Floor Statements

Mr. President, it is with great admiration and respect that I take this time to memorialize one of Kentucky's most outstanding citizens, Mrs. Joan Marjorie Koch Stivers.

Mrs. Stivers was born on June 19, 1921, in Greenfield, MA. After graduating from high school she attended Simmons College where she received a bachelor of science in dietetics. She then attended Harvard University where she received a master's degree in public health. After graduating from Harvard, Mrs. Stivers relocated to Manchester, KY, as a single young woman, upon taking a position with the Kentucky Public Health Department.

In 1948 she married Bertram Robert Stivers of Manchester, KY. Mr. Stivers would go on to serve Kentucky as a judge of the circuit court. Their marriage lasted 57 years and produced four children and numerous grandchildren. All of their four children are accomplished and include daughters Louise and Mary Beth, who have had outstanding careers in higher education, and one son Robert, who is a State senator and another, Franklin, who is an appellate judge.

However, Mrs. Stivers is perhaps best known for her service to Sue Bennett College, which she joined in 1957 as a faculty member. Her career at Sue Bennett spanned 34 years in which time Mrs. Stivers held numerous positions both inside and outside of the classroom. In addition to her teaching duties, Mrs. Stivers served the college as dean of women, dean of students, academic dean, and finally president of the college.

After her retirement, Mrs. Stivers remained active in the community. She volunteered at the Federal Correctional Institute in Manchester, was active in the Presbyterian Church, and served on the Cumberland Valley Area Development District Commission on Aging and on the Governor's Commission on Aging.

The life of Mrs. Stivers made a tremendous impact on both her local community and the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky. I am honored to bring her accomplishments to the attention of the Senate, and I wish to extend my heartfelt condolences to her friends and family.

Mr. President, I would like to call up Bunning amendment No. 3681.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading of the amendment.

Mr. President, I rise to offer a very important amendment to many of our seniors. My amendment would allow individuals to voluntarily opt out of Medicare Part A benefits. Right now, if you don't want to have Medicare Part A, you have to forego Social Security checks and you also have to repay any Medicare benefits that have been paid on your behalf. I don't think that is fair.

If a senior doesn't want Part A, they shouldn't be forced to take it. My amendment says that anyone who opts out of Part A will not have to give up their Social Security benefits and would not have to repay Medicare payments that have already been made on their behalf. This amendment does not allow anyone to opt out of paying their Medicare taxes. Instead, it just allows them to not take Medicare benefits without being penalized.

I think this is a fairness issue, and I hope Members can support it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendments be set aside so I can call up my two amendments which are at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendments be dispensed with.

Mr. President, anyone who has paid attention to the floor of the Senate for the last week knows what my amendments are about. I am offering Senators two ways to pay for this spending bill.

First of all, I would like to submit for the Record the CBO scoring of this current bill that is before us--both the scoring and the offsets. I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the Record.

The first amendment is to use unspent stimulus funds and the second is by shutting down unnecessary or duplicate Federal programs. In other words, I am saying we should use money we have already set aside that has not been spent or eliminate wasteful spending to pay for the benefits that are in this current bill.

Over the last few days, many Senators on the other side of the aisle have come to the floor and said unemployment benefits are the best form of stimulus available. They say the families who are getting those benefits turn around and spend the money immediately. Well, if that is true, I cannot think of a better use of the money from last year's so- called stimulus bill. Why leave that money sitting around unused in a government account somewhere when those funds could get into the hands of people who need them the most and will put them into the economy right away? What is so sacred about the stimulus bill that we should keep that money sitting around until it can be spent later this year or next year or even in 2012 and beyond? Why not help the people now?

But for the Senators who think the stimulus money is so sacred that it cannot be touched, I am proposing another way to pay for this bill. Senator Coburn, my colleague from Oklahoma, has identified well more than $120 billion worth of savings from waste, fraud, and abuse. These savings include closing the Federal employee tax gap; that is, making sure all Federal employees pay all the taxes they owe, and stopping the payment of benefits to people and companies that are not entitled to those benefits.

The amendment would also be paid for by ending Federal programs that are no longer needed or duplicates of other government programs and making existing programs run more efficiently. I think the President's budget itself has hit on many of those programs he would like to see eliminated or partially eliminated. I think it is safe to call that wasteful spending, and I think the taxpayers who are footing the bill for those programs would agree.

Families all across America have to tighten their budgets when times get tough, and government should do the same. That is all I am trying to do with these two amendments.

I am sure some will accuse me of being against the programs in this bill. But the record should be clear by now that I support helping people in their time of need. In fact, every Member of the Senate who was able to make the votes last night supported extension of those benefits, either in my pay-for version or in the version that added to the debt. My amendments are not about whether we should extend these programs. No. My amendments are about whether we should pay for extending these programs or whether we should keep piling more debt on top of the $14 trillion-plus debt we have already. I think the answer is very clear.

Last night, I thought we had a deal worked out to give me an up-or- down vote on my amendment to pay for the short-term extender bill. Instead, one Senator raised a budget point of order against the amendment, and I expect someone will try to do the same thing today with my amendments. That was her right as a Senator, but it is certainly not within the spirit of the agreement I tried to reach to find a way forward on these important programs.

But I think the larger question raised by that move is, What are the 53 Senators who voted to block my amendment afraid of? Are they afraid the Senate might pay for something we do? Are they afraid we might take a step toward balancing the Federal budget? Are they afraid we will bring Washington spending, which is out of control, just a little bit under control and live under the same rules as ordinary American families?

Is it too much to ask that we pay for what we spend? Last night, 53 Senators said yes, it is too much to ask for. But I think it is not. Today, every Senator will have an opportunity to join me in saying it is not too much to ask or they can vote against my amendments and add another $100 billion-plus to the national debt. That is the emergency spending in this present bill--over $100 billion. So that goes onto the bottom line of the Federal debt.

I urge every Senator to vote for my amendments to pay for this spending, to put away the taxpayers' credit card, and to put an end to the debt madness. I have examples of those spending rescissions.

As an example, there is $245 million from congressional office budgets, to end some of the perks congressional leadership and congressional offices have; to end the Forest Service Economic Action Program, $5 million. I think the President put this in his budget. The program duplicates an existing USDA program--Urban and Community Forestry--that has been poorly managed.

Another is to end the Public Telecommunications Facilities Grant Program, $18 million. I am positive this was in the President's budget. This program is intended to help public broadcasting stations construct telecom facilities. Since the transition to digital broadcasting has been completed, there is no more need for this program.

On down the line--end HUD's Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, $17 million; reduce the historic preservation services within the Interior Department by $55 million. This is a grant program duplicated by other programs at the Interior Department.

This is one I am very familiar with because when I was in the House, we thought this was a necessary program to put our economic footing on foreign soil, the same as other foreign-based companies did when they came to America. End the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, $52 million. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation loans private U.S. companies funding for foreign investments and insurance. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency does the very same thing.

Another is to eliminate $28 million in the Department of Transportation that has been directed at transportation museums-- museums. I do not think we should be building new museums with Department of Transportation funds. I think we should be building roads.

Those are just a few examples of some of the rescissions I would like to see in the second amendment I have offered today. I think there will be ample time to discuss these later on, but I wanted to make sure we offered these amendments early on so we could have a good and thorough debate on these programs as this bill proceeds through the Senate.

I thank the Presiding Officer and yield the floor.

Amendment No. 3356

Mr. President, it is my understanding that there are 4 minutes equally divided on these two amendments; is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Amendment No. 3360 is simple. It contains all of the extensions in the Baucus substitute, but rather than adding over $100 billion in cost to the deficit and debt, which the Baucus substitute does, my amendment pays for the spending in this bill by rescinding unspent stimulus funding.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle have stated repeatedly that CBO considers money spent on extending unemployment benefits to be one of the best kinds of stimulus because the people who receive it are likely to immediately spend it. So let's redirect money from an ineffective stimulus bill in which some of the funding won't be spent until fiscal year 2013 or beyond. Let's stimulate the economy now and prevent a massive increase in the debt at the same time.

I am having a hard time understanding why some Senators believe stimulus funding is so sacred. Was the stimulus brought down from the mountaintop by Moses? If that is the case, why did the majority raid stimulus money to pay for an extension of cash for clunkers?

I will be the first to admit that neither side of the aisle has clean hands when it comes to out-of-control spending. We can't control what was done in the past, but we can control what happens today. It is time to take a stand--a stand for our children and grandchildren so they won't have to pay back trillions more in debt.

I am tired of China holding the mortgage on our country. I am tired of the massive national debt that will be doubled in 5 years and tripled in 10. It is hard for me to look my grandchildren in the eye when I know this generation is handing them a country where they won't have the same opportunities to succeed and prosper as I did. It has to stop.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, our spending has to stop.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back.

Mr. President, let me briefly describe my amendment No. 3361. Like other amendments, this amendment contains all the extensions in the Baucus substitute, and it also completely pays for that spending. But it provides a different alternative for paying for it: eliminating wasteful and duplicative government programs.

Many of these programs are the ones President Obama has recommended terminating, and others have been highlighted by the CBO and the Congressional Research Service as wasteful.

I thank Senator Coburn publicly for the good work he has done compiling this list of programs.

We voted on a similar spending reduction when the Senate passed a record $1.9 trillion increase in the debt limit to $14.3 trillion. I hope we have a different outcome today. I hope my colleagues will not choose bloated bureaucracy over our children and grandchildren. They will face over $100 billion more in debt and compounding interest on the debt if we do not pay for this bill. Enough is enough.

If we cannot find the money to pay for programs, we ought to make the hard choices to reduce the deficit and debt.

I hope my colleagues will make the right choice today and support my amendment.

There is. I object. And let me----

Madam President, I wish to respond to the Democratic leader, particularly in view of what my leader just said about bipartisanship.

It seems that last week there was a bipartisan agreement between the members of the Finance Committee on the very issue the Democratic leader spoke on. It was called the Baucus-Grassley compromise bill. It never got to the floor of the Senate. That was a bipartisan bill that was set aside for a very partisan bill that Senator Reid brought to the floor and rammed through instead of the bipartisan bill, which had all these extended benefits included in it: extended unemployment benefits, COBRA health care assistance, flood insurance, highway bill assistance, the Medicare doc fix, small business loans, distant network channel for rural satellite television, and other things.

It is hypocritical of the Democratic side of this aisle passing a pay-go bill. What does pay-go mean? It means you pay for the bills as they appear on the floor of the Senate. Then, to present a bill that is not paid for or just paid for a little bit--one-third of it is paid for--and that was the Reid jobs bill he presented to us. Five billion dollars was paid for; ten billion dollars was not. Then, immediately follows a UC, which is not--which is not--something we normally do. We have unanimous consents that are much different than this. This is a House bill they have asked unanimous consent to proceed on. Regular order could prevail and the leader of this Senate could put this bill under cloture and get his vote. He will get his 60-plus votes and normal procedure will occur. That is the normal way to deal with this bill.

Just so my colleagues understand that not all Americans feel the same as my dear friend from Maine and the majority leader of the Senate, I am going to read a letter into the Record from a constituent of mine from Louisville.

I am going to read it also because it is very important people understand there are other sides of this.

Dear Senator Jim Bunning:

I haven't worked a full 40-hour week in probably 2 years

now, but I fully support your decision to stand up to those

in Congress who want to do nothing more than to spend the

taxpayers' money, even the money they do not have, on

unemployment extension benefits.

So far this year I have worked a total of one week here in

Louisville, Kentucky. My employer is a sheet metal

fabrication plant with its main headquarters based in

Cincinnati, Ohio. Normally the Louisville branch would employ

upwards of fifty people on any given day if business were

good. Recently that number has dwindled to about four.

This country is sooner or later going to implode because of

the massive amount of debt run up over the past 40 to 50

years. Selling the Nation's soul to countries like Communist

China in order to finance our life style and allow the

government to further debase the currency is sheer lunacy.

Throwing away hundreds of billions of dollars so executives

on Wall Street can keep their multi-million dollar bonuses

while others in society worry about keeping the electricity

on and their children fed only helps to move this country

closer to a long overdue revolution. The problem is by then

we won't even own it anymore.

Politicians, on both sides, enjoy getting up in front of

television cameras and talking about their support of the

``pay as you go'' plan, but when it comes down to actually

doing what they say, they all run for cover and vote for

anything they think will win them another vote or another

term. Your stance in holding them to their words and

expecting them to actually do what they voted for is a

refreshing concept in an otherwise corrupt and hypocritical

power base known as Washington, DC.

It is too bad Senator Mitch McConnell and some of the

elected officials on your side of the aisle do not have your

backbone or your sense of decency when it comes to keeping

their promises to the American people.

For security's sake, I am just going to read his first name. It says: Sincerely, Robert, from Louisville.

There is no doubt in anybody's mind that I have supported extension of unemployment benefits, COBRA health care benefits, flood insurance, the highway bill. I was the one who proposed the Medicare doc fix on a permanent basis in the Finance Committee. I have supported small business loans and all the other things that are in this temporary bill.

I wish to set the record straight. The majority leader has all the tools in his kit and he normally exercises them and I think he is about to do that on the bill currently before us, which we call the large jobs bill. He soon will invoke cloture to cut off debate. He normally doesn't even allow amendments. He will file cloture, fill the tree--by filling the tree, that means the amendment tree which allows the Republicans no alternatives but to vote for cloture or not vote for cloture--and then, unfortunately, we have 30 hours of debate immediately following cloture.

Unanimous-Consent Request

I am going to propose, one more time, my unanimous-consent request.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691; that the amendment at the desk which offers a full offset be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read for a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Madam President, I will only continue for 2 minutes. Why would you vote for a bill when you know it is not going to be honored? Why would you vote for a bill you knew was going to be violated in the first bill brought to the floor after you passed it? As far as the doc fix is concerned, I have a history with the doc fix that I don't need to defend to the majority leader or to anybody in this body. Check with the Kentucky Medical Association and all my doctors whom I represent in Kentucky.

I think the letter of the gentleman from Louisville states the facts better than I. We want a country where my 40 grandchildren have the same abilities I did growing up. We want a country that doesn't owe everybody in the world for our existence.

The question I have been asked mostly is: Why now? Well, why not now? What better time to stand than now, when the majority leader has the ability to do exactly on this bill what he has done on 25 bills in the last 5 months: file cloture, fill the tree, and vote yea or nay, get the 60 votes, pass the bill, and extend these temporary benefits. We may pass this other bill--I hope we do--that will extend them on a permanent basis for a year--until the end of the year, anyway.

I think it is very important that people understand that I have the same right he does. He was elected by the people in Nevada, with fewer people than in Kentucky. So I have the same right as any other Senator here on the floor. It is not a filibuster when you object. That ought to be brought out clearly. A filibuster is when you stand on this floor and you talk and talk and talk. I have not done that.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, reserving the right to object.

I wish to understand what the Senator from New York is trying to do.

Sure.

And that was granted.

But that is the normal procedure.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment, which is at the desk.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, in a minute I will speak about my amendment to pay for this bill. First, I want to talk about how we got here.

Last week, I objected to the majority leader's request for unanimous consent to pass a 30-day extension of several expiring programs that was not paid for. I offered to pass the exact same bill that was paid for, and unfortunately he objected to my request.

There was nothing stopping him from using the tools at his disposal to overcome my objection. The leader could have filed cloture on the bill and brought it to the floor last week, instead of the travel bill that is a great giveaway to his State. If he had done that, this bill would have been signed into law already. He also could have filed cloture on the bill and worked through the weekend and it would already be law. The leader could have proceeded to the bipartisan Baucus- Grassley bill that paid for these programs and it would have been signed into law by now. He could have accepted my request to pay for the bill and we would not be here tonight. Instead, the leader decided to press ahead with a bill that adds to the debt and violates the principles of pay-go that everyone claims to care about.

Just over a month ago, the majority in the Senate passed pay-go legislation that supposedly says we are going to pay for what we spend. I support that idea, but I knew at the time that the legislation would be ignored. Unfortunately, I was right.

Barely 1 week after President Obama signed the pay-go law into effect, the majority leader proposed a bill that was not paid for. That bill passed and added $10 billion to the deficit. That is $10 billion your children and my children and grandchildren will have to pay for. That is $10 billion on top of a $14 trillion national debt. After passing $10 billion more debt on to future generations, the majority leader proposed to pass another bill to add another $10 billion to the debt. That is when I said enough is enough; we cannot keep adding to the debt and passing the buck to generations of future workers and taxpayers--my children and your children and our grandchildren.

As we all know, the national debt has grown at a record pace in recent years. A large part of that has been a result of a downturn in the economy a decade ago and then during the last few years. But increased government spending has been a major factor too. Over the last few days, several Senators on the other side of the aisle have blamed Republican spending for the debt and asked why we did not pay for things when we were in charge. They have a point. I wish we would have spent less and paid for more of it when we were in charge. There are some votes I wish I could have back, and I am sure many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle feel the same way. But it is not fair to blame Republican spending for all the drastic increases in our national debt. Our side has not controlled the Congress for more than 3 years, and the current Congress is spending more and faster than ever before.

For example, last year, the majority pushed through a so-called stimulus bill, followed quickly by an omnibus spending bill that contributed to the government ending the year $1.4 trillion in the red, the largest 1-year deficit in the history of the United States of America.

Clearly, we are not headed in the right direction. I do not want to turn this into a partisan debate because it is not a partisan issue. I only make these points to show that neither side has clean hands, and what matters is we get our spending problems under control.

As every struggling family knows, we cannot solve a debt problem by spending more. We must get our debt problems under control, and there is no better time than now. That is why I have been down here demanding that this bill be paid for. I support the programs in the bill we are discussing, and if the extension of those programs were paid for, I would gladly support the bill.

The unemployment rate in my State is well over 10 percent right now. Many rural families get their television through satellite providers in Kentucky. More than half our State is bordered by rivers, and flood insurance is vital to the people who live near those borders and any of the major-minor rivers in the State. In fact, I wrote the law that enacted the current version of the Flood Insurance Program. I care about it deeply.

I am concerned about all the other programs in this bill as well, as is every other Member of this body. That is all the more reason to pay for this bill. If we cannot pay for a bill that all 100 Senators support, how can we tell the American people with a straight face that we will ever pay for anything? That is what Senators say they want, and that is what the American people want. They want us to get our budgets in order, just like they have to get their budgets in order every day. But that is not what the majority is doing.

Tonight, tomorrow, and on every spending bill in the future, we will see whether they mean business about controlling our debt or if it is just words. We will see if pay-go has any teeth.

Tonight, I am offering a substitute amendment that pays for these important programs with Democratic ideas. Tomorrow, I will offer amendments to the offset, the longer term extender bill that was on the floor earlier today. I will be back on future spending bills demanding that they be paid for so future generations of Americans will not be burdened with our overspending.

As I said, my amendment pays for this bill with Democratic ideas. The 10-year cost of extending these programs for 1 month is $10.26 billion. The offset I am offering will more than pay for this cost, and the offset should be familiar to many. It has been proposed by Senator Baucus in his substitute amendment to the long-term extension bill. It was also proposed in the Obama administration's budget.

The offset would prevent black liquor, which is a byproduct of the pulp and paper process, from being eligible for the cellulosic biofuels producer tax credit. This will save the Treasury almost $24 billion over 10 years, according to the Joint Tax Committee. As I said, this will more than pay for the cost of the bill, and there will be almost $14 billion left over.

Under the pay-go rules, that $14 billion will be available to be used to pay for the next bill Congress passes. I think we all expect that the next bill will be the long-term extension bill.

Some might say I am creating a $24 billion hole in the next bill by using that offset now. That is not true. First, we are removing over $10 billion in costs from that larger bill by enacting the 1-month extensions now, and we are also making $14 billion available for that bill.

Members on this side of the aisle, including myself, have offered and will offer ways to completely pay for the cost of that more expensive, longer term extension bill.

This pay-for is a proposal made by the majority, and I hope and expect every one of them to support my amendment. Anyone who does not should be prepared to answer why the Senate does not have to make the tough decisions to balance the government's budget while every American family does. We must bring an end to the out-of-control spending, and there is no better time than now.

I urge my colleagues to join me in saying enough and restoring some discipline to Washington. I urge everyone in this body to support this amendment.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

I thank the Chair.

As the good Senator from Illinois knows, there is no need for a conference, since the House has already passed this bill and has already passed the language in this amendment. I am very sure that they would be willing to accept their own bill back and paid for.

He mentioned the fact that I objected four times. I objected more than four, but the majority leader objected four times to my request. That was nowhere in his statement.

And talking about Medicare Part D premiums and the cost of Medicare Part D, the majority party in this Senate has had 3 years to repeal Medicare Part D if it was a bad idea at the time we passed it. Certainly, with 60 full votes in the Senate, it could have repealed what they considered a bad bill. The fact it was not paid for was not to my liking. The fact that we were going

to take care of Medicare senior citizens who couldn't afford their prescription drugs took precedence.

He spoke about the letter from the Governor of Kentucky. I didn't receive it. I had no knowledge of the letter until it was brought up by the Senator from Illinois. It is amazing to me the number of misstatements, and how the Governor--a Democratic Governor of the Commonwealth--could bring all these facts out to the Senator from Illinois and not the Senator from Kentucky.

There are so many things that I can say, but I have, I guess, 11 constituent communications here--either phone calls or letters, usually e-mails--and I am going to read a couple of them because I want to reserve some time in case the Senator from Illinois gets up again.

This is from Randall in Bardstown, KY.

Just want to thank you for your principled stand against

the squandering of our country's wealth. Yes, we need to help

those out of work; but no, we do not want to print more money

to do it. I have two sons on unemployment at this time, yet

we realize we cannot continue to spend money that doesn't

exist.

Thank you very much, Senator Bunning, for having the guts

to stand up for your principles and oppose further spending

of money we simply do not have. In particular, I am glad you

stood up against extending unemployment benefits, which would

put us further in debt. Regards.

That was from Bob in Burlington, KY. And here is another:

I just want to send you some encouragement to hold your

ground in the Senate on renewing unemployment extension

benefits. As a Kentucky taxpayer and a Federal taxpayer, I am

tired of seeing unfunded and underfunded programs pass by

Congress, and I am glad you are taking a stand. As an

American and a Kentuckian, I believe the government has

failed the American people almost totally, but at least in

this instance you are not failing us. Please keep your

resolve and don't let pressure and influence sway a good

decision.

That was from William in Flemingsburg, KY.

I am surprised that you don't have more support when you

are 100 percent correct; that if 100 men in agreement can't

find a way to pay for a program, they will never pay for

anything. Our deficit has got to stop, and now is always the

best time to start. Thank you for standing up for us.

That was Mark from Independence, KY.

This will be the last one because I still have about three more pages of them:

Thank you for holding firm last night. You are very much

appreciated for being willing to say no to extended benefits

that no one knows how to pay for or who will foot the bill.

It takes a very special individual to stand firm when

everyone around you seems to be caving in.

That is from Debbie from Somerset, KY.

These are just a few. There are more. But there are a lot of really good people in the Commonwealth of Kentucky--4.2 million--who want their Senators, their Members of the House, to stand up for themselves. I appreciate hearing from each and every one of them. I thank them for their support.

I reserve the remainder of my time.

I want to object.

I want to understand what the Senator has proposed in plain English.

Reserving the right to object, what 5 minutes is he talking about--his time or the time that is already reserved for the chairman of the Finance Committee and the ranking member of the Finance Committee?

So I understand, on the time that is reserved for the Senator from Montana and the Senator from Iowa?

I thank the Senator.

I yield whatever time the Senator from Alabama will consume.

How much time is left on our side?

I reserve that time until the 10 minutes prior to the time expiring. In other words, the last 5 minutes is going to Senator Baucus. I reserve the time prior to the Baucus time. I ask unanimous consent to do that.

Mr. President, let me begin by addressing some of the arguments made by the other side of the aisle against my amendment. First, the Senator from Illinois said that this would cause a needless delay in extending these programs, potentially causing a protracted negotiation with the House. With all due respect, that is nonsense. We all know the House can act very quickly. In fact, they did so when they sent this bill, H.R. 4691, to us. The House has already passed my black liquor offset. I want everybody to understand that we pay for the extension of unemployment benefits, COBRA assistance, health care assistance so everybody is covered. The larger bill that we are dealing with on the floor, the one we took off the floor to address this amendment and this bill, also extends these provisions longer than just a month--the highway bill, the doc fix on Medicare, the small business loans that we heard about that we are destroying with our objections, and the rural satellite TV viewers.

I sincerely believe if we can't find $10 billion to pay for something that all 100 Senators support, we are in deep trouble. I think the Senator from Alabama made that very clear. I am on the Budget Committee also. I have heard those numbers over and over, not from just the Republican people who come before the Budget Committee but from the Democrats who testify before the committee. We are on an unsustainable path as far as the budget.

The question before the Senate is not whether Senators support unemployment benefits or all the other important things in this bill. The question is whether we as a Senate and as a government are going to pay for what we spend.

How much time do I have remaining?

I think everybody understands why I have been on this floor for so long. I have been here for 12 years and 12 years in the House. I don't think I have spent this much time on the floor in any one-week period in my life. Usually on the floor of the House you only get 2 minutes to say whatever you have to say. In the Senate you get as much time, usually, as you need. I have never needed this much time. But something so important, particularly after pay-go, and even the larger bill we have before us, $104 billion of the $108 billion expended in that bill is emergency spending. That is emergency spending that is not paid for. So when we get to the bigger bill, we will have some amendments for that.

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

Mr. President, I am sorry. I wasn't on the floor. Could the Senator make her point of order.

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

I object.

Mr. President, just a brief explanation of why we are where we are with this extension bill, a brief extension of 30 days.

There was an agreement between the majority leader of the Finance Committee and the minority leader on the Finance Committee, Senators Baucus and Grassley, on a 3-month extension of these very same provisions. There were more provisions in the bill also. It cost a little more than the $10 billion that is asked for because it was a 3- month extension. Senator Reid pulled that bill from the floor of the Senate. He did it. The leader of the Democrats pulled that bill from the floor.

I support extending unemployment benefits, COBRA benefits, flood insurance, the highway bill fix, the doc fix, small business loans, distant network television for satellite viewers. If we can't find $10 billion to pay for something we all support, we will never pay for anything in the Senate. I have offered several ways to do this, including trying to negotiate with the majority leader's staff. None have been successful.

We cannot keep adding to the debt. It is over $14 trillion and going up fast. If the budget before us passes, it will add another $1.5 trillion to the debt.

Recently, we passed pay-go. For those who don't know what pay-go is, it means you have to pay for everything you bring before the Senate. You can't charge it on the debt. You can't charge it. That is what pay- go says. Understanding that, I hope the American people understand my serious objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691; that the amendment at the desk, which offers a full offset, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed; and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I object.

Mr. President, it is amazing to me the Senator from Illinois has what we call a convenient memory. Just last week there was a bipartisan bill proposed by Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley that would have covered the extension of unemployment benefits, COBRA health care assistance, flood insurance, highway bill assistance, the doc fix, small business loans, and the Rural Satellite Television Viewer Act. The convenient memory loss of the Senator from Illinois has allowed him to forget that his leader, Senator Reid, did not allow that bill to come to the floor and instead substituted his jobs bill. The majority leader's jobs bill was also not fully paid for, by the way. Ten billion dollars wasn't; five billion dollars was. So $10 billion from the jobs bill that was passed went to the bottom of the deficit.

There comes a time when 100 Senators are for something we all support, if we can't find $10 billion to pay for it, we are not going to pay for anything. We will not pay for anything fully on the floor of the Senate.

He said I only offered one way to pay for this. That is untrue. I offered more than one way. I negotiated with the leader--the leader's staff, rather--and we had worked out a 2-week extension for $5 billion with a different pay-for. The debt we have arrived at, even the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, Chairman Bernanke, said is not sustainable. It is unsustainable. What does that mean to the American people, to the same people who are struggling to pay for bills, who are on unemployment, who could have been covered had the Baucus-Grassley bill been considered and could have been covered not for 30 days but for 3 months? Because there were some tax extenders in that bill, the Democratic majority stopped the bill from being considered.

I am not filibustering the bill. A filibuster is somebody who talks a long time. I am exercising my right as a Senator, duly elected from Kentucky, to object to a UC. That is completely different than filibustering. Everybody knows a Member of this body, any 100 of us can object to anything that is brought to the floor of the Senate, whether it be a nominee, whether it be a judge, whether it be somebody who is appointed to the Treasury. Anybody can object. There is a procedure that takes place that can overcome that objection. Why doesn't the Democratic majority use that procedure?

So I am going to take one more shot. As long as we continue to have the extenders being brought forth unpaid for, I am going to object.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691; that the amendment at the desk, which offers a full offset, be agreed to; the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. President, we tried and we will continue trying. As many people who get up and propose that UC, I will be there, whenever it is. I want it passed as badly as the Senator from Illinois does because I also have people in Kentucky who have the same problems as his people do in Illinois. All the States that are represented by two Senators do as well, but let's do it and pay for it because the money is available in many areas. The money was available for the Grassley- Baucus bill, which extended things for a year, in some cases, and extended these provisions I am talking about and the Senator from Illinois is talking about for a full 3 months. We would not be in this position if the Senator from Nevada had allowed that bill to come to the floor.

Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

First of all, let me say this, that I believe the Senator from Illinois is correct that everybody in this Chamber wants to extend unemployment benefits, COBRA health care benefits, flood insurance, the highway bill assistance, medical doc fix, small business loans, and rural satellite television for our viewers who cannot get cable.

I will not object if the Senator from Illinois amends his unanimous consent request to adopt my amendment or any amendment that pays for the bill--we had a pay-go vote last week, and the Senate voted to pay for all the bills that come through--or I will not continue my reservation, I will not object if the Senator from Illinois would spend the $10 billion it costs to renew these extenders for 30 days.

For example, we could do an across-the-board rescission of the bloated Omnibus appropriations bill that was passed for this fiscal year, which increased appropriations by 10 percent. That is just one, besides my pay-for, which you have objected to. If we cannot find $10 billion somewhere for a bill that everybody in this body supports, we will never pay for anything.

I continue my objection.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691; that the amendment at the desk, which offers a full offset, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid on the table.

We have tried to work this out with the majority, particularly after the pay-go vote last week. When 100 Senators are for a bill and we can't find $10 billion to pay for it, there is something the matter, seriously the matter with this body. I said that last night. I don't wish to repeat myself. I have offered several ways to pay for it. If everybody in this Chamber--and there are no Senators except me here right now, but there are 100 Members of this body-- believes, as the Senator from Illinois does, that this is essential and we should pass it, then we should pay for it. There are going to be other bills brought to the floor that are not going to be paid for, and I am going to object every time they do it. I don't much agree with the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, but it was striking yesterday when he said if the present level of debt and the present administration's budget is passed, the debt of the United States will be unsustainable. ``Unsustainable'' to me means there is a chance of one of the rating agencies downgrading the rating on our debt. We cannot allow that to happen. I have too many young grandchildren who want America to be the same America I grew up in. I am worried to death that will not be the case.

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

Mr. President, I object.

Reserving the right to object, I just wish to make sure I am objecting to the right motion. In the third-to-last sentence, the leader used, in my opinion, the wrong number. He used H.R. 1586.

It should be 4691.

I object.

Mr. President, may I now speak and propose a unanimous consent? First of all, let me say this to my good friend from Nevada. I have worked all day trying to work out a compromise, anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks on this UC, trying to get it paid for, for the time of the extension. We were very close. We tried to get agreement using different pay-fors than what I am going to propose. But in the final analysis, it came down to, when the White House summit adjourned, the leader came back and it was going to be his way and no one else's way. That is what it turned into. I am going to propose a 30-day extension with an offset. So I am as anxious to get those same provisions he has brought up--the COBRA, flood insurance, Satellite Home Viewer Act, highway funding, SBA provisions, American Recovery Act, SGR, poverty guidelines. I wish to get them renewed also.

Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 4691

So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4691; that the amendment at the desk, which offers a full offset, be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read a third time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

I object.

Do you know about that?

The Senator from Kentucky objects.

Reserving the right to object.

It seems to me people have not been listening, particularly the Senator from Illinois. He has been through two of these with the leader. He heard the arguments on both sides. Unfortunately, he has a one-side-only view of this situation. I have offered the same COBRA, flood insurance, unemployment insurance, Satellite Home Viewing Act, highway funding, SBA loans, small business provisions--I have offered to do the same thing for the same amount of time. The only difference I have, and some of my good friends from the other side of the aisle, is that I believe we should pay for it. There is a right over the last 3 years of the Democratically controlled Congress. We have run up $5 trillion in debt. There has to be a time to stop that.

We just passed, last week, pay-as-you-go. The first bill up--and I have said this before earlier--was the small business bill that just passed. Now, $5 billion out of that bill was paid for; $10 billion was not.

This is the second request after we passed the small business bill that the leader proposed. This also adds $10 billion to the deficit. That is $20 billion in two small bills.

What I have proposed is that we pay for it. My gosh, we have over $400 billion in unspent stimulus money. I also worked, or tried to work, with the leader and his staff. I know he was busy at the White House, but I tried very hard to work with his staff to get other pay- fors and cut the time down to 2 weeks to make sure these people were taken care of.

I did not get any support from my good friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. I did not think it was fair to do what you are proposing to do, the Senator from Illinois. I will be here as long as you are here and as long as all of those other Senators are here. I am going to object every time because you will not pay for this and you propose never to pay for it.

Eventually, by Tuesday, when we do have another vote, you will get a vote, and you will get this done. So I am trying to make a point to the people of the United States of America: We have a debt of $14-plus trillion. I listened to the head of the Federal Reserve speaking to me in the Banking Committee today, and he looked straight at me and said the debt and the proposed budget of the Obama administration makes the debt unsustainable. We cannot sustain it.

I have a family of nine children and 40 grandchildren. I am as concerned as all of those good Senators sitting over there to pay for this and make sure we give these benefits to those people. But that is not the case. So it is their way or the highway, and I am not taking the highway.

I object.

I have a question for the Senator from Illinois.

The press release you read from was about an unemployment insurance extension that was fully paid for. So don't compare apples to oranges.

I understand that. I have voted for that occasionally. But this one you read from was fully paid for.

Will the Senator from Illinois yield?

Would the Senator from Illinois give me a chance to respond? You have had the floor for an hour and a half.

A question. OK. If all the things that have been said on the other side are true, all of the programs you have talked about could have been extended and for much longer periods if Senator Reid, your leader, had not blown up the bipartisan jobs bill agreed to by the chairman of the Finance Committee and the ranking member, Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley, and jammed through his own bill which we talked about; and all the spending forces of that compromise, of those programs that you are talking about, were paid for in that bill. Explain that to the American people.

Oh, he has.

They were paid for.

That is your interpretation.

It has been brought up during this debate that the balanced budget amendment and the balanced budget is a product of the Clinton administration. The Senator from Illinois knows that to be false.

Well, do you know anything about how the balanced budget bill was brought to the floor of the House of Representatives?

I was serving.

Yes.

That is only because Representative John Kasich and the Budget Committee that he chaired in the House, for 3 years in a row, brought a balanced budget bill to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. I was a member of that Budget Committee.

The first 2 years, the Clinton administration rejected the balanced budget bill. In the third year, instead of getting run over by the train, President William Jefferson Clinton got on the train and agreed that the balanced budget bill should be passed. Then the Senate concurred and we balanced the budget. It took a little bit, but we did it. That is where the surplus came from--a Republican's idea, John Kasich, of Ohio, who brought a balanced budget to the floor.

The questions I have are--I wanted to straighten out my good friend from Rhode Island.

Even the fact that our President--somebody who talked about extending tax cuts to the wealthy and talked about extending tax cuts, and the fact that nobody on the floor of this Senate--explain to me, with 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans, why someone on the Democratic side of the aisle didn't make a bill that would rescind those tax cuts? Your President--our President--wants to extend 85 percent of those same tax cuts without paying for them. He has a bill in his budget to do just that. Explain that. I have one more. Your President also wants to pass a $250 billion estate tax bill, also without paying for it. That is right. Well, it is right. Look it up. I am on the Budget Committee, so I see these bills. Is the Senator on the Budget Committee?

The Senator in the chair is, so he knows what has been proposed.

The question I asked about the 60/40, I didn't hear anybody answer that. The Senator from Oregon is gone. He was the guy who posed the question.

Will the Senator yield?

You said you would yield to me.

Reserving the right to object.

There are so many things that I would like to say in response to so many Senators. Before I do that, I want to straighten a few things out. First of all, the prescription drug Part D--I want to help out my good friend from Missouri and my good friend from Rhode Island. I want them to know that the $400 billion that was spent has not been spent. Just for their information. And the Democratic alternative proposed by Representative Pete Stark on the Ways and Means Committee in the House of Representatives cost over $1 trillion to fund. That was the alternative to the Republican $400 billion.

I know the Senator from Missouri was not here. She probably doesn't know Representative Stark. I served with him for 8 years on the Ways and Means Committee. The same thing goes. If you don't like Part D of Medicare, you have 59 Senators and you can repeal it anytime you want, or at least try to, if you think it is misspent money.

Somebody complained about HHS negotiating drug prices. Our own scorekeeper, CBO, said we would have--I was on the committee--we would have no savings if they negotiated directly with the drug companies. Those profits that my good friend from Illinois talked about are not profits that go to the drug companies because any of the Medicare facilities we use, whether it be a hospital or a doctor or Medicare Part B or Part A or Part D--all of those moneys go to doctors, hospitals, and people who get prescription drugs to pay for those prescription drugs.

You have to look at the benefits and see if they outweigh the complaints.

I object.

I object and would like to make a unanimous consent----

No.

I object.

Yes.

Unfortunately, that is not true.

I object.