such as defense, homeland security, and agriculture, which are then to be individually considered, debated and amended on the Senate Floor. So they actually appropriate the funds that the authorization committees authorize to be funded. That is the way the process is supposed to work. This gives each Member, when the appropriations bill hits the floor, a chance to review and analyze each part of the budget and offer suggestions for saving money, improving efficiency, and better serving the taxpayers. That is the way it is supposed to work.

But under the tenure of Senator Reid the budgeting process has been totally mismanaged. We have ceased consideration of appropriations bills altogether, basically, relying more and more on autopilot continuing resolutions and catch-all behemoth spending packages like this one. In fiscal year 2006, for example, every single appropriations bill was debated, amended, and passed in the Senate. In 2006 every one was passed, considered, and voted on, and that was good. That is better than we had been doing in the previous years. There were failures during the previous years.

But in 2013--here we are, here--the red indicates that no bill was passed in the Senate. In 2013, again in 2014, none were individually passed. All the funding was done as part of this omnibus process.

I want my colleagues to look at this one more time. The green shows that the bill was brought forward to the floor and was passed. The yellow shows it was brought forward out of committee but not passed on the floor. The red shows it was not even brought to the floor, brought out of committee to the floor to be considered. Do you see how the red has continued in the outyears?

What is happening today is contrary to good policy. It is contrary to the whole idea of what a Senate and a Congress ought to be doing. We have to stop it. I know we have had a lot of frustrations lately, but that does not excuse this trend. It has to end.

In my first year as a Senator--I guess the second year I was a Senator, 1998--every bill was passed. Every bill was passed in 2010. But we have gotten away from that completely. We can go back to that. It is not impossible. Those bills when I first came here were all debated and amended on the floor and went to conference with the House to settle our disagreements, and then a bill was sent to the President for his signature or veto. Over time, however, that has happened less and less frequently, to the point that nowadays we do not debate appropriations bills at all.

Look, Senator Mikulski is a great leader in the Senate and one of the people I admire greatly, and so are Senator Shelby and others. How we got into this process I do not know. But I will just say this: I think it is fair to say that Republicans have clearly advocated for bringing the bills to the floor and having debates on them. I--ranking on the Budget Committee--have clearly advocated we process a budget the way we are supposed to do. But Senator Reid has made the decision, backed by his conference, to not bring up these bills. It is a political decision. It is a decision to avoid having to take votes on disputed questions of what should be funded and what should not be funded. That is the problem we are in. So we have crammed all these appropriations into this huge bill under threat of a government shutdown.

A more ominous development, however, is the breakdown of the appropriations process in the Senate and how it is infecting the House of Representatives. It is spreading like the plague over there. In the first year of their majority, the House passed--worked and marked up 6 of the 12 appropriations bills and sent them to the Senate, but the Senate did not consider a single one of them. Last year the House passed eight appropriations bills and sent them over to the Senate. Again the Senate did not act, refused to consider them individually. This year the futility of the efforts of the House began to show as the House passed only four bills. Why should they pass them and send them to the Senate if they are not going to be considered on the floor in a normal, regular order? So they are beginning to erode what they have been doing.

All of us, both parties, have a responsibility to reverse these trends. All of us have a responsibility to return to regular order. It is in the national interest. It is the right thing to do. All of us owe our constituents an open, deliberative process, where the great issues of the day are debated in full and open public view. Each Senator must stand and be counted on these issues, not hide under the table and avoid being held accountable. The democratic process is messy, sometimes contentious, and often difficult. People disagree. But it is precisely this legislative tug-of-war, this back-and-forth which forges a national consensus.

While secret deals may keep the trains running on time in the short run, sometimes they keep the train running in the wrong direction--a direction different from what the American people would like to see. Sometimes it hides bad spending, bad appropriations, bad legislation that ought to be exposed in the light of day.

Secret deals rushed through without public involvement only deepen our divisions, delay progress, increase distrust, and make it harder to achieve the kinds of real reforms the American people have been thirsting for and demanding.

Having to cast many votes on tough issues really does clarify those issues and what the differences are amongst us. That process, I truly believe, openly conducted, can lay the groundwork for more progress than we have today and reduce contention. It will clarify facts and then lead to the finding of common ground. Only through an open legislative process can we create the kind of dialog, the kind of debate, and ultimately the kind of change necessary to put this country back on the right track.

I am going to continue to work to restore the regular order. I really believe it is important. I respect my colleagues. I am hearing more and more my Democratic colleagues expressing these same concerns, and I think there is some unease at the extent to which this process in the Senate has been undermined.

Maybe we can make progress and return to the great open debate and regular order that has made the Senate the wonder of the legislative world.

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

Madam President, I wish to share briefly a few thoughts about where we are. We have before us an unemployment bill and the pending business is the Reid amendment that would extend unemployment benefits for a full year, and none of it is paid for effectively. All of it violates the Budget Act. It is unthinkable that we would pass another $17 billion that would add to the debt of the United States-- every billion of it, every single dollar of it borrowed, much of it from people around the world who are not friendly to us. So this is not a good way for us to start.

It is subject to a budget point of order because it violates our spending limits and that has been confirmed. I know the Presiding Officer is a member of the Budget Committee. It has been confirmed by Senator Murray and her staff, the Democratic leadership on the Budget Committee, that it violates the budget. So that means if it is not fixed--and I understand there is some attempt going on at this time to maybe rewrite it in a way that actually has a legitimate pay-for, to provide assistance to those who are long-term unemployed but paid for without adding to the debt of the United States.

I will remind my colleagues that in December we passed the Murray- Ryan legislation which set limits on spending, and the President signed it into law just 2 weeks ago. As soon as we waltz into the U.S. Senate in January of this year, we have a piece of legislation that bursts the budget entirely. It is an utter violation of the spending agreements we agreed to. So I hope our colleagues can present something to us that would lay out an effective way to handle those who are unemployed and would also pay for the legislation. That is what we have to do.

This is how we go broke. This is what has happened. We made a promise when the legislation passed in December to cap spending and stay within that limit. That is the law that is being violated 1 month later, if this were to pass. Hopefully, it will not pass. I don't believe the House will pass legislation that adds another $17 trillion to the debt and not add--I just don't think that is possible.

This is a process that is not healthy. I urge our colleagues to understand that if this legislation is not fixed--if the Reid amendment is not fixed and paid for--I intend to move to object to it, to raise a budget point of order. It will take 60 votes to override the budget we just agreed to. I don't believe 60 Members of this Senate will so vote.

I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

Mr. President, this Nation is facing a debt crisis. That is fully understood by the American people and experts all over. Our total debt is now in excess of $17 trillion.

The Budget Control Act of 2011 was an important step in reining in some of our spending. It reduced the growth of spending from 2012 to 2022 by $2.1 trillion. That was the agreement. We raised the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion, but we promised the American people we would restrain spending over the next decade by that amount.

The spending baseline for America, as calculated at that time by the Congressional Budget Office was expected to see spending increase by $10 trillion over the next 10 years over current levels. The Budget Control Act, which included the sequester, was to limit that growth to $8 trillion instead $10 trillion.

I wanted to reduce the growth of spending more than that, but the BCA levels did provide a cap on spending that was approved by President Obama, passed by both Houses of Congress, and signed into law by President Obama.

This year, fiscal year 2014, was the toughest year in terms of being able to meet the goals of the 10 years under the BCA and, therefore, we blinked, I would say, and there arose the Murray-Ryan bipartisan legislation, written not with our Budget Committee members but by these two leaders. They agreed we would spend $64 billion more than the BCA allowed.

This was a bitter pill for me, I have to say. I warned this was the first real violation of the Budget Control Act spending limits, and when I sought some other alternatives, that didn't happen. The legislation passed and it spent and agreed to spend more money. But it had a good point. It reaffirmed this was all that would be spent above the BCA level. It said: We have a tight time now. If you will just increase spending for the next 2 years, we will stay fundamentally with the BCA levels.

That was another promise, wasn't it? We promised in 2011 to limit our spending, and we come back in December 2013 and we say we can't live with our promises any longer. Now we are making these alterations, but we are going to stick with this. We are going to stay with this promise. If you will just give us this $64 billion extra to spend, we will not spend any more than that over the next several years.

It also left the BCA caps in place for the next 7 years. Unemployment compensation is a mandatory entitlement spending program that is before us now that Congress would like to spend more on than current law allows.

Of course, it appears that promises made in Washington are made to be broken. I sometimes think our colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle see agreements such as Ryan-Murray as steps to advance their agenda--just to further the revolution--and not something that should be honored. Less than 6 months after this act passed, President Obama proposed a budget that would spend $1 trillion more than was agreed to in the BCA--a breathtaking violation of the plain law he had signed 6 months earlier. His plan, fortunately, was rejected, but he filed the same new budget in fiscal year 2013 with $1 trillion more in spending. All our Senate Democratic colleagues voted for the budget Senator Murray moved out of committee, and it would spend $1 trillion more than the BCA limits.

OK. So they said we couldn't live with that. We needed to spend more. That is how the Ryan-Murray agreement came about. OK, we will spend some more, and we will use this to pay for it, and we will do all this, and most of it--too much of it, frankly,--is gimmickry, and it passed-- to spend more. It was to fix the financial pressure we were under. It was to fix the tight year or two we have here--the toughest year or two in the budget.

But now, just 4 weeks after that passed, in December--tough negotiations and secret talks concluded between Murray and Ryan and with the first bill on the floor in this Congress, we have an unemployment insurance extension that totally busts those levels. So now we are told we don't have to abide by those legal caps, just spend more money now, with no corresponding cuts or reductions anywhere to pay for it, as required. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said once: ``There is no place left to cut.'' Well, there are places left to cut.

We know we have a lot of people hurting and unemployed today, and some sort of compensation is legitimate. But this idea we can waltz in here because there is a need in the country that we believe should be fulfilled and we can borrow the money and spend for it is not good. It is why this Nation is $17 trillion in debt.

People are angry with Washington. I would say to my colleagues: Why shouldn't they be angry? Didn't we promise to stay with the BCA limits? Didn't we promise after the Ryan-Murray agreement to spend more but we would stay there? Didn't we agree with that? And here we are, the first bill of this session, just a few weeks after that passed--Ryan-Murray, the ink hardly dry--and we are demanding now a huge new deficit spending program.

Make no mistake, my colleagues, we are in deficit. Any new spending over the Budget Control Act entails more borrowing. That is the way it works. Section 111 of H.J. Res. 59, the Ryan-Murray spending agreement, says this:

Section 111(a)--Fiscal Year 2014. For the purpose of

enforcing the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 for fiscal

year 2014, and for enforcing, in the Senate, budgetary points

of order . . . the allocations, aggregates, and levels

provided for in subsection (b) shall apply.

What are those levels, you might ask? This is what it says:

Section 111(b)(2).--. . . committee allocations for--(A)

fiscal year 2014; (B) fiscal years 2014 through 2018 . . .;

and (C) fiscal years 2014 through 2023; consistent with the

May 2013 baseline of the Congressional Budget Office . . .

The CBO baseline assumes extended unemployment benefits--that we have been extending beyond any historical pattern--will expire, as the law requires, because that is what Congress wrote into law. The ink is barely dry on the December agreement and we are already being pushed to violate it. Therefore, if we extend unemployment insurance benefits, it will cost us, will it not? Ryan-Murray would assume choices would be made between competing expenditure values and that the net spending would not increase above the baseline; that out of $3.7 trillion we spend a year, we can find the $26 billion necessary for Senator Reed's proposal or other proposals which might be less to fund unemployment insurance, and we would find that somewhere or we wouldn't do it.

The Reed amendment before us includes a provision that would extend the Budget Control Act sequester for 1 year, to 2024. So he proposes that: Well, let's assume it continues, and then we can save money 11 years or 12 years from now, and then we can pay for that spending program today. Isn't that nice?

I am ashamed to see the Senate's favorite budget gimmick, ``spend now and pay later,'' devolved into something almost financially sinister: ``Spend now and pay way, way, way later.''

Ten years? We are not honoring the spending limits we agreed to in December, and now we are promising: If we are just allowed to spend this money, we will cut spending 11 years from now. There will be 5 different House elections, 5 different Senate elections, 10 different budgets written, 10 different appropriations bills written between now and then.

The American people know better. We are not adhering to the agreements we made while the ink is still wet. We are going to promise to save money out there? It is outrageous.

This is a legitimate offset. Why don't we do it for 1 year? We can extend the budget sequester 2 years--2024, 2025--and save enough money so we could give every Federal employee a raise and it wouldn't cost a dime. It would all be paid for. Wouldn't it?

Or how about we extend it 3 years, to 2027, and then we can double the highway bill? We would like to spend more money on highways. I would. I would like to increase that. We could pretend that we are going to extend these limits 13 years, 14 years from now, and that will pay for it.

This kind of gimmickry is how our Nation has gone broke. This is what we have been doing year after year--violating even our own generous spending limits and pretending we are cutting spending when we are just reducing the growth from $10 trillion to $8 trillion. And we think the country is going to sink into the ocean if we reduce the growth of spending from $10 trillion to $8 trillion.

One of the most successful parts of the 1996 welfare reform law was the work requirements for healthy working-age adults without children. The work requirements encouraged millions of Americans to improve their lives by working, going to school, or engaging in job training programs. However, this administration has granted States the ability to suspend the food stamp work requirements since 2012 as part of the extension of the emergency unemployment compensation program.

If the emergency unemployment program is extended again even for 1 week, the administration will have the authority to waive the work requirement for about 40 States for 2015. In other words, the food stamp work requirement will be suspended. He is going to do that. If this bill passes, it will give him the power to do that. That is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, too. It is an unexpected, unappreciated thing in the bill.

After analyzing the Reed amendment and the underlying bill before us, we have consulted with Senator Murray's staff--the Democratic chair of the Budget Committee and a very honorable person--and proposed that this proposal violates the Ryan-Murray law, and that several points of order apply against the Reed amendment:

It violates the Senate pay-as-you-go requirement. It increases the deficit by more than $10 billion inside the 10-year budget window without offsets to pay for the entire cost. It spends way more above what the Senate Finance Committee has allowed under the spending deal we enforced. And it violates the Budget Committee's own jurisdiction.

Finally, the amendment isn't paid for inside the budget window as the Budget Act requires. Instead, it tries to count savings 11 years out. That is not allowed under the Budget Act.

When I raise these points of order, I would expect that sooner or later the majority will move to waive all budget points of order against the amendment, and, perhaps, all budget points of order against the bill itself. If Senator Leader Reid moves to waive, ignore, spend above the budget limits, it requires 60 votes.

Let me be clear: Senator Murray and her staff have acknowledged this does violate the Budget Act, and that a budget point of order--if I or others raise it--would be well taken, and it would take 60 votes to break it.

So the question will soon be on us: In the face of a pressing need we all believe should be addressed, will 60 of us agree that the best way forward is to turn our backs on the Murray-Ryan spending deal that Congress passed just 4 weeks ago and President Obama signed just 2 weeks ago?

Or will enough of us agree that the best way forward to help the unemployed and pay for that assistance is with other savings in the Federal budget, so we don't have to blow a hole in our budget agreement and our children and grandchildren will be stuck with paying the price?

Another point: By upholding the new spending arrangement the government just entered into, by defending it against even more spending, we can also accomplish one other thing--put aside the gag rule on amendments enforced by the majority leader.

We have talked a lot about this: We need to be able to offer amendments and have debate on how to make this bill better. If the majority makes a successful motion to waive the Budget Act points of order, it protects the gag rule, the blocking of amendments, the filling of the tree. Members need to have a chance to offer amendments to this legislation so improvements can be made, so we can pay for what is needed to be spent, and an actual bipartisan bill can emerge from the Senate.

So this is the question before us now: Do we adhere to the spending limits Congress passed and promised less than 1 month ago? Or do we break the Ryan-Murray limits like we broke the Budget Control Act limits? Will we do so in the first bill that comes before Congress this year?

This is not a vote on unemployment benefits when I am able to make the budget point of order. And I plan to do so. It is not about unemployment benefits when we vote on the budget point of order. It is a vote on whether we uphold the spending limits we agreed to, or whether we violate those limits in the first spending bill since this Congress took session this year. This is about the integrity of this institution.

In 2011, we passed a Budget Control Act and promised to spend a certain amount of money, and that amount only. But when the spending discipline proved too tough, Congress backed down and agreed to a new, looser spending limit under Ryan-Murray. That was a few weeks ago, just before Christmas.

Now here we are, on the first spending bill of the year, and our Democratic majority is proposing to bust the Ryan-Murray spending limits right out of the chute. How could any voter trust the Senate if this body votes today to break these new limits less than 1 month old?

A vote to uphold budget rules today is simply a vote to say that the bill should be paid for. Whatever we decide to do, pay for it. There are many ideas for doing so. Congress could easily offset these funds if the majority leader here in the Senate would allow us to propose amendments--which he hasn't done.

So let's uphold the rules of our institution, enforce our budget rules, and find a way to pay for this legislation--pay for what we intend to spend above the limit. Let's keep our promises to the American people.

I hope my colleagues who voted for the Ryan-Murray bill will not renege now. If they break this agreement today, why should any taxpayer trust our colleagues' promises in the future?

I hope all of us, no matter our policy disagreements, can agree to uphold Senate rules. I hope we can abide by the promises we made to the American people. And I hope we can agree that financial integrity is more important than partisan interests.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I think it is a remarkable achievement. Some people think our young people are not willing to work, not willing to discipline themselves, but those two teams played their hearts out. They did not get there working at it a few weeks ago. They worked all year in the weight rooms and studying, preparing themselves to reach this high level of excellence that delivered a thrilling game for us all. Florida State is a terrific team. I think everybody knew Auburn was going to have to be really up to speed to be able to compete--and they were able to. The Senator is right, and I am pleased to note that our Heisman Trophy winner this year is a native of Hueytown, AL. We will claim credit for that too.

Auburn drove down the field on that last drive, having to score to win the game, and just pounded away and Tre Mason ran down there and ran over somebody and scored the touchdown. But you are a Heisman Trophy-winning team, and all of you pulled together and came back and won with a few seconds to spare. It was spectacular. You well deserve the right to recognize them by resolution. I certainly will not object.

I will add one more thing. Had Auburn won, it would have been the fifth consecutive year Auburn or Alabama had won the national championship. We would have liked to have seen that happen, but congratulations go to Florida State. They deserved to win, and they played well enough to win and did win.

Orange and blue. I celebrate them. I did have my Auburn tie on the day of the game. But I love Alabama; it is a fabulous program. I spent 3 years there and remain a big fan. I am maybe one of the few people in the State who really, truly had a divided allegiance about whom to be for. Those are super universities.

I would say to Senator Nelson, as I shared with him, I am really impressed with the University of Florida where my grandson had some great surgery done by the finest doctor in the world, I believe, for the condition he had. He has done so well. I know both of us are proud of the great institutions in our State.